Madara opened his eyes.
Above him was an unfamiliar ceiling, wooden and plain.
He lay still, first checking how his body felt.
His chakra... flowed sluggishly, as though something had firmly blocked it. There was more than one seal-several different sealing formulas were bound around him in overlapping layers, sealing everything from his chakra pathways to his pressure points with remarkable thoroughness.
Madara sneered.
They thought this could hold a sage?
With a thought, the terrifyingly vast chakra within him began slowly gathering, like an enormous beast bound in chains, preparing to break free by force.
He had barely begun.
A voice came from the doorway.
"I suggest you don't try anything."
Madara turned to look.
Ryuto leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded, his face expressionless.
"Hashirama vouched for you," Ryuto said. "If you undo those seals without permission, that counts as a jailbreak. Not only would you be letting him down, I'd have to treat you as a prisoner too."
Madara stared at him for a while.
Neither of them spoke.
The room was quiet.
After about a dozen seconds, the chakra fluctuations building around Madara slowly subsided.
He lay back down and stared at the ceiling.
"Talk," Madara said, his voice a little hoarse. "What happened?"
Ryuto came in, pulled up a chair, and sat down. "All right, I'll explain."
"After you passed out, everyone gathered around," Ryuto said. "They all started talking at once, wondering whether to finish you off and end your life."
The corner of Madara's mouth twitched, but he said nothing.
"They couldn't agree," Ryuto continued. "In the end, they decided to leave it to me. I was the one who beat you, after all."
"And then? You decided not to kill me?"
"Personally, I didn't really care whether you lived or