Chapter 523: The First Time Without Restraint (Patreon)

Unknown Sealed Dimension

Madara's raised hand remained motionless for a breath.

The broken fragments of the artificial silver sphere reflected him from a dozen angles, each warped image showing pale robes, black magatama, and Truth-Seeking Orbs suspended behind a body that had only recently remembered how to bleed.

Across the devastated plain, Alaric wiped the remaining blood from his brow.

"Go ahead."

Madara's fingers folded together.

The first hand seal drew chakra from depths he had not touched during the Kage Summit.

The incomplete Ten-Tails answered with a violent pull beneath his abdomen. Its separate currents collided inside the seal before Madara forced them through his chest, gathering them behind his lungs until the air around him turned dry enough to crack the stone.

He inhaled, and the dimension contracted around that breath.

Alaric's Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan followed the pressure collecting inside Madara's body. The chakra resembled Fire Release only in its foundation. Something older and far denser had entered it, staining the flames before they had even been born.

Madara's cheeks expanded.

"Fire Release: Majestic Destroyer Flame!"

The horizon ignited.

Fire erupted from Madara's mouth in a wall too vast for the ruined landscape to contain. The first wave swallowed the craters between them. The second climbed into the fractured sky. The third spread sideways until every visible path of escape disappeared beneath incandescent red.

The technique did not merely travel through the air... it consumed it.

Black stone liquefied before the fire reached the ground. Broken dimensional pillars glowed white, then collapsed into rivers of molten material. The remaining fragments of the silver sphere vanished behind an expanding sea of flame whose surface rolled like the interior of a star.

Madara watched from the center of the inferno.

During the Kage Summit, Alaric had taken control of his Fire Release with insulting ease. The flames had bent away from their creator, responded to another man's will, then disappeared without leaving smoke or heat behind.

That memory had remained with Madara.

He had understood what had happened without understanding how.

This time, ordinary chakra did not sustain the technique.

Ten-Tails power saturated every flame. Nature energy circulated through it. The Gedo Mazō's ancient vitality reinforced its structure, while Madara's Rinnegan held every current together beneath a single command.

If Alaric's authority extended only over natural fire, the foreign chakra should resist him.

If he controlled chakra-based flames through superior manipulation, the Ten-Tails should contest that control.

If neither explanation applied... 

Madara's Rinnegan narrowed.

Alaric stood before the approaching horizon with his coat moving in the heated wind.

Without forming a seal, his right hand lifted from his side and two fingers flicked outward.

FLICK.

The fire that was fueled by the chakra of the Ten-Tails... disappeared.

There was no collision, no reversal, and no surge of chakra met the technique from the opposite direction.

One instant, the sealed dimension contained enough flame to erase mountains. In the next, the entire inferno ceased to exist.

The molten ground cooled before it could finish flowing. The heat vanished from Madara's skin. Even the smoke disappeared, leaving the air so clear that the sudden return of darkness felt unnatural.

Alaric lowered his hand.

"Come on, Madara…" His mouth curved with familiar amusement. "I think you already know that fire doesn't work on me."

Madara stared across the empty plain.

The Ten-Tails chakra within the technique had vanished with the flames.

It had not returned to him.

It had not dispersed into the dimension.

For that brief instant, a portion of the beast's power had simply been removed from existence... or placed somewhere Madara's Rinnegan could not perceive.

A sinister smile slowly spread across his face.

"So the additional power makes no difference."

Alaric brushed ash from one shoulder, though no ash remained anywhere else. "It made the fire larger."

"That was not the question."

"Sure, sure..."

Madara's hands blurred into motion, the seals forming so rapidly that even the fractured sky seemed unable to keep up.

"Water Release: Great Water Annihilation!"

A torrent exploded from the empty air above Alaric.

There was no ocean inside the pocket dimension, nor any natural moisture sufficient to feed the technique. Madara created the water through chakra alone, producing a spiraling mass that filled the sky before crashing downward with enough pressure to grind the plain into a basin.

Alaric formed one hand seal.

"Earth Release: Continental Rampart."

KRRRRRUMBLE...!!

The earth convulsed violently, stone screaming as it surged upward.

A wall of black stone tore from beneath him and continued climbing, widening as it ascended until it became a mountain range born in a single breath. Water struck its face and split around the obstruction, carving valleys through stone that had not existed a heartbeat earlier.

Madara's next seal was already complete.

"Lightning Release: Heaven-Splitting Current!"

Violet lightning entered the water.

The entire flood illuminated from within. Branching currents spread across its surface, each bolt strengthened by Ten-Tails chakra until the water became a moving field of light.

Alaric changed one finger.

"Wind Release: Vacuum Dominion."

The atmosphere collapsed toward his palm.

Wind struck the electrified flood from below, lifting billions of gallons into a spiraling column. The water stretched apart into droplets before the pressure shredded them into vapor. Lightning leapt between the suspended particles, seeking the nearest conductor.

Alaric closed his fist, compressing the vortex.

Water, lightning, and wind folded into a sphere smaller than his head.

He opened his fingers toward Madara.

Alaric smirked as he murmurs, "Bang..."

The sphere fired across the battlefield.

Madara's palms struck the ground.

"Earth Release: World-Bearing Bulwark!"

A plateau rose beneath him.

Layer after layer of stone compressed together, reinforced by chakra until the structure possessed the density of forged metal. The sphere pierced the first wall, disappeared through the plateau, and erupted from the opposite side in a beam of white vapor and violet lightning.

Madara tilted his head.

The beam passed beside his horn.

Alaric had already formed another single seal.

"Lightning Release: Kirin."

The fractured sky screamed.

There were no natural storm clouds above them, yet lightning gathered among the damaged fūinjutsu lines as though the dimension itself had become the thunderhead. A colossal beast of white electricity formed over Madara, lowering its head through the broken barrier.

Madara looked upward as the lightning descended, raising one hand.

"Wind Release: Scattering Heaven."

A vertical current struck Kirin from the side. Its head twisted, white jaws tearing through the remains of the silver sphere before the entire construct detonated across the sky.

The explosion illuminated openings in the damaged dimensional barrier.

For fractions of a second, other places appeared beyond them.

A frozen mountain beneath a natural moon, a dark ocean, a forest drenched in afternoon rain, and a field of stars that belonged to no sky in the Elemental Nations.

The images vanished as the barrier lines pulled themselves together again.

Madara saw them.

So did Alaric.

Neither paused.

Madara's hands moved through Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning, and Fire Release without allowing one technique to finish before the next began. Vast rivers became cutting whips. Stone dragons emerged from beneath Alaric's feet. Lightning spears fell from every angle while wind blades occupied the gaps between them.

Alaric answered each with one hand seal.

A raised index finger created an earth dome that redirected the lightning into the ground.

A folded thumb sent a current of water through the stone dragons, weakening their joints before a burst of wind tore them apart.

A single Ram seal produced a wall of flame that Madara's wind blades strengthened rather than extinguished, though Alaric immediately curled his fingers and caused the fire to vanish before it could reach him.

Madara's smile sharpened.

"You reduce every technique to one seal."

Alaric turned his wrist and sent a Lightning Release spear through three of Madara's water constructs. "Perfect chakra control."

"Convenient."

"It saves time, really... it's great. You should practice sometimes..."

A stone hand rose beneath Madara.

He stepped from its palm as it closed around an incoming wind blade, then formed another sequence while falling.

"Sage Art: Storm Release Light Fang!"

A beam erupted from Madara's mouth.

It carried no warning beyond the faint tightening of his jaw. Sage chakra, lightning, and water combined into a line thin enough to appear almost delicate.

Its speed surpassed the movement of Madara's earlier techniques.

The beam reached Alaric's chest, yet he did not move.

Storm Release entered beneath his collarbone and passed through his body.

A circular hole opened through flesh, bone, and lung. Blood burst from Alaric's back, scattering into the air before the beam continued through the battlefield and severed the distant horizon.

For a moment, Madara saw through him.

The edges of the wound smoked.

Alaric glanced down.

His coat had been pierced cleanly. Beneath the torn fabric, the cavity extended through his chest wide enough for the broken silver light behind him to shine through.

Madara's hands lowered slightly.

Alaric placed two fingers beside the hole.

Red-gold energy gathered around the wound.

Muscle reached across empty space in fine strands. Bone grew from the severed ribs, meeting in the center before hardening. Blood vessels connected, pulsed once, then disappeared beneath rapidly forming tissue. A new section of lung expanded inside his chest as Alaric drew a calm breath.

Skin closed over the injury.

The entire restoration took less time than Madara needed to fully straighten.

Alaric looked at the blood staining his glove.

"Fast," Madara said.

The word carried more interest than praise.

His Rinnegan had observed every layer of the regeneration.

It was not Edo Tensei reconstruction.

It did not resemble Hashirama's cellular healing.

The body had restored itself according to a condition deeper than its previous physical state. Damaged tissue had not accelerated through ordinary division. Matter and vitality had appeared where neither remained, guided by an authority Madara could not locate within Alaric's chakra network.

"You allowed it to strike you," Madara continued.

"I wanted to see if Sage chakra changed anything."

"And?"

Alaric examined the repaired section of his coat, where the fabric remained torn despite the body beneath it being whole.

"It ruined the tailoring."

Madara laughed.

The sound carried through the shattered dimension as his Truth-Seeking Orbs spread behind him.

Alaric's smile remained, though the amusement in it slowly settled into something more serious.

"Madara, let's go all out, yeah?"

One of Madara's brows rose.

The question sounded absurd after the devastation surrounding them.

The sealed plain had been reduced to molten valleys, collapsed mountain walls, and trenches filled with electrified water. Their techniques had opened momentary wounds across the boundary between dimensions. Madara had drawn upon the incomplete Ten-Tails, mixed nature energy into his attacks, and fired a Storm Release technique capable of cutting through a Truth-Seeking Orb's staff.

Alaric spoke as though they had still been warming up.

Madara studied him.

"You have yet to begin?"

Alaric sighed as his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan faded.

Then his eyes closed.

The pressure disappeared with them.

Silence spread across the battlefield.

Madara's Rinnegan remained fixed upon Alaric's body. He expected another dōjutsu, a hidden seal, or some transformation stored within the chakra pathways.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the dimension breathed.

Nature energy moved.

It did not gather from one direction.

The fractured ground released it. The broken sky released it. Residual energy caught between dimensional layers turned toward Alaric. Even the unstable currents surrounding Madara's Ten-Tails robes bent subtly across the distance.

The flow accelerated.

Madara's expression changed.

A conventional Sage absorbed nature energy from the environment and balanced it against physical and spiritual chakra. The process required stillness, control, and enough time for the three energies to reach equilibrium.

Alaric drew nature energy faster than the dimension could replenish it.

Stone lost its remaining warmth.

The artificial wind stopped.

The damaged barrier lines above them curved toward him as particles of pale light streamed from every direction.

Another energy arrived with it.

Madara could not identify it.

It carried heat without flame, life without ordinary Yang chakra, and an ancient violence that caused the incomplete Ten-Tails to pull backward inside his seal. The creature did not recognize the energy, yet its response carried instinctive dread.

Madara's Truth-Seeking Orbs trembled.

Alaric opened his eyes.

The blue had vanished.

Both irises shone a deep red without the tomoe or pattern of the Sharingan. Around his left eye, light spread beneath the skin in the form of a phoenix-like marking. Fine lines curved along his temple and cheekbone like feathers shaped from molten gold, gathering around the eye before tapering toward his brow.

Heat rolled from his body.

The remaining blood upon his face evaporated.

His torn Vanguard coat lifted as red-gold chakra formed around him, carrying the faint silhouette of wings that vanished whenever Madara attempted to focus upon them.

Madara's Rinnegan narrowed.

"Senjutsu…"

Alaric's gaze settled upon him.

Then the Rinne-Sharingan opened.

The red eyes changed again.

Concentric rings formed around the central pupil, while black tomoe appeared across them in perfect order. The Phoenix Sage markings continued glowing around the left eye, surrounding the Rinne-Sharingan without interfering with it.

For the first time since the rematch began, Madara's smile faded.

His Rinnegan perceived chakra.

His restored body sensed nature energy.

The Ten-Tails felt the pressure of another existence pressing against the sealed dimension.

None gave Madara a complete measure of what stood before him.

The Rinne-Sharingan itself should not have been possible without the chakra of the Divine Tree, Kaguya, or the completed Ten-Tails. Alaric possessed no connection Madara could identify to any of them.

Yet the eye looked back at him.

Stable, awake, under complete control.

The dimension groaned.

Fractures opened across the sky again, though no ninjutsu had struck the barrier. Images appeared beyond them for longer than before: a desert beneath twin moons, an endless city of white towers, a sea suspended upside down over clouds, and a green world dominated by a tree large enough to pierce its atmosphere.

Madara looked briefly toward the openings.

Alaric smiled.

"This time, if you get defeated too fast, I'll be super disappointed."

Madara's attention returned to him.

Alaric rolled one shoulder as the red-gold chakra tightened around his body.

"This is my first time ever going all out."

Madara raised a brow.

He had felt arrogance from countless shinobi.

This was something else entirely.

Alaric did not speak to intimidate him. The cadence held no performance, and the dōjutsu fixed upon Madara contained none of the tension that belonged to a bluff.

He believed every word.

Madara's chakra surged.

The incomplete Ten-Tails answered his excitement, flooding his body with enough power to distort the black markings over his chest. The Truth-Seeking Orbs moved into formation while his Limbo clones approached through the adjacent world.

He prepared to speak.

Alaric vanished from sight.

Madara's perception registered the movement too late.

A palm rested against his forehead.

His Rinnegan widened as he realized the contact had already occurred.

Alaric stood directly before him, close enough that the red-gold glow of the phoenix marking reflected across Madara's violet eye. There had been no contraction of muscle, no displacement through physical space, and no visible portal.

Madara's Limbo clones attacked.

The dimension folded.

The sealed world vanished before their blows arrived.

.

Land of Frost — Northern Wilderness

Snow exploded outward.

Alaric and Madara appeared several thousand feet above an empty valley surrounded by frozen mountains. Night stretched across the sky, clear enough for stars to shine between curtains of pale cloud. No village lights disturbed the wilderness. No road crossed the basin below.

Madara's bare feet touched the air as his chakra caught his body.

His head turned sharply.

The sealed dimension was gone.

Natural wind struck his face. Cold entered his living skin. Snow carried the scent of stone, pine, and distant ice into his lungs.

He had sensed no mark upon the location.

No summoning formula had opened beneath him.

Alaric had transported both of them across dimensional boundaries and returned to the Elemental Nations before Madara's body completed its response to the hand touching his forehead.

His Limbo clones had been left behind.

Madara immediately called to them through the adjacent plane.

The connection stretched across the broken pathway, weakened but unsevered. The shadows began forcing themselves toward their original body, disturbing space within the sealed realm as they searched for a route into the Land of Frost.

Alaric appeared several meters away.

His boots settled upon the snow.

The frozen surface beneath him melted in a perfect circle, releasing steam that the wind carried past his coat. Phoenix Sage markings glowed around his left Rinne-Sharingan while red-gold chakra moved close to his skin.

Madara stared at him.

The lateness of his own reaction irritated him more than the displacement.

Alaric had crossed the distance, touched him, and completed the teleportation before a Ten-Tails-enhanced body could respond.

The valley remained silent around them.

No shinobi presence waited beneath the mountains.

No army occupied the surrounding forests.

Alaric had chosen a place far from settlements, though the natural world offered no dimensional barrier capable of containing what came next.

He looked toward the frozen mountains, then back toward Madara.

"Now, Ghost of the Uchiha…"

His smile returned.

"Let's test how strong you are now that you're a jinchūriki."