Hoshiyomi's ultimate technique, Swallow Reversal, was not a slash created by splitting his body into three. Rather, the moment he used this move, his figure had already entered a different dimension—or more precisely, a gap between spaces.
If the Limbo clones had remained entirely within the Limbo world, Hoshiyomi truly would have had no way to attack them.
However, once Madara used Limbo clones and caused the Limbo world to intersect with the current shinobi world, the Swallow Reversal that had slipped into a spatial rift would suddenly descend, severing all the Limbo clones at once.
Yet if Madara did not use Limbo clones, then in his current condition he likewise had no way to withstand the slash of Swallow Reversal.
One choice meant immediate death; the other still offered a final chance to struggle. Naturally, Madara chose the latter—so…
Limbo: Border Jail!
An invisible ripple spread outward. At that moment, the Limbo world overlapped once more with the shinobi world, and four Limbo clones simultaneously emerged from Madara's shadow.
Unfortunately for them, they had only just appeared and had no time to act before Hoshiyomi's ultimate Swallow Reversal had already descended.
Three streaks of blade light tore through space without any regard for reason, slicing across the nearly overlapping four Limbo clones and shredding them to pieces.
Madara himself narrowly escaped disaster thanks to swapping places with a Limbo clone—but that merely extended his time before death by a mere 0.01 seconds.
"Sage Art: Storm Release—Light Fang!"
Madara shouted, desperately gathering chakra in his mouth to form the purple laser of Light Fang.
But he no longer had any chance.
After using the ultimate Swallow Reversal, Hoshiyomi's left hand had, at some point, drawn the Grass Long Sword, Kusanagi Blade from behind his back.
With the Grass Long Sword, Kusanagi Blade in his left hand and Mikazuki Munechika in his right, Hoshiyomi gave Madara no opportunity at all. Crossing his arms, the two ninja blades gleaming with blue-silver light fell decisively.
"Starburst Stream!"
In Hoshiyomi's hands, the two blades moved like dancing spirits—horizontal slashes, spinning arcs, parallel cuts, crisscrossing strikes. The relentless barrage was dizzying to behold.
Neither Neji, with his Byakugan activated and veins bulging, nor Kuugetsu, whose Mangekyō eyes were nearly bleeding from strain, could clearly follow Hoshiyomi's movements.
Invisible air currents seemed to swirl around Hoshiyomi and Madara, intertwining and obscuring them so that no one could see what was truly happening within.
Only when an enormous blue-silver, X-shaped sword light tore apart all the air currents did the people present finally see the scene clearly.
Sword light.
The massive X-shaped slash looked as though it could tear heaven and earth apart—and at the very center of it stood none other than Uchiha Madara.
When the sword light dissipated, everything returned to silence.
Hoshiyomi slowly landed on the ground. Mikazuki Munechika was returned to his waist, and the Grass Long Sword, Kusanagi Blade was calmly sheathed on his back.
Before him, Madara lay flat on the ground, gasping desperately for his final breaths.
His body had been completely torn apart. One arm of the massive X-shaped slash had cleanly split his body in two, while the other left only a thin shred of flesh connecting what remained.
This time, there was no Izanagi to defy fate and rewrite death. Though he possessed the body of the Six Paths, he could still feel his life force steadily draining away.
The loss of life force was not the most terrifying part.
What truly terrified Madara was that he sensed something within his body slowly awakening.
That power was forcing his shattered body to draw itself back together—but not to heal his wounds. Instead, it was trying to escape his body entirely.
Madara knew what it was.
The Ten-Tails was surging within him, gathering his body together so it could use it as nourishment and revive itself once more.
Fear—an unprecedented sense of terror enveloped Madara's body. If he were still in good condition, he might have been able to suppress this power, but in his current state, he had no way to stop any of it.
What should I do? What could I possibly do?
Just as Madara stood at a loss, a voice suddenly echoed in his mind:
"Quickly use Infinite Tsukuyomi. Use the power of Infinite Tsukuyomi to suppress the Ten-Tails' agitation."
Infinite Tsukuyomi! That's right—I still had Infinite Tsukuyomi. As long as I used Infinite Tsukuyomi to release the Ten-Tails' power, perhaps I still had one final chance to fight back.
Madara, who had always been arrogant and domineering, now looked like a gambler who had lost everything. He placed all of his remaining hope on this final Infinite Tsukuyomi.
An obsession born at the brink of death is terrifying beyond measure. Driven by that obsession, Madara forcibly used his barely functional left hand to snap off the hard horn on his head. The Nine-Tomoe Rinnegan protected within it suddenly snapped open, projecting itself onto the moon in the sky.
As the moonlight shone down, everyone in the shinobi world became dazed.
All of their eyes transformed into the Rinnegan, and beneath the moonlight they fell into the dream of Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Watching everything he had done, Madara burst into unrestrained laughter:
"Hahahaha! Gekkō Hoshiyomi, so what if you beat me? You can never hope to dispel this final Infinite Tsukuyomi. I have severed the causality of the world; everyone will live happily in a world without pain or war!"
Hoshiyomi looked at Madara lying on the ground, laughing uncontrollably. His eyes held both shock and pity—shock that Madara could still possess such a terrifying obsession at the brink of death, and pity for how tragic that obsession truly was.
As he watched Madara laugh wildly, Hoshiyomi once again drew the Mikazuki Munechika from his waist. Hearing the sound of the blade being drawn, Madara bared a savage grin at him:
"You still want to kill me? Once I'm dead, there will be no one left who can undo Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Hoshiyomi glanced at Madara and silently turned the Mikazuki Munechika in his hand, allowing Madara to see his own reflection in the mirror-bright blade.
When he saw the twisted, distorted face reflected on the blade's surface, Madara's manic laughter abruptly stopped.
That face... young, yet grotesque. Was that really him? When had he become like this?
"I still remember how resolute and unrestrained you were when I personally ended you back then."
Hearing those words, Madara's expression changed again and again. He couldn't understand it—why, after being revived, had he instead become like this?
Was I wrong?
Looking at the blood-red moon in the sky, Madara fell into an unprecedented state of confusion.
Just then, from a crack beneath him, a pitch-black, ink-like liquid rapidly surged out, slowly covering his shattered body. Driven by this power, Madara's body actually began to slowly mend itself.
"This is… you're Black Zetsu! What are you doing?!"
As Black Zetsu controlled Madara to form the seals for the final God: Nativity of a World of Trees, he began a long-winded victory speech:
"What makes you think you are any different from Nagato? What makes you think you can control everything? You always believed you were special. How ridiculous... how tragic."
Madara did not argue with Black Zetsu. Instead, he stared at Hoshiyomi before him, his eyes filled with shock.
Hoshiyomi looked at the controlled Madara and finally spoke:
"Remember? I warned you before. You won't get the result you want."