"Thought Or Telepathy"
"Character Communication"
"Loud Speaking"
"Emphasis 'On' A Word."
Madara: A New Journey
Elder Iseul returns in a hurry with the information on Natsumi Momoka and her sect, upon sliding open the seemingly undisturbed door, the inside is revealed and all he can see is the devastation that is solely limited to the inside of the room.
But, the most horrifying sight that catches his attention is strung up to the ceiling by what looks to be dozens of chains, Sect Master Wrath, with his lower half missing and a circular cut out of his midsection, burnt organs and almost severed limbs tangle down as his head is cast down and shadowed by his dry bloodied hair.
Dropping to his knees while the papers in his hands scatter onto the floor, he can only look on in horror. "Young Master!" Where is Wrath's son, has he been taken?! Scrambling to his feet, he quickly searches with his divine sense for any sighs of him, but unsurprisingly, he's nowhere to be seen.
It was already obvious without the look, there's no way would he be able to sense someone who could seal the room off from the outside world and kill someone as powerful as Wrath while taking his son without alerting anyone in the time it took for him to do some quick research, that's just, not possible!
At least, it shouldn't be. There aren't many Heaven's Blight cultivators, especially one that would meddle with the affairs of the lower sects, not to mention that the Earth Seed sect is viewed favourably in the eyes of some larger sects, Heaven's Blight cultivators wouldn't act at the risk of their sect being targeted for revenge.
He bolts out of the room to inform the elders as his divine sense reaches out to contact them. They have to establish a new chain of command immediately and appoint a new sect master, at least a temporary one. The highest-ranking elder will take charge unless there is an overwhelming majority vote for someone else.
While his actions are discovered on the surface, within the dungeons under a particular castle-like structure, walks Madara steadily down dark dimly lit corridors with Wrath's son, whose name is Hector Lee. He found it an interesting name, Hector wasn't a name he's heard before, but it did have some strength to it.
Hector, although his cultivation is in the second step, is nowhere near the level of his father, so he understands his chance of escape is zero. The sect has already been isolated from sending messages to the outside as well, and so he obediently follows a few steps behind, knowing full well where they're going.
Through the twists and turns of the dungeons, he walks with purpose and intent, not once asking for direction, he clearly knows what he is seeking and where it is. He ignores the horrible sights in the prison cells on either side as they continue. Hector, however, occasionally looked into them with remorse and fear.
He knows some of them, containing both female and male prisoners for various reasons and purposes, some he's personally been involved with. Suddenly, Madara comes to a stop in front of an end room with a solid metal door sealed shut by a steel rod as thick as a torso.
Grabbing the metal in his hand, he tears it in two, the horrible sound of metal scraping against each other fills the dungeon walls to disturb its miserable inhabitants. Pushing the door open, the inside is revealed. A young girl dressed in what can be barely be described as a torn rag lays sleeping on a metal platform.
Walking to the centre of the room where the platform is, he inspects the girl, her body is covered in bruces and small cuts, and judging by how little she's wearing, it wouldn't be hard to imagine what she's gone through. "I never touched her, I swear!" Hector implores, trying to lessen his punishment in some way.
"I've done my fair share of that back in my youth, it's only natural so I'm not one to judge, although I am not the one that will be judging you." He finishes with a smile at the lad's misfortune, although, the girl was definitely untouched, a little fondled and beat up maybe, but still unsullied, not that it mattered to him.
Spoils of war and all that, but he certainly wasn't the most enthusiastic about it. Some of his comrades lived for that kind of thing, he found it rather pathetic to be so obsessed with what lies between their legs. On the other hand, an Uchiha woman would always put a stop to it. Poor married men, always tragic, many would say.
In his absent mind, the girl awakens from her fairytale-like slumber in a groggy state, unsure of her surrounding. Visions clearing somewhat form the blurry fog that it was just a moment ago, she spots a dark figure looming over her barely covered body.
She tries to struggle to get up, but the chains keep her firmly attached to the metallic platform in that exposed manner. She doesn't know what to think at first, but when her visions clear more and she spots 'him' behind the man next to her, she understands that she's in for some sort of humiliation and torture.
She turns her head the other way and waits in silence, the seconds passing like hours in her mind, but with a loud cracking sound, the chain on her arms and legs all crack apart in many pieces that scatter on the metallic platform and the floor. She quickly leans up and throws a punch at the man's face.
The punch lands directly on his cheek, his head snapping to the right rather quickly and returning without a scratch. He laughs off the punch, having turned his head to avoid shattering the girl's hand. "A good punch, but misplaced. Your sister sent me to 'rescue' you."
She looks at him with a sceptical gaze and looks at Hector behind him, her sister didn't know anyone powerful enough to break in and kidnap the young lord of this sect. "Lies, my sister doesn't have such a connection and why are you with 'him'?" She points towards Hector with a scowl.
He himself turning his eyes to the edge to half look towards Hector, he can only smile wryly. "Your sister also asked for me to bring him alive, I'm sure you can imagine for what..." Raising his hands into a question, he continues. "As for why your sister knows me, she did a favour for me, I'm returning it, simple as that."
"Now..." He holds out a hand. "You may not trust me, but I don't really care. I've had my fun here and it's time to leave. I'll either do that by force or you will come with me willingly, it's all the same to me." Pondering for a second, she recognises she really doesn't have much of a choice and begrudgingly takes his hand.
With both of them in his possession, he leaves the dungeon at the same pace he came in. Not much is said between them, they both prefer to stay silent, but that didn't stop them from sending hateful gazes towards each other, at least, hateful from one side, the other simply wanted forgiveness.
As he walks down the dungeon once more he can hear their silent but forceful arguments from behind him. "Look I'm sorry, I tried my best to make sure they didn't hurt you too badly. I only wanted to marry your sister."
"Not too bad?! Do you know what humiliation I had to face? If you wanted to marry my sister you should have been a better man instead of kidnapping me as a bargaining chip you rotten bastard, and now that you're fucked, you want to weasel your way out? Like hell!"
"They didn't rape you! It could have been much worse, it wasn't even my idea, it was my fathers!"
"Well, where is he to take responsibility?!"
"He-he's dead. That man killed him. So isn't that enough, just let me go, or at least tell your sister to spare me!"
"Not happening! You wanted her over me so go ask for forgiveness from her, leave me alone stupid..."
"What?"
"I said nothing, just die die die already."
The three soon reach the exit of the dungeon and take flight into the sky without notice, following after Madara who suddenly comes to a stop some distance up and looks back down. "This will be good for you two to watch." He says with a smile as he holds out his right hand and makes a gripping motion.
Turning to the light on the horizons, a quickly approaching red wall approaches at monumental speed, covering continent-sized distances in an instant. The ground bellows and bends at the intrusion, explosions ring out on the wall from cultivators trying to escape and break it, only to splatter against it and explode.
"What are you doing, didn't you say you would spare the sect if I came with you?!" Hector asks with wide eyes as he stares at the all-encompassing doom approaching. It's not like the sect itself matters to him, but he does have people he cares for still apart of it.
The girl watches on with a mixture of emotions. "I lied...what I said was, 'if you give him up, I will spare your lives' and your father didn't give you up. And so they will die." In truth, he was never was going to spare anyone, all evidence ends today, only four people will know the truth.
Hector's expression changes and rage fills his body. After his father was killed he knew he had no chance against this man, but now, his anger clouds his former judgment. The idea of everyone he knows, his friends, his rival, his distant relatives, and his teachers all dying, the idea leaves a shit taste in his mouth.
At the moment he's about to attack with all his might, he's frozen in place, not by fear or some apparent force, but by nothing. He can't move a single inch by an invisible force he cannot even feel. "Watch as it's crushed into dust." He hears from behind.
Hector can do nothing but look on with a struggling and teary-eyed face. The wall closes in faster and faster, the sect, having rallied most of its forces, prepare for a final assault, but the outcome is unavoidable. Attacks of all kinds smash into the walls, cultivators explode themselves in mass, the wall is unbreakable.
In the end, bitting his teeth so hard that they crack, Hector watched as his entire sect was crushed into nothing, the people he knew, smashed into mush. And with that done, Madara takes the three and leaves to finish his end of the bargain and continue with his own task.
It doesn't take long for Madara to return to the outer reaches of Natsumi's sect. The young girl next to him lights up when she spots her home as she charges down towards her sister's dwelling, he follows behind with the dead-eyed Hector still in his hold and masking both their presences.
His senses pick up another presence in the room along with Natsumi so he quickly stops the little sister in her tracks with a firm hand on her shoulders. "She's not alone." He informs as he listens in to the conversation the two inside the room are having.
Inside the room, a man faces away from a kowtowed woman as he speaks with little care but power in his voice nonetheless. "The master has also tasked me to gather information on your cycle to the lower realm, was there anything suspicious?" She's about to speak when he cuts in again. "Mind you, I will ask the other."
Staying with her forehead firmly on the ground, she replies. "I understand, I did not find anything out of the ordinary during my visit. The candidates were average at best and there were no exceptional talents. Did I do something wrong?"
"Not particularly..." Turning around to look down at her, he asks the next question slightly more pointedly. "I was informed by your sect master that you returned later than expected, why was that?"
This is a difficult question to answer. Normally she would have no reason to stay long in the lower realm. She can't use sightseeing as an excuse, seeing how she's already seen most of that world, and she can't say she found someone interesting seeing how she just said she didn't.
She doesn't let any of her inner anxiety show as she keeps hugging the ground for shelter. "There was an attractive man that I wanted for cultivation purposes." She answers with slight hesitation, would he buy it? It's not unheard of for them to use lower realm cultivators for various - usually nefarious - purposes.
When she hears him snicker, she relaxes. "Yes, we've all done that once or twice, hopefully, it went well, for you that is. "He finishes with another chuckle, his mind wandering to times long past. "Now that I've informed you of that matter and asked my questions, I'll take my leave."
"Safe travels my lord" She responds before getting up only to see nothing as the man had already gone. She releases a sigh as somehow, she made it out of that situation alive, but the news he brought is certainly interesting but doesn't involve her too much, just some person that an associate was concerned about.
Suddenly the doors to the room open. She sensed no one nearby so unsurprisingly she's alarmed but before she can react she's slammed into by none other than her little sister Kioko, someone she holds so dearly. Both on the floor, all she can do is hold her sister closely and release a silent joyful cry.
"I'm so glad you're alright! They didn't touch you?!" She can feel that Kioko has remained pure, this comes as a huge shock. Purity is incredibly important for some cultivation methods and can increase cultivation speed tremendously if done right.
The two separate slightly to get off the ground and stand, but still hold each other loosely at elbows length.
"They humiliated me in many ways, but no, they never touched me like that." Kioko spots Madara entering through the doorway, not really focused on them at all. "How did you find someone so strong that could wipe out an entire sect?"
"I haven't known him long, he's from the lower realm if you can believe it." While scratching her nose, she replies. "He wanted entry to our realm for his own reasons, so we ended up making a deal." It all kinda sounded far too easy to be true, but by some miracle, she was able to save her sister.
"Speaking of which, did you get him as well?" Natsumi asks Madara with a smile that is rather deceiving to what is on her mind.
He nods and a person floats in with his limbs in a position that suggests that they're restrained before dropping to the ground on his face with a thud. "I left him unharmed physically and the sect and all the witnesses have been eradicated. Your sister has been returned. This concludes our business." He makes his way out.
As he leaves, she contemplates telling him what her visitor informed her of, but it wouldn't be too important to him anyway, best to end their contact here and never associate again. She looks down at the slowly crawling away man before restraining him with her own power. "You wanted me so bad, why leave my home?"
The sweetness she feels when he looks up at her with those watery and anguish filled eyes. That night, many of the disciples at that sect swore they heard screaming etching itself into the hearts of many and reverberating through every nook and cranny, but no one was able to find out its exact location.
At the same time that night, a laugh accompanied that scream of anguish for but a moment, but this laugh wasn't that of a female, but a male. High above the sect, was Madara, looking at the world around him and laughing to himself.
His hair stood on their ends that night, a feeling of danger loomed over his body like the cool night air. This is a feeling he's experienced many times throughout his life, a sixth sense of sorts. He's felt it less and less throughout the ages as his power grew, but this is unmistakably the sense of impending danger.
Becoming more and more aware of how old cultivators in this realm are, it's not difficult to imagine how powerful the ones who created this realm are, perhaps, even stronger than himself, although these second step cultivators aren't much, even he can feel the vast difference between a first and second step cultivator.
An early second step cultivator could easily kill dozens of peak first step cultivators, if not more. If that trend continues, then in the likelihood that he encounters a third step cultivator, can he win that battle? He's not too sure.
One thing is for sure though, if or when encounters a fourth step cultivator, he's determined his only option will be to flee if he even can.
After that night, Madara decided to head far away from his entry point and discover who this realm lord is, he'll likely have the information he'll need so why waste time with anything else. The following day, he infiltrates a sect that looked rather important compared to the one he's seen so far.
Once inside, he changes his appearance to an attractive disciple he passes by and finds a lone semi-attractive female disciple that likely wouldn't be caught in the eyes of the one he is impersonating.
The female disciple is stunned when he speaks to her, she immediately blushes and the whispers around them show just how shocking the event is to them.
He tells her sweet lies, luring her in with empty promises. Until he suggests that they go someplace else, just to the two of them. She happily agrees, but of course, the place he leads her is just an empty part of the sect, a small ally out of range of the public.
He approaches her and pushes her onto the wall, kissing and rubbing each other, it is clear to the girl that they're about to go all the way, but at this point, in reality, she's already under his Genjutsu, his hand firmly holding her off the ground by her head before tossing her aside onto the ground as a soulless corpse.
"Interesting." He discovers the information he needed with relative ease. There are sixteen disciples of the Realm Lord. Outside of the Realm Lord himself, these disciples hold the highest position in the realm, and considering the fact that they must accept challenges, they're likely the strongest as well.
The entire Celestial Cave Realm has been split amongst these sixteen disciples to rule over on their master's behalf. The district he is currently within belongs to the Seventh Disciple, Gong. However, the Realm Lord himself almost never reveals himself, except maybe his disciples and most loyal followers.
Most importantly, it was announced that the Seventh Disciple has gone into closed-door cultivation at the northern fire temple sect and would be away for two-thousand years. Rumours suggest he'll try to overcome the Sixth Disciple again when he returns from his cultivation.
He's pulled from the memories by violent pain in his head. Different images flash before his eyes rather violently:
A newborn with black hair without features surrounded by people trying to pull at the infant's body and tear parts of it away.
A featureless pure white humanoid with bizarre cross-like eyes without arms and legs.
He clutches his head and winces.
The next image is of a strange orb with swirling energy dancing inside like a wave, it turns into a sword before fading into blackness.
Next, many worlds, all vastly different in appearance. The worlds each collapse revealing the next, when the last one breaks, the shards reform into another image.
A fuzzy image that is hard to make out begins to clear. "What am I seeing?!" As soon as he says this, the images vanish from his mind along with the pain. "What was that?" He receives no answer. "You know I'm talking to you, Suigetsu, answer me, what was that?!" He still hears no answer.
Clenching his teeth, he has no choice but to contain his temper.
He doesn't even know if Suigetsu is even listening at the moment, it's not like he has a way of retaliation even if he is being ignored. What he saw didn't make much sense to him either: an infant, a man, a strange orb, and a bunch of strange realms, what does it even mean?
"So be it, just make sure it doesn't happen again." He chalks it up to another random incident, hopefully, it doesn't continue to happen, he has other things to worry about after all. With that disturbance out of the way, he leaves that sect and heads towards the northern fire temple sect some distance away.
It won't take him too long to reach the place, only half an hour at his fastest speed. The ground below changes like a slideshow even with his enhanced vision. While travelling his thoughts wander to the "lower realm" as these cultivators call it.
When he arrived in the void world before entering this one, he created a clone to create a new dimension in the future, however, that wasn't the only clone he created, he also created one before entering the void, in order to establish visual on Hagoromo and Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
It's risky getting close to someone who will play such an important role in the future. That is one person he cannot affect in any drastic way, at the same time, he needs to know if Hagoromo shares a similar evolution of the Rinnegan and maybe some clue as to why Kaguya's memories are so disjointed.
Of course, a part of him wanted to leave the clone there to watch over that family and find their father, once he does that, he can cut off contact with them. Unfortunately, the linked vision between the Rinnegan doesn't work through dimensional barriers otherwise he could just look for himself.
He'll just have to wait until he can return to his world to recover the memories of that clone. However, a part of him is worried. After all, he did have to place a seal to prevent Kaguya and Hagoromo from detecting the clone, this did limit it's power even more than the limitation of the shadow clone Jutsu.
Still, even a weakened clone would be able to deal with first step cultivators with relative ease, it wouldn't, however, be able to resist either Kaguya or Hagoromo, but if it comes to that, that would be considered a huge failure, so it really doesn't matter.
A massive explosion shreds two large mountains into specks of dust, flattening large portions of forests in the valleys between. Five streams of light shoot directly into the explosion blowing them away like a candle and clashing with another stream of light that soars up from the ground below.
In an instant, two of the streams of light are cast aside. While those two crash into the ground, the remaining lights come around and collide once more, sending the opposition back before coming to a stop some distance away.
The light disperses from the four remaining lights in the sky. On one side, stands Madara, a long jade katana in his hand. His expression, firm but strained. The battle has been ongoing for some time, his chakra low when he entered the fight because of certain circumstances.
On the other side, one female and two males dressed in grand robes with similar designs with slight damage to their clothes and one of the males with his almost severed arm from a large cut from his bicep to his shoulder, a strike that was meant to hit his ribcage and kill him instantly had he not dodged at the last second.
The two that fell to the ground earlier recover and regroup with the others, a male and female pair. All five of them are breathing heavily and injured in some way or the other. The younger-looking of the two females casts some kind of treasure and it starts to recover their injuries in green light rather rapidly.
The others watch the man in front of them with anticipation, only to see him disappear, all but the healer turn around to see him performing a quick hand seal and lightning being cast out of his hands like a thunderstorm. It's incredibly fast and only one of the males manages to erect a protection treasure around them.
The lightning touches the barrier and it instantly melts the parts it touches and targets the healer, circumventing the others with precise control. The healer is pushed aside by the other female who starts chanting something before her body glows a rainbow colour and drawing the lighting towards her own body like a magnet.
When the lighting touches the rainbow glow it transforms the lighting into a part of itself. Madara takes his hands away quickly and stops his Jutsu, his hands smouldering from the sudden change, it even multiplied the power.
When he looks back up, the lighting that already left his hands is directly in front of him. Holding out his hand, his eyes shift into the Rinnegan and begin to glow. "「Almighty Push」" After those words exit his mouth, a white bright light blinds the lands and the vision of all insight.
The light dissipates a moment later to reveal a devastating crater. Not only was the lightning blown away, but the remains of their barrier and that inside were also hit heavily as well. Down below, a large piece of rubble the size of a city is tossed aside. The same woman that was chanting away had somehow protected everyone.
Although she looks a bit worn out, her eyes shine with ferocity, and those same eyes are reflected in those she protected. "This man is fast and powerful Senior, I had no idea the lower realm had fighters on this magnitude." The man that had been damaged the worst clutches his wound on his arm that hadn't healed all the way yet.
"He's also pretty skilled, I've never fought someone like this, he doesn't seem like us at all." The younger woman chimes in before turning her head to examine the injuries with just a glance. "Can everyone keep fighting?"
She receives some silent nods but with another glance, her eyes widen. "Where is Ninth Brother?!" Everyone glances around them and reach out with their divine sense. One of them spots a hole in the ground that looks like someone was dragged into it, a smattering of blood on the fringes.
"No way, we didn't even hear it." One of them says as they all collectively watch their following steps.
The more masculine of the men - with muscles barely concealed by his robes - shake his head. "Of course we wouldn't notice, we were too distracted being planted into the ground like weeds." He spits on the ground before turning to the eldest of their group. "Fourth Sister, I do hope you have a plan?"
Without looking at the man, she responds while fiddling with some sort of cracked object that is in some way responsible for their survival. "Our opponent is too fast to catch with our attacks and he seems to prefer physical hit-and-run style attacks... "
Before she can continue, Madara appears in between them, his long katana posed across his body.
With a twist, his blade comes around in a large ark, removing the head of the younger female instantly and nearly decapitating the rest on them if not for the fourth sister who takes the cracked orb into her hand and pushes away the rest with a wave of her sleeve.
After that, a blade flows out of her long sleeves and connects with the jade katana, the small blade is nearly cut in half, but it is enough to stop it for a moment, a moment she takes advantage of by smashing the orb in her other hand into the side, destroying both blades and the orb in a small flash of light.
He almost looks shocked as he stares at the broken katana before tossing it at one of them and slapping his hands together, but the words "Stop" is spoken behind him in that instant and his body can no longer move, the broken sword has also been stopped. Wide-eyed, he tries to struggle free with physical force.
The fourth sister looks towards the man with the injury on his arm with a smile as she takes off into the sky. Nodding in return, he stays on the ground as the other follows. They all seem to get the idea of the plan, although they don't typically fight together, coordinating is proving surprisingly easy between former enemies.
In the sky, the masculine man channels his origin energy into his fourth sister as they enter a formation in the sky directly above. Meanwhile, Madara struggles to escape, he can see countless string tightly wrapped around his body with the Rinnegan but he can't break them with physical force.
He can tell that someone stayed with him on the ground. Why is pretty obvious and so is their plan. It just hasn't been easy for a clone such as himself to fight opponents of this calibre. Frankly, he's outclassed, he's nearly out of chakra as is and his abilities are limited in this form.
The only thing that hasn't been frozen is the energy within him, chakra is a foreign element to cultivators, so although even Qi - if he had any in his clone body - would have been frozen as well, it could never freeze his chakra.
His remaining chakra expands out and surrounds the man without notice. He doesn't have much time, but in order to kill the body and soul of a cultivator with just chakra, he needs to collect enough nature energy and strike hard, infiltrating the body to destroy their origin soul at the same time.
The man on the ground smiles as he focuses on holding the struggling enemy as his fellow cultivators prepare a finishing attack. The spell he's using is a spell his master gifted him, it's utility is undeniable, but he's shocked that he's able to hold him for...
Suddenly, the man finds his vision twist in reverse, his body cold. Before he can even recognise what happened, his origin soul is destroyed and he falls dead, his head rolling away from his body. The spell weakens and he breaks free but not before a large barrier falls down all around him.
A special barrier that cuts off the connection to the outside. "Die!" A male voice rings through the light descending from above. He doesn't have very much chakra left to deal with the coming attack, still, he musters up what he can and reabsorbed the surrounding energy.
Holding his hand up, red particles condense in the area in front of his palm, condensing a red Tailed Beast Bomb into existence that grows twice his body size before shooting upward in a large beam. The incoming doom matches his attack and a standstill takes place for but a moment.
The weight from above causes his knees to wobble, his other hand coming up to channel more chakra into the beam steadies himself. It's still not enough, the pressure grows stronger. His the beam crackles in failure before dissipating into residual red particle as the white light above descends freely.
His hair wraps around his body and the earth beneath him forms a cocoon around that, fortified with his remaining chakra, even a planet could smash on top and not even scratch it, but the light tears both layers of defence instantly.
In the white world, he now resides in, his teeth clench as he bears the remaining power of the attack, it takes everything he has to keep from dispersing, luckily he's a six path enhanced clone otherwise he'd be done for already.
The two above watch their attack about to come to an end, their killing formation a perfect success, although three of their fellow disciples passed away in the battle, it was a necessary sacrifice that neither of them will shed a tear over, in fact, one of them will rise in rank because of it.
The fourth sister, on the other hand - being the strongest present - has nothing to gain from their death, except fewer challenges every decade.
The barrier cracks open and her eyes widen when she spots a damaged figure still standing but his clothes torn apart beyond recognition, his well-defined upper body completely exposed while he looks up defiantly. "That's not possible..." The scratchy voice of the man next to her says in shock.
Even she is surprised, that formation is nothing to laugh at. When challenging the third disciple - one of the original three disciples - she was once complimented on it for it's killing power, although ultimately it didn't work on the third disciple, hence she's still the fourth and most valued outside of those three.
Still, with a wave of her hand, green wisps exit the sleeves of her robes and turn halfway into chains but still maintaining a misty form. She is not lacking in remaining strength and by the looks of it, the man below is barely hanging on by a thread. This will be over soon.
With the barrier gone, Madara can regain some of his strength, but his opponents aren't going to let him do that from the looks of things. If he falls here, it will be a major loss and worse is his original self won't learn about what has transpired in his absence until much later.
The woman above suddenly raises her hand and points towards the sky. The misty chains climb into the clouds and attach themselves to the clouds. A disturbance churns the clouds. His calve muscles bulge before he takes off into the sky, heading directly towards the two to fight to the death.
Along the border of Northern Fire Temple Sect, deep within a particular volcano, a man is tossed to the side on the still burning volcanic rock, his eyes ashen and grey, his skin slowly burning away. A black shoe steps before the corpse and looks down at the corpse with a concerned expression.
This man is, of course, the original Madara. The body before him, the former Seventh Disciple Gong, he caught him by surprise and killed instantly. There was no need to play around this time because if this was the person giving him that sense of danger, he'd at the least be able to survive a sneak attack.
He learned the location he wanted but at this moment that wasn't something that even crossed his mind. "What is Dai's real identity." This question exists his lips to no one but himself. It's clear that Dai's real identify is far more important than he originally thought.
Someone so important like the seventh disciple, one of the sixteen that control this entire realm filled with cultivators of immense power, has been tasked with ensuring that a lower realm human is never able to cultivate, not through just this lifetime, but through hundreds of reincarnations.
What reason would there be for the realm lord himself to order his people to target this one individual? What threat does Dai - a cultivator not even in the second step of cultivation - possibly pose to justify scouring the Earth each reincarnation cycle for just one insignificant and mortal man.
This changes things, he's done something that is unforgivable likely. The one who is never supposed to be allowed to cultivate has been given a path to cultivate, one that he felt was blocked as soon as he did, but never expected the root of that reason to be so deep.
The memories are in truth, untelling of the reason, the seventh disciple before him - a burning crisp at this point - has been completing this task for thousands of years without questioning why. That kind of unwavering loyalty is shocking to witness, but the man's master did treat him well.
As he seals the remains of the body away into a sealing scroll, he holds a little fireball that blazes with power before putting that away with it. "Natural law, an essence, a domain, so many little intricacies in cultivation, truly a beautiful form of power."
Chakra is far more simplistic, his powers, although strong, are crude and easier to obtain, cultivation seems to be a path against natural law itself, against heaven so to say. Each person he reads memories from, however small and fragmented they are, he finds himself growing fascinated by how it all works.
Because he can see how hard these people worked to achieve their level of cultivation, he can peer into the life and death situations they faced, see enemies fall before them as they climb up and grow stronger for the sake of challenging heaven and standing above everything.
The many different paths each individual will take is wonderfully refreshing. Taking a large breath of the hot and sulfuric air into his lungs, he gathers his thoughts. Dai's cultivation that was given to him seems to have been overlooked because the seventh disciple already reported as such, but was in truth neglecting his duty.
Gong didn't personally handle anything, he left it to the lower realm cultivators, but Madara knows that someone who places such importance on Dai wouldn't just task one individual to watch that person, but more. Dai's cultivation has probably been discovered, which would mean he's already dead.
Or, being the pragmatic man that the realm lord seems to be, will bring Dai to himself to find out how he's able to cultivate before either crippling him again or killing him outright to wait for another reincarnation. "It's certainly interesting, but it doesn't matter to me if he dies."
He puts it to the back of his mind and leaves. He isn't unaware of what could happen though, the ones who will retrieve or kill Dai will be powerful cultivators, they shouldn't have a reason to mess with his clone unless, for some reason, Dai ended up travelling together with his clone. That idea is highly improbable.
His clone should be near the Divine Tree at this point, he should have already established visual on Kaguya and Hagoromo. While Dai should be in Glacier Fate City. watching the family he was with as he ordered him to do before he left. Still, his feelings of anxiety didn't lessen as he travels.
What ifs constantly appear in the back of his mind as he prepares for every scenario, at the same time, he prepares himself for combat on a level he hasn't experienced. His destination is clear, the large pipes protruding from the walls all lead to one location and at this moment, a song starts playing.
A terribly dark song, one filled with dread and anxiety. The one playing it is expressing his emotions masterfully with each note as it travels monumental distances and reaches trillions of ears, many of which have grown accustomed to the music and hum away with it.
He can fill the Qi in his body go out of control, boiling and trying to break away at the core at his centre, but failing to do so because of his infection repairing it. The song itself helps those it reaches cultivate, the close one gets the stronger the effects.
His Rinnegan eyes look into the endless distance and for the abrupt and briefest moments, he can almost see two golden eyes staring back at him, the eyes portray calm and indifferent patience as if they expect him but could not care less. A chill runs down his spine and he swallows the non-existence saliva in his mouth.
Madara isn't a fearful man, but when the eyes vanish, he finds that he was holding his breath and even sweating a little. However, he doesn't stop, instead, his speed increases considerably. That brief feeling of terror lights the burning fighting spirit within. A smile creeping on the fringes.
Whether the eyes were an illusion created by fear or not, remains unknown. But deep within the realm, at the central location of all the pipes, next to a cliff with a cave at the back of it, stands a woman looking out into the horizon with indifferent golden eyes.
She felt a gaze land on her a moment ago, but cannot see from what. The keys to the organ behind her are hit and the sound sakes the surrounding lands. The ornamental piece on her head has attached to it, a silk cloak that drifts in the wind and perfects her beauty.
This woman can be said to be transcendent beauty beyond anything that exists in the two realms. Her long black hair and golden eyes with a white cloak and robes create stunning contrast. Her feminine form is tightly wrapped in the robes of the finest material and splits at her waist to reveal her powerful thighs.
The woman turns towards the cave slightly. "Something bad is about to happen." Her words are like silk to the ears, wisdom-filled and delicate.
The person inside the cave doesn't stop playing his music but doesn't wait to respond. "Countless millions of years ago, I fought against heaven, but now I feel like heaven, when will someone defeat heaven." His voice overcomes the music with majestic power but its tone is so lonely it's hard to describe.
The woman frowns and turns back the horizon. "Can heaven be defeated..." She murmurs to herself. With a sigh, she steps off the cliff and falls down to do some reading in the library within the heaven-root sect, the sect master being the realm lord himself. Its library is massive, even she hasn't read all of it.
That feeling of something bad about to happen is hard to quell. As the first disciple, her position is often challenged, but she is the strongest and has been around for a very long time. Sometimes she thinks about the world she left, the reason they left has become less important as each aeon passes by.
Peace settles as the night takes over, not many people sleep, but the cultivators within the sect walls all keep themselves busy trying to grow stronger for a reason she can barely remember anymore. Her master is not the person he once was, but neither is she. Have they become heaven in the passing of time?
Madara: A New Journey