"What are you going to do after we... are dealt with?"
The question came after a full minute of silence, from Naruto. That silence was not broken by any of the people present at the table.
The four Hokage, Madara, and Kakashi were interested in Naruto's praise of God as a singular.
Sakura was simply confused at first and then thought that the blonde didn't even know how to say thanks properly.
Zetsu was not paying attention to the table. He was more occupied with thinking of a way to get out of that prison. The more time he lost the more chance there would be for Madara get suspicious.
Sasuke on the other hand was more intrigued out of necessity. Thinking about anything else except for the fact that the people responsible for his clan's demise were all here, Danzo not included.
The four Hokage at best did nothing to stop the growing divide between the Uchiha clan and the rest of the village, and at worst, actively helped it get bigger. Even Madara Uchiha, his legendary ancestor was responsible for what Itachi had to go through. That's why he took Naruto's question to heart and listened intently.
Madara himself was taken aback by this sudden question. He knew Naruto would have some reason for it, but he couldn't figure out what just yet.
"I'll finally rest... and watch the sunrise on a grateful universe." Madara said as he looked east toward the horizon.
"Yeah, yeah, I guessed that much. But what are you going to do for the rest of eternity?"
"*sigh* After I make sure all of you are gone, I will start making sure every other living creature is also part of the new world." Madara began as he turned his head toward Naruto and saw him nod. "Once that's done then I'll... Start walking, all around the world."
"That's going to be even more boring than one of Iruka sensei's lessons."
"Likely, yes. But for the world to be at peace, I am willing to make that sacrifice." Madara answered and saw Naruto nod to him again.
Naruto adopted the thinking pose with his left hand on his chin. After a moment his eyes lit up.
"Universe is a bit of a stretch, you know!"
"What do you mean?" Confused Madara asked.
"You said you'd watch the sun rise on a grateful universe, right?" Madara nodded to Naruto. "But at best you made our planet into a peacefully dead place. What about other planets?"
Madara laughed at him. "We don't have any proof that other planets have life on them."
"Is that true Kakashi-Sensei?" Naruto asked.
"We don't have any reason to think that there is life outside of our planet, that's true." Kakashi answered. "But it is not impossible." He added after seeing Naruto start to pout.
"See, It's possible. If anything your mission to stop suffering in this world has just begun!"
Madara simply scoffed at the idea. "You want me to leave this place and go into space on the off chance that there are other creatures like us somewhere in the universe?"
"Mhmm, That would be nice, but no." Naruto began with a somber face. "As much as that would make it easier to bring those people back to reality..." He paused for dramatic effect and saw Madara lean in "What if somebody comes from another planet instead? What if they are just like you, this powerful person with their goal being similar to yours? What if they come here to put you into the same kind of dream that you put everybody else in?"
For something he came up with on the spot, the idea was not too crazy, at least to Naruto. He was proven right when Madara seemed to shift in his seat. That was not much to go on about, but it was clear that the Rinnegan master was considering the idea.
"That is... A statistical impossibility." Madara finally said. Seeing the narrowed eyes of Naruto he sighed and said "The fact that we don't even have any proof of aliens existing, the idea that someone could be as powerful as me is not likely." Seeing Naruto about to speak with sparkles in his eyes, he put up a palm in the air and added "It's so unlikely that you may even call it... Impossible." That made Naruto lose his enthusiasm and Madara smiled.
Looking to his right and not getting any inspiration, Naruto looked to his left. His dad did not give any inspiration, and neither did Hiruzen. But when he saw the Second Hokage Naruto smirked mischievously.
"What about people from the Uzushio ruins?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "The people who managed to find ways of connecting our world to the world of the dead. What if they decide to come and check what's going on. Are you sure you can defeat them too?"
Naruto almost bore a hole in Madara's head with his intense stare.
All other Hokage knew that he was simply bluffing, considering their earlier conversation. Tobirama was about to say the truth but decided to see where this would go.
"You think I'll be afraid of a dead civilization?" Madara asked with an indifferent look. "No extinct civilization or a hypothetical alien invasion can overcome my might."
"You were also dead just a day ago!" Naruto accused, pointing his finger at him.
"True. But I was brought by those who could. Who is going to bring back an ancient civilization?" Madara asked with a laugh. "Or who's going to summon those aliens of yours from outer space? Huh?" He added still laughing at the idea.
Madara laughed for quite some time and would continue to do so so until Naruto asked his next question, but he was forced to stop.
His will incarnate, Zetsu, was acting weird. He was showing emotion. Black Zetsu simply emitting emotion, any kind of emotion, would be a reason to laugh in and of itself, if it was not for the kind of emotion Madara felt. It was faint, nobody but the best sensory ninja would even hope to detect it, but Madara had no problem detecting the FEAR coming from the manifestation of his will.
He couldn't figure out why that was, and since it was just there for an instant, he decided to disregard it. But looking forward and seeing Naruto look toward Tobirama, as they exchanged glances, made him keep his guard up.
Tobirama managed to sense the fear coming from Zetsu the moment Madara mentioned summoning aliens. And he sensed a feeling of triumph coming from Naruto. Why that was, he could not tell, but he knew for certain that Madara did not detect Naruto's enthusiastic exposure, since he too was occupied with Zetsu's abnormal behavior.
"Okay, I concede that point. Nobody can defeat you in your current state. Not ancient powerful beings, nor oddly similar aliens from outer space." Naruto said to which Madara's thoughts returned to the real world and he smiled with triumph.
"I'm glad I could alleviate your fears."
"Hehe... Fears, right. Now tell me, What do you know about the Demon Country?"
The sudden shift in the topic of their conversation left Madara confused, which Naruto understood immediately "Ah... I get it, Maybe you know about the Land of Demons? Err... they also called it the land of Ogres if I remember it correctly..." He was almost certain that this situation was similar to the Konoha-Leaf Village dilemma.
"Is that somehow going to explain why you thanked God as a single being instead of Kami earlier?" Madara asked the question he was interested in as bluntly as he could. He then saw the blond smile and nod after which he added "Then Yes, I know quite a bit about it."
"Then that means that you must know about their super badass priestesses who imprison DEMONS, which kinda makes sense when you think about the name of their country..." Madara nodded to him. That made Naruto release a sigh of relief, now it would be much easier to explain it.
Kakashi knew about his team's mission in the Land of Demons but didn't know all the details due to it being an S-class secret. Sakura was with Naruto on that mission. They couldn't see how that would be important in this situation, even if they knew where he was going with his question. Sakura looked back toward Sasuke who seemed confused and she wanted to explain it to him but her words were cut off by a thundering voice.
"Aren't you going to tell him how you were the one who installed the first Priestess?" Hashirama asked with a massive grin on his face.
"Wow! Really?"
"Yes! I asked him to go and settle down the situation, possibly making an ally for us. He did that in less than three months." Hashirama explained with a proud look on his face "Ah, good times when you were working for the actual good of the world instead of... this." He finished as he locked stares with his old friend and his tone became very serious very quickly.
"It only took that long because you begged me not to use lethal force." Madara said with a hint of a smile on his face as he observed the excited eyes of Naruto, completely disregarding his friends' last statement. Then the blond saw the expectant eyes of the Rinnegan and decided to continue.
"Thank you old man First! I thought all he did was kill or murder people in his free time. And I don't remember hearing about that in the academy either." Naruto said with a beaming smile while looking at the Third Hokage.
Hiruzen smiled and mumbled something nobody heard.
Minato was listening to his son as he was teasing the most powerful human in existence and his eyes started to get watery. His predecessor saw that and tapped his shoulder. When Minato looked toward Hiruzen, he gave him a reassuring smile. Hiruzen's action didn't go unnoticed by Sasuke.
He was slowly boiling inside with rage. How dare the Third Hokage act like an understanding man when he was the one who sanctioned the massacre of his clan. His eyes were about to fill with blood and rage but he stopped when he heard Naruto speak, which broke him out of his quickly derailing thoughts.
"Alrighty then. About ten months ago, right after we saved Gaara from the two people with no understanding of art, Granny-Tsunade sent us to the Demon country to protect their priestess." Naruto began and felt everyone's gaze upon him. Whether it was his Six Path's chakra giving him that power, or if he was imagining it was hard to tell.
Both Hiruzen and Hashirama chuckled at the "Granny-Tsunade" part. Kakashi also had his famous eye smile on his face, but this time he was smiling with both of his eyes since he didn't have to hide one of them.
"You had something to do with the eruption of that volcano?" Sasuke asked with narrow eyes, his hands crossed on his chest and tone as neutral as ever. But even that stance was not enough to dim the clearly visible intrigue in his eyes... or rather his only open eye.
Looking toward his best friend Naruto pouted "Had something to do with it? I was inside the volcano trying to stop it!" he exclaimed with a mock-hurt tone. "Eventually I kinda... ended up triggering it... but it was a lot better than that demon getting loose, you know!"
That shocked Sasuke. He saw and felt the eruption of Kavkasi-oni, but he would never think that Naruto was involved in it. He had a good reason too, the Demon country was far away from Konoha, even beyond the land of Wind. Sending a Jinchuuriki that far away from the village must've been either out of absolute necessity or sheer stupidity. Tsunade was not stupid, which meant that the former was true. Sasuke's thoughts were cut off by an annoying voice.
"Narutooo! Don't you think sharing classified information with the enemy is something you should NOT do?!" Sakura shouted.
More than one person present at the feast was ready to answer her objection, but only one of them was fast enough to speak.
"Sakura-chan, four previous Hokage are sitting right beside me. Don't you think they'd say something if that was the case?" Naruto replied simply.
Sakura was ready to respond but saw the shaking head of his sensei. Then looked just behind him and saw those previous four Hokage looking at her with disapproving eyes and her cheeks quickly started to get red. She closed her mouth and decided to not say anything.
"Even if they did forbid me to not speak about it, what are they gonna do, put a seal on me?" Naruto asked with a joking tone, looking first toward Madara and then toward Tobirama, trying to relieve the pressure Sakura put herself under.
All of the Hokage had different variations of a confused face, Only Hashirama was looking at him with a smirk. "And... Even if they did so, The Fourth is my dad, he would still let me speak because of, you know, being my dad..." Naruto added, and then slapped a hand on his forehead and started scratching it "Ugh... I forgot what Iruka sensei called it when that happens..."
Sakura immediately thought of exactly what word Naruto was looking for, but before she could help him out, "Nepotism?" Madara suggested with an amused tone.
"Yes, that's it, nepotism. And then, even if Dad still decided to keep this information hidden," Naruto looked toward Minato for a moment and then looked back at Sakura "What are they gonna do if he decides that he wants to hear what I have to say?" Naruto finished while pointing his finger forward. Sakura followed the provided direction and was engulfed by the blood-freezing eyes of the Rinnegan.
That brought another few seconds of silence at the table, Which gave Naruto just enough time to observe the reactions on everyone's faces. And out of all of them, Sasuke's was the most interesting. He had a smirk on his face, and not the kind of smirk he would have when making fun of him, but the kind he had when he was feeling impressed by him. Granted, that was a rare occurrence but it did happen... a few times.
Sasuke was indeed impressed by Naruto's response. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, he made her look stupid. All their previous interactions ended similarly, but in reverse, mostly because he always acted dumb, but this time he got to win.
Seeing how Sakura turned her head down trying to hide her increasingly blushing face, Naruto got up, stretched for a few seconds, and took the sealed paper out of his pouch. One of them had 'Wine' written on it, and the other one, which was considerably heavier, had no words on it. He put the heavy paper back into his pouch and used the wine seal. He put the paper in the center of the table and looked toward his dad.
Minato formed a half-ram seal with his left hand but didn't activate the jutsu. Seeing what he was doing, Naruto mimicked his dad, but he also put his free hand on the seal. Slowly the wine cups started to appear strategically all over the table. And the bottle in appeared in his hands.
"Well, We managed to save the priestess. That demon went back to where it belonged, But before we left the Demon Country, their priestess asked me to help her with the next priestess, who is supposed to be her daughter." Naruto started as he walked to his left and stopped right beside the First. Then he started pouring the wine into the wooden cup. This also gave him a chance to see everybody's faces all at once.
He expected the shocked faces of Minato and Hiruzen and knew for a certain that Tobirama would have a frown on his face, which he did. A beaming smile on Hashirama was also something he guessed would happen.
Kakashi had a neutral face. Sakura was still looking at the table but her blush got a bit darker. and Sasuke... managed to gain back his composure and didn't show any reaction to this revelation. Though in his mind, deep within the depths he might've felt a little... jealous.
"Did... Did you... help her?" Minato asked immediately after realizing what his son just said. Madara leaned in, very interested in his answer.
"No, no, not yet. She asked me to do it in a year." Minato let a sigh of relief at Naruto's answer, but it got stuck in his throat as he added "Which come to think of it, is going to be in about two months!" his sheepish smile fighting a look of nervousness for dominance.
"It seems so long ago... But since then we had to deal with Hidan, Kakuzu, and Asuma-sensei's death. Which was Your fault for making Obito create the Akatsuki." He said with a somber tone and looked straight at Madara, who did not even flinch, he simply accepted that as fact. His sad face got even worse when he added "Then Pervy-Sage was killed. Shortly after Pain invaded, but at least that had a good ending... Somewhat." Naruto said with a small smile thinking of Nagato's ultimate sacrifice.
"That was followed by the Five-Kage Summit... And here we are in this war..." Naruto said as he finished filling up Hashirama's cup. Madara simply stared at the blonde as he went to grab Tobirama's cup. "Oh man, I don't even know if Konan is still out there..." Naruto asked as he put down Tobirama's cup.
Madara looked behind him at Zetsu "She is dead." he simply replied.
Naruto's face got even more heartbroken, even though Madara did not think that was possible.
"That's also your fault, by the way," Naruto said as he reached for Hiruzen's mug. The atmosphere got very heavy. Everybody had a few seconds to remember what were they fighting for and what was at stake. "But... Everything happens for a reason, I suppose." Naruto said with a smirk as he continued his job.
"Nice, NICE! Not even I got to save a princess from a demon!" Hashirama said with sparkling eyes, trying to build on Naruto's optimism. Even Madara couldn't boast of such a feat.
"Now that I think about it, It's also your fault that I have to keep my promise to Shion." Naruto said while looking at Madara, This time with a small chuckle, He nodded once more. Then he looked back to Hashirama, as he put down Hiruzen's mug, and grabbed the one sitting in front of Minato. "It's not the first time I saved a princess, You know..." Naruto said to the First Hokage with similarly sparkling eyes. Getting praise from the God of Shinobi would make anybody excited. Hashirama simply made fists with his hands together and whispered "YES!" to himself.
"And... Am I supposed to be afraid of that demon getting out?" Madara inquired, as he rested his head on his fist, which was, in turn, resting on the armrest of his chair.
Naruto finished filling Mintao's cup and reached for his sensei's. "No, not at all. I managed to defeat him before I learned the Sage mode. You could probably kick his ass with just a thought." He said with a small chuckle.
"Then, did she convince you to... Adopt her religion?"
"Wha..? No, not at all. She just... demanded I read some things from her library." Naruto said.
Sakura's head shot up with lightning speed, her face full of confusion, then realization, and then rage.
"You're saying that you spent two weeks reading with Shion? Instead of... being... with her?" Her voice broke a few times while asking this, but whether it was from anger or embarrassment was hard to tell.
"Mhmm... That's exactly right. But don't tell anybody else okay?" Naruto asked and Sakura simply nodded out of instinct, while still being inside her thoughts "You guys should have seen the faces of Lee and Shikamaru when I told them about it, don't take that away from me, please." Naruto explained with a happy face which turned sad very quickly "Even... Even Neji had a shocked face when I told them about what we "did", not as dumbfounded as those two but still, he was always so serious, and that kinda... broke him..." He finished as his voice trailed off.
Thinking about Neji reminded him of his death, which reminded him of his current mission. That mission was looking at him with an amused face and was clearly waiting for him to pour some wine into his cup as well. He finished pouring the wine to Sakura. After that, he handed another cup to Sasuke, which he reluctantly took.
Sasuke was not thirsty, especially for a drink that dulled his senses. He only took the drink once he saw the words "play along" written on the surface of the wine with something he could not identify. Come to think of it, He didn't even see when Naruto managed to fill up his cup. When he grabbed the cup, Naruto smiled and went toward Madara.
"In her library, Shion showed me her most prized possession." Naruto said once he grabbed Madara's cup and paused for a dramatic effect but then he saw the slumped shoulders and the devastated face of Minato and quickly added "No, not that kind of prized possession, come on dad!"
Hashirama and Madara laughed much like they used to back in the day. Even the ever-grumpy Tobirama was smirking, but mostly at how Naruto's foolishness was slowly making Madara act like a human again, rather than at Minato's embarrassment.
When the cup was filled, it slipped from his hand.
"Naruto! I found a way to reconnect with Jiji."
"What took you so long..." Naruto asked and the great fox "Okay, tell me how are you going to speak with him."
"I am not going to speak with him" He began and left Naruto with a confused face "You are going to do it." Kurama roared.
"How?"
"The lower part of Madara you cut off earlier is still out there. Somewhere northeast of us. If you get close to it I am certain he will emerge."
"How am I gonna bring it back here?"
"I don't know... if only you had a CLONE running around messing with the cocoons!" Kurama said while shaking his head.
"That's right!" Naruto said while jumping up with excitement in front of Kurama's open cage. "Oii, Kurama, tell him to do it, please! I gotta go now, or they'll suspect something."
"Yeah, yeah, what can you do without me... Just keep going... and try not to give your dad a heart attack, alright?" Kurama said with a laugh.
"I will... Try!" Naruto said with a thumbs up and disappeared from his mind.
When he came back into the real world he saw the cup heading for the floor. Not wanting the good wine to go to waste, he activated his six paths sage chakra, which turned him into a beacon of light, and managed to grab the cup just before it spilled.
When he got up from his squat, Madara had a truth-seeking orb, now a blade, at his throat. Sasuke was standing there, Sharingan activated, Kakashi, Sakura, and other Hokages in various stances, ready to fight at a moment's notice.
"Hehe... Sorry, it slipped." Naruto said with a sheepish smile.
Not seeing any ill intent from Naruto and having seen many of his actions that would confirm that he was that foolish to risk death for just a cup of wine, Madara sighed. His truth-seeking orb disappeared behind his back. And slowly all of the other people sat back down in their seats.
After putting down Madara's cup right in front of him, he walked back to his seat, sat down, and took a sip from his own cup after Madara did. Naruto tried to act as if he liked it but his scrunched face gave away his distaste of the drink.
With a deep sigh "Now... Where was I?" Naruto asked after everybody, including Sasuke, took a sip of wine.
"The prized possession." Kakashi helped him out.
"Right, Thanks! Shion showed me the scrolls that were hidden waaay down, underneath the main temple. Why they needed that much secrecy for something like that I didn't know, I don't know now either." He said while giggling. "She called them the Wisdom scrolls." Naruto paused looking first to his left, then to his right, and then towards Madara, making sure everybody heard what he was saying.
They did. Intrigued looks of every single one of them were a good indication. Even Zetsu looked like he had a surprised face.
In reality, Zetsu was in trouble. "The more time I waste, the more likely it is for Madara to become suspicious. I need to get out of here and summon Mother quickly, no matter what." He thought to himself and started influencing Obito's body to awaken and then he would need all of his power to take full control of it to break out of his current prison.
"She also said that some people called it the Demon letters. That's a given at this point, considering what country we are talking about..." Naruto added while smiling at his own thoughts which he spoke aloud. "Funny thing is that those letters allege that whoever wrote it was... A demon himself... err itself? Probably. but much different from the ones we call a demon nowadays. Those letters are why the people call that land the demon country. That was probably long before you installed the first priestess, right?"
Madara seemed to think it through and eventually nodded without saying anything.
"The letters go from the main demon to this other demon, and a few letters go in the other direction. As Shion explained, these letters, show us how those demons are planning to deal with the enemy that is yet to come. Now imagine demons, let's call them the bad spirits, planning against somebody they are afraid of. I couldn't even imagine something that Kurama might be afraid of, and these demons were from the times before he was born. Isn't that fascinating?" Naruto said and cracked his neck with a weird head movement.
"That enemy is the one I should be afraid of, I take it?" Madara asked, figuring out that "Kurama" he reffered to was the name of the Nine-tails.
"What? No, that's not what I said. Why did you become so paranoid all of a sudden?" Naruto asked with a teasing tone.
"Fine, continue then," Madara said and leaned back into his admittedly very comfortable chair. Using his indifferent tone to hide his slowly growing paranoia.
Shaking his head, Naruto said, "It's time for my next question and only after that will you hear what I really learned from the wisdom scrolls." Seeing Madara narrow his eyes and then nod, Naruto smiled and said "Then tell me - What was death like?"
That question was, perhaps, even more intriguing than the ones Naruto has asked so far. Sasuke was impressed and baffled by his actions. He was talking like a... a sage.
Seeing Madara take his sweet time thinking about the question, Naruto decided to give him as much time as he needed and turned to his left.
"Old man Second?" He asked. Tobirama pushed his head forward and locked eyes with him. "Do you know how I managed to defeat the Demon?" he asked with sparkles in his eyes.
"How?" Tobirama asked.
"He had captured Shion and she thought all was lost. She called me a liar before she sacrificed herself to seal the demon away. And I was standing there, defeating the demon's goons to try and reach her when I heard that." Naruto said, frustration easily readable in his tone. "I don't like when somebody calls me a liar especially when I make a promise to them." Naruto paused again and looked to his right, first at Sakura, who was looking at him with worry, and then toward Sasuke.
"And?" Tobirama spoke, making Naruto face him again.
"I went in, grabbed Shion, and started charging up a Rasengan, but used her spiritual power as well!" Naruto said while pointing his palm upwards and making a spiraling sphere, which then started to turn scarlet. "This is just a transformation jutsu applied to the Rasengan, but this is what it looked like."
Minato had the widest smile on his face and Sasuke saw that. That once again made him think of his own father, and subsequently his clan's massacre. And the man who ordered it was sitting just beside Naruto's dad.
"The Rasengan, eh?" Tobirama began and gained both of the blonde's attention, along with the rest of his side of the table. "Such a powerful jutsu. Complicated and yet very simple in concept. Who created it?"
"It's my jutsu, so maybe I was the one who came up with it," Naruto said with a hurting tone. Tobirama simply looked at him and raised his eyebrow, which made Naruto slump down in his chair.
"I was the one who created it Lord-Second," Minato said shyly.
"But Naruto managed to perfect it and made it into an even more powerful Rasen-Shuriken jutsu." Naruto jumped with enthusiasm at Kakashi's words, almost forgetting that he did create a jutsu of his own. Even if it was a derivative of the normal Rasengan.
"Really? That's... Hard to believe." Tobirama said sarcastically.
"Yeah, but that was after the Demon country mission. If I had that back then, we'd be done in no time. In the actual battle, I had to use the substitution jutsu to swap places with one of its tentacles and managed to land the blow before he could even understand what hit it."
Tobirama nodded with approval. He already understood that Naruto may act goofy but in battle, his strategy was better than anybody would anticipate. Just like his brother.
Hashirama who was listening to Naruto's story, and was watching his old friend's thoughtful look was about to say something when he decided to stay silent.
"A Substution Jutsu?" Madara spoke, suddenly coming out of his thoughts.
"Yeah..." Naruto said while nodding eagerly. "I will assume Old Man Second created it too, right?" He asked half-jokingly while looking at him.
"That's right Naruto. Lord-Second created Substitution jutsu for young ninjas to avoid certain death." Hiruzen replied.
"What is a Substitution Jutsu?" Madara asked before Naruto made another joke about Leaf Village's education system.
Naruto's jaw almost hit the table, Sakura didn't look any better, and even Sasuke had a baffled face.
"You... You don't know the Substitution jutsu?" Naruto said pointing his finger at Madara as if he were a ghost.
"No, I do not."
"Well... That's uh... hard to believe." Naruto mumbled, mimicking the look Tobirama had just a moment ago.
"He would know it if he didn't leave the village to pursue his worthless goal," Tobirama said with a stern look directed toward Madara.
Seeing how Madara rolled his eyes without even looking at the Second Hokage, Naruto said "It's very simple. Just focus on a nearby object, lock your chakra with it, and make a snake seal like this" as he put his hands together.
"That could've been very useful..." Madara whispered to himself and mimicked the blonde, immediately mastering the jutsu.
"It sure is. Thank God you didn't know that jutsu on top of everything else you already do..." Naruto replied with a laugh.
Madara tilted his head to his right, looking straight at Naruto's blue eyes "That 'God' again, Why are you calling it that and not Kami as any normal person would?" he asked with exasperation.
"You haven't answered my question yet." Blonde said as he crossed his arms.
Madara was confused for a moment before remembering the question. "I... stayed in the darkness, nothing much around and a... veil of darkness on one side. It called me to go through it, but I never did."
"Because you were waiting to be brought back?" Naruto inquired to which Madara nodded. Naruto chuckled to himself "What a coward."
In times past Madara would bring Naruto majestic pain for what he just said, but now, when he had won and nothing could stop him, he simply smiled at the blond. He also saw how everybody, except for Hashirama, tense up and get ready for another fight. "Useless fools."
"You are so sure that you turned "Hell into Heaven" and you weren't brave enough to make sure that there was such a thing as heaven." Naruto continued, not afraid of possible repercussions.
"You think there is heaven?" Madara asked as he leaned in and narrowed his eyes.
"That's not what I said. My point is that you don't even know what comes after death. Do we agree on that?"
"Fine, let's say we agree. So what?"
"If you think this place to be hell, which you do" Naruto began as he motion his hands all around himself "Then whatever comes after, should be heaven, right?"
"That's not necessarily the case. We don't know what comes after this life. For all we know the veil of darkness is all there is. You can't call that heaven, can you?" Madara replied, making Naruto put down the cup he was about to sip from.
"Well then..." Naruto looked to his right, then to his left, then leaned forward and looked at the First and the Second Hokage. "Do you remember what happened after you died?"
"We can't say." Tobirama answered with a frown.
"Aww man..." Naruto exclaimed and slumped down into his chair once more, shaking his head with defeat.
"Stop whining. We physically can't talk about it. If we had a Yamanaka to help, we could possibly overcome that problem." Tobirama replied.
"Ohhh... So you're telling me there is a chance?" Naruto asked and saw Tobirama nod. "You can't say anything else? Like at all?" Naruto asked, some sparkles coming back in his eyes.
Tobirama shook his head.
"The only thing I remember after going through the dark veil was that I was looking for my old war buddy to drink with." Hashirama said after a long moment of thoughtful look.
"That's what I thought." Naruto said with a smile and looked toward the Rinnegan master. "Do you believe that?"
"Even if I did believe that there is something beyond the veil of darkness, so what?" Madara asked.
Naruto opened his mouth to speak but couldn't. Was he getting angry? Sasuke was confused by this emotion which was not common, at least not from Naruto.
"H-He can verify what Lord-First says. Even if some sort of supernatural law stops them from speaking, he does remember some of it, so he can just read his mind." Sakura said, looking straight at Naruto and not even glancing at Madara.
Now Naruto was the one confused.
"She's right. During the Pain invasion, one of his paths read the minds of people he captured to learn your location. If all Rinnegan shares its fundamental powers, then anybody possessing it should be capable of reading minds." Kakashi elaborated.
That brought a smile to Naruto's face. "That's right! Nagato even mentioned going through the minds of different people and all he saw was pain and hatred. I thought he was saying it as a metaphor..." Naruto then looked back to the pink-haired girl and said, "Thank you Sakura-chan!"
"Don't mention it..." She said as she smiled at him.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Naruto asked while looking at Madara. "Come on, go and see if Old Man First is telling the truth... please."
Madara was in thought. He didn't know this Rinnegan ability was a thing. He didn't have enough time to figure out all of it's powers. He did know that if it was indeed one of it's powers, he would be able to read Hashirama's mind. But he did not want to do it.
He couldn't think of a good reason why he was almost... afraid of doing so. What if Naruto had the right idea, what if there was indeed something more than just darkness after death? What if there was indeed heaven after this world? What if he was proven wro...
He couldn't finish his thoughts because his senses picked up something they should not have. Obito, who was standing inside the wooden prison was regaining consciousness. Not only was he supposed to die because of the Rinne Rebirth, but also because of the Ten Tails' extraction. But he was slowly waking. The only reason he was still clinging to life was that he was clinging to... Zetsu... and the only way he could've become better was if Zetsu was... healing him... But why?
Madara then looked up and saw Hashirama standing right beside his chair. He was so lost in thought that he didn't even see his old friend approach him.
Hashirama offered him a palm, and Madara without thinking, touched him and focused on reading his mind.
Everybody got tense. Since this was the first time he tried to read a mind, it took some time, but eventually, he managed to grasp the thoughts Hashirama had about the afterlife.
The atmosphere around them felt as if they were in a small room and everybody was breathing heavily. Well, everybody was breathing heavily, but they were in an open field, dozens of meters in the air, on a giant tree trunk. That was as far removed from a small room as it could get. Yet the air got thick.
Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Naruto jerked and turned his head back to see Sasuke looking at him.
"Why did you ask those two about the afterlife? Third and Fourth Hokage were dead just as much as those two." He whispered after leaning to his ear.
"Yeah, but they were the only ones who got to die... normally," Naruto answered and saw Sasuke's frown. "Third Hokage was forced to use the Reaper Death Seal to seal the First and the Second with him, before that they were normally dead. My dad also died after summoning the Shinigami to seal Kurama into me..."
"No Naruto, I used the Shinigami to split the nine-tails into two, the sealing jutsu didn't require the reaper death seal," Minato said as he leaned in Naruto's other ear.
"Right," Naruto said as he looked back at Sasuke who was listening to his dad's words.
"And?" Sasuke asked.
"The Shinigami takes your soul with him and you don't get to go to the normal afterlife." Naruto explained.
"How could you possibly know that?" Sasuke asked with a great deal of skepticism visible in his tone.
"He told me." Naruto said as he pointed his thumb toward Minato.
Sasuke looked at Minato, then looked back at Naruto, nodded, and went back to his place a few steps away.
He was FURIOUS. Sasuke read Naruto's mind and he did not like what he saw. Well, he did not like that he didn't see anything, except for thoughts about another serving of ramen and which type he should get, and the words "The heavens declare the glory of God" inscribed on every other thing that was present in Naruto's mindscape. He couldn't even see the damn Nine-tailed Fox, whereas he was perfectly capable of seeing him even before he got the Rinnegan.
By the time Sasuke managed to get a hold of himself and come to terms with his odd friend's lack of readable thoughts, Madara took his hand away from Hashirama's palm.
Hashirama smiled and went back to his seat.
Everybody was watching Madara. Nobody could read any thoughts on his face, it was completely still.
"So... Was he telling the truth?" Naruto finally asked.
Madara focused his eyes on the blond boy and simply said "Yes."
With his hands in the air, Naruto celebrated the news, or rather the confirmation. Naruto cracked his knuckles, then his head, then massaged his neck and smiled.
"Did you know that my dad and mom died after the Nine-tails attacked the Leaf Village?"
"I do."
"That was also your fault."
"It was."
"Then tell me, Even after all the things you've done, how could you get the same type of outcome as somebody like the First Hokage? Hmm? How can you, a murderer, manipulator, kidnapper, and who knows what else, get the same fate as the cherished Old Man First?" Naruto asked as he could sense that everybody got as silent as he had ever seen them be.
"What do you expect?! Life is not fair, why should death be any different? You just proved my point." Madara said with delight "I was the only one with the will strong enough to sacrifice all my life and bring eternal happiness to all the people I could!"
"Are you sure about that?"
***
Just a few hundred meters away in the fog caused by countless explosions that happened a few hours ago, Naruto was the only living thing running around the giant tree branches.
At this point he was sweating, even though he was just a clone. He used every trick he could think of to break those cocoons and take at least a few of them out of the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
He eventually stopped right underneath another set of cocoons. Sensing Granny-Tsunade, Shikamaru, Orochimaru, Tenten, Gai Sensei, Lee, and many of his comrades hanging on the giant tree branch, he sighed.
"Hey listen up, new orders from Naruto" he heard in his head.
"What now, Kurama?" the clone asked as he sat down under the cocoons.
"Find the lower half of Madara's body and bring it to the trunk of the God tree. The more discreet you are, the better."
"How am I supposed to find the lower part of a body? I can't sense it and I can't remember where it fell." Naruto said with exasperation.
"It has a vast amount of Ten-tails' chakra. If we get a hold of it we can summon Jiji." Kurama said as he looked around Naruto through his senses, and smiled.
"That's all well and good but it's not gonna help me find the damn thing, is it?"
"Why do you act as if you don't have the greatest-tailed beast to ask for help?" Kurama barked with annoyance.
"Can you help me find it, o mighty Kurama?" Naruto asked while mock-bowing to his furry friend.
Kurama shook his head, not even a little bit amused. Then he pointed his head to his left and disappeared.
When Naruto returned to the real world and looked in the direction Kurama provided, there just over a hundred meters away he saw the decapitated lower half of Madara and said "Well that was easy."
He stood up, made sure his pants didn't get dust stuck onto them, and started walking toward his next objective.
Just then, he sensed it, the scream. "How could I sense and not hear a scream?" he asked himself.
Looking around, trying to pinpoint where it came from, he narrowed it down to the specific cocoon which belonged to...
"No WAY!"