Chapter 527: The Price of One Brother (Patreon)

Unknown Fire Dimension

Madara's laughter had not finished fading when Alaric raised the temperature.

The change carried none of the spectacle Madara had begun to associate with the dimension. The oceans of flame did not surge higher. No explosion rolled through the colorless distances, and no celestial body emerged to pour additional radiance into the endless expanse.

The laws surrounding them merely adjusted.

Madara's adapted skin split from his brow to his jaw.

The dark armor the incomplete Ten-Tails had woven through living tissue glowed along every channel before losing cohesion. Its carefully layered minerals separated from chakra, and the Divine Tree patterns beneath his ribs flared white as the heat they had learned to redirect arrived faster than they could carry it away.

Madara's grin vanished.

The platform of Truth-Seeking matter beneath his feet softened.

His newly stabilized orbs trembled behind him, their golden seams widening as the temperature entered their cores. One sphere began dripping downward, although the liquid never fell far enough to escape the heat. It vanished halfway between Madara's shoulder and the dissolving platform.

Inside him, the Ten-Tails recoiled.

The creature had adapted to the previous condition by redesigning Madara around it. It had replaced vulnerable organs, hardened his skin, altered his blood, and built pathways that treated destructive heat as a resource to be processed.

Alaric had changed the condition before the adaptation became mastery.

The first of Madara's new heart chambers burst.

A pulse of incandescent blood spread beneath his ribs. The heat consumed it before the second chamber could compensate, leaving his body without circulation for a fraction of a second.

The Ten-Tails restored the chamber... only for it to rupture again.

Madara's chakra voice became a strangled growl as the dark mantle around his shoulders ignited from within. "You…"

Alaric hovered several yards away.

The phoenix markings around his left eye shone steadily, while the Rinne-Sharingan observed every reaction passing through Madara's altered body. He had not moved since asking whether the dimension should become hotter.

"This was your idea," Alaric said.

Madara forced his remaining Truth-Seeking Orbs together.

Their surfaces merged into overlapping plates around his torso, though the barrier never closed completely. Each sphere softened as soon as it touched the next. Black matter ran across his shoulders in glowing streams, exposing flesh already beginning to burn beneath the failed shield.

"You encouraged the beast to evolve."

"I allowed it."

"It's curiosity, isn't it?" Madara's jaw tightened as armored skin sloughed from his left cheek. "You wanted to know whether it could survive."

"I have my answer."

The incomplete Ten-Tails roared inside him.

Madara's inner world shook hard enough for the sensation to enter his physical bones. Vast roots tore from the darkness behind the beast. Black receivers snapped beneath pressure created by a creature no longer interested in preserving its vessel.

Madara's Rinnegan narrowed as the fire surrounding him ceased being the Ten-Tails' only threat.

Something pulled against the jinchūriki seal from within, and he pressed one hand against his abdomen.

The black markings around the seal moved beneath his palm, rearranging themselves without his permission. Several channels withdrew from his heart and spine, carrying tailed-beast chakra away from his organs.

Madara recognized the intention immediately... the Ten-Tails was abandoning him.

"You will remain," he said.

Through the Rinnegan, his voice entered the inner world as the incomplete beast struck the roots binding its shoulders.

Three shattered as its eye opened wider.

Chakra gathered around its distorted body, no longer reinforcing Madara's flesh. The separate fragments taken from the nine tailed beasts twisted toward the center of the creature, building enough density to tear open the seal from the other side.

Madara drove his fingers against his abdomen.

Black receivers grew from his hand and pierced his own body.

The rods entered the seal, passing through living tissue before extending into the internal world. They erupted from the darkness around the Ten-Tails and buried themselves in its limbs, throat, and enormous head.

The beast convulsed.

Madara tightened his fist.

"You entered this body by my will."

The Ten-Tails pulled harder.

A crack opened across the jinchūriki seal.

Fire entered it.

The beast screamed, and Madara's voice tore through it in unison.

"GRAAAAAAAAGH—!!"

The sound scraped through his burning throat as the heat reached both sides of the bond. Physical flesh blackened around his abdomen while spiritual fire traveled through the damaged formula, entering the internal world that had previously remained sheltered within his soul.

The Ten-Tails stopped trying to adapt... instead, it tried to escape.

Its vast body folded toward the fracture, compressing itself into a flood of chakra that pushed between Madara's soul and the remaining structure inherited from Edo Tensei. The unconventional resurrection had fused three states together, yet those states had never become perfectly indistinguishable.

A dead soul.

A restored living body.

The spiritual scaffolding left by reanimation.

The Ten-Tails drove itself between them.

Madara's physical body jerked.

One shoulder shifted several inches away from the skeleton beneath it before snapping back into place. His Rinnegan vision doubled. For an instant, he saw through living eyes and the empty sockets of his previous corpse at the same time.

Alaric watched with quiet interest.

The fire moved around him in vast currents, yet the heat required no gesture from him now. The dimension maintained the new temperature through the authority granted by Phoenix Sage Mode.

That realization stirred a rare thread of admiration within him.

This form is ridiculous.

Alaric had always known Phoenix Sage Mode exceeded his other transformations. The difference became easy to underestimate when there had never been an opponent powerful enough to force a direct comparison.

Madara had entered the fight with a living body, Rinnegan, ten Limbo shadows, Truth-Seeking Orbs, Six Paths senjutsu, and an incomplete Ten-Tails sealed inside his soul.

Without Phoenix Sage Mode, Alaric would have struggled.

Cronos could stop time. Kamui could evade attacks. Eros could restore his body, while his Rinne-Sharingan, Wood Release, gravitational control, and fūinjutsu gave him answers to almost every technique Madara possessed.

Answers were not the same as dominance.

The jinchūriki before him carried enough force to tear apart dimensions through missed attacks. Limbo created pressure from an adjacent world. Truth-Seeking matter threatened even regeneration when used correctly, while the incomplete Ten-Tails supplied reserves and physical reinforcement beyond ordinary measurement.

Without the Phoenix's nature energy moving through him, Alaric would not have stood within this dimension untouched.

He might not have stood a chance of defeating this Madara through direct combat at all.

The admission did not diminish him.

It made the power surrounding his body feel more extraordinary.

Alaric watched white flames curl along his sleeve and smiled faintly.

Phoenix Sage Mode really is my most overpowered ability.

The smile remained for only a moment.

The marking around his left eye flickered.

Alaric felt the change before the glow visibly weakened. The vast currents of nature energy and Phoenix power circulating through his body had reached their limit. Nothing inside him broke, though the connection that sustained the transformation began closing with the smooth finality of a door designed never to remain open too long.

His smile shifted into disappointment.

"Already?"

Madara barely heard him.

The Ten-Tails tore another root free inside his soul.

A section of pale chakra erupted from Madara's back, forming an enormous arm that clawed toward the surrounding fire. It possessed too many joints and no stable skin. Heat consumed its outer layer immediately, but the creature continued pulling, trying to drag the rest of itself through the breach.

Madara turned his head toward the malformed limb.

His face had begun rebuilding again, though pain distorted the repaired muscles.

"You will not leave me."

The pale arm struck him.

Its claws passed through flesh and seized the interior of the seal instead, pulling both sides apart. Madara's body arched as if an invisible hand had hooked beneath his ribs.

"RRRRAAAAAAGH!"

He forced the Ten-Tails chakra backward.

The beast answered with a surge that split several black receivers inside his soul.

Madara's Truth-Seeking Orbs collapsed around him.

The remaining spheres stretched into bands that wrapped around his abdomen, attempting to reinforce the seal from outside. They held long enough to reduce the widening fracture, though the fire continued melting their surfaces as Madara struggled against his own prisoner.

Alaric's Phoenix markings dimmed further.

The red-gold wings surrounding his chakra folded inward and dissolved into thin sparks. His Rinne-Sharingan remained active, but the deep red of Phoenix Sage Mode began retreating from his eyes.

The dimension did not cool immediately.

Heat lingered within it like momentum left behind by an extinguished star.

Alaric lowered his gaze toward his own hand.

The glow beneath his skin disappeared.

He flexed his fingers once.

Several minutes, he estimated. Maybe less if I don't force the next activation.

His body remained powerful without the transformation. His chakra control had not weakened, and none of his ocular abilities had vanished. The difference could still be felt in the sudden absence of nature energy pouring into him from every law of the dimension.

The fire no longer treated him as the source of its existence, though it still recognized him well enough for the moment.

Madara had his own problem as Alaric began moving toward him, unhurriedly.

Every step carried him through fire without requiring ground. His coat settled more naturally around his body as the last traces of Phoenix Sage Mode faded, leaving the Rinne-Sharingan active within eyes that had returned closer to their ordinary color.

Madara sensed him approaching.

The Ten-Tails pulled against the seal again, forcing Madara's left knee to buckle despite there being no surface beneath him. His consciousness divided between the external world and the enormous beast thrashing inside his soul.

He raised one hand toward Alaric.

Five Truth-Seeking Orbs moved between them.

The spheres flattened into layered shields, each one reinforced with the adaptation the Ten-Tails had developed before attempting to flee. Their surfaces glowed dark red beneath the remaining heat, but they stayed intact long enough to create a wall.

Alaric kept approaching.

Madara's Rinnegan focused through the pain.

The shield expanded until it covered his entire body. Yin-Yang Release thickened around its center while senjutsu chakra moved through the outer layers, preparing to erase anything that made contact.

As Alaric placed his palm against the first orb, the Rinne-Sharingan brightened and a circular seal opened beneath his hand.

"Gakidō: Blocking Technique Absorption Seal."

The Truth-Seeking Orb trembled, causing Madara's eyes to widen.

Ordinary ninjutsu could be absorbed because its chakra remained shaped energy. Truth-Seeking Orbs were different. They combined all five basic transformations with Yin-Yang Release, creating matter capable of nullifying techniques and erasing whatever lacked the proper senjutsu resistance.

The black sphere began shrinking beneath Alaric's palm as its outer layer folded into the absorption seal.

A sharp pain entered Alaric's chakra network.

He grunted.

"Ghh."

The Truth-Seeking matter stung as it passed through Gakidō. Yin-Yang Release resisted conversion, scraping through his pathways like powdered glass heated inside a furnace. The orb's senjutsu content attempted to preserve its structure even after entering the seal, while traces of Madara's will pressed against the absorption from within.

Alaric's fingers tightened.

The circle beneath his palm widened.

He drew the hostile chakra inward carefully, dismantling the orb layer by layer before allowing each component to enter his reserves. Earth, water, wind, fire, and lightning separated first. Yin and Yang followed more slowly, their combined authority continuing to sting after the original sphere lost its shape.

The first Truth-Seeking Orb disappeared, leaving Madara staring in stunned silence.

Alaric moved his palm to the second, the same seal spreading over its surface.

This time, he adjusted the conversion before absorption. Fūinjutsu characters rotated around the edge of Gakidō, separating the Yin-Yang structure outside his body rather than allowing it to scrape through intact.

The pain lessened.

The second orb vanished.

Madara attempted to move the remaining three away, but the Ten-Tails struck the seal from within, causing his hand to spasm and his control to falter for less than a second.

Alaric absorbed the third orb.

The fourth followed.

By the fifth, a faint line of blood ran from Alaric's nose. He wiped it away with the back of his wrist while the final black sphere collapsed into the Rinne-Sharingan's absorption field.

The barrier was gone.

Madara could have countered under normal circumstances.

Limbo might have struck Alaric from outside the fire dimension. Shinra Tensei could have broken the approach. A physical attack empowered by the Ten-Tails might have forced Alaric away before Gakidō finished dismantling the first orb.

Madara possessed all of those possibilities.

He could not use them while fighting a rebellion inside his own soul.

The Ten-Tails had wrapped several tails around the internal roots and was pulling them from Madara's spiritual body. Every severed restraint translated into pain behind his eyes, pressure inside his skull, and momentary failures of control across his chakra network.

Alaric crossed the final distance.

His right hand settled upon Madara's shoulder.

Madara tried to turn.

The malformed pale arm emerging from his back tore farther from the seal. His body convulsed, and a low growl escaped between clenched teeth.

Alaric held him steady.

"Madara."

The Rinnegan lifted toward him.

Hatred remained within Madara's expression. Pain surrounded it without weakening its direction.

Alaric's face showed none of the earlier amusement.

"I'll give you one last opportunity."

Madara's lips moved, although the Ten-Tails drove another spike of pressure through his head before a word emerged.

His Rinnegan flickered.

Alaric waited until the spasm passed.

"I'm even going to offer you something."

Madara's body stilled by a fraction.

The Ten-Tails continued tearing at the internal seal. Heat poured through every opening it created, burning beast and vessel together while neither accepted surrender.

Alaric's thumb rested against the edge of Madara's shoulder marking.

"Release the Ten-Tails. Abandon the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Give up the idea that surpassing someone else is enough to build a life around."

Madara glared at him.

"You have already… offered that."

"This part is new."

Alaric's gaze did not waver.

"I'll bring Izuna back."

The fire dimension seemed to recede from Madara's perception.

His expression remained frozen, though the Rinnegan widened enough for the rings to become more visible through the surrounding light.

Alaric continued before disbelief could become anger.

"Not through Edo Tensei."

Madara's fingers tightened at his side.

"Not as a corpse covered in ash, bound to a summoner, and forced to borrow an imitation of life."

The incomplete Ten-Tails struck the inner seal again, but Madara barely reacted.

"I mean complete revivification," Alaric said. "Living flesh. His original soul. His memories intact. A natural heartbeat and a body that belongs to him."

"..."

"..."

Madara's mouth opened slightly, but no voice came.

The offer reached farther into him than Alaric's fire had managed.

Izuna existed within a part of Madara that even Black Zetsu's revelation had failed to disturb. His younger brother's final breath remained sharper than the Valley of the End, the awakening of the Rinnegan, or the decades spent connected to the Gedo Mazō.

Izuna had died believing the Senju could not be trusted.

Madara had taken his eyes.

He had carried them through every battle afterward, transforming his brother's last gift into the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Nothing he achieved had returned the person whose death made those eyes possible.

Madara's face hardened.

"You lie."

Alaric's hand remained on his shoulder. "No."

"The dead cannot be restored without sacrifice."

"They can."

"Rinne Tensei requires the life of its caster."

"My method is better than Rinne Tensei."

Madara's glare deepened.

Pain pulsed through his skull as the Ten-Tails ripped another section from the internal framework. A thin stream of blood escaped his right eye, vaporizing against his cheek before it reached his jaw.

"You expect me to believe you possess a technique greater than the Outer Path."

"I possess several."

"You would resurrect Izuna without cost."

"I didn't say without cost."

Madara's expression sharpened but Alaric's voice stayed calm.

"The cost would be mine to pay, and it would not be my life."

"What cost?"

"Power. Preparation. The recovery of enough of Izuna's remains or a sufficiently precise spiritual link. Nothing that concerns you."

Madara's teeth showed through his grimace.

"You speak as though returning the dead is a minor task."

"For me, it is not especially difficult."

Madara searched his face for deception.

The Rinne-Sharingan looked back without tension.

Alaric had already spoken casually of Kushina Uzumaki as though she were alive. He had revealed knowledge that should have been buried with Hagoromo. He possessed regeneration that restored missing organs, a temporal technique that stole the result of death, and access to dimensions governed by laws beyond Madara's understanding.

That possibility became harder to dismiss, something Madara hated most of all... hope entering where certainty had once protected him.

The Ten-Tails roared inside his skull.

"Ghh—!" Madara let out a guttural grunt, bending forward.

Alaric's hand remained firm upon his shoulder, preventing him from falling farther as the beast tried to force its chakra through the widening fracture.

Madara's breathing returned despite the artificial organ the Ten-Tails had created earlier. Each breath came ragged, shaped more by pain than physical need.

He lifted his head, his eyes settling upon Alaric's face.

"If you could do this…"

"I can."

"You would use Izuna to bargain with me."

"I would revive him because he matters to you."

Madara's expression twisted. "That is a bargain."

"Yes."

Alaric did not soften the truth.

"I am offering something you want in exchange for you abandoning a course that threatens everyone else. I'm not pretending this is charity."

"You would hold his life over me afterward."

"No."

"You expect me to trust you!?"

"I expect caution. Trust would be unreasonable."

Madara studied him through another wave of pain.

Alaric continued, "Izuna would not belong to me. I would not place a command seal on him, bind his soul, or use him as leverage after the resurrection. Once restored, his choices would be his."

"And if he chose to stand beside me?"

"Then he would stand beside you."

"Even against Konoha?"

"If he attacks innocent people, I stop him. The same rule applies to everyone."

Madara's jaw tightened.

Alaric's voice lowered.

"You wanted a world where your brother lived."

The incomplete Ten-Tails pulled at the seal again, making Madara's body jerk even as his eyes never left Alaric.

"I'm offering you the chance to meet him in reality."

The words passed through the fire without echo.

"No illusion. No dream shaped from your memory. No version of Izuna created to tell you whatever the Infinite Tsukuyomi believes you want to hear."

Alaric's hand pressed more firmly against Madara's shoulder.

"Your brother. Alive."

Madara's glare remained, but hatred no longer occupied it alone.

Suspicion fought with memory, pride with longing.

The Ten-Tails clawed at his soul while the man who had burned him beyond the heat of the sun offered to return the one person Madara had never stopped mourning.

He opened his mouth.

"But…"