"Where am I?! Who are you?!"
Nawaki looked around frantically at his dark surroundings; the only thing he could remember was being on a battlefield, running, jumping, then… nothing. Blank.
Madara let the boy gather his thoughts for a few minutes, only speaking up when Nawaki seemed to calm just a fraction and looked over.
"You're safe, no longer on the battlefield, and I am but a ghost from the era of your First Hokage and Grandfather."
"My Grandfather, but that would make you-"
"Very old? Yes, that I am."
Madara interrupted smoothly before continuing.
"And what a shame it is that his dream would turn into this: his very own Grandson, nothing but a child, but sent to the battlefield."
"I'm a Genin, not a child."
"Yes, my apologies."
Madara smirked; to anyone with a sliver of emotional intelligence, this was clearly sarcastic, but Nawaki accepted the 'apology' with a nod.
"But you have to see where I'm coming from, Nawaki. Your Grandfather dreamed of a village where the younger Ninja like you could grow in strength and body before you'd ever need to risk your life for the village. But the village has seemed to betray the wish of one of the founders of that village."
The way Madara spat 'that village' wasn't lost; not even the young and inexperienced boy could mistake it for fondness.
"How does that make you feel, boy?"
Madara asked, knowing this would have little impact on him; words never swayed his type.
"No one is as strong as my Grandfather; the village has no choice but to send everyone capable enough."
Madara scoffed, leaning forward, the shadows no longer obscuring his lone eye.
"An excuse made by the weak who have given up. This generation doesn't need Hashirama's power to avoid sending the young to war; they merely need to be stronger than the other hidden villages. And this should be easily achieved with the resources left behind by the Senju, no? Countless jutsu were passed down from the time of the Warring States era till now, and many more jutsu were invented after."
Nawaki's eyes widened in shock, locking onto the lone eye of the man, mind absorbing the words as he was focused on the eye.
"You, just who are you, really?"
Madara smirked.
"The one that gave your village its name. I am Madara Uchiha."
"But, m-my grandfather killed you; you're not Madara."
Nawaki became defensive, his mind clearing; even if this wasn't Madara, he clearly didn't like the village.
"The Valley of the End," Madara mused, a phantom smirk playing on his lips. "My battle against Hashirama ended in my apparent demise, yet it yielded exactly what I desired. The world is built on such illusions."
He didn't waste further breath. A subtle tilt of his chin directed attention toward the damp stone wall. From the shadows, Zetsu's silhouette peeled itself away from the wall and stepped out.
"Tell me, boy," Madara continued, his tone dropping to a dangerous, low purr. "Would you care to see the reality of the world you so desperately want to return to? My subordinate can take you to the battlefield. It is an ocean of blood compared to the puddle you drowned in. You died, Nawaki. Died in a world that so cruelly snuffed out the light of a boy too young, too weak to face it. However, you have a choice: accept the salvation of my welcome, and if your fragile mind still clings to denial, Zetsu will gladly take you to Konoha to look upon your own headstone after he shows you the true horror of war. The wrongness of this world, and one I wish to change, but I'm too weak to do so; I need your help."
Madara spoke passionately and with such charisma that Nawaki, despite not agreeing, leaned in, soaking up every word like a sponge, something Madara counted on.
"Fine, take me, show me."
Nawaki turned to Zetsu, only briefly panicking when Zetsu opened up and wrapped himself around Nawaki like armor.
"Zetsu will keep you safe, but what he says goes, understood? You're too young and, more importantly, too weak to change anything you see."
Nawaki hesitated, ultimately nodding when the Sharingan stared him down.
"Good, you may go; come back safe."
Madara spoke with a sliver of false care that sounded genuine in his own unique way, watching Nawaki's figure blur away, Zetsu guiding Nawaki to the bloodiest battles he had previously observed.
Suspended high above, hidden deep within the bark of a towering tree, Nawaki looked down. Through the narrow eye-slits of Zetsu's pale skin, he could see the entire forest floor.
Below them, the war raged without any grand ninjutsu, reduced instead to the chaotic clatter of a slaughterhouse. Kiri and Konoha forces clashed in the mud, and the primary targets were always the young. Experienced chūnin hunted down terrified teenagers, breaking them with pure, primitive cruelty. Necks were snapped with wet cracks. Limbs were wrenched straight from their sockets. A squad of Hyūga genin screamed as Mist operatives pinned them to the earth, jamming knives deep into their skulls to pry out their eyes, completely uncaring that the branch family seals would destroy the stolen goods anyway.
The savagery was contagious. Konoha's shinobi shed their humanity entirely to match the Mist's depravity. Nawaki watched a Leaf ninja tear an enemy's throat open with his bare teeth, spitting out the gore only to fling a handful of fresh blood into the eyes of the next attacker. Dead bodies were used as makeshift shields, stuffed with burning explosive tags, and hurled back into the crowded enemy ranks. The resulting blasts didn't just kill; they showered the roots of Nawaki's tree with a hot rain of shattered bone, shredded lungs, and unidentifiable meat.
They did not stay to watch the Mist slaughter conclude. Zetsu pulled Nawaki back down through the heart of the tree, dragging him through the dark, cold veins of the earth toward the other edges of the war.
Next came the Sand front. It lacked the raw, animalistic butchery of the Mist, but the desert was an open grave. Here, the killing was silent, clinical, and vast. Nawaki watched through the eye-slits as clouds of purple poison gas rolled over Konoha trenches, leaving hundreds of men and children choking on their own liquefied lungs. Scorched bodies, baked black by fire jutsu, sat perfectly upright in the dunes like charcoal statues. The wind carried a continuous, low drone of weeping, thousands of broken voices begging for water, for their mothers, or for a quick blade to end the agony.
Then, Zetsu shifted them to the Stone front. The earth here was shattered, broken into rough canyons by massive landslide jutsu. It was a meat press. Nawaki stared down at crushed armor and flattened bodies pinned beneath boulders the size of houses. Broken swords and shattered forehead protectors littered the mud, half-buried under a tidal wave of gray dirt.
With every front he witnessed, the screaming in Nawaki's own ears began to fade. The horror stopped shocking him. The sight of a child his own age lying in the dirt with a split skull no longer made his stomach turn. A cold, heavy weight settled behind his ribs, turning his panic into a dull, hollow silence.
The world was not a grand stage for heroes. It was exactly what Madara had said. Nawaki realized he hadn't known the true cruelty of the world before, but now, he did. It made his dream of becoming Hokage feel incredibly naive. To be Hokage didn't mean being a protector; it meant sending thousands into the meat grinder. He would have puked at the very thought of this amount of death before, but it brought him nothing but a cold numbness now.
"Our last stop will be your grave."
Zetsu's voice spoke softly, but not kindly, merely following an order of his Lord, taking the unresponsive boy to the sight of his own grave.
Standing in front of the grave, Nawaki didn't even register the setting sun or the fact that he had blanked out for the entire journey back to the home that appeared so much duller now. He just stared at his own fresh name engraved into the stone. A cluster of white flowers rested against the base.
"You know, most don't even get this," Zetsu whispered, his voice uncomfortably close. "All things considered, your loved ones have something to grieve. A body they believe to be in the ground. The other kids on those battlefields? Most aren't so lucky."
Nawaki nodded slowly. The brutal facts of the day weighed heavily on him.
"Let's go," Nawaki said, his voice flat. It no longer held the bright awe of a new ninja, but the hollow weariness of someone who had seen far too much, his entire worldview completely shattered. "I'm ready to return."
"Very well. Let us return," Zetsu agreed.
- Chapter End -
Just one more flashback chapter; hope you're enjoying it, though.