Chapter 518: Questions for the Shadow (Patreon)

Hidden Cavern — Land of Frost

The wind followed Alaric through the opening.

Snow spun around his descending body, caught in the upward breath of heat rising from the cavern. His Vanguard coat spread behind him as he fell through the crimson darkness, its gold trim catching brief flashes from the chakra pulsing below.

Far beneath him, the incomplete Ten-Tails convulsed.

Its enormous body remained bound among roots and sealing pillars, though the shape no longer resembled the dormant Gedo Mazō Alaric had seen through his clone. Flesh shifted beneath pale skin. Protrusions forced themselves from its back before sinking into the unstable mass again. Its single eye remained closed, yet the lid twitched whenever another wave of chakra rolled through the chamber.

Stone cracked beneath the pressure.

The roots lining the walls tightened as if the mountain itself were attempting to hold the creature down.

Madara stood upon a raised platform near the Ten-Tails, one hand resting against his gunbai. The fractures left across his reanimated body during the Kage Summit had already repaired, leaving no trace of the blows Alaric had driven through him hours earlier.

Obito stood farther away.

His mask concealed his face, though the opening over his eye had already turned upward toward the falling figure. Space curled faintly around his right shoulder, the first instinctive preparation for Kamui beginning before he consciously restrained it.

Kabuto remained near a formation of sealing instruments.

The serpent wrapped around his waist lifted its head.

All three sensed Alaric before his boots reached the ground.

He did not hide his chakra anymore.

The suppression surrounding him loosened by a fraction.

Nothing visible changed.

No flames erupted. No Rinnegan technique distorted the cavern. No killing intent exploded through the mountain.

The air simply became heavier.

Dust that had been rising from the Ten-Tails' movements settled across the stone. Loose fragments along the chamber walls stopped trembling, pinned beneath a pressure that carried neither direction nor obvious source. The red chakra leaking from the incomplete beast bent around Alaric's descending body, forming a hollow space in the turbulence before he even reached it.

Kabuto's smile disappeared.

He had studied reports concerning Alaric Jonathan Kenway. Most contradicted one another so severely that Kabuto had once suspected Konoha had deliberately fabricated several versions of the same man.

A foreign shinobi with no documented clan.

A jōnin who rarely accepted ordinary missions.

A sealing master.

A wielder of Wood Release.

The man responsible for defeating reanimated versions of Hashirama Senju and Tobirama Senju.

The captor of Orochimaru.

The master of Haku Yuki, whose reputation had spread throughout the Elemental Nations beneath the name Ice Devil or Ice Demon.

Those reports had not conveyed the sensation now pressing through Kabuto's transformed body.

His Sage Mode perceived natural energy across the cavern, including the currents disturbed by the Ten-Tails' awakening. Around Alaric, those currents did not scatter… they yielded.

Kabuto's tongue pressed briefly against the back of his teeth.

Orochimaru had wanted this man's power and body.

That desire had been reasonable, but it had also been suicidal.

Alaric turned slightly in the air.

His descent slowed during the final few feet, and his boots touched the cavern floor without enough force to disturb the snowflakes following him down. They melted before reaching his shoulders, becoming thin beads of water that rolled over the black fabric.

He had landed between Madara and Obito.

Behind him, the Ten-Tails released a low vibration that passed through the stone and into his legs. The sound lacked the shape of a roar. It resembled an enormous heartbeat struggling to become a voice.

Alaric glanced over one shoulder.

"So that is what interrupted dinner."

The Ten-Tails convulsed again.

A cluster of roots snapped along its side, throwing splinters of dark wood across the chamber. Alaric did not move. The fragments slowed as they approached him, turned gently in the air, and fell around his boots.

Madara watched every piece descend.

His eyes had changed since the Kage Summit.

The Rinnegan remained the same. His posture still carried the complete assurance of a man who believed history itself had failed to provide him with an equal. Yet his attention no longer held the dismissive curiosity he had shown when Alaric first stepped before the Five Kage.

Hours earlier, Madara had treated him as another powerful shinobi whose techniques could be measured, understood, and crushed.

Then Alaric had defeated him.

The result had not ended Madara's existence. Edo Tensei ensured that damage remained temporary, and Obito's retreat had prevented the encounter from becoming the final battle either side intended. Still, Madara remembered the physical reality of being overpowered.

He remembered Wood Release responding to Alaric with none of Hashirama's familiar rhythm.

He remembered space folding around attacks that should have landed.

He remembered the calm expression Alaric wore while dismantling techniques that had once forced entire armies to retreat.

Most of all, he remembered the pressure beneath Alaric's restraint.

What filled the cavern now was still only a portion.

Madara's fingers tightened slightly around the handle of his gunbai.

"You found this location quickly."

Alaric raised a brow as he looked toward the Ghost of the Uchiha.

Their gazes met across the red-lit stone.

"You should improve your barriers."

"Impressive…" Obito's voice emerged from behind the mask. "You entered without breaking them."

"Yep..."

"How?"

"I walked through."

The eyes behind Obito's mask narrowed.

Alaric shifted his attention toward him, allowing a brief smile to touch his mouth.

"You left the Summit rather abruptly."

Obito remained still.

There was no need to mention that he had retreated after recognizing that the confrontation had turned against him. The memory existed between them already, sharpened by the fact that Alaric had reached their hidden base only hours later.

"I had no reason to remain," Obito said.

"Of course."

The answer carried no accusation. Alaric's mild tone made it worse.

Kabuto watched the exchange from beside the sealing formation. He could feel Madara's irritation beneath the reanimated chakra, while Obito's spatial distortion continued gathering around his body in small, controlled pulses.

Neither attacked.

That restraint told Kabuto more than any report.

Madara Uchiha did not hesitate before enemies he considered beneath him.

Obito did not remain visible when he believed disappearance offered an advantage.

Both men were waiting for Alaric to reveal what he intended.

Alaric looked around the cavern as though visiting an unfamiliar estate.

His gaze passed over the sealing pillars, underground roots, discarded instruments, and the channels carrying tailed-beast chakra into the incomplete Ten-Tails. He studied the restraint formulas for a moment, then looked toward the serpentine sage standing beside them.

Kabuto straightened.

"Yakushi Kabuto," Alaric said.

Kabuto's smile returned, narrower than before. "I should be honored that you know me."

"I know Orochimaru's scent."

The serpent at Kabuto's waist recoiled.

Kabuto's pupils contracted into thinner slits. "I have surpassed Lord Orochimaru."

"That is what people say when they inherit a dead man's habits."

"He is not dead."

"No." Alaric's eyes moved over him. "That is one of his more irritating habits."

Kabuto adjusted his glasses with one finger. The lenses reflected the cavern's red light, hiding his eyes for a moment.

"It's you, right? You defeated Lord Orochimaru."

"Yes."

"You captured him after overcoming the First and Second Hokage."

"Yes."

"You say those things very casually."

"They happened three years ago, very old news, Kabuto…"

Kabuto studied him.

His body contained fragments taken from Orochimaru, Jūgo, Karin, Suigetsu, and the Sound Five. Sage Mode sharpened every instinct. He could alter his flesh, shed fatal injuries, manipulate the environment through inorganic reincarnation, and summon an army of history's dead.

None of those abilities provided a comfortable answer to the man standing below him.

Alaric reached inside his coat.

'Movement!' Obito's Kamui activated at once.

His body began slipping from physical space while Madara's gunbai lifted a fraction from the stone.

Alaric withdrew the wrapped food Kushina had forced upon him.

He looked down at it and the movement around him stopped.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

Kabuto stared.

Alaric unfolded one corner of the cloth, checked the contents, then closed it again.

"Dinner," he explained.

"Did you just…" Madara's eyes hardened. "…enter our base… carrying food…?"

"Kushina insisted."

"Who?"

"Naruto's mother."

Hearing this revelation, Obito's visible eye sharpened.

Madara's expression remained unchanged, though the question had registered. Naruto Uzumaki's mother had died during the Nine-Tails' attack. That fact was known.

Alaric returned the food to his coat.

Kabuto's thoughts accelerated. Resurrection. Alaric had defeated Edo Tensei users, displayed impossible knowledge, and now referred to Kushina Uzumaki as though she had personally handed him food that evening.

Before he could ask, the Ten-Tails moved.

Its forelimb struck the stone beneath its bindings.

The entire cavern lurched.

A shockwave tore across the floor, breaking pillars and throwing chunks of rock toward every platform. Obito allowed the debris to pass through his intangible body. Kabuto's lower half twisted aside with serpentine flexibility.

Madara did not move, and neither did Alaric.

The shockwave reached the space between them and divided.

Red chakra flowed past Alaric's shoulders. Stone fragments curved around his body, carving two empty paths through the destruction before crashing against the cavern wall behind him.

His coat barely shifted.

The Ten-Tails' eyelid opened by a fraction.

A narrow line of red appeared beneath it.

The beast's chakra pushed outward, thick with hunger, confusion, and a fear too primitive to become thought. It had sensed Emberis through the disturbance in the world. Now it felt a familiar trace of that impossible fire inside the man standing nearby.

Its incomplete body pulled against the roots and several restraints broke.

Kabuto turned immediately toward the control formation. "The transformation is accelerating."

Madara continued looking at Alaric. "You… is this your doing?"

"Not intentionally."

"So you did cause it."

"Perhaps."

Obito glanced toward the Ten-Tails. "What did you do?"

Alaric considered how much to reveal before smiling. "I introduced it to perspective."

Kabuto's hand hovered above the seal controls. "That creature does not understand perspective."

"Well… it understands fear."

The Ten-Tails struck the earth again.

This time, Alaric looked directly at it, his eyes shifting.

The ordinary blue of his irises turned red before three tomoe appeared and began rotating. The pattern changed again, becoming the unique form of his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

The cavern seemed to narrow around his gaze.

The Ten-Tails froze.

Its enormous limb remained pressed against the broken floor. The exposed line of its eye contracted, and the chakra surging through the chamber recoiled toward its body.

Silence followed.

Kabuto slowly removed his hand from the controls.

Obito's Sharingan fixed upon Alaric's eyes.

Madara's attention sharpened with something deeper than irritation.

At the Summit, Alaric had displayed the Sharingan, Rinnegan, Wood Release, and space-time techniques without offering any explanation for how one man possessed inheritances divided across Hagoromo's descendants.

Madara had spent the hours since their battle considering possibilities.

A hidden Uchiha branch.

Stolen eyes.

A body altered with Senju cells.

A survivor of an experiment predating Orochimaru.

An unknown descendant of Indra and Asura.

None explained the complete absence of degradation. None explained why Alaric's Wood Release felt more natural than the grafted power inside Madara's own body. None explained why the Rinnegan appeared and disappeared according to Alaric's preference rather than remaining bound to a single physical state.

Then there was Haku.

A boy with Ice Release who had become an S-rank terror under Alaric's instruction before reaching adulthood. If the disciple represented only what Alaric could teach, the master's origin mattered even more.

"You still have not explained those eyes," Madara said.

Alaric's Mangekyō faded as the Ten-Tails remained still behind him. "You did not ask politely."

Madara's mouth shifted toward the beginning of a humorless smile. "You believe defeating an immortal body once places you above me."

"No."

Alaric turned fully toward him.

The pressure in the cavern deepened.

A fracture spread through the stone beneath Madara's right foot. It did not originate from an attack. The mountain simply failed to endure what passed between the two men.

"I believed I was above you before the fight."

Kabuto's gaze moved quickly toward Madara.

Obito's hand tightened beneath his cloak.

Madara's smile widened.

There was no warmth inside it. The expression carried the pleasure of an insult severe enough to become interesting.

"You restrained yourself at the Summit."

"So did you."

"You knew I could regenerate."

"I knew destroying your body would teach me very little."

Madara stepped down from the platform.

His sandal touched the cavern floor, and the gunbai shifted behind his shoulder. Each movement remained unhurried, though the chakra within his reanimated body began rising.

"You came here seeking another battle."

"I came because your Ten-Tails interrupted my meal."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the reason I arrived tonight."

Madara stopped several paces away.

Only a small distance separated them now.

Obito stood behind Alaric, creating a line that might have resembled an encirclement if either Uchiha believed ordinary positioning could contain him. Kabuto remained near the seals, watching all three while calculating escape routes through the mountain.

Alaric looked from Madara to Obito, then toward Kabuto.

"So," he said, his voice carrying easily through the chamber, "you began without inviting me."

The Ten-Tails released another low pulse behind him.

Madara's Rinnegan remained fixed upon Alaric. "You arrived before the beginning."

"Then your timing is worse than I thought."

"The Ten-Tails will awaken regardless of your presence."

"I am aware."

"You intend to stop it?"

"…" Alaric glanced back at the restrained creature. "That depends."

Obito's eye narrowed. "On what?"

"Whether Madara intends to become its jinchūriki tonight."

Kabuto's smile returned with genuine curiosity this time. "You would allow that?"

Madara watched him in silence.

Alaric slipped one hand into his coat pocket.

"I have considered it."

Obito's voice grew colder. "You warned the Five Kage about the Ten-Tails. You forced an alliance against us. Now you claim you may permit the plan to continue."

"I warned them because they needed preparation. I did not promise to make every decision for them."

"You are playing with a war."

"No." Alaric's gaze moved toward Obito. "You and Madara are playing with a war. I am deciding how much of it I need to tolerate."

The masked man's chakra sharpened, but Madara lifted one hand slightly, stopping Obito before he moved.

The gesture was small, but Obito obeyed it after a brief pause.

Alaric noticed.

So did Kabuto.

Madara's eyes searched Alaric's face. "You know more about this plan than you revealed at the Summit."

"Yes."

"You knew of the Ten-Tails before the tailed beasts were gathered… you knew Nagato's Rinnegan belonged to me… you knew Obito stood behind the Akatsuki."

Obito's visible eye tightened.

"Yeppey..."

"You knew I would return."

Alaric gave a slight nod.

Madara's voice lowered. "How?"

There it was.

The question behind every other question.

How had Alaric known the history Madara buried beneath generations of conflict? How had he understood the progression from Sharingan to Rinnegan? How had he anticipated Obito, Nagato, the Gedo Mazō, and the Eye of the Moon Plan?

Madara had reconstructed his purpose in secrecy. Obito knew only what Madara had chosen to teach. Nagato had believed the eyes in his skull belonged to him. The Five Kage had remained ignorant until Alaric gathered them and placed the threat before them.

Even Kabuto had obtained most of his knowledge through stolen records, corpses, and information left behind by Orochimaru.

Alaric had spoken as though he had watched the plan form.

He smiled faintly.

Madara saw no hesitation in his face. No calculation preceded the answer. Alaric looked almost pleased that the question had finally emerged.

"You must have quite a lot running through your head," Alaric said.

Madara's expression hardened.

"The Sharingan. My Rinnegan. Wood Release. How I found this cavern. How I knew about Nagato, Obito, the Ten-Tails, and your Eye of the Moon Plan."

Obito no longer watched Alaric alone.

His gaze shifted once toward the roots along the wall.

Kabuto noticed.

Alaric took one slow step forward.

The heel of his boot touched the stone with a quiet sound, yet the incomplete Ten-Tails pulled against its restraints behind him as though something much larger had moved.

"You want to know where my information came from. You want to understand why I looked at your grand design and recognized the pieces before you finished placing them."

Madara's fingers closed around the gunbai.

Alaric's smile remained.

"But you should direct those questions somewhere else."

His eyes moved past Madara.

Toward the darkness threaded through the roots.

"Toward Zetsu."