"Madara!"
Senju Hashirama dove through the smoke and caught Uchiha Madara before his body hit the shattered earth. For a heartbeat, the world went quiet. Hashirama's arms tightened instinctively around his friend.
I landed nearby in my half-broken Susanoo, chakra buzzing like a migraine behind my eyes. Watching those two idiots fall out of the sky was not on my bingo card for today.
"Madara, wake up."
Hashirama shook him like an overgrown rag doll.
Madara's eyelids twitched, then slowly opened. His voice was hoarse.
"Hashirama… and… Raizen."
Right. The man finally remembers the reincarnated weirdo who saved him from eating dirt.
Madara's expression tightened. He remembered the fight. The loss. All that pride he carried cracked like pottery dropped on stone.
"…Kill me, Hashirama."
He said it without a tremble. Just cold surrender.
Hashirama's brows knotted. "Stop that. We're friends. You're still coming to Konoha with us."
Madara laughed, bitter and tired. "I'm a loser. What qualifications do I have to join anything?"
I stepped forward and planted my foot directly into his ribs.
"Stand up if you can talk. We've got a battlefield to clean up. If you don't show your face, your clan's going to get wiped out, genius."
Madara roared, clutching his side. "Raizen, you bastard! When I recover, I'll—"
"Yeah, yeah. File your revenge request with HR when you can walk."
I kicked him again for good measure. Madara's howl echoed across the forest. Hashirama laughed so hard he nearly dropped him.
"Enough. We need to move, or things will spiral beyond saving." I said, already turning.
Hashirama nodded, hoisted Madara over his shoulder like a sack of explosives, and the three of us sprinted back toward the battlefield.
The Battlefield
By the time we arrived, the fighting had turned into a meat grinder. Uchiha ninjas were surrounded on all sides by the Konoha forces, morale hanging by a thread.
Even after Hashirama and Hyūga Tennin hit them earlier, the Uchiha were still monsters. One in a hundred, elite by birth and training. They'd held out all afternoon.
But numbers are numbers, and morale is its own enemy. Slowly, painfully, the Uchiha line began to sag.
In one afternoon… three thousand Uchiha dead.
A whole clan's heartbeat faltered.
Hyūga Tennin stood on a ridge, eyes cold. "Cornered beasts. Finish them. Push another wave—"
A voice thundered overhead.
"All Konoha forces, fall back!"
Heads snapped up. Every Konoha shinobi stared as I floated down from the sky, chakra humming beneath my feet.
"The Chief!"
They parted, murmuring.
Tennin frowned. "Raizen-dono…?"
"Hyūga Tennin," I said sharply, "give the order. Full retreat."
He hesitated for only a heartbeat. Then he raised his arm.
"Konoha forces, fall back!"
Messengers sprinted through the chaos, and the tide of shinobi slowly began to withdraw behind me.
Confusion rippled through the Uchiha ranks.
"What's happening?"
"Why are they retreating?"
They got their answer when a shout tore across the battlefield.
"Uchiha clan, put down your weapons!"
Every head turned. Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara charged forward, the latter limping but upright.
"Patriarch!"
The surviving Uchiha gasped.
Madara stepped out of Hashirama's support and faced his people.
"The war is over!" he shouted. "Lay down your weapons!"
Silence. Then outrage.
"What?!"
"Patriarch, this is surrender!"
"After so much blood—!"
Madara's eyes flashed with Sharingan severity.
"Yes. We lost enough. I will lead the Uchiha to join Konoha."
"You would abandon our glory?!" someone cried.
Madara's response cracked the air like thunder.
"I am your Patriarch. I order you to lay down your weapons!"
The clan froze.
Then Uchiha Mikado exhaled slowly, opened his hand, and let his kunai fall.
One by one, metallic clatters spread across the battlefield.
Some resisted. A few glared defiantly.
Madara's gaze cut toward them, colder than winter steel.
"You want to defy my command?"
No one stepped forward.
Madara was many things. But he was not a man you challenged lightly.
The battlefield fell quiet at last.
The war ended with the sound of blades hitting dirt.