"Madara Uchiha—still in Edo Tensei form. What an unexpected bonus..."
A voice rang out—ethereal, resonant, and laced with amusement.
Amid the thick smoke and rising flames over Konohagakure, the sound of heavy boots striking stone echoed softly—thud, thud. The rhythm of polished heels against rock grew closer and clearer, blending with the distant rattle of gunfire and explosions.
The air shimmered like rippling water. Out of the spatial distortion stepped a tall, golden-haired, blue-eyed woman in a crisp Imperial Guard uniform, holding an open book whose title bore no obvious meaning. With an elegant, almost playful smile, she lifted her gaze toward the grim-faced Madara Uchiha.
In the next instant—whoosh!
Something heavy sliced through the air with a shrill whistle. Instinctively, Madara swung his flaming gunbai fan to block—but then froze mid-motion, shifting seamlessly from offense to defense. Kneeling, he caught the incoming mass, redirecting its force with flawless precision.
The impact left a crater in the ground.
Splurt! Blood sprayed.
It was a person.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward from Madara's feet as he glanced down at the battered figure he had just caught by the shoulder—a silver-haired shinobi clad in Konoha's standard jōnin flak armor.
Kakashi Hatake.
Madara recognized him immediately. Even in his twilight years, long past his prime, he had heard of this gifted prodigy. Obito's comrade—the boy from the Kannabi Bridge incident. Through White Zetsu's vision, Madara had personally witnessed the moment Obito gave Kakashi his Sharingan.
More importantly, the wounds on Kakashi's body—the black rods, the lingering traces of Yin–Yang Release chakra—were unmistakable.
They came from his own Rinnegan.
"Obito... I see."
Madara's eyes narrowed as realization struck. When Obito had seen him arrive on the battlefield, he must have already been plotting to break free from Madara's control. During the chaos—while Madara was preparing to absorb the Eight- and Nine-Tails—Obito had used Kamui to pull Kakashi into his dimension.
Whatever happened there, Madara neither knew nor cared.
But one thing was certain: within Kamui's space, Obito had used Kakashi's hand to pierce his own heart, shattering the sealing curse Madara had placed there. The curse seal was designed to suppress movement—it could only be broken from the outside.
And Zetsu... that traitorous worm... he had helped Obito.
Madara's mind raced. Shame burned hotter than anger. To think that the tool he had forged—the dog he'd kept on a leash—had turned and bitten him. The humiliation was unbearable.
Zetsu! He had trusted Obito only because Zetsu was always watching—always ensuring obedience.
And yet, the creation he had shaped with Yin–Yang Release—his own will made flesh—had betrayed him.
Unaware that Zetsu was, in truth, a creation of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, Madara could only blame his own arrogance. A dead man attempting to rule the living world—it was only natural that chaos would follow.
Expressionless, Madara tossed the gravely injured Kakashi aside. His left Mangekyō Sharingan had been forcibly removed, his chest pierced by black rods, and his wounds torn open from high-speed impacts. Blood poured freely as his limp body landed near the riverbank.
Huh? He hadn't killed him. That was almost gentle.
Watching this unfold, Selene—surprised to see Madara appear within Konoha's Valley of the End—found her curiosity piqued.
"It seems the main battlefield at the God Tree had quite a few entertaining developments while I was away," she said lightly.
"So, outsider... have you come to laugh at me?" Madara's tone was flat, void of interest in battle. His gaze kept flicking toward the distant front lines, where the Allied Forces once stood.
But when the strange woman from Obito's Kamui dimension locked her gaze upon him, his heart froze.
Those eyes—blue, unnaturally pure, impossibly deep—cut through every layer of his defenses. His spirit, his secrets, his pride—all stripped bare under that gaze.
...So strong. Stronger than Hashirama.
The warrior's instinct, honed in an age of endless bloodshed, screamed in warning—his soul trembling beneath it.
"No, no..."
Selene smiled. "You misunderstand something. Your little tragedy—that's for Durandal and the others to witness. I have no interest in interfering with the shinobi world's war. Nor will I steal anyone's glory."
Her gaze, equal parts amused and analytical, softened as she closed the tattered Konoha literary classic she had confiscated from a certain village technician's collection.
"But," she continued, her tone shifting, "if you've come to me on your own, I'll accept the gift graciously. After all, your soul contains just the right ingredients for my alchemy. Not much, but enough."
Her meaning was clear.
To her, he was simply a dish to be served.
"Arrogant!"
Madara's pride and ego would never allow such humiliation. His lavender Rinnegan flared sharply as he glared at her. "You think you've already won?!"
"Of course," Selene replied calmly. "One strike is all I'll need."
Her voice, soft and genuine, echoed with casual certainty—"Spatial Stasis."
In an instant, the Valley of the End—the twin statues of Hashirama and Madara, the roaring waterfall—began to fracture, space itself overloading and collapsing into luminous shards.
Crack, crack, crack!
Amid the thunderous explosions, the seemingly gentle general transformed into a streak of blood-red light. In the blink of an eye, she appeared before Madara. Her right hand clenched, five fingers forming a scythe-like arc that fell faster than sound.
"Susanoo!"
"Oh? Is this your dance?" Selene said lightly. "Unimpressive."
The colossal blue armor of Susanoo shattered instantly. The spectral ribs exploded outward in radiant fragments as a crystalline arm of imaginary energy pierced through, gleaming like an ivory sculpture reaching for Madara himself.
Crack!
The famed Uchiha gunbai fan—passed down for generations—splintered with a sharp metallic snap. The moment Madara raised it against her strike, its fate had already been sealed.
The shimmering white arm twisted through it, breaking it apart like glass. The echo of shattering metal rang through the vast canyon.
A crimson wave of energy burst forth, carrying dense Honkai particles that lanced straight toward Madara's eyes. Just looking into that burning scarlet hue made his scalp crawl.
Shrrk!
His Edo Tensei body was torn apart in an instant. Flesh and bone erupted into ash and dust, scattering like sand in a storm. Madara's upper torso disintegrated in a cloud of gray fragments—and Selene's hand reached through, grasping his bound spirit.
She hadn't lied. One perfect strike.
It was precise, efficient—destructive enough to erase resistance, yet refined enough to avoid unnecessary collateral damage.
"If you'd managed to revive yourself—becoming the complete Ten-Tails Jinchūriki—you might have lasted a few exchanges with Durandal."
To Selene, it required no more effort than peeling fruit or finishing a bowl of noodles.
Even though her true body remained occupied in the Imperial Capital, this incarnation was among her weakest—its maximum energy output merely sufficient to annihilate a galaxy in a single breath.
But to Madara, it was an impossible gulf.
Especially now, bound within the Edo Tensei form—not even at a fraction of his peak. Even at full strength as the Ten-Tails' vessel, he could at most scar a planet's surface, perhaps crack its crust after sufficient preparation.
"Found it."
After a moment's search, Selene's expression brightened faintly. Within Madara's fragmented, fading soul, she sensed the faint residue of Ōtsutsuki lineage—the lingering chakra of Indra, eldest son of the Sage of Six Paths, progenitor of the Uchiha.
"Refine."
Without resistance, Madara's chakra—both his senjutsu and ocular power—merged with the extracted Indra chakra through the false circuit Selene created. Energy surged through her palm in a radiant torrent.
Withdrawing her hand from the headless Edo body, Selene's right hand glowed with prismatic chakra light.
Compressing the gathered energy, she condensed it into a single shimmering sphere. Using Indra's reincarnated chakra as the catalyst, she compressed, purified, and molded it into a pill.
"So small..." she murmured, disappointed. "Barely the size of a soybean."
Still, it was expected. The current Edo Tensei Madara possessed none of the divine power of Shinra Banshō.
The infinite chakra characteristic of the Edo Tensei technique allowed many summoned souls to wield strength beyond their living prime—but clearly, Hashirama and Madara were exceptions.
Madara's pseudo-death after the Valley of the End delayed Indra's reincarnated chakra for decades, while Hashirama, having truly died long ago, would've offered even less essence for alchemical extraction.
"You... you people... what are you..."
His soul hollowed and flickering, Madara's head reformed slowly, covered in jagged Honkai scars. His grin was twisted, his voice strained as he stared at Selene, who was calmly examining the small golden pill.
This time, Madara truly had nothing left.
His soul was breaking apart. The Edo Tensei binding could no longer sustain a body without a spirit. Moted light and gray ash began drifting from his wounds.
Selene's sapphire eyes narrowed slightly, her lips curling in a faint, amused smile. With a small flick of her hand, a burst of imaginary fire consumed the body entirely—erasing even the residual chakra of the Edo Tensei shell.
Explain? Explain what?
Selene had no intention of acting as some sympathetic narrator or answering fool's questions. Were we ever that close? she thought with a smirk. Just die—with your regrets intact.
As for his soul—what little remained—if anyone could summon that back with Edo Tensei, Selene would gladly take his name. Or rather—Major General Pandia von Lorraine would.
"Hm. To avoid Bianca's wide-area bombardment, and to prevent Honkai contamination of your Edo body, you used reverse summoning to retreat. Clever... very clever."
Sorting through the fragments she had pulled from Madara's soul, Selene lowered her gaze, chuckling softly.
Of course, dispelling Edo Tensei would have worked too—but Madara trusted no one. If he canceled the summoning himself, what if no one brought him back? He had orchestrated most of this grand play; to miss the finale would be... unacceptable.
So he used reverse summoning instead. But the problem was—his last few summoning contracts had been with the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and the Nine-Tails. Both were inside Obito now. Which meant the reverse summoning coordinates had gone haywire.
Perhaps by fate's irony, or by the subtle pull of chakra, he'd ended up teleporting himself to the Valley of the End—straight into Selene's path.
Selene, who had just been sweeping the battlefield—taking out stragglers from the Hidden Sand, Hidden Mist, Cloud, and Stone villages—had followed Obito's Kamui trace and arrived in the ruins of Konoha.
The acrid smoke and burnt ash filled the air as she gazed toward the once-proud Hidden Leaf Village.
Located in the heart of the Land of Fire, it was, to Imperial intelligence, nothing more than a mercenary corporation's headquarters—an inherited, clan-based paramilitary syndicate.
It had caused no small amount of trouble, true. But with the Imperial landing divisions reinforcing their numbers, the once-bustling, distortedly advanced city had been turned into a wasteland. Within the shattered remains, Imperial auxiliary legions fought against retreating and guerrilla shinobi.
Gunfire and artillery echoed in rhythmic intervals, occasionally punctuated by the explosive roar of ninjutsu. Inside Konoha's shattered walls, not a single building stood taller than two stories.
Everyday items were scattered in the streets, coins from the Land of Fire glimmered in the rubble, and the air reeked of blood and smoke.
"How... tolerant of them," Selene murmured.
Her exquisite legs, wrapped in tight officer's trousers, crossed gracefully as she sat atop a surviving section of Konoha's outer wall. The curve of her form was poised and perfect, like a drawn bow.
Propping her chin on her hand, she gazed lazily toward the battered stone faces of the Hokage Monument, now pocked with shell holes and scorch marks.
Her lips curved into a mocking smile.
"Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki... your so-called 'Shinobi Order' is about to end."
The Sage of Six Paths—matricidal son and self-proclaimed guardian—might have died long ago, but his chakra still lingered in the world. Whether as silent watcher or schemer, Selene couldn't care less.
As for Momoshiki's trio of Ōtsutsuki, the ones who had come seeking Kaguya—they had already given her everything of worth: coordinates, stronghold locations, higher-branch secrets. She had passed all of it to Esdeath, commanding the main Imperial fleet.
Her true body waited in the Imperial Capital, anticipating the offering of the Chakra Fruits.
As for her—Major General Pandia von Lorraine—she would remain the dutiful overseer, never stealing the spotlight.
...And perhaps, perfecting her alchemy a little further.
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