"Where is it?" Madara asked as soon as he landed. Then, he gazed around.
The area was a mess—that was all he could think. A giant hole was dug out on top of a hill, wooden pillars supporting the sidese. At the very bottom lay a portal—deactivated.
"Hm," frowning, Madara saw Tobirama in the crowd of Senju ninja surrounding the hole. There were some Uchiha mixed in with them, too.
'This fellow,' Madara sneered. In the formation, each Uchiha was paired with two Senju. The implication couldn't be more obvious.
"What happened here?" Madara asked, his voice loud and commanding. Tobirama clicked his tongue as soon as he heard it.
Still, he complied. His brother was somewhere unknown, after all, and only one man could do anything about it.
"Elder brother sensed something amiss in this area," he said, not bothering to look at Madara's way. "He used wood style and dug this out. We found that," he pointed at the unlit portal.
"It was… activate when we found it, so elder brother used his wood style to send a pillar inside. Who knows what happened, an explosion echoed through and deactivated the portal," Tobirama hummed at the end of his sentence.
Meanwhile, Madara's mind was already thinking of a possibility.
'When we found our portal, that Uchiha said that there was a man who came out of it… could it be?' He narrowed his eyes. At first, they suspected the samurai from the land of iron, but later found they weren't the culprit.
Seeing Madara silent, Tobirama squinted. "Do you know something, Madara?"
Madara scoffed. "How did Hashirama activate the portal?"
Tobirama remained silent. Madara gave him a glance. "Tell me, otherwise I will leave now," he said, turning around. "How will I look for Hashirama when the portal is deactivated?"
Of course, he could always activate it now. But deception is a ninja's greatest tool.
Tobirama gritted his teeth.
"We don't know. The exact method. All I saw was elder brother pouring chakra into the portal for a few seconds, and it activated. Then, he jumped in—before the portal suddenly closed."
Madara blinked. 'He did it as fast as me without the sharingan's help?'
To open the portal, Madara learned a few things. Firstly, yin chakra nature was essential—he tried it with yang chakra nature before, but the efficiency was horrible. Secondly, using his eternal mangekyou sharingan, he could further increase his efficiency, making the opening faster and cost less chakra.
Yet here Hashirama was.
"Did he use sage mode?" Madara's brows furrowed.
Tobirama shook his head. "Elder brother did not. We, the Senju, tried opening it ourselves, but it takes too much chakra. Logically speaking…"
Tobirama's frown almost carved his chin. Logically speaking, the entire Senju clan should have enough chakra to at least get close to Hashirama's chakra pool. Even if they didn't, matching half of Hashirama's chakra pool wasn't far-fetched.
But when they tried fueling the portal, they were all almost instantly drained—except Tobirama himself.
Madara glanced at Tobirama, who held back his words. 'The Senju outnumbers the Uchiha. From what Tobirama is implying, something went wrong. Is it because they don't have the sharingan's innate yin chakra nature and perception?'
Ignoring Hashirama, the anomaly, Madara felt like it was likely the case.
"Well in that case, let me," Madara's voice lowered, turning condescending, "Madara Uchiha, do what you Senju couldn't do."
At the end of his sentence, Tobirama almost took out a kunai.
'Hashirama… Without sage mode, the only thing I can think of that would help him is his wood style ninjutsu. Maybe with that, he can use yang chakra nature instead of yin, to open this portal,' he thought, raising his hand and pointing his palms at the portal.
"Now," his face turned solemn. "OPEN!"
With a chakra surge, his eternal mangekyou sharingan opened in all its glory.
***
"RAAA!!!"
Clapping his hands, Hashirama gathered his chakra, summoning forth a giant buddha behind him.
"Ha… Ha…" Breathing heavily, Hashirama gritted his teeth. "Damn it! If only I could use sage mode! My chakra won't recover either!"
Looking in front of him, an army of humanoid pigs (piglins) wearing golden armor faced his way, their faces contorted in bloodlust. The land around them was blood red, and the sky was… non-existent, replaced by more land. Hovering in the air were large creatures spitting out fireballs, with more piglins riding atop of them.
Not to mention… An ocean of lava surrounded the piece of land they were standing on, with more lava cascading down from the ceiling.
Each second, he felt his skin burning, his chakra wasted just to keep him from being cooked alive.
"Damn it! Counting the hours, it should've been eight days already! Is no one coming?!"