A bottomless hole.
The two men that Masahiko and Hashirama have followed entered a suspicious cave.
The light inside the cave was dim, only a few candles were lightening the path. Masahiko couldn't see right through the cave, his vision got isolated by the darkness.
The two Anbu has already entered carrying that bag. Hashirama started to feel that something is wrong. He nodded at Masahiko, ready to get in and explore the place.
But Masahiko stopped Hashirama.
"It's so concealed. There may be an army of Anbu down here or just a training place, but who knows. We don't want to be reckless."
Hashirama didn't say anything back and just nodded.
On the way back to the village, Masahiko secretly used a Shadow Clone and sent it carefully to investigate the situation in the cave, while Hashirama wasn't paying attention.
This has caused both of them an embarrassing scene; when Masahiko's clone was about to enter the cave, it encountered Hashirama's clone there.
The two looked at each other for a moment, then Masahiko sighed, "Let's go!" and thought in his heart, "Hope it's not what I'm thinking…"
The two stepped into the entrance, after a few steps, a layer of stairs appeared at their feet. As they went down, the candles on both sides became denser. A straight path went down a hundred meters, then they turned right to found a massive gate in front of them.
"What is this exactly…" Masahiko murmured; in his perception, the same material used to construct this gate was covering the entire place, which was making him unable to sense anything inside.
The two of them looked at each other and nod; when they were ready to open the gate, it got opened on itself.
They could see two people inside, which were the two Anbu from before. The four looked at each other. And now the situation got more awkward and tense.
"Tobu, Hane, why are you standing there?' A familiar voice was heard from inside.
The two Anbu didn't say anything, and the man from inside slowly walked to the door. Upon reaching the door see Masahiko and Hashirama.
"…"
The atmosphere got weird, it took Masahiko a while to finally wave his hand, "What a coincidence, fancy… seeing… you here…"
This person was Tobirama's clone… If it wasn't for the wrong place, he would be inexplicably joyful for their three clones to meet.
"Second Grandpa," He paused with a tight expression, "Big brother…"
"This is a training ground for the Anbu. Why are you here?" After saying this, Tobirama turned to the two Anbu and said, "You two, go back first."
Hashirama waited for the two Anbu to leave, then sighed. "Tobirama, you are not good at lying, and Second Grandpa is a Perceptive Shinobi. You know, no secret will stay hidden the moment that gate was open. Grandpa, what's inside?"
Masahiko seemed slightly speechless, then he shook his head, "Go see for yourself…"
Tobirama's face changed; no man can stop Hashirama, even his brother. Hashirama rushed straight toward the door behind Tobirama.
Masahiko looked at Tobirama and sighed, "How are you going to explain this to your brother?"
Even though Masahiko hasn't entered yet, but he already knows what kind of place is this. Just by guessing from the person who was taken inside, he knew what kind of dark experiments were happening here. He almost forgot that Tobirama was the greatest scientist ever lived in Naruto World before Orochimaru's born. However, he never expected that Tobirama was also involved in human experiments.
Tobirama's face was low, but he didn't answer Masahiko's question and chased down Hashirama.
Masahiko shook his head and walked inside slowly.
What caught his eyes were bodies of various animals sealed in ice.
"Wait… are all of these Summoned Beasts? Where did he find them? Did he only experiment on animals?" Masahiko murmured. Thinking of the living person who was carried by the Anbu, Masahiko shook his head and moved forward.
When he entered the next room, Masahiko's heart got filled with darkness just from the first glance.
Various human organs and bodies were encased by crystals, it's like a laboratory. And the objects of these experiments were,
Human.
However, after inspecting for a moment, Masahiko felt slightly relieved. He didn't find any familiar face there, it seems that Tobirama didn't use the villagers as experimental objects, unlike Orochimaru.
Walking deeper, Masahiko could hear the quarrel between Hashirama and Tobirama.
"Big brother! I'm doing this for the sake of our village! If I successfully develop this Ninjutsu, then we won't be at a disadvantage if war ever happens!"
"Tobirama! Stop this experiment at once!"
"Big brother! The experimental object is the defective ninjas from the other villages, which is actually the best use of them!"
"Best use of them? These are human beings!"
....
Masahiko walked in, and the two brothers looked at him at the same, which stunned him for a moment, they were waiting for him to say something, but Masahiko could only sigh, "You two keep arguing, I'll just listen."
Hashirama was about to go for it again, but Tobirama didn't give up too, he was gonna try everything to change his brother's opinion, so he quickly said, "Big brother, Grandpa, my Ninjutsu has already made some results, I will show you!"
Tobirama then walked deeper into another room. After a while, Tobirama dragged a person out.
Hashirama looked coldly at Tobirama, refusing to give up, Tobirama start to demonstrate, "Big brother, this is the newly captured spy that was spying on our village."
Hashirama didn't say anything.
Tobirama then took a scroll; after unleashing it, a small inscription seal of blood appears in front of them.
Tobirama then used some hand signs, "Kuchiyose – Edo Tensei!" After the hand clasped together, a coffin rose from the ground and loaded that ninja, then opened again, and the strange face exposed made Hashirama slightly stunned.
"Sure enough, it's the Edo Tensei… Is this a major change in the Naruto world?"
The ninja inside the coffin slowly opened his eyes, then remained motionless.
Tobirama explained quickly, "The person's soul summoned from the afterlife, by using this technique only has half of their power before death. I'm now trying to make them have some ingenuity. If it succeeds, even if we besieged by the other four great villages, we will stand a chance!"
"Summoning? Soul? Afterlife?" These three questions were consecutively asked by Hashirama, who was frowning at Tobirama.
After just a few seconds later, Hashirama got furious.
"Tobirama! You're not only experimenting on living people but also playing with the soul of the dead! This experiment must stop at once!"
Tobirama got puzzled, "Big brother! This is for the sake of Konoha…" Halfway speaking, he got stopped by one cold stare from Hashirama.
"Mokuton – Deep Forest Emergence!" No more words, Hashirama decided to destroy the laboratory.
But… Masahiko's face got pale, knowing that he was gonna get buried alive.
Not only him, but even Tobirama and Hashirama couldn't survive.
At the main gate of the village, Hashirama and Masahiko were about to enter the village, when the memories from their clones that suddenly flashed in their minds changed the expression on their faces.
Masahiko frowned slightly, "The development of the Edo Tensei was not finished yet, and I didn't get any witness points…"
"However, I didn't expect it to have this kind of development, so it's better that I didn't participate."