Minato reappeared somewhere in front of Madara's half-formed Susanoo, wobbling, hand shaking, eyes wild.
"Kushina—"
She was limp inside Madara's grip, chakra drained, breathing shallow.
Obito arrived a heartbeat later in a Kamui ripple.
Madara didn't even look bothered.
"Pathetic."
Four Limbo clones struck Minato the same instant.
Minato didn't even see the first blow.
One cracked his jaw sideways.
One crushed into his ribs.
One pinned his remaining arm.
One buried a fist cleanly into his spine.
Minato gagged on blood, body convulsing.
Madara's real body stepped forward calmly.
"Distraction in battle is unforgivable."
Obito watched, frozen for a moment, a strange tension flickering in his face, not sympathy, but the ugly collision of past and present.
Minato tried to crawl forward, fingers twitching toward Kushina.
Madara tilted his head faintly.
"Still moving?"
A final Limbo fist punched through Minato's heart.
The Yellow Flash collapsed, eyes dimming instantly, body slumping against the ground.
Dead.
No fanfare.
No last comeback.
Just the end.
Obito's breath hitched.
No hesitation.
Not grief.
Just cold, twisted satisfaction.
"…Finally," he muttered.
His voice shook, not from sadness, but from the release of a wound he'd carried for years.
"Now you understand what it feels like."
He didn't look twice at the corpse.
Meanwhile, Tobirama also arrived through Flying Raijin there next, but only during the moment the killing blow happened—
And stopped.
Minato idiotically teleported far too close to Madara, likely materializing right into the spot where those invisible presences lurked.
Tobirama instantly guessed what they were, some hidden extension of Madara's Rinnegan, and cursed Minato's stupidity.
Madara had likely anticipated that exact teleportation anchor and left the clones waiting there beforehand.
By the time Tobirama realized the setup, it was already too late to save him.
He didn't even try to go to Minato's body anymore after seeing his state now.
He simply froze midair, then dropped onto a nearby rooftop, eyes narrowing in bitter calculation.
Inside, he thought only one thing:
'Idiot. You let yourself get distracted in the middle of the most crucial moment in this war.'
He would have tried to save Minato earlier, only because Minato would have been a useful asset against Ryusei.
But now?
An arm severed, his torso mangled beyond saving, his spine barely holding together…
Minato wouldn't survive a minute even with the most perfect medical jutsu.
He was worthless for the upcoming confrontation.
So Tobirama didn't mourn.
He didn't shout.
He didn't even flinch.
He just watched Madara lift Kushina's unconscious body into the Susanoo.
And thought colder than ever.
'Good. Let him take her. The fewer distractions, the easier to deal with Ryusei next.'
Madara's Rinnegan rotated once, slow and deliberate.
He didn't need any special power to read Tobirama's intentions fully this time.
The man's thoughts were practically leaking off him.
And he was enjoying every second of it for some reason.
"You really are transparent," Madara said, voice calm and amused. "Calculating even while your chosen prospective Hokage and the brightest "hero" of the previous war bleeds out a few steps away. Ever the pragmatist, Tobirama."
Tobirama didn't answer.
Madara's smile sharpened.
"Don't pretend it bothers you. You were already planning to let the woman go. And now that your precious Fourth is useless, you don't even have the courtesy to mourn him."
Tobirama's jaw twitched, barely.
Madara chuckled under his breath.
"Konoha's moral pillar… hollow as always."
He shifted Kushina's unconscious form to one arm.
"Obito," Madara said without looking back, "bring the others and let's go. We're finished here."
Obito opened Kamui without hesitation.
Across the battlefield, Kakuzu, Sasori, and Zetsu flickered out of existence mid-fight and reappeared beside him.
Madara glanced once more toward the outer barrier, toward the storm of chakra where Ryusei's battle raged.
"That boy outside…" Madara murmured, almost thoughtful. "If he lives through what waits for him, he might actually become the most interesting thing ever."
He turned away.
"If he dies today, it spares me the trouble later. If he survives this… well, let's call it fate's final challenge."
His gaze slid back to Tobirama one last time, amused and dismissive.
"Good luck protecting your village from him next. You'll need far more than what I've seen here today."
And with that, Obito's vortex swallowed all of them.
Madara, Obito, Kushina, Kakuzu, Sasori, and Zetsu vanished together in a single ripple of warped space.
Leaving Tobirama alone with the dead Fourth Hokage, a ruined center district…
…and the knowledge that every decision he had made tonight had helped set this outcome in motion.
Tobirama didn't answer Madara's mockery aloud.
He only watched the vortex close and let a thin breath slip out.
"Arrogant to the end," he thought. "And somehow still correct about half of it."
No anger.
No sorrow.
Just a sharp, silent calculation settling in his chest.
Minato was gone.
Kushina taken.
Madara had played him, read him, and used his own hesitation against him.
And Ryusei… whatever was happening outside the barrier had just shifted, violently.
Tobirama's expression hardened back into its usual shape, the momentary crack sealed.
Enough reflection.
The village was half in ruins, commanders scattered, and the real battle was still ahead.
Shikaku arrived beside him at the same moment, face grim, armor cracked, dozens of clan shinobi behind him waiting for orders.
Tobirama didn't waste a second.
"Shikaku. Coordinate the clans. Stabilize the center district. Get medics to the injured. Push remaining forces to perimeter defense. Evacuate civilians south. Handle it."
Shikaku nodded once, already predicting half the plan before Tobirama finished speaking.
In the distance, a massive rupture in the Chibaku Tensei sphere burst apart, and Might Duy collapsed out of the debris, broken but still breathing.
Tobirama didn't even look in his direction.
His eyes lifted toward the barrier.
The sky above was shifting.
The chakra storm beyond it had changed in shape and pressure.
Something outside had gone very, very wrong again.
Tobirama didn't hesitate.
His hands flashed, and in the next instant, he vanished in a streak of blue light.
...
Meanwhile, the Kamui dimension swallowed them, and the battlefield vanished behind the warp. Madara allowed himself a brief moment of quiet reflection.
The entire operation had gone almost absurdly smoothly, every prediction precise, every movement optimal.
Even for him, the efficiency bordered on uncanny. And he knew exactly why.
Madara had known for decades that something in him was… off.
His Mangekyō should have awakened unique abilities long ago, yet they never manifested.
Not once.
Not even at the peak of his war with Hashirama.
At the time, he assumed fate had simply denied him that gift.
Now he understood the truth.
Back then, his chakra pathways were still imperfect, burdened by the constant stress of battling Hashirama and poisoned by the early, unstable grafting of Senju tissue.
The mutation hadn't weakened him, but twisted the evolution of his eyes, muting what should have been their natural powers.
Only after he resurrected himself and reshaped his body with perfect Hashirama cells did the flaw finally reveal itself for what it was.
A blockage.
A distortion.
Not an absence of power, but power he had never been able to reach.
So in the months before tonight, while hunting tailed beasts and rebuilding his strength, Madara repeatedly forced his chakra into new patterns, meditated on the nature of ocular intent, and tested every ripple of Mangekyō output in battle.
Training harsher than he ever had in life.
Reflecting harder than he ever had beneath the Infinite Tsukuyomi's dream.
And then, two weeks ago, the lock finally snapped.
The true Mangekyō abilities surfaced.
Silent. Precise. Refined.
His overall power rose again, sharply.
Not because those eyes gave him new attacks, but because they removed uncertainty.
Mangekyō abilities that showed intent and the optimal path didn't just add strength; they erased hesitation entirely.
Every choice became perfect.
Every movement became inevitable.
Power like that multiplies itself.
And Madara felt it settle into him the way it always should have.
One eye reading the immediate intentions of any target he watched.
The other mapping the most optimal route to achieve his next move.
Madara almost found it amusing.
"All this time," he had thought, "and the only thing blocking my evolution… was an old flaw in my own flesh."
Just now, he wielded them both perfectly in battle for the first time.
And Konoha paid the price for decades of delay.
Madara's thought echoed through the cold, still air of the Kamui dimension.
The gray wasteland felt dead, timeless, almost peaceful compared to the chaos they had left behind.
Kakuzu broke that silence first, arms crossed, voice gravelly.
"Hmph. Felt like robbing a half-collapsed bank. Their resistance was pathetic."
Sasori's puppet joints clicked as he shrugged.
"I only used ten percent of my arsenal. They weren't worth more. That village is living off old reputation."
White Zetsu leaned forward with an exaggerated pout.
"Aww, but I was having fun. They scream so dramatically, you know? Very nostalgic."
Obito said nothing, jaw clenched, Sharingan burning under the Kamui light, but his breathing was sharp, uneven.
Minato's blood still stained his sleeve.
Madara glanced at all of them with quiet superiority.
"This was never a battle," he said. "Only a collection. And every second we were there was already more than they deserved."
He shifted Kushina's unconscious body in his grip, eyes narrowing with firm resolve.
"Their fate was sealed the moment they chose to wage war against that boy outside their walls… instead of preparing for the real threats."
A faint, cold smile touched his lips.
"And now? The world will understand what it means when Uchiha Madara finally moves without restraint."
He turned slightly, voice dropping to a decisive command.
"We start the process immediately. As planned."
The others understood at once.
The Eye of the Moon had never been closer.
And beneath that composure, one truth burned through Madara's mind:
If he failed now, every decade spent in the dark would be worthless.
This was the moment the world pivoted, and he felt it in his bones.