no 494 apparently?
Chapter 495: The Soul Shackle
Madara was in a foul mood.
An extremely foul mood.
It had been lodged in his throat like a splinter from the moment he arrived -- impossible to swallow, impossible to spit out. He stood with his arms folded at the edge of the group, his expression broadcasting a clear and unmistakable message to anyone who looked his way: do not approach.
He swept a glance over the others assembled here. Hashirama. Tobirama. The Second Mizukage. The Second Tsuchikage. The Third Raikage. And his brother, Izuna.
Every one of them had been hired. Only he had been conscripted.
The distinction mattered. The others had a choice -- complete their service, then go on to reincarnation and a new life. He had no such horizon. Permanently bound to this place, permanently serving as that blond boy's enforcer, no reincarnation waiting at the end, not ever.
And now, layered on top of that indignity, there was another problem directly in front of him.
The question of who led this group.
The composition of this improvised unit was, frankly, an affront to any organized thinking. Leaf. Rock. Cloud. Mist. People who had spent decades trying to kill each other. Without a clear leader, this group would not get as far as completing a single task before someone started a fight on the inside.
So a leader was needed. Someone who could make the room go quiet. Someone with enough weight to hold it together.
There was no suspense about who that had to be.
There was no second candidate besides Hashirama.
The man simply stood there without making any particular effort, without deliberately projecting his presence, and everyone naturally looked to him. Not only because his strength was genuinely the greatest here -- though it was -- but because of something else. Something irritating and inexplicable. That man simply had this effect on people.
Which led to the obvious conclusion: Uchiha Madara was going to have to take direction from Hashirama.
Not that Hashirama would ever force him. Not that Hashirama would use anything other than that infuriatingly warm manner to say "Madara, whatever you'd prefer is fine." But an order was still an order. Obedience was still obedience.
It felt like an invisible collar around his neck, with the other end of the leash held in Hashirama's hand.
"..."
He turned his head away. He refused to look at Hashirama's bright, hopeful eyes.
"..."
The visible effect on Hashirama was immediate and obvious. The eager, delighted expression -- the one that had been looking forward to fighting alongside his old friend -- crumpled into something quite small.
"Brother!" Tobirama stepped in immediately, making no effort to disguise the provocation in his voice. "Why are you wasting breath on this waste of space? If he refuses to cooperate, just make him. Simple."
His gaze slid toward Madara with a look that said he had been waiting for exactly this excuse for some time.
Izuna moved at once. He stepped forward, putting himself directly between Madara and Tobirama, eyes locked on Tobirama with the kind of precision that made the air around him feel sharp.
"Use it," Tobirama continued, giving Izuna's hostility no more attention than he would give a light breeze. "With that thing chained to his soul, even if he decides to throw a tantrum --"
"Tobirama."
Hashirama's head came up sharply. He cut his brother off in a voice that had actual weight to it -- the warmth still there, but something harder underneath. "That is enough."
"Madara is my friend. I will not use that."
"..."
Tobirama held his brother's gaze for a few seconds. Then, in silence, he turned and looked off in the direction of Rasa, his expression making his disappointment clear.
Not seeing what he wanted to see.
That much was evident.
-- -- --
This was the restraint that Naruto had prepared for Uchiha Madara.
A Six Paths-grade binding, created on the spot. As for what to call it -- Naruto had said he hadn't thought of a name yet, and that the function was what mattered.
It was invisible. Intangible. But Madara could feel it with perfect clarity -- a cold thread embedded in the depths of his soul, its other end connected to Hashirama.
The function was straightforward. If Uchiha Madara entertained any "other ideas" -- attempts to resist, to flee, to act against anyone present -- his soul would experience whatever level of pain had been configured for it.
At the low end: the sensation of ants eating him from the inside. At the high end: his soul being torn apart.
The authority to determine which, and how much, rested with Hashirama.
This was the real source of his fury.
Hashirama held the power of life and death over him.
It didn't matter that Hashirama had said "I won't use it." It didn't matter what genuine warmth that man's eyes carried when he said it. The authority was still there.
The collar was still there.
Uchiha Madara's life was held in Hashirama's hand.
"In any case..."
Hashirama cleared his throat and began carefully choosing his words, trying to think of some way to ease Madara into this, some way to make clear that the binding wasn't something he had any intention of actually using --
Then.
A rush of displaced air.
A figure shot past him.
Uchiha Madara had simply leapt forward.
"Who is that -- ?!"
Rasa reacted quickly.
He saw the figure hurtling toward him -- black hair, red armor, ferocious momentum, and those eyes. Those eyes that made his soul flinch before he could understand why.
But he didn't recognize the face.
Because in that fraction of a second, he had no time to connect "strange eyes" to "legendary demon of the shinobi world." He only knew: whoever this was meant him harm.
Rasa's hands flew apart. His chakra surged. The gold dust coating the ground tore upward and compacted itself in front of him into a solid cube -- a mass easily large enough to flatten a small hill -- and he drove it forward at full force.
"WHOOSH -- !!"
The cube screamed through the air toward the approaching figure.
Then.
It vanished.
One instant it was moving with enough force to obliterate anything in its path. The next instant it was simply gone -- erased from the air as though it had never existed.
Rasa's pupils contracted to pinpoints.
He saw: those purple eyes, flickering with dark light.
Sealing Absorption. The Rinnegan's Preta Path technique, consuming ninjutsu and making it vanish entirely.
Then.
Blue light coalesced in Madara's hand.
A Susanoo blade.
The blade punched through Rasa's body in an instant. Rasa's mouth fell open but no sound came out -- only violent convulsions as the pain tore through what remained of his soul.
"This is... Susanoo..."
He looked down, struggling, at the blue blade transfixing him. Then he raised his eyes to the cold, impatient face staring back at him.
"You're..."
He had worked it out.
That name. That legend. The one that had been passed through the shinobi world for generations, a forbidden word belonging to a previous age. "Uchiha... Madara...?"
He didn't understand.
He didn't understand what a being of that magnitude was doing here.
He didn't understand what he himself could possibly have done to deserve a monster of that caliber dealing with him personally.
"Hmph."
Madara pulled the Susanoo blade back and tossed Rasa toward the waiting Velociraptors as though discarding something he had already finished with.
The Velociraptors closed in immediately, sharp claws pinning Rasa's limbs to the ground, ensuring no further resistance would be possible.
"Done."
Uchiha Madara turned back toward Hashirama's group, his face broadcasting irritation in every line. "That counts as finished, doesn't it? What's next?" His tone carried the unmistakable energy of someone forced to perform a task they found beneath contempt.
Dealing with a Fourth Kazekage.
He recalled what Hashirama had said moments ago -- "Come on, we're doing this together." He let out a cold breath through his nose.
Overestimating that man, or underestimating Uchiha Madara?
"...Our gratitude."
A voice spoke.
It came from the Velociraptor currently pinning Rasa to the ground. It raised its head, vertical pupils regarding Madara with steady amber attention, and spoke in that deep, unhurried voice -- human language with an ancient quality to it.
"Please return with us."
It paused. The sharp claws pressed fractionally tighter, drawing a smothered grunt of pain from the body beneath them.
"Going forward, sending souls who refuse cooperation into the Animal Realm, or into the Asura Realm -- that will be our shared work."
-- -- --
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