The wind screamed through the broken void.
Where once multiverses overlapped in chaotic beauty, now there was silence—an endless graveyard of drifting ruins, shattered stars, and hollow dimensions stripped of purpose. Time bent unnaturally. The sky was neither day nor night, only a rippling fabric of colors that never existed on any normal spectrum.
Julius Novachrono hovered in the eye of the storm.
His cloak billowed like torn paper, time magic coiling around him like smoke. Every movement he made fractured the space beneath his feet. Behind him, what remained of the Council of Heroes gathered—broken, bloodied, but standing.
Madara Uchiha stood alone.
Not as the man he once was, but as the embodiment of something far older. His Eternal Mangekyō spun like whirlpools of reality, and the Rinnegan in his other eye glowed with pure inevitability. This was not the version of Madara who had died in his world. This was Madara after merging with the Root of Despair—a cursed anomaly that existed before time, born from every timeline's discarded failures.
He no longer walked. He floated. His hair moved like ink in water, and his voice made gravity tremble.
"You think you've reached the edge," Madara said, gazing over the wreckage of the last resistance. "You haven't. You're standing on it."
Julius didn't respond. He simply lifted his grimoire, golden pages fluttering despite the absence of wind. The others stepped forward in unison.
Goku, tattered and drained, wiped the blood from his mouth. His Ultra Instinct form flickered erratically, barely stable.
Gojo stood beside him, blindfold gone, one eye burned shut, the other sparking with residual Limitless energy. His Infinity field was shattered, but his presence burned like a flare.
Naruto's Nine Tails chakra flared behind him, a protective cloak of red-and-gold foxfire barely masking his exhaustion.
Ichigo held Zangetsu with both hands—his hollow mask cracked, his Shinigami robes torn, but his resolve burning brighter than ever.
Vegeta, silent and seething, hovered just above the fractured platform, his aura flickering between Ultra Ego and something new. A deeper purple surged beneath the surface.
They were all past their limits.
"Last warning," Julius said, voice sharp. "Retreat. Let this reality die if you must. But don't take everything with it."
Madara smiled.
"Time has always been your greatest lie. You think it's a shield," he said, raising a single hand. "But I am its end."
The sky collapsed.
From above, a massive obsidian sphere descended—no larger than a moon, yet heavy enough to warp timelines in its orbit. Every fragment of history screamed as it approached. The sphere pulsed with the regrets of a thousand timelines, the pain of choices unmade, futures undone.
"The Black Sun," Gojo whispered, his expression hardening. "He's invoking it here?"
"No one's ever survived its full descent," Julius said. "Because no one has ever fought it this close."
They didn't wait for impact.
Vegeta vanished first, a thunderclap marking his sudden burst forward. Goku followed immediately, then Ichigo. Naruto shot upward like a comet, and Gojo spun a sphere of compressed reality before launching it toward the center of the black sun.
Madara's laugh echoed as he descended alongside it, each step creating shockwaves that cracked the very concept of distance. He clashed first with Goku—fist to palm—before parrying Vegeta's sudden right hook with the back of his hand.
"Stronger," Madara noted, almost impressed. "But still rooted in your original selves."
Vegeta snarled. "I'm not who I was. I transcended that man."
He drove his knee into Madara's side. The impact rippled the void, but Madara didn't flinch. Instead, he raised his hand, forming a series of invisible limbo rods that sliced through space.
Gojo intercepted them, using bare hands and raw force to redirect them toward a collapsing dimension nearby.
Naruto soared through the sky with Rasenshuriken in both hands—one glowing golden, the other deep crimson.
"Eat this!"
He hurled both. Madara raised his arm to counter—but the Rasenshuriken exploded mid-flight, releasing a swarm of clones made of pure chakra. They swarmed Madara, detaining him momentarily.
"Go!" Naruto shouted. "Hit the sun before it stabilizes!"
Julius moved.
Time slowed around him, but it didn't obey like it used to. The presence of the black sun distorted even his spells. He gritted his teeth and layered seven different time spheres around himself—each spinning at different speeds.
Above, Ichigo roared, unleashing the full force of his merged Bankai—black lightning and spiritual energy slashing downward. He cleaved a path directly into the black sun's surface.
Inside, it was hollow.
And screaming.
Julius followed, slipping into the core.
There was no center—just a paradox of broken timelines. Every failed world. Every hero who fell too soon. Every villain who never faced justice. They all existed here, forgotten.
He saw reflections—countless versions of Naruto dying before mastering Kurama, Goku failing to protect Earth, Gojo erased by cursed manipulation, Ichigo crushed under his inner hollow.
And in the center, a throne of bones.
On it, sat another Madara. Older. Rotting. Timeless.
It wasn't alive.
It was the idea of Madara.
"You've seen what I really am," the voice echoed. "I'm not a man. I'm the echo left behind when every hero loses."
The throne lifted.
And Julius realized: This wasn't just one Madara. This was the graveyard of every failed timeline where Madara won.
The black sun was his victory lap.
Outside, the fight intensified. Gojo screamed as blood streamed from his eyes, holding back the collapsing infinity around them. Naruto fell to one knee, Kurama's voice weakening.
"Too much… too fast…"
Ichigo's blade shattered again.
Only Vegeta stood, breathing hard.
And laughing.
"Good," he muttered, face wild. "Now this is a real fight."
He powered up again, past Ultra Ego—beyond anything he'd touched before. His aura flared into deep black with silver veins, and for the first time, Madara looked surprised.
Julius returned from the core.
He wasn't alone.
He carried with him a fragment of timeline crystal—a remnant of the first ever multiverse.
He looked to his allies.
"One last push," he said. "Or everything we are gets rewritten into dust."
They didn't need more words.
Vegeta surged forward, roaring. Gojo pulled reality taut, holding it in place. Naruto stood tall, both hands forming a new seal. Ichigo picked up half of his blade and used it like a dagger.
Goku returned, aura blazing.
Julius ascended above them all.
And in that moment, they weren't just heroes.
They were every possibility that refused to die.
The throne shattered.
Madara screamed.
The black sun cracked.
And the war for existence began its final phase.