A/N - Had started this a while ago (had first three deaths planned out and originally had the last two combined under different circumstances) and figured I might as well modify/finish it before chapter 679 came out and made it totally invalid like the last chapter pretty much made Madara's entire character invalid unless Kishi gets his act together (we shall not discuss my last week). Madara's feelings towards Hashirama are discussed here so it could be considered a HashiMada fic but that is not what this is about. I was kind of lazy with the (first) death, the VotE one, in warning. I've written versions of it many times before as it is. Obviously writing on suicide was problematic for me so I was as distant as I could be for the (third). I will probably come back and refine this if/when I am capable.
The (fourth) and (fifth) deaths are major spoilers covering chapter 678 and my wish-prediction for how Madara's character is brought to a close. I considered keeping it as I had originally planned, but decided to try to work with canon. The actions leading up to the deaths may differ now, but the post-death scenes for each are very similar to what I had planned out some time ago. Surprisingly, they still worked.
The Many Deaths of Uchiha Madara
By PikaCheeka
Uchiha Madara was a brother of death. It was the specter that haunted his life from the moment he was born, the very night of the ubasute the famine had forced upon the clan. His mother had carried him longer than was normal but she had been strong once, determined to bid her ancestors a final farewell no matter the advanced stage of her pregnancy. He was born just before dawn, brought into this world in an abandoned shrine at the foot of the mountain of darkness. He hadn't made a sound when born, silent, solemn and dark-eyed as his grandparents had been when his parents had left them to die only hours before.
He had never known the first child of his parents, killed in battle the day he was conceived. He stood by as this specter took the lives of the rest of his family, one by one, next his mother, two more siblings, his father, and finally, his last brother. By the time Madara was twenty-four, his silent shadow had devoured his entire family and much of his clan, but he never felt alone with death beside him. It had been born into the world with him, dragging from his mother's womb her strength and leaving in its place a slow disease that would devour her in the years to come. He sometimes despised this monster, especially after Izuna was taken from him, but he was never able to fully reject it.
Death spoke with him not once or even twice, but five times in his years.
The First Death
The first time Madara died, it was not due to the sword pushed through his back but due to the words spoken in his ear. "No matter what happens, I will protect our…no…my village. I still believe that protecting the village is the best way to protect people, shinobi, children. Anyone who tries to harm it, whether they are my friends, siblings, or my own children, I won't forgive them."
My. It was the only word he heard a moment. He wanted to turn, scream, rip the blade from his chest and slice through Hashirama's throat with it. It was not his. It was not even Madara's. It was theirs, and it always would be. He realized in that moment that he was being erased, that Hashirama was rewriting history with his words, changing their dream into one that was his alone, and rendering Madara obsolete in his heart. It turned him cold, and suddenly he found himself doubting he had the strength to carry through with his plan.
He had gone into that battle knowing death was possible, had known that Hashirama might finally lose his temper and kill him, and had a back-up plan in place were that to happen. He had kept one eye technique of his hidden over the years, a secret ability not even his brother had seen, one Hashirama could not even begin to suspect. For even with his red eyes, Madara had a mastery over the other realm that no Uchiha before him had ever possessed, and there he kept another self, one he could pass in and out of as needed. It was weak though, an incomplete jutsu that despite years of attempting to perfect, he was never able to fully use or understand.
After all, he knew that he had to engage in close contact in order to steal some of his blood and bone, his chakra, without killing him. Killing Hashirama would not be possible, as bitterly as he wished he could bring himself to do it, and he hardly expected to escape from such close combat unscathed. But he hadn't expected that the injury Hashirama could grant him would not be one that a mere jutsu could save him from.
The sword first sliding cleanly into his ribs from behind sent him into immediate shock. This was not how it was supposed to be; Hashirama was not supposed to so easily, purposefully, give him a fatal wound such as that, and from behind no less, as if he were nothing but a nameless foot soldier on the battlefield or a common whore to be disposed of at the end of the night. He'd exploited his weakness, had taken advantage of the fact that Madara did not expect him to fall so low, and hadn't even granted him the honor of killing him face-to-face.
And then the words had come, words that would haunt him forever, barring him from the other side for what he feared would become all eternity.
"You have changed…Hashirama," he managed to gasp out in response before falling to his knees. "You're mistaking the cause for the end." The words came easily, unexpectedly, as he found himself saying anything to avoid the words he longed to say. It was better to end in coldness. "One day that will become darkness and envelop the village…"
Hashirama would leave. He knew that even before it happened, knew that the Senju would turn his back and walk away, unable to see him die in the mud where he had fallen. It would be what Madara wanted, or so he told himself. He did not need to have Hashirama there for him, did not ever need Hashirama and had never needed him. He had been right, it was Hashirama's dream alone; his was another, and he would pursue it to the ends of the earth and deep into the pits of death. He would do so alone, for it was that night that he learned that death was no longer something he could take comfort in.
As the darkness began to cloud beneath his eyelids he felt his soul jump into his other self, but it had broken and would never recover.
The Second Death
Madara's years stretched into an eternity below ground, as if to mock and punish him for escaping death that first time. The jutsu had failed him, transferring with his soul the wound that he could never properly heal, even with Hashirama's chakra, and he knew it was because somehow, something had gone wrong. His true body had died, and he was nothing but the shadow self now.
The wound in his chest pained him greatly, forcing him to spend more and more time in the darkness until his ventures into the light above were so few and far between be began to forget what the world looked like. It was a weakness unparalleled by anything he had ever felt before, one that was not only physical but that seeped into his very heart. He did not quite understand why he had saved himself after the fight at the Valley, why he had willed himself to live for all of those decades alone after the one person he had ever truly loved stabbed him in the back and left him to die. His dream had not even come to fruition. The flesh and blood he had cleaved from Hashirama and pressed into his chest cavity had not done what he had hoped it would do. At times he wondered if there was some final stipulation he had missed, a last rule that had been hidden from him so to prevent this from ever happening. He had suspected that it would take days, maybe even months, for his eyes to develop, but as the years dragged on he lost hope of anything changing.
And for forty years, every time his heart pounded he felt the fragments of Hashirama's bone burrow deeper into the muscle, a pain he knew not possible but tangible all the same. The last words the other man had spoken to him repeated themselves with every beat, to the point where he began to wonder if he were mad and if it would not be better to end his life. But somehow he was unable to.
He passed his time carrying out the slow destruction of the known world, his only companion a silent cloned statue of Hashirama, one he would recreate, perfect and strengthen in the decades to come. For a time, he had traveled above ground, meeting and manipulating people as he needed to stir into action the slow tidings of war under a variety of disguises. He was even able to orchestrate the death of Hashirama, weakening him to the point where he could emerge and slit his throat, cradling him in his arms as he breathed his last. That was the final time Madara ever saw the light of day, felt the grass under his fingers and the breeze through his hair.
One day he awoke to find himself unable to even move. It was an oddly peaceful feeling, and for a moment he believed he was finally dying in truth, that his silent specter had taken pity on him and decided to extend its hand to him, alleviate his aloneness. It was a strange feeling, a slow sinking into darkness as things he knew he should fear began to claw at his feet and up his body. So this was death, his silent friend finally come to take him in the way it had failed to take him so many years ago, and he found himself unable to do anything but welcome it.
But something went wrong, and as the minutes dragged on the feeling receded, as if driven away. A sudden surge of chakra burst forth from his chest and he was suddenly painfully aware that it was Hashirama's, dormant in his body all those decades only to finally awaken now when death had come for him a second time. It had saved him once and it would save him again, and in that moment he bitterly hated the other man, the one who had killed him so completely and yet would not let him have his rest. This time was different though, as the chakra spread rapidly through him, chasing the shadows away, and exploded in the back of his skull behind his eyes; it was uncomfortably erotic, awakening within him something he had not felt in a lifetime, had not felt since he was a young man living another life, and the feeling was just as slow to subside, leaving him trembling and wheezing for several long moments.
When he opened his eyes again the darkness was gone, the cave vibrantly lit in such a way that he could sense the miasma of every living thing within the cave, the hollow remnants of all that had died down there, and, inexplicably, the voices of the collective dead. There was no need to crawl to the water for a reflection. He knew he finally had awoken the Rinnegan.
The Third Death
Madara had been alone for so long that he had forgotten what loneliness was. It was only when Obito came into his life, stupid and incorrigible as he was, that Madara remembered what it was like to long for another's company again. He sometimes felt it was a mistake to save him, but he knew that he had no other choice. Obito was his last chance for his plans to work, his last chance at salvation, even if he must descend into the coldest darkness and crush his soul to make him his own. The boy inexplicably reminded him of Hashirama in his smile, in the way he casually teased and mocked him as if Madara were not the most powerful being the most powerful being he had ever faced. It was familiar to the point of discomfort, and yet at the same time Madara had rapidly grown to love him as much as he knew how to love after the sun had warmed his back for that last time so long ago.
He knew that his natural death would come again. Even with the chakra from Hashirama pulsing through his veins, forever pumped into his back from the Gedo Mezo, he could not survive much longer. His body was only human, after all, unlike Obito's. He could only escape death so many times, and this time he welcomed it. Obito was leaving him. He had groomed him to be the savior, to be his replacement in the world above until the day came for him to rise again and rule it all, prove Hashirama wrong for the final time, and Obito was ready to step forward and take his place now. He had taught him all there was to know, at least all that he felt he needed to know.
And he found himself not wanting to be alone, even fearing to be alone. Obito had been his companion for two long years, really as many decades if one were to count all the time they spent together in genjutsu. His illusions had grown to unfathomed heights after his new eyes awakened, and with them grew the power of his dreams to control that other realm. He had seen Obito grow to be a man in those visions, had allowed himself to grow younger as Obito grew older, changing his age as needed until they were nearly the same. A year could pass as only a second passed in the real world, and so they lived their lives in those dreams, a lifetime added onto their own bodies within their minds, alone but for one another. They were both painfully alone, showing one another parts of their lives as the time passed, knowing all too well that when the mist cleared and they returned to reality, they would only be two broken bodies in the dark. But they would be two bodies, which was more than Madara could have said in his decades before. He had never known he had been so alone before then, before the day when he told Obito that he was ready to leave soon, and he was startled to feel ice seep into his heart. He could not face that silence again.
They put it off then, the boy casually pressuring for more and more training that he did not need, as if Obito knew, as if Obito had seen that flash of apprehension in the old man's eye when he had spoken. And so they waited until Madara could bear it no longer, could not linger until a time came when he was too weak to do what he had to do. "You must go this morning."
"Now?" Obito looked at him strangely, as if he hadn't heard him.
"Yes. I have one final story to tell, one gift to give. Then you leave."
(And so he spoke his final ghost, gave his final monster.)
"What will you do when I leave?" Obito asked suddenly, fidgeting in his new sandals that Madara had created for him, the first he had worn in nearly two years. He wouldn't meet the older man's eyes.
"You already know," Madara replied calmly. "You are Madara now."
"But what about you? Don't you want to…leave? I'm strong enough now to heal you a little, even disguise you. I…" he trailed off then, catching himself, and Madara had to smile. Obito didn't know then, didn't know that earlier that morning he had already taken his scythe and painstakingly weakened the tubes feeding him life, cutting deep grooves into them so that when the time came he could easily break them of his own volition. His own chakra was the only sort able to prevent the Gedo from simply regrowing, as he had learned years ago, as he had been unwilling to attach himself to a life force he could not break away from when he so chose to. The chakra pulsing through them had already slowed, making breathing difficult. He had no intention of surviving the day.
"You truly are a kind boy. It sickens me. I know how much you hate me and yet you still want to save me." And he hated Obito in return, oh how he hated him. Were it not for Obito, perhaps he may have been able to forget how alone he was.
Obito only shrugged, smiled his lopsided smile as only the scar tissue on his face would allow. Madara could have healed the wounds there properly, could have smoothed over his scars, but for reasons unknown even to him he had not. Obito was broken, just as he was, and they both needed to remember that.
He didn't wait for Obito to leave before twisting his back sharply, snapping the tubes connecting himself to the tree. They broke cleanly, a relief to him as he immediately felt blood, onmyoton substance, and chakra began to pour from between his shoulder blades. Obito jumped, mouth and eyes wide with shock, and lunged towards him, but the look in Madara's eyes made him freeze.
"Go..until the time I revive."
Obito only stared, his lip trembling, and for a terrible moment Madara wondered if he would refuse, if he would stay with him until he had breathed his last. But then he went, nodding once with tears in his eyes, and bolted off into the darkness. Madara couldn't help but smile faintly as his eyes shuttered closed. So much like Hashirama, after all, unable to stay to see him die.
This was his third death, and even after he understood the depths of his loneliness, he died alone. It was a death he chose, but only because the thought of living beyond, of descending into that aloneness again, terrified him. In his final moments, he almost regretted it, because even though he chose the time of his death, he could never choose the circumstances, could never choose to be anything but alone when he reached the other side.
The Fourth Death
His fourth death came immediately after his victory, when the moon had turned red and the entire world had been devoured, and suddenly he looked down to find a black hand protruding from his chest and a hiss in his ear telling him that he was no different from the rest, was nobody special, and that he could be used just as he had used hundreds before him. The paralysis was startlingly immediate, just as it had been the first time he had been stabbed in the back, and the memories it brought back were sharp enough to momentarily drive away the voice behind him.
When he felt the darkness rush in around his eyes that time, he knew this was not a physical demise. His body was too powerful for this. Obito had caused this very same wound, though from the front, not an hour earlier and he had survived. This was a new death, yet another wholly unfamiliar to him, but even as he felt himself howling in rage he could sense his chakra faltering in his veins. He was not like them, he was not used, he had sworn that to himself so many years ago when he had first turned his back on Hashirama, when he had signed the treaty, when he had first learned the truth of the Sage's sons, when he had been revived as an Edo Tensei, and again when he had absorbed the juubi. But this voice in his head, erupting forth again, enraged and saddened him more than he could fathom as he realized that here, again, even after he had at once saved and destroyed the world, he could not even make it as he wanted it. Maybe she's right, maybe this is all I ever was, maybe I never…When the darkness closed in, paralyzed with despair he had not felt since the Valley, he let it happen, let himself slip under the waves of eternity as he had done so many times before. Perhaps nothing mattered, in the end, perhaps he really had been erased from the world, he found himself thinking before the darkness consumed him.
When he awoke there was only light and the buoyancy of chakra beneath him, and for a moment he wondered if it had all been a dream, if he were really back in the cave, awakening the Rinnegan for the first time. But his vision was not clearing. There were no stalactites above him, only nothingness, and after a moment he painstakingly rolled over and onto his knees. The wound was gone but on his back there was a sharp burning, as if his chakra had been concentrated and exploded there.
"Apologies, but given your history of unpredictable behavior I felt it best to inhibit your power here. I temporarily sealed your own chakra into that of the bijuus' seals. You may not be able to harm me here but you can be…difficult."
Madara knew who he was before he turned, knew that soft gravel of a voice as if he had been raised with it, though he had never heard it before. "Hagoromo."
"That would be me." He smiled when he spoke, as if he were welcoming an old friend and not a monster who had just destroyed the world, and Madara flinched away from it despite himself. He did not fear punishment; it was the discussion that he wished to avoid.
He made no effort to stand, only bowed a moment as he felt he ought to, before sitting back on his knees to look at the sage before him. "I can never die in peace, can I?"
Hagoromo raised an eyebrow, looking vaguely surprised at his action, but he ignored his comment. "She is wrong, you know. You're not like the rest. My son chose you."
"He chose hundreds before me."
"None you ever knew, and she knows even less. It isn't your time to die yet, Madara."
"That was a long time ago. But you wouldn't know, would you?" He laughed bitterly, unable to contain it. He despised the man before him. "I saw what you left those two boys, before they were reborn. You never came for me when I died all those other times. You never cared. I was Indra's successor, the forsaken one." And suddenly he felt the wrath erupt inside of him, decades of pain and rage that he had felt as he had spent his entire life, his many deaths, railing against the destiny he had been forced into because some ancient ghost had latched onto him at birth. He did not know what he spoke, only knew that the Sage abruptly touched a hand to his shoulder to silence him.
"No. You forsook yourself. Your own will drove you. You walked your own path. Indra…he never had a grip on you. You are different than all of the others that he chose over the centuries; even the current one is not so unlike those before you." He paused then. "Though, I admit your difference was not in the way I had ever believed was possible."
Madara lowered his eyes, looked away, and bared his teeth when he snorted. "The only one to awaken the Rinnegan alone, and break the rules this badly. I never wanted to be a part of this. That's why I…"
Hagoromo ignored him again, waving his hand as if his words meant nothing. "It had happened before, the other way. Many times, in fact. But it had never been reciprocated. I never expected Indra's successor to fall in love with Ashura's."
He felt the air go out of him then, his throat suddenly constrict. Before he could stop himself, he glanced up at the sage, confusion clear in his eyes. No. He had to be lying. There was no need for this, no need to bring this up now when he had already fallen so low; the sage could not be so cruel as to lie to him. Reciprocated. "How do you…" his voice faded a moment before he asked, "What difference does it make? It did nothing for me. It only killed me, in the end."
"It will matter soon enough."
Madara ducked his head again. "That's all then? You bring me here only to mock me for being as much of a fool as I was to feel as I did?"
"Do." The Sage shifted position, tapping his staff gently against the ground before Madara. "And I am giving you nothing. I told you the truth, which is more than she will do. That is all. You are not dying yet. You must atone for this. Reserve your strength if you must and let my sons' newest successors fight, but you will know what you must do when the time comes."
"Can I die as I want then?" He found himself asking. "Finally?"
The Sage smiled again and lowered himself to Madara's level. "When you are ready, yes."
The Final Passage
He waited, drawing back deeply inside of himself, reserving his strength as the sage had instructed him, wondering at the futility of it. The boys he fought against, if he were even really fighting, were doing nothing. He felt no pain when the sage's newest heirs hit him, and while he could slow his reactions, make it difficult for the monster within him to use him, he was helpless to stop her. It was only when Hashirama had emerged from the dust of the battlefield before him with the other three kage, throwing his weight into the battle with the heirs, that something within his heart shifted. The flood of memories that had come had left him reeling, nearly losing himself entirely to the demon, but in the end they gave him the strength he needed to call out, ask why he had come in his own voice. He felt the demon inside him recoil, digging her talons into his heart and commanding him still, and again he receded, waiting. He can't save you, she hissed. But Kaguya hesitated, curious, and Madara was uncomfortably aware that she had seen his memories as well.
Hashirama studied him a moment, uncertain as to why he was not being attacked. "You really screwed this one up, didn't you?" He gestured towards the tree then, the smile that Madara at once loved and despised grazing his face as he did. "You thought this was going to…"
His brother shot him a look that silenced him, and for the first time that Madara could think of, he was grateful for Tobirama, as unable as he was to tell him to shut up
It was then that Madara realized what he held. "This one didn't fall with the rest." In his hand he held an onmyoton rod, one that Madara had stabbed him with what now seemed like years ago, likely having fallen from him when he lost control, if he had ever had control of them at all. "It had weakened enough that I could remove it but it's still alive."
Kaguya's voice was strange, foreign to him, as he raised a finger towards Hashirama and it spoke, "The will is mine. It always was."
"No. Madara, it's yours." Hashirama ignored her, speaking directly to Madara within. "I know your chakra. This was only ever made with your own will; all of them were. You were always so blind to your own choices. It was always you, always your anger." He hesitated a moment, turning the thin black rod slowly in his hands. "I never thought I'd say this but…Blind yourself to that rage one last time."
He glanced at the Namikaze then, an inexplicable exchange moving between them before the onmyoton rod was suddenly mere inches from Madara's face, startling Kaguya into catching it with Madara's own hand. The screech she unleashed in Madara's mind as she realized what had happened dictated her end even before he could act, before his own chakra flowed back into his body with a momentous strength and clarity and he found himself able to move. Hashirama had been right, just as the sage had been. It had always been his choice.
Madara met his eyes across the rubble before he moved, only long enough to give him that final acknowledgment and gratitude. And that amidst all the pain and the wrath he had felt over the years, he was able to suddenly forgive his words at the Valley.
He stabbed the rod deeply into his third eye, feeling it puncture with a wet warmth that began to run down his face, and even as he wrenched his hand away he gouged out his left eye, crushing it in his fist so that the pair could never again be complete, the eye of the shinju never reform. And the monster was screaming then, howling in pain and rage as its hold over him broke entirely and its power collapsed in on itself. He felt something leave him, a breeze rise up behind him, saw the two heirs moving then, the girl shouting something, the masked man beckoning them to him, and suddenly the maelstrom subsided. He was dimly aware of the sealing jar of the Rikudou Sage rocking gently in the corner of his vision, of the three young shinobi crying in joy, clinging to one another. It was a strangely funny scene, he thought to himself, a smile touching the corner of his mouth the last thing he felt before everything blurred and began to fade.
He found himself in that bright place again, and for a moment he wondered if the Sage had come to watch him die, to mock him again and deprive him of his final peace. But this was a new light, one that shifted, solidified, and slowly cleared.
He stood alone at a riverbank. He didn't need to even fully see it before he knew, before he was able to recognize the scent of the Naka River before the rift had torn it wide open, the scent he had not known for nearly a century now. It was spring, as it had been that day so long ago, and he found himself turning, half hoping, only to find nothing behind him. Silence. He was alone. The Sage had deprived him of his last wish after all. Suddenly he felt something in his hand, a stone, and he lifted it to the sun, squinting a moment. But it was smooth, empty, and the silence began to weigh in on him painfully. This was all there was in the end, an empty riverbank and stifling silence; that was all that had awaited him at his final death. In fury he threw the stone into the water, making no attempt to skip it, only to sink it, before his eyes, for he had two again, shuttered closed and he inhaled deeply.
An answering splash in the river startled him into opening his eyes again as a rock clattered onto the bank at his feet. He didn't hesitate, only swiftly picked it up, turning it over in his hands. "Stay."
The tears came before he could stop them, burning past his eyes more painfully than any injury they had ever sustained, when he looked up and saw Hashirama on the other side of the river. He lunged forward, knee deep in the water before he felt his chakra flood through him and he was able to step onto the surface. He didn't wait, didn't think, and only threw his arms around the other man. He'd died a thousand times now, and he had always been alone, had always passed in dark solitude from one life to the next. He knew then, when he felt the warmth of the other body against his, the arms around his shoulders, that this was his true death, his final death, his only death. When he finally pulled back, he opened his mouth to speak but found himself unable to. How are you here, he wanted to ask, but he only found himself frantically touching Hashirama's face, his neck, shoulders, to see if he were truly there.
The other man understood though. "The Edo Tensei on me was released when you breathed your last."
"So we died together." Madara spoke softly, his voice distant and sad as he slowly absorbed this. He hadn't died alone. In the end, the only end that mattered, something had changed.
"But…I've been here before. I've waited a long time here. I knew you'd come eventually." Hashirama's smile was bright, the same as it had been when they were young and the village had still been a dream. "You had to find yourself before you could though."
He grimaced, looking away then. "I suppose you never had a problem."
"Neither did your brother."
The words froze something in Madara even as Hashirama gently turned him aside to reveal a smaller figure sitting by the riverbank beyond them. When Madara's pale grey eyes met his in confusion, Hashirama sighed and pushed him forward. Madara didn't need further encouragement as he advanced, didn't need to ask why his brother had chosen to be a child again, before the rift between them had begun, and he fell to his knees before him and drew him close. If Izuna was surprised to see them there, to see him so affectionate, he did not show it, only hugged him, patted him on the back with his small hand, let him press his face into his shoulder, and said nothing as Madara began to shake with silent tears. This was the death he had longed for, the death he had died a thousand times to attain and the death he had begun to fear was forever beyond his grasp.
After a moment he reached up, his fingers searching for Hashirama even as he held his brother until they caught on his sleeve and curled tightly around it, silently pleading him to stay.
When he stood again, he found himself gripping Izuna's hand tightly, his other hand still clinging to Hashirama's robes. "The last choice I ever wanted to make was to not die alone," he spoke barely above a whisper. He desperately wanted to move, touch Hashirama's hand, but he found himself unable to let go. "This time…"
Hashirama didn't let him finish, only untangled his fingers and moved to tighten his arm around his shoulders, this time turning him towards the village, or perhaps where the village would soon be, as he whispered in his ear. "You've finally reached the other side, Madara."
-end-