Boom!
The entire cave exploded apart.
Stone and dust blasted outward in every direction as the old underground chamber hidden beneath the Graveyard of the Mountains was torn open by sheer force.
This place was an abandoned, desolate stretch of rocky land between Takigakure and Otogakure.
For years, Madara Uchiha had hidden here.
Deep underground, inside a secret facility that resembled an old mine more than any proper base, he had clung to life by remaining connected to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. The deepest sections of the hideout even linked to ancient ruins said to date back to the Ōtsutsuki.
And now, the whole place had been ripped open.
Shiki descended slowly through the smoke and falling debris, his golden hair swaying faintly in the air.
His gaze swept across the ruined underground base below, and his brow twitched.
"…Seriously?"
"This is getting more annoying by the minute…"
He had already torn through one hideout, chased shadows across half the map, and now this one was empty too.
At this point, it was starting to feel personal.
Shiki let his Observation Haki spread out again, sweeping through the shattered chambers below.
Even then, he found nothing useful.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Then, as if something finally clicked, he rose back into the air.
A moment later, he crossed the sky and arrived at another well-known place—
Kannabi Bridge.
A smile slowly spread across his face.
With a slight tilt of his head, he extended one finger forward.
And then—
Boom.
Crack...
The hidden cavern below began to tear apart under an invisible force. Stone groaned, the earth split, and then the entire underground chamber ripped free from the ground and began floating into the air.
Using the power of the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi, Shiki lifted the whole buried structure into the sky—
along with the man seated inside it.
That man looked up at him, shock flashing for just a moment in his eyes.
"…Not bad."
"For an old man, you really made me work to find you."
Madara's eyes narrowed further the moment he heard that.
From those few words alone, he understood enough.
This Shiki... he wasn't surprised.
He sounded like he had known exactly who Madara was from the very beginning.
'How did this happen...?'
Madara's thoughts turned heavy.
He had been certain that, aside from Zetsu—and now Obito—no one should have had any idea that he was still alive.
At the same time, Shiki studied Madara just as closely.
And honestly...
Madara looked even worse than he had expected.
This was not the legendary monster who had once stood at the very peak of the shinobi world.
This was just an old man whose body had already begun to fail him.
His skin was dry and pale. His long hair hung heavily around him. His frame looked so frail that it felt like one strong gust of wind could snap him in half.
And most importantly—
there was no Rinnegan in his eyes.
Only the Sharingan remained.
Shiki smiled coldy seeing that.
So that was it.
Madara let his suspicion settle for the moment. Then he slowly raised his head and looked at him.
Even in such a wretched state, there was still arrogance in his gaze.
The Sharingan spun.
In the next instant, a genjutsu surged toward Shiki, striking while he was still controlling the gravity around them.
Shiki felt the foreign force trying to invade his mind.
A red light flashed in his eyes.
The moment the illusion touched him, crimson-black lightning erupted from his body. His Conqueror's Haki burst outward like a violent shockwave and crushed the genjutsu on contact.
It didn't merely break.
It was obliterated so completely that it was as if it had never existed in the first place.
"…So this is Sharingan genjutsu?"
Shiki tilted his head slightly, his voice full of mock disbelief.
"You really thought that was going to work?"
Madara's eyes widened a fraction.
The surprise only lasted a moment.
Then a low laugh slipped from his lips.
"…I see."
His voice was old and rough, yet it still carried that same pride.
"If you had been born in my era…"
A faint curve touched Madara's lips.
"You would have been a worthy opponent."
Shiki gave a casual wave of his hand.
"I'm not interested in picking on half-dead old men."
Then he moved.
His leg snapped out.
Crack.
The kick landed so hard that Madara's frail waist gave way with a sickening sound, and his entire body, chair and all, was launched backward.
The chair slammed into the stone wall behind him before toppling sideways onto the ground.
An ordinary person would have screamed.
Madara did not.
Instead—he laughed with all his might.
"Ahahaha…"
It was a dry, old, almost amused laugh.
He spread his arms slightly and remained slumped in the shattered chair Shiki had kicked him into.
The sight was ridiculous enough that even Shiki's expression twitched.
Madara laughed for a few moments before the sound gradually died down.
Then he lifted his head and looked at Shiki again.
"Go on. Do your worst."
"For someone like you, defeating me should be a source of pride, even now, when I am far from my peak."
His eyes darkened slightly.
"But the time will come…"
"…when I return the favor."
Shiki, who had already been getting irritated, suddenly laughed.
"Hahahaha…"
His grin widened, but there was no warmth in it.
"There won't be a next time, old man."
Madara's brows furrowed slightly, but he said nothing.
Inside, though, he felt a faint sense of amusement.
So he knows something… but not enough.
When the day came for him to return to this world in his true form, this brat would understand exactly what kind of existence he had provoked.
That thought had barely even finished forming in Madara's mind—
before Shiki spoke again.
"I know about the little plan you've been setting up, you old bastard."
Shiki's grin widened.
"You're planning to have that brat Obito use the Rinnegan to bring you back, aren't you?"
The cave fell into dead silence.
For the first time since Shiki arrived—
Madara's expression changed completely.
His composure cracked.
His aged eyes sharpened in an instant.
"…How do you know about the Rinnegan?"
There was no trace left of that calm, almost leisurely tone from before.
"That doesn't matter."
Shiki only smiled and gave a careless shrug.
Madara's face darkened at once.
For a brief moment, a frightening ferocity flashed through his eyes, so intense it felt completely out of place on that dying, withered body.
Then, just as quickly, it disappeared.
Madara calmed himself again.
And then he smiled.
It was a cold, confident smile.
"That boy has already begun walking into darkness."
Madara's voice was filled with pride, with the kind of certainty that bordered on contempt.
"While you stand here wasting time with a dying old man, Obito should already be taking the first step to carry out my will."
Shiki fell silent.
The reason he had not asked about Kakashi the moment he found Madara was not because he had forgotten, nor because he was being petty.
He had simply been annoyed.
Because seeing how calm Madara was… and realizing there was no one else here…
Shiki immediately understood at that moment.
Madara had deliberately let his presence be noticed.
He had used himself as bait, luring Shiki here on purpose.
As for the rest—
Shiki could piece it together easily enough.
Noticing Shiki's silence, a faint gleam passed through Madara's eyes, and he pressed on, clearly intending to dig deeper.
"I have faith in Obito."
"Even if you know the plan, it changes nothing."
"He will carry it through."
Madara lifted his gaze and locked eyes with Shiki.
"And when I return…"
His voice turned colder.
"You'll be the first one I deal with."
Shiki's expression, which had remained unreadable ever since he realized Kakashi might truly have died because of his own miscalculation, slowly turned dangerous.
He had accepted Kakashi as his student.
If Kakashi had really died because of this, then the failure was his.
That much was obvious.
But that did not mean Shiki had lost his composure.
Not when there was still a way to turn this around.
His eyes changed.
A strange light flickered within them.
For a single instant, the world itself seemed to warp as the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception opened completely.
Madara's old, wrinkled smile froze.
A bad feeling rose in his chest.
Those eyes—
something was wrong with them.
Something deeply wrong.
"I already let one mistake happen."
Shiki looked at him and spoke almost casually.
"I'm not making it twice."
His gaze stayed fixed on Madara.
"When I'm done with you…"
"…you won't be coming back."
Madara's pupils shrank.
For the first time in a very long while, a real sense of danger crept up his spine.
Shiki suddenly smiled, then tilted his head and pointed at his own eyes.
"Don't look so shocked. You were showing off your Sharingan a moment ago, weren't you?"
"So I figured I'd show you mine too."
He tapped just beneath his eye.
"These are a special kind of dōjutsu…"
And then he explained.
He said enough for Madara to understand what those eyes meant.
Enough for him to grasp what it meant if Shiki could truly see the death of all things—if he could perceive the lines and points that marked the end of an existence itself.
Enough for him to realize, with terrible clarity—
that if Shiki killed him now with those eyes, then even resurrection might become impossible.
And that—
was when despair finally crept into Madara Uchiha's heart.
He tried to move his old body, his voice shaking for the first time.
"No… this can't be…"
"How can a dōjutsu like that exist…?"
"It makes no sense…"
Madara could not accept it.
How could eyes like these—eyes never once recorded anywhere in the shinobi world—appear before him now, of all times?
Shiki looked down at him with cold amusement.
Honestly…
he did admire the old bastard a little.
Madara's plan had been meticulous.
Every piece had been placed exactly where it needed to be.
Even the contingencies. Even the measures prepared for enemies he had never met.
If it had been anyone else standing here—someone powerful, but blind to the bigger picture—
then Madara might really have succeeded.
That was what made him dangerous.
It was the result of cunning and power working together.
Unfortunately for him—
the one standing here was Shiki.
Someone with the strength to flip the board over…
…and the insight to understand the game in the first place.
Shiki had no interest in entertaining him any longer.
He raised his blade, then paused slightly, as if he had just remembered something.
"…Oh. Right."
A faint smirk touched his lips.
"Seeing you like this… I almost feel a little sorry for you."
Madara said nothing.
At this point, he no longer believed a single word coming out of Shiki's mouth.
Even if he died here… as long as Obito carried out the plan—
everything would still move forward.
Of that, he was certain.
Shiki glanced at him.
"Since you're about to die anyway… I'll do you one last favor."
"Have you ever wondered why everything fell into place so perfectly for you?"
"The Rinnegan."
"The stone tablet."
"The plan."
Madara's gaze trembled slightly.
For the first time, true shock flashed across his face.
He had never expected Shiki to know that much.
His mind moved at once.
Could Shiki's dōjutsu read the Uchiha stone tablet too, just like an Uchiha?
That was the only answer Madara could reach—
but Shiki's next words cut straight through that thought before it could settle.
"…Or how your so-called 'will' just conveniently appeared out of nowhere?"
Madara's eyes narrowed.
"…What are you saying?"
Shiki looked at him calmly.
"Black Zetsu."
Madara's expression changed.
"That's right," Shiki said. "The Infinite Tsukuyomi. The stone tablet. Your entire path."
"Almost all of it was guided to push you toward that ending."
Madara's face darkened.
"You're trying to provoke me."
He gave a low chuckle and shook his head, though the look in his eyes had already changed.
"Nothing you're saying makes any sense."
"Believe it or don't." Shiki's tone remained casual.
"It doesn't matter anymore."
The sword that had been raised finally came down, delivering the fatal blow.
Madara's head was severed cleanly.
Even as death closed in, Shiki's final words still reached him.
"You spent your whole life treating everyone around you like pawns."
"So it's only fitting that you meet the same end, Madara."
"There'd be no point lying about something like that."
Madara wanted to deny it.
Even in his final moments, he wanted to reject it all.
To tell himself it was just one last attempt to shake him before death.
But the more his thoughts turned—
the less it felt like coincidence.
The less it felt like madness.
And for the first time…
doubt entered his heart.
Had he really chosen the wrong path?
In those final fading moments, another figure rose in his mind—
Hashirama.
His old friend.
The man who had always walked forward for the sake of the village.
'Hashirama…'
'Where did I go wrong…?'
And then darkness took him.
Elsewhere...
at that very same moment...
another scene was unfolding.
But unlike Madara's end, this one was drowned in blood.
The ground was soaked red.
A lone figure knelt there, holding another in his arms.
Obito Uchiha.
And Kakashi Hatake.
Obito stared silently at Kakashi's lifeless body in his arms.
Then blood began to run from his eyes.
Thin crimson trails slipped down his face as both eyes glowed with an eerie light, the pattern of the Mangekyō Sharingan spinning within them.
His expression twisted, and when he spoke, his voice came out low and hollow.
"…I'm in hell."
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