Vaulting seamlessly over a compound wall, he spotted a blond toddler just learning to walk in the private courtyard.
Judging by her small size and delicate facial features, she was less than a year old.
This was Tsunade.
Nearby stood a young man and woman, presumably her parents.
“I choose you.”
Yang burst quickly from the shadows, seizing baby Tsunade with lightning speed and clamping a hand securely over her eyes.
“Take a nap.”
Stimulated by his potent chakra, Tsunade’s eyes fluttered shut as she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
The couple paled in shock.
The man, clearly a trained ninja, attacked Yang without a second thought the moment he saw his daughter grabbed.
Yang easily held Tsunade in his left arm.
From his right hand, countless dark tentacles sprouted, coiling rapidly around his limb and morphing into a claw.
Because this clone was based purely on a Yang-nature heart, ordinary ninjutsu was entirely unusable.
Fortunately, Yang had studied Yang Release for years and achieved considerable results.
Under the effect of Yang Release chakra, the writhing tentacles deformed and hardened into a claw, its firmness and resilience rivaled solid chakra metal.
In appearance, it closely resembled the Claw Mode from ‘Prototype’.
The claw slashed fiercely, carving five bloody gashes right across the charging man’s chest.
A swift kick sent him flying, he crashed heavily through wooden boards before finally coming to a halt.
“As Hashirama’s child, you are a disappointment.”
Fortunately, Kakuzu’s ability was Earth Grudge Fear, not the actual Blacklight Virus, otherwise, that man would have become a rampaging zombie by now.
The blonde woman beside him was definitely not a ninja.
Seeing her daughter violently snatched and her husband slashed, she let out a piercing scream.
Blood rushed to her head, and she instantly fainted.
“…”
Yang silently retrieved a letter marked “For Hashirama Senju” from his robes, tossed it casually on the ground, and vanished from the spot.
“Not clean enough.”
In the shadows, Black Zetsu poked his dark head out.
Looking at the unconscious couple, he smoothly pulled out two kunai and threw them.
*Thwack, Thwack*
“Only when they actually die can it spark true hatred between Madara and Hashirama.”
“Success!”
Inside the busy ramen shop, the corners of Kakuzu’s true mouth curled up into a satisfied smirk.
“Boss, what succeeded?” an apprentice asked in utter confusion.
Kakuzu clasped his hands behind his back, looking accomplished.
“I have just developed the first generation of Cup Noodle.”
“Cup Noodle?” The apprentice was even more baffled.
The relationship between Kakuzu’s main body and his clone was different from Shadow Clone, he could control the clone remotely, but he could also let the clone act independently.
During this time, Kakuzu’s main body naturally had not been idle.
He had been heavily researching new ways to get rich.
He had finally researched and created Cup Noodle.
This was a revolutionary food product that was highly easy to store, easy to prepare, tasted good, and was very inexpensive.
Once officially launched, it would definitely be a massive hit.
Build factories, mass-produce, make big money, establish a company, build a massive Cup Noodle Financial Empire, and buy out, buy out, buy out, conquering the entire world with economics… This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Since Kakuzu’s main body could not do much else at the moment, he joyfully began planning his initial accumulation of wealth.
On the other side, Yang successfully returned to the rendezvous point with Tsunade.
“She is Hashirama’s granddaughter?” Madara easily recognized Tsunade’s identity at a glance.
“That’s right,” Yang said.
“This is Hashirama’s treasured granddaughter.
With her here, Hashirama will definitely come.”
With that, he placed Tsunade gently on the ground.
“I will go make proper preparations.”
With those words, he vanished from the spot.
Madara casually sat on the ground, closing his eyes to quietly rest.
“Waaah~!”Tsunade gradually woke up.
Finding herself in a completely unfamiliar environment, she immediately burst into loud, wailing tears.
“Troublesome brat.” Madara opened his eyes, shot Tsunade a sharp glance, and closed them again, ignoring her.
“Waah~!
Waaah~!”Tsunade just kept crying, and crying, and crying…
“So noisy!”
Madara furiously opened his eyes, glaring intensely at the small toddler.
A child less than a year old knew no true fear, otherwise, the universal concept of bratty kids would not exist.
Startled by Madara’s sudden outburst, Tsunade only cried even louder.
“WAAAAH~!”
Madara was utterly helpless, he had absolutely no idea how to take care of a child, making a complete fool of himself for a brief moment.
After crying for a very long while, even as the little princess of the Senju clan, Tsunade grew tired.
Lying softly on the ground, she finally drifted off to sleep.
Yang quickly stepped forward, urging Madara to hide, Hashirama would be arriving very soon.
Sure enough, Hashirama appeared just a moment later.
“As stated in this letter, I came entirely alone.”
Hashirama wore the Hokage’s ceremonial robe, his gaze heavy and severe as he tightly clutched the letter Kakuzu had left behind.
Its contents were a blatant challenge, demanding Hashirama come alone.
And come alone he did.
He was Hashirama Senju, entirely unafraid even if facing all nine Tailed Beasts at once, let alone a mere written challenge.
Yang studied him, a sudden wave of nostalgia washing over him.
Assassinating Hashirama, this was the impossible mission that was forced upon him, yet now, entirely by accident, he carried it out anyway.
However, unlike before, even if this Yang Clone was completely destroyed, it would not affect his main body.
So he stood confidently before Hashirama without hesitation.
“Just to be perfectly safe, let me ask: you are not a Wood Clone, are you?”
With Yang’s eyesight, he genuinely could not tell whether the Hashirama standing before him was just a Wood Clone.
If he was, slicing off a piece of flesh would be exactly the same as slicing wood, completely useless.
Hashirama kept his expression flat.
“You seem quite well informed about me.
Rest assured, this is my main body.” He looked down at Tsunade beside Yang’s feet.
“My granddaughter, she…”
My target is only you, I have absolutely no interest in harming defenseless women and children.”
Kakuzu’s soul ultimately came from a peaceful modern society, he had a moral baseline.
He would show absolutely no mercy to trained shinobi.
After all, every shinobi in this era had blood firmly on their hands, their deaths were no real loss.
But toward defenseless civilians, women, and children, Kakuzu generally would not kill.
Hashirama breathed a massive sigh of relief, then asked sternly, “I want to take her away first.
Is that a problem?”
“Be my guest.” Yang was very accommodating.
Seeing this, Hashirama quickly created a Wood Clone, went over, picked up Tsunade, and returned her safely to Konoha.
His main body remained entirely in place.
He gave Yang a very measured look.
“You are clearly a man of principles.
You said you would not harm women and children.
If so, why did you brutally kill Tsunade’s parents?”
Yang asked on confusion.
“What did you say?”
He freely admitted he had swiped the man among that couple and casually added a kick.
But that level of force was nowhere near enough to actually kill a shinobi.
Having worked in the brutal assassination business for so many years, he was highly proficient in precisely controlling his strength.
Even in the absolute worst-case scenario, if the man really did die, how did the woman die?
Frightened to death?
That woman was the Daimyo’s Daughter, married to Hashirama’s son to officially forge an alliance with the Senju clan.
At the end of the day, she was a true princess, someone who had definitely seen grand, tense occasions.
She couldn’t possibly have been scared to death!
Unless she had something like hidden heart disease.
Huh, looking at it this way, there was still a very slight chance the two of them really were dead.
“I am afraid the one who ultimately killed them was not me, but someone else.”
A writhing mass of black tendrils sprouted from Yang Clone’s hands, intertwining and morphing into sharp, deadly claws, elongated and as wickedly sharp as steel blades.
‘Earth Grudge Fear: Claw Mode!’
In the instant the claws appeared, Hashirama moved.
He slammed his foot into the dirt, flashed directly in front of Yang Clone, and threw a devastating punch that landed squarely on his abdomen.
The sheer kinetic force bent Yang into a sharp bow shape, slamming him violently into the earth.
*Boom!*
With a deafening crash, the solid ground completely shattered.
All of this happened in the literal blink of an eye.
Hashirama did not even use his signature Wood Release, it was purely his own terrifying physical strength.
A normal person would have suffered thoroughly shattered internal organs and massive pulmonary hemorrhaging on impact.
Without a highly skilled medical ninja’s rapid intervention, they would surely die within a minute.
“Who is the killer?!”
Only after doing all this did Hashirama finally ask.
If Yang was the true killer, this punch had avenged them, even if he was not, he had left him exactly one minute to reveal the true culprit.
And since he boldly came to challenge him, dying under his fist was not an unjust death.
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