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The sun was beginning to pierce through the ash-choked skies as the dust of battle settled. The barren valley echoed with distant sounds of battle, but here — along the ridgeline where Gaara's Fourth Company had pushed back the reanimated forces — there was a rare, fleeting stillness.
Allied shinobi, bloodied and exhausted, took cautious steps forward. Med-nin raced between the wounded. A murmur began to rise from the comms relay.
Sensor-nin: (through earpiece)"Western front: under control."Southwest: Naruto's clone just wiped out the Zabuza unit!"Very division is reporting momentum — we're winning!"
From the far cliff, Gaara stood calm yet vigilant, his gourd shifting slightly with the breeze. Darui, a few meters away, wiped soot from his brow, exhaling in relief.
Darui: "Looks like your strategy worked, Kazekage. That sealing corps sealed up the last of them."
A pop of chakra flared behind the ranks — another Naruto shadow clone, radiating golden light in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, landed with a quiet thud.
Clone Naruto: (grinning, two fingers raised in a peace sign)"Yo! Another batch taken care of! Feels like we're finally turning this thing around."
But just as the tension started to ease… everything shifted.
A pulse — low, sonorous, like a beast's heartbe, rippled across the battlefield.
Sand trembled. Loose stones danced across the cracked earth. Every sensor-type ninja froze mid-step, eyes wide with panic.
Sensor-nin A: "Wait… something's wrong."
Sensor-nin B: (face pale, hands trembling)"This chakra… It's not coming from the reanimated Kage… or the Jinchuriki…"
Shikamaru's voice crackled faintly from a comm relay: "Fourth Company, report. Why's the chakra grid distorting on your end?"
Then — it hit.
A wave of chakra, ancient and overwhelming, surged like a tsunami through the ranks. It wasn't wild or unstable — it was deliberate. Heavy. As if the earth itself bent beneath it.
Shinobi dropped to their knees.
Some screamed. Others just stared into the trees to the east, where no one had seen movement before.
Allied Shinobi 1: "Wh-What is that?!"
Allied Shinobi 2: "It's too massive… this isn't like any Bijuu…"
Gaara's sand instinctively formed a barrier around him. His eyes narrowed — not in confusion, but recognition.
Gaara: (quietly)"No… it can't be…"
The ground split open in jagged cracks as the chakra pressure mounted.
Lightning shimmered unnaturally in the sky above. The wind shifted, howling like the breath of a god.
Darui: (gritting his teeth)"We've got incoming — but this ain't Zetsu or some chakra beast. This is something else."
Froahe distance, half-seen in mist and chakra distortion, a figure began to emerge. Cloaked in shadow. Long, wild black hair. A golden eye glowing faintly.
The ground felt colder.
Sensor-nin C:" That chakra… It's like Madara's. No—it's older."
Gaara: (grimly)"Brace yourselves."
Naruto's clone turned toward the source, eyes narrowing.
Clone Naruto:"…This isn't over. Not yet."
Cue distant thunder. Scene fades with a rising hum of dread.
The oppressive chakra continued to swell, warping the very air around the Fourth Company. A haze of static and pressure made it hard to breathe, like the mountain itself had taken a breath.
From the eye of this gathering storm, something stirred.
At the far edge of the field, a crack split open in the earth, and from the shadows below, a figure crawled out — Mū, the reanimated Second Tsuchikage, split from his sealed half. His face was cracked and colorless, but calm as ever, as he knelt and pressed his hand to the soil.
The wind howled louder.
Mū: (softly, almost reverently)"It's time…"
With a precise motion, Mū performed a hand seal, and the earth shifted again. A sealing array unfolded in front of him, dark smoke rising from the center.
Then came the grind of stone on metal.
A coffin, marked by Edo Tensei's unmistakable paper charms, emerged slowly from the dirt. Unlike the earlier reanimations, this one exuded power long before it opened.
The front of the coffin fell forward with a crack, and the battlefield went silent.
Out stepped a man, all broad-shouldered, armored in dark crimson plate. His hair was long and unbound, black as midnight. His expression was unreadable: calm, cold, regal. Two eternal Mangekyō Sharingan eyes stared forward, unmoved by the chaos around him.
Madara Uchiha.
No doubt. No illusion. No mask.
Just presence.
The moment he stood fully upright, the chakra that had smothered the battlefield before now snapped into shape around him — sharp, suffocating, sovereign. Like a kingdom had returned to reclaim its throne.
The shinobi across the field instinctively stepped back.
Oonoki, who had been mid-flight beside Gaara, froze mid-air. His eyes widened. His mouth went dry.
Oonoki: (shaking, voice cracking)"T-That's… that's Madara Uchiha. No doubt in my mind… I fought him myself when I was young."
He wasn't speaking to anyone. Just stating a truth, barely able to accept it himself.
Gasps rippled across the lines.
Shinobi A:"Wait… if that's Madara…"
Shinobi B: (eyes darting)"Then the masked man we've been fighting all this time—who is he?!"
Shinobi C: "We 've been calling him Madara since the beginning!"
Gaara: (grim, steady)"There's no mistake. That's him. That's the real Madara Uchiha…"
The Naruto clone nearby clenched his fists, sweat dripping down his brow despite the chakra cloak.
Clone Naruto: "But then… who the hell is the masked guy?"
Madara scanned the field with indifference, almost boredom. His gaze swept across the stunned shinobi, not seeing opponents — only obstacles. His head tilted slightly, the air around him cracking from the sheer density of his reanimation chakra.
Madara: (voice deep, composed)"So… this is the battlefield of this era."
He stepped forward.
Not a single shinobi moved.
Shikamaru, sword drawn, whispered under his breath.
Shikamaru:" That… thing… is supposed to be dead."
And yet — here he was. Unbothered. Whole. Terrifyingly alive.
The ground shook subtly again.
Because something else was coming.
Another chakra signature. Older still. Colder.
Something rising in tandem with Madara.
But for now, everyone's eyes were locked on the Uchiha — the ghost made real.
And no one knew what came next.
Madara hadn't moved, hadn't spoken again. Just stood, statuesque and regal, Sharingan spinning slowly as if appraising the entire Allied Shinobi Army in a single glance.
But before the shinobi could even process his presence—
Mū's head tilted unnaturally to the side. A smirk crept across his otherwise blank expression — no longer Mū, but Kabuto, speaking through him with that same eerie confidence.
Kabuto (through Mū): "Oh? What's the matter? You didn't think I'd summon just one god, did you?"
Gasps shot through the front lines.
Oonoki's eyes widened again, the blood draining from his face.
Gaara raised both hands instinctively, sand swirling around him as his instincts screamed.
Darui: (muttering)"You've got to be kidding me…"
A violent tremor cracked the ground beside Madara — and then a second coffin erupted from the earth, slamming upright with a deep thud. Dust and ash spiraled upward, but unlike before, the air did not feel heavy.
It felt cold.
Freezing.
A sudden, unnatural chill swept across the field.
From the base of the second coffin, frost spread like ink in water, serpentine and swift. The soil cracked and split, ice blooming in jagged veins beneath the debris field. Fallen weapons became glazed in rime. Patches of grass turned brittle, frozen in time.
The air misted. The wind died. And the battlefield shuddered.
Sensor-nin A:" I-It's another chakra signature—just as strong… no, worse—colder… older…"
Sensor-nin B: (backpedaling)"I've never felt anything like this… It's stealing heat…"
White steam began rolling out from the cracks — not smoke, but vaporized warmth fleeing the encroaching cold.
The coffin creaked.
Then burst open.
From within stepped a figure, tall and straight-backed, cloaked in Warring States-era battle armor. The plating was jagged and rimmed with frostbite. Atop his shoulders, draped a thick, half-torn war cloak marked by the Yuki clan's snowflake crest, nearly erased by time and blood.
His face was mostly hidden beneath a half-mask of ice-worn steel, save for one visible eye glowing with an unearthly, pale-white light.
His skin was frost-kissed, ghostly pale. Every breath he exhaled came out as white mist, like smoke curling off a dying fire.
As he stepped forward, the temperature dropped ten degrees instantly. Ice spread outward with every footfall, coating the very ground he walked on. Even the air seemed to slow, as if time itself hesitated.
Oonoki: (whispers)"...Impossible."
Gaara: (eyes narrowing)"That chakra, it feels as ominous as Madara's…"
Shikamaru: "He's from that era, too. That same… killing presence."
In the distance, Naruto's clone grimaced, beads of frost clinging to his chakra cloak.
Clone Naruto: "Who is this guy…?"
The frost-covered shinobi turned his head slowly toward Madara — not in deference, but familiarity. Recognition.
And Madara, for the first time, tilted his head just slightly.
A smirk played on the edge of the Uchiha's mouth.
Madara: "So… they brought you back too."
Still silent, the Yuki shinobi raised his hand — and with a flick of his fingers, a hail of frozen senbon rose from the frost beneath his feet, glinting like death in the cold morning light.
He wasn't a revenant.
He was a blizzard in human form.
And now he had returned — not as a weapon.
But as vengeance incarnate.
The mist continued to rise — dense, spectral, and silent. Ice laced its way across the battlefield like veins in glass. Even the very air seemed to resist movement.
At Shinobi HQ, the chakra monitors flickered erratically. Red sigils pulsed. A low drone echoed through the underground chamber like a warning bell.
Inoichi Yamanaka pressed a trembling hand to his headset.
Inoichi: "Chakra surge… unidentified… It's overriding the grid—wait, it's distorting the grid—"
Ao, standing across the table, narrowed his eyes.
Ao: "Not distorting. Freezing it."
A beat of stunned silence passed. Then:
Ōnoki's voice came through the comms, brittle with age and fear.
Ōnoki (over comms): "No… no, not him too…"
He was high above the battlefield, floating on a rock platform, his face pale as death. Below, his troops had backed away from the creeping frost, unsure whether to run or fight.
Ōnoki: "That chakra… That's the one that froze the Land of Earth into stillness for three weeks…"
Flashbacks danced behind his eyes — entire valleys sealed beneath glacial walls, entire divisions frozen mid-stance, some bodies never found.
Ōnoki: "No one's seen him since the day he fought Madara and Hashirama both… and walked away."
At HQ, A — the Fourth Raikage — slammed his fist on the reinforced steel of the map table. His aura flared with rage, but his jaw clenched in recognition.
A: "My grandfather told me of him. The Ice Requiem. Said even Hashirama hesitated before facing him…"
The room quieted at that name.
The Ice Requiem.
A forgotten man of the Warring States. A ghost story turned prophecy.
Back on the battlefield, shinobi began to panic.
Sensor-nin A: "I—I can't trace him! It's like his chakra doesn't register anymore!"
Sensor-nin B: "Chakra suppressors just failed—field-wide disruption!"
A storm of white mist rolled in, swallowing the treeline. The ground cracked beneath Shinobi's feet — not from force, but temperature. Frost chased across the field, coating kunai in thin sheets of ice.
Gaara's sand, mid-formation, froze midair. Crystals formed over the grains, rendering them immobile.
Gaara's expression remained unreadable, but his eyes sharpened.
A squad of shinobi launched a coordinated barrage — shuriken, kunai, and wind-nature techniques aimed at the newly summoned Yuki warrior.
They didn't make it.
Mid-flight, the weapons froze in place — crystalline, suspended like snowflakes in the mist.
Then, with a brittle crack, they shattered midair.
A shinobi screamed.
Another collapsed, frost forming over his limbs despite his burning chakra.
The frost was alive.
And the man at the center of it — his eye glowing white beneath that half-mask — had yet to raise his hand.
Oonoki (softly): "We should have let him stay dead…"
The battlefield, moments ago triumphant, was now caught in the grip of something ancient and forgotten.
Not a man.
Not a jutsu.
But a curse reborn.
Chakra trembles through the soil like aftershocks. The world itself seems to hesitate.
The mist begins to thin, just enough for the shinobi below to see them — two titans standing shoulder to shoulder atop the fractured ridge. Their silhouettes, backlit by white frost and burning red dusk, seem carved from the Warring States itself.
Madara, ever still, brushes a gauntlet over the charred plate of his armor, shaking away a flake of ash. He doesn't look surprised.
He looks delighted.
Madara: (smirking, eyes narrowing)"You're here… After all this time."
The Yuki shinobi doesn't answer at first. The fog from his breath spills into the windless air, curling like dragon smoke. His lone glowing eye remains fixed ahead, not at the shinobi army, not at the chaos below.
But at Madara.
Yuki Man: (voice low, steady, cold)"You said to me that you would return to complete the plan, one day. I said I would follow."
A pause. His eye sharpens slightly.
Yuki Man: "I'm keeping my word."
Madara laughs softly — not mocking, but genuine. Like an old friend just remembered an inside joke.
Madara: "Still quiet. Still terrifying."
He turns fully toward him, arms crossing over his chest. For a heartbeat, there's no malice in his posture — only familiarity.
Madar a: "I missed this."
The Yuki warrior glances sideways, his voice never rising.
Yuki Man: "You talk enough for both of us."
A slow grin curls across Madara's face. There's a flicker of something else in his eyes — not Sharingan, not madness — but fondness.
The air begins to freeze again, more deliberately this time. Not like before. Controlled. Synchronized.
They move as one — not stepping forward, not raising weapons — but being. Standing together, like twin obelisks from a myth that refused to die.
Wind begins to die down again. The clouds overhead twist unnaturally. Even the sun seems reluctant to shine on them.
From below, the Allied Shinobi Army collectively takes a step back.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Even Naruto's clone doesn't move. His cloak crackles, eyes narrowed — unsure if he's facing men… or monuments.
Atop a high cliff overlooking the chaos, Kabuto, still speaking through Mū's expressionless face, watches with manic glee.
Kabuto: "Madara Uchiha… and the Ice Requiem. Gods of war reborn."
His voice echoes across the frozen wasteland like prophecy.
And somewhere, hidden amidst the chaos, Shikamaru watches — mind racing, heart slowing, lips parted in stunned disbelief.
Shikamaru (internal): "This... this isn't a battle anymore…"
He watches as Madara's Mangekyō spins slowly, and frost curls around the Yuki man's fingertips like a serpent coiled to strike.
Shikamaru (internal, final line):"…This is divine punishment."