Madara's gaze locked onto Stark—unyielding cosmic precision. Finn's police training cataloged micro-tremors: reactor flaring cobalt-bright, fingers tightening on useless gauntlet triggers—defiance warring with exhaustion. Finn-Madara inhaled—smelling burnt circuits, ozone, Stark's adrenal sweat tart against millennia-old battlefields. The words formed—Finn's pragmatic framing layered beneath Madara's glacial contempt: "So," Madara's voice resonated—low gravel grinding tectonic plates—"Do you have some sort of team… Stark?" Stark blinked—once, twice—processing sheer absurdity. Madara tilted his head—Rinnegan tracing Stark's cracked visor. "Or is isolation… your preferred weakness?" Finn sensed layers beneath the jab: tactical assessment, veiled offer. Hashirama remained statue-still—ash-gray dread shifting towards nascent strategy. Survival demanded forces. Stark's breath hitched—Finn recognized the precise millisecond Iron Man's ego yielded to necessity.
Stark barked a laugh—harsh, brittle—gloved hand gesturing wildly at the asteroid-churned devastation littered with Iron Man armor fragments. "Team?!" His voice cracked—half-hysterical, half-strategic—Finn noted the deliberate theatricality. "I had a team!" Tony jabbed a finger at the skyline—smoking skyscrapers bleeding Stark Tower's fractured arc reactor glow. "Rogers! Thor! Banner! Fury's circus!" His voice dropped—raw vulnerability flashing beneath armored bravado. "Gone… scrambled like cosmic eggs!" Madara absorbed it—Rinnegan dissecting Stark's fragmented pride. Finn cataloged: Missing Avengers. Disbanded defenses. Temporal fractures scattering allies. Zetsu exploited vacuums. Survival demanded reassembly. Madara's armored knuckles tightened around the Gunbai—Oak wood groaning beneath celestial grip. Finn-Madara's pulse quickened—thrumming with unfamiliar urgency: *Hashirama's Konoha. Stark's Avengers. Fractured shields needing reforging.*
Hashirama moved—sudden, decisive—placing himself equidistant between Madara's cosmic glare and Stark's trembling defiance. Cedar scent thickened—centuries-old diplomacy radiating tangible authority. Finn sensed relief—direction replacing dread. "Teams scatter," Hashirama stated—voice resonating with the weight of valleys carved and wars ended. "But trust… rebuilds them." His gaze shifted—impossibly—
Madara's armored hand shot out—not aggressively, but with devastating precision—halting mid-air inches before Hashirama's chest. Silence screamed louder than Chibaku Tensei's destruction. Finn tasted ozone fused with abrupt realization: *anchors*. Temporal drift demanded fixed points. The Rinnegan's rings contracted—galactic wheels grinding historical truth into dust. Madara's voice emerged—cold iron wrapped in glacial patience: "Hashirama." Every syllable vibrated with borrowed lifetimes. **"When…"** Stark froze—reactor light catching the edge of Madara's gauntlet like frozen lightning. Hashirama's breath hitched—raw dread bleeding through clan lord composure. Madara's gaze remained unblinking—voids swallowing fractured timelines. **"…did we have our final battle?"**
The question pulsed—a chakra-infused blade carving through millennia of manipulated history. Finn felt Madara's certainty: Zetsu's poison had twisted *this*. Memory-fog swirled—Finn's detective instincts clawing through Uchiha bitterness: *Senju-Uchiha treaty signing? Valley's crimson rain?* Hashirama flinched—a micro-shudder Finn's police eyes cataloged as profound distress. Stark's scanners emitted a frantic chirp—temporal resonance spike detected. Konoha's false forest canopy flickered—briefly revealing a ghostly battlefield layered beneath Central Park's ruins: torn Gunbai beside splintered Wood Release vines dripping phantom blood. The image shattered—reality stitching violently back. Madara's fingers curled—armor grinding audible in the suffocating stillness. Truth coiled like a serpent—striking imminent. Hashirama's lips parted—ancient pain warring with dawning horror. "The… Valley," he whispered—ash choking his voice. "After… Izuna—" Madara's Rinnegan blazed violet—cosmic fury igniting. Finn-Madara knew: *That lie dies today.*
Madara's armored hand seized Hashirama's forearm—crushing grip radiating tectonic pressure. Stark stumbled back—repulsor sputtering uselessly against chakra-saturated dread. "Izuna?" Madara hissed—words venom dripping onto scorched earth. "Murdered by *your* hand?" Finn felt memory-shatters slice upwards—Zetsu's whisper poison: *Hashirama betrayed… killed Izuna… ended ceasefire.* Hashirama recoiled—genuine shock etching deep furrows beside wary eyes. "Madara—*never*!" His voice cracked—desperation bleeding through millennia-clad diplomacy. Stark gasped—helmet scanners confirming chakra-truth resonance: Hashirama's denial pulsed pure light against Madara's suspicion-darkness. Finn's logic fused: *Zetsu corrupted it all.* Temporal anchors buckled—Valley battle flickered again—spectral Hashirama weeping over Madara's corpse—no Izuna present. Stark's tech screeched—parallax error. Madara's Rinnegan narrowed—cosmic wheels grinding towards revelation. "Show me," Madara commanded—deadly quiet. "The battlefield. Now."
Hashirama inhaled—pine scent deepening—as he slammed both palms onto fractured bedrock. Wood surged—not shields or walls—but *roots*. Ancient, gnarled limbs erupted—tearing through rubble—searing trajectories towards the phantom valley flickering beneath Manhattan's ruins. Stark gagged—caught between vertigo and disbelief as roots coiled around them—a living elevator plunging through strata-stacked realities. Layers blurred—Konoha's illusion peeled away—revealing Central Park superimposed onto bloody soil—
Madara's armored heel sank into mud—familiar coldness—staining steel crimson. Wind whispered ghosts—ash clinging to Gunbai's battered edge. Stark staggered beside him—armor splattered—scanners choked by temporal static. Hashirama stood rigid—eyes scanning spectral carnage flickering across their present ruins: kunai lodged in alien hulls, Chitauri corpses dissolving beside Shodaime-era armor shards. Reality wept corrupted memories. Stark muttered—dazed—"Avengers…can't reassemble…fragmented…" Madara's Rinnegan pulsed—locking onto Stark's flickering reactor light—a cosmic anchor against temporal drift. His voice sliced spectral mist—cold iron wrapped in ruthless pragmatism:
"Stark." The name vibrated—dirt shifting beneath armored soles. "Do you have… backup?"
Silence thickened—heavy with implication. Stark froze—helmet tilted upward—scanning Madara's unblinking cosmic glare. Hashirama's knuckles whitened—earth trembling beneath suppressed Wood Release. Finn-Madara cataloged micro-expressions: not dismissal. *Calculation*. Stark's gauntlet sparked—a flicker of desperate brilliance beneath cracked plating. "Backup?" He choked—half-laugh—half-strategy. Madara remained statue-still—Rinnegan dissecting every tremor—every flicker of desperate ingenuity behind Tony's fractured facade. Survival demanded contingencies. Stark inhaled—raw resolve sharpening panic. His gauntlet snapped upward—projecting a fractured hologram—jerky, corrupted—yet unmistakable: crimson armor—brooding silhouette—chain smoking within Siberian gloom. Recognition hit Madara—Finn's cop-mind fused with Uchiha instinct—*Soldier. Predator. Asset*. Stark rasped—voice tight with gambled defiance:
"Yeah, Madara… Winter Soldier."