Long Live The Hokage - Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Madara and Black Zetsu
Two hours later, the wedding ceremony for Kenji and the Daimyo’s daughter finally come to an end, with the whole Village filled with joy and happiness.

“Tobirama, you’re a very good host.” Masahiko looked at him, “I’m (gonna) very (catch) proud (you) of (later) you (bastard)…” Masahiko said, but his expression was telling another story.

Tobirama smiled stressfully; he really managed to make Masahiko hate him this time.

“Second Grandpa… This… Thank you for your compliment.” Tobirama hesitated for a long time, then he could only answer with this.

Masahiko kept staring at Tobirama for a while. Hashirama was still talking with the Daimyo. Masahiko tried to ease things with the Daimyo, but the letter wouldn’t let go.

The newly-wed still didn’t “get used” to each other. Masahiko could only shake his head, smiling. The marriage in Naruto world is strange indeed…

He really wanted to go to them and tell them to hurry up and give birth to Tsunade… But he felt that it would be a little bit strange, even he couldn’t say something like that…

Everyone was talking about this marriage, villagers, and ninjas alike.

“Konoha will prosper more after this marriage…” An old man said this.

“We have Hashirama-Sama as the Hokage, who would dare to mess with us…” A girl said.

“We can’t rely on Hashirama-Sama forever …” And this is the logical response of some rational thinkers.

“Hashirama has become really popular…” Masahiko thought while listening to other discussions.
Two girls were talking about how many years the Hokage can protect the Village. One said 30 years, the other said 50, and later they agreed on 100 years…

After a long and heated discussion, they said, “Hashirama will definitely live longer than elder Masahiko!”

As soon as he heard that, Masahiko’s face turned darker, then another girl whispered, “Do you know how old elder Masahiko is? My grandfather said that he didn’t change since he was a child.”

“It doesn’t matter! Hokage-Sama will definitely live longer than him!” The other girl replied.

Masahiko shook his head and smiled bitterly, “Oh girl, you will be disappointed later…” Even if Hashirama survives the Valley of the End battle, he won’t live up long later.

“So, I’m an immortal in the other young people’s view?”

“Well, for an immortal being like me who seems no longer able to hang out with people, I should go back to practice. The battle is near…”

This peaceful and cheering scene inside the village walls didn’t spread to the outside. Outside of the Village, there was a storm brewing.

The Wind Valley… Deep below the surface, in an underground cavern that got transformed into a huge underground residence, it consists of many rooms.

Inside one of the rooms, a candle burning was on top of counter lighting the room, dim as it seems, the feeling inside of the chamber was indeed grim. Two people, or one person and a thing, we’re looking at each other.

One of them was Uchiha Madara, who has left Konoha recently.

After a long silence, Madara said slowly, “So you’re saying, that you’re a physical manifestation of my will?”

The moment Madara woke up, he found a black phantom on the opposite side, something that didn’t look like a human, but spoke the words of humans, and said that it was a physical manifestation of his will.

“Yes…” Black Zetsu answered slowly, but in fact, it was nothing but lies.

According to the original plan, Black Zetsu, wanted to get Hashirama’s cells, when the two fought before, to help Madara awaken the Rinnegan, master the Yin-Yang Releases, then when Madara dies, by then he will gain his trust, and he will give them to him so he could resurrect him…

But… His plan changed quickly, with Uzumaki Masahiko’s sudden appearance.

Black Zetsu originally thought that when Masahiko fought against Madara, even though he didn’t die at the time, he would lose most of his life energy and would die eventually. Unexpectedly, when Black Zetsu as watching Konoha in the past two years, he found that Masahiko was still alive, mastered the Yin and Yang Releases, and ready for the decisive battle between the Madara and Hashirama, without even showing any signs of again, which made him feel that something is wrong.

Thus, he needed to come out, if he doesn’t help Madara, the latter may die in this battle… Then it will take him hundreds of years to resurrect Kaguya.

“You’re a fool if you think that I’m stupid.” After a brief silence, Madara said this sentence, but somehow Masahiko’s old face appeared in front of him, he smiled then said to him, “But you’re a stupid, Madara-boy…” After being pranked by Masahiko for all of these times, Madara began to be quicker witted against tricks…

As a result, Madara began to doubt Black Zetsu and opened his Sharingan

“Master, wait…” Zetsu hurriedly interrupted. Although he can manipulate everything in this world, dealing with a person like Madara, will always be dangerous.

After that, Black Zetsu described in detail several major events that Madara has experienced throughout his life as if he’s the one who lived it.

Madara raised his brows, and then thought to himself, “Did he watch me all this time?”

However, Madara became more confused when Zetsu began to describe in detail his battle with Masahiko.

“There’s no way that he was spying on us… Besides Hashirama no one else was present there. An existence which three of us couldn’t sense doesn’t exist! I hate to admit it, but the old man’s perception ability is very strong… And this guy? This shady guy, I didn’t notice him when he sneaked into my house. Is he really an incarnation?”

Now Madara is getting more confused, he got trapped in a dilemma. The black thing in front of him was inside of his body for a long time…

After a long period of thinking and consideration, Madara finally raised his head, then he looked at Black Zetsu’s eyes directly and said, “I believe you…”

Zetsu breathed a sigh of relief, and thought to himself, “At last now you are in my grasp! Fortunately, he didn’t notice that I’m the one who has written the Uchiha Tablet…”

Zetsu then asked Madara, “According to your thoughts, you’re planning on fighting against Hashirama next year, right?”

“How do you know about this?” Madara frowned slightly, then he nodded, “Yes…”

“Don’t you worry about that old man, Uzumaki Masahiko?” Zetsu asked again.

Madara smile and shook his head, “Jiji? That 80 years old man…? The guy’s fighting against his own time. He won’t be a problem!
(T/N: Jiji: Japanese: Old Man)

Zetsu felt speechless…

“Forget it!” He wanted to tell Madara, what Masahiko was doing all of this time, but he feared that he would doubt him. At that moment Black Zetsu couldn’t help but sigh secretly in his heart, “I need to think of a way to deal with that old man. Kill him? No, I’m afraid it will cause suspicion, I need to think of another way.”

“And Uzumaki Masahiko may have some secrets…”

“Master, I wish you success.”

Said Zetsu, then sank deep in the ground, and once again fell into peace.

……

At that time, Masahiko, who has just arrived at Konoha’s Ninjutsu practice ground, felt a cold chill on his back.

“Who’s talking bad things about me? Ooh, of course, that damned Daimyo…”

“Forget about it, I need to start my training, the battle is approaching, even a man in his 70s will be nervous, I shouldn’t leave anything for luck…”

Masahiko thought for a while, frowning, “Well, there are things that I can’t do anything about… Black Zetsu.”

“Well, come to me! Let’s see who’s the real trickster!”