Time, within the Celestial Plane, was a fluid and deceptive concept. It did not flow in a linear, mortal stream but rather in great, swirling eddies and pools of concentrated existence. A day here could feel like a week of intense revelation, while a month might pass in the blink of an eye, lost in the depths of meditative trance. For Indra, the initial, arrogant estimate for mastering the Phoenix Sage Mode—a mere three years—crumbled against the stark, humbling reality of the art itself.
The first year passed, then stretched into fifteen months. The frustration was a constant, gnawing companion. He, the prodigy who had awakened the Six Eyes as an infant, the master of cursed energy conversion, found himself stymied. The Six Eyes, his greatest asset, became almost a hindrance in this new endeavor. They were analytical, voracious, and dominant. They saw Natural Energy not as a partner, but as a resource to be seized, controlled, and consumed.
Sage Mode, as Izanagi patiently explained for the thousandth time, was not about control. It was not about domination. It was a dance. A sacred, perilous marriage of three forces: the physical energy of the body (represented by one's life force), the spiritual energy of the mind (one's chakra), and the vast, wild consciousness of Natural Energy. The goal was not to conquer the third, but to invite it in, to achieve a perfect, harmonious balance where all three became one, creating Senjutsu Chakra.
"Your Eyes see too much, my grandson," Izanagi would say, her voice a gentle counterpoint to the roaring tempest of power he tried to command. "They dissect the energy into its component parts. They see the threads, but not the tapestry. You must learn to feel the balance, not calculate it. You must surrender your need for absolute dominion."
It was anathema to his entire being. His life had been a testament to control—controlling his power, controlling his emotions, controlling the narrative of his destiny. To surrender, even a little, felt like weakness. He watched Agni, who had no such hangups, flourish under their grandparents' tutelage. Her nature as a divine beast was already in tune with the rhythms of the Celestial Plane. She learned to compress her immense form, shrinking from the size of a great hawk down to a sparrow, and then, with growing effort, expanding to the formidable dimensions of a small aircraft. Her control over her flames deepened, the crimson and gold of her fire taking on a pearlescent, almost liquid quality infused with the essence of life and rebirth.
Meanwhile, Indra struggled. He would gather the Natural Energy, feeling it flood his channels, only for the Six Eyes to instinctively try to route and process it, disrupting the delicate equilibrium. The result was never a full transformation into a stone statue, thanks to Izanagi's vigilant presence, but it was a painful, jarring process that left him feeling brittle, his skin taking on a faint, stone-like greyness at the extremities.
He sent a message home after the first year, a complex fuinjutsu scroll that unfurled in the Uchiha main hall. It was brief, assuring them of his safety but stating that the training was more complex than anticipated. His estimated return was delayed by "unavoidable circumstances." He did not elaborate. How could he explain that the circumstance was his own inability to let go?
A deep, persistent anxiety wormed its way into his heart, a cold dread that had nothing to do with his training failures. It was his foreknowledge, the memories of another life, another story, playing like a tragic opera in his mind. He knew the script. He knew the players. And he knew the stage manager lurking in the shadows: Black Zetsu.
He saw it all with terrifying clarity: Madara's descent, the manipulation, the theft of Hashirama's cells, the awakening of the Rinnegan, the birth of the Akatsuki, the Fourth Great Ninja War, and the return of Kaguya. The entire world, a pawn in a millennia-spanning plot for one son to resurrect his mother. This knowledge was a curse as much as a blessing. It created a constant, pressing urgency. Every day spent in this celestial realm, struggling to find "balance," was a day Zetsu could be moving his pieces on the mortal board.
He saw Izuna's fate—stabbed by Tobirama, gifting his eyes to his brother in a tragic, brotherly sacrifice that was the cornerstone of Madara's path to power. The image was seared into his mind. He had to get stronger, faster. He had to be strong enough not just to face Madara or Hashirama, but to confront the Otsutsuki threat directly. He needed power on a scale that could challenge a goddess. The Phoenix Sage Mode was not a goal; it was a necessity.
This desperate need became the key. His motivation shifted from a desire to learn to a desperate need to survive and protect. The balance was no longer an abstract concept; it was the only way to avert a future drenched in blood. He stopped forcing the Natural Energy to conform and instead began to listen to it.
He spent days sitting motionless in the Heartgarden, not gathering energy, but simply letting it flow around and through him. The Six Eyes, deprived of a problem to solve, gradually quieted their relentless analysis. They began to perceive the symphony instead of the individual notes—the way the energy of a blooming flower interacted with the soil, the air, and the very light around it. He felt the pulse of life and the quiet acceptance of decay, the two sides of Izanagi's domain.
The breakthrough, when it came, was not a cataclysm, but a sigh. It was in the eighteenth month. He wasn't even trying. He was watching a leaf, its edges tinged with gold, slowly detach from a branch and spiral towards the luminous ground. As it fell, he felt a corresponding shift within himself. His chakra, his life force, and the ambient Natural Energy simply… aligned. They merged without resistance, without his conscious direction.
A warmth, entirely different from Agni's fiery heat, bloomed in his core. It was the warmth of sunlight on stone, of a seed germinating, of life itself. Patterns, faint and intricate like the veins of a leaf, etched themselves around his eyes, a soft, golden-orange hue that complemented the celestial blue of his Six Eyes. His senses exploded outwards. He could feel the lifespan of the flowers, the ancient slumber of the earth beneath him, the joyful flight of a phoenix miles away. He was connected to everything.
He had done it. The Phoenix Sage Mode was his.
The remaining six months of the two-year period were a whirlwind of refinement and application. With the foundational balance achieved, his other skills underwent a meteoric evolution. His body, infused with Senjutsu Chakra, became tougher, faster, and more resilient. His speed was a blur even to his own enhanced perception. But the most significant leap was in his ninjutsu.
The complex hand seals he had always used, even if mentally compressed, now felt like unnecessary crutches. Hand seals were, at their core, a focusing tool, a mnemonic device to shape chakra in a specific way. But now, with the Six Eyes perceiving the fundamental structure of every jutsu and the Sage Mode providing an intuitive, deep-level understanding of energy manipulation, the need for them vanished. He could shape chakra with a thought, with a flick of his wrist, or with no movement at all. Fire, lightning, wind—they leaped to his command as if they were extensions of his own will. He was achieving a level of prowess that the shinobi world had only ever attributed to the Sage of Six Paths himself.
Finally, the day of departure arrived. Agni stood proudly, her form now a majestic thirty feet from beak to tail feathers, her plumage blazing with contained power. Indra stood before Izanagi and Daikokuten, the Sage Mode patterns faintly visible around his eyes, a testament to his hard-won mastery.
"The balance is not a state, but a practice," Izanagi said, pulling him into a tight, maternal embrace. "Remember the dance. Do not let the darkness of the world make you rigid again."
Daikokuten placed a hand on his shoulder, a rare gesture of affection. "Time is a river with many currents. Your knowledge makes you a rock in that stream. Be wary of the changes your presence causes."
With a final, grateful bow to his grandparents and the assembled Sages, Indra leaped onto Agni's broad back. With a powerful downstroke of her wings that stirred the very energy of the Celestial Plane, the Phoenix ascended, tearing a gateway through the fabric of reality back to the world they had left behind.
On the other side, in the mortal realm, Five years had passed since Indra's departure. The letter he had sent, mentioning his extended training, had been received with a mixture of concern and understanding. The alliance between the Uchiha and Senju, the "acting" as Indra had called it, continued with a meticulous, if grim, precision.
The battlefields of the Warring States Era were their stage. Madara and Hashirama clashed in spectacular, earth-shattering duels, their power growing with each confrontation. Tobirama and Izuna engaged in their deadly dance of speed and kenjutsu, a rivalry that was the stuff of legend. And always, watching from the Senju lines with an intensity that bordered on obsessive, was Toka Senju.
She was the lynchpin of Indra's plan, the unscheduled variable in Black Zetsu's ancient script. Her orders, impressed upon her by Indra before he left, were absolute: "Izuna Uchiha does not die. No matter what you see, no matter what appears to happen, you ensure he walks away from that battlefield." Her unique Sensory abilities, her keen senses, and her unwavering loyalty made her the perfect guardian. She watched Madara and Izuna not as enemies, but as assets to be protected, A Family to be Protected, her gaze constantly scanning the periphery for the true threat.
And that threat was watching, fuming, and growing increasingly desperate.
From the shadows, a patch of darkness deeper than the rest, Black Zetsu observed. His form, a viscous, sentient ooze, quivered with a frustration that was millennia in the making. His mother's resurrection was so close he could almost taste the Chakra Fruit. The key, Uchiha Madara, was perfect—proud, powerful, traumatized, and arrogant enough to believe the world's salvation was his idea and Marinly He has Indra Otsutsuki Chakra. All he needed was the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, and for that, he needed his brother's eyes.
But the path was blocked. First, by the accursed Indra and his Six Eyes. Those eyes saw too deeply. Zetsu had felt the boy's gaze once, years ago, a mere glancing sweep over the forest where he hid. It was like being spiritually flayed, as if every one of his lies and every year of his long, long life had been laid bare. In that gaze, he was not a shadow, but a glaring, pulsating tumor on reality. He had dared not go near the Uchiha compound while that boy was present.
Then, the boy had left. A stroke of fortune! But his influence remained, in the form of that infuriating Toka Senju. She was always there, a hawk-eyed sentinel. In two years of meticulous observation, Zetsu had not found a single moment where both Izuna and Tobirama were engaged and Toka's attention was sufficiently diverted. The one time Tobirama had Also never give any near-fatal blow, It was like they Fight Like Children's It was maddening!
He had wasted two years. Two years! In his long life, it was a blink, but with the wheel of fate finally turning, every moment was precious. He could not rely on Tobirama Senju alone. The script had to be rewritten.
Lurking in the deepest archives of the Uchiha stone tablet, which he had already subtly altered to guide Madara, Zetsu pondered. Madara's arrogance was the engine, but it needed fuel. The death of a beloved brother was the perfect catalyst. But how to achieve it when the designated killer was being neutralized and the brother was being guarded?
A new, insidious plan began to form in his ancient, twisted mind. If he could not rely on the natural animosity between Tobirama and Izuna, he would have to manufacture a tragedy.
"The Senju…" he mused, his voice a dry rustle of malice. "They are the key. Not just Tobirama. All of them. Madara's hatred for them is the fertile ground in which my seeds will grow."
His plan was diabolical in its simplicity. He would capture a Senju clansman. Not a main family member, that would be too difficult, but a mid-level warrior, one with enough skill to be a threat but not enough renown to be constantly watched. Using his unique parasitic abilities, he would merge with the man, suppressing his consciousness and taking direct control of his body.
Then, at a critical moment in a battle, this "Senju" would break from formation. He would bypass all other targets and launch a suicidal, overwhelmingly powerful attack directed solely at Izuna Uchiha. The attack would have to be something unmistakably, uniquely Senju—a powerful Earth Style technique if he could find a suitable host with the affinity, or else a Water Style jutsu of immense scale.
The beauty of the plan was its chaos. Toka would be caught off guard. She was watching Tobirama, not some random clansman. Izuna would be focused on his duel with Tobirama. In the confusion, the killing blow could land.
And the aftermath? It would be perfect. Madara would see his beloved brother struck down not in a fair fight by a worthy rival, but by a "cowardly," seemingly unremarkable Senju. The betrayal, the injustice of it, would fuel a hatred so pure, so absolute, that it would eclipse even his friendship with Hashirama. He would take Izuna's eyes in a desperate bid for power, his heart hardened, his path to the Rinnegan set in stone. The Infinite Tsukuyomi would be one step closer.
Zetsu allowed himself a sliver of vile satisfaction. He had been too passive, too reliant on the original narrative. Indra's interference had forced his hand, but it had also made him more creative. This was better. This was more cruel. A death by a faceless nobody was often more psychologically devastating than one by a known rival.
He began his search, slithering through the shadows at the edges of Senju territory, a patient predator seeking the perfect vessel for his murderous plot. The stage was set for a tragedy, but the actors were no longer following the old script. A guardian watched from one side, and from the shadows, a stage director of malice was preparing to force the climax. The final act of the Uchiha brothers' innocence was about to begin, and its outcome hung in the balance, waiting for the return of a sage who knew the story all too well.
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