Chapter Twenty Four
"Who are you?"
Madara Uchiha asked the young man who… welcomed him.
Madara Uchiha stood in the cave, his imposing presence seeming to draw the shadows closer. His tall frame was wrapped in ancient crimson armor, dark garments clung to a body rebuilt by forbidden art, pale and ashen, as if carved from moonlight and ash.
Long, wild black hair spilled down his back like a shadow given shape, framing a face carved by countless battles. His features were sharp and unmoved, set in a calm that bordered on disdain. In his eyes burned the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, crimson and intricate, turning slowly as though the world before him were something to be studied rather than feared. There was no urgency in his gaze, no doubt. Only certainty.
"My name is Kenshin Yogen, it's nice to meet you."
Kenshin stretched out his hand with a wide smile.
Madara looked at his hand, then back at his face, and stared at him, the silence thickening in the cool, damp air.
"Hehe."
Kenshin retracted his hand.
"It's a tradition from my hometown. It's courtesy to reciprocate the handshake."
"Where is Nagato?"
"You were not resurrected by Nagato, but by me via the Edo Tensei."
"Edo Tensei?"
"Isn't that the technique known as a complete atrocity against the complete flow of life and death in the universe?" Madara stared at him with curiosity in his gaze.
"Indeed," Kenshin said with a nod.
"Why have you resurrected me? What is your relationship with Nagato, and where is Obito?" Madara scanned the cave where he had resurrected, his eyes taking in the rough-hewn stone and the faint, lingering scent of ozone and old earth.
"I resurrected you so you would put your plans into action. It's better when you are at the helm. As for Nagato, he's currently in Ame. Same for Obito. They have no idea I have resurrected you. Obito is aware of my plan to resurrect you, though."
As Kenshin blabbed on, Madara walked toward the exit of the cave, his steps measured and silent on the uneven ground.
"This body lacks the feel of being alive." Madara sighed, the sound carrying a weight of profound, ancient dissatisfaction.
"But it grants you an undying body—a body to continue an everlasting dance."
"You're right, but right now, there's no one to dance with."
"Hah, not to brag, but I think myself worthy of dancing with you."
"It would seem so. You may serve as an exercise."
"Hah, it seems you like extensive exercises, Lord Madara." Kenshin grinned, the expression sharp in the dim light.
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Madara moved without warning, an acceleration that seemed to compress the air between them. His fist drove toward Kenshin's center, not with the force of a punch, but with the focused momentum of a spear thrust, displacing air so violently it cracked like thunder in the confined space.
Kenshin shifted, letting the strike slip past his ribs by a hair's breadth, the vacuum left in its wake tugging at his clothes. He countered with a palm strike to Madara's sternum, chakra condensing in his hand like a buried explosion.
Madara caught it mid-motion, his grip closing like a vice of granite. He pivoted, using Kenshin's own momentum to heave him over his hip in a perfect, devastating Uchiha body toss that cratered the stone floor where Kenshin was meant to land.
But Kenshin twisted mid-air, landing not on his back but on his feet in a low crouch, one hand braced against the ground, fingers digging grooves into solid rock. He did not pause—already sliding into a low, sweeping kick meant to shatter shinbone.
Their legs tangled in a blistering exchange of parries, redirects, and counter-strikes. A knee aimed for Madara's floating ribs; an elbow slammed down to deflect. A heel-hook was countered by a sharp, brutal twist that should have snapped tendons, but Kenshin flowed with the motion, reversing the leverage and sending Madara skidding back, his boots grinding stone to powder.
Dust plumed between them, hanging thick in the charged air. Madara did not smile.
He closed the distance again, his hands weaving into a sequence of open-palm strikes—each blow a pinpoint attack targeting nerve clusters and chakra points, each flowing into the next like a river of controlled violence.
Kenshin matched him, movement for preternatural movement—a subtle deflection here, a redirection there, his body bending and contorting around blows that would have shattered bone. His Divine Hand-to-Hand Combat met Madara's perfected Uchiha style in a silent, furious exchange that not only cracked the stone beneath their feet but began to pulverize it, sending spiderwebs of fractures radiating outward with every transfer of force.
They broke apart, the ground between them a mosaic of shattered rock. Their breathing remained even, eyes locked in a duel of wills as much as bodies.
Madara's hands came together in a single, deliberate seal.
Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation.
A tsunami of flame erupted, silent and vast, consuming the cavern from wall to wall in an instant. The air itself seemed to ignite, searing white-hot, turning the very stone molten where it touched.
Kenshin did not retreat. He mirrored the motion with a sharp clap of his hands.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu.
A sphere of concentrated flame roared forth, not to meet the wave, but to pierce it. The two infernos collided not with a sound, but with a pressure—a roaring, churning sphere of superheated destruction that compressed between them before violently rebounding. The shockwave detonated outward, shearing stone from the walls in great, glowing slabs, turning moisture to scalding steam that blasted through the cavern like a geyser.
Before the light even faded, Madara's hands were already weaving again.
Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence.
The already devastated floor erupted anew. Thick, gnarled roots, each as hard as steel, burst upward in a forest of spears, aiming to impale Kenshin from every angle, their growth so violent it upheaved entire sections of the cavern floor.
Kenshin stretched out a hand.
Almighty Push.
A hemisphere of invisible force erupted from him, flattening the advancing roots to pulp and pushing them back into the earth. In the same breath, he vanished—
—and reappeared directly before Madara via Instant Transmission, his fist already glowing with condensed chakra.
Madara's Eternal Mangekyō spun, not in surprise, but in recognition.
A skeletal, azure arm materialized from nothing—the first stage of Susanoo. It swept forward in a backhand meant to crush Kenshin into the far wall.
Kenshin did not dodge.
Violet chakra, dark and threaded with arcs of corrosive energy, erupted around him, condensing into a skeletal frame of his own—a mirror of Madara's, but etched with predatory, jagged lines. His Susanoo's arm met Madara's mid-swing.
The impact did not sound. It felt—a deep, tectonic shudder that ripped through the cavern. The ceiling above them fractured with a deafening roar, and massive chunks of stone began to hail down, shattering against their chakra constructs. The two skeletal giants stood locked, violet and azure light warring, casting frenzied, jagged shadows that danced across the collapsing cave.
As the dust from the crumbling ceiling billowed around them, they dissolved their Susanoo in unison, the chakra dissipating like dying storm clouds.
Madara did not allow the pause to linger. His hand rose, and the very rubble around them stirred.
Shinra Tensei.
A colossal repulsive force blasted outward from him, not aimed at Kenshin, but at the environment. Every piece of falling debris, every loose stone, was violently hurled away, clearing the cavern into a stark, ruined arena. The force wave slammed into Kenshin, who braced, his feet carving trenches in the stone as he was pushed back ten meters.
Kenshin responded in kind. He raised his own hand.
Universal Pull.
Madara's body lurched toward him.
Madara's body lurched toward him, dragged by an invisible tether. But the Uchiha did not fight the pull. He embraced it, his form blurring as he accelerated, becoming a projectile aimed at Kenshin's center. Mid-flight, his hands flashed through seals.
Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere.
A condensed orb of hyper-pressurized air shot ahead of him, screaming as it ripped through the space between them. Kenshin tilted his head, the sphere grazing his cheek and tearing a tunnel through the solid rock wall behind him. Madara was already upon him, a knee driving upward toward Kenshin's chin.
Kenshin crossed his forearms, taking the blow with a shudder that vibrated through his bones. He let the impact lift him, using it to pivot in the air, his heel slamming down toward Madara's collarbone. Madara caught the ankle, fingers digging in, and spun, intending to slam Kenshin into the ground. But Kenshin's other leg snapped up, catching Madara in the jaw with a brutal kick.
They separated again.
Madara looked at Kenshin and smiled. It was a thin, terrifying expression.
His hands came together in a clap.
The air itself seemed to fracture.
Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation met Wind Release: Vacuum Blades.
The result was not an explosion, but a convergence. A swirling, roaring vortex of fire and razored wind—a horizontal dragon of pure destruction that carved a molten trench through the cavern floor as it surged toward Kenshin. The heat was so intense the very stone beneath it began to glow and run like lava.
Kenshin did not retreat. He planted his feet, his own hands weaving a complex, one-handed sequence.
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall rose before him, as a ramp. He met the advancing inferno with Water Release: Water Formation Wall, summoning a torrent from the Pitcher of Eternal Water at his hip. Steam erupted in a scalding, blinding cloud as fire met water, but Kenshin was already moving, sprinting up the earthen ramp and launching himself over the top of the cataclysm.
From his apex, he pointed a finger downward.
Lightning Release: Static Grip.
A web of blue-white electricity snapped downward, not to shock, but to bind—seeking to lock Madara's muscles in a spasm.
Madara's Susanoo ribcage flickered into existence for a heartbeat, the lightning grounding against it with a violent crackle. In that moment of defense, Kenshin landed, his fist already engulfed in a swirling sphere of compressed chakra.
Rasengan.
He drove it forward. The Susanoo ribs held for a microsecond before splintering under the grinding force. Madara crossed his arms, taking the Rasengan against his guard. The impact didn't blast him away; it drilled, grinding him backward, his boots leaving smoking trails in the stone as the technique sought to bore through his defense.
With a roar that seemed to shake the cavern's foundations, Madara shoved outward, dispersing the Rasengan in a shower of chaotic chakra. His Eternal Mangekyō spun furiously.
Behind him, his skeletal Susanoo fully formed—not just ribs, but a full upper body and arms, azure and formidable. It mimicked his movement, both of its massive fists hammering down toward Kenshin like twin meteors.
Kenshin's own violet Susanoo erupted around him in response, meeting the descent with a cross-armed block. The collision was apocalyptic. The shockwave pulverized what remained of the cavern floor, and the ceiling, already fatally stressed, began to collapse in earnest. Mountainous slabs of rock crashed down around them, only to be shattered by the flailing limbs of the two clashing giants.
Within their protective shells, their eyes never left each other. It was no longer a test. It was a dialogue written in violence, a mutual assessment spoken in the only language legends fully understood. The cave was dying around them, but in the storm of dust and destruction, they stood as fixed points—two forces acknowledging the terrifying, exhilarating truth of the other's existence.
"Hah, I think that's enough exercise, Lord Madara. Any more, and I'll be facing your Rinnegan and Perfect Susanoo."
"I'm not scared. I just don't think it's worth the stress. We still need to keep your appearance under wraps." Kenshin clarified, his voice cutting through the settling rumble.
"We have a lot to talk about."
Madara smiled as he looked into Kenshin's eyes, which housed an Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and the Rokugan, a sight as impossible as it was intriguing.