Looking at the coffins before him, Masashi felt deeply emotional.

  In his past life, he hadn't left much behind, and now it was all here.

  Many of the deeds of his past self would be ned, not only oh but even in the current shinobi world.

  But there was no other choice.

  Without experieng that era, one couldn't truly uand how fortuhe current shinobi of the great nations were. The peace they took franted was built on mountains of corpses and os of blood.

  Did ahink he liked grave robbing?

  Each body here represented hours spent hunting, digging, and preserving.

  The Edo Tensei became a forbidden jutsu because it vioted humahid posed by all the living. Even allies found it difficult to view it with a calm heart.

  People who died to protect their vilges and families were brought back, forced to harm the very things and people they once cherished. It was an act of extreme cruelty.

  The psychological torture was always more effective than the physical damage.

  And the First Great Ninja War marked the first use of Edo Tensei by Konoha. However, it hadn't been used since.

  Not because they couldn't—Hiruzeainly could.

  But that level of restraint was something only shinobi of this new era could afford.

  Masashi, however, could hize with the pain of people like Obito, Yahiko, Nagato, or Konan.

  The world of adults was ily painful.

  In the Warring States Period, experieng the pain of adulthood rivilege for the strong. Children who slept too deeply never woke up. The bde didn't distinguish between warrior and infant.

  He had watched a younger sibling, barely a few years old, be hacked to death before his very eyes. To their ehere was no mercy for children.

  In the new era, shinobi's pain was still human pain. But in a time of chaos, people weren't even human—they were hollows.

  Their humanity existed only in front of their families. Beyond that, they were ons, monsters, demons wearing human skin.

  Growing up in su enviro, he became the very kind of person he had once loathed as a child. Each act of cruelty was justified by the cruelties he had witnessed, each death avenging a huhers.

  His revenge was to torment his enemies with their own humanity, making them hate themselves more than they hated him. He perfected the art of breaking spirits rather than bodies.

  Knowing that Edo Tensei would eventually be ied, he spent a long time waiting and preparing.

  The founding of Konoha soothed the hatred in mas, but the deepest part of him remained icy cold. People were vessels of hatred. Only ih was hatred extinguished.

  Masashi, now free of hatred, had buried both love ay with the old era.

  Now, as he looked at those he oormented, he felt calm, without the anger or satisfa of the past.

  After pleting this mission, the souls sealed in the Edo Tensei for decades would finally find peace.

  Footsteps sounded behind him as Pakura entered.

  The moment she stepped in and saw the rows of coffins, she froze ihen her eyes fell on the sealing formus etched onto the coffins.

  "This isn't a graveyard, is it?"

  "Doesn't look like it. But aren't we lucky?" Masashi said. "This must be a private colle left by some of the vilge's elders."

  Pakura gnced around.

  Private colle? This was insane.

  So many dead bodies—and former Konoha elites, no less. There was only one possibility she could think of.

  "Edo Tensei?"

  Pakura didn't fully uand the meics of Edo Tensei, but as Suna's former ace, she knew about the notorious forbidden teique that had angered so many in the past.

  Of course, at the start of the First Great Ninja War, it was Konoha versus everyone else. Nobody pyed fair, and Konoha wasn't bound by moral straints.

  The Sed Kazekage was the only Kage to survive that war.

  The war was so devastating that the nations needed nearly two decades to recover. After that, everyoarted to adhere to rules.

  "Yeah, Edo Tensei," Masashi said, brushing his hand against a coffin. "These are all fully prepared. With the seals ohey be summoned directly."

  "That's… terrifying," Pakura shuddered at the thought. So many corpses!

  "Yeah, it's pretty scary. The elders of the vilge really didn't make things easy for us."

  The jutsu he had developed allowed him to use the Edo Tensei bodies as his shadow es. Unlike es, though, the Edo Tensei bodies could use their own teiques.

  The souls sealed within the bodies were forced to watch themselves use their best teiques to harm their loved ones.

  Looking baow, his first-life self really had been twisted…

  "Are you pnning to use these… dead bodies?" Pakura asked, visibly unfortable.

  "Think of it as doing something good. Otherwise, these souls will remain trapped in the Edo Tensei forever," Masashi said. "Death should be the end. When the predecessors are gone, so should their hatred be."

  Pakura nodded.

  Even she, who had killed tless, felt sympathy seeing the dead toyed with in such a way.

  Death was supposed to be everyone's final resting ptil Edo Tensei came along.

  "What will you do ?" Pakura asked.

  "I'll try to break the seal on this jutsu," Masashi said, iing the coffin seals. "It'll take some time. Keep watch outside for me. The noise just now might have attracted the Kumo ninjas. If they find this pce, we'll have to destroy it."

  "Uood. Hurry up."

  Without hesitation, Pakura left to stand guard.

  Masashi watched her leave pletely, then stopped pretending.

  Break the seal? As if. He had ied this jutsu himself; all he o do was use it.

  Uhe entry seals on the door, this teique didn't require the chakra of his past self. All he o do was master and modify it.

  He walked to the deepest part of the room, where there was an altar. Brushing off the dust, he revealed a crest identical to that of the Senju .

  Pg his hand on it, he activated the teique.

  He ime—but not for the seals.

  Runes spread from the altar like dark veins, eg with the sealing scripts on hundreds of coffins.

  Crack… crack…

  The coffins opened one by one.

  Figures the armor of the old era sat up.

  Their skin was dark and cracked, their faces marked by fissures. Their eye sockets were empty of white—pitch bck.

  They were elite shinobi of various s, united only by their shared enmity against the Senju.

  "It's time to wake up."

  Masashi formed a hand seal, rest their intelligence.

  One by ohe reanimated dead regaiheir awareness. They noticed the young ninja standing oar.

  Despite his ged appearahey reized his soul unmistakably.

  "You actually succeeded?" one of them growled.

  In the dimly lit space, hundreds of coffins were all wide open. A group of dead men, each with distinct appearances, stared bnkly at the young man standing on the high ptform.

  These dead men had once been enemies, even mortal foes, and now they were all puppets—the handiwork of the young man before them.

  No, not a young man. They had all lived in the same era as him.

  When they were alive, each of them had crossed paths with his sman. They thought little of him during their lifetimes but only realized his cruelty after death.

  The person they knew in life was different for each of them, but the ohey saw ih was an abyss of darkness, a demon cloaked in human skin.

  Under his trol, they had sughtered tless living people, some of whom had then bee "rades." Over time, their auro numbness, and they came to hate themselves more than they hated him.

  They despised the part of themselves that still retained humanity—the very thing they once cherished now became the oo torment them.

  Masashi gazed at these once-familiar faces. His eyes finally settled on the dead man who had spoken.

  It was an Uchiha.

  The deep crimson armor he wore was covered in scratches.

  In the empty bck eye sockets gleamed a pair of Sharingan with three tomoe.

  "Kai, long time no see," Masashi said, her denying the other man's words nor making excuses, openly aowledging his identity.

  After all, they knew each other too well. Even with a different body, reition was iable.

  There was o lie to the dead.

  Every reanimated body here had a plicated backstory and had been difficult to create.

  Tobirama's Edo Tensei was not the overpowered, modified versioed by Orochimaru and Kabuto in the inal timeline.

  Apart from needing the DNA of the deceased, the jutsu also demanded a highly specific sacrifice—a body with chakra simir to that of the reanimated individual.

  Typically, reanimating one shinobi from a required killing two others, with closer blood ties yieldier synization and stronger results.

  To reanimate Kai, his past self had used the eldest son of Kai as the sacrifice.

  It had been a cursed era—ahat drove people to beonsters.

  "Muzo, who are you going to kill this time?" Kai asked coldly, staring at Masashi. "Are you your true self now? Or are you, like me, just a puppet?"

  This was a living body. Even ih, he could tell the difference.

  "My current name is Masashi. I've been called that sihe day I was born." He activated his Sharingan. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you, but all I think about now is how to protect the Uchiha ."

  "Sharingan…" Kai's expression shifted from cold indiffereo disbelief.

  After a long silence, he bowed his head, the armor on his body creaking.

  Suddenly, he raised his head sharply. "Do you even remember how many Uchiha you killed?"

  "In times of chaos, survival often requires killing to stop further killing," Masashi replied evenly.

  "My daughter was only three years old."

  "My brother was three as well," Masashi said calmly. "You and the others hacked him into pieces. He was g at the time."

  Kai said nothing, his gaze icy as he looked at Masashi. To him, the man standing there, Sharingan or not, was Muzo.

  "Does anyone else have questions?" Masashi asked, looking at the rest of the group.

  No one spoke. Not everyone had the same long-standing grudge as Kai or knew him so well.

  "What do you want us to do?" a white-haired man asked, breaking the tense silence.

  "I'm giving you a ce for release," Masashi said, looking at the dead men. "Fight o battle for me, and I will end this jutsu. You will never see me again."

  The dead were stunned.

  When had they ever been summoned without being used to death's edge? And now this? Was he turning over a new leaf?

  "Who do you want killed?"

  "Kumo shinobi," Masashi replied. "This is the world decades after your deaths. None of your loved ones are oher side."

  "Kumo shinobi?" another voice asked. "Our ... what became of them?"

  Masashi turoward the speaker.

  It was a member of the Hagoromo . After the founding of Konoha, Masashi hadn't summohis person again.

  "This is no lohe era of shinobi s but the era of hidden vilges," Masashi expined. "The Kumo shinobi have nothing to do with yoromo . Ask the others for details. Much has ged since your time."

  The dead men began whispering among themselves, sharing fragments of knowledge gleaned from their various summonings.

  Masashi waited patiently.

  Although these reanimated shinobi weren't as powerful as they had been in life, they were still capable of jonin-level bat. Higher levels of power were beyond reach; the inal purpose of Edo Tensei was to create reusable suicide soldiers, so he hadn't bothered trying to reanimate kage-level shinobi—it was too resourteo be worth it.

  After a while, the whispering ceased.

  Kai, as the representative, looked at Masashi.

  "Why tell us all this?" he asked, his face still skeptical. "You've never needed our sent before."

  As the caster of the jutsu, Masashi held absolute trol over them. There was no need for this iation-like approach.

  "Don't you want to rest in peace?" he asked iurn.

  The dead fell silent.

  Who wouldn't waernal rest?

  "Just make sure you keep your word," Kai said. "Where is the enemy?"

  "Let's head out first. We'll talk outside."

  With that, Masashi began walking toward the exit.

  The dead men stepped aside to let him pass, then followed behind.

  Just like before.

  But this time, they were not numb.

  Outside in the sunlight, Pakura still stood at the entraaring into the dark tunnel. Questions swirled in her mind.

  The moment, her thoughts were overtaken by shock.

  Masashi emerged first, leading a procession of the dead. They moved with the fluidity of the living, but their appearances screamed the obvious: We are not alive!

  One by ohey marched out, the sound of armor scraping filling the air.

  Though it was broad daylight, Pakura felt a chill.

  In the end, over 300 reanimated shinobi stood uhe sun, arranged in precise formation as if they had opped being soldiers.

  Even though they were ba the mortal world, their reanimated forms felt nothing. They could not feel the warmth of the sun or the sting of its gre.

  They were ons, stripped of all human weakness.

  "Is everyone here?" Masashi asked. "Aill inside?"

  The dead swiftly began ting.

  "All ated for," one of them reported. "Three hundred and twelve, ready for battle."

  Pakura looked on, feeling the absurdity of it all.

  "Alright, now let's discuss the battle pn," Masashi nodded in satisfa and began making arras.