Chapter 138: Madara Uchiha, Resurrected
Trust.
Honestly, could he really trust this old man?
Obito Uchiha did not know.
What he did know was that the elder standing before him was the legendary man who had once fought alongside the God of Shinobi to quell the chaos of the world, and then nearly destroyed Konoha.
A monster of a man. A name written into the bones of history.
Someone like that had to have power.
Not like him, a weak, fumbling failure.
If an adult like this took action, then surely, surely he would be able to save Rin from death.
Because adults were great, were they not? People like Aizen Sousuke, people who had calmed a chaotic era. Men like that, even if they existed now only as scraps of soul drifting through a network, would not lie to children.
In the frozen world, Obito stared at Nohara Rin. A shallow scratch from the white cyborg's attack already marred her body.
He closed his eyes, and the pain felt like it would split his skull.
"You will save Rin," he whispered, "right?"
"Of course. I never lie."
On the ghostly body before him, the spectral pipes hanging from Madara Uchiha's back crumbled away one by one. He straightened slowly and looked down at the much smaller Obito, gaze sharp and ancient.
"Not only that little girl," Madara said, "but you as well, that brat from the Aizen household, even Aizen himself. You are all people I am helping."
Obito said nothing.
"And you only have one chance."
Madara's tone was light, but the words pressed on Obito's chest like a boulder.
"Impure World Reincarnation is, at its core, an extremely simple summoning technique. But it requires contact with the Pure Land. Only in this moment of collapse can you reach out and pull me here. One second. That is all you get."
"Then I will leave it to you," Obito said. His voice trembled, but the plea in it was deep and absolute. "Please. You must save Rin."
There were no other options.
Somewhere along the way, he had fallen under a powerful genjutsu. On some level he was completely under its control. Only the violent awakening of his Sharingan had caused the intertwined network to glitch for an instant.
This was a single use opportunity.
If he did not gamble, they would all die.
If he gambled, there was at least a sliver of life.
So why not gamble?
"Very good," Madara said. "Then cast Impure World Reincarnation the moment the chance appears."
"I have my own means to handle the rest for you."
"The sooner the better."
Time began to move again.
Madara's shadowy figure and the mass of pipes behind him disintegrated into light.
The frozen world shattered.
Sound, scent, and motion rushed back into Obito's senses. His vision burned red. Blood welled at the corners of his eyes as they spun, and his hands flashed through seals faster than thought.
Tiger. Snake. Dog. Dragon.
In less than a second, he completed the sequence and hurled himself toward the white cyborg, slamming his palm into its back.
Impure World Reincarnation.
Kakashi's pupils shrank.
Is that Impure World Reincarnation?
The technique required scraps of the caster's own body and ash as a medium. Wood Release cells could, in theory, reinforce a resurrected host, but the foundation still had to be the target's actual genetic material.
Impure World Reincarnation demanded a portion of the person's flesh and blood, the bulk of their genetic information, in order to summon them back.
The Infinite Army constructs were variations of Wood Release. They should not have any pre prepared living tissue inside them at all.
If they did, then someone had put it there.
An image flashed through Kakashi's mind.
An aged figure half buried like bait inside a monstrous plant, monitored at all times by Aizen, treated like a specimen in an experiment.
The old man the world once shook to his name, now a dying relic.
Trying to escape his cage.
"Obito, stop!" Kakashi shouted. "No!"
"Reanimation Jutsu, Uchiha Madara!"
As the space time barrier buckled, Obito roared, pressing his bloodstreaked palm deeper into the cyborg's back.
Light exploded from the white construct.
Its body dissolved into radiance, and from within that blinding glow, a young man's amused voice echoed.
"Thank you, Uchiha brat."
The white mechanical frame softened and melted, collapsing into pools of quivering tissue that drew in on themselves.
"You really are the best tool to fulfill my dream."
Then, at Madara Uchiha's mental command, Obito's arm moved.
The limb that was no longer entirely his own thrust forward without hesitation and punched straight through Rin's chest.
In Obito's despairing gaze, just as in his deepest nightmare, his own hand tore into the body of the girl he loved most. Fingers closing around her heart. Crushing it.
Nohara Rin could not resist at all.
She only stared at him in a daze, eyes already dim. Obito stood rigid, his face soaked in tears and blood, expression frozen between horror and numbness.
She lifted a trembling hand and touched his cheek.
Then her arm fell, and her eyes closed.
"Rin!"
Kakashi's scream tore at his throat as he strained against the seal.
Obito stood where he was, eyes bloodshot, three tomoe spinning wildly. His whole body trembled as if he were grappling with some unseen puppeteer.
His resistance was meaningless.
The twisted, half mechanical white construct finished liquefying, its form collapsing into pale sludge that slowly spread to engulf both Nohara Rin and Obito.
"I see. Even under control, the changes brought by your emotions still remain," a voice observed calmly from within the mass.
Light flared. The merged lump of matter pulsed as it continued to reshape itself.
"Is this the new evolution of the Sharingan when it is driven by emotional manipulation?" the voice mused, growing brighter and younger. "Remarkable. This is exactly the thing I needed."
The Wood Release cells that made up the Infinite Army began to work.
They dissolved, disassembled, and recombined everything they had enveloped.
"A pure and powerful, single minded soul. A body saturated in Yang Release. Yin Release chakra. And my will, freshly summoned."
"Now I can finally become my true self."
The pale liquid rose and fell, like a living heart.
"The vitality in fresh flesh really is something else," the voice continued. "Aizen was right about that. Old men at death's door have no value. But I am different."
The glow intensified until the cavern was nothing but white.
Then, with a soft crack, the light shattered.
A figure stepped out of the radiance.
His hair was long and black, spilling down to his heels like a spiked curtain. Crimson armor plated his body. An enormous war fan hung at his back, and his eyes were blood red circles spinning with a pattern like a kaleidoscope.
A young man, wild and arrogant, dropped lightly to the ground.
He looked down at his own hands, flexed his fingers, and the air around him boomed with compressed force.
He clenched his fist again, savoring the strength running through bone and muscle, the sensation of a living body.
Madara Uchiha lowered his head and covered his forehead with one hand.
A breath escaped him.
Then a chuckle.
Then laughter, boiling up from somewhere deep.
"Heh. Haha. Hahaha."
"Hahahaha."
"Hahahahahaha."
"This world really does not move according to your wishes, Aizen Sousuke."
Madara threw his head back and laughed, a roar pressed down for decades finally ripping free in the darkness.
"You think a few petty tricks and some monitoring are enough to bind me, force me to appear like this?" He bared his teeth in something between a grin and a snarl. "You have some nerve. But by your own standards, I will grant you this much.
"Because I, Uchiha Madara, am indeed a man who must be handled in this way."
His laughter died, leaving only a faint, dangerous smile.
"No matter how strong the cage, it cannot confine me forever. Space time seals, barriers, all these little toys, you think they can hold me? There are a great many things in this world that you still do not understand, Aizen Sousuke."
"The Infinite Army?" He scoffed. "Did you really believe that is my trump card? You cooperated and traded words with me for so long, and you never once saw the true wonder hidden inside it."
"That was your mistake, Aizen."
"But very soon, very soon, I will see you in person. I am quite interested in the man who managed to push me, Uchiha Madara, this far."
A soft click echoed behind him.
"Such a noisy little breath," Madara muttered.
He turned slowly.
A boy stood there, head bowed, shoulders shaking as he fought to hold down the fury burning through him.
His Zanpakuto was in his hand, the blade wrapped in a soft glow.
"You must be Kakashi Hatake," Madara said. "The child Aizen took a liking to. I am Uchiha Madara, the man who saved this world and freed it from suffering."
His lips curled.
"Until the true lead arrives, we can have a little chat, boy."
"Where are Obito and Rin?"
Kakashi's voice was rough.
He had forced his way out of the trap at a painful cost. Now his sword hummed softly at his side, and he stared at Madara with pure hatred, as if looking at a living calamity.
"What did you do to them? Answer me."
"Those two brats?" Madara replied. "They have already gone where they were meant to go."
Where they were meant to go.
"What does that mean?" Kakashi asked, voice dropping cold.
"Naturally, it means a heavenly world."
Madara crossed his arms, completely relaxed.
"In the most perfect world I am creating, they are the first couple. It is their honor."
"..."
Kakashi's grip tightened on his Zanpakuto.
"So it is like a Bankai," he muttered under his breath.
"Do you want to dance as well?" Madara asked lightly. "Fine by me. There is still some time before the Infinite Army returns to fill this void. Enjoy yourself, Kakashi boy."
Endless light and overwhelming chakra surged up through the pure wooden world and poured into Madara's body.
The resurrected ninja, eyes turning like scarlet kaleidoscopes, stood with his arms folded, the war fan and scythe at his back.
He looked down at Kakashi Hatake with absolute arrogance, as if the world itself were nothing more than a stage built for him.
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