Chapter 471: Elder Brothers
"Tobirama! Stop sleeping standing up! Hurry and get up! Something's wrong!"
Hashirama increased the intensity and frequency of his shaking. His anxious voice echoed across this eerily quiet grassland.
However, no matter how hard Hashirama tried, Senju Tobirama still did not awaken. Only his originally peaceful and serene face in slumber was now deeply replaced by profound impatience.
Shaking doesn't work... Hashirama stopped his movements, his brows also furrowing, showing a grave expression on his face.
His brother's appearance was clearly not ordinary sleep. Could it be... he needed to use a more direct method?
A thought involuntarily emerged, but was immediately rejected by Hashirama himself. No, no! Absolutely not! That's Tobirama! His own younger brother!
Although usually stern and fond of lecturing people, and created a whole bunch of headache-inducing forbidden techniques, but... using that method to wake him up would be too hurtful, too disrespectful! What if Tobirama got angry after waking up?
But... looking at the current situation, there seemed to be no other way.
This place was inexplicable. He had just regained consciousness, and his brother showed no response no matter how he called. As the older brother, he couldn't just watch his brother keep sleeping like this, right? What if there was danger?
He was the big brother! When a younger brother faces difficulty, the elder brother helping out is only natural! Although the method might be a bit... but this was forced by circumstances, unavoidable! Tobirama should... be able to understand, right? Probably...
That tiny bit of hesitation and "elder brother's guilt" in his heart lasted only an instant before being completely overwhelmed by Senju Hashirama's habitual, somewhat naturally airheaded and action-oriented sense of responsibility.
His gaze became incomparably "determined." Then, Hashirama slowly raised his fan-like large hand, palm facing Senju Tobirama's face that was written full of impatience.
Gathering his strength, preparing to deliver with a slap full of brotherly love and effectiveness, to strike down hard!
"Pa."
A crisp and decisive light sound.
Not the sound of a slap landing on a face.
But rather a hand that steadily caught Hashirama's about-to-descend wrist mid-air.
Finally, Senju Tobirama's crimson pupils had thoroughly opened, now staring fixedly at his elder brother's weapon suspended mere inches from his own cheek.
In those eyes was not the confusion of just waking up, only incomparably clear, suppressed fury's coldness.
"Elder brother... what were you trying to do?"
"Oh! Tobirama, you finally woke up! Excellent!"
Senju Hashirama instantly cast aside the awkwardness of just preparing physical awakening, his face blooming with a relieved brilliant smile, as if the person who just tried to slap his brother wasn't him at all.
He gripped Tobirama's wrist in return, urgently pointing around them. "Quickly look! Hurry and analyze just what kind of place this is! I remember we... should be dead, right? That's correct, right? But this place feels wrong somehow."
Senju Tobirama silently withdrew his hand, glancing at his elder brother with a look mixing speechlessness, disdain, and annoyance.
Regarding the matter of the other party actually attempting to use the crude method of slapping to wake him, he decided to temporarily note it down for later settling of accounts. At present, indeed as Hashirama said, analyzing the current situation was the first priority.
He closed his eyes, carefully sensing himself and the surrounding environment. "..." After a moment of silence, Tobirama slowly opened his eyes, brows tightly knitted. "...Not Impure World Reincarnation. There's no feeling of the soul being forcibly bound or polluted. I also can't sense the caster's chakra connection or controlling will."
He looked down at his own somewhat illusory soul body, especially the blurred lower body outline. "However... we also don't seem to be truly resurrected."
He looked at Hashirama. "Elder brother, how do you feel right now? Any abnormalities? Such as a sluggish feeling of being controlled, or signs of consciousness being interfered with?"
"Me? I'm fine."
Hashirama patted his chest, completely relaxed. "Feeling great! Much more comfortable than when summoned by that guy called Orochimaru or whoever with Impure World Reincarnation! It's just this place..."
He looked around at the blue sky, green grass, warm sunlight. "The scenery is nice, but I always feel... too quiet. Not like any place we've been when we were alive. And why did we wake up here? Who did this?"
Senju Tobirama also fell into the same confusion. Just as he mobilized all his sensing and analytical abilities, trying to capture more clues from this seemingly peaceful environmentâ€"
"Elder brother! Someone's coming!"
Tobirama suddenly called out sharply, his pupils abruptly sharpening, gaze shooting toward a certain direction on the grassland. His perception caught a massive, aggression-filled chakra fluctuation rapidly approaching.
What made him instantly furrow his brows was not just this chakra's power, but more so its natureâ€"cold, scorching, full of obsession and battle intent.
This was a type of chakra he had been extremely familiar with and particularly disliked during his lifetime!
---
Time rewound slightly, at another end of this newborn grassland.
"Finally... finally waited for this day! Hahahaha!"
A laugh full of wild joy, unruly, carrying a few points of madness, suddenly broke the tranquility of this heaven and earth.
The voice's owner was a man wearing ancient-styled red Warring States armor, with wild long hair. He kept his eyes tightly closed, but his entire body radiated heart-palpitating, unique pressure and chakra fluctuation belonging to the Rinnegan.
Uchiha Madara.
He felt the surging, long-missed sensation of power belonging to his peak period within his body, that state where soul and body perfectly matched with no sluggishness, making him unable to help but laugh wildly. The sound waves spread far across the grassland.
"Is this the effect of the Rinne Rebirth technique? Hahahaha!! My power has completely returned! My body has also recovered to its most perfect state! It seems... those two kids Obito and Nagato ultimately didn't disappoint me! The plan was a complete success!!"
Uchiha Madara spread his arms as if to embrace the entire world. Wild joy washed over him like a tide, nearly submerging him in this resurrection's enormous delight.
However, after a moment, the wild joy gradually subsided. Rationality and doubt, like underwater reefs, resurfaced in his mind.
This place... where was this?
Madara restrained his laughter, the Rinnegan slowly sweeping around.
Blue sky, white clouds, green grass, sunlight... A scene of calm waves and life, beautiful unlike the mortal world, also absolutely not any familiar battlefield or stronghold from his memory.
If he had successfully revived, by rights it should be the result of Nagato using "Rinne Rebirth." But where was Nagato? Where was Obito? Why was there no trace of them?
According to the plan he set, his resurrection should be built on the foundation of tailed beast capture being basically complete and the Demonic Statue's power being sufficient. After revival, he would become the Ten-Tails' jinchuriki, activate the Infinite Tsukuyomi, drag the entire world into eternal illusion, realizing his ideal permanent peace.
But now... Where were the tailed beasts? Where was the Demonic Statue? Why weren't Nagato and Obito at his side executing the final ritual?
This place was eerily quiet. Aside from himself, there seemed to be only... some equally motionless, blurred... shadows?
"Just which country is this? Or some kind of special barrier space?"
Madara muttered to himself. "If Nagato isn't here... then who revived me? What's the purpose?"
More and more doubts arose in his heart. Uchiha Madara decided not to passively wait any longer. He closed his eyes. Massive perception power like invisible radar waves, with himself as center, rapidly spread in all directions, searching for Nagato, Obito, or any chakra traces that might explain the current situation.
However, just as his perception power touched a certain area of the grasslandâ€"
Uchiha Madara's body abruptly froze! All movements, all thoughts stopped at this moment.
He sensed an... incomparably familiar chakra fluctuation.
Though that fluctuation was extremely weak, a candle flickering in the wind, deeply buried under dust at memory's deepest layer, washed by who knows how many years... but Madara could never, never forget!
That was...
"Izuna...?!"
That was precisely the eternal pain in his heart, the most important younger brother he had vowed to use the "Infinite Tsukuyomi" created new world to make amends.
What was happening?! How could Izuna's chakra appear here?! Wasn't he already... already... And what kind of place was this? Why would his and Izuna's chakra exist simultaneously?
An extremely ominous premonition instantly coiled around Madara's heart, making him feel a chill. What exactly was the current situation?
But at this moment, more important than analyzing the situation was confirming Izuna's condition!
Madara didn't hesitate. His form instantly transformed into a blurred afterimage, racing toward the direction where his perception sensed his brother's chakra. In a few breaths, he rushed to a relatively gentle grassland area.
There, a black-haired, handsome yet carrying youthful mature determination youth soul shadow stood quietly with eyes tightly closed.
His state looked terrible. The soul outline was extremely faint, unstable, the lower body almost completely transparent, so weak it seemed about to dissipate into the air at any moment. It was precisely Uchiha Izuna.
"Izuna?! Izuna?! What's happening?!"
Madara rushed before his brother, anxiously calling out, extending his hand wanting to touch. He carefully, cautiously shook Izuna's illusory shoulders, trying to wake him from this bizarre slumber.
Just like Hashirama shaking Tobirama.
However, Izuna showed no reaction, still maintaining that heart-wrenching state between existence and dissipation.
He had to think of a way! He had to immediately make Izuna wake up. Alarm bells rang loudly in Uchiha Madara's heart.
He looked at this brother he thought he could never meet again for eternity, now appearing so fragile before him. His heart filled with wild joy at recovering what was lost, and indescribable pity.
He forced himself to calm down. Feeling the weak, almost imperceptible yet abnormally familiar Yin Release chakra within Izuna's soul body...
He thought of a method.
Back then... he transplanted his brother's Mangekyo Sharingan, obtaining Eternal Mangekyo power. But simultaneously, his brother's life force and a portion of chakra essence also remained in his body in some form. Especially after he later obtained the power of all creation through transplanting Hashirama's cells, this part of the chakra imprint belonging to Izuna was more perfectly preserved and fused.
Now, perhaps he could...
Madara slowly extended his right hand, his palm covered with pure chakra carrying his own life imprint and Yin Release power, gently pressing on Izuna's soul body heart position.
Then, he carefully, that small portion of Yin Release chakra originating from Izuna yet long nurtured by his own power within his body, through palm contact, in an extremely gentle manner, slowly injected into Izuna's illusory, unstable soul core.