Chapter Text
Madara hated the afterlife.
It was quiet, peaceful, lacking the undertone of instability that had haunted him his entire life… and death, and then life again.
He didn’t remember the first time he had been here. It probably had been just the same. Perfect. Stupidly perfect. All things considered, he hadn’t really expected to end up here; maybe Hashirama had put in a good word for him.
Still, in simple words, it sucked.
Most of the time, it was this blissful void, shifting in all sorts of colors… orange, red, sometimes pink, sometimes a faint blue. It resembled a sunset drowning in the ocean. Every once in a while, a structure popped up. A stone, or—rarely—an entire house, the air around it wobbling in the non-existent heat before it faded again.
As of the moment, he was lounging on one of those smaller structures, silently hoping it wouldn’t disappear and let him hit the ground, although it wasn’t like anyone would see.
Madara hadn’t met anyone since he came here. He would like to say that that was it, the cruelty of fate, how a world without loss and suffering didn’t exist in any plane. But then again, it wasn’t like he had gone looking for anyone.
Not for any of his brothers, not for Hashirama, and definitely not for his hellish little sibling Tobirama.
It wasn’t shame. Madara Uchiha didn’t feel shame, or regret. He acknowledged failure, at most. No, the reason that he had spent his ‘eternity’ alone so far was very different. It was purely pointless. This place wasn’t for reconciliation, or growth, or sobby reunions. It was the end of the path he had chosen. If anyone wanted to come find him, they could—but he wouldn’t go and prolong it.
After all, Hashirama had been right. His system had proved superior. All that Madara had built on hadn’t even been his own idea; he had been a pawn himself.
But it didn’t matter. Not now, and not ever again. He would sit here, see if anything interesting happened, and if not… Well, he had endured worse. Time was irrelevant here, anyway.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been here already. But at some point, the void stopped being empty. The endless space shrunk. Something was wrong.
God, they never left him alone, did they?
He picked up a translucent pebble and flicked it across the floor. It caused ripples, skipping forth until it hit a hard surface. A shoe. A disturbance.
Madara didn’t look up to see who it belonged to. Whoever had arrived, whoever had seeked him out—they could announce themselves.
And they did. “Madara Uchiha.” The voice seemed familiar enough, and so did the disdain seeping from it. Unfortunately, it didn’t suffice to have him actually connect a name to it, since the latter was rather common.
“If you’ve come for revenge, I’d say you’re late.” Madara rolled another pebble between his fingers. It was smooth, like it had been shaped by thousands of waves over hundreds of years. “I don’t believe it possible to kill someone here. Although I doubt you’d have been able to when I was still alive, either…” He lifted his head, finally.
A Hokage cloak. Great. He had seen plenty of those in the war. The blond hair, however, rang a bell. “…Minato Namikaze, is it?”
The man’s face remained neutral, like he wasn’t standing in front of someone who had rewritten death and the rules of reality. “In the flesh.” He took a step closer, the cape flaring dramatically behind him. Madara nearly fake-gagged.
“More or less.” He didn’t make an effort to put any sort of interest in his tone, nor did he try hiding the complete lack of respect. The guy didn’t deserve any. Sure, he had had a nickname—‘The Yellow Flash’ or something—but he had died young, twice. Couldn’t have been all that capable.
There might have been something else, too, of significance. Madara couldn’t recall it; consequently, it couldn’t have been that important. “So, what are you here for? Like I said, the retribution timer has expired. Also, your arm grew back.” He nodded vaguely toward Minato’s torso. “Both of them, actually.” Truth being told, the way those had evaporated in the brief fight between them, he had had his doubts.
“I’m not here for revenge.”
The pebble in Madara’s hand dropped and was immediately swallowed up by the void. “Oh?” That was new. “Talk, then.”
Minato cleared his throat—not awkwardly, but earnestly, like he wanted his words to be heard and fully understood. Like he meant them. “I’ll get straight to the point. This is about Obito.”
Obito.
Of course. The vessel which had wavered. The tool that had taken on the form of a mirror, at some point, only to turn on him.
The one who had realised that the plan was wrong first.
Traitor.
“Did he set you up for this? Is he too cowardly to come himself?” That wasn’t right. Still, it felt nice to say it and watch Minato’s fingers twitch into a fist, even though he didn’t swing. His patience was annoying. “Scared he’ll return to his old habits and cling to my word again?”
“You know that there’s no need to treat me as an enemy anymore, right?” Minato tilted his head. “There’s no more village to protect, no more fights to come, no more tactical advantages to gain. You’re not getting anywhere by insulting him.”
Please, spare me the ‘we’re all equal here’ speech. This was starting to bore Madara more than the usual quiescence. “I am aware. As what do you want to talk, then? Surely not friends—Unless you’re that type.” The latter dripped with condescension.
Minato smiled, a soft, almost pitying one, and settled down on the vague formation next to him. Too good to sit on the floor, hm? “You’re right with that. I’d like to talk as…” He paused, as if searching for the right term. “…mentors.”
“Mentors?”
“Obito’s mentors.”
Right. That had been it, the missing piece: The guy had been Obito’s sensei. Madara had shoved that information somewhere in the back of his mind.
Taking his silence as a sign, Minato kept going. “I was with him for his early life. The kid was the most energetic kid at the academy, you know? The most clumsy, too.“ He laughed, but it sounded dry and exhausted. “Not an ounce of self-preservation instincts in that boy.”
That tracked. Madara didn’t say it out loud, though. He was refusing to participate in that sticky nostalgia Minato was currently indulging in. “Did you want to bother me with your sweet anecdotes? That’s why you came? I’m sure there’s better people for that.”
“You’re the only one who saw Obito grow up.”
Oh.
Minato was speeding up, sentences tumbling over each other, sensing Madara’s irritation growing. “I want to know what he was like, later. You know the things I don’t. I never got to see—“
“You didn’t miss anything,” Madara snapped, with more of a bite in his voice than he meant to show. “He lost his optimism, got bitter, and meaner. He started digging his heels into fixing the world, because he couldn’t accept that people die, and that when they’re dead, crying won’t bring them back.”
He could have said it was about Rin. Minato would assume it, anyway.
He didn’t say how Obito had been shaking in his sleep after orchestrating the Kyuubi Attack. How he started mumbling Minato’s name in his sleep, sobbing and begging for forgiveness, and then denying it all when he woke up.
If Minato knew that, he might start crying, and that would just be the cherry on top of this pathetic emotional mess.
Minato’s shoulders sagged slightly. Good. That persistent buoyancy was failing at last. “…Yeah, I could have guessed that.”
Too late. Madara was on a roll now. He had forgotten how fun it was to break someone’s spirit when they were already down, the rush it carried. “You don’t want closure. You want a reason he became this way. Something that doesn’t involve you, so you can tell yourself it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my fault! I know that!” Minato’s fist cracked down. A spiderweb fracture spread across the floor momentarily before knitting back together in seconds.
There we go.
His chest was heaving, staring intently at the split like it could help calm him. “After he—“ He swallowed. “After he ‘died’, I considered asking for a mission to recover his body, for a proper funeral. Every night, for months, I thought about it.” Crinkles formed on his cloak as he gripped it tightly with one hand. “But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see that bright unwavering spirit buried and shattered under some rock.” Tears were forming in the corner of Minato’s eyes, wetting his lashes.
Madara shifted uncomfortably. This was more raw than he had bargained for, and it was stirring something in his heart which he would rather leave untouched.
“And then, when I found out he was alive? I blamed you, initially.”
“I appreciate the honesty,” Madara muttered. The endlessness of the space was becoming a disadvantage—There was nowhere to escape to.
Minato scoffed. It was crooked, muffled through the lump in his throat. “Oh, thank you. Giving me that, at least.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The only interruption was the sound of their breaths—one quick, shallow and dry, one deep and steady.
When Madara first ended up here, he had presumed this to be where souls ‘found peace’. Apparently, he had been wrong. It stung, and not only for that reason.
He huffed. “Stop whining. It’s pathetic what the Hokages have come to.”
“What?” Minato’s head shot up. “You—“
“Shut up.” Madara lifted his hand and shoved it in Minato’s face, who was so surprised he actually followed the instruction.
Why was he doing this? This was dumb, and unnecessary, and…
“…Obito used to have whole conversations with himself in his sleep. I once caught him arguing about how many kunai to bring to a mission he wasn’t even on.”
Minato blinked. Once, twice, then another time, as if he couldn’t believe what was going on. His jaw went slack, then his brows furrowed. “You’re actually doing this? Why—“
“Did I say you could interrupt?”
Minato’s mouth closed.
“He was messy. Half of his injuries didn’t come from training, but from tripping over all the things he left lying around.” Madara stretched his arms out over his head. His armour plates skidded against themselves. “Some of them were traps for Zetsu, I think. He’d lie through his teeth when asked about it. Badly.”
The edges of Minato’s mouth were curving upward, his finger tapping against his thigh like some excited little kid. Madara didn’t like how it felt. Didn’t like that he already knew he wasn’t going to stop talking.
“Teaching him anything was hell. He’d charge in head first, completely fail the move, and try again without figuring out the problem.”
“Sounds like he didn’t change at all.”
Madara stopped and raised his brow. Minato was looking over the landscape with a kind of blissful expression, wind blowing hair into his face.
“Are you serious?” A low chuckle burst out of Madara before he could stop himself. “‘Didn’t change’? Did you lose your sight during Edo-Tensei?”
“No, I mean—“
Madara cut him short. “Doesn’t matter.” He stood up, sharp and sudden. “This is over.”
Minato got up behind him and hurried over as Madara began walking away. “You don’t have to stop.”
“You have no command over me.” I have humiliated myself enough for a century, Madara added silently. “Go back to your wife and son, reminisce with them.”
“Naruto’s still alive.”
“Is he? That’s a pity.”
The footsteps behind him came to a halt. “You know that. You weren’t talking about Naruto.”
“Of course I was. Don’t ruminate on it.” He kept going, until the feeling of Minato’s eyes burning into his back faded. Part of him expected the man to call after him, to ask for another memory, or to hold a speech about forgiveness and friendship. But nothing of the sort happened.
And so he just continued walking.
Maybe he would eventually run into someone, the void directing him there. For some reason, the thought didn’t bother him as much anymore.