Notes: I know this chapter will conflict with what supposedly happened between Madara and Hashirama, but it wouldn't be the first time the manga made one of my stories "wrong" because of info released at a later date. Although I will say that AT THE TIME I started this story, the info was more or less supposedly correct. If I can ignore it, so can you. I'm sure we've both had plenty of practice by now, anyway.
Return of the M.A.D.
A Naruto Fanfic by
Nate Grey (xman0123-at-aol-dot-com)
Part 2: Battle of the End
Since Izuna's death, Madara found himself trapped inside of a living nightmare.
Of course the clan noticed when one of its most prominent members had vanished. Madara had been so lost in his grief that he hadn't spoken to anyone for days. But when he had explained the situation, the reaction he got was both startling and unwelcome.
They suspected HIM of intentionally murdering Izuna. They didn't say it aloud, but they didn't have to. Madara hadn't lived as long as he had without learning to read a man that was plotting. And his kinsmen, the very people he'd trained beside and formed into a powerful clan, were plotting against him.
He told himself that it was loyalty to Izuna that made them question him, and for that, Madara was willing to forgive them. No one challenged his right to rule, at least, so there was uneasy peace, but peace nonetheless.
But the clan's suspicion never completely went away, and several of the more popular Uchiha began to step forward and demand more responsibility in the daily running of the clan. At first it was only tasks that Izuna had covered, so Madara allowed them more power. Then they asked for some of Madara's own duties, and still he allowed them some leeway.
It was only when talk of replacing him entirely arose that Madara drew the line. He called a meeting of the Uchiha council, stated that HE was the sole leader of the clan, and that anyone who thought differently could challenge him for the right to rule, in a battle to the death. It was not cruel or extreme, because the clan leader had to be willing to give his life, for the good of the Uchiha.
One challenger came forward, and Madara defeated him with no trouble. No one questioned his role... for the moment.
Then came Senju Hashirama with his proposal for founding a ninja village. He had come seeking the region's most powerful ninja, and Madara was at the top of the list. At first, Madara had dismissed the idea outright. He was having a hard enough time maintaining control of the clan, and a village would only give them more allies to rebel against him with.
As it turned out, the man who would become the Shodai Hokage was far more clever than he looked. When Madara continually refused to discuss the village with him, he asked for a seemingly innocent sparring match, just to show that he was, if nothing else, nearly as powerful as Madara. It was a bad idea all around: if Madara lost, he would lose respect with the clan, and if he won, it would display more of the power that the clan already feared.
To Madara's amazement, Hashirama was his equal in nearly every aspect. He was a patient, serious man, with a disarmingly polite nature and an easy smile. It was like seeing Izuna alive all over again. Madara's resolve had weakened the next time Hashirama asked him to join the village, but there were still particulars that Madara could not agree to. One was how much power the Hokage would wield, and another was that the Uchiha would be seen as equal to several other clans, including the Hyuuga. Madara wanted better for his clan, and thought that they understood that.
What the Uchiha understood, apparently, was that Madara was in their way. They went behind his back, accepted Hashirama's offer, and joined Konoha. Madara, naturally, was furious. But he kept his peace, and gave no outward sign that the unexpected move bothered him. And from all appearances, Hashirama had no idea what had occurred, so Madara didn't blame him for the betrayal.
Still, the problems that Madara had foreseen arose. The Hokage had no real power over the inner workings of clans, but at the same time, he could restrict them in ways that were far more damaging, so long as he could prove they negatively impacted the village as a whole. For example, the Hyuuga had demanded many concessions, and one was that they be allowed to place certain restrictions upon their members, and exercise the freedom to create, maintain, and conceal their own clan seals.
It was no real secret that the Uchiha had a bloody history with the Hyuuga, or that many Hyuuga saw the Uchiha as sub-human or lower-class ninja. The Hyuuga had always publicly denied having any connection to the Uchiha.
But when a dead Uchiha turned up one day with chakra burns that matched the Gentle Fist style perfectly, the Hyuuga defended themselves by claiming it was an internal matter, as Uchiha were nothing but "watered-down Hyuuga" to begin with.
The Uchiha were livid, and demanded that Madara, as clan leader, respond accordingly. And with their betrayal fresh in his mind, Madara did. He offered not only a public apology to the Hyuuga leaders, but the body of the slain Uchiha for research purposes. As if that wasn't enough, Madara also agreed that any Uchiha caught on Hyuuga land without their permission should be killed on sight. Even the Hyuuga were shocked by such generosity, but they quickly accepted Madara's terms, knowing there might never be a better offer.
Madara knew exactly what he had done, though. The Hyuuga would learn a great deal from studying an Uchiha corpse. But ultimately, one dead Uchiha that hadn't actually been killed by another Uchiha would teach them nothing of his clan's greatest weapon, the Mangekyou Sharingan. The Hyuuga could have ten Uchiha corpses a year, if it would keep them quiet, as far as he was concerned. He'd long since stopped thinking of himself as part of the clan, and more importantly, no longer thought of the clan as being part of him.
He expected some form of retribution from the clan, as betrayal was an old trick for the Uchiha. But Madara had been awaiting the day his clan would turn on him, and he had an ace up his sleeve unlike any other. What he did not count on was that the clan would turn their personal grudge into a matter that threatened the entire village, which would force the Hokage to act in their favor.
The title of Hokage was not just one of honor, but of sacrifice. Every day, men, women, and children lived or died by his decisions, whether he intended them to or not. Senju Hashirama had learned that the hard way, but it was a burden that he didn't dare give to anyone else, for fear of what they might do with such power.
But Hokage was not an eternal task, and some day, it would pass to another. The Shodai had hoped that his close friend, Uchiha Madara, might be the Nidaime. But if the stories the Uchiha Clan had told him were true, that would never be. For tonight was the night that the Shodai raced out to face Madara, in what would surely be a battle to the death. The crimes against clan and country, if true, were too numerous and heinous to allow to go unpunished. And Madara had long since passed the point where things such as jail time, loss of finances, seizure of property, or even loss of rank could scathe him. Madara was an army unto himself, even before the Uchiha joined Konoha. If he so desired, he could challenge for the title of Hokage, and win by sheer force alone. His was the kind of power that people would follow with little coercion, either out of respect or fear.
The further the Shodai traveled from the village, the more worried he grew. Madara had once had such pride in being an Uchiha. If he had removed himself from both the clan and the village, it would be difficult to convince anyone of his innocence. Hashirama desperately wanted to believe his friend was innocent, but it just didn't seem likely anymore.
It was then that he felt the first wave of demonic chakra, so foul and powerful that the Shodai fell to his knees, fighting with everything he had to keep from being violently ill. As the first and only Mokuton user, he was especially sensitive to anything that had a major impact on the environment. It would be incredibly dangerous to proceed any further without proper protection. Fortunately, nature had provided him with that, too.
Taking a deep breath, the Shodai placed his hand against a nearby tree. "Mokuton: Kuchiyose: Yuurin Kyuusaisha!"
The ground before him shook and split open, revealing an enormous brown bear. Its left eye was blank and sunken deep in a large patch of pink scar tissue, but the right one locked on him at once, dark blue and unwavering. "You were a boy when you first managed to summon me, Senju. I warned you then that if you did so again, we would not be well met."
The Shodai knelt down and bowed his head. "Please forgive me, Artio-sama. But my home, no, this entire land of ours, is in grave danger. I know that you can sense the evil threatening to consume it."
"Indeed," Artio agreed slowly, turning her great head in the direction of the foul chakra. "This is the day that I have long feared. We will face this evil together, Senju. But after this battle, our contract will be at an end. Upon my death, my right to rule will pass on to my sons. None of them will ever forgive you for summoning me for this fight. Do you understand?"
"I do," the Hokage said gravely. "No words can express my gratitude."
"Then don't bother. Come."
A thick moss trail instantly sprouted in Artio's fur, allowing the Shodai to climb onto her back. He had barely settled when she lurched forward, covering miles in mere seconds, and stopping just as abruptly.
They now stood directly in front of the source of the dark chakra, and any hope Hashirama had of surviving the encounter began to dwindle.
Madara was standing in the middle of a colossal seal he'd drawn on the ground. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like an enormous copy of his Mangekyou Sharingan. The Shodai had no idea what the seal's purpose was, but he could tell right away that the demonic chakra was escaping from it.
"You're here at the request of my so-called clan, aren't you?" Madara asked calmly. "I have no doubt that they've provided you with a long list of offenses, Hashirama. So just tell me this: do you believe me to be any different from the day your first met me?"
"No," the Shodai replied. "I believed then that you were a ninja with pride in his clan, and I believe that now. But while you haven't changed, your clan has, and you can no longer recognize them as they once were. Believe me, I've experienced the same with my own clan. But where we differ is that I chose to adapt. It is my job as Hokage to change in whatever way is best for the village. I had hoped you would realize this on your own, Madara."
"And if my clan is wrong?" Madara demanded. "Should I willingly embrace their mistakes, and accept them as truth?"
"You don't have to, old friend. Come back to the village with me. If you like, you can officially part ways with the clan. There will still be a place-"
"You would exile me from the Uchiha?" Madara laughed bitterly.
Hashirama frowned. "Haven't you done that already?"
"I have," Madara agreed with a smile. "But I suppose I should stop pretending. This isn't about the clan, or the village, not really. It's about power."
"You have power."
"Yet I'm not Hokage, am I?" Madara asked. "No, don't say we've talked about this already. I don't mean it in the way that you do. I want the power of Hokage, the fear and respect that it gives. I couldn't care less about the people."
"Then you'll never be Hokage!"
"Oh? And if I bring your head back to the village, do you really think they could refuse anything I demanded?"
Hashirama narrowed his eyes. "Madara, you don't realize what you're saying."
"It's nothing personal, Hashirama. You were good to my clan. You were honest with me. You... are so much like Izuna. If you were anyone else, it wouldn't have come to this. I would've asked you to join me... but you had to be Hokage. You had to be in my way. And so, I have to do this. I will apologize to your brother, after you're dead. I won't pretend not to enjoy this, though: I've wanted to go all-out with you for the longest time!"
Madara began the battle in the simplest way.
He blinked.
The seal around him burst into flames, a circle of orange that quickly turned black. And then, in the space of a second, the Kyuubi no Youko was thrust fully into the world, answering Madara's invitation for one reason, and one reason only: the promise of battle, blood, and destruction.
The moment that the demon fox emerged from the seal, the Shodai Hokage knew that there would be no avoiding the fight any longer. Not for a creature whose sole purpose was to obliterate everything in its path. It would take everything that Hashirama had to stop this madness.
And in the end, he was fully aware that his all might only slow it down.
He had to bet everything on the idea that Madara was Kyuubi's anchor to this world, that if Madara were defeated, the demon fox would be pulled back into the hellish world it had come from. In short, he was praying that the Kyuubi would function like any normal summon.
On the other hand, hoping that the demon fox was in any way normal was madness itself.
The battle dragged on for hours.
Madara had the advantage from the start. Most of the work had been just summoning the demon fox there. Controlling it was no small feat, but Madara didn't even have to do much of that. Kyuubi was centuries old, and had probably forgotten more about killing than Madara had ever known. Occasionally Madara would add a Katon jutsu here and there, all of which were intensified just by Kyuubi's presence. But for the most part, the Uchiha stood back and let the fox control the pace of the battle.
Hashirama was forced into defense right away. At first, he had been concerned that Kyuubi might ignore him in favor of trying to reach the village. But the truth was that the demon fox wanted to fight him, just as much as he wanted to stop it. There was, however, little point in attacking Kyuubi, anyway. No matter how thick they were, or how much chakra they might contain, a branch was still fundamentally a branch, and while some took longer to burn, in the end, they all did burn. The Shodai could produce tree limbs that were fast enough and thick enough to pierce through Kyuubi's flaming aura and reach the fox's actual body, but the damage was minimal, and the enormous drain on his chakra simply wasn't worth it.
Artio was the real difference maker. Her one good eye was able to spot the attacks that both of Hashirama's missed, and the tree limbs she produced to counter were much slower to burn. She drew her power from the earth itself, and so as long as the battle didn't move to the air, she would not go down. But the earth had its own limits: the ground beneath them was gradually being sapped of its vitality. Kyuubi's wildly thrashing tails did no one any favors when they randomly struck the ground in frustration. If the battle lasted long enough, the earth would collapse beneath them, and if only for a few crucial seconds, Artio's strength would wane.
At the same time, the Shodai would be provided with the opening he so desperately needed. At the very least, the seal that had allowed Kyuubi passage into this world would be destroyed. In the best case scenario, Hashirama would be able to strike Madara directly, hopefully severing all of Kyuubi's ties to the world.
The chance came sooner than the Shodai had expected. In a fit of rage at being denied his prey, two of Kyuubi's tails drilled in the earth and tore open a wide trench, hoping to bury both of his foes at once. The ground began to shake violently, and then the trench became a gaping wound in the earth that threatened to swallow them all.
"Mokuton: Daijurin no Jutsu!" Hashirama roared as he fell. He whipped his right arm forward, pouring his chakra into the technique. For a long instant, nothing happened. Then his entire arm became a grasping tree limb, stretching the entire distance of the growing chasm and latching onto Madara's head. With the last of his strength, the Shodai Hokage drove the Uchiha headfirst through every falling obstacle within reach, only releasing him when Madara's head impacted a large rock with a sickening thud.
The Hokage's eyes began to drift shut as exhaustion finally defeated him. The last thing he saw was Madara's limp body, just as it vanished in an errant swipe of one of Kyuubi's tails.
The next day, Madara's body was found floating in a river.
This was odd for several reasons.
There simply hadn't BEEN a river there the day before, for one thing.
Next, and far more noticeable, Madara's armor was slightly charred and smoking, despite being soaked. Someone with a grudge had gone through a great deal of trouble to make sure that he was burned, and used a rather persistent type flame to do it.
In addition, Madara's face, once thought of as very striking, was still that, but for an entirely different reason. Somewhere, between the deep scratches, impacting rocks, and near-fatal burns, his face had become little more than a mess of brown, wrinkly scar tissue. From a distance, it could be (and was) mistaken for an unassuming rock, perfect for an unassuming duck to perch upon.
This was, in fact, Madara's second encounter with these particular ducks, and once again, he was completely unaware of it.
The ducks were usually not inclined to be so benevolent, but the discovery of Madara had gone something like this:
"DAMN, Goldie! You messed up the poor bastard's face that bad just by SITTING on it?!"
"Least we can do is take him to a village, so he can die on a futon or something."
"Yeah, but no witnesses, boys! Nobody's gonna pin this bum's bum rap on the Mighty Summon Ducks!"
A week later, an unknown man turned up in the Hidden Mist Village. He was half-dead, unconscious, and surrounded by a few white feathers. Coincidentally enough, he looked nothing like the missing Uchiha Madara, who Konoha was desperate to find for various reasons. Any identifying armor he might have been wearing was removed before his arrival, possibly just to make him a lighter burden to carry.
The general rule for such matters was to hold off any decisions until the man woke up. There was no point in throwing away or killing a potential shinobi, after all. If he could fight, there would be a place for him.
Next Chapter: Mizukage
Madara's lust for power brings him to new heights, and soon after, new lows.
Endnotes:
Artio is named after the Celtic bear goddess.
Mokuton: Kuchiyose: Yuurin Kyuusaisha: (Wood Release: Summoning: Deep Forest Savior)
Summons Artio, the Bear boss.
Mokuton: Daijurin no Jutsu (Wood Release: Great Forest Technique)
A technique that changes one's own arm into big trees. Using chakra, the tissues are transformed into trees at the cellular level. Then, by activating the trees, stimulating them to grow rapidly, they lengthen at high speed and fork into many branches. It is possible to capture the enemy with these branches and at the same time, if one changes the ends into sharp stakes, turn them into countless, sharp, spear-like piercing weapons.