Madara lowered his arm, the Rinnegan's cosmic rings dimming slightly. He stared at the sheer, unnatural pit he'd bored into the bedrock. Finn's police training surfaced—forensics screaming *overwhelming force*. Madara's arrogance scoffed: *Necessity*. Yet… steam hissed from Stark's buckled suit nearby, punctuating the silence. Hashirama exhaled slowly beside him, the scent of ozone replaced by freshly ripped earth. Madara tilted his head, obsidian hair brushing cold steel pauldrons. A low, gravelly murmur escaped him, barely audible: "Hn. Perhaps… that was excessive." Stark choked mid-cough, staring incredulously. Hashirama blinked—once, twice—before a disbelieving chuckle, thin and strained, bubbled up. "Excessive?" His voice held no warmth; it was brittle disbelief. "*Madara*. You atomized a multiversal parasite… and punched a hole into the mantle. Excessive is… insufficient." Madara merely grunted, Rinnegan sweeping the crater-strewn battlefield—charred Chitauri husks mingled with shattered stone ninja remnants. Broken Iron Man armor components littered the chaos. Survival demanded extremes. Precision had failed.
Finn's pragmatism clawed through Madara's satisfaction: *The crater's too perfect. Draws attention.* Nearby, Stark pushed himself up shakily, gauntlet sparking as he gestured wildly at the smoking pit. "'A little overkill'?!" Stark rasped, voice raw. "You annihilate… everything! Cinemas, hot dog stands! Gone! That's not excessive—it's apocalyptic temper tantrum!" Madara shot Stark a glare colder than the void-beam—Finn noted Tony's flinch. Hashirama stepped between them, eyes locked on the abyss. "Oblivion was…necessary, Madara?" His voice lacked judgment, only weary observation. Madara's armored fingers tightened on the Gunbai's shaft. Finn felt the words rise—sharp shards of truth coated in millennia-old bile. *This parasite? Explain.* Detection algorithms flared: Stark's suit recording, Hashirama's chakra probing. Finn's caution warred with Madara's need to scorch the truth into their minds.
Madara pivoted abruptly toward the pit's edge, his Rinnegan tracing the vaporized remnants clinging to molecular dust. "That *parasite*," he hissed, the words vibrating with cosmic rage, "was Black Zetsu." Finn's memories surged—Madara's deepest wounds exposed: manipulated wars, Kaguya's resurrection, Indra's betrayal woven over lifetimes. The Universal Pull wasn't chakra-control—it was visceral fury. "It orchestrated my betrayal. My death by Hashirama's blade." Finn sensed Madara's gaze flicker toward the Hokage—Hashirama's breath hitched, knuckles whitening. Stark gaped, helmet visor cracked, revealing horrified understanding. Madara's voice dropped to a whisper—deadlier than any roar: "It twisted history into chains. Ruined everything." Finn braced: *Too raw.* Vulnerability was Madara's blade—and weakness.
A bitter laugh escaped Madara—Finn's disbelief mingling with Madara's self-loathing. "Annihilation?" He gestured at the pit, Rinnegan blazing violet wrath. "Was mercy." Stark stumbled backward, repulsor flickering erratically against chakra-laced air. "You vaporized a sentient being!" Madara didn't flinch. "That *thing* was no being," he spat, venom dripping onto scorched earth. "It was poison made flesh." Finn felt Madara's memories surge—Zetsu whispering lies as Izuna bled out, twisting Hashirama's peace into ash. The Gunbai hummed—power vibrating Finn-Madara's bones. Survival demanded truth. Hashirama's silence thickened—ash-gray dread hardening. Stark's scanners whined: chakra fluctuation—Madara's stillness became tectonic pressure.
Madara stepped closer to Hashirama, ignoring Stark's frantic diagnostics, eyes boring into the First Hokage's suddenly ashen face. "You know why," Madara breathed—smelling cedar, betrayal, centuries-old blood beneath Hashirama's silence. "It used *you*. Used *us*." Finn sensed fracture lines spreading—shared tragedy, unspoken guilt. Stark froze mid-reboot—Iron Man detecting lethal sorrow deeper than any alien threat. Reality bent around Madara's grief. Finn calculated: *Leverage achieved. Now stabilize.* Madara tilted his head—Rinnegan dimming slightly—and gestured toward the Scroll Room's shattered entrance. "The fracture continues." His voice shifted—Finn's cold strategy resurfacing. "Answers remain." Stark exhaled shakily. Hashirama nodded—once—eyes haunted by futures glimpsed. Survival demanded allies, not enemies. Madara inhaled ozone—the scent of worlds fraying at the edges.
Suddenly—Madara's gaze snapped sideways. Those cosmic eyes locked onto Stark's cracked helmet visor like twin voids swallowing starlight, unblinking and terrifyingly precise. Finn's cop instincts screamed: temporal dislocation parameters needed. Madara demanded certainty. Awareness sharpened: fragmented timelines flickered behind Madara's pupils—a thousand simultaneous wars, funerals, rebirths bleeding into Stark's bewildered exhaustion. The silence grew teeth—heavy with apocalyptic implications. Only Stark's reactor hummed—a frantic counterpoint against encroaching entropy. Madara leaned forward—armor creaking—until Tony could count the concentric rings etching his irises like unholy galaxies. His voice sliced through the dust-choked air, cold, resonant, bereft of any doubt:
**"What year…"** Madara's words struck concrete—a declaration warping gravity itself. **"Is it?"**
Stark recoiled—Finn cataloged every micro-flinch: jaw tightening, reactor pulsing cobalt-bright against Rinnegan violet. "*Year*?" Tony choked—voice scraped raw. "Christ, Madara—you vaporize Manhattan's bedrock and ask for *calendars*?!" His gauntlet gestured wildly—a flicker of holographic date-stamp projected weakly: **2012**. It shimmered—then fragmented—reforming as **Shinobi Year 67**, **Asgardian Cycle 523**, before dissolving into static. Stark's panicked gaze met Madara's cosmic stillness—pure disbelief battling primal dread. Finn's mind raced: fracture confirmed. Temporal anchors dissolved. Madara inhaled sharply—Finn tasted copper and quantum static. Behind them, Hashirama exhaled—pained understanding etched into every line of his face.
Stark staggered—battered armor grinding against fractured stone—as he spat the word: "Twenty-twelve!" Madara's Rinnegan flickered—purple rings contracting slightly. Finn's forensic mind assembled timelines: *Battle of New York. My rebirth. Prime convergence point.* Hashirama stepped forward—sandalwood scent cutting through ozone. "Time… folds," he murmured—gaze distant—his knuckles whitening against the Gunbai's edge unconsciously mirrored by Madara. Finn registered Tony's pallor—shock metastasizing. "That Leviathan—it was Chitauri," Stark whispered—horror dawning. "But… the invasion ended. Months ago." Madara's lips thinned. Finn-Madara's borrowed muscles coiled—strategic recalibration. Temporal fractures worsened. Zetsu targeted convergences. Leverage… shifted. Stark's fragmented tech held keys. Collaboration became unavoidable. Finn tasted inevitability: *Ally—not asset.* Madara's eyes narrowed—calculating every parsec of Stark's terror-choked disbelief. Survival demanded unity. Or oblivion.