Battle of the Valley of the End (III)

The sky seemed to have been punched full of holes.

The Valley of the End could no longer be called a "valley." The once-bottomless gorge had been forcibly widened several times over. The towering stone statues on either side, once symbols of Madara and Hashirama, had long since vanished, leaving only grotesque chunks of enormous rubble and terrifying craters dozens of meters deep. The waterfall had stopped flowing, the river had changed course, and everywhere the ground was charred, melted, or plowed open by tremendous force. The air reeked of scorching and blood, along with the heart-stopping aura of destruction left behind by the collision of immense energies.

The two colossal figures that had towered between heaven and earth-the Perfect Susanoo-clad Nine-Tails and the great Buddha of Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands-were gone as well.

No, they had not vanished. They had "destroyed each other."

That final collision had exceeded the limits of everyone's imagination. Susanoo's enormous sword had shattered hundreds of the great Buddha's arms, its edge even nearing the Buddha's chest. Meanwhile, the Buddha's thousand remaining arms had battered Susanoo like raging waves, pounding countless cracks into its dark-blue, glasslike armor and tearing the Nine-Tails' chakra cloak to shreds.

At the heart of the collision, space itself seemed to collapse for an instant, forming a black singularity that swallowed light. Then came a world-shaking explosion a hundred times more terrifying than all the previous blasts combined, followed by a final storm that swept away everything, mingling pitch-black destructive energy with emerald-green life energy.

After the storm, the dust slowly settled.

At the center of the battlefield lay a bottomless, bowl-shaped crater more than a kilometer across. The rocks around its rim had a vitrified sheen and still gave off wisps of smoke.

At the bottom of the crater, near its center, lay two people and one... enormous fox.

Hashirama Senju knelt on one knee, one hand braced against the scorched earth, the other hanging limply at his side. Most of his red plated armor had shattered, exposing a body likewise covered in wounds that reached the bone. Blood had almost completely drenched him. His white Hokage robe was long gone. Fine wounds covered his face and body, as though countless blades had sliced him. Most horrifying was a huge diagonal slash across his chest that had nearly laid him open. Its edges still stirred faintly, trying to heal, but at an agonizingly slow pace. He panted heavily, each breath bringing up copious bloody froth. His face was as pale as paper. The strange mark on his forehead and the senjutsu markings around his eyes had long since faded. Only his eyes remained fixed fiercely ahead.

A dozen or so paces in front of him, Madara Uchiha lay on his back. His armor was just as badly shattered, his dark-blue underclothes soaked with blood. In his chest was a horrific, bowl-sized hole that went clean through him. Its edges bore blackened traces of erosion by Wood Release chakra, and the shattered rocks behind him were visible through it. The hole was right where his heart should have been. Beneath him, a great pool of dark-red blood slowly spread. His Sharingan, once scarlet and savage, once looking down upon the world, were now dull and lifeless, their pupils unfocused as they stared straight at the lead-gray sky that seemed to be weeping. At the corner of his mouth, a cold, mocking curve that also seemed to hold endless regret remained frozen in place.

Dead.

Madara Uchiha was dead.

Between them, a little farther away, the enormous crimson Nine-Tailed Demon Fox lay prone. He seemed to have reached his limit as well. His body had shrunk considerably, leaving him only twenty or thirty meters tall. The savage flames of chakra over his body flickered weakly, and his nine tails lay spread limply. Huge fist marks and wounds pierced by wooden spikes covered his body. One eye was tightly shut, with dark-red bloody tears running from it. He seemed to want to struggle still, letting out low whimpers filled with pain, but his massive body only twitched faintly. He could no longer stand.

Hashirama Senju panted as he looked at the fatal hole in Madara's chest. His gaze was immensely complicated, holding the relief of victory, the pain of killing his dearest friend with his own hands, profound exhaustion, and a trace of... bewilderment so faint that perhaps even he had not noticed it.

He had won. With the last of the power of Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands, at the very instant Madara's Susanoo slashed his chest, he had driven a Wood Release Spear containing all his senjutsu chakra into Madara's heart.

It had been an attack meant to take them both down. He was gravely wounded, almost dying. But Madara... was dead.

Slowly, with extreme difficulty, he tried to stand. He wanted to go to Madara, to confirm it, to... say something. But the moment he exerted himself, the horrific wound across his chest burst open. Blood gushed out, his vision went black, and he nearly collapsed again.

"Lord Hashirama!"

"Lord Hokage!"

In the distance, Konoha's ninja finally recovered from their overwhelming shock and fear. They cried out and tried to rush over, but the violent energy currents and pressure lingering at the battlefield's center made every step a struggle.

Hashirama Senju waved a hand, signaling them not to come. He drew a deep breath, suppressed the blood surging in his throat, and turned his gaze toward the Nine-Tails, who was still growling.

There was still... this problem.

He slowly raised his bloodstained hand, the one he could still move, and formed an extremely simple seal that nevertheless seemed to weigh a thousand tons.

"Wood Release..."

His voice was hoarse beyond recognition, yet it carried an unquestionable force.

"...Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands."

Soft emerald-green chakra, filled with a calming, sealing quality, spread from his palm. It transformed into countless wooden strips shimmering with strange runes. Like living vines, they wound gently but firmly toward the gravely injured Nine-Tails.

The Nine-Tails seemed to realize something. A trace of terror and fury flashed in his remaining eye. He struggled harder, threatening growls rising from his throat as his remaining chakra began to run wild.

"Quiet."

Hashirama Senju gave a low command, a stern glint flashing in his eyes. The wooden strips instantly tightened around the fox, their runes blazing with light! A force containing supreme vitality and powerful sealing strength seeped into the Nine-Tails' body, forcibly soothing his violent chakra and suppressing his consciousness.

"Roar... whine..."

The Nine-Tails' struggles grew weaker and weaker. The savagery and light in his eye gradually gave way to confusion and drowsiness. Wrapped in the emerald-green wooden strips, his enormous body slowly shrank, then shrank again... until he finally became a miniature, fox-shaped mass of crimson chakra, eyes closed in deep slumber. The wooden strips gently enveloped and bound him, drawing him back to Hashirama Senju's side.

Hashirama took the "little fox," which contained terrifying power but now slept peacefully. It felt immensely heavy in his hand. Without even looking at him, he pressed him directly into the sealing space in his abdomen-with his current Sage Body, his control over chakra, and the suppression of Wood Release, temporarily sealing the Nine-Tails posed no problem.

Once he had finished, even the last of his strength seemed to drain away. His body swayed. Unable to support himself any longer, he fell backward.

"Brother!"

A figure appeared behind him at a speed approaching teleportation and caught him. It was Tobirama Senju. At some point, he too had reached the edge of the battlefield. His face was expressionless, but the arms supporting his elder brother were steady. His eyes swiftly swept over Hashirama's horrific injuries, especially the one on his chest, and his pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

"Tobirama..." Hashirama leaned against his younger brother and gave a weak smile, his voice barely audible. "Madara... is dead. The Nine-Tails... is sealed. The rest... is up to you."

With that, his head lolled to one side, and he lost consciousness completely.

Tobirama Senju immediately checked his brother's vital signs. Though they were extremely weak and erratic, the tenacious vitality of his Sage Body still sustained him, with no sign of immediate collapse. Tobirama inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, then issued cold orders:

"Medical Team! Get over here immediately! Highest-level treatment!"

"Sealing Squad, Barrier Team! Lock down the entire Valley of the End immediately! Clear the turbulent energy and erect isolation barriers!"

"Anbu, seal all routes in and out. Without my written authorization, no one is to approach or spread any information!"

The string of orders came coldly and efficiently. Konoha's ninja sprang into action like wound-up machines. Medical ninja rushed over with stretchers and equipment, carefully carrying the unconscious Hashirama Senju away. The Sealing Squad and Barrier Team got to work. The Anbu scattered like phantoms.

Tobirama Senju did not leave immediately. He stood where he was, his gaze sweeping across the ruins that seemed to have been utterly ravaged by a natural disaster, before finally settling on Madara Uchiha's corpse.

He walked over, crouched beside Madara's corpse, and examined it carefully. The hole in his chest was indeed fatal. His heart had been completely destroyed, and the lingering Wood Release chakra was indeed his brother's. All signs of life were gone. He could not have been more thoroughly dead.

He reached out, seemingly intending to touch the edge of the hole, but his fingers stopped an inch from the corpse. Silently, he looked at Madara's face and its frozen expression of mockery for several seconds. Then he rose without expression.

Just then, as though sensing something, he abruptly raised his head. His gaze shot like lightning toward a relatively high cliff at the battlefield's edge that had not yet completely collapsed.

Several people stood there. At their head was a boy who looked only about ten, dressed in dark-blue clan attire with a sword at his waist and a composed face-Uchiha Yinglang. Beside him were the pale Uchiha Gen, who was being supported, and Uchiha Ruri, whose expression was cool. Behind them stood several Uchiha guards.

Across the devastated battlefield and drifting smoke and dust, the two sides looked at each other from afar.

Tobirama Senju's gaze met Uchiha Yinglang's in midair.

There were no sparks, no hostility, not even any obvious emotion. It was like two pieces of cold iron, unfathomably deep in their chill, lightly touching.

Tobirama Senju saw the calm in Yinglang's eyes. Beneath it lay a depth beyond his years that saw through everything. He was scrutinizing, assessing, calculating. There was no grief over Madara's death, no worry or relief over Hashirama's grave injuries, and no surprise at the Nine-Tails' capture. There was only the pure composure of someone observing the course of a game.

Uchiha Yinglang likewise saw the cold scrutiny in Tobirama Senju's eyes. It was an absolute rationality that excluded all emotion, leaving only the weighing of gains and losses and a desire for control. He was confirming Madara's death, assessing the Uchiha's remaining value, and considering how to exploit the situation following this costly victory. Perhaps he was also wondering whether other hands had been at work behind this confrontation.

Their eyes met for only a brief instant, perhaps less than half a breath.

Tobirama Senju looked away first, as though it had been merely a casual glance. Then he turned and walked toward the Konoha ninja gathered around Hashirama as they treated him. His back was straight, his steps steady, as though that battle between gods, his brother's grave injuries, and the fall of a powerful enemy had all been no more than parts of a plan.

On the cliff, Uchiha Yinglang slowly withdrew his gaze as well. He lowered his head and glanced at Madara Uchiha's battered remains, which the clansmen had gathered up (the Uchiha ninja had already taken the opportunity to approach and wrap Madara's body in specially made cloth). Then he looked up toward the direction Tobirama Senju had left, the corner of his mouth curling almost imperceptibly into an utterly cold smile.

Madara was dead? How could that be?

He must have prepared Izanagi long ago, but Hashirama's injuries were real, and so was the Nine-Tails' capture.

Tobirama played a ruthless game. Unfortunately, there were still hands beyond the board that he could not see.

And Uchiha Yinglang, whom he had his eye on, was no longer a pawn.

"Yinglang, should we... go back?" Beside him, Ruri asked softly, her voice trembling slightly. The apocalyptic scene before her and Madara Uchiha's death had clearly shaken her considerably.

Elder Xuan also looked toward Yinglang, his gaze weary and complicated, waiting for this de facto "acting representative" to decide.

Yinglang took a deep breath and suppressed all the churning thoughts in his mind. His face regained its usual composure, so far beyond his years.

"Yes, let's go back." His voice was calm. "Madara Uchiha fell in battle, Lord Hokage is gravely injured, and the Nine-Tails has been sealed. I'm afraid Konoha won't be very peaceful in the days ahead. The Uchiha... need to prepare early."

He took one final look at the ruins, then at the direction in which Madara's "corpse" was being carried, and then at the retreating backs of Konoha's ninja. Then he turned without hesitation.

"Let's go."

The group silently left the battlefield, a place destined to go down in history yet filled with countless unsolved mysteries.

The Battle of the Valley of the End drew to a close with Madara Uchiha "dead," Hashirama Senju gravely wounded and near death, and the Nine-Tails sealed.

But the true storm, perhaps, was only just beginning to brew.

And in a corner unknown to anyone, within Madara Uchiha's gradually cooling "corpse," a certain ultimate genjutsu prepared long in advance, paid for with the blindness of one Sharingan-Izanagi-was quietly working, counting down to the moment of "resurrection."

The game was not over, and the players remained unknown.