After Uchiha Nanami returned to the Uchiha clan, she temporarily hid in a relatively remote house. Next, she prepared to secretly investigate the situation of the rescue target, seeking a suitable opportunity to carry out the rescue operation.
Uchiha Tajima would support Nanami both openly and covertly, helping gather intelligence while doing his best to conceal her whereabouts... No conditions, all emotion—this was true devotion.
While Uchiha Tajima was sneakily observing the surroundings, his attention momentarily off Nanami, Genma's face emerged from the wall behind her. He whispered to her:
"The shinobi picking you up isn't very professional. Those little moves of his didn't fool Uchiha Madara—he already knows you're back... But the good news is, he's actively helping cover your tracks."
He said. "I understand." Nanami nodded almost imperceptibly, while whispering softly.
Genma bubbled up, syncing this important information with Nanami, then concealed his form again, submerging like water.
Uchiha Madara certainly hadn't realized Nanami hadn't returned to the Uchiha clan alone, and he couldn't possibly detect that his actions were being watched crystal clear by Genma hiding in the shadows... No helping it—everyone excels at different things. Madara laughs with wild abandon; Genma prefers to hide and chuckle to himself.
After hearing about Uchiha Madara's behavior, Nanami's thoughts couldn't help but wander... Was it really that Tajima's actions hadn't fooled Madara? Or was the information Tajima revealed to her actually part of Madara's covert maneuvering?
After all, a young guy like Uchiha Tajima didn't seem like the type to stay on top of the clan's internal secrets in real time.
The current Uchiha Madara hadn't started going extreme yet—he was a standard ambitious youth. His ideas definitely differed from the clan elders'; in a nutshell, Madara represented the Uchiha clan's new progressive thinking and couldn't stand those outdated, rotten views.
Controlling, exploiting, imprisoning clan members—how could the current Uchiha Madara stomach any of that? To achieve the clan's prosperity, spread the Uchiha name across the shinobi world, and seize lasting peace from the chaos, he'd do it with his own power.
Uchiha Madara firmly believed he could accomplish all this with his strength alone.
But if some extreme situation prevented him from succeeding, then dying for a noble ideal wasn't unacceptable.
Simply put, Uchiha Madara was in his prime of bold advancement, ready to live a thrilling life as a shinobi—he hadn't been corrupted by Black Zetsu yet... After all, he still had two younger brothers alive in the world.
Uchiha Madara wanted to change the Uchiha clan, but even as arrogant as he was, being in the thick of it meant his hands were tied.
No matter what, no matter how powerful he was now, the current Uchiha clan head was his father. Even if he didn't care about the other elders, he still had to submit to paternal authority.
Logically, extreme scenes of fatherly kindness and filial piety were basically impossible even among the most extreme shin órgano... Unless the shinobi was so extreme that even primates couldn't comprehend it.
So Uchiha Madara had no choice but to try borrowing "external force."
Uchiha Nanami was of course a Uchiha clan member, but due to her bad relations with the clan elders, she truly operated outside the Uchiha management system and relationship network.
But logically, Uchiha Madara wasn't the type to play complex schemes and plots. His "strategies" were always just so-so—even later when he acted as the behind-the-scenes boss, he was under Black Zetsu's remote control... He might think himself profoundly cunning, but willingly being Black Zetsu's puppet made him all the more ridiculous.
Look at the Valley of the End battle he orchestrated: on the surface, a century-defining clash between two top powerhouses, but underneath, it was all to bite off a chunk of flesh from Senju Hashirama... Um, literally bite off a piece of meat.
Risking life and limb just to bite his rival—what kind of lovesick fool behavior was that? It was reasonable to suspect Madara had taken a crash course in romance novels.
Maybe his original goal was to defeat Hashirama head-on? Only resorting to biting after realizing he couldn't? Yet his planned "fake death" showed he'd anticipated that outcome.
Interestingly, Senju Hashirama was willing to play along with Madara's act. After getting bitten, what did Hashirama do...
"Let me pluck out your heart and try to slowly melt it."
Even to the end, Hashirama hoped for Madara's understanding, but the latter refused, so he had no choice but to strike fatally.
If emotional harmony couldn't be achieved, then physically melt Madara's heart—not for nothing was he the "God of Shinobi." When one path was blocked, he'd switch to another and achieve his goal that way.
In short, understand a person's life in stages—different stages are practically different people. This was obvious with a bit of thought, yet Genma hadn't really grasped it.
Not because he lacked brains, but because Genma hadn't even thought in that direction—why bother racking his brains over the mind of a stranger he'd only met once? He wasn't dating Uchiha Madara.
He just figured Uchiha Madara's behavior was due to a tsundere personality: saying nothing on the surface but harboring unexpectedly deep feelings for his aunt in the shadows or something.
While Nanami was busy gathering intelligence, Genma hiding in the dark wasn't idle either.
But the first necessary thing he had to do wasn't directly helping Nanami—it was rooting out the "surveillance cameras" hidden inside the Uchiha clan, namely the White Zetsu.
Thanks to the extra abilities from the White Zetsu he'd previously harvested, Genma could achieve information transparency with other White Zetsu when transforming into a White Zetsu body and using their powers... He could sense their presence, but they couldn't detect him.
Otherwise, things would get tricky. Never mind the White Zetsu here suddenly discovering an extra "kin"—remember, the White Zetsu's biggest task on the Uchiha side was acting as cameras. When surveilling, they just needed to collect intel well; no need for autonomy.
If a White Zetsu suddenly showed strong purposeful action, it definitely had issues.
Fortunately, the White Zetsu wouldn't hinder Genma's movements now and could even provide some help—they were a valuable asset to him.
He just couldn't tell which White Zetsu had the best "goods," whether the wealth could actually be cashed in... Um, simple analogy: the White Zetsu here were like scratch-off lottery tickets. Genma had to scratch them open to see what number was inside.
But he couldn't start scratching right away. After circling the Uchiha clan village, he found the number of White Zetsu here was off... There were forty or fifty of them.
Way too many—was the Uchiha clan cursed or something?
This "camera" density rivaled a train station plaza.
Too many White Zetsu, surveillance net too tight. Even though Genma excelled at backstabs and stealth kills, he had to act cautiously here.
To protect Nanami's intelligence as much as possible and boost his own strength, Genma naturally wanted to net them all.
Who could resist scratching forty or fifty lottery tickets? But Genma had to be methodical.
Nanami returned to the Uchiha clan because of signs of external enemy invasion—meaning chaos was definitely brewing here.
They could chaos all they wanted, and if White Zetsu came to check the chaotic area, Genma could cast his net and fish.
Genma hadn't yet realized the deeper reason for so many White Zetsu here. It wasn't the Uchiha being cursed, but because the events unfolding in the Uchiha were secretly orchestrated by Black Zetsu and White Zetsu.
Genma had a premonition that the surface calm in the Uchiha village wouldn't last long.
In fact, his hunch was spot-on. That very night, a violent explosion suddenly rang out in the Uchiha village, followed by waves of unrest and sounds of fighting.
Genma transformed into Nanami's appearance and immediately rushed toward the source of the noise. Nanami herself used the cover of night to begin intensively investigating certain heavily guarded spots in the village.
After stealthing a distance, Genma approached the chaos site and spotted several Uchiha shinobi pursuing a black-clothed intruder.
About five "White Zetsu scratch-offs" were trailing the battlefield's movement—this was the chance Genma had been craving.
It was a bit of a shame, though: since this was Uchiha territory, the numerically superior Uchiha shinobi were holding back in combat.
After all, no one wanted to unleash wide-area Fire Release in their own home unless absolutely necessary.
This made Genma anxious watching—you're not using wide-area ninjutsu, so how are the White Zetsu supposed to die plausibly?
Luckily, the intruder had no such reservations. Seeing the Uchiha shinobi in hot pursuit, he immediately started using wide-area ninjutsu, blocking the chase while creating even larger chaos.
In the constant tug-of-war between both sides, the five White Zetsu's positions clustered relatively together.
At the same time...
Boom! Boom!
Under the intruder's wide-area Earth Release ninjutsu, the entire ground trembled.
Perfect opportunity!
Genma, tailing the White Zetsu from behind, seized the moment. Under the cover of the Earth Release, he fiercely pushed a wall forward. Directly in front of it was a massive boulder... The Uchiha village even had landscaping—worthy of a major shinobi clan... Between the wall and boulder was another wall.
Hidden in that middle wall were the White Zetsu, who'd panicked and bunched up while dodging the Earth Release.
Boom!
The two walls and one boulder collided.
The rising steam perfectly blended into the night. The immense force turned a whole wall into a fly swatter—five White Zetsu got "sandwiched like cheese in a toaster," directly smashed half-dead.
Genma went all fours, "planting feet on ground" while "strong hand skull-cracking"... He pinned two White Zetsu with his feet, gripping the heads of two more with his hands.
Damn, add-oil pack.
Feeling the chakra wrong from one hand, he immediately let go, then in a flash pinched the last remaining White Zetsu.
Add-oil pack, add-oil pack, add-oil pack, physique boost experience pack...
Groovy luck! Genma cursed inwardly—why no chakra experience pack? Just an earth nature one.
Facts proved you can't change your life by winning the lottery.
To extract chakra and gain attributes, Genma couldn't smash the White Zetsu dead outright, but they also couldn't use Mayfly to escape—under the premise of nearly being pulped, they couldn't flee anyway.
Genma's harvest was meager. In the White Zetsu's utterly horrified gazes, they fully turned to meat paste... They weren't horrified by death, but by the certainty that this woman could precisely detect White Zetsu.
Following the "no thief leaves empty-handed" principle, Genma should take the corpses—even to compost back home—but he couldn't.
If White Zetsu died from a shinobi's area attack, how could their bodies just vanish? After sensing five companions lost, other White Zetsu would frantically rush here...
White Zetsu didn't want their existence exposed to the Uchiha clan.
Genma sensed the White Zetsu's movements and prepared to leave the scene. He skirted the rubble, ready to use Mayfly to vanish, but turning the corner, Uchiha Madara appeared in his view.
Genma froze, heart pounding.
Then he saw Madara stop too, his gaze hesitant.
Genma reacted instantly. In the dim night, he pinched thumb and forefinger together, raised them to his mouth in a zipper-pulling gesture, then pointed in another direction.
The other White Zetsu had arrived, frantically helping Genma clean the scene.
Madara still hesitated, not quite getting why Nanami made such a crude gesture, but after thinking, he stepped toward where she pointed.
Auntie's authority—terrifying as hell.
"Screw your uncle, Uchiha Madara—you scared the crap out of me. Why are you everywhere?"
That was a bit targeted—this was the guy's home turf. Where else would he be? But...
Huh, was there some ethics in that curse?
Genma patted his chest—er, calming the flutter—then distanced himself from the White Zetsu before activating Mayfly to hide... Had to be extra careful not to expose the "two Nanamis" fact to the White Zetsu.
Even for Genma, the psychological pressure of operating in surveillance blind spots was immense.
Genma was bold yet meticulous, fine with risking action, but what about the payoff after all the close calls?
Uchiha Madara nearly spotted him smashing White Zetsu; White Zetsu's existence nearly got exposed to the Uchiha...
So what did Genma gain?
Besides physique boost, the rest was just...
Um, thrills.
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