After the four of them had been crouching on the tree branch for far too long, Garfield was the first to lose patience.
'What are these four doing up there?' He muttered internally.
Guarding the night like a bunch of owls? You've been watching for ages and still won't test anything.
What, did I mess up and expose myself? You want to lick my belly to confirm it? Rubbing his plump chin, Garfield's eyes narrowed.
A bad idea formed.
He reached out and took control of the fake body he had created with a transformation spell.
"Get up."
The clone-cat stirred.
It began walking toward the tree where the four figures were hidden, swaying exaggeratedly with each step… head bobbing, tail flicking doing its best impression of an utterly ordinary orange cat.
Of course, just because it looked like a cat did not mean it actually was one.
The shell had no soul.
On the tree branch above, Senju Hashirama frowned.
"…I don't sense a heartbeat," He said quietly.
Uchiha Madara followed immediately. "No chakra fluctuations either."
Senju Tobirama reached for a kunai. "Should I test it?"
"Reckless. What if you miss?" Izuna stopped him.
Tobirama shot him a glare. "Then what's your plan?"
Izuna pointed downward at the approaching orange cat. "If this creature really is what Hokage-sama suspects, then its physical abilities alone would be extraordinary."
"Rather than throwing steel at it, let me test it with genjutsu first. We'll see what reacts."
Tobirama opened his mouth to object, but Hashirama placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Izuna's right," Hashirama said calmly. "Try it, but be careful."
"If it's a ninja beast, its resistance to ninjutsu may be extremely high. Compared to the tailed beasts I've faced… this cat is faster."
That statement alone made Izuna tense.
He had fought tailed beasts before, some of the weaker ones. But the higher-numbered beasts, especially the Nine-Tails?
Among the four present, only Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara could fight at that level.
Painful as it was to admit, Hashirama truly was terrifyingly strong.
Step.
Step.
Shuffle~shuffle.
The sound of soft paws.
The orange cat wobbled closer, moving three steps at a time, stopping, swaying, then continuing like a true lazy street cat.
Three meters from the tree, it slowly lifted its head.
The instant the cat looked up, Izuna's focus Sharingan spun, chakra gathering as he prepared to activate his ocular genjutsu.
"Wait."
Inside the cabin, Garfield pupils shrank.
His mind raced. "Why is Izuna here?"
Uchiha Izuna, Madara's younger brother should have already been mortally wounded during the Senju–Uchiha wars before Konoha was founded.
His death was supposed to be the catalyst.
Madara had taken Izuna's eyes. The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
The path toward the Rinnegan.
Yet Izuna was alive and standing on a tree branch.
Garfield went completely still.
"…This timeline is off," He thought grimly. "Is this even the same Naruto world Rin came from?"
"Or is this a parallel variant?" While Garfield was momentarily lost in calculation~
Above him, the four men stared at the unmoving orange cat.
"…Did it crash?" Tobirama muttered.
Hashirama shook his head slightly. "No."
Madara's eyes narrowed. "Then why isn't it moving?"
He glanced sideways at his brother.
"Izuna." Madara said quietly, "Try controlling its actions."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
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