Silence fell all at once.Madara had crossed the threshold, and already the air had changed—denser, heavier, as though the temple itself were holding its breath.
He felt the vibration inside his chest, like a door slamming shut at the edge of a dream.A flash—brief, blinding—shook the stone, but Madara did not turn back.His steps remained steady, unhurried.He moved forward, alone, through the long corridor.The slabs beneath his feet, polished by time, reflected faint, ghostly light that filtered through cracks in the ceiling.No presence. No traps.Only an atmosphere thick with magic—one he did not yet understand.
He walked without haste, like a man certain that the unknown would come to him."This place… breathes."
At the end of the passage, a half-open door.A dimly lit chamber beyond.Madara stepped through—and the ground vanished.
Vertigo swallowed him whole; the floor flared, then disappeared beneath his feet.A white flash consumed everything.His eyes shut of their own accord.Then a voice—deep, ageless—resounded in his mind:
—To move forward, confront your past.
When his eyelids finally yielded, the stone was gone.The darkness, the weight, the temple itself—gone.
His fists clenched.
Sunlight blazed high above, gold filtering through dense leaves, glimmering across a stream winding lazily between smooth stones.Madara looked around, but nothing disturbed the perfection of the scene.Every detail was motionless, eternal—frozen in an impossible peace.The air was warm, caressing, thick with the scent of fresh grass and wildflowers along the water's edge.Birdsong punctuated the silence, and the shifting light on the stream gave the place an almost sacred beauty.
Madara held a stone in his hand—its weight simple, reassuring.Across the stream stood Hashirama, a stone in his grasp as well.As always, they had met here—at the invisible border between their worlds, far from the eyes of their clans, far from the wars that tore them apart.Madara knew this place too well: the gentle shade of trees, the gleam of running water, the soft earth where they could lie down and dream of another future.It was their refuge—their unspoken promise that the world could be different.
And yet… something was wrong.Too clear. Too precise.Every leaf fell with identical rhythm; every ray of sunlight struck the stones at the same perfect angle he remembered.Time wasn't flowing—it was looping.
Madara inhaled deeply.The air had that same taste of summer, the same breath of moss and damp soil.Everything was exactly as it had been.But this was no memory frozen in his mind.He was living it—feeling it—down to his very soul.
He closed his eyes for an instant, and red flooded his vision, as though the sun had burned itself behind his lids.Was this truly what he'd felt then?A fragile peace, deceptive, ready to shatter at the lightest touch?Yes. Without doubt. Every fiber of him remembered.
He opened his eyes again.Hashirama stood there, more solemn than usual.Madara's chest tightened.The setting—beautiful, perfect—seemed blind to the weight of what was about to unfold.The trees swayed gently in the wind, unaware of the coming storm.
The scene breathed beauty, yet for Madara it was nothing but a cruel painting—a frame of light where he had lost his innocence,where friendship had given way to fate.And still, despite the bitterness, a part of him remained entranced by it.As if the universe had wanted this clearing, this cloudless sky, this quiet stream to be carved forever into his soul.As if that day had been chosen to be eternal.
He turned the stone in his palm. Smooth, cold, damp from the stream.Across the water, Hashirama did the same—their gestures mirroring one another.For a moment, they shared a glance—the same boyish look, complicit, carefree.Then, in perfect unison, each threw his stone toward the other bank.
Both pebbles flew through the air and landed neatly in the other's hand.Madara examined his, rubbing it with his thumb.Letters, carved roughly into the surface, revealed themselves: RUN.
He lifted his gaze.Hashirama, on the opposite bank, was staring at his own stone with grave surprise.He, too, was reading the words etched hastily upon it: It's a trap.
Silence crashed down—heavy, suffocating.The wind stopped.Even the stream went still.They looked at each other.No smiles now. No trace of childhood.Only the raw, naked truth.
Madara understood instantly.His muscles tensed, ready to spring.Hashirama, too, had already moved.No words were needed. They knew.
And in the same heartbeat, both boys ran.Their feet struck the soft earth, water splashing as they crossed the stream, leaving behind the illusion of peace.The dream shattered.The trap had sprung.
Shadows burst forth.Butsuma Senju, followed by Tobirama, landed heavily in the stream, water exploding around them.Across the way, Tajima Uchiha and Izuna appeared only meters away, eyes locked on their foes.
Time froze.Madara and Hashirama stared at each other, panic tightening their chests.Their game, their stones—all erased in an instant, devoured by ancestral hatred.
The first step sounded like thunder.Both fathers charged—blades drawn—leaping through the air with feral violence.Izuna and Tobirama followed, steel clashing in a furious burst.Metal struck metal, sparks raining over the water.
Then, simultaneously, the fathers acted.As their sons fought, exposed in their youthful fury, both Tajima and Butsuma hurled kunai—not at their direct foes,but at each other's sons.
Two flashes of steel.Two deadly arcs.
Each kunai sliced the air—one toward Izuna, the other toward Tobirama.Their breaths caught.And yet, moved by the same instinct, both boys raised their hands.
Their stones flew.Impact.A sharp crack—metal against stone.
Both kunai deflected, falling into the stream with a dull splash, carried away by the current.
Silence.Madara and Hashirama faced each other, breathing hard, their hands still clenched around nothing.
Their eyes met.Time stretched, unreal.A heartbeat, two—then stillness.The memory refused to move forward.
Madara knew.This time, the scene would not unfold as it had before.
The water no longer flowed—it repeated.The same ripple, the same falling leaf, looping endlessly.He felt it before admitting it:This isn't the world. It's my mind pretending to be one.
Hashirama lifted his gaze.No innocence there—only that calm integrity that had once irritated, then fascinated Madara.
Hashirama: "Tell me the truth… Do you still believe in destiny?"
Madara: "Destiny is a word men use to drop their weapon and say, 'It wasn't me.'"
Hashirama: "If you could go back… would you change anything?"
Madara: "No. Changing an act doesn't erase its cost. It only moves it."
Silence again.A bird cried—the exact same note as before.Madara watched the light dance on the water: the same fracture, the same bubble bursting without ever wetting the stone.
Hashirama: "Then why did you close your hand?"
Madara: "Because I wanted everything. My clan, my brother, peace… and my name untouched."
Hashirama: "And now?"
Madara: "Now I call it what it was: a choice. Not a thread pulled by gods."
Hashirama didn't move. Not even the shadow of his lashes shifted.Madara knew then—you're not here.You're what my mind remembers of you.He clenched the stone again. Cold. Smooth. Always the same.
Hashirama: "Do you regret it?"
Madara: "I regret hiding my will behind a word. Not the act itself."
Hashirama: "If peace demanded your name be cursed?"
Madara: "Let it be cursed. A name breaks easier than a world."
A faint crack ran through the sound itself.The wind drew back.The stream seemed to wait.Madara looked past Hashirama—toward the place where, in memory, everything would soon collapse:the fathers, the brothers, the kunai in flight, the spark against the stone.
Something inside him clicked—sharp, final—like truth pressed into a wound.
Hashirama: "You say you don't believe in destiny. But have you truly left it?"
Madara: "Destiny doesn't leave me. I leave it."
Hashirama: "And if we had held out our hands a little longer?"
Madara: "We held them long enough to know they would close. That's the human part: the hand always chooses."
He opened his.Hashirama's reflection trembled inside the palm—too sharp, too real.Madara smiled, faintly, without warmth.
Madara: "The past can never change."
Hashirama: "…"
Madara: "And we're already dead, both of us."
The words fell like a clean blade.The illusion trembled—just enough for the bird to forget its cry.
Hashirama: "If you could do it again…"
Madara: "I have, and I failed. I'm not seeking the same thing anymore."
Hashirama: "Then what do you seek?"
Madara: "Nothing that sleeps. I'm not even in Konoha anymore. I have no purpose… and you're not here, Hashirama."
He searched for pain within his chest.Nothing.Only a clear, cold lucidity filling his movements.
Acceptance isn't surrender. It's the end of lying in the name of the dead.
A dull sound—like the closing of a great book—marked the end of the vision.The scene tore apart at the edges.Time froze—this time like a silent agreement.The water turned to glass; the air became still and weightless.Then color drained away—slowly—before returning, different.
The ground beneath his feet changed texture.The smell of moss gave way to that of tall grass.The rustle of trees turned to a vast, open wind.
The vision opened onto a bare, green plain.At the top of a hill stood a table, and seated beside it—a woman, motionless, a precise point in the wide expanse.She was waiting, still as a punctuation mark.
Madara looked down.No stone in his hand.Nothing to hold. Nothing to throw.
He lifted his head—and walked.