A bloodstained battlefield he knew all too well.
The setting sun was like shattered glass, casting mottled, dim light across the land.
It should have been a beautiful scene, but no amount of sunlight could dispel the air's pervasive despair and stench of death.
Madara Uchiha stood at the center of the battlefield, surrounded by fallen clansmen whose eyes were frozen with their final traces of unwillingness and fury.
The wind seemed to stop at that moment, leaving only the echoes of battle ringing in his ears like the Death God's mockery.
His gaze pierced through the raging flames of war before finally settling on a familiar figure not far away—Izuna Uchiha, his younger brother, the softest part of his heart.
Izuna now lay quietly amid the ruins, his body pierced through by an enemy's blade. Blood slowly seeped out like a thin stream, staining the earth around him—and Madara's eyes red.
At that moment, time seemed to freeze.
Madara's heartbeat skipped, followed by pain surging over him like a tide, nearly drowning him.
He watched Izuna's eyes slowly close. Those eyes, which had once sparkled with wisdom and warmth, now held only emptiness and silence, as if even his soul had departed, leaving behind a cold shell that spoke of an irreversible separation.
Madara's footsteps were heavy. Every step felt like treading on a sharp blade, the pain striking straight into his heart.
He staggered toward Izuna and reached out with trembling hands, as if trying to grasp something, but could only touch that gradually cooling body.
Madara's eyes grew wet. Tears mingled with fury and grief before finally becoming a silent roar that echoed across the deathly still battlefield.
"No... Izuna!"
His voice was hoarse and despairing. Every word seemed torn from the depths of his soul, carrying