Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Someone had finally deigned to mark Kaguya as missing and authorise an investigation into her whereabouts. The Otsutsuki clan operated on a time scale more comparable to that of stars than biological beings, but even by their standards, she should have returned with her harvest at least one hundred years ago.

Momoshiki had originally been tapped for the mission, but Tobirama had successfully argued his own case. Nobody actually knew where Kaguya was, only that she had departed in a direction southeast of Mount Shumisen, and that her end destination was likely two or three layers downward from the mountain’s base.

Locating viable worlds where a God Tree could be planted was a more difficult task than it seemed, and so standard procedure was to simply send an agent out into the abyss, where they would search through worlds on foot for a viable candidate, farm it, and once they returned, the location would be marked down as used.

Tobirama found the system wildly inefficient, and he had begun collaging and studying the maps made by the clan in an attempt to identify patterns of where viable worlds appeared in order to cut down on wasted travel time. It was difficult, since four-dimensional space was not as linear as three-dimensional space, and worlds moved in orbital patterns like any other celestial body, but Tobirama had finally devised a functional model. He had used it to present his work to the Branch Head, where he had managed to narrow down a small area where Kaguya was likely to have last been seen.

Pleased, Branch Head Senshiki-sama had given the mission to Tobirama instead of Momoshiki, and Tobirama was somewhat excited. Though he knew that danger lurked ahead – either in the form of a rebellious Kaguya or something strong enough to have killed her – if Tobirama succeeded, his instructions were to finish the harvest Kaguya hadn’t, and he would be rewarded with the Rinnegan.

The Rinnegan would open up countless new doors for Tobirama’s research, and so he was determined to succeed. It would also finally give him the ability to fly on his own without having to rely on a feather cloak.

Even with his calculations narrowing down the search range, the journey still took Tobirama well over ten years. His cloak, tied around his waist like a sarong, allowed him to utilise Yomotsu Hirasaka, which created bridges of instantaneous travel between any two points in space-time, with a higher cost the further apart the two points were.

This extended to travelling between two different dimensions, but Tobirama only had so much chakra. His destination was extraordinarily far away, so much so that perhaps only the Emperor himself could have made the jump in a single bridge. Tobirama quickly discovered that the most economical way to travel was in many short bursts. Making long, costly jumps risked stranding him in a world without anything edible, water, or a safe place to sleep, and he was still a biological organism. It was better to choose to rest and refuel when he still had chakra on hand to defend himself or continue travelling if needed.

Tobirama knew he’d found the right world the second he crossed into it, because it was beautiful.

It looked almost like a marble – a little blue and green planet, decorated with swirling white clouds and what appeared to be pale caps of ice at both poles. It had one moon, glowing an unnatural red and marked with a very distinctive design. Three concentric rings, nine tomoe, and a pupil, making it resemble a great eye staring down at the planet’s surface.

That was the Infinite Tsukuyomi. It should have been a good sign, but it only made Tobirama feel uneasy. Infinite Tsukuyomi indicated the main phase of farming, when the God Tree had successfully grown a complete root system that would allow it to reach anything and everything that contained chakra on the planet. At that point, the Otsutsuki overseeing the process would activate Infinite Tsukuyomi, putting all living organisms to sleep so that they could not resist as the God Tree’s roots reached up to capture them and begin draining their chakra.

Perhaps nothing was wrong, and Kaguya was merely running behind because this planet was so rich in chakra and needed more time to extract. It was feasible. The great blue swathes of ocean certainly could have indicated an abundance of life. But Tobirama still couldn’t shake the sense that something was off.

He closed in slowly, using the cloud cover to mask his approach, and shivered as he entered the atmosphere. Once Tobirama knew he was in range, he activated his chakra sense to begin sweeping across the planet’s surface, and froze.

The majority of the planet’s surface was dead. Its natural chakra was incredibly weak; so weak that it shouldn’t have been able to sustain itself on its own. There was a God Tree here with a complete root system that spanned the planet’s entire surface, and the world’s natural chakra was tied up into the root system, flowing in and out.

Life support, Tobirama realised. He’d never seen anything like it. The God Tree was supplementing the planet’s natural chakra just enough to keep it from collapsing. It held the atmosphere together, kept the tides flowing and the winds blowing.

All nearly dead except for one place. A single continent teeming with life, burning like a star compared to the rest of the world. The God Tree was there, alongside hundreds of thousands of Otsutsuki chakra signatures, clustered along the above-ground roots in ways that indicated they were currently imprisoned and being drained.

What?

The majority of them were significantly weaker than Tobirama was, but their chakra was the exact same brilliant blue that was unique to the Otsutsuki clan.

It should have been impossible. This world’s natural chakra was a deep violet. The Otsutsuki’s chakra was blue because it was the natural chakra of their original world, and since that world had been devoured by the first God Tree, they were the only ones left with it. Even if another world happened to have chakra of the same colour, it would not have been the same species, and Tobirama would have been able to feel the difference. But this was unmistakably Otsutsuki chakra.

There was one chakra signature free of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. It dwarfed Tobirama in power, far stronger than even Momoshiki, on a level that might have challenged the Branch Head.

Tobirama had never met Kaguya, and did not know what her chakra felt like. He couldn’t know if it was her.

He touched down on the surface of the living continent, choosing a side that was as far away from that monstrous chakra signature as possible. God Tree roots were everywhere, all with dozens of cocoons suspended beneath them.

Tobirama drew his Sword of the Thunder God and briefly activated the blade to cut one cocoon down, unravelling it to reveal the being trapped inside. It was a young woman just shy of adulthood, with lightly tanned skin and long hair in a vivid shade of red that Tobirama knew did not naturally occur in humans. She was wearing clothes in a style unfamiliar to him, with a long-sleeved lavender shirt, black shorts, black boots, and a pair of narrow brown glasses perched on her nose. He had to remove them to pry the lids of her right eye open.

The girl’s eyes were patterned with Rinnegan; a reflective image that indicated she was under the control of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, not a true doujutsu. What was unusual was that that Rinnegan was purple.

The standard colour for the Rinnegan was red. Colour mutations could occur as an influence from the colour of the natural chakra of a world that had been used to create a chakra fruit; usually a symptom of poor processing. It added another point into Tobirama’s growing theory.

He activated his Byakugan to examine the girl, and as he suspected, she had a fully functional chakra network identical in anatomy to his own, full of blue Otsutsuki chakra.

Her appearance was almost fully human, with only the red hair and chakra coils out of place. A hybrid with an Otsutsuki as a distant ancestor for how diluted the characteristics were. Kaguya must have reproduced with a human at some point, and all of these blue chakra signatures were her descendants.

The purple Rinnegan was likely the result of crossbreeding as well, with the purple natural chakra of this world having dyed it such in Kaguya’s offspring. If the active Infinite Tsukuyomi was being maintained by someone with this hybrid Rinnegan, then they were not Kaguya, and their purpose was unknown.

“My, I’ve never seen a red Byakugan before.”

Tobirama jumped backwards, resisting the urge to curse and sliding into a defensive stance, igniting the Sword of the Thunder God so that its blade formed a protective line in front of himself. Without him in the way, the cocoon wrapped itself around the red-haired girl and pulled her back up into place.

The being in front of Tobirama gave a short bark of laughter. How had that gigantic chakra signature snuck up on him so quickly? Stupid – every Otsutsuki sent out on a mission had access to Yomotsu Hirasaka, including Kaguya. He should’ve expected a descendant of hers to inherit the ability.

“There’s no need for that, I only want to talk. I’m very interested in speaking with you.”

Tobirama extinguished his blade and lowered it but kept the sword hilt in hand, and deactivated his Byakugan to restore his colour vision. “You are not Otsutsuki Kaguya,” he said flatly. “Who are you?”

“I am Uchiha Madara. I’m afraid that if you’re looking for Otsutsuki Kaguya, she no longer exists.”

‘Uchiha Madara’ could have passed for a full-blooded Otsutsuki if not for the eyes. He seemed to have had a horn on the left side of his head once, but it had been broken off, leaving behind a short stump at the temple. His skin and hair were the same bone white as Tobirama’s, and he wore a white kimono with six magatama printed underneath the black collar and around the hems of his sleeves. Both of his eyes were the purple hybrid Rinnegan with a third in red sitting vertically on his forehead, bearing the nine tomoe that indicated the user shared a bond with a living God Tree.

A God Tree could be commanded by anyone with a Rinnegan, but to avoid conflicts where a God Tree might be torn between masters with opposing orders, a God Tree would form a spiritual bond with a single individual, who would be recognised as its master and their orders supreme over all others. It became practical when farming, so that when Infinite Tsukuyomi was cast, the master would be exempt from its hold.

This bond lasted beyond death – this God Tree would have been bonded to Kaguya when she departed with it as a sapling. For Uchiha Madara to be its master, he would have had to absorb Kaguya’s soul, which was no small feat. He would have needed a stronger will than hers to come out victorious in a fusion of souls, and no Otsutsuki went down easily.

Tobirama eyed the black shakujo staff in Madara’s hand warily. Ten Gudoudama floated in a ring formation behind the man’s back. He was dangerous. Very dangerous.

“I am Otsutsuki Tobirama, a distant cousin of Kaguya’s,” Tobirama replied with a guarded tone. “She was sent here to plant a God Tree and bring its fruit back to the clan. She is overdue to return, so I was sent to investigate.” Kaguya’s disappearance has been noticed. If I disappear, it will be noticed. “May I ask your relation to her?”

“Direct descendant of her eldest son, forty-first generation.”

Tobirama’s eyebrows raised slightly. Humans sure reproduced fast.

“Kaguya never intended to return,” Madara continued. He cocked his head to the side. “She ate the chakra fruit herself and began amassing power to fight the Otsutsuki clan when they came to retrieve her. However, her sons turned against her, deeming her a tyrant, and sealed her and the God Tree away. Humanity has been at war ever since. I sought the power of the God Tree to end it. What will the Otsutsuki clan do now?”

“The clan will want the harvest finished,” Tobirama answered carefully. Even with only this continent populated, the amount of chakra in its people was staggering, and no energy would have to be lost in conversion. “Do you intend to petition to join the clan? A chakra fruit produced from this planet will be high in value, and would make a worthy offering to the Emperor. But I must warn you in advance that the circumstances of your birth will work against you.”

He allowed his mouth to pinch in a display of pensiveness. “The Otsutsuki clan no longer engages in sexual reproduction. In comparison to the Rinnegan’s Creation of All Things Technique, it is considered… imperfect. Unclean. Kaguya did not have authorisation to reproduce, much less in that manner, and that she did so would be considered an offence against the clan.”

Tobirama attempted to make his face look appropriately non-hostile without sacrificing dignity, but wasn’t sure that he succeeded. “While I personally have no strong feelings in either direction regarding lower beings, it is not the majority opinion in the clan. Your existence will likely be considered an extension of Kaguya’s original offence, and there will be a demand to put you down. It is unfortunate, but I do not have the rank to dispute such a ruling.”

Madara’s eyebrows had been steadily climbing further towards his hairline the longer that Tobirama spoke, his eyes round with surprise or disbelief. “You would consider my death unfortunate?”

Tobirama blinked at him. “Of course. You bested Kaguya in a battle of wills and commandeered a God Tree. As far as I am concerned, the clan would be trading an inferior worker for a superior one. Even the Creation of All Things cannot predetermine temperament or skill, so truly talented workers are still a rare find.” He frowned. “Again, do not mistake this for leniency from this clan. This is merely conjecture. Conjecture that I would be censured for if a superior heard it, at that.”

“I see…” Madara’s eyes glittered. “You’re a fascinating individual, Tobirama-kun.”

“I am most certainly older than you. Do not address me as -kun.”

Madara laughed again, and the sound raised the hairs on the back of Tobirama’s neck. “You’ve danced around it quite elegantly, but we’ve reached an impasse. Will you attempt to kill me now, Tobirama-chan?”

“No. I will return to the Otsutsuki clan to report the facts of the situation, and my superiors will decide how to proceed.” Tobirama would be punished for failing to clean up the situation himself, but he did not like his chances in a direct confrontation against Madara at this second, and he would prefer to be alive to receive a punishment at all. “Should you decide to kill me to prevent this, it will buy you twenty to fifty years of time at most,” he warned. “Another would be sent to investigate my disappearance in short order, now that the clan is already aware that something is happening here. And the next will be far stronger than I.”

“How fortunate, then, that I do not plan to kill you. But I cannot let you leave.”

Shit. Tobirama’s best chance of escape was using Yomotsu Hirasaka and praying that Madara was inexperienced enough in interdimensional travel to be unable to track his chakra trail. He created a portal behind himself and attempted to leap backwards into it, only to find the movement severely slowed, as if gravity was pulling Tobirama in the opposite direction.

Which it was. The Rinnegan’s Deva Path was tugging Tobirama towards Madara. Grimacing, Tobirama cut his first portal and created a second in front of himself, hoping that his existing momentum forward would give him enough of a speed boost to fall into it in time–

It didn’t. Tobirama was halfway through when he felt a hand on his back, fisting in the fabric of his feather cloak to tear it from his waist. He struggled against it, trying to push Madara away and force him to let go before he was carried through the portal with Tobirama, but it was futile. The obi came loose with a hideous tearing noise, and Madara snatched the feather cloak away.

With his cloak removed, Tobirama’s portal fizzled out of existence. He wasn’t ungraceful enough to fall flat on his face – Tobirama caught himself before he hit the ground and sprinted to put space between himself and Madara.

The Sword of the Thunder God would be useless against a Rinnegan user. Madara would be able to absorb the chakra of the blade before it could harm him, either directly or with his shakujo, which was made of the same chakra-absorbing material as black receivers. Tobirama holstered it to swap out for his katana. It was unlikely to survive clashing for too long against Madara’s shakujo, but Tobirama didn’t need to win. He only needed to get his damn cloak back and escape.

“It’s as I suspected, then,” Madara said, inspecting Tobirama’s cloak curiously. “Tennyo are supposed to be demure and sweet. But you’re a vicious little thing, aren’t you?”

Tobirama stared at him incredulously. Tennyo? Really? “I am not a woman.” His lip curled. “The Rinnegan’s sight is meant to grant unparalleled clarity. I suppose that the mutt’s version has dulled its accuracy.”

The barb failed to elicit a reaction beyond a smirk. “And yet I have your cloak. If I promise to return it afterwards, will you dance for me?”

That wasn’t even worth a response. Tobirama remained silent, and Madara heaved a dramatic sigh. “Pity. But I do prefer the kind of dancing that involves a partner. Don’t disappoint me.”

The moment that Tobirama leapt at him, Madara shoved the feather cloak through a small Yomotsu Hirasaka portal which promptly closed right after, making it impossible to retrieve.

Fine. If that was how he wanted to play, so be it. The feather cloak wasn’t the only object here that could facilitate interdimensional travel. Madara’s eyeballs were also capable of it, so all Tobirama needed to do was remove at least one of them from their sockets. Gruesome and unpleasant work, but at this moment, Tobirama thought it would feel immensely satisfying.

They exchanged a flurry of blows, blade clashing against staff, and the unpleasant screech of metal-on-metal rang out through the air. Tobirama grit his teeth at the strength behind Madara’s hits.

The only factor in Tobirama’s favour was the fact that Madara intended to capture, not kill. The Gudoudama would likely stay out of play, but Tobirama shouldn’t count on that. His primary goal at the moment–

Tobirama’s sword caught on the crescent-shaped ring of Madara’s shakujo, and with a great heave he sent both weapons flying out of their hands.

As soon as the shakujo was gone, Tobirama’s fingertips lit up with chakra, his Byakugan flared to life, and he lunged to strike at Madara’s shoulder.

Madara dodged it by mere millimetres. Tobirama refused to give him any time to counterattack, sliding in close to deliver a flurry of sharp jabs aimed at Madara’s arms and midsection, all of which Madara was forced to weave around rather than block.

“I was wondering if I’d see Gentle Fist from you,” Madara said, sidestepping a hit meant to catch him in the throat. So he knew of the technique. Unfortunate. It always worked better when an opponent didn’t know that blocking would have the same effect as allowing the hit.

Gentle Fist was somewhat controversial within the Otsutsuki clan; the selling point of the style was its ability to disable chakra use and physical movement by targeting tenketsu points. The problem was that only other Otsutsuki possessed chakra coils that could be attacked this way.

All Otsutsuki existed in cutthroat competition with one another, and so the style remained, evidence of the grim reality that one had to step over others to succeed. But showing too much interest or skill in Gentle Fist was viewed with suspicion.

The Rinnegan could absorb chakra, but if Madara wanted to pull the chakra from Tobirama’s Gentle Fist strikes, the Rinnegan’s chakra still needed time to cross the distance from Madara’s eyes to Tobirama’s hands to ‘grab’ it. As long as Tobirama channelled his chakra into his hands only at the necessary moment, there wasn’t enough time for Madara to take it.

Madara melted into the rhythm of the fight, a wild grin on his face, weaving around Tobirama’s attacks to deliver his own. Tobirama was faster but Madara hit harder, so even though his hits weren’t Gentle Fist strikes, they risked being just as devastating. A glancing blow to Tobirama’s side made him gasp in pain, sure at least two of his ribs had cracked. And it hadn’t even been a direct hit.

Tobirama tested the waters with a kick – not blocked, but dodged with much less mindfulness than his Gentle Fist strikes.

He needed to time this just right. Tobirama ducked under Madara’s next punch into a handspring, using its force to corkscrew into another kick, finally landing a decent hit of his own as his foot collided with Madara’s shoulder.

The second that he made contact, Tobirama discharged a chakra spike through his foot into the tenketsu point with as much power as he could, and it sent Madara flying.

When Madara hauled himself to his feet, his left arm was hanging limp at his side. Tobirama hadn’t closed the tenketsu point in his shoulder so much as he had shredded it.

The Gentle Fist’s most interesting property, in Tobirama’s opinion, was the damage it dealt to the physical body where his chakra travelled. This made it still usable against lower beings, like humans and animals, but ironically dealt more damage to the Otsutsuki, whose own chakra coils would act like conductive wires, allowing the intrusive chakra to travel further into their bodies.

Tobirama’s chakra spike had flooded into Madara’s system like water, rushing into every available path through his chakra coils out from the initial point of impact. The majority of the damage would have been to his shoulder, shattering the bone and liquefying the surrounding muscles, but would have continued into his chest and down his arm, leaving numbness and closed tenketsu points in its wake.

Sadly, it was unlikely to have reached far enough to deal meaningful injury to any vital organs, like the heart or lungs.

“Impressive,” Madara rasped. He was still grinning, seeming genuinely thrilled about having his scapula half crushed into dust. There had to be something very wrong with his brain. “Now, show me more!”

He formed a series of symbols with his good hand in rapid succession, and Tobirama could see how his chakra morphed in response, gathering up through his lungs to his throat to his mouth.

Madara breathed through the ring of his fingers, and through them his chakra transformed into a great bout of flame, surging towards Tobirama like a roiling tide.

Shinjutsu. The hand signs appeared to be some sort of crutch to force one’s chakra into predetermined shapes, which were then sequenced for a specific result. Weak. Tobirama needed no such support to manipulate the elements.

Water had always come to Tobirama the easiest of the five, and he called upon it now, pulling the moisture from the air to form a thick bubble around himself. No need to waste chakra in transmutation when there was existing water available.

His Byakugan allowed him to see through the resulting cloud of steam unhindered, and Tobirama readied himself to counter what Madara would throw at him next.

Technique after technique, it turned out, keeping Tobirama at a distance and intending to wear him down. Tobirama could only use his own chakra defensively – anything he used against Madara would be nullified or absorbed, extending his opponent’s timer. Tobirama was destined to lose an endurance match between them; Madara’s God Tree acted as a nearly limitless energy source, bolstering his reserves and physical regeneration to a level Tobirama couldn’t hope to match.

He could feel the exhaustion gripping his body, chakra dangerously depleted, but Tobirama couldn’t afford to give in. Madara unleashed lightning from his palms, violet-white in dozens of twisting branches, and instead of dodging or shielding this time, Tobirama charged right at it.

The Sword of the Thunder God cut through bolt after bolt, cleaving a path through to Madara at mach speed, and Tobirama thrust his free hand forwards sparking with chakra, intending to explode Madara’s heart right out of his chest–

Madara caught Tobirama’s wrist and broke it with a sickening crack.

He used his leverage to haul Tobirama down to the ground, and on his way, Tobirama headbutted Madara in the stomach, ramming him with his horns like a bull. It was undignified and hurt Tobirama as well, since his horns were covered in bare skin, but it made Madara shout and left him with two bleeding puncture wounds.

They grappled for agonisingly long minutes. Tobirama refused to scream when Madara ground the bones of his shattered wrist together, biting the inside of his cheek bloody to keep himself contained.

Madara overpowered him eventually. He wrangled Tobirama into a headlock to choke him out, and even as his vision grew spotty, Tobirama fought back, pulsing shallow spikes with his remaining chakra from every part of his body that had contact with Madara’s, which had to feel akin to being stabbed over and over with dozens of needles.

Despite what had to be an extraordinary amount of pain, Madara’s hold didn’t falter, and with one last hopeless, wheezing breath, Tobirama fell unconscious.

Chapter Text

When Kaguya had attempted to take over Madara’s body, his victory in the ensuing struggle had been by a far closer margin than he would have liked, and he had still lost something vital in the process.

His understanding of the world and his place in it.

Infinite Tsukuyomi had been Madara’s indictment of humanity. In his arrogance, he had believed he knew the scope of the world and was fit to judge it. But Kaguya’s existence and Black Zetsu’s betrayal had revealed just how ignorant he was. It had been so easy to make sweeping judgements of humanity when the neverending conflicts of the Elemental Nations had been the sum of the world.

Madara’s world had been so very small.

The Elemental Nations were not landlocked, but with constant localised warfare, Madara had never seen a complete map of the continent before the formation of Konoha. Why would anyone have needed one? In his childhood, the Uchiha clan’s most extensive maps had barely covered all of Fire Country, and they had been collaged together from many smaller maps. Travel was dangerous, and nobody was willing to share the information required to make complete maps until the formation of the Hidden Villages.

When Madara had originally left Konoha, he had spent years wandering the Elemental Nations, searching for the Kyuubi and any esoteric knowledge that might have helped him to obtain the Rinnegan. Konoha’s maps had left the western borders of Earth Country and Wind Country to trail off the page.

The Western Wastes, the locals called that place. A vast expanse of dead land so inhospitable that it was not worth the effort to find its edge. Kiri had tried during their spat with Iwa in the First Shinobi War, wanting to be able to use their navy to capture Earth Country’s shoreline and close in on Iwa without having to cross any of the established land borders.

They had failed. Kiri claimed that there was an invisible border in the ocean, and everything beyond it was cursed. There was no sealife, no birds, and the very air was stale and cold. Their food began to rot unnaturally quickly, and their human crew became tired and sick. Fleets had either died or fled in terror.

Nobody could have known just how accurate Kiri’s claim of an ‘invisible border’ truly was.

Madara’s absorption of Kaguya and bond with the God Tree had made him something beyond human, and cloaking himself in the Juubi’s chakra gave him a bizarre exception to the usual limits of a biological being. As long as he was burning the Juubi’s chakra this way, it substituted for needing to eat or even breathe, allowing Madara to fly to the Moon.

It was there that he had discovered the Sage’s final resting place. A small stone shrine, open to the elements, made up of a grave and a stone tablet similar in style to the one held by the Uchiha clan. Nine komainu statues guarded the shrine, carved into the shapes of not lions, but the nine tailed beasts.

Of course the tablet was similar. It had the same creator, but this one had never been vandalised by Black Zetsu, leaving the Sage’s words unaltered, and it had no encryption, allowing it to be read by the naked eye.

The reason for the lack of security became obvious by the first sentence. Unlike the Uchiha stone tablet, which contained all of the Sage’s knowledge about his and his son’s doujutsu, this tablet was a warning plaque. Anyone who saw it needed to be able to read it.

This shrine was the centre point of an enormous seal that spanned the Moon’s entire surface, called the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Seal, and it was the Sage and his brother’s masterwork. It was this seal that imprisoned the Juubi’s body and Kaguya’s consciousness, but it did so much more than that. It was a life support machine.

Kaguya’s Infinite Tsukuyomi had ravaged the Earth, killing too much of the planet for its global ecosystems to support themselves – the remaining plant life did not produce enough oxygen to keep the atmosphere intact, and without their atmosphere, they would not have breathable air or the temperature regulation that gave the world seasons. The ice caps would melt, halting the flow of ocean tides entirely, and the oceans needed to move for the water to transport oxygen for sea life to exist. A still ocean was a dead ocean.

The Elemental Nations existed within a bubble created by the Sage of Six Paths, and inside that bubble, the God Tree’s root network acted in reverse of its original function, channelling chakra into the Earth to keep it alive.

The Earth’s natural chakra outside of the Sage’s life support bubble was too weak to support life, and anything planted there would die. Humans who left the habitable zone would eventually run out of food and die or be forced to return. Kiri’s invisible border.

The Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Seal was not only a life support machine, but intended to facilitate growth of the habitable zone. The nine tailed beasts: nine pieces of the Juubi’s soul, still tied to its body by the nature of their existence. The Sage had designed a ritual called the Rinne Festival, where humans would gather to channel their chakra into the tailed beasts, and the great seal on the Moon would be able to expand the radius of its support with the increased fuel.

Madara knew of the Rinne Festival, of course. An annual midwinter holiday, the day after his birthday, where people celebrated life by exchanging gifts. He had never heard of it being used in the way the Sage had written of, but Madara could see the warped reflection of it in the current version, twisted by time. The exchange of chakra had become the exchange of gifts, and the ‘celebration of life’ was meant to be far more literal.

It was no surprise that the tailed beasts had conveniently vanished from the equation in humanity’s collective consciousness. People had turned their backs on the Sage’s dream a long time ago, and damned themselves in the process.

Madara hadn’t dared to exhume the grave to see if there really was a body, but he hadn’t needed to. He was a chakra sensor, and– the Juubi could feel it. The Sage’s last act had been to reach out to the seal and the Juubi’s body, allowing it to drain his chakra like a victim of Infinite Tsukuyomi. Tiny roots had grown from the Moon’s surface to burrow into his body, and they were still there, wrapped around a mummified corpse, refusing to let go even a millennia later. The Sage’s cause of death would have, ironically, been chakra exhaustion.

Kneeling there in front of the shrine, Madara had become acutely aware that he was the second human being to ever step foot in this place. The Sage would have constructed this shrine himself. Would have dug his own grave and laid down in it, would have used the Rinnegan’s abilities to pull over his coffin’s lid and cover it with stone.

The Sage’s last sight, before his coffin closed, would have been the one Madara was seeing now; the Earth and the Moon reversed.

People on Earth had holidays dedicated to observing the beauty of the Moon, but it paled in comparison to the sight of the Earth in its place. It was so blue. The Moon was a remote beauty, cold and elegant, but the Earth was life. The white clouds streaking the surface made it look like a delicate glass ball.

Madara had flown upwards in a straight line, so the Elemental Nations were front and centre of his view, a tiny green-brown island attached to a greater continent whose name had been lost to time. When he held out his hand, that tiny island, his entire world, looked like it fit in his palm.

Black Zetsu had been right to think Madara a fool. A big fish in a small pond, believing that the edge of his pond was the edge of the universe and so proud to proclaim his judgement of its contents, unaware that he would be sliced for dinner in the evening.

Futarime no Rikudo, Madara had called himself; the Second Sage of Six Paths. Here he knelt in front of his predecessor’s cold, lonely grave, in front of the tablet containing his last words, cautioning, pleading for his descendants to avoid interfering with his seal lest they incur disastrous consequences for themselves and life on Earth below. And that was exactly what Madara had done.

He had returned and explored the surface of the Earth in a numb haze. Kaguya’s Infinite Tsukuyomi had killed even the bacteria that caused decay, so deterioration of corpses was inflicted only by the elements. Thousand-year-old mummified human bodies laid perfectly intact inside stone basements.

The Elemental Nations were so small. A tiny oasis of life in a sea of death. And they’d had no idea. Mindlessly tearing into each other in conflicts that seemed so much pettier now.

Even now, six months later, Madara was rattled to his core. Infinite Tsukuyomi was a hollow victory, a dream made a nightmare upon its realisation. What was he supposed to do now? It was all completely pointless. Madara had always intended for Infinite Tsukuyomi to be a painless euthanasia for humanity.

Coexistence was impossible and made existence suffering. Madara would end the cycle once and for all. Everyone would live out the rest of their lives until old age in a perfect dream, and then humanity would quietly fade out. A peaceful, silent goodbye to the perpetual, inherent misery of the human condition.

But ‘humanity’ was a tiny fragment of itself, and there were countless other worlds out there. What would Madara have actually achieved? It felt like he was just finishing what Kaguya started, killing an inconsequential world among thousands of others just like it. It felt wrong.

But what else could he do? If Madara just reversed the Infinite Tsukuyomi, what would he do next? He had thoroughly burned his bridges with everyone alive – and a lot dead – at this point. Nobody would want to listen to or work with him. They would want him to die so they could begin cleaning up his mess without him.

As selfish as it was, Madara didn’t want this to be his legacy. After all these revelations and the confrontation of how wrong he had been, he still couldn’t let go of his dream of peace, flickering like a fragile candle flame in his chest. He refused to die a failure. He was still alive. He still had a chance to do something good.

*

In absorbing Kaguya, Madara hadn’t gained any of her memories, but he had gained control over her six personal dimensions and the knowledge that they existed. She had two castle-like fortresses, one in her ice dimension and one in the lava dimension, and her security measures recognised Madara as her, so for the past few months, he had been sifting through everything Kaguya left behind in hopes of learning more about her and the Otsutsuki clan.

He had learned frustratingly little. All of Kaguya’s records had been intended for her personal use only, so she hadn’t bothered to write down what she considered common knowledge, and Madara had mostly pieced things together from context clues.

The castle in the ice dimension, which Madara had taken to calling Hyo-shiro, was primarily used as a laboratory where Kaguya had worked on developing White Zetsus for use in combat. The actual production of these White Zetsus had taken place on Earth, and in this laboratory, Kaguya had been experimenting with tweaking their genetic makeup to enhance their capabilities. She’d had reports detailing her production rate, calculations of the numbers she’d need, how long they would take to make, and speculations on what her White Zetsu would need to be like to successfully fight against her clansmen.

Kaguya had been certain it was inevitable that other members of the Otsutsuki clan would come looking for her. From what Madara understood, Kaguya had been sent to Earth with the task of raising the sapling God Tree, harvesting the chakra fruit when it matured, and then leaving to take the fruit back to the clan.

But she hadn’t. Kaguya had come so very close to finishing her mission, but at the last moment, she had chosen to eat the chakra fruit for herself. Her writings made it clear that this was a crime to the Otsutsuki clan, that she had committed a grave betrayal, and one that was punishable by death.

Her paranoia had been clear in her writings, steadily becoming worse over time. Kaguya had been terrified of her clansmen. She had been more powerful than any shinobi could have ever dreamed of being; Madara had only managed to defeat her because their battle was spiritual, not physical.

And yet she had been deeply pessimistic about her chances of surviving a confrontation with another Otsutsuki. It did not bode well for the future.

*

When Madara had first taken the time to examine his reflection in a mirror after his transformation, he’d had something of a breakdown.

In the heat of battle during the Fourth Shinobi War, and his existential crisis afterwards, he hadn’t taken much note of the changes to his appearance beyond the ones that he could immediately feel. He’d noticed the enlarged canines, like an Inuzuka’s, because he felt them when he spoke, and the third eye was even more obvious, because he was seeing with it. The white of his hair glimmered when he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye.

But it was very different to look into a mirror and not recognise his reflection, not only as not himself, but not human.

Ascension to questionable-godhood did not exempt one from all laws of nature, such as needing to bathe. When Madara had finally decided he needed a bath, he’d briefly been stumped by where he would go. Technically every bathroom in the world was open to him, as every town was a ghost town with their inhabitants up in the God Tree’s cocoons. It still felt unsettling to think of going into a stranger’s house to use their tub.

Out of sheer spite, Madara had decided to use the bathroom in the Hokage’s residence, which was large and well-equipped. But then he’d caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror, and he’d frozen.

He did not mistake his reflection for an intruder, and it was all the worse for it, because it felt like his mind was tearing in half between the certainty of that is me and that is not me.

His baseline features remained the same, still unmistakably Uchiha Madara. It was his face, if significantly younger than the last time he had seen it. Somewhere in his early thirties, if he had to guess. Not even the power of a god had been able to erase the deep troughs beneath his eyes.

The third eye was closed, as it usually was when Madara didn’t actively need to use it, because it cost chakra to keep it open. He suspected that it had something to do with the fact that there shouldn’t have been enough space in his skull for a third eyeball to sit on his forehead without overlapping with the brain. He blinked it open, staring into his altered reflection, and felt a kind of grief.

It was fitting that his appearance matched the sense of turmoil he felt on the inside. Madara was not the same person he had once been. The world had not changed, only his understanding of it. He felt like he had been seeing in black and white for his entire life, not knowing that colours existed until colour vision had suddenly been forced upon him.

His body was a mocking reminder of his hubris. He resembled one of these ‘higher beings’, those with the power and knowledge he’d thought himself to have, only now that Madara truly grasped how little he knew.

Obito’s transformation as the Juubi jinchuuriki had been more monstrous than his. But it suddenly occurred to Madara now that he had far more clothing covering him up than Obito did.

Madara began pulling at his clothes, peeling his gloves down and off his arms, nearly tearing his robe in his haste to get it off. Once he had it open, he was distracted enough by the sight for his grip to loosen, and the robe rolled off his shoulders to pool on the floor in a heap of white fabric.

It was inconsequential. Underneath Madara’s clothes, the skin of his torso was the same unnatural white as the skin of his face, but it was covered in black tattoo-like markings.

Before Madara’s initial death when he had passed on the Eye of the Moon plan to Obito, he’d patched his once-mortal chest wound with flesh grown from Hashirama’s cells, leaving it as a hideous web of mangled white scar tissue. After Kabuto had made modifications to Madara’s reanimated body, that section had been transformed into a clean copy of Hashirama’s face.

It was completely gone now, as was every other scar that Madara had once bore. Perfect, unmarred flesh. Like every battle he’d fought had never happened. Like he wasn’t a shinobi.

The black markings were everywhere. A row of six black magatama underneath his collarbones, mirroring the pattern on the chest of his robe. On each shoulder, a set of three tomoe in a mitsudomoe pattern, encased in a circle, with a long black line stretching from the circle all the way down the length of his arms to circle around his wrists. An odd circular pattern on his navel, surrounded by decorative flairs, with a long line stretching up from its top to his sternum, where it ended in a small circle.

When Madara turned around to examine his back, he saw that it had the same markings that Obito had: the stylised Rinnegan eye above a three-by-three grid of magatama, with an additional circled mitsudomoe stamped on both of his hips. A line stretched off from each, disappearing under the waistband of his pants.

He had seen similar markings before, Madara realised, on the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. The one with the stupid name. Fishcake. Naruto. When the boy had cloaked himself in his bijuu’s chakra, it had formed a literal cloak around him with very similar patterns. They weren’t completely identical, but the resemblance was obvious.

It made Madara wonder just what the markings meant. Symbols of power, of the Juubi and the Otsutsuki, but– where had they come from? The sharp, geometric lines were not a design that occurred organically in nature. Had someone designed these? Was there a history behind them? He had no way of knowing, and it made him feel all the more like an impostor. His skin crawled at the thought that there was information to be gleaned from his markings – that he had a sign on his body that he could not read, and that somebody like Kaguya would be able to simply look at him and know.

Almost equally as unsettling were the other cosmetic changes. Objectively minor, but they quickly added up. Perhaps most peculiar was the complete lack of body hair. Madara still had the hair on top of his head, his eyelashes, his eyebrows, and that was it. Everything else was as bare and smooth as his palms.

In his youth, Madara had boasted a rather impressive amount of black chest hair, trailing down his stomach to his crotch, and even at the end of his natural life, when the hair had bleached translucent-white with age, he’d still retained a decent thickness. There was no trace that it had ever existed now. It made the erasure of his old wounds even more obvious, and the tattoos bolder and darker on the blank canvas.

Was it to show off the markings, then? It felt like an oddly human vanity, out of place with how cold and remote every other aspect of his being was.

When Madara ran his ungloved fingers over his cheek, his skin was like velvet, softer than it had ever been in his lifetime. His nails had turned black, and somehow he knew that he could– He flexed his hand, channelling the lightest touch of chakra, and his nails sharpened and extended like a cat’s claws.

There was something grounding about it. Nothing godly, only the simple, straightforward violence of a weapon. This Madara knew, had lived and breathed since the day of his birth. Ironic, that his least human feature was the one that made him feel the most like himself.

*

The Juubi was a chakra sensor unlike anything humanity was capable of. Where humans always had to consciously activate the ability, and the sensory input was hijacked to an existing sense in the form of synesthesia – usually sight, as it had been in Madara’s case – the Juubi was always aware of the chakra around it in a true sixth sense. As its bonded master, Madara was aware of everything that the Juubi was, and so the second that the Juubi detected a foreign chakra signature descending from the skies, Madara noticed it as well.

It had the same kind of pure blue chakra as humans, powerful enough to blaze like a miniature sun, but it didn’t feel quite human. The Juubi recognised what it was, if not who it was. This was a celestial being.

The intruder touched down in Lightning Country, far from Madara’s current location, but distance was hardly an issue. Madara drew natural chakra up around himself like a cloak, smothering his own chakra signature so that his presence was indistinguishable from the earth around him, and created a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal to step through to his quarry.

The natural chakra cloak worked perfectly – the intruder took no notice of Madara appearing a few metres just off to the side of being behind him, allowing Madara the luxury of examining his profile unobserved.

It was one thing to know that celestial beings existed, and another to see one in the flesh for the first time. Madara had seen the statues in Kaguya’s palace and the ancient drawings of the Sage and his mother held by the Uchiha clan, but none of them had done them justice.

This man was a tall, pale-skinned humanoid with horns, as Madara had expected, but he was also so much more. He was ethereally, breathtakingly beautiful; a sharp face with a slim, straight nose, marked by three crimson tattoos slashed across both cheeks and up his chin, highlighting the severity of his features. Combined with his phoenix eyes – irises as red as the Sharingan, but pupil-less like the Byakugan – it gave his face a distinctly fox-like look. Round Heian-style brows which, curiously, were not painted on and definitely made of real hair. Did they grow like that naturally?

His skin wasn’t just pale but an inhuman white that was almost pearlescent, seeming to shimmer with pinks and golds under the red light of the moon. The hair was a similar shade, cut just below his ears, and it stuck out in all directions like a spiky dandelion puff.

Oni horns, like the Sage. There was something ironic about that, for heavenly beings to share traits with demons. The shape of Kaguya’s horns had inspired her title of Rabbit Goddess, and when thinking in that light, the horns on this one evoked the image of a young hare with its little ears pricked straight up.

The intruder wore nearly all white clothing in a style considered old fashioned even in Madara’s era, black cloth peeking out from under the edges of his kariginu, but the most eye-catching piece was the garment tied around his waist.

The hagoromo – Madara was sure it couldn’t have been anything else; the feather cloaks worn by tennyo that allowed them to fly. It sang with chakra to Madara’s enhanced senses, but even without them he would have known it was something special. It resembled a folded pair of wings, and the majority of it was as blue as the ocean, glimmering with infinite subtle shades to give the illusion of moving tides.

Nine long, red, ribbon-like feathers formed the cloak’s train, with a tenth tied around the waist as a makeshift obi. With those nine ‘tails’ and his thin, angular face – were the horns not meant to mimic the ears of a rabbit, but a kitsune?

He had weapons at each hip, half-hidden by the feather cloak; a katana at the left and what appeared to be a vajra of all things at the right. There was a small clan crest embroidered just below the nape on the back of the kariginu. A golden crescent cradling a circle. Madara had seen this same crest in Kaguya’s palaces and on her belongings – the mark of the Otsutsuki clan. They had finally come calling, just as she’d feared.

The intruder pulled the vajra from his side as he sprung into a chakra-powered leap, and to Madara’s surprise, a blade of white lightning shot forward from what was revealed to be a hilt, easily cutting down one of the God Tree’s cocoons so that the intruder could inspect its contents. What a brilliant weapon! Madara itched to test himself against it in battle.

A second surprise was that those red eyes didn’t just resemble Byakugan, they were Byakugan, but thankfully the natural chakra shield held up against them, convincing their owner that Madara was part of the landscape even though he was now perfectly visible.

His chakra felt strong, but not enough so to be the threat that Kaguya had been so frightened of. This was likely a scout, who would gather information and then invite reinforcements. He could not be allowed to escape.

Madara wondered if Kaguya’s husband had felt this way when he first laid eyes on her. Disbelief, that a star could truly fall and land at his feet. And then sudden avarice, a wild, desperate desire to possess this beauty to prove it wasn’t a mirage, to keep this treasure from returning to the heavens where it belonged.

His mind was already bending over backwards searching for excuses to capture rather than kill. The information that Kaguya had left behind was limited; a live member of the clan to interrogate could provide a wealth of knowledge.

It was a foolish notion to entertain, but… the beauty of planet Earth had already seduced one member of the Otsutsuki clan to turn their back on the heavens. It was not impossible that it could happen again.

Perhaps Madara had learned nothing after all, and he was still as arrogant as he’d always been. But was hubris not the nature of mankind? The Sharingan had made the Uchiha into deeply visual creatures, vain and hoarding what pleased their eyes like magpies, and Madara was no exception.

He’d once thought himself above it all because Madara was not tempted by the same vices as his kinsmen, but the truth was that he only had more extravagant tastes. Dreams that others considered impossible. Madara had been the first of humanity to dare to think that they could control a tailed beast’s power for themselves – and he’d succeeded. He’d kept going. The power of his desire had led him here.

The heavens were not unconquerable. There was no natural order or divine judgement, no gods to provide answers. Madara was not a heretic, because there was nothing to heresy against. Kaguya had proven to him that the only thing separating humans and the Otsutsuki was power. A barrier that could be crossed.

Madara had pulled down one star from the sky. He would do it again.

Chapter Text

Madara had won, but Tobirama had made him work for it. He felt alive for the first time since the end of the Fourth Shinobi War, heart pumping and blood burning from the thrill of the fight.

He felt like a hunter who’d just brought down a ten-point deer. Triumphant. Exhilarated.

Even though Tobirama was most definitely unconscious, Madara layered his strongest genjutsu onto the tennin to make sure he stayed that way until Madara was ready for him to be awake, and then turned him over onto his back. Tobirama’s wounds were already visibly healing, but to Madara’s surprise, so were his clothes. The tears in the fabric were knitting themselves back together the same way as the scratches on his skin, and the Rinnegan could see the flow of chakra involved.

However, the clothes were drawing on Tobirama’s own chakra reserves to repair themselves, and Madara had no way of knowing if there was enough intelligence involved in the process to avoid syphoning a dangerous amount. Tobirama’s chakra was already low as it was, and Madara refused to risk him dying from something so stupid after all the effort that had gone into capturing him.

He picked Tobirama up, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes – his right shoulder, since the left had barely regenerated enough for Madara to regain use of the arm at all, and was in no condition to support even a fireman’s carry.

If Madara didn’t have his connection to the God Tree, that chakra spike to the shoulder would have sentenced him to a slow, painful death. It had ruptured half a dozen tenketsu and torn open the chakra coils it had surged through, essentially ripping a hole in the circuit of Madara’s chakra pathway system, and that hole would have left him to ‘bleed out’, with his chakra constantly leaking out of it until nothing was left.

But the God Tree would fix it. This was the true power that Madara had inherited from his assimilation of Otsutsuki Kaguya. The God Tree did not have a soul, adopting its master’s as its own, making them one and a half beings in two bodies.

The Sage and his brother had exploited this in their initial sealing, imprisoning Kaguya with her God Tree while she had been physically fused with it to make sure that both sides were bound. When unsealed, the God Tree would have rebuilt Kaguya’s body from scratch, the process made quicker and easier with Black Zetsu having thoughtfully provided Madara as a vessel to start from.

Madara would not have died in the process – his soul would have been consumed and annihilated, never to reincarnate, unable to be recalled by Rinne Tensei. He’d been forced to inflict the same fate on Kaguya to avoid it himself, but he wasn’t proud of it. It wasn’t something that Madara would have ever done to another living being if he’d had a choice.

And Tobirama had been so blasé about it when Madara had told him what he’d done to Kaguya. It implied frightening and ugly things about the Otsutsuki clan.

Yomotsu Hirasaka took them through to a ryokan that Madara remembered from his youth. Luckily, the place had not closed down in the seventy-odd years between his last visit and now and was still in good condition, though starting to accumulate a little dust from being months unattended by its staff.

Madara laid out a thick towel on the floor of the washing area and deposited Tobirama down onto it as gently as he could. He then briskly set to undressing him.

This was not Madara’s first time stripping an unconscious prisoner, though it was the first time that it included bathing them. He’d conducted a handful of strip-searches during the clan wars, and it was never a good idea to let a shinobi prisoner keep wearing the clothes they’d been captured in because no matter how thoroughly they were searched, someone would always end up being creative enough to slip something by, and then your whole mission was ruined.

Tobirama had a sagemono bag tied around his waist, so that had to go before the kariginu was removed, and the black undershirt after that. Madara’s breath caught at the sight of bare flesh – not for any perverse reason, but because Tobirama had a row of six magatama inked under his collarbones, just as Madara did. Red where Madara’s were black, but identical in placement and style.

We really are the same.

The bone-white of his skin didn’t mean a total lack of colour; his nipples were a very light pink, and his bruises bloomed the same colour as a human’s. He didn’t have any other markings, and his body was as hairless and unscarred as Madara’s now was. No– Madara found one more when removing Tobirama’s tabi socks, inked on the underside of his right foot like an artist’s signature on a porcelain doll. Simple red lines formed the profile of a crane in flight, its eye large, circular, and bearing the concentric rings of the Rinnegan.

From the strength with which Tobirama had fought, Madara had instinctively thought of him as a shinobi, but going through his clothes made it clear that wasn’t the case. He had no hidden weapons, and the few hidden pockets were only concealed for aesthetic purposes.

Nevertheless, Madara pried Tobirama’s jaw open to search for false teeth or suicide capsules hidden in his mouth. As expected, he found nothing, but again, better safe than sorry. The inside of Tobirama’s mouth was as pink and mundane as a human’s, if a little lighter in colour. The only feature of interest were his tiny fangs, a match to Madara’s.

He wasn’t squeamish about removing Tobirama’s fundoshi, regardless of his attraction to the tennin. This was strictly professional.

It hadn’t happened to Madara himself, but in his youth, a pair of his clansmen had been responsible for processing an enemy kunoichi that the Uchiha had captured trying to infiltrate their compound. The two young men hadn’t removed the woman’s underwear out of a misguided sense of chivalry, and that had been a critical mistake because there had been several senbon hidden in the excessive wrappings of her fundoshi, and she’d used them to pick her restraints, attack her guards, and escape, stealing a handful of intel scrolls on her way out.

It’d been a total disaster. Tajima had been furious. Madara, barely into his teens at the time, had vowed to never screw up the same way, despite puberty turning his body-shyness into a severe affliction. He compartmentalised away the part of himself that wanted to blush and avert his eyes.

Madara found nothing again. Even the fundoshi was made of the same chakra-absorbing silk as the rest of Tobirama’s clothing, which seemed a bit much. Did they really have enough of the material in excess to be using it for underwear?

Though it could be considered practical for long term travel, from a shinobi’s perspective. Self-repairing fundoshi meant that, should one’s clothes be wrecked in battle with an enemy shinobi while trekking through a hideous swamp for a week, then discover that they’d forgotten to pack any spare underwear, they wouldn’t have to fight and make the rest of the journey with their dick hanging uncomfortably loose inside their pants and constantly needing readjustment. That would be a miserable experience.

Not that Madara would know.

Tobirama’s genitalia were entirely normal, at least, though as chalk-white as the rest of his skin. Madara had been half-expecting… He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, after hearing Tobirama’s bizarre comments on the topic of sexual reproduction.

“The Otsutsuki clan no longer engages in sexual reproduction. In comparison to the Rinnegan’s Creation of All Things Technique, it is considered… imperfect. Unclean. Kaguya did not have authorisation to reproduce, much less in that manner, and that she did so would be considered an offence against the clan.”

Requiring authorisation to reproduce. Ridiculously strict control. And the Creation of All Things Technique… Madara knew that he had the ability to perform it now, but it truly was a technique. The only innate part was the absolute Yin-Yang Release, which had endless applications.

If Madara had to compare it to anything, he would have said it was like the difference between basic motor skills and writing. A child knew instinctively how to move their hands, but the fine motions for writing did not come the same way, even after observing others doing the same thing.

Did the Otsutsuki create their children like kami did in the fables? Or perhaps it was more fitting to consider them like shikigami; spirits created by an onmyoji and enslaved to do their bidding, transformed from or possessing an object or animal.

It made Madara wonder what characters Tobirama’s name was written with. His first assumption was that it was written like Hashirama’s: 扉間, Tobira-ma, ‘the space between doors.’ Had a door been involved in Tobirama’s creation? Had he been created from one, like Susano’o chewing Amaterasu’s magatama beads to turn them into five sons? Or perhaps Madara was interpreting the first few syllables the wrong way, and his name was Tobi-ra-ma, 鳶羅舞, written ‘kite-silk-dance.’ Odd, rare, and dated kanji, but not implausible with how old Tobirama’s style of dress was.

His prisoner now fully undressed, Madara gave him a basic wipe down with a wet rag, cleaning off the blood and the dust. He didn’t intend to do any more than that; Tobirama would be capable of giving himself a proper bath later. This was done because Madara needed to strip-search him, and it would be stupid to put clean clothes on someone covered in grime. He was also worried about Tobirama’s regeneration healing wounds with dirt still inside. Perfect regeneration did not necessarily preclude infection.

With Tobirama clean, Madara had to search for a change of clothes and ended up with a blue men’s kimono top and hakama set, the top patterned with waves in thread barely lighter than the base fabric, and the hakama plain black. He didn’t bother re-tying a fundoshi; it would be less awkward for Tobirama to do that himself when he awoke, lessening the feeling of violation at being undressed while unconscious.

And now Madara needed somewhere to keep Tobirama, at least for the initial period of interrogation.

He refused to take any chances on allowing Tobirama to escape. Madara selected one of the maximum security cells from Konoha’s Torture & Interrogation Department, located deep underground and outfitted with the best seals that the Uzumaki clan had to offer, and then used the Rinnegan to transport the entire cell to the dungeons of You-shiro, the palace in Kaguya’s lava dimension.

It took Madara about an hour to properly graft the cell into its new home, making sure that there was no weakness in the walls and connecting its meagre bathroom facilities (a toilet and a sink) to the plumbing he’d installed in the palace. Kaguya had used Hyo-shiro more often than You-shiro, deeming the cold temperatures more suitable for preserving her lab samples and documents, so Madara had set up base in You-shiro to avoid accidentally tampering with any of Kaguya’s relics before he finished investigating them.

He’d outfitted You-shiro with ‘modern amenities’ to make it livable, including a plumbing system with running water, a rudimentary kitchen, and even electricity in a select few rooms, powered by a water-wheel turned by the lava river. It was a significant improvement from the cave complex in the Mountains’ Graveyard where he’d camped for decades. Kaguya’s seals kept the temperature inside pleasantly cool, and the lava flows outside were surprisingly beautiful to watch through the windows.

Madara put a set of shackles on Tobirama of his own creation before laying the tennin on the bed in his cell, and then left and locked the door behind him. He planned to keep Tobirama unconscious while Madara inspected his possessions, and once he was done with those, he would question Tobirama himself.

*

Tobirama awoke to find himself in a small, dimly lit room. He was laying on his back on a raised bed, and he could feel various restraints on his body. There was a collar around his neck and a cuff around each of his wrists and ankles. Surprisingly, when he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, he did not feel the weight of chains attached to them.

The first thing he noticed about the room was that it was clearly a cell. Solid stone walls and floor, with no windows except for a small square hole in the steel door, which featured a row of vertical bars.

The furnishings distinctly clashed with the construction of the cell. Tobirama’s bed barely fit within the width of the room, its headboard pressed into the back corner, with only a few inches between the foot of the bed and the wall. A wooden chabudai sat next to the wall with two zabuton cushions on either side of it. A privacy curtain had been set up around the toilet.

It all looked suspiciously new and clean compared to the rest of the room. Someone had redecorated recently and in a hurry, with furniture obviously not meant for a prison cell.

Tobirama activated his Byakugan to see the rest of the building – or at least, he attempted to. The second he pushed his chakra towards his eyes, it was forcibly drained away into the collar.

He held up one of his wrists to examine it. The cuffs were pitch black, making the most obvious assumption that they were modified black receivers, but that didn’t explain the chakra absorption. Black receivers were conductors, not nullifiers; for them to achieve a similar effect, they would have needed to be pierced through his body, and the user would then have to channel their own chakra through the rods to suppress Tobirama’s.

Tobirama could not feel any foreign chakra in his body, nor could he feel anything stuck through his skin. The resulting answer was far more terrifying than black receivers: he had five of Madara’s Gudoudama attached to him.

Even one was capable of instantly turning him into dust. Perhaps Tobirama should have been flattered that he apparently rated such high security measures, but it only imbued a sense of dread. Escape would be impossible as long as he wore these restraints.

Additionally, Tobirama was relatively sure that he had been strip-searched while he was unconscious. His clothes had been replaced with a blue cotton kimono top and black hakama, and he should have been covered in crusted blood and dirt, but he felt clean. His sagemono bag, which contained his sealed supplies, was missing.

He heard footsteps outside, just loud enough to make noise in a way that felt deliberate. Madara let himself into the cell without any fanfare, locking the door behind him.

“Where are my clothes?” Tobirama asked him flatly.

“In another room,” Madara answered. “I had to make sure they weren’t hiding any tools you could use to escape; I’m sure you understand. And I was concerned about the amount of chakra they were draining from you. I didn’t put all this effort into capturing you alive only to have you killed by your own clothing.”

“They’re quality celestial silk,” Tobirama scoffed. “Poor, instantaneous make celestial silk like yours might accidentally kill its wearer, but mine is capable of knowing when to stop.”

“Celestial silk?” Madara echoed, cocking his head to the side.

Tobirama’s eye twitched. “You are wearing celestial silk.”

“Ah.” Madara sat down on one of the zabuton cushions beside the chabudai, and gestured for Tobirama to sit across from him. “Interesting. Kaguya shared little knowledge with her children, and even much of what she did share has been lost to time. Come sit, I have a feeling this discussion will be long.”

Albeit begrudgingly, Tobirama did as he said. With the Gudoudama attached to his body, he had few options available to him, and the rational choice was to avoid needlessly antagonising his captor. Madara’s Rinnegan meant that Tobirama did not have death as an escape. If he provoked Madara into detonating the Gudoudama around his neck, he could simply recall Tobirama with Rinne Tensei and continue as if nothing had happened.

Particularly skilled users of Rinne Tensei could use it to hold a victim’s soul inside their body long past the point it should have died, allowing them to feel unique agonies that otherwise would have been physically impossible. Isshiki-sama had once used it to punish a disobedient son with an extended disembowelment.

Tobirama had absolutely no desire to experience a similar fate.

Madara pulled a full tea set and a dish of stir-fry from a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal, and Tobirama watched in silence as he prepared two cups for the both of them. The stir-fry was placed in front of Tobirama, but he waited until the tea was done to begin eating, as was polite.

Neither of them said a word while Tobirama ate his meal. It was supremely awkward to eat with Madara staring at him, looking more interested in the process than Tobirama thought was warranted.

The food was good, at least. More flavourful than he was used to. At Mount Shumisen, meals were prepared by White Zetsu kitchen staff working round the clock, and Tobirama ate in his greenhouse’s communal dining hall for those not high-ranking enough for personalised meal schedules. The food was prepared in bulk and tended to be basic and bland. If one wanted better, they’d have to work to earn it.

When he was done, he set his chopsticks down on top of his empty dish and pushed it aside with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with. Ask what you will. I can’t guarantee I will answer.”

“As you wish,” Madara said dryly, but his gaze immediately steeled. “What is the goal of the Otsutsuki clan?”

Tobirama blinked. He hadn’t expected such a basic question. “To achieve enlightenment.”

This was apparently not the answer that Madara had been expecting, because his eyebrows went up. “How do God Trees and chakra fruit factor into that?”

He didn’t know? “When one obtains a critical mass of chakra, they become enlightened and ascend to a higher plane of existence,” Tobirama explained. “Our first Emperor, Shibai-heika, achieved this several million years ago. Harvested chakra fruit is brought back to the clan to be processed into sentan, the elixir of life, and then distributed amongst clan members according to their status and contributions made. Sentan grants additional chakra, cures all ailments, and grants immortality, though it must be consumed continuously to maintain immortality.”

He frowned. “Before you ask how sentan is made, I do not know. I am a greenhouse worker, and the greenhouses and elixir factories are kept separate so that one person cannot have both access to God Trees and the knowledge of how to produce sentan. This is to prevent rebel offshoots from breaking off the clan.”

“Are ‘rebel offshoots’ a common issue for your clan?” Madara asked mildly.

Tobirama crossed his arms defensively. “Not in the sense that you’re likely imagining. The Otsutsuki clan is fiercely competitive. Everyone wishes to climb the ranks to be allotted higher rations of sentan and come closer to achieving enlightenment… I suppose you would call them ‘succession disputes.’ As long as the bottom line of production is unaffected, we are free to act as we wish. If you cannot defend your position, you do not deserve it.”

“As you said about myself and Kaguya,” Madara murmured, staring down into his tea in contemplation. “Do you enjoy living that way?”

The question brought Tobirama up short. “What do you mean?”

“Do you enjoy living that way?” Madara repeated. “Constantly watching your back, unable to rely on anyone else. Isn’t it exhausting? Isn’t it lonely?”

“It is what it is,” Tobirama said, though the words felt hollow. “Regardless of how I feel about it, that is the way of the Otsutsuki clan. I must follow it if I wish to survive.”

When Emperor Shibai had ascended to a higher plane of existence, he had left his body behind, perfectly preserved and undecaying, no longer resembling anything even close to humanoid. He’d had fifty children. Those fifty children had dove on the corpse, consuming every inch of flesh in hopes of obtaining their father’s power, and when they had reduced it to nothing, they turned on each other, until only one was left standing. His Imperial Majesty, the Second Emperor, Otsutsuki Jizou-heika.

The story was told to every Otsutsuki in their childhood; a feat of awe and a lesson to be learned. There was no mercy in the Otsutsuki clan. Only the strong survived.

Madara gave him an inscrutable look, but left the topic alone. “Where are the Otsutsuki from? Are there other clans of celestial beings out there?”

“Not anymore,” Tobirama answered. “We have encountered other celestial beings in our exploration of the universe, but none as old as the Otsutsuki clan, and they have since been fed to God Trees and killed.” Which was a shame, because discovering a civilization older than the Otsutsuki could have yielded insight into the origins of the universe, but if one existed, it hadn’t been found yet. “As for our world of origin, it has since been lost to time, devoured by the first God Tree. We now reside on Mount Shumisen, a four-dimensional superstructure created by Emperor Shibai, comprised of several thousand interlocking and overlapping dimensions, allowing the mountain to exist in multiple worlds at once. It was built so that its peak reaches as close to the Formless Realms as is physically possible. It is located northwest and above from your world.”

“Formless Realms?”

“Worlds of pure abstraction that physical matter cannot enter. I wish to study them someday.” Tobirama had been hoping, a little bit, to throw Madara off by prattling technical jargon at him, but he seemed to have understood everything Tobirama just said. Didn’t know what celestial silk was while wearing it, yet understood four-dimensional theory. Madara’s knowledge was… eclectic.

“I’m not surprised that you’re the scholarly type,” Madara said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth for some reason. “But you also said that you’re a greenhouse worker. Explain your job in the clan to me. What are the greenhouses, and what is your role in them?”

“The greenhouses are… where a mother God Tree is kept, so that new God Tree saplings can be created from them and given to a farmer, who will then search for a viable world to plant it.” He would have to be very careful with his words here. God Trees had been engineered to produce seedless fruit for the same reason that the greenhouses and elixir factories were kept separate, and even if they still did, cultivated fruits weren’t always true to seed. To guarantee the quality of the new tree and its fruit, saplings were made from cuttings from the mother God Trees.

Madara had a fully functional God Tree in his possession. It was for the best that he did not realise he could create more by taking cuttings from it.

Not that it would be as easy as simply cutting a branch off. Madara’s soul was his God Tree’s soul, his chakra was his God Tree’s chakra, and him being conscious during the process of taking a cutting meant that his sense of self would contaminate the branch, causing it to remain a piece of his God Tree and not a blank slate.

The mother God Trees were not bound to their respective Branch Heads for this reason, but a God Tree could not reach maturity without a bonded master – and so the mother God Tree’s Otsutsuki host was physically fused with it, kept sedated in a delicate meditative trance. Conscious enough that their spirit would not atrophy into a lesser state, unconscious enough to keep their chakra pure of irregularities that naturally occurred in response to any sort of stimuli.

“There are thirteen greenhouses and seven elixir factories. All of these facilities are referred to as Branches, and their leader the Branch Head. We have a general crest for the Otsutsuki clan – the grid of nine circles inside a square – but each Branch also has a unique crest worn on clothing to identify its members. Kaguya would have worn the same crest that I do; we are of the Keyaki Branch. Each factory is supplied by specific greenhouses, with two greenhouses to one factory, but as the largest and most productive greenhouse, Keyaki supplies the Hisui Branch factory on its own. Above the Branches is the Imperial Court, the lower half of whom focuses on research and development, and the upper half, the Great Old Ones, spend nearly all of their time in meditation, pursuing enlightenment.”

“Interesting,” Madara drawled. “You haven’t told me what you do yet, Tobirama. I notice that you didn’t call yourself a farmer.”

No honorifics. Tobirama couldn’t tell if that was better or worse than the condescending -kun or -chan. Either way, it was still audaciously rude. He grit his teeth. “I finished my basic education and training only somewhat recently, so I am currently on the waitlist to receive a God Tree sapling when the next batch is ready. In the meantime, I have been studying chakra theory and applications to create useful inventions for my clan.”

“You’re a rookie.” Madara’s voice was gleeful. “How old are you, exactly?”

“... One hundred and four,” Tobirama admitted.

Madara grinned. “One hundred and seven. I’m older than you, Tobirama-kun.”

“You are not.”

“I’m afraid it’s true. I was born three years before you were.”

“You–” Tobirama opened his mouth to say that Madara did not look like a human aged one hundred and seven, then remembered that Madara had absorbed Kaguya’s soul and bound himself to a God Tree, which would have allowed him to restore his youth. He shut his mouth. “It hardly matters. Ask me something else.”

“Tell me about celestial silk, then. You called my clothing ‘poor, instantaneous make.’”

That was easy, at least. “Celestial silk’s defining property is that it ‘remembers’ the shape that it was created to be in, and is capable of regenerating itself when damaged,” Tobirama began. “Like any other cloth, the quality is reliant on its craftsmanship, and I could see the weave of yours with my Byakugan, although chakra sensing would do it as well. Instantaneously made celestial silk is thinly woven; it is less durable, meaning that it has to repair itself more often and thereby uses more chakra, as well as lowering its threshold of protection as an armour weave.”

“Lightweight, flexible armour weave,” Madara mused, looking intrigued. “I’d noticed that you took blows to clothed parts of your body better than you should have. How does the Otsutsuki clan produce their celestial silk clothing?”

“We have dedicated seamstresses whose sole duty is to produce celestial silk clothing for the clan,” Tobirama explained. “But they are not a unit of their own the way that the Branches are. If a Branch or a member of the Imperial Court wants a seamstress, they must create one. They are highly sought after. Like all workers, they must be created as infants and trained, and as with any other soft trait, the Creation of All Things cannot guarantee an individual’s talents or temperament. A skilled seamstress is capable of imbuing celestial silk with additional properties and abilities.”

“Such as those of a feather cloak,” Madara surmised.

“Yes.” Tobirama hesitated for a moment. “You obviously have no intention of returning my feather cloak to me, and I know that I am in no place to ask anything of you, but… I would request that you do not destroy it. It, as well as my other clothing, are of great personal value to me, but my feather cloak the most so.”

“Personal value?”

“They were made by my mother,” Tobirama answered tightly. “She no longer exists. That is all I am willing to say on the matter.”

Madara regarded him for a long while, his blank expression belying the intense thoughts behind his eyes, before seeming to come to a decision. He stood up and held out a hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

Wary, Tobirama stood and tentatively took Madara’s hand. He didn’t know why he was surprised that Madara’s hand was warm – Tobirama had just instinctively expected it to be cold, like Madara’s pale colouring meant he was made of ice. His glove felt soft, like leather.

A Yomotsu Hirasaka portal opened beside them, and Tobirama followed Madara through it. They were deposited on top of a forested mountain, and the view straight ahead took Tobirama’s breath away.

“This is Mount Taizan, the highest peak in the Mountains’ Graveyard,” Madara said. His voice seemed to echo on the silent mountaintop. He let go of Tobirama’s hand. “This mountain region was created when Kaguya and her sons clashed, reshaping the landscape in their course. Four hundred years later, the final battle of the Summon Wars took place here. Animals had eaten the sap and the leaves of the God Tree and gained chakra, and as their descendants only continued to increase in power and size, conflict broke out between these animal clans and their allied humans. The bones you see are now all that remain of the great beasts who fought here.”

It was hauntingly beautiful. The sun was rising, dyeing the underside of the sky in brilliant oranges and golds, turning the edges of the light faintly pink where they met the deep, dark blue of the night. Thick, lush greenery stretched out infinitely in every direction, only interrupted by glimpses of the rivers winding through it, and of course, the bones. Enormous skulls half-covered in moss, open ribcages large enough to tower over the ancient trees.

Tobirama had never seen anything like it. The gardens of Mount Shumisen had been designed to be dazzling, plants growing in shapes and colours impossible without the influence of chakra, and yet they had left less of an impression on him than this view.

It was the melancholy and imperfection of it all. This was not an ornamental site; it was a world with a story. Nature ran wild here, but it was also marked by the lives of its inhabitants in ways that could not be considered right or wrong. An ebb and flow of change, each existence creating its own ripples.

The mountain air was cool, and Tobirama wasn’t even wearing shoes, though his clothes were thick enough that the temperature didn’t bother him. The earth was soft beneath his feet.

“Why are you showing me this?” Tobirama asked. “What do you want me to do?”

“I spent the majority of my life in this region,” Madara said, staring out over the horizon. “I used to think that this world was beyond saving; an endless cycle of suffering that needed to be put out of its misery. Infinite Tsukuyomi. And then I learned that this continent was the last bastion of life on this planet, that there are countless other worlds who will continue on no matter what happens here, and I realised how meaningless my ambition had been. I would be crushing the remains of this tiny corner of the universe, and the stars would continue to spin, unaffected by the death of one more speck.”

He turned to face Tobirama, and his Rinnegan eyes blazed with quiet, unshakable conviction. “I want to protect this world,” Madara continued. “I want its people to live in peace and happiness. I won’t let the Otsutsuki clan trample this world and discard it like it means nothing.”

“Then you are a fool,” Tobirama rasped, his own voice registering strangely to his ears, as if he were hearing it from far away. “Your world does mean nothing. You will only ever be able to buy yourself time. At best, you will make enough of a nuisance of yourself that this world will be marked as a difficult harvest and moved down the priority list, to come back to once worlds of easier difficulty have been exhausted, but that time will run out eventually. You may be able to best the farmers, perhaps even Senshiki-sama himself, but you will never be able to match the strength of the weakest of the Great Old Ones, even if you were to begin farming worlds yourself. They have been consuming sentan for millions of years. Prince Tarine’s body is bigger than this entire planet. Whether it is in fifty years or five thousand, this world will be destroyed by the Otsutsuki clan.”

“I don’t care,” Madara said. “Even if this world is doomed to die, it will have meant something to me. To everyone who lives on it. Whatever the Otsutsuki clan thinks or does has no bearing on that. The time I have isn’t meaningless just because it will come to an end eventually.”

“Is there a point to this conversation?” Tobirama demanded.

“Does your life actually have any meaning, Tobirama?”

The question caught Tobirama off guard, his jaw working fruitlessly for a moment, and while he was silent, Madara kept speaking.

“Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t. All I see is another disposable farmer indistinguishable from the rest, wasting his life so that others may reap the rewards of his work while he sees nothing for his efforts. You might as well not even have a face. Do you truly believe that you’ll ever make your way to the top? Only one of your clan has ever ascended to that higher plane of existence. How many millions of years do you think it’ll take for the entire top of the hierarchy to ascend so that there’s an opening in the queue for you? The promise of enlightenment is a carrot dangled in front of your nose to keep you moving. Some part of you must already know that it’s never going to happen.”

Tobirama’s hands were shaking; his entire body was shaking. Madara steadied him with a hand on his shoulder when his knees buckled, and without another word, the portal reopened, and Madara led Tobirama back through to his cell.

“I’ll be back in a few hours with lunch. Think about what I said.”

And with that, he was gone. Tobirama collapsed against the side of the bed, staring sightlessly at the wall.

A few hours was good. He could pull himself together in a few hours. The emotional rush would fade in a few hours, and Tobirama would be able to re-examine Madara’s words with a clear mind, and he would re-centre himself.

He didn’t know why he was so affected. But it would pass. It had to.

Chapter Text

True to his word, Madara returned after roughly four hours, shortly before noon. A clock had been hung on the wall above Tobirama’s cell door at some point. He took one look at Tobirama’s face, placed the tray of food on the chabudai, and then left.

Tobirama would have snorted if he’d had the energy. Instead, he just felt wrung out. Exhausted. Once the blind haze of shock and emotion had passed, he’d tried to reason with himself and think through Madara’s arguments.

To his chagrin, he could not disprove anything that Madara had said. In fact, the longer that Tobirama thought about it, the more sense it made.

He’d once contemplated the inefficiency of the farming system – how it was illogical to drain a world dry for one large harvest, then have to search for a new world to begin again. It would be more productive in the long term to farm that world for many smaller chakra fruits, only partially draining it each time and allowing it to grow back for a potentially infinite stream of chakra fruit from a renewable source. There would be no need to worry about finding new worlds that were up to standard when they could guarantee the quality of the ones they already had.

But farmers were paid in sentan for their work. An Otsutsuki bonded to a God Tree was already immortal, and that was why that bond had to be severed and the God Tree killed as the final step of the harvest procedure. Otherwise, what use would they have for sentan? What could the clan possibly offer that would convince the farmers to part with their harvest? Nothing. And that was why the scorched-earth farming model was in place; not because it was the most efficient, but because it was the easiest way to use the farmers.

The more sentan that one consumed, the more mutated their body became. Branch Head Senshiki-sama was made of three emaciated humanoid bodies, each with six arms, their necks stretching up to merge into one large head surrounded by a mane-like ring of horns, its three faces rotating around a central eye like the tomoe of a God Tree’s Rinnegan.

For the first time, Tobirama saw that form for what it was: unwieldy. The clan’s higher ranks relied on the labour of farmers because their own bodies made even basic movement difficult. They could have easily made up for it with the use of shinjutsu, or even trying to modify their bodies themselves, but… why would they? Wasn’t it more convenient to just outsource it to someone else?

He drew his limbs in to sit cross-legged on the floor. His feet were still covered in a thin layer of dirt from the mountain, and Tobirama ran a finger along the crane marking on the underside of his right foot.

Otsutsuki Mitsuru.

What he hadn’t told Madara about Otsutsuki seamstresses was that part of the reason they were so valued was that they had a limited shelf life. Similarly to the mother God Trees’ hosts affecting the cuttings taken from their tree, a seamstress’ mind affected her work. A seamstress required a clarity of purpose and devotion.

Seamstresses were plied with sentan, not out of any consideration for their personal journey towards enlightenment, but because they needed to possess the Rinnegan and large chakra reserves to be able to weave, like giving cattle quality feed so that their meat would be juicy and tender. Seamstresses lived with all the creature comforts they could ask for, but always, inevitably, their minds would deteriorate in one way or another, and it would leak through their chakra and poison their work.

Tobirama’s mother had been one of Prince Tarine’s own creations, hundreds of thousands of years old, considered to be one of the best seamstresses the clan had ever seen. She’d worked for the Imperial Court under the authority of her brother, Daietsu, and had lived in solitude in her personal dimension, producing wonder after wonder. She had been the first to successfully create a feather cloak.

And then she’d made him. Mitsuru had removed one of the doors from inside her home, feeding it through her loom to weave a child; something she had not asked for permission for, nor would she have been allowed to do.

In hindsight, with the clarity of adulthood, Tobirama thought that his mother had been desperately lonely. She’d been sequestered for her own protection, for all other seamstresses had wished for her death so that they could take her place. For ten short, happy years, he had been her secret.

Mitsuru’s growing instability had shown through her work, and when the clan had visited her to investigate, they’d discovered Tobirama. Mitsuru had been deemed unsalvageable and executed. Not just killed, but her very soul annihilated, ground down into pure chakra and absorbed. There was no point in allowing a flawed soul to reincarnate when it had already been proven unreliable, and more chakra could be recycled that way.

Tobirama, Mitsuru’s unauthorised creation, should have been destroyed along with her. But Daietsu had hesitated. Mitsuru had been a master with the Creation of All Things, and it showed. Tobirama had a fully functional red Byakugan, even though all documented attempts at making cosmetic changes had compromised the doujutsu, and he even bore Mitsuru’s signature, just like all of her works. Rather than write him off, Daietsu had decided that the clan had nothing to lose by raising him like any other worker, and perhaps Mitsuru’s “final masterpiece”, as she’d described him, would be as much a boon to the clan as the rest.

In the Keyaki Branch, Momoshiki had just returned from his first harvest. Senshiki had created Kinshiki to assist in raising Isshiki’s children, and once they’d reached adulthood, with that purpose fulfilled, Kinshiki had been given to Momoshiki as his personal servant. Kinshiki had been assigned to complete Tobirama’s education while he and Momoshiki waited for their next mission.

Even after all this time, Tobirama still struggled to understand his mother’s thought process in creating him. A child hadn’t been her only choice if she’d wanted companionship. She had countless animals in her gardens, including her hou-ous, and if she’d wanted something that could talk, she could’ve made a Black or White Zetsu. None of those would have warranted her death upon discovery, and she would have known it would have been impossible to hide Tobirama forever.

It had been a very long time since Tobirama had allowed himself to think about his mother. My final masterpiece. What future had she intended for him? Had she intended one at all?

He’d settled into believing that she’d created him as a pet. Something about Madara’s words had stirred those old memories that Tobirama tried not to dwell on, dug up an old, childish yearning that he thought he’d crushed.

Every part of his body had been a conscious design choice on Mitsuru’s part. She had purposely not given him Rinnegan eyes, even though it would have been within her power. She had refused to teach him how to weave no matter how many times he’d asked; one needed to learn how to weave the ordinary way before they could even begin creating celestial silk. The one thing Tobirama could be certain of was that Mitsuru had not wanted him to become like her.

Deep down, a part of him wanted to believe it was because she loved him.

Had she purposely created him with unique features in the hopes that it would spare his life? Or it had merely been a whim in designing a doll, and she’d never given any thought to what would happen to her pet after her execution. He’d never be able to ask.

Mechanically, he forced himself to eat. The meal was makizushi this time, though his turmoil made it taste like ash in his mouth.

The future had never looked so bleak. Even if Tobirama were to return from this mission with his reputation unscathed, he saw the endless road forward for what it was.

If Tobirama could create a fully functional map of the cosmos to track which worlds had been farmed, surely someone older and more skilled would have had the same idea long before now. But why waste the time and the chakra when naive, eager-to-prove young workers would patch the system for them?

“How many millions of years do you think it’ll take for the entire top of the hierarchy to ascend so that there’s an opening in the queue for you?”

The best case scenario was that he would be doing the same thing over and over again for millions of years, never guaranteed to rise any higher up the ranks, always fighting for survival.

“Do you enjoy living that way? Constantly watching your back, unable to rely on anyone else. Isn’t it exhausting? Isn’t it lonely?”

And that was being optimistic. This failure of a first mission would be a permanent stain on Tobirama’s record, especially when he’d challenged Momoshiki for it.

Tobirama had always wondered why Momoshiki was the favoured one of Isshiki’s children when he was such an idiot, but with the new context Madara had given him, it was clear that Momoshiki was favoured because he was an idiot. Momoshiki was a bratty manchild with the critical thinking skills of a peach pit, and that was a good thing, because it meant his devotion to the Otsutsuki clan and his work was absolute and unquestioning. He could be led around by the nose to do whatever the clan wanted him to do until his use wore out.

Masterfully done, on Madara’s part. Even if Tobirama was able to escape, the thought of returning to his ordinary life with his new perspective chafed. He didn’t think he’d be able to hide his loss of faith from Senshiki’s sharp eyes; his work would no longer have his heart put into it, and without that drive, death would find him sooner rather than later. There was nothing worth going back to.

He was left to ponder his circumstances until Madara came by again with dinner, and this time Tobirama spoke to him. “Congratulations,” he said. “You were right. The only future I should expect from the Otsutsuki clan is death. But my own point still stands. Even if I were to stay here and hide behind you, you cannot hope to fend off the clan forever. There is no future in this world, either.”

Madara gave him a long, considering look, cocking his head to the side. “If all roads end in death anyway, then you are free to act as you wish.”

“Hardly. I am still your prisoner. If you truly mean what you say, remove my restraints and give me back my feather cloak. I have no reason to stay here. I could travel from world to world independent of both you and the clan, as free as you claim you want me to be.”

“Your conviction is still weak,” Madara said flatly. “If I returned your feather cloak now, you would buckle under your fear of the Otsutsuki clan and return to them within a year, and you would tell them everything you know about me in the hopes that it would buy you leniency. I think not.”

Tobirama tilted his chin up stubbornly. “Convince me, then. Prove to me why I should stay here and not somewhere else. You have until someone arrives to investigate my disappearance.”

Madara smirked at him, and Tobirama had the feeling that he’d done exactly what Madara wanted him to do. But Tobirama wouldn’t go back on his word now. Either Madara would prove himself, or he wouldn’t. He clearly wanted Tobirama’s willing cooperation, and Tobirama still had the power to deny him that if he failed.

The five Gudoudama lifted themselves from Tobirama’s body, reforming into the shapes of spheres before dematerialising. “In that case, we might as well eat dinner together in a more pleasant setting,” Madara said lightly. His eyes momentarily hardened in warning. “I will not tolerate duplicity. Do not mistake my leniency for an inability to do what must be done. Should you think to put a knife in my back, you will not receive a second chance.”

Tobirama nodded somewhat mulishly. It was a fair disclaimer to make, though he had very little to gain from attempting to subvert this agreement. The cell door swung open and he followed Madara out of it, glancing curiously at his surroundings.

They were in what appeared to be some sort of dungeon, most likely underground, though the architecture was notably made of a different type of stone to the inside of Tobirama’s cell. “Where are we?” he asked.

“The lower levels of a palace inside one of Kaguya’s personal dimensions,” Madara explained as they walked up the stairs. “I inherited control of them when I absorbed her. This place has been gathering dust for the last thousand years while she was sealed, and I’ve converted it into my main base of operations. I named it You-shiro.”

You-shiro, meaning ‘corrosion palace’ or ‘lava palace’. Tobirama would have asked why, but that question was preemptively answered when they reached the ground floor and he was able to see out through one of the glass windows.

The landscape outside was all dark, barren rock, lit only by the glow of dozens of wide lava rivers. The rivers all came from the same source, leading up the side of a great volcano whose entirety was too close to be seen. The palace appeared to be built into the side of its base.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Madara said, startling Tobirama out of his observation. Tobirama had drifted over to the window to get a better look, and Madara was now right beside him. “Kaguya had six sub-dimensions in total. I think she used them as testing grounds for the Creation of All Things to see what her limits were. Each dimension has a different biome. A mountainous core dimension, volcanic, frozen tundra, desert, acid sea, and a world with increased gravity.”

Interesting. Tobirama followed Madara into the room he’d converted into a kitchen and dining area, with both a traditional irori and more modern kitchen features, some of which Tobirama didn’t recognise.

He didn’t actually need to eat as often as Madara seemed to think he did – but Tobirama had exhausted himself in their battle, and the additional energy would help him to rebuild his chakra stores faster.

The meal was fish and rice again, this time separate instead of in sushi rolls. Fish… The food must have come from the main dimension. “You made bold claims regarding peace, happiness, and freedom,” Tobirama began, sitting down at the chabudai across from Madara. “And yet you still maintain the Infinite Tsukuyomi. It makes it difficult to take your words at face value.”

Madara couldn’t fully suppress his wince at the inquiry. “Ah, that’s… a fair point. I’ve been releasing wildlife to lighten the daily chakra cost, and during that process, I realised that while I have most organisms effectively quarantined in suspended animation, I could use that period to isolate and kill infectious diseases. It’s been slow, as I can only do one disease at a time, but once finished, I’ll deactivate the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”

“That makes sense,” Tobirama conceded.

“I’ll have to find some books on the history of the Elemental Nations for you to read,” Madara mused, half to himself, half to Tobirama. “At the moment of Kaguya’s sealing, she created an agent to act on her behalf to free her, and it purposely suppressed information regarding Kaguya and the first Infinite Tsukuyomi, so that people would be unaware of the threat she represented.”

“A Black Zetsu,” Tobirama surmised.

“A Black Zetsu?”

“Mm.” Tobirama stuffed a large bite of fish in his mouth. “Zetsu are artificial humans created with incomplete souls, with their inhibited sapience meaning that hard laws can be encoded in their being, such as an inability to betray their creator. This would be impossible in a creature with true free will. The incomplete soul is created through an overbalance of yin or yang. Yin dominance produces Black Zetsu, strong in mind but not body, and yang dominance produces White Zetsu, strong in body but not mind. They would be ideal farmers if not for the fact that their incomplete souls are too weak to serve as a God Tree’s host, so they’re mostly used for domestic tasks.”

“Huh.” Madara blinked at Tobirama for a moment. “I’d assumed that Kaguya’s Black Zetsu took on the name to blend in with the White Zetsu, who I thought were my own creations.” He frowned, pensive. “Celestial beings are considered to be myths. I only became aware of the first Infinite Tsukuyomi after I’d reassembled the Juubi and cast my own, and I was forced to reconsider my stance. Prior to that, I had intended to use it to painlessly euthanize humanity to end our nigh-constant wars, and the five major Hidden Villages – the military powers of our largest nations – had united to stop me. It will be… difficult… to explain my change of heart. I considered it a great boon when you arrived here, because I had very little evidence to credibly prove the existence and threat of the Otsutsuki clan thanks to Kaguya’s Black Zetsu.”

“You…” Tobirama put his chopsticks down. “These Hidden Villages. They and their nations were the ones in perpetual conflict with each other, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Despite this, they collectively put these grudges aside to unite as one force.”

Madara was starting to look shifty, eyes darting nervously to the side. “Yes.”

“Against you.”

“Yes.”

“Because you wanted to kill them all in a mass extinction event.”

“You make me sound like a misanthrope, putting it that way,” Madara grumbled, prodding moodily at his rice with his own chopsticks. “It may have been… misguided, but my intentions with Infinite Tsukuyomi were benevolent. I wanted everyone to live out their idealised lives within Infinite Tsukuyomi before peacefully passing of old age, because I truly believed that compromise was impossible when the existence of more than one individual will always mean that those individuals will come into conflict. If I were just a misanthrope, I had quicker and easier options for mass extinction events than the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”

“Are you sure that you’re a hundred and seven years old?” Tobirama asked incredulously. “I’ve never heard of anything so childish before in my life.” That was not true, he’d spoken to Momoshiki before, but it was the principle of the thing. “Learning to compromise is one of the most basic skills an adult can have. Of course everybody can’t have everything they want. Your plan was a nihilistic tantrum disguised as altruism.”

“I know that now,” Madara huffed. He crossed his arms. “It’s easy for you to cast judgement, as an outsider looking in. But as far as I, and everyone else, knew, the edges of Elemental Nations were the borders of the universe. Our conflicts may seem petty to you, but that doesn’t devalue our pain.”

“Hm.” With no real response to that, Tobirama returned to his food. Madara’s eye twitched, but he did the same, and they finished their meal in silence.

Part of Tobirama was relieved that Madara had revealed himself to be fallible so quickly. Ironically, weakness was more trustworthy than strength. Nobody was perfect or all knowing. And to Madara’s credit, he was able to admit to his own mistakes despite what it must have done to his ego. There were no Otsutsuki who could say the same.

It was a perfect observation opportunity for Tobirama; how Madara acted going forwards would be what made or broke his decision on wanting to stay. Whether he realised it or not, Madara was this world, to Tobirama; as its God Tree’s master, he was its literal beating heart, and his power meant that he was capable of enforcing his will through sheer brute force.

“I want a proper bath,” Tobirama told Madara, once they were done eating. “And it’s uncivilised to sleep in my day clothes if I’m indoors. I have sleepwear in the scrolls in my sagemono. Where are they?”

He was purposely being pushy, testing how Madara would react to different levels of rudeness to see if his boundaries were reasonable. Madara only rolled his eyes and pointed down the hallway. “The bathroom is two doors down, and the contents of your bag that you’re allowed back are in the study on the opposite side of the hall from it. I’m keeping your weapons for now. Your feather cloak is in another dimension, but it’ll be well taken care of and stored safely until I can trust that you won’t run off with it the second it’s handed to you.”

Tobirama gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement and left. He flared his Byakugan as he walked, checking the layout of the palace, and everything was exactly where Madara had said it would be.

To Tobirama’s annoyance, Madara had broken the security seals he’d placed on his sagemono and scrolls, and for many of those scrolls, the security measures had been built into the actual storage seals, breaking the seals altogether. His possessions that hadn’t been able to be put back into the ruined seals were stacked neatly on top of tables.

The liquid toiletries, like his soaps and shampoo, were missing, presumably because Madara had taken them to test that they weren’t poisonous chemicals disguised as household items, although his toothpaste oddly remained. Tobirama snatched up it, a toothbrush, a white jinbei set, a fresh fundoshi, and set off to the bathroom.

The bathroom was more modern than Tobirama was used to, with a standing shower as well as the traditional soaking tub. It was more convenient than sitting down to wash himself before soaking, so Tobirama used the shower with the soap and shampoo already there, and dried himself with the single large, fluffy towel that presumably belonged to Madara. If Madara had a problem with it, it was his own fault for not thinking to give Tobirama his own supplies ahead of time.

He ended up returning to his cell to brush his teeth over the tiny sink there, rather than establish a habit of using Madara’s bathroom for everything. The cell, despite being, well, a cell, was Tobirama’s space, and until he was given a different one, he’d cultivate his independence where he could.

*

He’d actually done it.

“Convince me, then. Prove to me why I should stay here and not somewhere else. You have until someone arrives to investigate my disappearance.”

So many times in Madara’s life he’d felt like he was desperately reaching out, trying to make someone, anyone, see and understand. He’d always failed, and it had driven him to despair. He’d blamed the world, humanity, anything but himself.

But it had been Madara’s own nihilism that had stopped others from taking the hand he thought he was holding out. He had not been offering salvation, but the guarantee that salvation would never come. Infinite Tsukuyomi was a finite ending, to give up on ever making a better future, and die consoling oneself with an illusion.

And now, when Madara had discarded his nihilism and reached out to another person with hope rather than defeat, he’d succeeded. A thin, tenuous acceptance, but for the very first time since he’d met Hashirama at the river as a child, he’d convinced someone to believe in him.

No, more than that– Hashirama had already wanted peace between their clans when they’d met. Madara hadn’t needed to convince him of anything. But he’d changed Tobirama’s mind. No matter how tentative that connection was, Madara had finally, finally, reached someone else.

Was there any better sign that he was on the right path?

Familiarising Tobirama with the history and culture of the Elemental Nations was a necessary starting point. During the last six months, Madara had also needed to catch himself up on what had happened during the nineteen years between him severing his connection to the Gedou Mazou and his resurrection, so he already had a collection of recent history books (and classified shinobi village reports) on hand, but he’d need much more for Tobirama.

Yomotsu Hirasaka took them to a location that Madara knew by heart, and he kept his eyes on Tobirama’s face to capture his reaction when he saw Konohagakure no Sato for the first time.

The view from the top of the Hokage Monument, where Hashirama and Madara had first dreamed of peace between their clans as children, spanned the entirety of the village and just past the gates, so that one could see the moat of thick forest encircling it.

Konoha had changed since Madara had last laid eyes on it. He knew, from the reports, that only months prior to the beginning of the Fourth Shinobi War, Uzumaki Nagato had unleashed a massive Shinra Tensei that had devastated most of the village’s infrastructure, and could still see areas where reconstruction was ongoing. But Konoha had bounced back startlingly quickly. It was bigger than ever, its streets rebuilt in new layouts that weren’t the ones Madara had once walked.

The village, and the dream behind it, was like a weed. Even when Madara had turned his back on it, even when he and others had tried to destroy it, it refused to die. His and Hashirama’s dream had survived in spite of Madara, not because of him.

Perhaps Madara didn’t have any right to claim Konoha after everything he’d done, but when Tobirama’s eyes widened, he still felt pride.

Madara wasn’t an unbiased judge, but he wholeheartedly believed that Konoha was the best looking of all the Hidden Villages. It had a unique, eclectic blend of traditional and modern architecture in a chaotic sprawl. Unlike the strict, military-minded layouts of Iwa and Kumo, Konoha looked like a place that people lived in. A home.

The only blight on the village were the thick grey roots of the God Tree looming over it with thousands of cocoons clustered on their undersides, containing Konoha’s sleeping populace.

“This is Konohagakure no Sato,” Madara said, sweeping an arm out before them. “The Village Hidden in the Leaves. In my youth, the chakra-users of this world lived in many small, mercenary clans constantly in conflict with one another. My clan, the Uchiha, had been at war with our neighbour, the Senju, for hundreds of years. I wanted it to end so that my family no longer had to die, and when I was a preteen, I met a boy here, at the border of our territories, who wanted the same. I lost faith in our dream, but Hashirama never did. It was through his efforts that the war between the Uchiha and the Senju was brought to an end, and the shinobi clans of Fire Country would all pull up their roots and move here, to take shelter under Konoha’s leaves.”

It was no wonder that the people of Konoha hadn’t chosen Madara as their Hokage. He hadn’t believed in the village, so how could they have believed in him? The Uchiha had been defecting out from under Madara to the Senju near the end of the war – completely unheard of for their clan, who valued blood so highly.

Because Madara, in his grief and rage, had been forcing his clan to continue fighting a war that they already knew had been lost, forcing them to die needless deaths that achieved nothing. The Uchiha had never forgotten that, nor had they forgiven.

Their shinobi could vote for Madara, a leader who had already shown that he would prioritise his own feelings over the good of his people, and who’d only agreed to a truce with a sword at his throat. Or they could vote for Hashirama, a leader who had shown compassion to even his enemies. Hashirama was both a successful military general, as proven by his victory against the Uchiha, and a magnetic personality who inspired others.

When the time had come to vote for a Hokage, the result had been a foregone conclusion to everyone except Madara.

“Hashirama…” Tobirama cocked his head to the side. “A bit of an inauspicious name for a founding leader.”

That… was not what Madara had been expecting to come out of Tobirama’s mouth. “What do you mean?”

Tobirama frowned at him, looking confused by Madara being confused. “That’s written with the characters for ‘pillar’ and ‘demon’, isn’t it? I suppose it would make an intimidating impression for the history books.”

“No? It’s written as ‘the space between pillars’, why would you…” Wait. Madara squinted at Tobirama. “Is that how your name is written? ‘Door demon’?”

A light, embarrassed flush rose to Tobirama’s cheeks, and he turned away with a huff. “… Yes. Shut up. Are we going down to the village or not?”

扉魔. Door demon, Tobira-ma. Madara had been close with his first guess at what Tobirama’s name meant. He held open his arms. “Come here, then.” Tobirama stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Unless you’re capable of jumping down to the village without shattering your legs?”

Tobirama stepped forwards, grumbling under his breath, which then turned to a yelp when Madara swept him up into a bridal carry. Madara snickered at the sound – reminiscent of the yowl of a startled cat – and then leapt off the cliff face.

His ability was technically levitation, not flight, but Madara didn’t think he’d ever tire of using it to soar through the sky. Tobirama’s arms locked around his neck in a veritable death grip as the tennin clung onto him for dear life, his hissing, spitting voice right by Madara’s ear.

“What the hell, you could have warned me before just– taking off like that! I didn’t think you were going to pick me up like this! I was hardly secure, I could have fallen! I still could! Were you thinking at all!?” Tobirama was not helping the bristling cat impression, carrying on like that. The indignant look on his face was kind of cute. Eyes narrowed into angry slits, mouth curling into a sneer that flashed his fangs.

“Relax,” Madara drawled. “Even if I dropped you, which I won’t, the Deva Path would catch you within a second. There’s nothing to be panicking about.”

Tobirama harrumphed at him, mouth sealing shut, his bottom lip jutting up and out just a tiny bit. He was quickly distracted by the view over Madara’s shoulder, pout slowly melting away as he straightened his back up to get a better look.

When Madara touched the ground, light as a feather, he gently set Tobirama down on his feet, and then turned to see what he’d been so fascinated by.

Ah. The Hokage Monument, of course. The stone faces hadn’t been visible from the top of the cliff. “That’s the Hokage Monument,” Madara explained, amused by the clear expression of ‘what on earth am I looking at,’ on Tobirama’s face. “The Hokage is the village’s leader, and when they take office, they have their face carved into the mountainside. To watch over the village, Hashirama said when he pitched it.” He pointed at his old friend’s face. “That’s him, furthest on the left. Next to him, his younger brother, Senju Itama. Itama’s student, Sarutobi Hiruzen. Sarutobi’s student’s student, Namikaze Minato. Hashirama’s granddaughter, Senju Tsunade.”

Dammit, Hashirama had been right after all. The Hokage Monument did look impressive with a few more faces on it. Back when Madara had last seen it, it’d been just Hashirama’s face off to the side on an otherwise empty cliff face, and it’d looked kind of stupid. Which Madara had told him. Loudly.

“That’s one way of making your leaders seem larger than life,” Tobirama said, blinking slowly. “Interesting dynasty you have. Not necessarily restricted to one particular family, but… some sort of oligarchy?”

Madara gave him a wry grin. “Ideally, the Hokage is chosen based on democratic vote by the shinobi force, but politics are never that simple. And it’s much easier to be considered if the current leadership already knows you well.”

Tobirama’s nose wrinkled. “Of course. The Otsutsuki clan touts itself as a meritocracy, but in practice, it functions similarly.”

They walked on foot for not even a minute before Madara took to the rooftops, and Tobirama followed him effortlessly, using the shinobi’s preferred mode of travel like he’d been doing it all his life. Their end destination was Konoha’s public library, made for the use of both civilians and shinobi – the shinobi section divided into Academy student, genin, and chuunin level access. Anything higher clearance than that was stored somewhere with more stringent security. Not that any security measures could keep Madara out.

Tobirama looked around with open curiosity as they entered the building’s ground floor. “What is this place?”

“Konoha’s library. I’ll go find some primer books for you that are actually worth reading, but you should start with this.” Madara pulled a thick, hand-bound, handwritten book from a portal. A memoir of sorts; a complete account of everything Kaguya’s Black Zetsu had known and experienced in its lifetime.

Madara had relished in disposing of the stupid thing months ago, using the Rinnegan’s Human Path to extract its memories before pulling its soul out of its body. He’d then sat down and put to paper every last scrap of information in chronological order, so that Madara could consult it from the outside instead of having to sift through it in his head.

Kaguya’s Black Zetsu had been a treasure trove of knowledge, having been a firsthand witness to almost every significant event in shinobi history since its creation. Madara would have considered it the historical discovery of a lifetime if not for the fact that seeing the extent of Black Zetsu’s sabotage of humanity was absolutely infuriating.

He passed it over to Tobirama before beginning his search through the aisles. Most of the history books on the shelves were inaccurate garbage meant as political propaganda rather than useful educational texts, but there were a few hidden gems if one knew where to look. Tobirama trailed along behind Madara, quickly engrossed in the enormous tome, but unwilling to let Madara wander out of sight. Occasionally, he’d pipe up for clarification on something.

“What is ninjutsu?”

“I need a map of the Elemental Nations so I can understand what’s going on here.”

“Explain the governing powers and roles of the daimyo’s ministers to me.”

“Is this Uchiha Madara you?”

“What is a photograph?”

“Why did the Sandaime Mizukage do that? Was he stupid?”

There were a lot of questions like that. The worst, by far, were the ones about Madara’s own actions because, looking back on them, it was undeniable that Madara had greatly contributed to making the world a worse place. It was galling to have to admit that not only had he been in the wrong, but he had actively sabotaged efforts to improve things.

When Madara had destroyed Konoha’s and Iwa’s attempts at international relations, back when the two villages had first come into contact, he’d believed that the fledgling negotiations would inevitably fail anyway, so he was just cutting to the chase instead of wasting time on a pointless endeavour.

Maybe they would have. Maybe they wouldn’t. But Madara had guaranteed that they’d never had the chance to find out.

Madara was sure that Tobirama’s opinion of his character had gone down several notches, but, well, that was his own fault. All he could do was show Tobirama that he was no longer that black hole of nihilism, determined to drag everyone down to his level.

He left Tobirama to tackle the truly atrocious stack of books in the chuunin lounge, trusting that he wasn’t stupid enough to get himself killed if unsupervised for a few hours. Madara relocated himself to sit down cross-legged on top of Hashirama’s big stone head, and sighed.

He hadn’t had the time to run any pathogen purges since Tobirama’s arrival, but he was well versed in the process by now. Madara sank into a meditative trance, reaching out to the God Tree and allowing his awareness to meld with its, becoming one being in two bodies.

The God Tree was all hunger in a way that only plants could be. It was leashed solely by Madara’s will, and if he were to let it act purely on instinct, it would suck the life out of the world within seconds.

He was starting to get a feel for the chakra of infected organisms; a discordant note out of tune with the symphony of the rest of the cells of a body. Madara had cleared and released all of the marine life that dwelled in the oceans surrounding the Elemental Nations, as well as the wildlife that inhabited the frozen, craggy northeast coasts, and the arid lands on the western side of the continent.

However, the closer Madara drew to the tropics, the more pathogen species there were to clear. Fire Country was the envy of the Elemental Nations for its fertile ground and warm, temperate climate that made it easy to grow not only essential crops, like rice and cotton, but also luxury cash crops like sugarcane, tea, coffee, and dozens of different fruits. But it was a double-edged sword; all life thrived in Fire Country, not just that which was desirable to humans.

Madara had broken into various medical research facilities to get his hands on their samples of pathogens that they were researching, memorising the unique chakra signature of each so that he could search for similar signatures within the God Tree’s cocoons.

Found you.

Every instance of dengue fever was highlighted in the sea of chakra, like picking out a constellation from the open sky. Madara didn’t relax his hold on the God Tree’s instincts, but carefully directed them through guiding reigns.

Focus.

Prey. Only this is prey.

Devour.

Another down, several thousand more to go.

Chapter Text

Tobirama wasn’t an idiot, so the first thing he did when Madara left his line of sight was activate his Byakugan. He watched Madara fly back up to the cliffside monument and sit down, his chakra fluctuating oddly as it tuned into the God Tree’s.

Tobirama pushed his doujutsu to its absolute limit, and his vision evolved from three dimensions to four. He could see where Madara’s soul existed in two places at once; not split, but one four-dimensional object showing two of its faces in the three-dimensional world. The four-dimensional organism that was Madara-and-his-God-Tree was enormous, with the most complex and intricate chakra coil system that Tobirama had ever seen, and Madara’s human body was only one limb of the great beast.

Its extensive root network burrowed all the way into the planet’s core, woven into every layer, so that it was impossible to remove without collapsing the entire thing. And – oh, that was clever. The God Tree’s roots also grew under the ground of Kaguya’s six dimensions, turning them into additional anchors for its presence. Even if one was to destroy every trace of the God Tree’s physical body in the main dimension, it still had those pieces as backup to be able to regenerate.

Madara was synchronising with the full form of the God Tree, his human body stilling in a meditative trance to ease the connection, and that meant he wouldn’t be coming back for a while. Tobirama relaxed his doujutsu and winced at the sudden ache in and behind his eyes.

Keeping his Byakugan active at its highest level was always a massive exertion. His feather cloak, made for four-dimensional travel, was capable of reducing the strain on his body and allowing Tobirama to sustain his advanced sight for longer, but without the cloak, he couldn’t maintain it for longer than fifteen seconds without causing himself severe physical stress.

What an odd man Madara was. Tobirama had never met a human before, but he was relatively sure that Madara was an anomaly among his species.

The treatise of Kaguya’s Black Zetsu was a fascinating read, not only for its insight into the history of this world, but Madara himself. Tobirama could see the shadow of the bitter, angry man described in its pages in the one who stood before him, but the Madara who had tried to burn the village of his dreams to the ground could never have spoken to Tobirama with the conviction he did.

What kind of strength did it take, to admit that he had been so completely wrong? To accept that actions he once believed to be justified had been grievous mistakes?

Left to his own devices, Tobirama found his thoughts kept circling back to the brief moment of being suddenly snatched up and carried down from the cliffside. He didn’t understand why he was so preoccupied with it, and more specifically, he was bothered by his reaction to it.

Tobirama didn’t let Madara realise just how rattled he’d been by the experience. Even several minutes after being set down, his skin still felt like it was burning where Madara had touched it, leaving Tobirama hyper-aware of his body and what that contact had felt like.

It wasn’t painful; he couldn’t categorise the sensation as positive or negative, just… intense. Overwhelming.

But that simply didn’t make any sense. It was still massively disproportionate to what the situation warranted.

Tobirama ran the scenario through in his head again, remembering exactly what he’d felt. The wind whipping past his face. The natural spike of adrenaline that came with great heights, made stronger by the fact that he wasn’t flying under his own power. Madara’s arms locked under his knees and around his back, caging Tobirama against his chest, as strong and secure as iron bars.

But warm, his body heat bleeding through his clothes. Tobirama had caught the scent of him, just faintly, with his face’s proximity to Madara’s neck and hair. He’d smelled like smoke. Not the refined perfume of incense, like many of the Otsutsuki favoured, but like a wildfire.

Ba-dump.

There it was again.

Increased pulse, slight difficulty breathing, and his body temperature went up, especially around the face. The signs matched a stress response on paper, but Tobirama was familiar with those, and this did not feel the same. He’d experienced similar symptoms, though lessened, when Madara had touched his shoulder the previous day to help him walk back through the portal to leave the mountaintop.

The common denominator was physical contact. But why? Something like an allergic reaction could be ruled out, since no similar symptoms had appeared during their battle. It also seemed unlikely that it was something that Madara was purposely doing, perhaps through some sort of chakra technique, because it didn’t make any sense for him to inflict a minor discomfort on Tobirama in random situations when he was trying to earn Tobirama’s trust. No, this was something occurring on Tobirama’s end.

He could summon its echo merely by recalling the sensation of Madara’s touch, so it appeared to be psychosomatic in nature. What reason did Tobirama have to react this way? If he worked backwards from the emotions he felt…

Anxious. Flustered. Warm. Pleased? Repulsed? A jumbled, contradictory mess. He needed more data before he could form a hypothesis. There was no point in dwelling on it when Tobirama couldn’t advance his speculation any further right now.

The Black Zetsu archive contained sketches as well as written documentations, depicting both scenes from Black Zetsu’s eyes as well as portraits recreating the likenesses of various historical figures. An image of Otsutsuki Kaguya had been reconstructed from the glimpse Black Zetsu had caught of his creator as she was sealed away.

Tobirama had been shown an illusory projection of Kaguya before he’d left, and it was definitely the same individual. The only differences were that she’d grown a third eye and a pair of horns sprouting from the top of her head that resembled a rabbit’s ears. She would have gained those features after consuming the chakra fruit from her Infinite Tsukuyomi.

Her horns bore a remarkable resemblance to Shibai’s in the many statues made of his first form. Was that just a coincidence?

Madara’s third eye was identical to Kaguya’s, though he hadn’t gained her horns. The humans of this world had invented interesting devices called cameras, which captured sights of the real world in real time, and though Tobirama doubted that Madara realised it, one of the history books he’d selected had an old photograph of himself in its pages, shaking hands with Senju Hashirama at a ceremony commemorating the founding of Konoha.

He’d once had black hair and black eyes. The eyes were especially interesting – Otsutsuki children were, by law, never created to possess the Rinnegan from birth, and when gained through the consumption of chakra fruit, the Rinnegan, unlike the Byakugan, was always active at its lowest setting, meaning that the eye never changed appearance. An ‘inactive’ Rinnegan eye was something that usually didn’t exist.

But those weren’t inactive Rinnegan eyes. They were inactive Sharingan eyes. And that was a subject that Tobirama intended to question Madara about at some point.

He was given several hours to himself. It wasn’t nearly enough time to read all of the books he had been given – that task would take days – but it was enough to make a decent headway, and for Tobirama to explore the library building and some of the area around it. If Madara was committed to saying that Tobirama wasn’t a prisoner, then there was nothing wrong with looking around.

Konoha’s architecture should have made it a warm, cheery place, but its current ghost town state gave it a distinctly unnerving aura. Total silence in a village that looked like it should have been bustling with noise. That Tobirama knew the reason for its apparent ‘abandonment’ didn’t make it any less unsettling to walk down its streets.

When Madara returned, Tobirama strode up to him and said, “Touch me.”

Madara spluttered, his cheeks flushing bright red. “I– Excuse me?”

Tobirama held out a hand in demand. “Twice now, I have experienced an unusual physiological response when you’ve touched me. I need more data to understand why.”

Madara mouthed the words “unusual physiological response” like they’d suddenly make more sense to him, and continued to look at Tobirama like he’d grown an extra head. “You– I– What are you talking about?”

Despite the face he was still making, Madara took the hint from Tobirama’s extended hand, and cautiously grasped it with his own.

Tobirama couldn’t help the hitch in his breath at the contact. It felt like being electrocuted, a bolt striking his palm and surging up his arm into his chest. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Tobirama?” His reaction was apparently visible to Madara, whose fluster immediately melted away into wary concern.

“I can’t tell if this is a stress response or not,” Tobirama admitted. “It feels like one, but it also doesn’t.”

Madara’s brows creased. “Explain it to me.”

“Physical contact with you feels more intense than it should. I feel… conflicting urges. One is to hold on, and the other is to run away.”

Slowly, telegraphing the movement, Madara lifted his free hand to cup the side of Tobirama’s face. His knees buckled, threatening to give out beneath him, and his whole body shuddered.

For some reason, Madara’s eyes softened at the edges, and when he spoke, his tone was melancholy. “When was the last time another living being touched you without the intent to harm? When was the last time you touched another living being without intent to harm?”

Tobirama opened his mouth to respond, and… couldn’t answer. He cast his mind back throughout the years. Tobirama had been created with an eidetic memory, so he couldn’t have forgotten anything. Surely there had been…

He had memories of spars and martial arts lessons with Kinshiki, but those had been strictly professional. Kinshiki had interacted with Tobirama at the bare minimum level that his instruction required. Fights, on rare occasions, where Tobirama had needed to defend his possessions from a clansman who wanted to steal them.

And before all of that, he remembered sitting in his mother’s lap as she preened his hair with her beak.

“… A little over ninety years,” Tobirama admitted quietly.

“You’re touch starved.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a sign of loneliness,” Madara said, a wan smile tugging at his lips. “Humans are social creatures – most warm-blooded animals are. The sensation is heightened for you because you’ve gone so long without it.”

“I am not human,” Tobirama reminded him.

“Aren’t you?”

Before Tobirama could refute that idiotic statement, Madara kept talking over him. “Do you know what I find particularly unusual about Kaguya’s children, Tobirama? It’s not the fact that she was able to conceive. It’s that her children were able to sire children of their own. The majority of hybrid species are sterile, their DNA being a patchwork that struggles to divide itself into complete, viable gametes. But both of Kaguya’s sons were fertile, and their lines have continued unbroken for over a thousand years. I think that our species are more closely related than you’d like to believe.”

Tobirama stared at him wordlessly. What Madara was saying did make a certain amount of sense, but… “This changes nothing.” The leather of Madara’s glove against his cheek was suddenly unbearable, and Tobirama took a step back out of reach, letting Madara’s hands fall away. “Thank you for explaining the issue. It won’t be a problem again.”

Thankfully, Madara didn’t press the subject any further, but Tobirama didn’t like the thoughtful gleam in his eye. “If you insist. Now, tell me, how has your reading gone, and what would you like your daily life to be like going forwards? I doubt you want me to continue assigning you tasks like a reluctant schoolteacher.”

Tobirama perked up. “As I told you yesterday, I spent most of my time on independent chakra research. I’d like to continue. I can operate out of You-shiro, but I’ll need a room or two as a dedicated workspace. I’m about a quarter of the way through the books that you gave me, but I’d also like to return to this library to peruse it at my own leisure. While your world’s understanding of the chakric arts is entry level at best, it’s still worth reviewing. Your practical applications of chakra are very different in utility to ours, and I’ve seen a few interesting innovations that may provide new perspectives to advance my own work.”

They returned to You-shiro for lunch, and then Madara helped Tobirama set up a lab in the room across from his cell. He was predictably nosy about Tobirama’s work; the universe map ended up needing its own room, both because of its size and Madara’s interest in examining it for himself.

“I’ve recently begun a project of my own that I would welcome your assistance with,” Madara said, glancing through one of Tobirama’s scrolls.

“What is it?”

“I want to create a seal that will capture Otsutsuki who cross into this dimension before they can reach the ground.” Madara’s eyes hardened. “If I place the seal on the Moon, I should be able to create a security zone that encompasses its orbit, and I’ll be able to interlink it with the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions seal to connect it to the God Tree. When the seal detects an intruder in the atmosphere, the God Tree will attack with a targeted Tsukuyomi, and then capture them in its roots.”

Tobirama considered it. “It should be doable,” he mused, tapping his fingers against the table in thought. The opportunity to tinker directly with a God Tree was exciting; it would have been thousands of years before the Otsutsuki clan let him anywhere near a God Tree in an experimental capacity. “What do you have so far? We’ll need to calculate the size of the security zone…”

*

Days turned into weeks. Despite himself, Tobirama couldn’t help enjoying Madara’s company. It was refreshing to speak to someone who not only had an interest in the sciences, but could also keep up with him intellectually. He’d since been moved into a proper bedroom that wasn’t a cell, up on the ground floor, even though Madara made obligatory complaints about his efforts in connecting the cell bathroom plumbing going to waste.

Madara was releasing the last of Fire Country’s wildlife from the Infinite Tsukuyomi today, and he’d invited Tobirama to watch.

He kept doing things like that. Tobirama was waiting for Madara to get frustrated with chauffeuring him around with Yomotsu Hirasaka, but he never did. Instead, he seemed pleased by every request, eager to show off the sights of his world.

To be fair to him, it was a world worth being proud of. Tobirama could see why Kaguya had become so enamoured with the place. Hundreds of biomes hosting millions of species in unique, intricate ecosystems. It was fascinating just to observe.

They ended up spending the most time in Fire Country by both of their preferences. It was Madara’s homeland, and for Tobirama… The lush greenery reminded him of Hakuchou no Mizuumi, Mitsuru’s personal dimension. Her home had been a traditional mansion built on the side of a large lake, surrounded by a picturesque forest, and while Fire Country wasn’t a perfect replica, it shared many similar features.

Tobirama hadn’t voiced this sentiment aloud, but Madara had picked up on Tobirama’s partiality towards his country of origin, and he tended to have a self-satisfied aura about him whenever Tobirama requested to visit it.

He was sitting on top of a hill beside Madara, watching as the towering God Tree roots slowly lowered themselves, thousands of tiny cocoons unravelling to gently deposit their quarry onto the ground. Most of them were birds, big and small, in a vast array of colours. The roots snaked back beneath the earth, disappearing without any signs that they’d ever been there in the first place.

Madara formed a single hand seal – Rat, this one Tobirama had learned – and the illusory Rinnegans faded from the creatures’ eyes as they awoke from their slumber.

Birds took off into the trees, mice and rabbits scurried into the underbrush, and a small herd of deer clustered together before bolting. Madara’s shoulders sagged.

“That’s the last of them,” he said. “All that remain under Infinite Tsukuyomi now are humans, Summons, pets, and livestock.”

“How much longer do you think it’ll take for you to finish curing humanity of their ills?” Tobirama asked.

Madara grimaced. “It’s a case by case basis now; those who have such severe infections that simply killing all of the undesirable cells at once could have disastrous effects. But realistically, it won’t take more than a few days, at most.”

“You’re stalling,” Tobirama said.

“I–” Madara bristled in indignation, and just as quickly deflated. “Of course I am. It’s been months for me, but as far as humanity is concerned, not even a minute has passed since they were in the midst of battle with me. I wouldn’t believe a word out of my mouth if I was in their shoes. At least I have you to show them now, so I don’t sound like I’m just making excuses for myself when I tell them about the Otsutsuki clan.” His shoulders hunched defensively. “I know it’s cowardly, you don’t have to say anything. I won’t delay it any longer than I already have.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Tobirama said honestly. “Is that why you’ve been so accommodating towards me? Because you want me to back you up when you speak to the Shinobi Alliance?”

Madara blinked at him. “It would be a nice bonus, but it’s not my main motivation. A common enemy is a powerful incentive. It convinced the Hidden Villages to cooperate with each other against me, after all, and I still do intend to use it to convince them to cooperate with me against the Otsutsuki clan. But if my primary goal was to use you as a political tool, it would have been more effective to use you as a scapegoat to give them a face to their new enemy.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I could give you any number of reasons,” Madara said. “Cultivating a powerful ally with valuable skills and information. A test of my newfound resolve. If I don’t give a second chance to others, how can I expect one to be given to me? But, truthfully, the initial impulse that made me spare you was selfish. I thought you were beautiful, more than anything else I’d ever seen before. I felt a pull towards you. Something base and selfish, with no moral thought behind it.” Madara ran a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, his expression rueful. “I still stand by everything I’ve said; I truly do believe it. But it would be dishonest to say that my motives were purely selfless. No matter how much I would like to pretend I’m above it, I’m still only a man.”

“You…” Tobirama cocked his head to the side, trying to understand. His brows furrowed incredulously. “You want to mate with me?”

Madara made a squawking noise reminiscent of one of the birds he’d just released, and twin spots of colour rose high on his cheeks. “I– A– Wh– No! Yes?” He turned his head away with a huff, peering cautiously at Tobirama from behind his bangs. “‘Mating practices’ vary from human to human. But for me, I would consider myself like a black vulture. A permanent, cohabiting monogamous pair.”

Tobirama crossed his arms. “I already told you that I’m not a female. I can’t bear children for you. Is this because I’m the only other celestial being you’ve seen?”

“Wh– How stupid do you think I am?” Madara demanded. “Do I look like a parrot? I don’t care about spawning children with you. And I already knew that I preferred men long before you arrived here.” Redness crept up around the tips of his ears. “What I want is– companionship, not another body to brood with.”

Tobirama considered that, and then uncrossed his arms. “We’re already cohabiting,” he pointed out. “How would this be different?”

The question was apparently unexpected, because Madara stared at him for a moment before responding cautiously. “… Closeness, both physical and emotional. We would spend time together because we enjoy each other’s company. We would touch each other for the sake of being close. Our burdens would be halved, because they would be shared. We would love each other.”

It sounded fantastical. Like a dream. “I don’t know if I’m capable of that,” Tobirama confessed. “I can’t just…”

Madara’s eyes softened. “I don’t know if I am, either,” he said. “It’s not as easy as flipping a switch. It’s something you have to build up to. We’d start slowly, with a courtship period, to see if we can. But I want to try.”

Tobirama hesitated. There was still something bothering him. “Will you refuse to give back my feather cloak if I don’t mate with you?”

Madara physically recoiled, looking deeply insulted by the line of inquiry. “Of course not! I wouldn’t– It wouldn’t mean anything if it was forced.” His gaze steeled as he came to a decision. “I’ll give you back your feather cloak after I speak to the Five Kage, and then you can make your decision if you want to accept my suit or not. You’ll still be welcome to stay on Earth regardless of your answer. I won’t hold it against you.”

Something about his gaze burned into Tobirama, leaving him breathless. “Alright,” he said, hoping his weakness didn’t show in his voice. “I’ll give you my answer then.”

Madara vanished through a portal, leaving Tobirama alone on the hilltop. He fished a black receiver out of his sleeve.

If he channelled chakra into the black receiver, Madara would feel it, and he’d teleport to the receiver’s location to see what Tobirama wanted, which was usually to be ferried somewhere. They’d set up this rudimentary communication system so that they didn’t have to be constantly glued to each other’s sides. Without any chakra being actively funnelled into it, the receiver was useless as a tracking device, so Tobirama didn’t feel like he was under constant surveillance. If Madara needed to find Tobirama without being called, the God Tree’s chakra sensing would locate him as easily as any other organism on the planet.

He didn’t channel any chakra into the receiver, just holding it in his hand and staring at it like it would provide answers. The black receiver, of course, did nothing.

“What an odd man,” Tobirama said aloud. The black receiver did not respond.

He was glad, at least, to have the last missing puzzle piece explaining Madara’s interest in him, even as it raised even more questions.

A mated pair. Tobirama had never given thought to such a thing for himself before. The Otsutsuki clan didn’t do relationships of any kind. Carnal desires and romantic attachments were an obstacle on the path to enlightenment.

Some in the clan had contemplated bioengineering to produce workers without sexual reproductive systems, but it had been ultimately deemed too high an effort for too little reward. It wasn’t as simple as removing a few organs; the reproductive system was tied up in the brain and endocrine system, which would need extensive rewriting to function without it. And so their worldly biology remained intact, though considered vestigial.

With the need for a partner to reproduce nullified, romantic relationships were no longer necessary, and summarily discarded.

But now it didn’t matter what Tobirama did, because he was never going to reach enlightenment anyway, and he didn’t have the clan constantly watching over his shoulder. The question was: did he want to?

“Closeness, both physical and emotional. We would spend time together because we enjoy each other’s company. We would touch each other for the sake of being close.”

There was a pair of sparrows preening each other in the tree across from him. Their little round bodies were pressed side-by-side against each other, and they were taking turns picking at each other’s heads. The left sparrow had its eyes crinkled shut in contentment as the right sparrow preened the thin feathers just below its beak.

Was that something mated humans did? Tobirama’s own hair was too short to do much with, so he pictured himself brushing Madara’s long, wild locks, and wondered if they were as harsh as they looked.

Tobirama didn’t have a beak to preen his mother or the hou-ous the way they’d done to him, so he’d made do with his fingers. Touryou, the largest and the friendliest of the hou-ous, had always melted into a boneless puddle when scritched, flopping over Tobirama’s lap like a weighted feather blanket.

Would Madara react like that? He imagined Madara laying with his head in Tobirama’s lap while Tobirama’s fingertips massaged his scalp, his body as loose and relaxed as Touryou’s, his eyes squinted shut in satisfaction like the sparrow’s.

The resulting feeling was… eager. A tentative, pleased thrill. But there was a certain nervousness around the thought of actually doing it. If Madara was right, that nervous feeling would fade with time and exposure.

But it was foolish to entertain the notion before he got his feather cloak back. Tobirama was still a prisoner in this dimension without it, no matter how easy Madara made it to forget that fact.

His feather cloak meant more to Tobirama than just his freedom. Others in the Otsutsuki clan had attempted to steal it from him before, both for the value of its powers, and in the case of Momoshiki’s younger brothers, simply because they wanted to tear Tobirama down to boost their own standing, and he’d defended it with his life. It burned to have lost it.

The amount of sentan she’d consumed had transformed Mitsuru into something that barely resembled a human. Her already intimidating height had been bolstered by a long, crane-like neck and sharp beak, and she grew feathers instead of hair, right down to her eyelashes. Mitsuru’s ‘secret ingredient’ that had allowed her to create the first feather cloak had been her own feathers, plucked from her body and fed into her loom to use as a beginning base for her work, the way she’d done with the door she’d created Tobirama from.

Tobirama’s own feather cloak was one of those, made from the flight feathers on Mitsuru’s forearms and woven with him specifically in mind. Others could use it, but it worked better for Tobirama than anyone else. It was why he’d been allowed to keep it.

It was pitiful how badly Tobirama wanted to believe in Madara. Madara had everything to gain by refusing to return Tobirama’s cloak; he’d even admitted that it would be more advantageous to him to treat Tobirama as an enemy rather than an ally. The only thing he had to lose was the prospect of Tobirama’s trust. Something that he had no logical reason to value, and something that Tobirama himself shouldn’t have had any want to give.

And yet–

A few more days. Then, he would have an answer.

Chapter Text

Madara had, of course, spent a great deal of time thinking about what he was going to say to the rest of humanity when he released the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

“The Fourth Shinobi War is over, you can all go home now. Don’t go back to picking fights with each other, though.”

“So it turns out that the several hundred thousand people who were against Infinite Tsukuyomi were right and I was wrong.”

“I’ve become the closest thing this world has to a god and you can’t kill me without killing the only thing that keeps our continent inhabitable, so you just have to deal with me forever now.”

The voice making excuses in his head sounded suspiciously like Obito, for some reason.

If Madara released everyone from the Infinite Tsukuyomi right away, he wouldn’t have time to get a word out before the entire Allied Shinobi Forces dogpiled him. And it was much harder to convince a large group of people of something; his voice would be drowned out by a united force of voices who could talk to each other to patch any holes he made in their conviction. He needed to start small, with just a few people to get his foot in the door, and those would help to legitimise his opinion to others.

But who on earth would actually want to listen to him?

After everything Madara had done, there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t either terrified of him or despised him. Who could possibly look past their – rightful – fear and hatred to talk with him seriously?

Madara had force on his side; now that he was the God Tree’s master, he couldn’t be killed without dooming the entire planet, and if his body was destroyed, the God Tree would just build him a new one. As long as he didn’t make Kaguya’s mistake of fusing with the God Tree, keeping two physical presences, he couldn’t be sealed away, because one could then free the other.

The shinobi world had to negotiate with Madara, but it didn’t mean they had to be reasonable about it. He knew well just how good humanity was at acting contrary to their own interests. If they hated him enough, they’d keep fighting even though it was impossible to kill him, and Madara would inevitably have to hurt or kill more people in self defence, and that would only make them dig their heels in more.

But there was someone that just might have been foolish enough to hear him out, as much as it pained Madara to admit it. Someone that, frankly, he was embarrassed to have be the second human that Tobirama was exposed to.

He was doing a rotten job of pitching humanity to Tobirama, with truly terrible luck presenting only their worst examples as his first contact with their world. First there was Madara himself, humanity’s greatest villain, and now– this. What an embarrassing first impression.

“I will warn you in advance that he is an idiot,” Madara said, walking underneath a God Tree root in search of a particular pod, shakujo staff in hand. “Despite his demeanour and his young age, he’s a powerful shinobi with unmatched charisma. He has the ear of many influential figures, including several of the Five Kage, and he has a particular talent for suborning enemies who should have been unreachable to him.”

Tobirama hummed in thought. He’d read the same reports Madara had; the ones detailing that Uzumaki Naruto was responsible for the transformation of Sunagakure’s jinchuuriki from a bloodthirsty loose cannon into a competent Kage, and then he had managed to persuade Nagato to his side so thoroughly that the man had sacrificed his life to perform a mass Rinne Tensei to undo his slaughter of Konoha’s shinobi and civilians.

Something had always bothered Madara about the legend of Rinne Tensei – the caveat that it cost the user’s life to perform. If the only other Rinnegan users in history had been the Sage and his mother, and neither had died to use Rinne Tensei, how did they know that it actually cost a life?

Obito had survived his use of Rinne Tensei on Madara, furthering his doubts. Black Zetsu’s memories had provided the answers that he’d sought.

Rinne Tensei did not cost the user’s life, only a large amount of chakra. During Kaguya’s sons’ battle against her, Hamura had been killed, and the young Sage, panicked and distraught, had instinctively used Rinne Tensei to revive his brother. Rightfully afraid of the greed it would inspire in humanity if knowledge of Rinne Tensei spread, the Sage had created the lie, hoping to dissuade people from wanting to obtain the Rinnegan to have access to that power.

What had done Nagato in was the sheer number of simultaneous resurrections and the toll they took on his chakra and already weak body. Obito’s survival was still impressive considering that he’d done it after having the Juubi ripped out of him – and tailed beast extractions were supposed to be fatal for a jinchuuriki, too.

But Naruto had also survived having the Kyuubi extracted from him – twice. The first time because his allies had subsequently sealed the other half of the Kyuubi into him, and the second time because he’d been placed into Infinite Tsukuyomi and a God Tree cocoon immediately following the extraction, and the God Tree’s life support had allowed him to slowly recover to full health when he otherwise should have been beyond medical help.

What absurd luck.

Madara found the pod he was looking for, and it rappelled down to release its captive at his feet. The former jinchuuriki laid on his back, snoring softly, and Madara cut the thread of chakra keeping him under Infinite Tsukuyomi’s spell.

The boy listed over onto his side, a line of drool escaping down his chin. “Five more minutes, dattebayo…” Before Madara could say anything in response to that, Naruto’s eyes snapped open and he sprang to his feet. “Oh, shit! I was fighting! Where– What happened?” His gaze then fixed on Madara, and he slid into a taijutsu ready stance.

“Uzumaki Naruto,” Madara said, politely, addressing the boy by name as a sign of respect. “I–”

“Rasengan!”

He then promptly dodged to the side as Naruto lunged at him with a handful of screaming wind chakra. “Cut that out, you imbecile! I don’t want to fight, I’m trying to talk to you!”

“Huh?” The boy froze where he was about to launch himself at Madara a second time, and his face screwed up in a suspicious look that narrowed his eyes in a remarkably fox-like manner. Proving that he wasn’t a complete idiot, the Rasengan in his palm remained swirling.

“I don’t want to fight. I want to talk to you,” Madara reiterated. He would be patient. He would speak slowly and calmly in small, simple words that the boy was more likely to understand.

Naruto then caught sight of Tobirama, and his jaw dropped. The Rasengan petered out so that he could point obnoxiously at him. “Who the hell is that guy? What the hell is that guy?”

Tobirama, at least, didn’t react poorly to the boy’s yammering, and judging by the eyebrow he raised at Madara, seemed to find it funny. Madara coughed lightly to draw Naruto’s attention back to himself. “He is Otsutsuki Tobirama, a tennin from a distant world. He came to investigate why the last tennin who came to this planet never returned – the Sage’s mother.”

The answer brought Naruto up short, and he straightened up, scratching at his cheek. “Huh? Oh, yeah, Super Gramps did say something like that…”

Who the hell– nevermind. “As I was saying,” Madara continued, resisting the urge to grind his teeth. “The Infinite Tsukuyomi was a trap. I was deceived.”

Naruto tensed, eyes flicking about warily. “By who?”

“Black Zetsu.” Madara wanted to spit the name. “He was not my creation, but fooled me into believing he was. He was far older than that, dating all the way back to the Sage’s era, pulling humanity’s strings from the shadows.” He looked the boy directly in the eyes. “Naruto. Haven’t you ever wondered why nobody simply leaves the Elemental Nations?”

“Uhhh,” Naruto squinted at him. “Is that some sorta trick question? Whaddaya mean?”

Madara held out a hand and conjured an illusory map of the Elemental Nations that hovered over his palm. “This is the standard world map as used by the major Hidden Villages. But look at it. The western border is cut off. The primary source of conflict for the Elemental Nations is competition over land and resources. If there is unclaimed territory to the west, why has nobody even attempted to explore it?”

“I… have no idea. That’s kinda weird.” Naruto’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Suna’s over that way, isn’t it? Maybe it’s all crappy desert so nobody wants to live there.”

“But there should still be a coastline,” Madara pointed out. “Even the worst coastline is still a viable place to live because of its access to the sea. So I went, and this is what I found.”

His map of the Elemental Nations expanded, revealing that their land was a small piece of a much larger continent more than five times its size. And continued outward, encompassing oceans and more giant continents across from them, until a complete globe had been formed.

“This is our world,” Madara said. Naruto’s eyes were huge. “And all of it is dead.”

Naruto startled and blinked rapidly. “Dead?”

“But it wasn’t always that way.” Madara’s hand clenched into a fist. “One thousand years ago, there was life on every continent, in the depths of every ocean. And then Otsutsuki Kaguya arrived.” His lip curled up into a snarl. “Before Kaguya, there was only natural chakra. Humans had no chakra coils and no way to manipulate it. Kaguya brought the God Tree with her, and it burrowed its roots into every corner of the Earth like the parasite it is.”

An oversized image of the God Tree bloomed on top of Madara’s model of the Earth, wrapping its roots around the globe like strangler vines.

“I should have questioned why a technique like Infinite Tsukuyomi was invented in the first place. If it was the salvation that the Sage supposedly wrote it to be on the stone tablet entrusted to the Uchiha, why did he not cast it himself?” Madara’s eyes bored into Naruto’s pale face. “Infinite Tsukuyomi is a paralytic agent, used the same way that any other carnivorous plant would to immobilise its prey while it’s digested.

“When Kaguya cast her Infinite Tsukuyomi, it killed everything on this planet. And from that sacrifice of billions of people, every plant and every animal, even the smallest of bacteria – it produced a singular fruit. A chakra fruit, full of the blue chakra we know today. Otsutsuki chakra. She was meant to leave and bring it back to her clan, but for reasons known only to Kaguya, she chose to stay and ate that fruit for herself, giving her the powers of a god.”

Madara had searched for a reason why. Why it was here that Kaguya had chosen to plant her flag; what it was about Earth that had made Kaguya want to possess it so badly that she was willing to incur her clan’s wrath.

This world is my precious nursery.

Kaguya hadn’t left behind any convenient journal entries detailing her thought process, but near the end of her life, as she became increasingly consumed by her paranoia, she’d gone on a few rambling tangents in her White Zetsu development reports.

Hagoromo insists on arguing with me. The sacrifices will not continue forever, only until a sufficient percentage of the ecosystem has been restored that it is once again capable of self-sustaining. I have shown him my calculations, but he refuses to concede the necessity of my work.

If I were a cruel empress, I would have the God Tree consume the souls of the sacrifices instead of allowing them to die. They are instead set free into the wheel of Rinne to be reborn in this world, where they will reap the rewards that their deaths helped to create.

I do not know how to make him understand. My children have never experienced this world in its full glory. It is diminished now, a fraction of what it once was. They are the rightful inheritors of that beauty, and I will give my children the world that they gave to me.

“Kaguya used her newfound powers to resurrect a fragment of the world she’d just murdered. It wasn’t as easy as just undoing it – after all, it always takes more effort to create than to destroy. The Elemental Nations became her nursery; a cradle to raise her children, and farmland to raise livestock to continue feeding the God Tree.”

“Don’t tell me…”

Madara laughed; an ugly, humourless thing. “The planetary ecosystem is a delicate thing, and Kaguya wasn’t able to bring back enough of our plant life to produce the amount of oxygen needed to sustain our atmosphere. So she used the God Tree to substitute, constantly pumping its chakra into our world’s dying body to force it to shamble on. Chakra is like any other energy, it has to come from somewhere. The God Tree could make enough chakra from photosynthesis to keep the Elemental Nations alive, but no more. If Kaguya wanted more land, if she wanted more power, the God Tree had to eat.”

“People,” Naruto breathed in horror, staring up at the cocoons hanging from the God Tree’s roots. “That’s… that’s sick, you know. People aren’t… people aren’t livestock.”

“It was why her children rebelled,” Madara said. “The Sage and his brother. To put an end to Kaguya’s human sacrifices. But they couldn’t kill the God Tree without severing our atmosphere’s life support, so they sealed her away. But they made a critical oversight. At the moment of her sealing, Kaguya created an entity that would act on her behalf to free her. Black Zetsu. For a thousand years it lurked in the shadows, manipulating humanity from behind the scenes, all for the purpose of Kaguya’s eventual resurrection. It altered the contents of the Uchiha stone tablet, removing the warning the Sage had written about what would happen if his mother was unsealed.”

“But…” Naruto looked side to side, frowning. “She’s not here. Is she?”

“Kaguya and the God Tree were one, with the Juubi being their complete, fused form. A God Tree doesn’t have a soul of its own, requiring a bonded master. The sealing and the split of her chakra among the tailed beasts suppressed Kaguya’s consciousness, but as soon as the Juubi was reformed, it was only a matter of time before she fully awoke. When I cast Infinite Tsukuyomi, the influx of chakra from its victims was enough to complete the process, and she attempted to take over my body.”

Madara flexed his fingers. “Only one of us could exist. If she had succeeded, my soul would have been scattered to the winds, never to reincarnate again or be recalled. But I fought back, and I destroyed her instead. I almost didn’t succeed, and… I’m not sure if I deserved to win.” The words slipped out against his will, and Madara shook his head to clear the errant thoughts away. “Regardless of how any of us feel about it, Kaguya no longer exists, and I have taken her place as the God Tree’s master. It is now by my will that the God Tree continues to support life on Earth.”

“That’s… a lot.” Naruto sat down cross-legged on top of a nearby tree stump, staring at Madara thoughtfully. “So what are you going to do now? You said you don’t want to fight anymore, and you made it pretty obvious you don’t want to do Infinite Tsukuyomi anymore either. Where do you go from here?”

“I don’t know,” Madara confessed. “That was… why I wanted to speak to you. Even if the Allied Shinobi Forces wish to kill me, I cannot die unless the God Tree dies, and that would mean the end of our world.”

Naruto chewed at his bottom lip for a moment, clearly debating on whether or not he wanted to say what he was thinking out loud, and then held up his right hand to show its palm. There was a small white circle tattooed in the centre. “You can still be sealed away, you know. When me and Sasuke were dying, the ghost of Super Gramps Sage showed up and told us a bunch of stuff, and he put these seals on our hands. They’re what he and his brother used to seal away their mom. I don’t really get all the technical stuff, but… the God Tree’s life support power was still going while Kaguya was sealed, wasn’t it? So you’re not totally unbeatable.”

Madara manfully resisted the urge to back away from the innocuous little seal. “Technically true,” he agreed. “However, Kaguya’s sealing only worked because she was fused with the God Tree as the Juubi. If you were to seal me away right now, or the God Tree, the other half would still be free to act.”

“And you’re not gonna fuse with it anytime soon, are you.”

“No.”

Naruto huffed and ran a hand through his hair to push his bangs back from his face. “Geez. You’re still a huge jerk, you know. Nobody’s gonna be happy about this stuff.” He squinted at Madara. “I don’t get why you’re coming to me, though.”

Madara’s cheeks flushed, and he turned his face away with a huff. “… You listened to Obito.”

“Wait, seriously? … You totally picked me ‘cuz you knew everyone else would tell you to fuck off, didn’t you.”

Madara didn’t dignify that comment with a response. “You have been in the Infinite Tsukuyomi for approximately eight months,” he said instead. “In that time, I resurrected everyone who was killed in the Fourth Shinobi War, and I have cured every human and animal infected with a pathogenic disease.”

Naruto jolted and gaped at him. “Eight months? And you– you just… It doesn’t undo the fact that you killed them in the first place, you know.”

“I know,” Madara replied. “But it– lessens the damage caused by my mistakes. I knew the Allied Shinobi Forces would be reluctant to work with me, but at least this way, they will be carrying less fresh grief on their shoulders.”

“… Huh.” Naruto pointed at Tobirama again. “You still haven’t explained what’s up with that guy. You said he’s one of those Otsutsuki guys who want to feed our planet to a tree. But he’s just standing there. What’s going on with him?”

Tobirama had been watching their back and forth like it was a tennis match, looking more intrigued by it than Madara would have liked him to be. He inclined his head towards Naruto in a short bow. “As Madara said earlier, the Otsutsuki clan noticed that Kaguya was overdue to return with her harvest, and I was sent to investigate. When I arrived here, Madara captured me, and…”

His lips tugged up in a slight smile. The boy goggled at it, as did Madara, though much more discreetly. “He told me some truths I’d always pretended not to know. The Otsutsuki clan isn’t any kinder to its members than it is to the worlds it sacrifices. The gains from our harvests aren’t distributed equally; those at the top, who do little, receive the most, and the workers who do the most receive the least. I could continue to align myself with the clan, where I would work until I inevitably make a mistake and would be killed, or I could make the same choice that Kaguya had, and stay here.” He shrugged, the smile still playing about his mouth. “I’m beginning to see why she was so taken with this world. The scenery is beautiful, and the people are… interesting. No matter what I do, the Otsutsuki clan will eventually kill me, so I might as well choose the path I find the most fulfilling.”

“Wow.” Naruto eyed Tobirama speculatively, flicking back and forth between him and Madara. “I don’t know what you were like before, but… it sounds like Madara really made an impression on you. And a good one. Huh.” He seemed to come to a decision, squaring his shoulders with a newfound resolve. “Okay, Madara. I’ll believe in you. I still think you’re an asshole, but I’ll help talk to baa-chan and the other Kage for you. But!” He held up a finger. “I got two conditions.”

Madara felt his pulse quicken with nervous hope. “Name them.”

“First–” Naruto’s hand hovered over his stomach, where his jinchuuriki seal had once laid, and his expression turned to a pained wistfulness. “You let all the tailed beasts go.”

“Of course,” Madara said. “I was planning to do that anyway.”

Naruto squinted suspiciously at him. “Really? How come?”

“I visited the Moon several months ago,” Madara began.

“You went to the Moon?”

“And there I found the Sage’s grave, where he’d left another stone tablet,” Madara kept talking over him. “Obviously Black Zetsu had been unable to access this one to alter it, so the Sage’s original words were fully preserved. It spoke of the Moon’s purpose as Kaguya’s prison, how it was inscribed with the great seal that held her and continued the God Tree’s life support without her conscious input, as well as a ritual that the Sage had designed so that the people of Earth could contribute chakra to slowly increase the habitable zone, so that one day, the God Tree’s support would no longer be necessary. You’re familiar with the Rinne Festival, yes?”

“Yeah? How’s it do anything, though?”

“Its modern form does nothing,” Madara corrected. “The original version of the Rinne Festival had people gather at each of the Sage’s temples, and using ninshuu, they would channel their chakra through the tailed beasts, who served as conduits to the God Tree. The God Tree would then use that chakra to expand the habitable zone. It was the reason that the Sage implanted humans with coils to manipulate our chakra in the first place.”

He let his map of the globe drop, and nine glowing green magatama appeared in its place, each holding the miniaturised, unconscious form of a sealed tailed beast. “I want to bring back the true Rinne Festival, and that can’t be done without the tailed beasts. I’ve kept them preserved all this time, so that the God Tree wouldn’t break their souls back down into pure chakra.”

Naruto’s gaze fixed on the sleeping Kyuubi, and his eyes misted over. “Kurama… That’s a plan I can get behind, believe it.” He shook himself out of his reverie. “The other thing… I can’t forgive you on behalf of everyone else. And I’m not the person you’ve hurt the most. If you’ve really changed and you want to make things right, you need to apologise to Obito.”

Madara had expected something of the sort, but he still had to restrain a flinch upon hearing it. He’d known he’d have to face his erstwhile apprentice again at some point, but… he had been looking forward to it the least of any of his reunions with the rest of humanity.

He stored the tailed beasts away again and took a deep breath. “Fine. You’re right. I will.”

Naruto crossed his arms expectantly. “Okay. Do it right now.”

Augh.

Madara signalled down Obito’s cocoon, which was only a few metres away from where Naruto’s had been suspended, and as he did, Naruto jumped back up to his feet, waving his hands around. “Wait, wait, let out Sasuke and Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei too. They should be here for this.”

The boy was lucky that the Rinnegan granted Madara an eidetic memory, because otherwise he wouldn’t have remembered who ‘Sakura-chan’ was. He recognised Sasuke as the young Uchiha, and ‘Kakashi-sensei’ as Obito’s former teammate whom Madara had needed to steal an eye from to access the Kamui dimension, but he hadn’t interacted with Naruto’s pink-haired friend beyond seeing her standing next to more important players. Regardless, Madara did as he asked; it would be better to have a few witnesses on hand.

All four cocoons reached the ground and unravelled, waking each occupant in succession, leaving Obito for last. His apprentice, now with both of his original eyes in their sockets, was wearing only a pair of tattered black pants and an aura of murderous rage.

“Obito,” Madara greeted him.

Obito promptly attempted to send Madara’s head to Kamui without the rest of his body. With Madara’s own powers of space-time manipulation, he was able to intercept the warping around him before it could open into a portal, batting it away like a hovering insect.

Obito tried it again. “Stop that,” Madara said, annoyed. “Even if you succeeded in taking my head off, it would grow right back. You’re not going to accomplish anything.”

“I don’t know, I think it’d make me feel a lot better,” Obito sneered. “Haven’t you already won? What the hell do you want now?”

Madara opened his mouth to respond. A fist smashed into the back of his head, shattering the remaining fragment of horn at his temple and caving in half of his skull. He was flung forward by the force of the hit, and moving with the momentum allowed him to dodge a second assailant whose lightning-covered hand had aimed to punch straight through his heart.

“SAKURA-CHAN!” Naruto shrieked, frantically flailing his arms. “SASUKE! Guys, calm down, we’re not fighting anymore! Madara promised he’s gonna stop being a douchebag!”

The only one who hadn’t moved to attack was Hatake, who was just standing there with a look on his face like he was wishing he didn’t exist. Obito snorted derisively. “Yeah, right.”

Madara levitated a few feet up into the air to avoid further assaults, glancing at Tobirama to make sure that he was unharmed. The tennin had retreated to a safe distance, watching the humans interact with a look of open fascination on his face. He glanced up at Madara, lips twitching upwards in a sardonic smirk as Madara brushed the dust that was once his horn off the collar of his robe. Madara scowled back at him.

He floated back down once it looked like Naruto had his errant teammates under control; and once Madara’s skull had finished knitting itself back together. Obito eyed him warily when Madara’s feet touched the ground.

He’d scripted a hundred different ways to start this conversation, a thousand different things he wanted to say to the young man whose life he’d ruined so spectacularly, but those words all abandoned him now. Looking upon Obito’s scarred, hateful face, Madara felt a deep, sorrowful regret.

“Obito… you were stronger than I was in the end, weren’t you? You were able to see the truth where I couldn’t. I was a fool.”

His apprentice’s jaw slackened, and Madara was aware of Naruto and his team gaping at him too, but he only had eyes for Obito.

He explained everything that he’d told Naruto; Black Zetsu, Kaguya, the state of their world, the Otsutsuki clan, the Rinne Festival, Tobirama.

“So that’s it?” Obito asked, his voice scathing. “You’ve changed your mind, just like that?”

“Yes.”

Obito’s entire body was trembling with rage. “How dare you,” he hissed. “You don’t get to just– turn around and say you’re sorry after everything you’ve done. After everything I’ve done. You can’t– you don’t deserve to do this. You deserve to rot.”

Madara didn’t say anything in response. He didn’t have to. They were both well aware of how hypocritical Obito’s words were as he spoke them, and Obito’s face twisted with desperate, anguished hatred.

“It was your fault,” he continued, rising in pitch. “You pulled me out of that damn cave, you convinced me that this world couldn’t be fixed, Infinite Tsukuyomi was your plan! And now you want to say that you were wrong!? That it was all for nothing!?”

“… I’m sorry,” Madara said.

With an agonised cry, Obito swung a punch at him, and Madara let the hit connect with his cheek, snapping his head to the side.

“How dare you,” Obito repeated hysterically. His hands fisted in the front of Madara’s robe as if to shake him, but didn’t do anything, clutching at the fabric so hard it turned his knuckles white. “I hate you! You don’t get to do this! How dare you say you’re sorry after everything you’ve done! You’re a monster! You can’t–” His voice choked up with tears. “You should have let me die. Why did you do this to me if you were going to throw it all away?”

“… Because you reminded me of myself,” Madara told him, and it was the truth. Obito’s grip on his robe tightened even further. “You wanted so badly to make this world a better place. If I could convince you that it was impossible, then it was like convincing myself, and I could silence that last bit of hope in my heart that I’d tried so hard to bury.”

Obito pitched forwards, and Madara tensed, expecting another punch, but Obito only buried his face against Madara’s shoulder and began to cry. Loud, ugly sobs wracked his frame, and cool tears began to soak into Madara’s robe.

Madara hesitated, hands half raised to reach for Obito, truly lost on what to do. He wasn’t sure if he was meant to push his apprentice away, or pat his back, or– something. Madara was hardly the sort of person that anyone sought comfort from; the only person who might have been brave enough to lean on him like this would have been Izuna, but with the way that the brothers had been raised, neither of them had been able to make themselves vulnerable enough to seek reassurance from the other this way.

How sanctimonious he was, lecturing Tobirama about touch starvation, when Madara himself barely knew the warmth of other human beings. Would Obito even want Madara to try to comfort him? Or would Madara’s hand on his shoulder wake him up from his moment of weakness to remember exactly who it was that he was crying on, and wrench himself away in disgust?

“Psst, tennin-san,” he heard Naruto say in what the boy probably thought was a whisper, but was as loud as a regular person’s speaking volume. When Madara looked up, Naruto had inched his way over to Tobirama, who was regarding him with an expression of bemusement. “Welcome to Earth. You came at a kinda crappy time; it’s not normally this depressing around here. We just gotta work some stuff out really quick, but I promise you’ll like it here. There’s lots of cool people, and we’ve got the best ramen ever, believe it.”

Obito snickered against Madara’s shoulder, and he straightened himself back up, rescuing Madara from having to make a decision about how to deal with him. It left Madara feeling strangely disappointed, even though he knew that anything he could have done would have likely escalated the situation into something worse.

Obito’s eyes did catch on Madara’s awkwardly raised hands before he put them down, and something unreadable briefly passed over his apprentice’s face before he turned his attention to Naruto. “Naruto, stop bothering the higher being,” he called.

“I’m not!” Naruto protested. “I was just saying hi!”

“… There’s nothing any of us can actually do about you, is there?” Obito asked rhetorically, turning back to Madara. “We’ve only been let out of Infinite Tsukuyomi at your whim. Even if we were to continue fighting, you could use it to subdue us again in an instant.”

That was, in fact, true. It was an ultimatum that Madara was willing to press to his advantage if he had to, though it was hardly going to earn him any goodwill. The reality was that no matter how much of an illusion of choice Madara would give the Allied Shinobi Forces for the sake of their pride, it was still an illusion. Any concessions he made were because he felt like it, not because they had any real bargaining power.

“Fine. Do whatever the hell you want,” Obito said bitterly. “But don’t think that everyone will accept it easily. People will find a way to fight back against you if you push too far, even if it means all of our deaths. I still hate you, but you’re more useful alive and unsealed if you’re committed to–” His mouth twitched. “–not being a douchebag.”

That was more than Madara could have expected out of his apprentice, and he acknowledged Obito’s words with a deep bow of his head. Obito looked surprised by the gesture, but didn’t say anything further.

Madara then located and awakened the Five Kage – who were about as happy to see him as Obito had been. The discussion wasn’t as difficult as he’d feared. Obito would have been the loudest voice clamouring for Madara’s head, so with him neutralised and Naruto reluctantly arguing in Madara’s favour, the Kage had no choice but to accept his terms.

The next to be released from the Infinite Tsukuyomi were the tailed beasts – who looked slightly different than they had before they’d been absorbed into the Juubi.

Naruto frowned. “Is it just me, or is Kurama… smaller?”

Indeed, the tailed beasts had each been shrunken down to the size of a bear each. Still large enough to be intimidating, but nowhere near the multi-storey behemoths they’d once been.

“I cut down the tailed beasts’ chakra reserves,” Madara said.

“You what? Why?”

“A tailed beast cannot participate in the Rinne Festival ritual if imprisoned within a jinchuuriki,” Madara answered flatly, thumping the end of his staff against the ground for emphasis. “I do not trust humanity’s ability to resist the temptation to once again use the tailed beasts’ power for their own gain. Thus, I have removed the incentive.”

“And it’s very convenient for you if they can’t be used against you,” Obito muttered.

“Of course,” Madara admitted easily. “I am the most obvious threat that the villages would want to mobilise jinchuuriki against. But as I just said – there will be no more jinchuuriki.”

“Hypocritical filth,” the Kyuubi spat. “You were the first human to enslave us to your whims, and the others followed in your footsteps.”

“It was inevitable as long as Black Zetsu aimed to free his mother,” Madara replied. “If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. But I can admit the role I played, and do my best to mitigate the damage that I’ve caused.”

The Kyuubi snarled at him, incandescent with rage, but was unwilling to break the tentative stalemate to start a fight it knew it would lose. The tailed beasts were as unhappy with Madara’s deal as the Kage were, but were forced to accept it all the same.

Onoki in particular looked an unflattering combination of sour and terrified, and Madara suspected that a Fourth Tsuchikage would finally be appointed soon, if only so that Onoki could board himself up in an apocalypse bunker instead of having to interact with Madara on the political field in the future.

Madara finally ended the Infinite Tsukuyomi in full for everyone, clearing away the illusory Rinne-Sharingan eye projected over the moon, leaving it small and pale in the daylight. He would let the Kage handle their people, and he could already hear overjoyed, disbelieving reunions between shinobi and those he’d resurrected.

In the chaos, Madara found Tobirama, and the two silently disappeared through a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal, back to the calm, empty lava-plains of You-shiro.

“The humans of this world are… energetic,” Tobirama murmured.

“That’s a diplomatic way of putting it,” Madara said. “I… here.”

He set his shakujo aside and reached through another portal, and his hands came back holding the folded feather cloak. Tobirama stilled, wide eyes fixed on it, as Madara approached him.

“As I promised.” Perhaps all the talking he’d just done had exhausted his ability to speak, because even though Madara wanted to say more, he couldn’t find the words. What was he supposed to say now, after everything Tobirama had just seen?

His hands lingered as he wrapped the cloak around Tobirama’s shoulders, clinging to the makeshift lapels. As soon as he lifted them, there would be nothing stopping Tobirama from disappearing from this dimension forever.

Please don’t go.

There was still so much more Madara wanted to say. It was undeniable that, in the brief few weeks they had known each other, Tobirama had become special to him. Someone unlike anyone else he had ever met, someone he still wanted to get to know better.

Someone he thought he could love, and–

The image of his hand cupping Tobirama’s cheek flashed through his mind; the way that Tobirama’s breathing had stuttered, the warmth of his skin and the flutter of his eyelashes, how he’d ever so subtly leaned into the touch like he was afraid that Madara would take it back.

–someone he thought could love him.

Madara let go.

Tobirama vanished.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, even as it sent a sharp pang through his chest. Of course Tobirama had left, especially after the scenes he’d just witnessed between Madara and the people of this world, showing how reviled Madara was for his heinous actions, and it was completely justified. This was Madara reaping what he had sown. He knew that, and he accepted it, no matter how much it hurt–

A Yomotsu Hirasaka portal opened up on the ceiling, and as Madara stared up at it, Tobirama flew down through it. He performed a few twists and turns in the air before neatly landing on his feet in front of Madara.

“What are you doing here?” he found himself asking.

Tobirama raised an eyebrow at him like he was being purposely dense. “Testing my cloak to make sure that its powers haven’t decayed during its time in storage. It appears to be fully functional.”

“No, why are you– why are you here?” Madara couldn’t bear the hope rising in his chest if it was going to be crushed. It would be no less than he deserved, and yet he couldn’t help himself.

A light flush bloomed on Tobirama’s cheeks, and Madara’s treacherous heart beat faster. “My answer. I want to stay here, and I… would like to be your mate. At least, I would like to try.”

“You would?” Madara rasped. “Even after everything you just saw?”

Tobirama cocked his head to the side. “I saw a man with the strength of character to face his mistakes,” he said. “He did what was right, even when it would have been easier to continue to bury himself in delusion, rather than bear the disdain of the world and accept that it was justified.” He smiled. “How could I not admire something like that?”

As if in a trance, Madara stepped closer to him, and Tobirama did not back away. Instead, he looked expectant. Madara raised his hand, and this time Tobirama met him halfway, grabbing his hand to pull it towards himself and press it against his cheek, sighing upon contact.

He was too good to be true. Far more than Madara deserved. But the same selfishness that made Madara refuse death or sealing made it impossible for Madara to turn him away. He didn’t deserve any of this, but he would still eagerly, greedily, hold onto it with all of his strength.

Madara leaned closer, his pulse pounding in his ears, and he asked:

“May I kiss you?”

Chapter Text

“May I kiss you?”

Tobirama frowned. There was an intense look on Madara’s face, almost hungry, and Tobirama wasn’t oblivious to the charged air between them, with so very little space between their bodies. But… “I don’t know what that means.”

The tension immediately abated, and Madara’s expression turned to one of disbelief. “You don’t know what kissing is?” he asked incredulously.

Tobirama refused to be embarrassed, even though Madara was looking at him like he’d just said he didn’t know how to read. “No. I’m guessing that it’s some sort of human mating ritual?”

“… Yes and no,” Madara answered, his face twisting oddly. “It’s… surprisingly difficult to explain. It’s a gesture of affection. The most common form is where two people press their mouths together, which is typically reserved for romantic or sexual partners, but there are many other variants where the lips are touched to different parts of the body, not all of which are considered romantic in nature.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Tobirama said, wrinkling his nose.

Madara laughed then, a short huff of breath, and he caught Tobirama’s free hand with his own, the other still cupping his cheek. “It’s better than it sounds,” he said, and brought Tobirama’s hand up to his face, lips brushing against his knuckles.

Goosebumps broke out across Tobirama’s body, and all of his attention was suddenly coalesced on that spot where his skin felt hypersensitive, shutting out everything but that feather-light touch and the gloved hand on his cheek. How soft Madara’s mouth felt, the slight give of the plushness of his lips under the pressure. “I… see,” he managed to force out, hoping he didn’t sound as breathless as he felt.

Madara looked up at Tobirama over their hands with dark, hooded eyes. “A kiss on the hand is for reverence,” he said, the movement causing his lips to skim against Tobirama’s hand again, and he shivered. “A kiss on the forehead or the top of the head for affection of any kind, often from a parent to a child. A kiss on the cheek for innocent affection. And anywhere else…” He flipped Tobirama’s hand over, pulling it forward to press his lips against the inside of his wrist. “Anywhere else is the domain of lovers.”

Tobirama was glad, suddenly, that the sleeves of his undershirt reached all the way down to his wrists, because he didn’t think he could bear the sensation of Madara making his way further up his arm, trailing kiss after kiss in his wake.

He tried to rationalise the thought of putting their lips together. On the surface, it still sounded kind of gross, and seemed like it’d make it difficult to breathe if held for a long time, but… the kisses on his hand felt nice. His lips tingled at the thought of the same contact.

Madara was leaning closer again, eyes searching, and Tobirama already knew that he was going to give in. “Alright,” he said, and Madara closed the gap between them without hesitation. He used the hand around Tobirama’s wrist to pull him forward into him, then let it go to wrap his arm around Tobirama’s waist. The other hand remained on his cheek, though it repositioned itself slightly, becoming a guiding hold.

It tilted Tobirama’s head to the side ever so slightly as Madara became close enough for Tobirama to feel the heat of his breath against his lips – it smelled like woodsmoke, just like the rest of him – and Tobirama realised that the adjustment was to prevent their noses from bumping into each other. Sensible.

“You’re meant to close your eyes,” Madara murmured, his voice impossibly fond. His third eye had closed, but his human eyes were still open, watching Tobirama intently. Up this close, Tobirama could see the gradient in the purples of his Rinnegan between rings; darkest at the core two, giving the impression of an iris, but the centremost was subtly darker, and each band of colour outward across the sclera was a little bit lighter than the last.

They reminded Tobirama of whirlpools, the current strongest at the middle, pulling everything towards its deepest point.

“You haven’t closed yours,” he whispered back, though his eyelids had instinctively fallen to half-mast at the proximity.

“I’m an Uchiha,” Madara said, like that explained anything. “We like visuals.”

And then, finally, he pressed his lips to Tobirama’s.

Tobirama had known what was coming, so he didn’t react as severely as he had to the kisses on his hand, though there were more nerve endings in his lips, so the sensation was heightened. He liked it, he decided. He wouldn’t mind doing it again in the future.

Madara’s lips began to move in soft, subtle motions, maintaining the light pressure, and then he shifted downwards to catch Tobirama’s bottom lip between his own, employing just a little bit of suction to pull on and then release it.

Oh, that felt… really, really good. Tobirama’s head filled with static, and he found himself transfixed as Madara did it again and again, nibbling and sucking on Tobirama’s lips like he could memorise them by touch alone, becoming bolder with every passing second.

Tobirama was getting dizzy from the lack of air, and he knew he needed to pull away or somehow signal Madara to do so, but he couldn’t make himself move. All of his strength had fled his body and, selfishly, he wanted to drag the kiss out that little bit more. Surely he could hold on just a little bit longer–

Madara suddenly broke the seal of their mouths, and there was an audible wet pop when their lips parted, the sound making Tobirama’s ears burn. “Breathe through your nose,” Madara commanded him, and he dove back in while Tobirama opened his mouth to gasp for air, forcing a whimpering noise out of Tobirama that he didn’t think he was capable of making.

Was Tobirama meant to be doing something in return? It felt like he was supposed to, but he was struggling just to keep reminding himself to breathe through his nose because he still felt lightheaded even with oxygen, and every time Madara distracted him into forgetting for too long, he became even weaker, falling ever further behind. If he fainted in Madara’s arms like a delicate maiden, he’d never hear the end of it.

He clutched at Madara to keep himself upright, one hand on his shoulder and the other clinging to the front of his robe. Tobirama hadn’t closed his mouth all the way before Madara took it again, and it made the kiss wetter this time, though Madara didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

The tip of his tongue swiped over the loosened seam of Tobirama’s lips, and Tobirama was startled enough by the action to part them further. He then made an undignified – though muffled – squeak of surprise when Madara took advantage of the gap to push his tongue through into Tobirama’s mouth.

It should have been disgusting. It was, objectively, when thinking about it on paper. And yet, in practice, it didn’t feel that way at all.

Madara’s tongue touched Tobirama’s, gently massaging it, and Tobirama felt like he was melting under the feeling. Tension was beginning to coil in his lower belly. He’d never experienced anything like it before, and it came with a strange sense of need, almost urgency, a call of I want I want I want, even though he couldn’t name exactly what it was that he wanted. A vague, amorphous desire for more.

But Madara had to know what it was with how he answered Tobirama’s unspoken thoughts, pressing their bodies flush against each other so that they were connected from chest to hip, and his hand squeezed Tobirama’s waist. He licked over every part of Tobirama’s mouth that his tongue could reach, mapping it out just like he’d done with his lips, determined to feel every part of him.

It felt like an eternity before Madara finally pulled away, pressing their foreheads together while they panted against each other’s mouths. “And that’s how human lovers kiss each other,” Madara said, his voice lower and rougher than usual. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

Tobirama was saved from having to answer by a loud bang as something large thumped against the palace walls hard enough to send tremors through the floor beneath their feet. They broke apart in an instant, immediately battle-ready, and vanished outside using each of their respective teleportation techniques.

There were two humans standing outside the front entrance of You-shiro, and Tobirama recognised them from the group that Madara had spoken to earlier: the other two Uchiha, Obito and Sasuke. Obito was encased in an enormous cyan chakra construct that resembled an armoured tengu, and it had been its fist rapping against the wall that had caused the noise.

Obito dissolved the chakra construct when he saw them, and he grinned at Madara in a way that was a little too feral to be called entirely friendly. “Hey, Madara. Guess who has two eyes and can do Susano’o now.”

“Is there a reason that you’re attempting to break my door down with it?” Madara asked imperiously.

“Yeah, the Five Kage hate the idea that you can vanish off the face of the earth into another dimension where nobody can reach you and potentially hide for years,” Obito answered, seeming to find his own statement extremely funny. “So we figured that those of us who can also teleport would try to track you down.” He glanced around. “Nice place you got here. Lots of… hellfire. I tried to use Kamui to cross the wall, but I couldn’t get through.”

Madara crossed his arms. “That would be because I control the laws of space-time here,” he replied.

But Tobirama had been able to leave and re-enter You-shiro with Yomotsu Hirasaka just now. Had Madara consciously or unconsciously allowed the exception? His surprise had been genuine when Tobirama had returned. Or was it unrelated, and an Otsutsuki of sufficient power could brute-force their way through?

Personal subdimensions were such an interesting and little understood field. Tobirama made himself a mental note to look into the topic further. His life could potentially depend on it later, as well as Madara’s, and the fate of his entire new home world.

Obito’s eyes were flicking back and forth between Madara and Tobirama, his eyebrows climbing higher up his face with each passing second. He was looking at their mouths, Tobirama realised with a degree of horror. His lips felt swollen and tender, and they likely looked it too. Madara bore a few other signs of dishevelment now that Tobirama was looking for them, and he knew that he was the same; tousled hair, rumpled clothing, and he was sure that Obito was seeing them as well.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Obito demanded, whirling on Madara. “It hasn’t even been half an hour, did you seriously sneak off to your little hidey-hole to–? Whatever. I can’t believe this. I hate you so much it’s unreal.”

Sasuke’s face was carefully blank in the manner of someone who was completely lost but didn’t want others to know. At least Tobirama was spared the mortification of the child knowing what they’d been up to.

“Tobirama-san,” Obito called out to him, his expression now a mix of resigned and exasperated. “Are you good here? Blink twice if he’s holding you hostage and you need help.”

“I’m standing right here,” Madara groused, but Obito ignored him.

“I’m fine, truly,” Tobirama said, a little touched by the genuine concern he could see hidden behind the other emotions in Obito’s eyes. He knew it was mostly borne from Obito’s dislike of Madara, but it was a novel experience to have someone he’d just met show care for his wellbeing. “I’ve chosen to stay with Madara of my own will. You needn’t worry for my sake.”

“If you say so,” Obito said dubiously. He sighed. “We don’t have any other bones to pick, then. We’ll be on our way. Madara, the Kage will get back to you with their demands in writing.”

“I do,” Sasuke said, glaring daggers at Madara.

“No you don’t,” Obito said.

“He stabbed me. Through the heart.”

“Me too, little buddy, you’re not special. Come on, we’re leaving.”

Sasuke silently mouthed ‘little buddy’ with sheer outrage and growled when Obito grabbed the back of his shirt collar like a cat scruffing a kitten, but was unable to shake him off before Obito took them both away with his teleportation technique. It looked more user-focused than Yomotsu Hirasaka, and Tobirama could immediately see the pros and cons of it. If he’d had something similar, he would have easily been able to escape from Madara at their first meeting, but conversely, it would be much more difficult to use it to transport anything other than himself. Tobirama itched to get a better look at it.

Madara sighed, sounding remarkably like Obito. “I don’t know what else I expected.”

*

Since Konoha was the only one of the Hidden Villages who had people capable of directly accessing Madara’s dimensions, the others had set up small outposts which were essentially mailboxes where they would leave correspondence for him, which had eventually all been consolidated into a singular outpost in Rain Country, a few kilometres outside of Amegakure proper, since it shared a border with all five major nations.

The Hidden Villages had many demands to make of him in reparations, and oftentimes those demands were for him to put his newfound powers to use for the benefit of the continent. Large-scale terraforming and construction projects, mostly, since he could perform landscape-reshaping feats of ninjutsu with ease. And as he grew more proficient with the Creation of All Things, the variety of things that Madara could do increased.

To Madara’s surprise, over the months since the outpost was initially constructed, it had gradually come to resemble a shrine. Word of his abilities and willingness to use them quickly spread across the Elemental Nations, and even with his reputation, there were still people desperate enough to venture to the outpost and leave letters begging him for miracles.

Parents with dying children. Poor farmers whose fields weren’t yielding enough for them to survive. Those in hopeless situations who saw no way out.

Few, at first, but when Madara proved himself willing to answer, more and more came in, and the outpost started to become a shrine, where the humans of Earth communicated with and left offerings for the closest thing their world had to a god.

Usagi no Ogami, Earth’s guardian deity. The Rabbit God.

After the Haruno girl had smashed the remains of Madara’s horn into powder, it hadn’t grown back, despite his regenerative abilities. Instead, a few weeks later, he’d discovered a new set of horns beginning to sprout from the top of his head. Their growth rate had been slow, and after six months now, they still didn’t appear to be finished, although it had become apparent very quickly that they were the same shape as Otsutsuki Kaguya’s, now bleached bone-white.

Obito thought he was so funny. Kaguya had been called Usagi no Megami, the Rabbit Goddess, because her horns had resembled a rabbit’s ears, and Obito had been the one to slap the same title on Madara before anyone else came up with something more intimidating. Obito had told Naruto, who’d told everyone he knew without cottoning on that Obito meant it to be demeaning, and from there it spread across the rest of the continent and stuck. Some even shortened it to Usagami-sama.

It could have been worse. The nickname had nothing to do with his deeds or how frightening people found him. But it was still irritating to know that it had been started as a joke, no matter that people were using it unironically now.

“I think they have another month or so before they’re fully grown,” Tobirama said, fingers prodding around the root of Madara’s right horn. His other hand was holding Madara’s hair out of the way so he could inspect his scalp better. “The colouration still intrigues me; I haven’t seen anything like it before.”

The very tips of Madara’s horns were black, like the ears of a hare whose coat had turned white for the winter. There wasn’t a hard line between the black and white sections, instead being separated by a fuzzy gradient, and a few tiny spots could be seen dotted on the border.

Tobirama was supremely jealous of Madara’s horns, because unlike his own, their outer casing was made of keratin, making them significantly less sensitive – and better for goring things with – than if they’d been covered in skin like his.

It did mean, however, that since Madara’s skin ended where the horns began, there was a ring of tightly-packed nerve endings surrounding the base of each, and those areas were very sensitive.

They weren’t erogenous zones, exactly, but Madara thought they could be if Tobirama kept gently stroking them like that. “We should go,” he made himself say, despite how much he wanted to just sit there and have Tobirama pet his head. “The festival will be in full swing by now.”

The Rinne Festival, that was. The first in its new form. Since the Rinne Festival fell in the winter, it had been commonly agreed upon to hold a festival in the afternoon, and then perform the chakra transference ritual with the bijuu at moonrise, during the sunset. The chakra transference ritual would be tiring, so the festivities came first, and the whole thing was done before the night became too cold to enjoy.

Madara had bundled himself into a warm cotton hanten and hakama set, and Tobirama was wearing his standard black pants with a more modern kimono shirt, but instead of a hanten, he had his feather cloak around his shoulders, styled like a niju-mawashi coat with a thick, fluffy white fur collar attached. He looked stunning.

Madara had taught Tobirama how to perform a henge, and both of them applied theirs now, disguising their extremely recognisable appearances so that they could sneak into Konoha to attend the Rinne Festival like ordinary people. He regretted seeing Tobirama’s unique features melt away, hidden underneath an illusion of unremarkable brown hair and brown eyes, but it was necessary if they wanted to have any sort of privacy.

They stepped through a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal and into the shadows of a back alley in Konoha, and were immediately bombarded with the sounds of the festival, hundreds of voices chattering and making merry as they roamed the village streets.

Tobirama froze momentarily. Had he ever heard anything like this before? Madara took him by the hand and gently tugged him along and Tobirama seemed to come out of it, following Madara out into the light.

It was beautiful. Festival lanterns had been strung up everywhere, and the cheerful atmosphere felt almost infectious. Tobirama was visibly enthralled by the sights, turning his head every which way as he walked.

“Will my Byakugan show through the henge?” he asked, keeping his voice low and close to Madara’s ear so as to not be overheard.

“It would, but…” Madara spotted what he was looking for; a stall selling festival masks, and they ventured over.

There were standard designs for festival masks available, but also some that had been made just for the Rinne Festival. A line depicting each of the faces of the nine bijuu and, surprisingly, a singular mask of the Juubi, unmistakable with its singular red eye and mouth stretching up the side of its face.

The irony was too much to resist – the Juubi wearing its own face as a mask – and so Madara purchased it for himself. Tobirama side-eyed him, and then chose a red oni mask to match the theme of hiding in plain sight. Its horns were nearly identical in shape to his real ones.

The mask perfectly covered the bulging veins of the Byakugan as they continued their walk through Konoha’s main streets, allowing Tobirama to observe the festival more easily without risking straining his neck.

The Hyuuga clan were just as annoying as they’d been in Madara’s youth, and upon learning about Tobirama’s Byakugan, their heads had somehow grown even bigger, and they were incapable of shutting up about the confirmation of their divine blood and the Byakugan coming from celestial beings. They’d had the audacity to send Tobirama letters – delivered to Madara’s shrine mailbox! – asking him to join their clan and preferably marry one of their women, going so far as to offer the hand of the main family’s eldest daughter. Nevermind that they didn’t know Tobirama’s actual age; even if one was to guess simply by looking at him, the absolute youngest he could have been was his early thirties, and the poor girl was only seventeen. Wretched behaviour.

Tobirama had written back a polite but firm refusal, and fear of incurring Madara’s wrath had deterred the Hyuuga from trying to contact Tobirama through his channels again, but it didn’t stop them from trying to accost him in person if they saw an opportunity.

A singular ANBU presence had begun covertly following them, but Madara wasn’t worried about it. He recognised the chakra signature.

Madara would have considered himself too old to care for festival games anymore, but the look of fascination on Tobirama’s face as they walked by them had him altering their trajectory to get closer to the stands. “Do you want to try some of the games?”

Tobirama blinked at him. “I… suppose so,” he said cautiously.

They ended up going to a katanuki stand, and were seated at wooden benches with a small square of wheat diecut candy and a senbon each. The squares had a design outlined on them, and the goal of the game was to cut out the outlined shape with the senbon as neatly as possible. If done skillfully enough, one would be given a prize by the stall owner.

They each flashed each other a competitive look and began carving.

Since they were both adults, they’d been given the more detailed animal designs, as opposed to the simple stars and crescent moon shapes that children received. The stall owner, rightfully suspecting two masked adults in a shinobi village of being shinobi, had given them both the most complex design he had; the octopus.

Shinobi were notorious for cheating at festival games – there was a ‘NO NINJUTSU’ sign on one of the stall’s posts – but there was very little that stall owners could do about it if they weren’t visibly caught in the act. Did the perfect vision afforded by the Rinnegan count as a cheat?

Oh well. If it did, it wasn’t like Madara could turn it off, anyway. He cut carefully, watching Tobirama out of the corner of his eye. Even with the mask on, he could see how the tennin’s eyes were narrowed in concentration as he worked, fully focused on his task. Cute.

They compared results when finished. “Mine looks better,” Tobirama declared.

“They look about the same,” Madara objected. They were both as close to perfect as the cuttings could possibly be. Each had a few tiny flaws around the edges of the thin, tiny tentacles, but they evened out to equal levels of imperfection.

Tobirama huffed, and Madara could just imagine the pout behind his mask. “Hmph. Look at the sixth tentacle on yours. You’ve chipped the tip of it.”

“Barely.”

“It still counts.”

“Someone without our eyesight wouldn’t be able to see it.”

“But we both can, and we’re the ones competing.”

The stall owner gave them suspicious looks when they turned in their near-perfect octopi cutouts, but as these things usually went, had no way to prove that they’d cheated, and so reluctantly allowed them to select a prize each from the stall. Madara took a little wooden cat doll, and after a long moment of deliberation, Tobirama picked a pair of small silver bells attached to a red ribbon, which he tied around his wrist.

Madara found himself enchanted by them for some reason, eyes returning again and again as they continued to walk, now searching for food. Perhaps it was the vivid red of the ribbon against Tobirama’s pale skin, knowing that the contrast was even more dramatic under the henge. Maybe it was how the accessory brought his attention to just how delicate Tobirama’s wrists looked.

Either way, he wanted to take Tobirama by the hand and kiss his wrist again, feel the dainty protrusion of his ulna under his lips. Would Tobirama blush again? He looked so pretty when he did. How he hid under his lashes, a gesture meant to be shy but inadvertently seductive. He–

“HEY!”

Madara caught someone else by the wrist when they tried to grab his shoulder from behind, squeezing it hard enough to grind the bones together. Uzumaki Naruto yelped in pain and surprise.

“Ow! Geez, that hurts! I wasn’t trying to attack you, you know, I was just tryna get your attention.”

“You have it,” Madara said flatly, releasing Naruto’s hand.

Naruto crossed his arms and scowled disapprovingly. “This is why everyone still calls you an asshole, believe it. Anyway, Ob– ANBU Fox told me you guys were here, so I just wanted to say hi.”

“And now you’ve said it.”

After the Fourth Shinobi War, Konoha had taken Obito back under strict probation, because no matter how they felt about him, he was still an incredibly powerful shinobi with unique abilities, and it was better that he was somewhere they could keep a close eye on him than the alternative. Since his real identity was so controversial, he’d been folded into ANBU under the codename Fox, where he was under the direct command of the newly instated Sixth Hokage, Hatake Kakashi.

Obito was the ANBU that had been surveilling them, and Madara just knew that he’d informed Naruto of their whereabouts with the specific intent of irritating him.

“Hello, Naruto,” Tobirama said, much more politely than the boy deserved. “Have you been enjoying the festival? We were just looking for a place to eat.”

Naruto brightened. “Yeah, it’s awesome! And– you haven’t been to Ichiraku’s before yet, have you? Oh man, that’s perfect, old man Teuchi is having a sale for the festival, it’s the best time to go. C’mon, follow me!”

He wasn’t stupid enough to try to touch Madara again, but he did grab Tobirama’s wrist without the bells on it to tug him along, and Tobirama allowed it, giving Madara no choice but to go with them.

Madara had wanted to choose a dinner setting more romantic than a ramen stand, but it wasn’t going to happen now. Obito had probably guessed his plans and timed this on purpose. Madara would have admired his dedication to petty revenge more if it hadn’t been directed at him.

“Oi, old man, I got two new customers for ya!” Naruto hollered as he parted the stand’s front curtains. Behind the counter was a middle aged chef and a young woman who appeared to be his daughter, and both reacted with visible delight to Naruto’s arrival.

The man, presumably Teuchi, laughed heartily as Naruto ushered his guests inside. “Welcome to Ichiraku Ramen! Naruto’s my best customer,” he said as they took their seats at the counter and removed their masks. “I swear that half my clients say that Naruto sent them. Business has never been better.”

“That’s ‘cuz Ichiraku makes the best food in Konoha, believe it,” Naruto said. Madara highly doubted that a ramen stand was the best restaurant in Konoha, but he kept quiet as the girl, whose nametag read ‘Ayame’, passed them each a menu. She didn’t bother giving one to Naruto, who loudly proclaimed that he wanted miso ramen.

The menu was standard faire for a ramen stand, with a few generous discount stickers slapped on for the occasion.

“I’ve never had ramen before,” Tobirama said to Naruto, who’d sat himself down on the side of him that Madara hadn’t taken. “What would you recommend starting with?”

Naruto gasped in horror, miming clutching his pearls like a scandalised old lady. “Never? You’ve never had ramen before? Oh my god. That’s– that’s so sad. I can’t even imagine it. This is going to change your life, believe it.”

“I’d recommend the miso, then,” Ayame chimed in, flashing Tobirama a warm smile before turning to Madara. “And what would you like to order, sir?”

“Shio ramen. With extra kamaboko, if you don’t mind.”

The curtain lifted again just as the two staff were about to bustle away into the kitchen, and Ayame gasped in surprise. “Oh! ANBU, sir, is there anything we can help you with?”

“Just here as another customer, no official business,” came Obito’s voice. “I’d like to order shio ramen as well, please.”

“Of course, coming right up!”

Obito was dressed in standard ANBU gear, with a grey hooded cloak that covered his distinctive now-white hair. His mask had been painted with red markings around the eyes and three whisker lines on each cheek, identical in placement to Naruto’s.

His codename was both an acknowledgement of the person he credited with his redemption, and a reminder of the crimes he’d committed that necessitated the mask. Hatake had chosen to classify the fact that Obito had been responsible for the Kyuubi attack of now eighteen years ago, but even without that knowledge, the public still had plenty of reason to call for Obito’s head.

Madara was glad he’d chosen the seat against the wall so that Tobirama was his only neighbour. Obito sat on Naruto’s open side, occasionally interjecting as Naruto chattered.

Madara had asked Tobirama, once, about his indulgence of Naruto.

“He means well. And… he reminds me of someone I used to know.”

“He does?”

“Mm. Touryou-san, the lead hou-ou of my mother’s flock. It sounds a little insulting, to compare him to a bird, but Touryou wasn’t an ordinary animal. He was as intelligent as a human, even though he couldn’t speak, and I considered him almost like an older brother. He was always so excited to see me, and he helped me learn to fly when my mother first gave me my feather cloak.”

“He sounds kind.”

“He was. He was nearly as tall as an adult human, and he used to sit on me, sometimes, like a mother bird with a chick. It caused my mother to panic once because his chakra signature was smothering mine so she couldn’t sense me, and she thought something terrible might have happened. He was… destroyed, along with the rest of my mother’s possessions when she was executed.”

The glimpse into Tobirama’s childhood had been as illuminating as it had been heartbreaking. What Tobirama hadn’t said, but Madara had heard, was that his only companions had been his mother and her pets. His entire world had been the gilded cage of his mother’s estate. Tobirama looked back on it fondly, but to Madara, it sounded awfully lonely.

Teuchi returned with their meals and a smile. “Order up!”

Madara clapped his hands together and said ‘itadakimasu’ with everyone else before breaking apart his chopsticks to eat. Naruto was multitasking between slurping down his food in the most disgusting way that Madara had ever seen and goggling at Tobirama as the tennin tried ramen for the first time.

“Well? Well?” he asked through a mouthful of noodles.

Tobirama, who wasn’t disgusting, swallowed his mouthful before speaking. “It’s good. I can see why you recommended this place.”

Madara begrudgingly agreed that while the food was good, it certainly wasn’t the food of the gods that Naruto was making it out to be. He’d had better in his lifetime.

… This was the best ramen he’d had, but he’d eaten better food in general. Ramen dishes weren’t the sort of thing usually served in the high-end restaurants frequented by rich lords that the Uchiha clan head had to schmooze with, nor was it the kind of food that a reasonable shinobi would be seeking out on their own time for optimal energy and nutrition, so it wasn’t something Madara had eaten very often.

“Yeah! I told you so, it’s– what the fuck?” Naruto had caught sight of Obito out of the corner of his eye, and whatever he’d seen made his jaw drop, and he spun around to get a better look.

Half-dreading what he’d see, Madara turned around as well, only to find Obito abusing Kamui to eat his ramen straight through his mask and acting like he wasn’t doing anything unusual.

“How the hell are you–? Ohhh, right, your eyes.” Naruto squinted in a way that Madara had come to learn meant he was trying to use his brain. “Huh. Do you think Kakashi-sensei was doing something like that this whole time?”

“He couldn’t have,” Obito answered after polishing off the last of his broth. “This is an ability of the right eye, not the left.”

“Oh. Man, that kinda sucks for him, actually. Sakura-chan says that he’s too old to be speed-eating all the time anymore, and if he keeps doing it he’s gonna start getting indigestion and stuff.”

Madara’s Rinnegan could see the flow of chakra in Obito’s system, and what he was doing was a little bit clever. Obito had made only the top part of his head intangible, because he needed to be touching things for them to be affected by Kamui this way, and he’d made enough of himself intangible that he was able to extend it to his mask, but not the general region of his jaw, or the food would just pass through him. It spoke to his chakra control that he was able to maintain it with ease while performing another task.

Tobirama had activated his Byakugan to get a better look, and only realised his mistake when Ayame’s breathing hitched. The signature bulging veins had shown through his henge. He immediately dropped it, but Ayame was already waving her hands, her face apologetic. “Ah, there’s no need to worry!”

“We do run a business in a shinobi village,” Teuchi said with a wry smile. “Customers come in wearing henges or other disguises all the time, and we don’t ask any questions. Whatever we see or hear, it’s none of our business, and we don’t tell anyone about it.”

A good policy to have, though Madara was sure that it didn’t extend to withholding information if they were to be questioned by Konoha’s intelligence department.

Tobirama looked at Ayame for a moment, then at Madara, and then at Naruto, who gave him a thumbs up. Madara felt a brief pulse of chakra as Tobirama activated his sensory abilities, searching for anyone else nearby and finding nothing. He let his henge flicker, exposing his true face for just a brief moment. “I appreciate your discretion.”

Teuchi and Ayame’s wide eyes were gratifying; Tobirama should be beheld with awe. “Nobody will hear about your presence from us,” Teuchi promised, while Ayame made a motion over her mouth like she was zipping her lips shut.

They polished off their food in relative peace after that. The chef and his daughter gave Madara a few covert curious glances, clearly wondering if he was also under a henge, because it was well known at this point that Tobirama and Madara were frequently seen together, but true to their word, they didn’t ask.

Madara had intended to only pay for his and Tobirama’s meals, but Obito had silently stared at Madara until he conceded that the least he could do for the apprentice whose life he’d ruined was buy him a bowl of ramen, and since he was already paying for three of their group of four, he couldn’t leave Naruto out without looking extremely rude. So Madara had been pressured into paying for Naruto’s food as well, even though the boy had downed six bowls of ramen.

As for how Madara had any money at all – the Kage recognised that Madara still needed money for living expenses like food, so he was paid for the missions they enlisted him for, even if it was a pittance compared to what his services were actually worth.

Ironically, most of his food budget was spent on Tobirama, because strictly speaking, Madara didn’t need to eat anymore. The God Tree’s chakra could substitute for anything he required to live.

On the day that he’d ended the Infinite Tsukuyomi, Madara had relocated the God Tree’s main body back to the inside of the Moon to protect it from anyone wanting to tamper with it. The seal that had once restrained the Juubi was now an open gate, and when connected to the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Seal, the God Tree was capable of using the Moon’s entire surface to absorb light for photosynthesis. Madara didn’t need to eat, because his real body was the God Tree, and this was just a meat puppet that his consciousness was piloting so that he could pretend he was still human.

He tried not to think about it more often than he had to; he wasn’t sure what would happen if he did. Nothing that boded well for his sanity, at any rate.

Madara’s original body, the one he had been born in, was ashes scattered to the winds, having been stripped for parts by Black Zetsu and Kabuto to create a reanimation during the Fourth Shinobi War, and the scraps burned by Obito to prevent anyone else from doing the same. That facsimile had been transformed into living flesh and blood by Rinne Tensei. A perfect copy indistinguishable from the original.

A copy that had melted away into nothingness when, with only the crimson light of the Moon for company, Madara had fused with the God Tree for the first time the way that Kaguya had, taking on the singular, complete form of the Juubi. His human body was summarily reconstructed from scratch once he’d wanted to split apart again. Did it even count as the same body?

Even though he didn’t need to, Madara ate, drank, and slept because he wanted to. It was good for his mind. They were indulgences, now; a structured routine, simple pleasures to remind himself of the joys of being alive. Eating together gave him time to bond with Tobirama.

“The lantern lighting begins soon,” Obito said quietly, interrupting Madara’s thoughts and Naruto’s rambling. “Naruto, you should go soon if you don’t want to be late.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right! Thanks!”

The Ichiraku family began packing things away to temporarily close up the stall, and Naruto stayed behind to help them, so Madara and Tobirama left together. Obito disappeared from view as soon as they passed the curtains.

Lantern lighting; placed in water to float down the Naka River to honour the dead, similar to what was done at Obon. It was a staple of the modern Rinne Festival, and had been included in the reimagining. Once it was done, people would gather at the newly-built ninshuu temple to channel their chakra into the Kyuubi.

Madara was… almost something like excited, but there wasn’t anything impatient about it. He was happy, he realised. He took Tobirama’s hand again as they walked down to the river, just for the sake of it, and felt content.

Chapter Text

Each person was allowed a single lantern each to release down the river; with the number of festival attendees, and the mortality rate of loved ones in a shinobi village, it would have been easy to clog the Naka otherwise.

Madara pretended to fetch a brush and inkstone from inside his sleeve, though he was actually pulling them from his study using Yomotsu Hirasaka, and he could see Tobirama doing the same thing.

He hesitated before he could lower the brush to the paper of the lantern. To Madara’s horror, he didn’t immediately know what names to write. He’d spent decades wallowing in grief, and yet… How long had it been since Madara had last taken the time to remember those he’d lost as people, and not just their absence?

Izuna’s death had become the whole of him in Madara’s mind, and that death had become an old scar. Madara had ceased to remember his brother as a person, only an abstract concept that he used as fuel to justify his current path.

… Izuna would have hated who Madara had become in the wake of his death. He had given his life to protect the Uchiha clan, and Madara had followed the letter of his last words while stomping all over the spirit. Izuna could have forgiven him for allying with the Senju to form Konoha, but he would have never forgiven Madara for all the Uchiha he’d needlessly condemned to death by spitefully dragging out a losing war.

When Madara had set the Kyuubi upon Konoha, how many of his own clansmen had he unknowingly killed as collateral damage? He hadn’t thought about it at all. He hadn’t cared.

Uchiha Izuna, he wrote, and thought I’m sorry, little brother. You would have hated what I became. If you can see me from the Pure Lands, I hope I’ve begun to redeem myself in your eyes.

Uchiha Myoken. Uchiha Togakushi. Uchiha Kurohime. Madara’s memories of his long-gone younger siblings were few and fuzzy, having lost them so early in life, but traces of them still lingered in his heart.

Myoken, Madara remembered the least of; lost at the tender age of three to a respiratory infection that had swept through the compound. He’d barely had the time to begin forming a personality, but Madara remembered him being a quiet child with solemn eyes. Their mother had been quarantined with him suffering the same illness, and her prognosis had initially looked good, but after Myoken died, she succumbed as well.

Kurohime had wanted to grow her hair out like a court lady, befitting of her name, but at her age and skill level, it would have only been a weakness, so she’d spend hours tying it down into flat braids across her scalp, filled with dozens of hidden caltrops so that anyone who did grab it received a nasty surprise.

It hadn’t saved her. They’d found her body with her hair in ruins, matted with blood and small chunks of flesh from her attackers’ hands, long sections torn out from the struggle.

Togakushi was fiercely protective of his twin sister, and had been broken by her death. He’d blamed the Senju. Madara blamed their father. The Senju had been hired by a lord who’d been angry with Tajima for annexing part of his territory to run Uchiha patrols through, and the Fire Daimyo had allowed it, ‘forcing’ Tajima to pay the lord a pitiful amount of money to retroactively purchase the land, and with no real recourse available, the lord had exacted revenge by hiring the Senju to kill Tajima’s only daughter.

Tajima had, of course, responded by bringing an Uchiha war party to kill the lord and his entire family and torch their manor, conveniently absorbing the rest of their territory in the process. They’d been able to build a very strategic outpost to survey nearby Senju activity on it.

Togakushi had shaved his own head to use his hair to try to patch up Kurohime’s as best as possible, so that she’d take the long, pretty hair she wanted with her into the Pure Lands when they burned her body on the pyre. He’d pricked his fingers over and over again trying to sew it in because his hands were shaking from crying until Madara, twelve years old to the twins’ eight, had made him sit to the side and done it himself.

The boy’s hands had still been bandaged when his squad had crossed paths with a group of Senju, and Togakushi had thoughtlessly thrown himself at them, howling in rage with his one-tomoe Sharingan spinning, and been summarily cut down before his squad leader could call him back. They hadn’t even been the Senju who had killed Kurohime. He’d just seen that they were Senju and charged.

Madara had the power to bring them all back, though the realisation felt cold. Rinne Tensei was easiest to perform when the target was recently deceased and the original body was on hand, but with enough chakra, one could recall any soul and build them a new body.

But their time had long since passed. It would have been unfair to drag his little siblings into an unfamiliar future just so that Madara could feel less alone.

Uchiha Tajima. Uchiha Ryukyu. Tajima hadn’t been the best father, but he had made Madara into what he needed to be to survive their harsh era. The Hagoromo clan had poisoned him when their alliance had fallen through, something slow-acting with no known cure at the time, and rather than spend his last days wasting away in bed, he’d chosen to sacrifice his life to ensure the strength of his replacement. He’d come at Madara with the intent to kill, forcing him to choose between killing his father or being killed himself, and Madara had come away from the encounter as the new clan head with a Mangekyo Sharingan.

He understood why Tajima had done it, even if part of Madara still hated him for it. He’d been dying anyway; it had been a mercy to both his body and his pride to die in battle. It had given Madara a power that he wouldn’t have been able to match Hashirama without. Tajima had wanted to harden his heart in preparation to lead, and if Madara had been unable to force himself to kill his father, Tajima would have struck him down as an unworthy heir. It was that knowledge that hurt the most.

The elders had described his mother as a firebrand, a terror on the battlefield, and it had always been incongruous with the way that Madara had known her; demure and almost never speaking unless spoken to, pregnant more often than not, popping out soldier after soldier for her lord husband to sacrifice on the battlefield.

Madara wrote another name, one that he’d never properly admitted to himself he wanted to mourn. Senju Hashirama.

Maybe Izuna and Hashirama had bonded in the Pure Lands, watching Madara make horrible choices together. Though he knew that Hashirama had already reincarnated. As had Madara, apparently.

“Tobirama?”

“Yes?”

“I was a reincarnation of the Sage’s eldest son, Indra. After I died, Indra reincarnated once more as Sasuke. If our souls are one and the same, how was I able to be recalled by Rinne Tensei without it affecting him?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Tobirama said. “The Pure Lands are a data archive. If you think of reincarnation as a lizard shedding its skin, then the Pure Lands are where the cast-off skins are stored. But at the same time, those cast-off skins aren’t any less of a complete being than the lizard is. The soul is a complicated thing.”

He frowned. “In any other case, between the two of you, whomever’s soul passes first would wait in the wheel of reincarnation until the other dies as well, then fuse together and continue reincarnating as normal. But your bond with the God Tree changes things. The nature of your soul has been irrevocably altered. Even if you were to cut away and kill the God Tree, or you and the God Tree were killed, I believe you have deviated too much to be considered a part of Indra any longer. You would now be a separate soul, beginning a new line of reincarnation.”

Madara stared at him blankly, his mind buzzing. “I… see,” he said. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was frightening, in some ways, but freeing at the same time. “What do you mean by the Pure Lands being a data archive?”

Tobirama stared back at him guilelessly. “I mean that they’re a data archive. That’s what they were created for. Rinne Tensei would be considerably more difficult without them; previous incarnations are still attached to the soul, so if you wanted to recall a soul that had already reincarnated, you would need to locate the new body housing it first, and there’s no guarantee that the soul hasn’t been reincarnated in another dimension entirely. A Pure Land collects a sample of every incarnation in a localised area – that is, a particular dimension – to enable easy resurrection. This system is mostly intended for use in the event that the Otsutsuki clan needs to restore a harvested world. When Kaguya arrived in this dimension, she brought Rinne with her, and a Pure Land would have been born here when the God Tree first planted its roots.”

“Created for?” Madara croaked.

Something in his expression must have conveyed the question he truly meant to ask, because Tobirama’s eyes softened at the edges. “The sampling process causes no pain or damage. The souls in a Pure Land are neither conscious nor unconscious, existing in a state somewhat like dreaming. A Pure Land is like a sea, with each soul as a single molecule of water. They aren’t aware enough to interact, but they can all feel each other’s presence. There is only that sense of togetherness and stillness. It is… peaceful.”

A tear ran down Madara’s cheek before he realised it, and he quickly wiped it away with his sleeve. “That’s good,” he said, his voice coming out rougher than usual before he finished composing himself. To know for sure that Izuna, Kurohime, Togakushi, and Myoken had been reunited in the Pure Lands, that they were at peace… It meant more than he could say. “Is a Pure Land dependent on the God Tree to continue existing? If I die, will our world’s Pure Land vanish?”

Tobirama shook his head. “A God Tree spawns a Pure Land, but the two are independent entities. A Pure Land is a sub-dimension of pure energy without physical form, existing overlapping its host dimension. It does not require energy input to maintain itself. It merely exists.”

The terror that had briefly and instantly gripped Madara melted away, and he felt his shoulders slump in relief.

He and Tobirama approached the river to release their lanterns. Neither asked each other about the names they’d written; it would have been inappropriate during a ceremony of mourning. But Madara could see that Tobirama had written just one name on his lantern. Otsutsuki Mitsuru. Was that his mother’s name?

They lit their lanterns and placed them in the water, watching them slowly drift downstream surrounded by dozens of identical lanterns, all glowing a soft orange that seemed ethereal in the dusk.

The lanterns were meant to guide the souls of the dead, but with what Tobirama had just said, Madara could imagine the Naka River as the Pure Land itself, countless souls dancing in harmony as they flowed in the current.

Madara had been part of their symphony once, but it was unlikely that he ever would be again, and it felt strange to contemplate. The God Tree was a perfect organism capable of infinite cell division, so Madara would live until he was killed, and if he was to be killed, it would be at the hands of the Otsutsuki clan, who would likely annihilate his soul to prevent him from reincarnating into another future problem. It did give rise to a pressing question, though.

“Tobirama, how long will you live now that you’re no longer consuming sentan?”

Tobirama looked up from the river, blinking slowly, and his brows creased in thought for a moment. “… I have about six hundred years left in my natural lifespan, I would guess,” he said. “But as long as you’re willing to create White Zetsu bodies for me to use Karma Seals on, I can live for as long as you wish me to.”

Madara wondered if they would ever run out of apparent ‘common knowledge’ for Tobirama to casually mention that was completely foreign to him. “Karma Seals?”

“An emergency failsafe taught to all Otsutsuki before they are allowed to leave Mount Shumisen,” Tobirama explained. “In the event that we are about to die, a Karma Seal can be placed on a suitable host organism, and our soul will then be transferred into that organism’s body, turning it into a healthy copy of the original. The host’s soul is destroyed in the process, so it would be unethical to use on a human unless absolutely necessary. Kaguya would have employed the base function of a Karma Seal when she attempted to take over your body.”

It sounded remarkably similar to the body-stealing technique that Orochimaru had developed, and though it probably made Madara selfish to think this, he was relieved that Tobirama had such a failsafe on hand. There were many on Earth who might want to harm or kill Tobirama for any number of reasons; his association with Madara, to try to steal his powers and knowledge for themselves.

People were beginning to leave, milling away from the river towards the temple built on the outskirts of Konoha, and Madara and Tobirama followed to observe at a distance. They perched themselves in a nearby tree to get the best view of the proceedings, and Madara cloaked them in his senjutsu-aided genjutsu that hid their presence from all nearby.

The temple was dedicated to ninshuu, the Sage’s philosophy and specific technique of harmonising chakra to feel one another’s emotions. The Kyuubi sat on its hind legs in the temple’s courtyard, wearing an irritable expression that couldn’t quite disguise its nervousness.

The Kyuubi, nervous. What a novel thought. But it made sense. For the first time in centuries, the Kyuubi was being approached by a large group of humans to be treated as a comrade, rather than a monster they were trying to chase away from their home.

There had been several factors to Madara’s decision to permanently weaken the tailed beasts, and one of them was this: the breakdown of human-tailed beast relations had been inevitable, even without Black Zetsu’s help, because the tailed beasts as the Sage had created them were too large to interact with humans on a regular level. Of course people were going to be afraid of something large enough to accidentally crush a house with a single thoughtless step. Their size was an impediment to the kind of social activities that would have allowed humans to see them for the sapient creatures they were.

People could now read the Kyuubi’s expressions and walk beside it as an equal. This was what Madara had wanted to achieve by shrinking the tailed beasts.

The citizens of Konoha still feared the Kyuubi, but their trust in Naruto was stronger than that fear, and Konoha’s shinobi remembered fighting alongside the Kyuubi and the Hachibi in the Fourth Shinobi War.

At the front of the crowd was Naruto, wearing a ceremonial haori designed to look like his Kyuubi chakra cloak, beaming so hard it looked painful. Kakashi, wearing his Sixth Hokage robe, and Tsunade were at his sides. Obito hovered out of sight with the rest of the Hokage’s guard platoon, making sure that none would threaten this historical event.

Naruto clapped his hands together. “Okay, okay, everyone listen up! Tonight we’re doing Konoha’s first ever Rinne Festival ritual. A long time ago, when the Sage’s mom first came to Earth, she used the God Tree to kill the whole planet, so she could harvest its life force to make a magic fruit that made her a goddess, and the only part left was the Elemental Nations. She needed more chakra to restore more parts of the Earth, so she started doing human sacrifices. And that sucked. The Sage and his brother sealed her away, and then he gave humans the power to use chakra, so that every year, we could come together and donate a little bit of our chakra each to the tailed beasts, and that chakra would bring more of the Earth back to life. We forgot what the Rinne Festival was for for a long time, but now we’re gonna do what the Sage wanted us to do, and we’re gonna take our world back!”

The crowd cheered, and Kakashi stepped forward, clearing his throat. “Well said, Naruto. I want to remind you all that the Rinne Festival is strictly voluntary, and there is no shame in being unable to participate. Ninshuu requires a level of openness, and you will only be able to connect if you are truly willing to give your chakra to the Kyuubi. But I would like to ask you to try. Have faith in yourselves, your comrades, your Hokage – and Naruto.” Naruto flashed a peace sign, grinning. “Naruto will be leading the connection, so reach out to him with your chakra first, and he’ll guide you from there.”

“Let’s go, Kurama!” Naruto announced, holding out a fist towards the Kyuubi, and grinning back seemingly in spite of itself, the Kyuubi held out its own fist to bump it against Naruto’s.

Red tailed beast chakra flared out around Naruto before quickly turning golden, forming the signature cloak.

The Hokage went first to demonstrate to his people that it was safe, closing his eyes in a meditative trance. To the naked eye, it wouldn’t have appeared that he was doing anything, but Madara’s Rinnegan could see his chakra reaching out to Naruto’s, and when it connected, a visible aura of tailed beast chakra surrounded Kakashi as well, remaining a bubbling red with an impression of fox ears on top of his head. Tsunade went next, and then the Haruno girl, and people fell in line like dominos after that, until there were over a hundred of them lit up in red.

It was like what Naruto had done when sharing the Kyuubi’s chakra with the Allied Shinobi Forces during the war, but in reverse. Instead of the Kyuubi’s chakra being shared over the connection, dozens and dozens of people were sharing their chakra with the Kyuubi, all connecting to each other as well through that shared link.

Though Madara wasn’t connected, the sheer amount of ambient chakra in the air felt like static electricity crackling across his skin, and people’s hair was beginning to stand on end. He could feel the chakra pouring into the God Tree from the Kyuubi, sinking into its ever-ravenous reserves.

He didn’t dare participate here. Not only would it have been pointless, since he would have been donating his own chakra to himself, but the Kyuubi could recognise every individual connected to it, and it hardly would have welcomed Madara. It would have disrupted the entire ritual.

Tobirama was watching with a certain amount of wistfulness, though, and he whispered to Madara: “Can you act as a conduit, like Kurama currently is?”

“I can.” Though most people would be even more leery of performing ninshuu with Madara than they were with the tailed beasts.

“Then I want to do my part as well,” Tobirama said determinedly, holding out a hand to Madara. “This planet is my home now. I will contribute to its restoration like any other resident. Should we go somewhere less likely to attract attention?”

Madara knew exactly where to go. He tilted his chin upwards in the direction of the full moon, shining bright in the now-night sky. “I’ll race you there,” he said.

They took off at the exact same time, and Madara only dropped the genjutsu once they were high up enough that their figures would only be visible as faint specks to those on the ground. He plunged headfirst through a thin grey cloud, laughing as he felt lightning sweep over him harmlessly, cold and tingling, and then broke through the atmosphere to face the endless black sky and the lights of the Milky Way.

It was beautiful. The man-made lights in Konoha dimmed the night sky, blocking out all but the brightest of stars, but out here there was no filter suppressing the galaxy’s brilliance. It was just Madara, Tobirama, the stars, and the ever-encroaching pale face of the Moon.

Tobirama was the first to touch down on the Moon’s surface, feet hitting the rock a full two seconds before Madara’s. “I’ve been flying much longer than you have,” he said in a lecturing tone. “You won’t beat me relying on just raw power in the technique.”

Madara openly rolled his eyes, and Tobirama harrumphed at him, but shut up to appreciate the view.

No matter how many times Madara saw it, the image of the Earth as beheld from the Moon was breathtaking. He could see the whole of the Elemental Nations, tiny from up here, and he could feel chakra flooding in from thousands of people all across their breadth. All working together with a shared purpose, with a shared love for their home.

His world could be an ugly and cruel place. But it was also a wellspring of life and hope.

“This was the very first thing I saw, when I arrived in this dimension,” Tobirama said quietly. “I knew, even before I began to sense for chakra, that Kaguya must have settled here. Its beauty is… compelling.”

He held out his hand again, and Madara took it this time, and the other as well for good measure. “How do I perform the ritual?” Tobirama asked.

“It’s simple,” Madara assured him. He reached out with his chakra to feel Tobirama’s and gently tugged with his Preta Path, allowing Tobirama to feel the path his chakra was meant to take, and then let him do the rest.

He shivered at the tentative first push of Tobirama’s chakra through the link he’d initiated. Madara had felt Tobirama’s chakra before through his sensory abilities, but it was different like this, directly touching his own chakra and trickling into his system. It was cool and steady, heavy with power, reminding Madara of nothing so much as the Naka River they’d left behind. Steadfast and strong, but tightly controlled. Cold, but a source of life.

He liked it.

Tobirama was the last to stop giving chakra, finally cutting the flow when the chakra coming in from the Earth below had faded out. Madara felt almost drunk, glutted with power and fierce, overwhelming joy. He knew what he had to do next.

Madara summoned the God Tree from inside the Moon’s core, and it stood motionless at his back. Waiting. “I have to become the Juubi for the final phase of the ritual,” he said, mouth twisting down into a grimace. “It is… unfortunate looking.”

Tobirama squeezed Madara’s hands, his expression unbearably understanding. “It will not change my opinion of you,” he assured, but it was easy to say when he hadn’t seen it yet. Madara let go of Tobirama’s hands and stepped backwards, meeting the God Tree in the middle as the two halves of his being became one.

Flesh melted and surged, reshaping itself as easily as liquid, melding everything together into one cohesive body, and when it was done, the Juubi’s enormous frame stared down at Tobirama, suddenly so much smaller, with its singular eye.

The Juubi still had Madara’s rabbit-ear horns, scaled up to size, but in all it bore a terrible resemblance to his Susano’o, broken and mutated down onto all fours like an animal under the weight of the bulb of the God Tree on its back. The proud tengu’s mask had been peeled away to reveal a ghoulish, skull-like face with smooth skin covering where its right eye should have been, leaving no indication that there was a socket beneath it. Its head was crowned with a mane of thorns that continued down its neck, and its wings had been fused into its arms. It wore armour made of its own sickly grey-brown flesh.

This was Madara’s true, complete form. It was hideous.

This body could stand upright, though quadrupedalism felt more natural. Madara forced himself to stand on his feet so that he could use his hands freely, and he formed the Snake seal as a focus, like Hashirama had always used for his Mokuton. Madara’s hands were still remarkably human-looking, though as thin and gnarled as they’d been in his old age.

He closed his eye as he tapped into the array beneath his feet, awakening ancient lines of code in the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Seal that had laid dormant for hundreds of years. But they had not decayed in that time. This part of the matrix rose eagerly to Madara’s command, and for a brief moment, he could feel the faint traces of his predecessor’s chakra left over in the seal, an echo of his intent. When the Sage had laid this seal, he’d felt the same determination Madara felt now.

I want to protect this world.

In that moment of harmonisation, that echo of the Sage’s chakra felt like an encouraging hand on Madara’s back, urging him forward, and the rest came naturally. All of that fresh, brilliant chakra poured through the Juubi into its root network on the Earth and out into the ground. Madara could see the circle of life that contained the Elemental Nations in his mind, and he willed it to grow.

He heard Tobirama cry out as the seal blazed beneath them, and Madara opened his eye to see the grey rock of the Moon’s surface was glowing purple. The sealing matrix had become visible, long lines of black ink stretching out over the horizon.

When viewed from the Earth, the Moon likely resembled a purple Rinnegan eye. The variant unique to humanity.

The colour and the seal faded back out of sight with the ritual complete, returning the Moon to its usual appearance.

He’d done it. They’d done it; every person and tailed beast who had worked together to make this happen. The habitable zone’s radius had expanded by several kilometres.

Madara sank back down to all fours again, exhausted by the mental effort of concentrating all that chakra. When he looked down, Tobirama seemed to take that as an invitation to approach, kicking off the ground in a graceful leap.

Madara was technically capable of speech in this form; the Juubi’s maw of shark-like teeth, near-nonexistent lips, and long, thin tongue meant he could only slur out a few simple words, and he vastly preferred to not speak at all rather than to humiliate himself that way.

Tobirama hovered in front of Madara’s face, his feather cloak fluttering in an illusory breeze. His expression bore no disgust for the monster that Madara had made himself into. He only looked curious, and Madara felt a wave of affection rush over him.

“The ritual appears to have been a success,” Tobirama said. He looked so small like this. Madara could have grabbed him and crushed his entire body within his fist like a quail’s egg. “You should be proud of what you have accomplished today.”

He floated even closer, and if Madara had two eyes, he was sure they would have crossed trying to look at him. “You called this form unfortunate looking. But I don’t think so. This is the form you took on to save this world; the form of the being who keeps this planet alive. I can’t help but admire that.”

Tobirama leaned in, eyelids half-shuttered. “You are still yourself in any form that you take. You are still the man who saved me.”

He pressed his lips against Madara’s, and the size difference between them would have been comical if Madara hadn’t been frozen with shock and awe. There was no way for them to properly kiss like this, but it was a symbolic gesture. Acceptance.

The Juubi unravelled, separating into God Tree and man once more, and Madara’s human body flung himself forward out of the Juubi’s face, suddenly desperate to hold Tobirama and return his kiss. To show that he, too, felt the same. Tobirama was smiling as Madara crashed into him in a flurry of limbs, sending them both hurtling downwards.

Madara thought of home, and when they fell through a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal, Tobirama’s back hit the futon in Madara’s bedroom. They didn’t stop kissing for even a moment, united by the same desire.

Heart singing in his chest, Madara pushed himself up to his elbows to gaze at Tobirama sprawled out beneath him, lips bitten red and chest heaving with every breath, and asked, “May I touch you?”

Tobirama nodded, and he sat up so that he could shrug off his feather cloak, which he insistently laid beneath his head and shoulders, but allowed Madara to untie his kimono shirt and put it aside.

Madara had seen Tobirama nude once before, when he’d strip-searched him following their initial confrontation, but it was entirely different like this; a willing invitation in the intimacy of his bed, Tobirama’s eyes watching the path of Madara’s hands removing his clothes, the red of his magatama tattoos flicking like candle flames under the dim ceiling lights.

“What do these mean?” Madara asked, tracing his thumb over one. There were six of them in a line under Tobirama’s collarbones, the same vivid red as the markings on his face.

“They represent the Six Paths,” Tobirama answered, and he named each as Madara dragged his thumb across them. “Tendou. Ningendou. Shuradou. Chikushoudou. Gakidou. Jigokudou. All Otsutsuki possess this set of marks. They are representative of one who has surpassed each of the five lower states and reached the status of a celestial being. ”

“I have them as well,” Madara said, and Tobirama watched with interest as he took off his haori and shirt. At the first glimpse of his bare chest, Tobirama’s eyes lit up, and Madara suddenly found himself a little self-conscious under the intensity of his focus.

“Amazing,” Tobirama breathed, instinctively reaching out before catching himself. But then he kept going, a little more slowly and now with an embarrassed flush to his cheeks, placing two fingers on the black circle at Madara’s sternum. “Do you know what these mean?”

“I don’t,” Madara admitted, and luckily for him, Tobirama looked even more pleased to have the opportunity to explain something to him.

“This is the next and the final piece in that set,” he started. “Gedou, the Outer Path. The path outside the natural cycle of life and death, tread by heretics and gods.” He slid his fingers down the line at the bottom of the circle, following it down to the design on Madara’s stomach; a six-spoked wheel with a spiral in the centre. “Rinne, the wheel of reincarnation. For you, one who has begun the first steps towards enlightenment, the cycle of rebirth has become a spiral, no longer endless. Escape from Rinne lies at your final destination.”

Madara caught Tobirama’s hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing each of his fingers, revelling in how Tobirama turned his face away, his blush deepening and crawling down his neck. “I would have been pleased to hear that, once upon a time,” he said, breath puffing against Tobirama’s hand. “I used to think that this world was hell. Now, I realise how lucky I am to have been born on this planet.”

“There is no such thing as karma,” Tobirama said, and Madara blinked at the non-sequitur. “Morality is a mortal concern. A soul is simply reincarnated into a vessel that fits it– a stronger soul is larger and will be reincarnated higher up the chain, whereas a weaker soul is smaller and more likely to end up as an animal. But the Otsutsuki have more influence over their reincarnation than most. In your record of Black Zetsu’s memories, he noted that Asura’s reincarnations were always born after Indra’s, because of Asura’s dying will to chase after his brother.”

He flexed his hand in Madara’s grip, and Madara loosened his hold, but instead of pulling away like he expected, Tobirama merely laced his fingers through Madara’s. “That is, what I am trying to say… If I were to die, my soul would follow after yours. I want to be reborn on the same planet as you as many times as Rinne permits.”

He yelped when Madara suddenly pushed him onto his back, but obediently lifted his hips to allow his pants to be shucked off. Tobirama’s fundoshi was left in place for now, and once Madara had removed his tabi boots and accompanying socks, he sat back on his heels, still holding Tobirama’s bare left foot. Madara lifted it up to nuzzle his face against the side of it, causing Tobirama’s long, shapely leg to lift and bend with the motion.

“Is this normal mating behaviour?” Tobirama asked, unable to sound demanding with that flustered look on his face. He sat up on his elbows to look at Madara.

Madara hummed. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On if the mates in question are utterly obsessed with one another.” He pressed a kiss to the arch of Tobirama’s foot, right over the red crane marking there, greedy ears picking up the hitch of his breath.

If ‘Mitsuru’, meaning ‘beautiful crane’, was Tobirama’s mother’s name, then this was likely some sort of signature, just like Madara had thought it was the first time he’d seen it. An artist’s stamp on a masterpiece. It was impossible for Madara to know what had gone through the woman’s head when she had created her son, but he could agree on this: Tobirama was a work of art.

A star, fallen from the heavens with no wish to return. Because he belonged to Madara now. One who had once decried pleasures of the flesh as being beneath his kind, and yet laid here so sweetly now, waiting for Madara to corrupt him further.

“You are a wonder,” he murmured, kissing the protruding bump of bone at Tobirama’s inner ankle, and then his heel. Tobirama had such pretty feet. Long and fine-boned, with slender ankles and an elegant arch. Made to dance.

Despite the confidence he was projecting now, Madara hadn’t actually had a lot of sex. His position as clan head meant that it was difficult to solicit Uchiha men, who were all his subordinates, and therefore he could never be sure if they were truly receptive to his advances, or just felt obligated to accept them because of his authority, or worse, wanted to use the encounter to advance their own agendas.

The logical answer was to look outside of his clan and save himself the hassle, but that came with its own pitfalls. Madara’s preference for men did not necessarily mean he was safe from the possibility of spawning a bastard. If an enterprising man so chose, he could simply collect a sample of Madara’s semen in a jar after their encounter and take it to a woman to swab and insert into herself.

And that was just the danger of bloodline theft; it was far more likely that an outsider Madara slept with could turn out to be an enemy shinobi looking for an opportunity to assassinate him.

He’d resorted to using an alias to seek out male prostitutes who could be paid enough to be fine with being blindfolded and having all of their limbs restrained for the duration of the session. Blindfolded, so that even if his henge slipped, they wouldn’t see his real face, and the bondage so that Madara could be absolutely sure he wouldn’t find a knife in his back while his guard was down.

Attractive men willing to agree to these terms were hard to find, and they tended to be on the expensive side, since they ran the potential risk of being murdered while they were helpless. But it was that or nothing, and therefore not something Madara indulged in very often.

He imagined Tobirama like that; tied up and defenceless, and his dick twitched inside his pants. Red ropes, to match his tattoos. Now that was a lovely image.

Madara made his way up Tobirama’s calf with lingering, sucking kisses against the thicker muscle, aiming to leave marks. He nipped at the soft underside of Tobirama’s knee, and then bit his inner thigh.

Tobirama gasped, entire body jerking, and exclaimed “You bit me!” with half incredulousness, half unwitting arousal.

“Love bites are normal,” Madara said airily, soothing the wound with gentle licks and kisses. He hadn’t bitten hard enough to draw blood, only leaving a reddened set of half-moon imprints of his teeth that would turn purple in the morning. “I want to make you mine.”

That did something interesting to Tobirama: he did actually have pupils, almost invisible and barely a shade darker than his irises, but Madara’s perfect vision could see how they were blown open, and at those words they dilated even further. A tendon jumped in Tobirama’s throat as he swallowed. “A-alright.”

He let Madara keep going further up his thigh with bite after bite, littering the sensitive skin with countless teeth marks and hickies, until Madara’s face was mere inches away from Tobirama’s clothed crotch. His tennin was panting, legs trembling, staring down at Madara with an expression of dazed awe. There was a growing wet spot on the front of his fundoshi.

“How does it feel, To-bi-ra-ma?” Madara drawled, pillowing his head against Tobirama’s unmarked thigh.

“I… I don’t…” It was glorious to see Tobirama inarticulate for once, driven to it by Madara’s ministrations. “I’ve never felt anything like this before. It’s… like my body is burning, but it feels good. And I…” He glanced away, cheeks flushed with shame. “… want you to touch me more. Where I– where it’s all concentrating. But if you do, it’ll– it feels like that tension is gathering to burst.”

Madara sat back up, scooting in as close as he could, and asked, somewhat bemused, “You’ve never experienced orgasm before?”

“No?” Tobirama stared back at him quizzically. “I told you, the Otsutsuki clan doesn’t engage in any sexual practices.”

“You’ve never touched yourself? Not a single moment of weakness during puberty?”

“No,” Tobirama said, crossing his arms defensively. “I am– was an exemplary member of the clan. I had no interest in such things before you.”

“Right,” Madara said faintly, feeling his arousal skyrocket. “Well, that’s what you’re feeling the buildup to.” Never before. Madara would get to see Tobirama’s face as he came for the very first time, introducing him not just to sex, but the concept of pleasure itself. It’d be forever associated with him in Tobirama’s mind.

Overcome with lust, he kissed Tobirama again, who uncrossed his arms as he relaxed into it, obediently parting his lips so that Madara could plunder his mouth with his tongue. He was turning out to be such a sweet little thing, willing to let Madara manhandle him like a doll.

For someone like Tobirama, who had lived watching his back alone for so long, it had to be intoxicating to finally have someone he could trust. Where he could finally let his guard down, knowing that Madara didn’t want to hurt him.

The thought of that trust in him had Madara’s heart in his throat, stinging at his eyes. Perhaps he didn’t deserve it, but he wanted it more than anything. Wanted this more than anything.

Tobirama placing his life and his heart in Madara’s hands–

Wasn’t that love?

Madara had given a piece of himself to Tobirama somewhere along the line, and he knew that a betrayal would break him. To be loved despite who he was, despite everything he had done, was a treasure he had never dared to hope for.

He drew back, peppering kisses along Tobirama’s jaw on the way to his ear, teasing the lobe and shell with his teeth. Tobirama’s inhumanly pale skin coloured so well, taking Madara’s marks like a canvas soaking up ink.

Bites were painted down the long column of his neck until there was virtually no skin left untouched, turning Tobirama’s entire throat various mottled shades of red. Tobirama was moaning, making breathy little sounds as Madara slowly drove him out of his mind with want.

His nipples were already hard when Madara reached them, the lightest shade of pink Madara had ever seen and just begging to be pinched.

So that was exactly what he did.

Tobirama keened, throwing his head back and his hands frantically scrabbling for purchase on Madara’s shoulders, leaving behind thin red scratches. Good. “Oh, that’s– nnnh!”

Madara grinned against his neck, laving over the latest hickey. Tobirama’s hips bucked upwards while Madara twisted and tugged on his nipples, frantically searching for relief, but there was none to be had in this position.

“Ma– Madara, I need… Ghhk, to take the fundoshi off, it’s too…”

Who was he to deny such a request? Tobirama sighed in relief when Madara let go of his nipples, the adorable look of annoyed frustration on his face easing somewhat. He tried to remove his fundoshi himself, but his hands were too unsteady, and he begrudgingly let Madara untie and discard it for him.

Tobirama’s dick was perfectly proportional to the rest of his body – an impressive length to match his impressive height. It bobbed against his stomach once freed, flushed from root to tip, thick and leaking with arousal. Madara’s mouth watered just looking at it.

His avarice had to have shown on his face, because Tobirama moved as if to raise his legs to cover himself before deciding against it. “Take yours off too,” he demanded instead, and Madara was all too happy to comply.

There was no distraction this time, no pithy remarks to be made, only a thrumming tension in the air as the two were left fully bare before each other for the first time. Tobirama’s wide, glassy eyes were flattering, as was the way he let Madara part his thighs to seat himself between them.

Madara went for Tobirama’s nipples again, this time with his mouth, and was surprised by a sharp tug on his hair pulling him away. “No more,” Tobirama snapped, lower lip beginning to pout. “I feel like I’m going insane. Just– get on with it.”

Ah, perhaps Madara had teased him too much. It was hard not to with how he looked, how beautifully responsive he was. But it had to be unbearable for someone so pent up.

He fetched a jar of lubricant from the tansu beside the futon to slick his palm with, and Madara finally, finally reached out and put his hand around Tobirama’s cock, fingers wrapping tightly around the base, and Tobirama’s entire body jerked like a live wire. His dick twitched too, jumping in Madara’s grip, and a look of near despair crossed Tobirama’s face as a few weaker shudders wracked through his body.

Fortuitous that Madara had thought ahead, because from that reaction, he’d prevented Tobirama from coming the second he was touched. He was obviously unhappy now, yes, but he’d be grateful in hindsight not to have experienced that kind of humiliation for his first time.

He still wouldn’t last long, but it would be a few seconds more than it would have been otherwise.

“Wh-What was– Aah!” Tobirama’s eyes rolled back in his head when Madara dragged his palm up the length of his shaft, twisting it around to lightly squeeze the head when he reached it.

It took exactly seven strokes for Tobirama to come, face screwed up in ecstasy and hands fisted in the sheets, the sight forever immortalised in Madara’s perfect memory. His seed shot out in several thick white ropes, splattering up across Tobirama’s abdomen and down over Madara’s hand.

Tobirama sagged when it was done, torso tipping precariously forwards, and Madara caught him and pulled him against his chest. His hand was still on Tobirama’s dick, caressing him through the aftershocks to wring as much pleasure out of him as possible, only letting go when Tobirama whimpered and began trying to squirm away.

Madara dropped his hand to pet it up and down Tobirama’s thigh, lips resting against his temple in a way that couldn’t quite be called a kiss. Surprisingly, though he hadn’t gotten off himself and was still ridiculously hard, he found himself unbothered at the thought of this being the end of this encounter.

This wasn’t just sex for the sake of getting off. It was for the sake of being close to each other, to show Tobirama how he’d felt. And he’d certainly fulfilled that end.

“Madara…?” Tobirama’s face lifted from where it had been buried in the crook of Madara’s neck. “You haven’t…”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Madara assured him, even though his dick throbbed as if in protest. “I can handle it myself. Though, if you don’t mind… I’d like to do that here and now.”

It took a moment for the dots to connect in Tobirama’s head, and his mouth briefly parted in a little ‘o’ shape when they did before sealing back closed in a contemplative frown. “No, that’s fine, but–”

With permission, Madara didn’t hesitate to take hold of his own cock, a hiss escaping from between his teeth at the relief of finally being touched. That hiss turned into a startled groan at the feeling of Tobirama’s hand winding around his, fingers trying to worm underneath his own to dislodge and replace them. “What are you doing!?”

“You didn’t let me finish!” Tobirama snapped, pink dusting his cheeks. “I was going to say that I want to do it.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“It doesn’t look like it’s that much effort. It’s just moving your hand up and down.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Madara complained, but he was hardly going to say no. “You need to slick your hand first, the friction can be painful otherwise.”

He had to find the jar again for Tobirama to lubricate his own hand with, who grimaced at the feeling, but the expression was quickly replaced with one of determination. It was cute how seriously he was taking this. The determined look remained in place while Tobirama gingerly closed his hand around the base of Madara’s dick, just like Madara had done to him, and he glanced upwards for approval.

“You’re fine,” Madara said, trying not to look amused by Tobirama’s obvious consternation. It became even harder to hide a smile as Tobirama slowly slid his hand upwards, his grip so light that it barely felt like anything, obviously worried about squeezing too hard. “Just– here, I’ll show you.”

He layered his own hand over Tobirama’s, still sticky with lube and Tobirama’s own seed, using it to tighten his grip until it felt right, and then guiding him through the motions. “We’ll do it together,” Madara murmured, though he wasn’t quite sure if Tobirama heard him, entranced as he was with staring at their joined hands moving up and down Madara’s cock.

It didn’t take long after that. Not with the feeling of Tobirama’s smooth, calloused palm on him, with the tennin hovering so close to him, so utterly enraptured by the sight of Madara’s pleasure, his gorgeous body covered in claiming marks.

Madara came with a long, deep moan, his semen spilling over their joined hands, mixing with Tobirama’s, and the sight tickled something possessive in his chest. He felt loose-limbed and languid, more satisfied than he could ever remember feeling after sex before.

He felt complete, as cheesy as it was to think. All he wanted was to curl up and bury his nose in Tobirama’s hair for the rest of time.

Alas, it was not meant to be, as Tobirama began making annoyed noises about their filthy state, and Madara knew he’d refuse to let either of them sleep until they bathed and changed the sheets. And though Tobirama had done a good job of hiding just how much experiencing sexual pleasure for the first time had worn him out, he was starting to falter now, and Madara would probably have to wash his hair for him in the bath.

But that was more than fine with him. A privilege, even. Madara loved being let in so close, being allowed these vulnerabilities from such an independent creature. He had been granted more than he could have ever asked for, and far more than he deserved, but that undeservingness meant he would cherish what he had all the more.

If Infinite Tsukuyomi hadn’t been a trap, and Madara had sunk into a perfect dream world constructed from his own desires, it would have paled in comparison to this. He would have never been able to imagine this kind of happiness before experiencing it.

How strange, for reality to be better than a dream. But he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Chapter Text

Madara had made a very convincing case for the pros of sexual activities as a mated pair, so they engaged in them on a regular basis. Tobirama had been somewhat concerned that his inexperience and lack of knowledge beyond the reproductive basics would be an issue, but it was apparently the opposite of one, and Madara took a disproportionate amount of satisfaction from being Tobirama’s first and only, all too happy to introduce new acts to him with physical demonstrations.

Tobirama was fine with letting him lead – as the preeminent expert on the subject between the two of them, it was only logical – so if Madara said that the prostate was an erogenous zone that could be stimulated via anal penetration, Tobirama was going to believe him, although he had his doubts. The concept of anal sex seemed counterintuitive to him, but the diagrams that Madara had shown Tobirama of internal human anatomy were identical to that of celestial beings, so it was unlikely that this would not be the same as well.

His mate was also particularly invested in performing this act with Tobirama, and with the amount of interest he showed in it, it hadn’t taken much convincing to get Tobirama to agree to a test run to see how he responded to anal stimulation.

That was how he found himself laying on his back with his lower half pulled up onto a sitting Madara’s lap, his legs held open by a thin steel bar with its ends affixed to leather cuffs around his thighs.

The spreader bar seemed excessive to him, but Madara had made the point that Tobirama, still unused to feeling sexual pleasure, tended to thrash, and him jerking around and/or snapping his legs closed with Madara’s fingers up his ass could risk internal tearing. The idea of internal tearing was extremely unpleasant, so Tobirama had conceded.

He felt a little more dubious about the justification for the bar now with how Madara was looking at him – Rinnegan eyes intense and greedy, drinking in the sight of Tobirama’s bare body, knowing that he had no way to hide. “Get on with it,” Tobirama snapped at him, flustered by the scrutiny.

“Eager, aren’t you?” Madara drawled. Regardless, he laid one hand flat on Tobirama’s thigh, close to his hip, and ran it up and along until it reached his groin, bypassing his half-hard cock and skirting just under his balls to stroke over his perineum.

Tobirama shivered at the contact. He’d never had this spot touched before, only having idly swiped over it with a washcloth when bathing. Certainly not like this. It was surprisingly sensitive, and he could feel his body reacting as Madara lightly stroked the pads of two fingers up and down it.

Madara suddenly withdrew his hand to open the jar of lubricant and drizzle it over said hand, thoroughly slicking his middle and index fingers, and then it was back on Tobirama, fingers sliding down his perineum to brush over the furl of his hole.

It felt odd. Not bad, but not definitively good, either. Once Tobirama’s rim was soaked with slick, Madara slid the tip of his index finger in.

Tobirama gasped when first breached, resisting the urge to squirm away, but even though he held himself still, he still felt his insides seize up around the intrusion, fluttering and convulsing as Madara pushed through at the same even pace despite the resistance, until his finger was buried all the way inside Tobirama up to the first knuckle.

Madara took mercy on Tobirama then, holding his finger still so that Tobirama could get used to the feeling, which he was pathetically grateful for. His pulse was pounding in his ears and his lungs felt too small, frantically trying to suck in air.

“Relax,” Madara said, though his dilated pupils and the twitch of his hard cock against Tobirama’s thigh betrayed the arousal he felt at watching him struggle. Bastard.

Tobirama had questioned him about it once; his clear relish in seeing Tobirama overwhelmed, and Madara had easily admitted to it without a hint of shame.

“Why wouldn’t I? You have no idea how you look like that, do you? My haughty tennin, always so composed, shaking to pieces as he lets me defile him… There’s nothing more rewarding.”

“I’m trying,” Tobirama hissed at him. He forced himself to take slow, deep breaths in through his nose until he no longer felt like he was drowning.

Without the haze of panic clouding his mind, it wasn’t nearly as intimidating. Tobirama still couldn’t shake the feeling of invasiveness, a distinct sense of discomfort at having Madara reach inside him.

Madara began moving his finger, curling it upwards and stroking along Tobirama’s upper wall in search of something. It was obvious to him when he found it, but not Tobirama; a small bump along that wall, barely protruding enough to be distinguishable from the rest. Had Tobirama been doing this himself, he likely wouldn’t have taken any notice of it. This was the prostate, then.

Madara pressed the pad of his finger against the spot and started rubbing at it. At first, it didn’t feel any different to having the rest of his insides touched, but the longer Madara focused on it, the more sensitive it became.

A strange warmth began to spread through Tobirama’s body, starting at that spot and radiating outwards, and he found himself repeatedly clenching and unclenching his hands in the sheets, panting as high, pitiful whining sounds escaped from his throat without his consent.

This was– these sounds were even worse than the ones he’d made when Madara had touched his cock with his hands and mouth. It was barely above whimpering.

Why did this feel so different? Why was Tobirama falling apart like this, his whole body trembling and burning?

Tobirama raised a hand to cover his mouth, but it only made it halfway there before Madara caught his wrist and slammed it back down onto the bed beside his head. “None of that,” Madara said, his voice husky. “I want to hear you.”

He refused to let up on that spot, tormenting it mercilessly. Tobirama was fully hard now, cock drooling white fluid onto his belly, leaking far more than it had in any of their previous encounters.

Madara didn’t warn him before pulling his finger back to push his middle finger in as well, easily sliding all the way in to attack Tobirama’s prostate with the pads of both, wrenching a terrible keening noise out of him at the increased stimulation.

It felt too good. Tobirama fruitlessly kicked his legs and slammed his head back against the bed, but he couldn’t get away, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He just– didn’t know how to handle the pleasure. If he could get a moment to breathe, if he was given even a few seconds of respite to acclimate to what was happening to him, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so overwhelming.

Madara’s free hand had grabbed Tobirama’s hip, holding him in place so he couldn’t buck himself off Madara’s lap, and the damned spreader bar prevented Tobirama from closing his legs.

Tobirama’s mind warred with itself, torn between two instincts: wanting to make the onslaught of sensory input slow down so he could regain control, and wanting the flood of ecstasy to continue forever.

The second one was winning. How low he had fallen, to succumb to carnal desires like an animal. No, worse than an animal, because this was not driven by a desire to reproduce, but the most selfish of base impulses. Feels good, feels good, feels good.

Merely two fingers touching one small spot inside his body. The nervous system carried the input to the brain, which released the chemicals it associated with that signal to drug itself into a state it designated as pleasurable. And Tobirama was helplessly captive to it.

It felt unfair that he could be undone so completely by so objectively little. Tears spilled over and ran down Tobirama’s cheeks, and in this moment he hated Madara a little bit for doing this to him. For revealing to Tobirama how easily his body could be manipulated like any other machine, for introducing him to a euphoria he had never known, because now that he knew it, he would never be able to forgo it again.

The proof was in how Tobirama laid here like a butterfly pinned to a board, throwing away his pride to allow a human to defile him. He had never before allowed a living soul to see him cry, had never before been so thoroughly debased and degraded, and yet here he was, sobbing like a bitch in heat under Madara’s watching eyes and wicked fingers.

Every other time that Madara had brought him to orgasm it had felt sharp, sudden. This was a slow heat building in Tobirama’s core, tightening like a coiling spring. He could feel how close he was, riding a perilous, torturous high ever closer, and he needed it to snap, needed release–

Tobirama reached down to take himself in hand, desperate to give himself that final push over the edge, but Madara smacked his hand away before it could touch his cock.

“You’ll come just like this,” Madara breathed with a vicious twist of his fingers, causing Tobirama to arch with a helpless wail. “Come just from having your hole played with like the sweet little thing you are. You were made for this, weren’t you? Tennyo. Made to lay beneath me. Made to be mine.”

Something finally gave in Tobirama and he came screaming, his entire body shaking and convulsing. His vision went black for a few seconds, flickering in and out with every pulse that ran through him. It lasted far longer than any previous orgasm, ravaging Tobirama in wave after wave, and by the time it ended he was completely limp, half-conscious with his throat scraped raw.

Madara didn’t pull his fingers out, now slowly scissoring them in various ways, testing how far Tobirama’s rim and insides stretched. The sensation wasn’t particularly offensive, and Tobirama was too exhausted to object. His swollen, tender prostate was thankfully left alone.

The unpleasant oversensitivity that normally accompanied touches post-orgasm was curiously lessened, almost so much as to be nonexistent. It did make sense considering that it tended to be centred around his cock, which hadn’t been and continued not to be touched. Despite that, there was even more semen splattered over his belly than usual.

The lack of oversensitivity was proving to be a boon, because it allowed Tobirama to melt into the feeling of Madara continuing to toy with his hole. He felt like he was floating, drifting along the sea of post-orgasmic pleasure, drawn out into an endless push-pull of bliss that sought no peak, only to rock him along its tides. He voiced a weak, wordless complaint when Madara slid a third finger into him, but the discomfort of the added stretch was quickly washed away, and Tobirama fell back into his mindless lassitude.

He barely noted Madara pulling his fingers out, but took more interest when Madara released the straps holding the spreader bar in place, breathing a sigh of relief as it was removed.

But instead of letting Tobirama’s legs fall, Madara held his thighs open with one hand on each, spreading them wider and just… looking at him, pupils blown wide enough that they threatened to swallow the first ring of his Rinnegan.

“Madara?” Tobirama asked. His voice cracked partway through the name, barely able to get above a whisper.

“Look at you,” Madara rasped, fingers digging into the flesh of Tobirama’s thighs like they wanted to leave bruises. A weak whine escaped from his mouth, and Madara’s eyes darkened even further. “Fallen star. You need me, don’t you? Nobody else could do for you what I do.”

He pushed Tobirama’s knees up towards his chest, nearly folding him in half. “To-bi-ra-ma… Let me fuck you.” Desperation made itself clear through the labour of Madara’s breathing, the trembling line of his shoulders. “I’ll make it good for you. You’re stretched enough to take it; it won’t hurt. Let me– Let me sheathe myself within you, and I’ll give you anything that you ask.”

This was important, Tobirama’s foggy brain thought, struggling to string a sentence together. Madara was unravelling just as he was, driven to madness by this pull between them, begging Tobirama to allow him closer. He, too, was a slave to his biology, seeking chemical euphoria.

Madara had given it to Tobirama. It was only fair that Tobirama repaid him in kind. “Do as you wish,” he said, and then nearly choked on his next breath as Madara leaned down to capture his mouth in a frenzied kiss.

It was broken just as abruptly so that Madara could grab the jar of lubricant to slick his cock with. When he poured out a generous amount, quickly spreading it along his length, Tobirama began to wonder if he’d agreed too fast.

It just… looked a lot more intimidating with their groins so close together. Would that really fit inside him?

“Hold your legs open for me,” Madara commanded, and for some reason, without hesitation, Tobirama hooked a hand behind each of his knees to hold them wide as his hips were pulled up onto a kneeling Madara’s lap again. “Yes, just like that.”

One of Madara’s hands landed on Tobirama’s ass, thumb pulling at the skin right beside his hole to stretch it taut, while the other hand guided his cock to press its head against the wet opening.

“Perfect,” Madara said, and instead of sounding condescending, it came out almost awed, as if he was gazing at an altar instead of a man.

He was right to say that it wouldn’t hurt. As Madara slowly sank into Tobirama, there was no pain, only an uncomfortable feeling of fullness, far more intense than the one generated by Madara’s fingers.

There was sound coming out of Tobirama’s mouth, something wheezing and incoherent, and all that he could be sure that he was saying was “I can’t– I can’t– I can’t–” because Madara was telling him that he could, petting along Tobirama’s flank like he was soothing a spooked animal. His eyes were flicking back and forth between Tobirama’s face and where their bodies were joined, mesmerised by the sight of his cock being swallowed by Tobirama’s virgin hole, and by whatever pathetic expression Tobirama had to be making in response.

“I knew you could take it, you’re doing so well. You feel – nngh – absolutely divine. Practically sucking me in. Still so tight, even after I spent all that time loosening you up.”

Madara kept pushing further into Tobirama, passing the length of where his fingers had been able to reach, and Tobirama keened as new depths of his insides were touched for the first time, and then pushed past ever deeper.

When Madara finally bottomed out, balls hitting Tobirama’s ass with a harsh slap, Tobirama felt like he’d been speared open. Full to the point of bursting. He and Madara were both struggling to breathe, though for very different reasons.

“Mine,” Madara whispered, eyes alight with manic joy. “Haah– you’re mine, Tobirama. My tennyo, my fallen star. I’ll never let you go.”

He began to pull out until only the tip remained inside, and then slammed in to the hilt again at full force, driving the little air from Tobirama’s lungs that he’d managed to take in. Madara groaned, long and loud, as he thrust back in.

“So good,” he panted, squeezing Tobirama’s hips where he was holding them still. “You feel like heaven, Tobirama.”

Madara set a hard, punishing pace, fucking into Tobirama in search of his own release, animalistic grunts and moans spilling forth from his lips. It made something strange twist in Tobirama’s gut to see Madara lose control of himself like this, falling into his desire like he’d made Tobirama do. For Tobirama. Madara wanted him this badly.

Tobirama’s dick was fully hard again, bobbing against his belly with every thrust. He didn’t even think about reaching for it, mind consumed by the sensations coursing through his body. All he could think about was the stretch and weight of Madara’s thick cock inside him, claiming Tobirama for his own, filling him up where he’d never felt empty before.

Every thrust meant pressure and friction against his sensitised prostate, but even just the feeling of his insides being forcibly parted and stuffed was enough to send Tobirama’s head spinning. He was crying again, eyes and nose streaming and a line of spit running down his chin.

And Madara wouldn’t stop talking. He seemed to have lost any sort of filter, babbling out everything that ran through his mind.

“Haah, haah, Tobirama, Tobirama– you look so good beneath me, crying like a maiden being deflowered on her wedding night. Because you are, aren’t you? Ngh. My pretty little virgin bride, offering yourself up to me.”

Tobirama’s hands grew too weak to maintain his grip on his thighs and he let them go, arms falling uselessly against the bed. Madara didn’t say anything – he pulled out momentarily to flip Tobirama over onto his stomach, grabbing his hips to pull them up into position, and then rammed back into him. Tobirama’s eyes rolled back in his head and a wild, desperate howl tore from his throat.

Madara’s hands were suddenly around Tobirama’s wrists, pulling them up the bed and pinning them down so they were level with his head as he plastered himself against Tobirama’s back. His hands covered Tobirama’s, fingers slipping into the gaps between Tobirama’s fingers, squeezing tightly.

“Tobirama,” Madara panted against the nape of his neck before sinking his teeth into it hard enough to break skin, his fangs piercing deep into Tobirama’s flesh. It made Tobirama jolt, his insides briefly tightening as he tensed, drawing long moans out of both of them. “You’re everything to me, you know that? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you. As long as you keep looking at me the way you do, as long as you stay by my side, I am yours to command. My fallen star.”

He picked up the pace again with more power behind his thrusts, hitting hard and fast. The new position let Madara penetrate him more deeply than ever, and Tobirama laid uselessly against the bed, cheek smushed against the pillow, his lower half only held up by Madara’s strength.

He felt like his brain was dribbling out through his ears. He couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but take it.

No, there was… something he could do. Tobirama pushed his chakra towards his eyes, and his Byakugan flared to life just enough for him to see Madara behind him. To see his face as he pounded Tobirama into the bed, his eyes fever-bright and wild.

He looked half-mad. He looked like a god.

And as Tobirama’s gaze slipped further down, he realised that he could see through the layers of his own body to where Madara’s cock was splitting him open. He could see just how wide his hole was stretched, how everything moved with the push-pull of their bodies – his insides were wrapped so tightly around the intrusion, still futilely trying to keep their shape, but every thrust in speared right through, forcing them to accommodate Madara’s girth heedless of how it shifted everything in his path.

The sight of his own guts being rearranged was too much for Tobirama, and his doujutsu dropped as he came again untouched, caterwauling like a wounded thing as the orgasm ripped through his body, threatening to tear him to pieces.

Tobirama lingered on the edge of consciousness, his mind blissfully empty as Madara rocked his body back and forth to take his pleasure, his teeth digging back into the bite mark he’d already made on the back of Tobirama’s neck to muffle his shout when he finally came himself.

Tobirama was glad that they’d bathed before this, because it meant that he wouldn’t have to force himself to try to get up, and he could just wash himself again in the morning. He winced when Madara pulled out, feeling a trickle of seed immediately begin to leak from him, his hole trying and failing to close around it in response. It was too loose to clench up properly.

Madara made an effort to roll onto his side so that he wasn’t crushing Tobirama with his weight, and Tobirama knew little more after that, exhaustion quickly pulling him under.

*

Tobirama woke with Madara’s front pressed against his back, curled protectively around him with an arm thrown over his waist barring him in. He sighed, though there wasn’t any real exasperation behind it. No matter what position they fell asleep in, they always ended up like this in the mornings: tangled up together, with Madara instinctively reaching for Tobirama like he was afraid that he’d disappear if he wasn’t holding onto him.

It exposed a surprising layer of vulnerability in Madara; a thread of loneliness, desperately clinging to a source of warmth after being cold and alone for so long.

And Tobirama was just as bad, because he basked in the attention, revelling in the feeling of being wanted, of being held and protected. He supposed it made them well suited for each other.

His accelerated healing had taken care of the majority of the previous night’s damage to his body, such as the soreness in his tailbone region, but the bite wound on his nape still remained. It would be gone by the following day. Madara always lamented how quickly his marks vanished from Tobirama’s skin, and it seemed to motivate him to re-apply them as frequently as possible.

Without a sun to create a visible day-night cycle, the passage of time in You-shiro could only be tracked through manmade timepieces. Tobirama was currently working on a solution based on the half-phasing function of Obito’s Kamui, which would allow sunlight to come through from the main dimension, but it was still in the very early research stages to see if it was even possible.

Tobirama had to activate his Byakugan to be able to see the wall clock in the darkness. Four thirty in the morning, it read.

Unusual for Tobirama to wake this early unprompted. None of his senses showed anything out of the ordinary around him that might have caused this, but he couldn’t shake a feeling of unease.

He was proven right only a second later by Madara awakening behind him, his arm instinctively tightening around Tobirama’s middle for a moment. “Something just crossed into the Earth’s atmosphere,” Madara muttered, his voice still husky with sleep. “Two chakra signatures. Tsukuyomi activated, but they seem to have thrown it off.”

“Go,” Tobirama said, sitting up and beginning to scramble out of bed. “I’ll be right behind you. We need to intercept them as soon as possible.” Madara nodded, his Sage robe instantly flaring to life around him, and vanished through a portal.

Sadly, Tobirama was not as blessed in this department, and he had to manually dress himself for battle. He was efficient, at least, but it took a precious few minutes that he wasn’t sure they could spare.

Tobirama’s first major project since his arrival on Earth had been to create an addendum to the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Seal which would detect extradimensional intruders the moment that they entered Earth’s atmosphere, and subsequently both alert Madara and attack the intruders with a targeted version of Infinite Tsukuyomi to subdue them.

The alarm system had worked as intended, but Tobirama had warned Madara during the development process that an Otsutsuki possessing a Rinnegan might be able to fend off the Tsukuyomi. This was one of the few times he didn’t enjoy being right. They’d have to look into additional offensive measures.

Tobirama was adept at tracking Madara’s chakra signature between dimensions now, and following it landed Tobirama in the forests not far south of Konoha. He arrived just in time to witness Madara punt Kinshiki out of the air, sending him crashing into the ground hard enough to create a small crater.

Momoshiki hovered nearby, making no moves to assist, and was forced to create a black receiver staff to defend himself with when Madara appeared next to him in the blink of an eye, swinging his shakujo directly at Momoshiki’s head.

The most useful thing that Tobirama could do here was prevent Kinshiki from returning to back up Momoshiki, so he drew his Sword of the Thunder God and lunged at the fallen tennin. The golden blade of chakra locked with a mirror of itself – Kinshiki’s signature red chakra axe.

“Tobirama-sama,” Kinshiki said, his deep voice as cold as ever.

“Kinshiki-sensei,” Tobirama greeted him in return. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

Over four thousand years old, Kinshiki’s physical mutations were more subtle than those of many other Otsutsuki his age – while maintaining a humanoid body shape, his proportions were severely distorted, standing eight feet tall and unnaturally wide, his arms so thick that each fist was larger than his head. Attempting to beat him in a competition of pure strength would have been futile. But Kinshiki possessed no Rinnegan, only two Byakugan eyes, which meant it was possible for Tobirama to fight him at long-range with chakra-based attacks.

Like Tobirama, Kinshiki relied on a feather cloak to fly, though his had been woven by his sister, Urihimeko, daughter of Senshiki, the head seamstress of the Keyaki Branch. Tobirama could freely admit now that he thought Urihimeko’s garments were vastly inferior to Mitsuru’s; Kinshiki’s feather cloak, worn around his shoulders, was a plain white with turquoise accents, and not only was it weaker in power, its physical appearance had none of the lustre or artistry of Mitsuru’s work.

Tobirama sprang backwards, his sword’s chakra blade lengthening itself into a whip and lashed with it, aiming for Kinshiki’s face and torso. He held no lingering fondness for his former teacher, whose care he had been placed into after his mother’s execution. Kinshiki had made no secret of his disdain for Tobirama, an entity created without authorisation, whose life had only been spared for the small chance that he could be moulded into something useful to the clan.

“Senshiki-sama suspected that you would be unable to complete your mission on your own,” Kinshiki said flatly, fending off strikes of Tobirama’s whip with his axe. “It disappoints me that his caution was warranted. Although I doubt he predicted this level of treachery from you – he believed that you would be unable to defeat Kaguya-hime or whatever killed her on your own, not that you would forsake the clan entirely. But I am not surprised. You are a defective unit, and it was a waste of the clan’s resources to succour you. You should have been destroyed with the rest of Mitsuru-hime’s final faulty creations.”

It shouldn’t have hurt to hear. Tobirama had known that his origins caused others to regard him with suspicion, but to know that he had been expected to fail this mission from the start… He really had never stood a chance, had he? Madara had been more right than he could have known. Tobirama was never going to have a future within the Otsutsuki clan.

“If all possible paths I could take end in my destruction anyway, then I am free to act as I wish,” Tobirama said, remembering Madara’s words to him that felt so long ago. “I have no incentive to return to the Otsutsuki clan. If you and Momoshiki wish to preserve your lives, you should leave this place immediately. Tell Senshiki-sama that this dimension contains dangerous fauna and mark it to only be returned to once easier worlds have been exhausted. You cannot defeat Madara.”

Kinshiki scoffed. “The half-breed who usurped Kaguya-hime’s God Tree? You delude yourself. The filthy creatures of this planet will fall with ease.”

Konoha shinobi were beginning to swarm the area, and when Tobirama saw familiar faces among them, he stepped back to allow Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to engage with Kinshiki, teleporting himself to the Hokage’s side.

A few around the Hokage startled when Tobirama appeared from his portal, but not Kakashi himself, who acknowledged him with a lazy wave of his hand. “Invaders are Otsutsuki Momoshiki and Kinshiki,” Tobirama said immediately, wasting no time on pleasantries. “Madara is fighting Momoshiki. Momoshiki has a Rinnegan eye in the palm of each of his hands and will absorb all chakra-based attacks thrown in his direction, so ninjutsu will only make him stronger. Kinshiki has the Byakugan and requires a feather cloak to fly; it’s the cape around his shoulders. He is capable of creating bladed weapons from pure chakra.”

“You got all that, Ino?” Kakashi called out.

The girl flashed him a thumbs up. “Broadcasting it now, Hokage-sama!”

Momoshiki was beginning to look harangued under Madara’s relentless barrage of attacks; while Momoshiki was naturally gifted in combat, he was also a spoiled brat unused to being challenged and despised having to expend more than minimal effort to win at anything. He dominated his opponents in battle with the raw power of his shinjutsu and using his Rinnegan to absorb and reflect attacks.

But Madara wasn’t using any chakra, giving Momoshiki no ammunition, and Momoshiki couldn’t overwhelm him with chakra attacks of his own, because Madara’s Rinnegan could absorb them exactly like Momoshiki’s would. He seemed to be taking having his own playbook used against him extremely poorly.

While none of the Konoha nin could fly, they could still harass Momoshiki with projectile weapons, causing distractions and minor injuries that he really couldn’t afford with Madara focused on him. The Team 7 trio were pressing Kinshiki hard, boxing him in from all directions with no room to escape.

“Momoshiki-sama!” Kinshiki shouted. “The usurper will regenerate infinitely as long as he is connected to the God Tree!”

The look of a burgeoning tantrum was wiped off Momoshiki’s face, replaced by a smug little smirk, and Tobirama wanted to curse as both Otsutsuki disappeared through portals. “They’ve gone to the Moon,” he said for the humans’ sake, and then made chase through a portal of his own.

Madara arrived at the same time as Tobirama, the pair standing side by side as a mirror of the interlopers. Momoshiki’s expression twisted into something condescending and spiteful at the sight of Tobirama. “Traitorous wretch,” he sneered. “Ungrateful, to spurn the grace you were given when your rightful fate was nothing at all. All to take up with these– these things!” he spat, gesturing wildly. “These contemptible blights upon our bloodline! Their mere existence is an insult to the Otsutsuki clan!”

“These are your sister’s children,” Tobirama replied tonelessly.

“All the more shameful, for these to have been spawned from my own sister,” Momoshiki said, tossing his ponytail over his shoulder. “Tell me, Tobirama, are these abominations a result of Kaguya’s weakness, or did she willingly choose to lay with beasts?”

“Enough,” Kinshiki said, his voice hoarse. He was battered and bruised, clearly in no shape to continue fighting. “Momoshiki-sama… The time has come. Consume my chakra. Kill these mongrels and the traitor, and erase Kaguya-hime’s mistake.”

Tobirama should have intervened then, knowing what was coming, but he couldn’t make himself move, transfixed by a morbid horror. Momoshiki grabbed the top of Kinshiki’s head, and Kinshiki screamed in agony as Momoshiki’s Rinnegan ran chakra through him, liquefying him, dissolving not just his physical self but his very soul. Melting it all down into pure chakra, until Momoshiki was left holding only a deep red fruit in his hand.

Momoshiki tore into the fruit without hesitation, carelessly devouring the remains of the man who had raised him.

Had the fruit created from Tobirama’s mother looked like that? Wet and shiny, like an organ just removed from a living body. Had Daietsu been just as unaffected by consuming his sister’s very being?

The transformation took immediately; lengthening Momoshiki’s horns and spreading black markings all over his body, streaking down his face and up his arms like they’d been plunged into a bucket of tar. His Byakugan eyes turned golden, and a third Rinnegan eye opened on his forehead, just like Madara’s.

Momoshiki’s stance shifted as his legs morphed, going from flat-footed to digitigrade with the half-raised, swift feet of a hare. With his hair released from its ponytail, it flared out around his head like a cloud of wings, or – considering the newly pointed tips of his ears – like the petals of a lotus flower.

“Inukai-Takeru-no-Mikoto!” Momoshiki shouted, slamming a palm against the ground, and a dozen ferocious dog-like dragon heads rose up, each crafted from the stone of the Moon itself. However, only five raced towards Madara and Tobirama – the other seven burrowed downwards, tearing open enormous gashes in the Moon’s surface.

“He’s digging for the God Tree!” Tobirama called to Madara, narrowly dodging the snarling jaws of a stone dragon as they aimed for his torso.

Ironically, had the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Seal been closed, locking the God Tree away, it would have repelled this attack. But with its figurative gates open to allow Madara his freedom, it conversely left a gap in the seal’s protections that made it vulnerable to things coming in as well as out.

They’d have to put even more protections on the Moon, Tobirama mused as he carved off a dragon’s head with the Sword of the Thunder God. Madara’s Susano’o had made quick work of two and was now wrangling the remaining ones, fending off those circling it while pulling others out of the ground like giant worms.

Unfortunately, Susano’o was a chakra construct, and therefore not immune to Momoshiki’s chakra absorption abilities. One of the dragons must have hit the God Tree, because Susano’o doubled over as if in pain, and Momoshiki let out a triumphant cry.

Gritting his teeth, Tobirama switched out his weapon for his steel katana, and then jumped through a portal to stab at Momoshiki’s back where he was buzzing around Susano’o like a fly.

The tip barely pierced flesh before Momoshiki spun around, grabbing the blade with his bare hands to stop it from plunging any further. “Weakling,” he spat, shifting to a one-handed grip so could raise his right hand. The Rinnegan eye in its palm had turned as golden as the rest. “Be destroyed as your mother was.”

The rising current in his chakra was terrifying, and as Momoshiki yanked on the sword to pull Tobirama closer, aiming to catch his face just like he’d done to Kinshiki, Tobirama raised his own right hand, clenched tightly around a kunai, and jammed it into the eye in Momoshiki’s palm nearly up to the handle.

Momoshiki screamed. Tobirama took the opportunity to take his sword back and retreat, putting a safe distance between them.

Kunai; a shinobi weapon, one not used by the Otsutsuki. Originally conceived as gardening tools, and then weaponised by the early generations of shinobi for the utility afforded by the unique shape of the blade.

Obito had been surprised that Tobirama didn’t know how to use kunai, and had offered to teach him. Tobirama had gladly taken him up on it, and had picked up throwing and handling them with ease. Not only were kunai incredibly versatile and useful, lightweight and concealable, but… A silly, sentimental part of Tobirama wanted to be able to call himself a shinobi. A chakra user of Earth, not Mount Shumisen.

And it felt right to take out one of Momoshiki’s heavenly eyes with a human weapon.

“Traitor!” Momoshiki raved, clutching at the bloody wreck of his right hand, too distracted by his rage to notice that Madara’s Susano’o had dissipated. “You miserable creature! I’ll mutilate your soul into something too wretched for Rinne to reincarnate, you’ll beg to be unmade when I’m done with you–!”

A high-pitched droning sound started up, like a thousand screaming tempests layered on top of each other. Momoshiki turned, too late, to see Madara behind him, an orb of pure chakra in hand, surrounded by spinning wind blades.

“Sage Art: Rasenshuriken!”

The Rasenshuriken hit dead on and detonated upon contact, the natural chakra in the technique making it impossible for Momoshiki to absorb. It sent him rocketing back down to the Moon’s surface, hitting the ground with a deafening crash, and Madara shot down after him, kusarigama in hand, meeting him again before Momoshiki could struggle back to his feet.

“Begone,” Madara said, and the scythe blade carved straight through Momoshiki’s neck, cleaving his head right from his shoulders. The now-headless body collapsed into the crater surrounding it, the head following shortly after.

For good measure, Madara stabbed his kusarigama through both the heart and the liver in quick succession, just to make absolutely sure he was dead. Momoshiki’s body did not so much as twitch.

Tobirama approached cautiously, flaring his Byakugan. There was no soul left in Momoshiki’s body, only ambient wisps of chakra left in his coils. “He’s dead,” he confirmed.

There was still power left in the corpse of a chakra user. They’d need a body on hand to show the Kage that the threat had been vanquished, so they couldn’t turn the whole thing into a chakra fruit to salvage the maximum amount of the leftover chakra, but that was fine. Most of the power was concentrated in the eyes, anyway.

Tobirama dropped down to his knees beside the body, and after cleaning his hands with a quick Suiton technique, he placed his thumb at the corner of Momoshiki’s third eye.

“What are you–?”

In one smooth movement, Tobirama dug his thumb in and popped the eye out of its socket, catching it with his free hand before it fell forward onto Momoshiki’s face.

“Do you mind if I eat this?” he asked, holding up the eye in question.

“You want to eat it?” Madara replied in a strangely high-pitched voice.

“Of course. It’s not viable to transplant, so consumption is the only other way to salvage its power,” Tobirama answered. He turned the eye over to expose the back end to Madara, where the optic nerve and several other thin muscle fibres were still attached like a parody of an umbilical cord. “Just as you can’t transplant a right eye into a left socket, this third eye could only be transplanted into a third socket, and neither of us has the expertise to surgically create an artificial one. The required space-time folding is currently above my level.”

He frowned, squinting at Madara suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you want to eat it yourself? I know that the amount of chakra gained would be a decent contribution to the restoration project, but this is a rare opportunity for me.” He might have been pouting a little bit. “You already have a Rinnegan. This won’t be enough for me to manifest one, but it should give me the ability to use Yomotsu Hirasaka independently without the requirement of a feather cloak.”

“… You’re welcome to it,” Madara said, his face still unreadable.

Good. Tobirama severed the remaining connective tissues with a kunai, cutting as close to the eyeball as he dared, and didn’t give himself the time to look at it too closely before putting it in his mouth. When he crushed the eye between his teeth it burst like an overripe fruit, flooding his mouth with blood, and the surprise allowed a trickle of it to escape down his chin.

Tobirama was entirely distracted from that fact, however, by the simultaneous rush of chakra through his system, lighting up every inch of his chakra coils, and he felt– invincible. Unfathomable knowledge danced just outside of his reach, so close he could almost touch it, and driven by a sudden, desperate hunger, Tobirama swallowed the eye whole and dove for Momoshiki’s left hand, his shaking fingers considerably rougher in gouging out the eye from its palm, yanking to snap the optic nerve rather than take the time to cut it, and devoured the second eye even more voraciously than the first.

The Rinnegan eye in Momoshiki’s left palm was ruined and dead with the kunai stuck through it, but there were still two more eyes left in his skull, even though those Byakugan eyes held less power than his Rinnegan eyes, and Tobirama was so very close to understanding, to being able to see–

Those went down easily, salty and soft on his tongue, only crunching when his teeth met the corneas, and something finally connected in Tobirama’s mind.

For a brilliant fraction of a second, he could see everything, the layers of dimensions stacked on top of each other, the dance of electrons as the roil of waves on the open sea, ten worlds in ten directions and something outside of it all, beyond the confines of physical reality, a terrible white light–

He came back to himself gasping, now aware of the coldness of the air around him and the ache in his body from kneeling so long, and that his hands and face were covered in blood, some of it having dribbled down his neck and onto his kariginu. Tobirama knew, instinctively, that he could now fly and use Yomotsu Hirasaka on his own.

Madara was hovering nearby, his expression an odd mixture of fascination, horror, disgust, and concern. He visibly relaxed somewhat after Tobirama turned to acknowledge him. “Are you yourself again? I wasn’t expecting…” He trailed off, unable to find a polite way to describe what Tobirama had done.

“I didn’t expect that either,” Tobirama said, now starting to feel rather embarrassed by his behaviour. Like a child who’d never learned table manners. How undignified. “I was unprepared for how intense the influx of chakra would be. The diluted sentan I was given at Mount Shumisen had no such effects. When I bit into the first eye, I felt as if I was on the verge of understanding something greater, and it compelled me to–” Act like an animal. “–chase it by any means necessary. I apologise for the unseemly display.”

Madara shook his head. “No, it’s… It’s fine. For a brief moment, you had wings, made of light. Like lotus petals growing out of your back.”

Interesting. Considering the mutations that Tobirama’s mother had undergone, he would have expected feathered wings. But also… “Momoshiki was beginning to flower in his transformation, wasn’t he? Some of the changes looked plantlike. It makes sense that phenomena exhibited from consuming Momoshiki’s eyes would resemble him.”

That put a perturbed look on Madara’s face for a moment, but he quickly shrugged it off. Tobirama checked over himself with his Byakugan, and found that there were new red markings on his back. A stylised Rinnegan eye between his shoulder blades, like Madara had, but instead of the grid of magatama markings below it, there was a printed set of dragonfly-like wings.

Tobirama was amazed that he’d come out of this confrontation with barely a scratch. Madara could have probably taken out both Momoshiki and Kinshiki by himself. It was thrilling. “I’m going to tell Naruto that you used the Rasenshuriken,” Tobirama said.

Madara groaned. “Don’t. He’ll be insufferable. I used it because it’s senjutsu, and I wasn’t sure how Mokuton senjutsu techniques would fare up here, that’s all.”

Tobirama would freely admit to his jealousy over senjutsu – since he wasn’t a creature of this planet, he was incapable of tapping into or processing its natural chakra. That was why the Otsutsuki needed God Trees to convert other worlds’ chakra into compatible Otsutsuki chakra. But the hybrids of this world, who had Otsutsuki chakra coils, could hijack those coils to conduct natural chakra as well. Perhaps if Tobirama were to use a Karma Seal… No, that could wait. He didn’t like the thought of abandoning his original body before he had to.

“We should have much more time before the next Otsutsuki arrives,” he said instead. “Kinshiki informed me that they were sent right after me, and the journey between here and Mount Shumisen takes approximately ten years, so we can append that to the timeframe. They’ll be given a decent grace period before someone is sent to check on them… at least a decade. But the disappearance of so many Otsutsuki in this region will raise alarm. Kaguya, myself, Momoshiki, Kinshiki… Momoshiki was favoured in the Keyaki Branch, considered the most promising of the recent generation. His disappearance in particular will be taken seriously. I’m almost certain it’ll be his and Kaguya’s father, Isshiki, sent after him.”

“Let him come,” Madara said dismissively. “You did more damage to me than this supposed ‘most promising of the recent generation.’ He disappointed me; I expected a better dance out of him. I don’t have high hopes for the father who produced him.”

Tobirama smacked him on the shoulder. “Take this seriously,” he hissed. “Isshiki is ten times Momoshiki’s age and ten times his strength. He’s being considered to replace Senshiki-sama as the Keyaki Branch Head if Senshiki-sama’s application to join the Imperial Court goes through. He is far more dangerous than his children.”

“If you insist. Write down everything you know about him; we might be able to plant specific traps in advance. We’ll need to amend the detection system anyway, since the Tsukuyomi failed.”

“I don’t like how close Momoshiki came to the God Tree,” Tobirama admitted. “I’d like to put additional protections in place up here, though I’m not sure how much we can do without compromising you.”

“It’s worth looking into,” Madara agreed. “… Were you worried about me, Tobirama?”

Tobirama blinked. “Of course. Your Susano’o appeared to be in pain at one point. If Momoshiki had gotten close enough to the God Tree, he would have used a Karma Seal and attempted to take it over by doing to you what you did to Kaguya. I believe that your will would have overcome his, but I am grateful that he did not get the opportunity to try. Seeing you in pain distressed me.”

“You have no idea how devastating you are when you say such things so seriously, do you?” Madara sighed, cocking his head to the side. “Ah, you’re unfair, Tobirama… We have to inform the Five Kage that the threat has been neutralised so they can stop panicking, because I’m sure that Konoha has informed the other villages by now, but all I want to do now is kiss you.”

Tobirama fought down a rising blush at the words. Under most other circumstances, he would have told Madara to knock it off, that they had more important things to do, but now with the immediate danger out of the way and the adrenaline wearing off, he was beginning to realise just how badly seeing the other Otsutsuki had rattled him. He’d gotten away unscathed, but Momoshiki had come close to turning Tobirama into a chakra fruit. Complete annihilation; true death. Just like his mother. He could still see that hand with its golden eye, reaching for him.

He turned and threw himself at Madara, who made a funny little yelping noise of surprise, but obediently wrapped his arms around Tobirama as he buried his face in Madara’s neck.

This was one of Tobirama’s favourite parts of having a mate. It was infinitely better than dealing with these emotional crashes on his own. Little else soothed him like Madara’s warmth, like the delicious smell of woodsmoke that clung to him even now.

“You were right,” he found himself saying, lifting his head just enough to make himself audible. “Kinshiki said they were sent right after me. I was expected to fail this mission. Just because of how I was created.” His hands fisted in the back of Madara’s robe. “If Senshiki-sama was truly concerned, he would’ve insisted I be deployed with a partner. But he didn’t. I was so proud of myself for convincing him to allow me to take this mission instead of Momoshiki, but… I didn’t convince him at all. His expectation was that I would fail the mission, and then Momoshiki would swoop in and complete it and drag me home in shame. This was a setup to punish me for the insolence of asking for this mission in the first place.”

Madara didn’t say anything, just continued to hold him, but one of his hands moved up to cup the back of Tobirama’s neck, right over the faded bite mark from the previous night.

Tobirama truly understood now why Kaguya had chosen to stay here, even knowing that betraying the Otsutsuki clan would inevitably lead to her destruction. More than the beauty of this planet, it was humanity’s warmth that Tobirama could not bear the thought of tearing himself away from. He had friends now, of all things. Obito, Naruto. And he had a mate; a lover.

After experiencing Madara’s kindness, how could Tobirama have ever returned to the coldness beyond the stars? Madara should have killed him, but he had extended a hand in compassion instead. He had shown Tobirama a life beyond the pursuit of power. He had shown him love.

He tugged at the collar of Madara’s robe, pulling it open enough to bare the pale junction of his neck and shoulder, and then Tobirama slowly leaned in, closing his mouth around the spot, and sank his teeth right in.

Madara jolted, hissing out a wordless exclamation through his teeth, but made no move to push him away. Tobirama clamped down until he tasted blood, and then let go to lick over the wound apologetically, catching the beading drops of red before they could fall.

“Was there a reason for that?” Madara asked, his voice breathy.

“You did it to me,” Tobirama murmured, pulling back enough to make eye contact. “Because you want me to be yours. I understand it now. I feel the same.”

He liked Madara’s eyes. Large and almond-shaped, marked with protruding bags underneath, even in a physical form that no longer required sleep and shouldn’t have shown such signs of stress. And yet they remained; evidence of his humanity. Of a heart that felt so deeply it would have destroyed this world to save it.

Those eyes looked at Tobirama like he was something precious. Something beloved.

He met Madara in the middle for a kiss, and felt complete.

Chapter Text

One Hundred Years Later

Uzumaki Rago watched through the small, triangular window on his side of the lunar module as it slowly dropped towards the Moon’s surface. To his relief, the projected landing site was clear and he allowed the craft to complete its automatic descent, feeling the jolt as its legs settled on the ground.

“Konoha, Komorebi has landed,” he called out into his radio.

They’d been careful to make sure that their landing zone wasn’t too close to the Sage’s shrine in case something went wrong during the descent, lest they end up crashing the module into the shrine and damaging it. Destroying a priceless historical monument while trying to make history would not only have been humiliating, but also probably a great way to get themselves cursed.

But it was still reachable on foot from their current location, as everyone involved in the mission had agreed that the first manned expedition to the Moon should include a visit to the grave of the Sage of Six Paths, which humanity had only ever before seen through telescopes and cameras.

Rago flashed a grin at his mission partner, who was, for once, too excited to even try to pretend at his usual aloofness. Uchiha Dairoku, lunar module pilot and infamous stick in the mud, beamed back at him, the sight of his face somewhat hard to make out through his visor, but the thick, dark glass couldn’t hide the glow of Dairoku’s three-tomoe Sharingan eyes.

They’d really done it. It took them a few hours to make the preparations for Rago to exit the lunar module, but soon enough he was squeezing his way out of the hatch and clambering down the ladder.

When his feet touched the ground, causing a faint disturbance of dust around them, Rago turned to see a ghostly white figure standing before him, and screamed.

“Commander!?”

“Rago!”

“Uzumaki, what’s happening out there!? Respond!”

“Commander, come in!”

Once the immediate terror had subsided, Rago realised that he was not looking at a supernatural phenomenon or a figment of his own imagination, and his face paled even further.

Usagi-no-Ogami, the kami whose go-shintai was the Moon itself, stood before him – or floated, rather, his feet hovering just above the ground, and he was looking right at Rago.

“Usagami-sama,” Rago said weakly. “It’s fine, it’s fine, false alarm,” he wheezed into his mic. “Usagami-sama is here, and I just got startled seeing him, that’s all.”

This only caused further chattering to erupt through his radio; from Dairoku inside the lunar module, from Masaki-chan, still in the command module orbiting the Moon, and from many voices manning the Konoha Aerospace Exploration Agency’s mission control centre back on Earth. But Rago quickly tuned them out to focus on the being in front of him.

Placating Usagami would require his full attention. While Usagami was considered a mostly benevolent god, he was capable of legendary wrath if sufficiently provoked. Rago could already see the headlines in his mind: Usagi-7 mission was almost a success, idiot chosen as Commander ripped to shreds after running his mouth to resident deity.

Usagami looked exactly like the few photographs that he had allowed to be taken of him; dressed in the white robes of traditional Rikudo monks, crescent-tipped shakujo in hand. His skin was a stark bone-white with his mane of wild silver hair shifting as if it was being toyed with by an impossible breeze, and the two long, curved horns that were his namesake emerged from the top of his head like a crown. They looked a lot sharper in person.

“Be not afraid,” Usagami said, his voice deep and commanding. It only added to the otherworldliness of his being.

After all, Rago was covered from head to toe in thick, clunky gear to be able to survive standing out here, the boxy tank of the life support system strapped to his back supplying the air he was using to talk. Usagami shouldn’t have been able to talk at all. The Moon’s thin atmosphere contained no breathable oxygen, and without the air pressure that Rago’s suit provided him, the vacuum of open space should have caused any air to rapidly expand and rupture Usagami’s lungs.

But he was just standing there with no protective measures, blinking and speaking like his eyes and tongue shouldn’t have already boiled from all the fluids on his body’s surface vaporising, like he shouldn’t have been screaming in agony as his flesh warped and froze over.

“The chakra signatures aboard your vehicle triggered the atmospheric defence system built into the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions seal once it reached a certain altitude,” Usagami stated dispassionately. Rago found himself pinned by the intensity of his gaze, petrified in place. “I intervened to shut down the automatic response, which would have shot your craft out of the sky and atomised all living beings on board.”

Disturbed muttering broke out on his radio, so it seemed like it was picking up Usagami’s voice just fine. “T-Thanks,” Rago stammered out. Yeah, that would have been bad. “Uh, can you hear me alright through my helmet, Usagami-sama?”

“I can,” Usagami replied, and then said nothing for a while, staring intently at Rago, who resisted the urge to fidget nervously. “… It is fitting that you would be the third human to step foot on the Moon. You have a tenacious soul.”

“Third?” Rago echoed. That couldn’t be right. Kumo’s own expedition wasn’t due to launch for another year, and if any other organisation had made their way up here, there was no way they would’ve been able to resist claiming the bragging rights or keep a lid on the information. Who–?

“The first was the Sage of Six Paths, Otsutsuki Hagoromo,” Usagami answered. “The second was myself. And now you are here.”

… Oh. Rago knew his village’s history; that Usagami had not been born a celestial being, but it was still hard to look at the entity in front of him and reconcile it as a human. It was probably a good thing, and kind of charming, that Usagami still thought of himself as human.

Still, the way Usagami had spoken niggled at him, and Rago’s brain finally recognised what felt off. The familiarity. “Have we met before?” There were stories like that, of people meeting Usagami in disguise, unaware that they were interacting with the god until he chose to reveal himself or they picked up context clues when reviewing the encounter later. Some accounts were more believable than others, and most of them came from civilians who couldn’t detect a henge, but they did happen.

“… No,” Usagami said, but he’d paused for too long. Oh no. They had met before, and Rago had probably embarrassed himself so badly that Usagami was pretending not to remember to spare Rago the indignity of recounting whatever it was that he’d done in that meeting.

“Er, Usagami-sama–”

“Call me by my name, not that silly title.”

“Madarakishin-no-Mikoto?” Rago tried.

Usagami’s right eye twitched. “Just Madara.”

Rago shifted uncomfortably. “Um, alright, Madara-sama.”

Usagami sighed. “Good enough, I suppose.”

“Madara-sama,” Rago repeated. “Do you mind if I turn on the camera? There’s one attached to the outside of our module; we planned to use it for a live broadcast of me walking to the Sage’s shrine and leaving an offering.” He gestured to the sealed flask of sake tied to his hip. It was the oldest and finest that the Elemental Nations had to offer, and the tokkuri had been custom-made to survive the harsh conditions of the Moon’s surface. “The idea is that everyone watching the broadcast is participating, if only in spirit, you know? Not everyone can come up here, so I’ll do it on their behalf, and when people see me place the sake jar down, it’s like they’re with me, giving their own offering too.”

Usagami stared at him again, his eyes evaluating and cold, but Rago held his ground this time, meeting his gaze with a determination just short of defiance. He was starting to understand how to interact with Usagami and what the god wanted from him; he was testing Rago, in a way, feeling out his intentions, convictions, and character.

“You honour the Sage with your mission,” Usagami said eventually. “Carrying everyone’s thoughts with you so that all may make their offering… He would like that, I think. Turn on your camera and give the world’s gratitude to their ancestor, Uzumaki Rago. You are worthy to be the one who makes the journey here.”

Rago’s jaw was hanging open a little, and he hastily closed it. “Thank you, Madara-sama.” Wait. “How do you know my name? I didn’t tell you yet.”

“Your compatriots did, and I can hear your radio as well as you can.”

“Fuck,” Dairoku swore loudly.

“Uchiha, shut the hell up, he heard that too!” Masaki hissed.

Holy shit, Usagami was smiling, just a little bit, his lips twitching at the corners like he was trying not to laugh. The expression was gone as soon as it appeared. “The shinobi of this world accomplished this trip entirely on their own merits, and I will not undermine your achievement with my appearance in the broadcast, lest the foolish cast aspersions that you only made it this far with my help. I will take my leave of you now, but I will monitor your team until you complete your return journey.” His eyes were bright now, something not quite warm but– fierce, intensely serious, yet not hostile. The eyes of Earth’s guardian kami. “No matter what happens here, even if your machines unexpectedly fail you, I will make sure that you and your team reach your home alive and well. You have earned that much.”

Wow. Rago swallowed, and dipped his head down in as much of a bow as his suit would let him. “Thank you, Madara-sama. I’ll do my best from here on out.”

“Yes, you will,” Usagami mused, and then he vanished like he’d never been there at all. No movements or blurs, just– gone. It made Rago jump, and he frantically glanced around himself to see if Usagami had used a Shunshin or something, but he was nowhere to be seen. He closed his eyes and cast out his chakra sense, but got nothing, so he let it go and opened them again.

“He’s gone,” he reported into his radio, though his crewmates and mission control would have seen everything through the small camera attached to the chest of Rago’s suit anyway. “If he’s still here, I can’t sense him, at least. Fuck, that was so scary. I’m gonna get the big camera set up.”

“Nii-chan got to meet Usagami in person and was told he was worthy to give the world’s offering to the Sage,” Masaki groaned. “That’s so unfair, it should have been me.”

“Oi, it’s Commander up here,” Rago complained half-heartedly, midway through getting the camera positioned properly. “And I bet you would’ve said something rude and got your head ripped off. His chakra presence is crazy. You guys can’t feel it through the cameras, but it’s almost like killing intent. He wasn’t giving off any or consciously doing anything with his chakra, he just has so much that it makes the air around him feel heavy, even though I wasn’t even sensing. It’s… intense.”

Dairoku hummed thoughtfully, and once Rago had the camera up and running and mission control confirmed that the broadcast was live, he set about the next phase of his assigned mission.

The Sage’s shrine was a simple thing, all of it open to the elements, but every structure was made out of the same rock that composed the ground around them, appearing as if it had just naturally risen up into these shapes. Which it had, sort of. The Sage would have used Doton to carve them.

Rago walked past each of the nine tailed beast komainu statues that guarded the ‘entrance’ path to the shrine, grinning at the one shaped like Kurama-ji-san. There were only three more structures past the statues: the Sage’s gravestone, a large stone tablet, and a hokora shrine.

Something white caught his eye, paler than the rest of the surrounding environment, and Rago turned to the hokora. There was a set of three skulls sitting at its base where one would normally place offerings, and at first Rago thought they were animal skulls because of the horns.

But he knew of no animals that had three eye sockets, and the skulls had distinctly human-like jaws and teeth.

A chill ran down Rago’s spine. Three skulls for the three celestial beings who had attempted to invade their world and complete Kaguya’s work: Momoshiki, Isshiki, Urashiki. Usagami must have placed these here after killing each of them.

As Rago stepped closer to the hokora, he could see that an unusual circular hole had been carved near the top of the shrine, and when he looked through it, it perfectly framed the blue-green crescent of Earth hanging in the dark sky.

Offerings, not to the Sage, but to humanity as a whole.

How frightening. A war flag and a trophy all at once.

Rago forced himself to turn away from the hokora and walk to his actual destination. The Sage’s gravestone was clean and well-maintained, and to his surprise, there was a vase of fresh lotus flowers, of all things.

Upon closer inspection, the flowers weren’t actually fresh, but were made of delicately carved and painted stone. There were five of them, each a different colour: white, red, blue, pink, and purple. The vase, made of the same stone as its contents, had a small red hou-ou painted near its base. Rago carefully untied the sake jar from his hip and set it down beside the flowers, then clapped his hands together and bowed.

Somewhere down on Earth, hundreds of thousands of people across the Elemental Nations were likely doing the same, and Rago knew that all of the tailed beasts would be among them. After all, none of them had ever had the opportunity to visit their father’s grave before. Rago hoped that the sight of the komainu statues in their likenesses on the broadcast brought them a sense of comfort; proof that their father had been thinking of them in his final moments.

Rago offered his prayers for his distant ancestor, and his gratitude for the man that had first shared chakra with the people of this world, granting them their chance at freedom and survival against the might of the Otsutsuki clan.

And though it wasn’t really appropriate to offer prayers to someone else in front of a grave, the thought was just in Rago’s own mind and nobody else had to know, so he mentally offered his thanks to Usagami as well. This was kind of his shrine too, in a way, since it was on the Moon, and the God Tree lived inside the Moon. Rago thanked Usagami for the blessing he’d given him, and for the promise of safe passage back home for Rago and his team.

I love this world, and I love the people who live in it, my family and my friends. I’ll do everything I can to protect it, just as you two have.

It was silly to think, but if the Sage’s ghost could hear him, Rago hoped that he was proud of the world that his descendants had made.