Uchiha Madara had truly disappeared from Estelle's side.
It was not that he did not love her; his love could not tolerate the slightest impurity. The memories that had returned to him were like endless darkness, eroding him. He was infinitely anguished, infinitely numb, infinitely sorrowful!
He came to Krone Peak and shouted loudly deep within the mountains. He wept his heart out, knowing no one would hear him anyway. The words he murmured over and over were always the same four syllables: "Estelle, Estelle, Estelle!"
When he grew tired of shouting, he fell into a deep sleep on Krone Peak. The mountain winds were bitterly cold, but he paid them no mind.
Suddenly, a voice gradually rose from within his dream...
"That wasn't you. It wasn't your fault."
"You are not Joshua, you are not..."
"Joshua's sins are not your sins. And what is it that you should do?"
Uchiha Madara jolted awake. That dream had felt incredibly real.
"What... I'm not Joshua?"
"If I'm not Joshua, then who am I?"
Uchiha Madara shook his head, violently shaking it as though he could cast the thought away. But once such an idea had burrowed deep into his mind, how could it possibly be shaken off so easily?
"Who... who exactly am I? What is my name?"
He spread open his hands and looked at himself, seeing nothing unusual at all. He could not believe that he was not Joshua, but why did he always have this dream...
"I will take control of my own fate... Even if I leave Estelle, I will still protect her from the shadows to the very end..." Uchiha Madara thought. "Whether I truly am Joshua or not, I know whom I love in my heart..."
At last, he understood the path he would take