Chapter 535: The Shadow Left Behind (Patreon)

Land of Frost — Northern Wilderness

"Where the hell are they?"

Obito's question disappeared into the freezing wind without an answer.

Snow swept over the ridge beneath his sandals, gathering against the broken rock before being carried into the enormous basin below. The landscape remained scarred by the first moments of Alaric and Madara's battle, yet the destruction had offered him nothing useful for hours. Every crater ended where it began. Every lingering chakra signature had already decayed enough to blur direction, while the violent spatial residue scattered throughout the region belonged to techniques he could not identify with certainty.

Obito's visible Sharingan moved slowly across the horizon, his patience beginning to rot.

Madara had vanished with the Ten-Tails, and Alaric had vanished with Madara.

Black Zetsu had been exposed as something far older and more treacherous than either of them had expected.

Every certainty Obito had carried into the Land of Frost had collapsed within a single night, and the man who had taught him to regard the world as nothing more than a worthless counterfeit had disappeared before explaining whether he even believed that philosophy anymore.

Obito's hand tightened at his side before a spiral of platinum-gold light erupted behind him.

FWOOSH!

His Sharingan contracted.

Obito turned immediately, Kamui already gathering around his body as three figures resolved from the flash.

Alaric appeared first.

One hand rested against Madara's shoulder while the other touched the side of a coffin hovering beside them. What remained of his Vanguard uniform looked as though it had survived a war against several natural disasters in succession. One side of the formal coat had been burned almost beyond recognition, his cravat was gone, and several sections of black fabric had hardened where extreme heat had fused the gold trim into distorted beads.

A cigar sat comfortably between his lips.

That ordinary detail somehow made everything else more unsettling.

Madara stood beside him, alive.

Obito's eyes widened before he could stop them. The pale Six Paths transformation was gone... the horn, the Truth-Seeking Orbs, the chakra robes, the vast ocean of primordial power that should have been pouring off him. None of it remained. Only the steady rise and fall of Madara's chest, the unmistakable beat of a living heart.

Obito's gaze shifted toward Alaric, and his expression froze. Beneath Alaric's chakra... buried so deep that an ordinary sensor would have dismissed it as distant contamination... was something unmistakable. The Gedo Mazō. The Ten-Tails itself. And it was inside Alaric.

Obito's Sharingan sharpened violently.

"What did you do?"

Alaric removed the cigar from his mouth and glanced down at himself before looking toward Madara, as though genuinely checking which of them Obito had addressed.

Madara's expression remained impassive.

Alaric looked back at Obito and said, "You'll have to narrow that down."

Obito's chakra flared, scattering the snow around his feet outward as he said, "The Ten-Tails."

"Oh," Alaric gave a small nod of understanding. He returned the cigar to his mouth. "I sealed it inside myself."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

Obito stared at him.

Madara watched Obito carefully enough to notice the instant disbelief became anger.

"You…" Obito's voice lowered, his Sharingan shifting toward Madara, "You let him take it."

Madara's eyes narrowed slightly. "I released it."

That answer struck harder.

Obito gritted his teeth and turned fully toward him. "You released it... the Ten-Tails..."

"Yes."

"The thing we spent years preparing to awaken."

Madara's expression did not change.

"Yes."

Obito's jaw tightened.

Wind pulled at the edge of his cloak while the first traces of Kamui distortion flickered around his shoulder.

Madara noticed the movement and did not react.

Obito's gaze moved toward the coffin, and he hesitated.

The shape was unmistakable, but he could not understand why either man would have brought a coffin back from wherever they had been.

His attention returned to Madara.

"What happened?"

Madara looked toward the shattered valley.

The question deserved more than the explanation he wanted to give.

For years, Obito had lived inside a worldview Madara had carefully built around him... found as a broken boy beneath a battlefield, his body rebuilt, shown Rin's death at the exact moment that would shatter whatever faith remained, then entrusted with a plan Madara once believed was humanity's only salvation.

Obito had not been merely an ally... Madara had cultivated him.

The similarity to Black Zetsu's treatment of Madara had become impossible to ignore.

Madara's mouth tightened faintly.

"Black Zetsu altered the Uchiha Stone Tablet."

Obito said nothing.

"He did not merely influence our interpretation," Madara continued, his voice carrying calmly through the wind. "The text itself was changed across generations."

Obito's visible eye narrowed.

"You already suspected that."

"I confirmed more than suspicion," Madara's gaze hardened. "Black Zetsu was never my creation."

Obito's posture became still.

"He existed before me, before the Hidden Villages, and before the Uchiha and Senju understood what our conflict had become," Madara paused as the memory of the confrontation returned. "He called himself my will because that lie was useful."

Alaric remained quiet beside him.

His cigar burned slowly between his fingers while his attention moved from Obito to the surrounding wilderness. The coffin remained within reach, protected from the snow by a thin chakra barrier he had formed almost absentmindedly.

Obito stared at Madara. "Then what is he?"

Madara's expression did not change for a fraction of a second.

Then, smoothly... too smoothly... he answered.

"A parasite."

The answer carried no hesitation.

Obito's Sharingan narrowed.

Madara continued before he could interrupt.

"Something that latched onto the Uchiha legacy and twisted it for its own purposes. It used my name, my history, my hatred... everything it could reach."

The wind seemed louder after that.

Obito remained motionless.

His mind returned to every conversation, every promise, and every sacrifice that had eventually been organized beneath the symbol of the Eye of the Moon.

A false world offered as an escape from a false reality.

A dream where nobody needed to experience loss.

A world where Rin could exist because reality no longer possessed the authority to take her away.

Thinking about it, he couldn't help but curl his hand.

"You expect me to believe that because he told you?"

Obito's eye shifted toward Alaric.

Alaric's brows rose slightly.

Madara answered before Alaric could.

"No."

Obito looked back toward him.

"I believe it because I confronted Zetsu myself."

Madara's voice became colder.

"He admitted enough."

Something ugly moved through Obito's expression.

"And that was enough for you to throw away everything?"

"No."

Madara stepped away from Alaric.

His restored body was still weaker than it had been as the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, yet the movement carried the same controlled certainty Obito remembered from the man who had once spoken to him beneath the earth.

"I threw it away because the goal itself was rotten."

Obito's chakra surged harder.

Madara continued without raising his voice.

"I believed humanity could be saved by removing the world in which suffering existed. I told myself that replacing reality with a perfect dream was mercy."

His Rinnegan settled upon Obito.

"It was domination."

Obito's mouth twisted.

"That sounds like him talking."

He jerked his chin toward Alaric.

Madara's gaze did not move.

"No."

"You expect me to believe you suddenly discovered morality after he beat you?"

Madara's eyes sharpened.

Alaric took a slow drag from the cigar.

Obito saw neither man react the way he wanted.

That only angered him more.

"You spent your entire life chasing this plan," Obito said, his voice rising. "You manipulated nations, shinobi, Akatsuki, the tailed beasts, and me because you believed nothing in this worthless world deserved preservation."

Madara accepted every word without flinching.

A brief pause followed.

Alaric, listening quietly, let the smoke drift from his lips as his gaze stayed half-lidded.

'Yeah, right... nice lie.'

Something in the simplicity of it almost made him chuckle internally, though his expression never changed.

Obito's fist trembled as something ugly moved through his expression.

"And that was enough for you to throw away everything?"

"No."

Madara stepped away from Alaric.

His restored body was still weaker than it had been as the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, yet the movement carried the same controlled certainty Obito remembered from the man who had once spoken to him beneath the earth.

"I threw it away because the goal itself was rotten."

Obito's chakra surged harder.

Madara continued without raising his voice.

"I believed humanity could be saved by removing the world in which suffering existed. I told myself that replacing reality with a perfect dream was mercy."

His Rinnegan settled upon Obito as he said, "But in the end, it was just domination."

Obito's mouth twisted.

"That sounds like him talking."

He jerked his chin toward Alaric.

Madara's gaze did not move: "No."

"You expect me to believe you suddenly discovered morality after he beat you?"

Madara's eyes sharpened.

Alaric took a slow drag from the cigar.

Obito saw neither man react the way he wanted, which only angered him more.

"You spent your entire life chasing this plan," Obito said, his voice rising. "You manipulated nations, shinobi, Akatsuki, the tailed beasts, and me because you believed nothing in this worthless world deserved preservation."

Madara accepted every word without flinching.

Then, for the first time, something subtle shifted in his expression.

Not guilt, not doubt... only a calculated pressure, like a man carefully choosing exactly which truth to place on the table.

Looking at Madara, Obito's fist trembled in anger.

"Then one man appears, tells you Zetsu played you for a fool, beats you into the ground, takes the Ten-Tails for himself, and suddenly Madara Uchiha has discovered the value of freedom? What a joke."

Madara remained silent.

Obito took that silence as permission to continue.

"You were Zetsu's puppet."

The words came more venomously.

"And now you're his."

Obito pointed toward Alaric.

"He cut the strings, tied his own around you, and you're standing there acting as though that makes you free."

Madara's expression became unreadable while Alaric merely watched.

For several seconds, the only movement came from cigar smoke drifting between them and snow crossing the ruined valley.

Obito's anger erupted when neither man gave him the satisfaction of denial.

"I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, MADARA!"

His voice carried across the basin as snow drifted from the cracked ledges in the distance. Obito's shoulders rose as he drew a breath.

"If you were Black Zetsu's puppet before, then you're still a puppet now! The only difference is that Alaric is holding the strings!"

Alaric and Madara exchanged a brief, silent glance while Obito watched them.

Their silence infuriated him more than an argument would have.

"Nothing?"

Madara's gaze returned to Obito.

"You have said what you wanted to say."

"That's it?"

"What response are you hoping for?"

Obito's Sharingan tightened.

"The old Madara would have killed anyone for saying half of that."

Madara's mouth curved faintly.

"And you believe provoking that response proves I remain myself."

Obito's face darkened as Madara saw through it too easily, prompting him to immediately shift his approach and try another angle without hesitation.

"What happens when Alaric changes his mind?"

"..."

Madara did not answer immediately, so Obito pressed forward.

"When he decides the Ten-Tails makes him entitled to reshape the world, will you suddenly realize you traded one Infinite Tsukuyomi for another?"

Alaric exhaled smoke from the corner of his mouth.

Obito looked at him.

"You stand there pretending you didn't want its power while carrying the greatest weapon this world has ever produced."

Alaric's expression remained almost bored as Obito's voice sharpened.

"Maybe Zetsu chose the wrong Uchiha. He should have waited for someone arrogant enough to believe they could become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki without changing."

Alaric glanced toward Madara again, but Madara still said nothing.

Obito smiled bitterly.

"There. Even now, you're still waiting to see whether he approves before you answer."

Madara's Rinnegan focused on him, and the smile on Obito's face faltered.

Something about Madara's stare had changed... not anger, but recognition.

Madara tilted his head slightly as his eyes passed over Obito's chakra.

The shape, the density, the way the Sharingan maintained itself without the minute biological irregularities of an actual body, and the lack of true blood flow beneath damaged tissue.

Madara let out a slow, weary sigh.

Obito's visible eye narrowed.

"What?"

Madara raised one hand, rubbing his temple. "I have been wondering why you have become increasingly irritating."

Hearing this, Obito stiffened.

Alaric's eyes shifted toward Madara.

Madara's gaze moved over Obito one final time before his expression flattened.

"I could snap your neck and kill you immediately."

Obito's body became still.

Madara continued, his voice carrying an unmistakable trace of annoyance.

"But too bad…" His Rinnegan narrowed as he concluded, "You're just a shadow clone."

Silence descended upon the ridge.

Alaric looked from Obito to Madara before returning his gaze to Obito.

"Huh."

Obito said nothing as Alaric's Rinne-Sharingan examined him properly now.

The deception collapsed almost instantly beneath closer scrutiny.

Madara was right.

The chakra network possessed the shape of Obito's, but not the depth. The Kamui chakra circulating through the body could imitate the technique well enough for limited movement, yet the clone lacked the strange physical-spiritual tension created by Obito's actual Mangekyō and Hashirama-enhanced body.

Alaric took the cigar from his mouth. "Well now... how did I not notice something that obvious...?"

Madara gave him a sidelong look.

"You were distracted by your own entrance."

Alaric looked at Madara, then shrugged. "Fair."

Obito's clone continued staring at them.

Madara's attention returned to him.

"So your original never intended to search here personally."

Obito finally spoke, the anger in his voice colder now.

"I'm not stupid enough to stand beside you after watching everything fall apart."

Madara's expression carried no surprise.

"You remained close enough to receive the clone's memories."

Obito opened his mouth as if to answer with a taunt or something misleading, but he simply closed it again without saying a word.

Madara's Rinnegan watched him carefully.

That silence was answer enough.

"You already have a contingency."

Obito's mouth curved beneath the mask. "I learned from you."

Madara did not respond.

Obito looked toward the coffin once more, his Sharingan lingering upon it before returning to Madara.

"Whatever you're planning now, I want nothing to do with it."

His eye then shifted toward Alaric.

"And if the Eye of the Moon Plan is dead…"

The clone's fingers tightened.

"…then I'll find my own way."

Madara's gaze sharpened.

Obito's voice became quieter.

"I don't need Infinite Tsukuyomi to destroy this world."

Alaric removed the cigar from his mouth as Madara took one step forward.

Obito's clone smiled beneath the mask.

"You taught me that reality is worthless, Madara."

The chakra holding his body together began destabilizing.

Smoke gathered around his shoulders.

"Maybe I'll finally prove I learned the lesson better than you did."

Madara's eyes hardened.

"Obito."

The clone began dissolving.

Obito's Sharingan remained fixed upon him until the final moment.

"This world will still end."

POOF!

White smoke swallowed the ridge as the clone disappeared.

Nothing remained where Obito had stood as the wind carried the smoke away.

Alaric watched it disperse while Madara stared at the empty space, neither of them said anything.

"…"

The snow continued falling.

"…"

Somewhere far below them, ice shifted inside one of the fractures created by their earlier battle.

"…"

Alaric placed the cigar between his lips again.

Madara remained motionless beside him.

"…"

The snow continued falling for several more seconds before Madara slowly turned his head.

His gaze landed on the coffin.

Then on Alaric.

A faint crease appeared between his brows.

"Aren't you…" Madara began, pausing as though the absurdity of needing to remind him had offended something fundamental within him. "…going to revive my brother?"

Alaric blinked.

His eyes moved from Madara to the coffin, then back to the empty space where Obito's clone had disappeared before he finally let out a quiet, "Oh."

Madara stared at him.

Alaric removed the cigar.

"Yeah."

Madara's expression flattened further.

Alaric nodded as though remembering an appointment he had temporarily misplaced beneath several apocalyptic distractions.

"I mean…" He glanced toward Izuna's coffin. "Sure."

Madara's Rinnegan narrowed.

Alaric stepped toward the coffin before the Uchiha could decide whether murdering the man capable of resurrecting Izuna constituted poor timing.

"Let's do it."