[Madara Uchiha: "You're Uchiha Kakashi, right? Fine—stand up."]
[Kakashi Hatake: "I'm from the Hatake clan…"]
[Madara Uchiha: "Details. If I say you're Uchiha, you're Uchiha."]
The air went tight as a bowstring. Two silhouettes glared across the rain-slashed gorge.
"Madara!!!"
"Hashirama!!!"
They vanished—and crashed together again.
Days of fighting blurred into one long thunderclap.
Rain sheeted down from a steel sky.
A mountain valley split wide open under their blows—
and the waterfall that followed would be called the Valley of the End.
Both men were cut and bleeding, breath ragged.
Madara's hands tightened on his treasured blades; Hashirama's palm found the hilt at his hip.
Their eyes said the rest: one more exchange.
[Naruto Uzumaki: "So who won? This cut is killing me!"]
[Minato Namikaze: "Barring surprises, Lord First."]
[Kushina Uzumaki: "Yup, dattebane!"]
In a cozy house, Minato flipped pancakes while Kushina and Naruto grinned at the table.
Thanks to Obito's Rinne Tensei, ordinary folks across the world had returned.
The titans of the Warring States? Kabuto and Orochimaru had, uh… "collected" them.
[Hiruzen Sarutobi: "You snake of a pupil—defiling your elders' graves!"]
[Orochimaru: "Hehehe… Sensei, I've prepared a special surprise for you."]
[Kabuto Yakushi: "As expected of Lord Orochimaru."]
Back at the gorge, Madara's voice rolled like distant thunder.
"This time, you won't make it across."
He lunged. Hashirama met him, blade flashing.
Steel split the rain. Time seemed to slow.
They passed through one another—
—and splash—Hashirama fell back into the lake.
Madara's smile cut like a scar.
[Tobirama Senju: "Tch. His weapon's got the edge on big brother's!"]
[Hashirama Senju: "Easy, otōto. The match isn't over."]
[Sarada Uchiha: "But Lord First just… lost?"]
[Boruto Uzumaki: "Uh, yeah, kind of looks like it."]
Hashirama struggled upright.
"I'm still standing," Madara said coldly. "This time, the opposite of before."
"My dream just began. I have to protect it. I can't… fall here…" Hashirama's voice wavered.
"You look pathetic, Hashirama," Madara sneered. "No self-sacrifice speech today?"
Memories flickered white across the sky-screen—two boys by a river, skipping stones, spinning futures.
A blink later—enemies to the death.
All Danzo's fault, someone in the peanut gallery muttered.
Then a blade of pure winter slid through Madara's chest.
He stared down, disbelieving, at the steel blooming red through his ribs.
He—lost?
Blood drooled down the edge and pattered into the lake.
Only then did Madara notice: the enemy before him had been a Wood Clone.
"Wood Style… and I got backstabbed," he rasped.
"I'll protect our—no. I'll protect my village."
The warmth left Hashirama's tone. The door shut.
This precious, hard-won peace—Madara aimed to burn it down.
Viewers around the shinobi world sucked in a breath.
So this is how legends fight…
[Boruto Uzumaki: "Compared to them… we're playing house."]
[Mitsuki: "Agreed."]
[Sarada Uchiha: "Ancestor actually lost like that… I didn't even spot the clone! Lord First is terrifying."]
[Hashirama Senju: "Hahaha! Even Madara's Eternal Mangekyō couldn't tell my wood clone apart!"]
[Madara Uchiha: "Hmph. If I hadn't been careless…"]
He glared up at the sky-screen. In his mind, this outcome was a fluke of arrogance, nothing more.
If he'd read the clone sooner, there'd be a different statue at the Valley of the End.
Hashirama's eyes hardened.
"To protect the village is to protect people—shinobi and children alike.
Brother, friend, even my own child—if they turn on the village, I won't forgive it."
Madara dropped to one knee. Blood soaked his armor.
"You've changed… Hashirama."
Hashirama looked down at the friend of his youth with winter in his eyes.
"You've inverted the cause and the end. One day, this will become the village's darkness."
Madara's body toppled, and the rain kept falling.
The century's battle was done.
Hashirama had "won."
But the First never realized—Madara hadn't died.
A secret ace flipped: Izanagi.
In that near-death breath, Madara bit a chunk of Hashirama's flesh—
and later grafted Senju cells into his own body.
Years turned like pages.
Past fifty, breath thinning, life guttering—
Madara's eyes opened into ripples and rings.
Rinnegan.
Pressure rolled out like a storm front.
And because death would snuff that light if he did nothing—
Madara began to weave.
[Nagato Uzumaki: "So from that moment… he'd already set his sights on me?"]
[Konan: "Then Nagato's tragedy… was Madara's hand all along."]
[Yahiko: "Unforgivable."]
In the dark, an old man smiled without warmth.
Threads stretched across nations: a corpse on a statue, a mask for a boy, a moon for the world.
The Eye of Samsara had opened—
and the shinobi world had just become a spider's dining room.
Hook:
A pair of freshly awakened rings stared up at a sky without stars.
Somewhere in Amegakure, a red-haired orphan coughed in the rain.
A black plan, inked in bone and patience, took its first step.
Next: The Seed in the Rain Village—How a God Is Manufactured.
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus chapters for every 10 reviews.
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on P@treon if you're interested:
patreon.com/MugiwaraTL