Chapter 2 Rebirth
"… Let's have a drink as comrades-in-arms!" Darkness surged like a closing curtain, and Madara could only repeat the last half of the promise in the depths of his fading mind.
"Who would have thought Uchiha Madara would die like this… unable to even utter his final farewell?" he mocked himself, the once-arrogant Ghost of the Uchiha facing the end.
"Perhaps I will meet Hashirama in the Pure Land. Then, I'll raise that cup with him again." This was his last conscious thought.
Then, everything went black.
Two points of light—tiny yet burning—suddenly flickered inside his dying body. The embers of his chakra network trembled violently, drawn to an unseen force, like magnets pulled together.
Finally, they clashed. Madara's body blazed faintly as the shadows around him cracked, and his half-closed eyes flared alive—one tomoe, two, three… the Mangekyō awakened, merged into eternity, and bloomed once again into the Rinnegan.
Those rippling concentric rings—remnants of the Sage of Six Paths' power—seemed to pierce a barrier, linking him to an unknown realm beyond life and death.
Madara, teetering between the world of the living and the Pure Land, felt the impossible. His vision sharpened with the strength of the Rinnegan once more. But… Kaguya tricked me, stole all my power! How can this be?
His mind flashed back to that moment, long ago, when he had first awakened these eyes—after grafting Hashirama's cells into himself, after achieving the Eternal Mangekyō, and finally, on the brink of death, breaking through to godhood.
As he tried to grasp this resurgence, an overwhelming suction swallowed him whole. He resisted instinctively, but the pull was absolute.
A colossal black void yawned open before him, swirling with an eerie vortex. Its presence was unnatural, ancient, and unlike chakra—it carried an alien energy, cold and infinite.
"What… is this?" Even Madara, who once claimed to understand all shinobi secrets, was shaken. This power was unlike the Sage's chakra, yet it radiated a force older than ninjutsu itself.
Before he could comprehend it, he was consumed by the vortex. Within seconds, the black hole contracted, shrinking to nothing, erasing every trace of its existence.
Far away, in the Jin Clan manor, the storm raged as if the heavens themselves were restless. Wind howled through the night; thunder roared like an angry beast. Forks of lightning split the clouds, twisting like serpents across the sky.
"It's born! The Fourth Lady has given birth!" a servant cried out, sprinting through the rain-slicked courtyard, soaked to the bone but shouting with urgency.
"Heh! That low-born wretch thinks birthing a child will elevate her status?" A beautiful woman stood beneath the eaves, her gaze sharp as a blade, a cruel smile curling her lips.
"Indeed, Madam. She was born to serve you, not compete with you," said a maid, her delicate face twisted with malice.
Shouts rose from the storm's din.
The beautiful woman's expression hardened. She turned on the maid, eyes narrowing like a kunai's edge. "Why is she still alive? Didn't I order you to drug her?"
The maid's face went pale. She dropped to her knees, her forehead striking the wet ground. "Madam, I swear, I saw her drink the medicine with my own eyes!"
The woman's cold glare made the maid tremble.
After a tense silence, she said icily, "Come. Let's see how that little bitch is doing. If she survives… she won't for long."
The maid stammered her obedience, scrambling to grab an umbrella. Together they strode toward the Fourth Lady's quarters, rain hammering down.
Others were rushing there as well: the Jin family's eldest wife, the second wife, the frowning master of the house, and his newly-wedded fifth wife.
The master had just been conversing with Wu Shan, his new bride, when the Fourth Lady's attendants brought news of complications. Irritated, he'd nearly ignored it.
But when word came that the Fourth Lady was close to death, he reluctantly rose, dressing with an impatient scowl.
After all, she was his wife in name. Ignoring her now would tarnish his reputation beyond repair.