On the other side of the battlefield, Madara Uchiha struggled to push himself off the ground. His one intact Sharingan stared fixedly in the direction Shengu Xuan had vanished, a strange mixture of terror and excitement churning in his chest.
Purple chakra rose from his battered body again like an unyielding flame, attempting to mend the wounds pierced by rock fragments, but the marrow-deep pain left by the corrosive power of shadows refused to fade.
"Cough, cough..." Madara spat out clotted blood mixed with fragments of his organs, then turned toward Kabuto Yakushi, who lay dying amid the rubble beside him. "Hey, you snake-handling rat. You're not dead yet, are you?"
Kabuto Yakushi barely used his shattered glasses to block the blood streaming down his face. His serpentine eyes brimmed with the fear and resentment of having narrowly survived. "You... what else do you want?"
"Can you use your Impure World Reincarnation one more time?" Madara's voice was hoarse, yet carried an all-or-nothing madness. "Make yourself the sacrifice, bind your soul to mine, and summon that thing."
Kabuto Yakushi's pupils contracted sharply. "You mean... the Ten-Tails?! You're insane! Without the shell of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, without the Tailed Beasts' chakra, we couldn't possibly..."
"Who said I don't have them?" Madara gave a savage grin, his intact Sharingan suddenly turning toward the distance. "I can feel it. That traitor... Obito. He's absorbing the Tailed Beasts' chakra. As long as I can reach him, I can draw on the Ten-Tails' power..."
He never finished.
A pure, ancient aura of darkness that made even his soul tremble suddenly swept in from the distant horizon. Madara jerked his head up. Then he witnessed the most unbelievable sight of his life.
The black-clad youth who had vanished through teleportation had reappeared