The following night, Madara unexpectedly had a strange dream. In the dream, he stood in a dim, deep passageway, its walls on both sides cold, damp rock.
His height felt strange; he seemed to be only half as tall as the ventilation openings along the passage walls. He tried moving his fingers, but there was no response. He wanted to speak, but his vocal cords seemed glued shut, unable to make a sound.
"Tap, tap... Kreacher? Hurry and keep up. We still have a lot to do..."
A young voice came from ahead. He raised his head and fixed his gaze on a spot some fifty meters away, where a frail young man was walking slowly forward. The other held a white cane, and the scent of magic around him felt unexpectedly familiar.
Kreacher? Wasn't that the timid House-Elf from Black Manor? How had he become it? Had he been hypnotized by an illusion? Interesting!
Madara decided to see what the other person intended to do. He did not believe any illusion could deceive someone with his Sharingan.
Seeing the figure ahead getting farther and farther away, he hurriedly lifted his leg to follow—it was Kreacher's leg, short and thin, making almost no sound as it stepped across the stone floor of the cave.
He followed the figure around a bend in the stone path. A damp wind carrying the stale scent of decay blew from ahead. He could hear water dripping from high above at irregular intervals, like the rusty pendulum of an old clock gradually running out of momentum.
He did not know how long they had walked before the way ahead suddenly opened up.
A vast underground cavern appeared before him. The rock ceiling above was at least a hundred meters high, with sparse moonlight slanting down