Inside Hanzo's residence, tension pooled thick enough to choke on. Lanterns flickered against stone walls, throwing restless shadows across every face at the table.
Danzō sat rigid, his right sleeve now empty, bandaged shut. His lone eye narrowed, burning with silent fury.
That merchant… he intended this from the start. My Hashirama-cell arm…
Hanzo exhaled slowly, fingers steepled. "I believe Tiel lied about the Blood Stone's risks."
A the Raikage slammed a fist onto the table. "The risk is real. It managed to leech off my chakra reserve even while I was enhanced."
Hanzo rose from his seat, cloak shifting behind him like a storm. "I will depart for Uzushiogakure as soon as possible. Maybe even today. If the Blood Stone truly falls there, I will march immediately."
Suspicion cut through the air like a blade.
Danzō leaned forward. "Hanzo-dono… you definitely intend to take the Blood Stone for yourself."
The Amegakure ANBU tensed. A the Raikage growled under his breath. Tsunade's brow twitched, and Shizune swallowed hard, her hands clenched together beneath the table.
Trust had evaporated from the room. It slipped out through tightened jaws, guarded eyes, hands that no longer rested easily on the table. Tiel's story lingered in every glance, and the crimson glow of that stone burned behind every thought. No one said it aloud, but each of them knew—they no longer trusted anyone sitting across from them.
Silent discord spread through the room like poison.
Shizune's eyes drifted to the empty corner where Tiel had stood only minutes ago, the space feeling colder without him. Her fingers tightened in her lap as unease crept through her chest. Tiel… what are you really planning?
Tsunade didn't look at her, but she felt the shift beside her. The faint tension in Tsunade's shoulders, the way her jaw set as if she were bracing for impact that hadn't arrived yet. .
A the Raikage leaned back slightly, arms crossed, his presence still heavy despite the chaos of moments before. "Whether that stone is real or not," he said, voice low, "if it lands in Uzushiogakure, the shinobi world won't stay still ."
Hanzo's gaze hardened. "Then it will become a race. Whoever arrives first decides the future."
Danzō's visible eye narrowed. "Or whoever survives long enough to claim it."
The room below steeped deeper into silence,. Every leader was already drawing invisible borders in their minds, measuring distance, manpower, who they would sacrifice first if the Blood Stone truly fell. Alliances hadn't even formed, yet they were already beginning to crack.
Upstairs, inside one of Hanzo's guest rooms, Naruto worked with the casual focus of someone crafting disaster for fun. Stardust fragments floated before him in a slow, relaxed orbit, each one shaved apart by golden cutters humming softly in the air. Under the warped shimmer of Weirdmageddon, the shards folded, split, and compressed into fresh stardust pills.
dozen finished. More forming. Then space twisted.
ripple tore across the room as reality bent inward. Air spiraled sharply to Naruto's left, forming a widening vortex. The Kamui distortion snapped open, and a figure stepped through.
White mask. Single eyehole. Black flame pattern.
Tobi. His Sharingan gleamed like a blade. "You goddamn liar, Tiel."
The air around him vibrated with Kamui's residual pressure still unraveling.
Naruto flicked his fingers. The floating pills vanished, swallowed by Weirdmageddon as if they'd never existed. He turned his head with an empty, almost bored expression—then exaggerated it into clueless confusion.
"About what," he asked lightly, "masked man?"
Tobi's voice sharpened at once. "I've been to Uzushiogakure countless times. There is no blood rite. curse like the one you described. You're the one who escalated everything with that ridiculous Blood Stone story." His Sharingan burned brighter. " tell me the truth. Now. Or I'll make everyone downstairs understand that you're a liar."
Naruto stepped forward instead of retreating. He stared straight through the mask. "Yeah?" he said. "That's what you're going with? Call me a liar and hope it sticks?"
For a split second, his face warped—angles folding wrong, features stretching into something unfinished, something like an outer god still being assembled. It lasted only a moment.
Naruto's golden eyes flared with excitement as his face returned to normal. "I'm the same as you," he said calmly. "The only difference is—I'm everywhere, and I'm nowhere. Tiel is just a face I like to wear."
Tobi answered coldly, "I am destined to become the savior of this world. And you?" His voice dipped. "You're the destroyer. That's what you're saying,?"
Naruto smiled wider. "If that's the shape your mind needs, believe it." His tone darkened. "But 'destructor' is too kind. I'm its madness, Tobi. And madness is like gravity . It only needs a little push."
Tobi laughed under the mask, the sound warped and hollow. "Hehehe… you're insane, man. Even now, you have no regard for anything at all." The laughter faded. His posture straightened, voice sharpening. " Let's talk trade. Just like you always say."
Naruto tilted his head. "Oh, trade? I like that. But a Madara pupil wanting to trade with me? That sounds desperate."
Tobi squared his stance. "If I give you an artificial Hashirama body," he said slowly, "what will you offer me, Tiel?"
Naruto's eyes narrowed in amusement. "Now you're copying my style."
Tobi shot back instantly, "Isn't that what you've always done? A monster looking down on every creature he sees."
Naruto answered without hesitation. "Then let's skip the philosophy." His golden eyes locked onto Tobi. "I want two things. Hashirama's original body. And Uchiha Madara's original body. Both of them." His hand lifted. "In exchange, I'll give you a dozen stardust pills and five stardust fragments."
Golden portals irised open behind him. Blue pills drifted forward, . Yellow shards followed, pulsing with deeper pressure as they hovered in the air between them.
Tobi's single eye narrowed with interest. "People spend their lives chasing artificial Hashirama bodies just to touch Mokuton. however ?" He tilted his head. "You want huskless corpses with no value."
He studied Naruto's posture closely. The stillness. The intent. This wasn't curiosity. He needed those bodies.
Naruto's smile stayed thin. "What I do with them isn't your concern." His voice hardened. "What matters is the offer. Deliver both bodies. You get everything floating in front of you."
Tobi's Sharingan narrowed. "For some reason… you need them. Desperately."
Naruto's grin widened into something sharp and wrong. He dragged a hand down his own face as the skin flickered—eldritch angles, a split-second distortion of something not meant for human sight—before snapping back to normal.
"I can't hide my megalomania too well," he said lightly. "I developed a bit of kleptomania. I like taking things for myself."
naruto voice settled, smooth again. "And honestly? This trade is optional. If you don't hand them over, I'll just take them myself."
Tobi weighed that. Tiel was insane—but he also needed something. That meant leverage. Power. Bargaining room. And perhaps, a chance to manipulate a monster.
"Add your own version of the Blood Stone," Tobi said slowly, "and you'll have yourself a deal."
Naruto's response was immediate and vulgar. "Fuck off, boy." His golden eyes glinted with mockery. "If I handed you a Blood Stone, you'd better give me the Gedo Mazo in return."
Tobi let out a slow breath behind the mask. "I'll add part of Hashirama's artificial body. A quarter of it. That's all you get." His eye sharpened. "And I expect something in return."
A golden ripple peeled open between them. Naruto reached into the Gate of Babylon and pulled out a different object—crimson, crystalline, but dimmer, lacking the predatory pulse of the original. An artificial Blood Stone.
"I can only offer the artificial one," Naruto said, voice steady. "Same basic framework. No life-force drain. It boosts your strength enough to survive most ninjutsu—though it's nowhere near invulnerable like the real Blood Stone inside my vault. And, of course, it comes without the insane backlash that turns people into a walking scourge."
He flicked it forward. The crystal stopped midair, floating between them like a suspended heartbeat.
"So," Naruto added casually, head tilting. "What do you say, Tobi?"
Tobi's Sharingan narrowed. "Hypothetically… what if I refuse? I don't like you. And you'd try to kill me the moment I turn my back."
Naruto lifted a finger. "First off, I'm not gonna immediately kill you for refusing."
His grin cut across his face—too sharp, too easy, too honest in its madness. "I've got a weird motto. Merchant first, bloody-killer psycho second."
Naruto stepped closer, voice dropping into something dangerously casual.
"So if you refuse? Simple. I'll just steal Madara's body myself. That one's easy—he's practically gift-wrapped."
"But Hashirama… that's the annoying part. Without your Zetsu network, it'd take me a year to pinpoint the exact coordinates. Since Tobirama—or whatever Sarutobi-spawned bastard—hid him in some 'secure' location."
He clicked his tongue. "And I hate underground shit. Digging, crawling, tunnels… ugh. Total downgrade."
Naruto's golden eyes fixed on Tobi. " Trust me. Refusing isn't your death sentence. It's just… very, very inconvenient for me."
Tobi exhaled through his mask. "Zetsu. You're up."
The ground split with a wet, organic hiss. A Venus-flytrap silhouette hauled itself out of the stone—one half slick white, the other pitch black. Zetsu unfolded to full height between them.
Black Zetsu's gaze locked onto Naruto. "You are a very, very annoying pain in the ass to Madara's will."
White Zetsu leaned toward Tobi and whispered urgently, "Tobi, if Madara's corpse becomes known to the world , you'll be the one in the most dangerous position."
Naruto smiled when he heard that.. "You don't have to worry about that." His voice dropped into quiet finality. "No world will ever know their remains were still here. Once you hand them over, that will be the very last day their bodies ever touch this world's soil."
Tobi's Sharingan twisted once, space spiraled inward, and he vanished into Kamui.
Naruto didn't move. He simply reached into a golden portal and pulled out a Rolex timer—absurdly pristine amid the warped room—and clicked it on.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Black Zetsu narrowed both eyes. "Tobi might not return. The deal could be over."
Naruto leaned back against the wall, utterly unconcerned. "Right now, we both need each other. Even if we were seconds away from tearing each other apart." His gaze drifted toward Zetsu, faintly amused. " I've seen it in your eyes too—you're fascinated by what I uncover. "
Black Zetsu's tone sharpened. "What I am… is eager for the day you stop standing in our way."
Before Naruto could reply, the air tore open again.
Kamui spiraled outward. Tobi stepped back through. Two heavy coffins slammed onto the floor—black wood, reinforced seals, ancient scent leaking from the cracks. Beside them, he dropped a mass of grafted flesh: Hashirama's artificial body, a quarter of it—three limbs and the partial framework attached.
Naruto's smile grew slow and sharp as his golden eyes pierced straight through the coffins, past the lids, past the seals, verifying what his senses already told him. Madara. Hashirama. Exactly as promised.
Tobi folded his arms. "From that look, you don't need me to open them. You already know they're real."
Naruto nodded once, grin widening.
Tobi's single eye hardened behind the mask. "Under no circumstances does the world learn Madara is dead," he said coldly. "I don't care about Hashirama—everyone already knows the First Hokage is gone.".
Naruto collapsed into a star-shaped portal and reappeared directly in front of him, close enough that the space between them vanished. His grin was sharp as he released the payment. Stardust pills spilled into Tobi's palm, followed by five glowing fragments and a single artificial Blood Stone pulsing with restrained menace. Tobi caught them all on instinct.
Naruto's Gate of Babylon opened again. The two coffins slid cleanly into the golden void, followed by the quarter of Hashirama's artificial body, disappearing without a sound.
"For what I've wanted for a long time," Naruto said lightly, already turning away. "Much appreciated."
Naruto walked back across the room with a spring in his step, absurdly cheerful, while Tobi stood in silence with the weight of the trade still burning in his hands.