"Um, who are you and why are you hugging me?" Izuna asked when he was finally able to breathe after the strange masked man had eased up a tiny bit when he noticed that he was turning blue.

"It's me!" the orange masked man said.

"Me who?" he asked, as the reply gave him no clue to the other man's identity other than the fact that he seemed to be insane.

"Me Madara, that's who bitch. I swear, you didn't used to be this stupid before you died." Madara said.

"Died? When'd I die?" he asked.

"Almost eighty years ago." Madara, or at least the guy who was claiming to be Madara replied. "I got my revenge for that though. I also got my revenge on the clan for turning on me too. Me and your great-great-grandson killed the lot of them. I'm in the middle of getting my revenge on all of the Senju, and I'm close to having the Moon's Eye Plan come to fruition like you would have wanted. I just need a couple more Jinchuriki, and it'll be done."

"Moon's eye plan?" he asked with a sinking feeling. Why the hell did that sound so familiar?

Oh...shit. Wasn't that the whacked out World Domination plot he'd come up with when he was high and he and his brother were talking about ways they'd take over the world if they could? Why the hell would Madara try something so stupid?

Oh, yeah. Alternate Universe. He'd ended up in the future of an alternate universe where that Sasuke jerk was his flesh and blood - the thought of which made him cringe worse than the sneaking suspicion he had that the blond Uzumaki freak of nature might be the descendant of his and the howling witch's offspring - and his brother had gone fucking insane without him around to keep him grounded.

"Wait? You actually went through with that stupid idea? Damn. When Hikaku said that I was the only thing keeping you from taking a flying leap off the deep end, I didn't believe that he was actually serious." he said, only barely able to believe that the thing standing in front of him was his flesh and blood in any way, shape, or form, and the reason for his sliver of belief was that it acted too much like his brother when they were practically alone together to be discounted, that, and the Uchiha hair. He'd recognize the Uchiha hair anywhere.

"Stupid idea?" the twisted, and now that he looked through the eyehole of the mask, very old, Madara thing asked, cocking his head to the side in mock curiosity. He knew that head tilt. Somebody was going to say the wrong thing and get their head kicked in because of it.

"I was freaking high when I came up with it! The moon? Seriously? Come on!" he replied still unable to believe that his brother would go through with the insane plot.

Danger signs Nos. 2, 3, and 4 rapidly followed the head tilt. Shit. It looked like it was going to be his ass that got kicked.

"Stupid Idea? Stupid Idea? I spent seventy years lining up that 'Stupid Idea' in order to get it to work!" Madara howled. "I nearly got myself killed by that Senju jerk to get the genetic samples I needed for the statue. I manipulated men and entire countries behind the scenes for decades! I founded the Akatsuki! I did it all for you, and you show up and call it stupid ? !"

The band of Konoha mercenaries took the opportunity of Madara's apparent distraction to make a break for it, most likely after Sasuke since he was the objective of their mission, though he wouldn't rule out the reason being the Killing Intent that was pouring off his brother in waves. Escaping while his brother was busy getting himself worked up over the latest perceived insult sounded like a good idea, since Madara was rapidly heading towards that point where he couldn't tell friend from foe and started killing everybody. That was sort of how he and Madara had gotten their Mangekyo Sharingans while they were sparring with a couple of their cousins.

"Eh, I think I'll be going now." he said as he started backing away. "I'll come back once you've cooled down a bit."

The best way to deal with Madara when he was in this state was to smile, nod, back away slowly, and a soon as you were out of his sight, run for it as if the hounds of Hell were on your heels. If you were one of the people on the exceedingly short list of people Madara cared for, you might even survive.

Of the two of them, he'd been the one to come up with the ideas, and Madara had been the one who figured out what it took to get them to work and actually did it. He was vaguely impressed that his brother, or his brother's insane counterpart rather, had actually figured out how to get that idiot Moon's Eye Plan to work, even if it had taken more than seventy years of continuous effort to get it off the ground.

After flying through the trees like a bat out of hell, he caught up to the Konoha mercenaries when they reached one of the numerous scattered Uchiha strongholds that littered the continent. The place was run down, mostly demolished on top of that, and the roof was on fire. It wasn't just any fire however, it was Amaterasu.

"If someone would care to hand me a blank scroll," he said. "I'll have that fire out in a jiffy."

"No need." the blond Uzumaki said, as he proved he belonged to his clan by creating his own fire storing scroll. "Ero-Senin taught me how to do this."

Soon, the fire was out, and it was safe for the group to make their way to an unconscious Uchiha Sasuke and a corpse that was presumably that of the Uchiha Itachi he'd heard about from the mercenaries.

Itachi...Weasel. He was named after a type of weasel...Aw crap. His only chance to meet his namesake in this universe, and he arrives several minutes too late.

Madara, who'd apparently cooled down a bit during the trip over since he was doing his best to show that he was giving him the cold shoulder rather than trying to rend him limb from limb, arrived while one of the leaders of the mercenary group was putting Uchiha Itachi's corpse into a storage scroll. He walked through the group as if they weren't there, securely bound Sasuke with rope, and picked him up as if he were about to carry him off.

"I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing." Madara said, sounding not the least bit apologetic. "But Sasuke's going with me."

"I've got one question." Izuna said while the others prepared to fight to get their "comrade" back.

"What?" Madara asked, clearly still irritated with him for his calling the plan he'd wasted seventy years of effort on stupid.

"Why are you taking him?" he asked. "He's a total ass. He's the reason I was forced to leave that red haired goddess who was willing to do just about anything and everything for and with me."

"Define everything." Madara said. From the sound of it, he was seriously contemplating his question.

He walked over to his brother and whispered in his ear.

Madara promptly threw Sasuke on the ground as soon as he was finished.

"I've changed my mind. You guys can keep him." Madara said.

"Why?" the pink haired girl asked in shock.

"For some strange reason I still get fangirls, and not all of them are over the age of fifty." Madara said. "Having Fugaku's disagreeable brat around will most definitely cramp my style. And to think, I was going to do this totally awesome thing where I convince him to destroy Konoha by telling him about how Itachi sacrificed everything including the clan to protect the place..."

Edited on 2-21-12.