Obito-Sensei Chapter 86

Beyond Frost: His Own Prisoner

Though he wouldn't know it until later, Obito Uchiha was descending into Naka Shrine at precisely the same time a calamity was descending on the Land of Frost.

There was a sixth sense prickling at him, but he ignored it; over the last day, his eye had been buzzing constantly, burning his whole body with boiling chakra that raced from the base of his skull to the tips of his fingers and toes and back again. He felt swollen and sore and eager, like a runner ready to sprint forward at any second.

It had been the same way when Kakashi died: the burning feeling, the overwhelming sensation of power. His eye was on the verge of awakening, which wasn't a term his clan used lightly. Chakra was composed of physical and spiritual energy, and the Mangekyo Sharingan was a wellspring of the latter. In every Uchiha he'd seen it awakened in, including himself, there had been a corresponding increase in power, precision, and chakra capacity.

It hadn't been like this when he'd taken his brother's eye. In the midst of the feverish haze his body was suffering, Obito couldn't help but think it was because it hadn't been paired. Now, both eyes were undergoing a second awakening, and his body was tearing itself apart trying to contain it.

But none of that was why he was here. Obito took the steps carefully, one at a time, and eventually was deposited at the bottom of the shrine. Ahead of him, Mikoto moved with much less care; she didn't have a fever. She passed into the hidden chamber without ceremony and came to a stop, waiting for him.

Madara Uchiha was right where they had last left him, propped up in a plastic folding chair and staring at the ground, unmoving, unbreathing, a lifeless corpse. Even though Obito knew it would happen, it didn't creep him out any less when the body looked up at them.

"You've returned," Madara rasped. "What brings you down here today?"

"Good news," Obito said mirthlessly. "You can die now."

Madara leaned back, his head lolling as his hair brushed against the chair with a soft sound. "You're mistaken," he said after a long moment. "Orochimaru is still alive. I can feel it."

"That's very possible, ancestor," Mikoto said, her tone far more respectful than Obito's. He couldn't decide if that was justified or not: after what Madara had done, what he'd allowed to happen to Itachi, Obito couldn't feel an ounce of respect for the man. But Mikoto was more closely related to him, and more traditional besides. He couldn't begrudge her a bit of formality. "But there is no chance he will be able to reanimate you again. Sasuke fought Orochimaru, and with assistance defeated him. He wasn't killed, but he is incapacitated."

"How," Madara said bluntly. "I have no wish to experience this humiliation more than once." He took a second to ponder. "Though I do not know if I would recall this experience…"

"He turned into a tree," Obito said, just as bluntly. Madara stopped, and it felt like the room shrank, bringing them face to face even though neither of them had taken a step. His presence was just that intense. "I'm sure because of his experiments on the First Hokage. But it was a tree covered in Sharingan."

"Disgusting," Madara said succinctly. "So, a living tree then. He combined the power of Uchiha and Senju, and suffered for it. That is the presence I feel, despite the shattered contract." He hummed to himself, a low sound like the earth cracking, and then slowly nodded. "That is sufficient then. I will undo the jutsu. May we never meet again."

As he raised his trembling hands into a seal, Obito spoke.

"Wait."

Madara paused, empty sockets peeking up at him through bedraggled hair.

"Do not delay me, Obito," he bit out. "This existence is agony. I will be glad to leave it."

"I don't exactly want you sticking around," Obito retorted. "But I've been doing some digging since we started talking. Looking into the Tailed Beasts, your experiments, all sorts of stuff. You've sent me down a rabbit hole I can't find the bottom of."

"That is not my problem. Be content with your limited knowledge, if it pains you so," Madara ground out. "The world is full of mysteries, most never to be solved."

"Sure," Obito said. "But I've got one last question for you before you crawl back into hell."

He waited, sure that Madara's arrogance wouldn't allow him to depart without a final chance to lord his accumulated knowledge over anyone. Mikoto patiently stood to the side, watching her ancestor with curiosity: she hadn't been here for Madara's talk with the Hokage, Obito thought, which was probably for the best. She didn't know it, but Mikoto's ideals were probably most closely aligned with Madara's out of anyone alive.

"Ask it then, whelp," Madara eventually managed, his hands not shifting from their half-seal. Obito crossed his arms, feeling his half-awakened eye burning behind its patch with ever-escalating fervor.

"Black Zetsu," he said. "Your shadow, your Will, whatever you want to call it. You said that you 'awoke your soul.' That your shadow came to life and started to speak to you. Did you make that happen, or was it automatic?"

Madara took a long time to respond. "It was not my conscious desire," he eventually decided. "But it was likely my unconscious will: I had need for a servant, and my shadow became one. The purpose was clear." The hand seal firmed. "That is all."

"That's not all," Obito said coldly. His fever had to be boiling his brain: things were melting together in a nightmarish sludge, but everything he'd been told over the last several weeks lay before him like a shogi game. He was terrible at the game, but in his manic state, the state of the board was suddenly obvious to him.

"You said that after forming the village with the Shodai, all the sacrifices you made to create it, its hypocrisy was suddenly too much for you. That it wasn't perfect, so you had to break away. Even try to destroy it, so that people wouldn't try to replicate it. That was why you took the Kyuubi and turned it on the Hokage, and it was right after you learned about the Infinite Tsukuyomi, wasn't it?"

"Do not recite my own history to me," Madara growled, and Obito felt a sense of threat despite the decades of infirmity keeping the corpse pinned to its chair. He ignored it.

"It was a sudden and destructive change in behavior that baffled everyone who knew you," he said, a sneer curling his lips. "Just like my cousin's."

He walked forward, leaning down until he was actually face to face with the corpse. "Itachi was snared by a shadow, Madara. Sasuke was right, one-hundred percent. But since we spoke to you, did you ever once consider the same might have happened to you?"

"My actions were my own," Madara said, his hands trembling in anger. "My Will was my own. And you-" He snarled, pointing at Obito, then Mikoto, then straight up, "all of you have inherited it, shadow or not. You have seen the truths I've spoken, felt their necessity. Where are your students now, Obito? Are they safe? Or is the world preparing to take them from you?" He reached up, so frail his fingers looked like they would snap off, and Obito didn't back away when he seized his collar and tried to pull him in closer. "They are ninja in a war. War will burn away and consume all that you love. The Bijuu, the Sage, our clan: they are history that paints a picture of salvation. The steps were left for us to end this failed experiment."

"They're not ancient history," Obito said, so matter of fact that it couldn't help but be cruel. "They're living history. And I don't care about the Sage's experiment one way or another. It's not what matters." He pulled away, and Madara's strength failed, leaving him grasping at air. "There's something else out there. I don't know what it is, but there have been things moving around in the darkness for hundreds, thousands of years now. Your shadow, the Tailed Beasts, the Shinju, Princess Kaguya, it's all connected and it's still here."

Madara sank back, glaring up at Obito eyelessly, and Obito scowled. "You might have had a grand plan, Madara, but I think whatever's got hold of Itachi had done this before. I think that the Shadow has been stalking us all for longer than we can imagine. So before you go, is there a single thing you can offer us to help clean up your mistakes?"

Madara stared for a long time, nearly two minutes. Eventually, his hands came back up into the release seal, still trembling. To the side, Mikoto shifted, her lips pursed.

"There's no hope for you," he said as Obito stared down at him, somehow disappointed even if he hadn't expected any better. "I can feel your burgeoning power, Obito, but you will misuse it. You will be like your teacher; a man too terrified of himself to save the world." He completed the seal, and a gale whipped across the room, tearing away at Madara's parchment-like skin and starting his swift disintegration.

"I won't accept your regrets when we meet again."

Then Madara Uchiha was gone. A corpse toppled out of the pile of ash, knocking the chair over and falling to the concrete floor with a dull thwack. Obito stared down at it: it was a young man, no one he recognized. Doubtlessly someone Orochimaru had kidnapped and murdered to serve as Madara's host.

He gently bent down and picked up the body, hoisting it over his shoulder and he turned to Mikoto. "Sorry," he said. "I don't know if you had anything to say to him."

Mikoto smiled, if somewhat sadly. "His time was long past," she said. "I had nothing to say that I hadn't already." She paused. "But what you told him about his Will… you believe that, don't you Obito? From the investigation you've been doing?"

"I do," Obito said firmly, feeling like his bones were jello but steadfastly moving towards the exit. Mikoto fell in step beside him, moving to support the body he was carrying. "Something has been playing games with our clan. That Stone…" he glanced back at it, all the way across the chamber. "The legend says we got it from the Sage. But if he really left the Bijuu behind to continue his plan, gave them those instructions on his deathbed… why would he give one of his son's descendents the key to ruining it all? And only one, not the other? The Senju don't have anything like that: I checked with Tsunade." He blew out a breath as they mounted the stairs, not caring to analyze Mikoto's disbelieving expression. "It's not like Indra and Asura are around to ask… anyone could have gifted the clan that thing."

"But for what purpose?" Mikoto asked, her brow furrowed. "Promising a paradise would push the clan to action, I suppose, but…" She trailed off, the enormity of the conspiracy breaking over her, and Obito grimaced.

"Something's rotten in the world, and it's got Itachi in its grip," he said, climbing up out of the darkness with a corpse and more questions than answers. "I can see it clearer than ever. My eyes will awaken tonight, I think. So tomorrow, I'm going to the Land of Lightning. And once I'm done with them…"

Obito smiled.

"I'm going to grab that shadow and strangle some answers out of it."