Part One: When Dreams Become Nightmares
Three months after the crater incident, Madara stopped sleeping voluntarily.
Not like Izuna, whose trauma prevented rest. Madara's situation was different—worse, in some ways. Because when Madara slept, he dreamed. And his dreams were not his own.
The first time it happened, he'd dismissed it as stress-induced hallucination. His Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan processing trauma through abstract imagery. Nothing to be concerned about.
The second time, he'd begun to worry. The images were too consistent, too detailed, too unlike normal dreams to be random neural firing.
The third time, he woke screaming.
It was the scream that brought Izuna running to his brother's quarters, weapons drawn, Mangekyō blazing, expecting attack.
What he found was worse than any enemy: Madara, the strongest Uchiha alive, curled on his bed, shaking, his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan spinning wildly, blood tears streaming down his face.
"Brother!" Izuna rushed to his side, immediately checking for genjutsu, for enemy infiltration, for any explanation beyond the impossible one his senses were providing.
There was nothing. No external influence. No technique. No attack.
Just Madara, broken by something internal.
"I saw it," Madara gasped, his voice raw. "I saw him. Not sleeping. Not peaceful. Fighting. Gods, Izuna. He was fighting gods. And the universe was breaking around them."
"It's just a dream," Izuna said, though uncertainty crept into his voice. "Stress manifestation. Post-traumatic—"
"It's not a dream," Madara interrupted, forcing himself to sit up. His EMS was still active, still spinning, still processing something his conscious mind struggled to accept. "It's a memory. His memory. Somehow, when I looked into his eyes in that crater, when my Sharingan made contact with whatever he uses for vision... I didn't just see his present. I saw his past. And now it's bleeding into my dreams."
"That's impossible," Izuna protested. "The Sharingan copies techniques, not memories. It doesn't work like that."
"The Sharingan copies what it can perceive," Madara corrected, his voice gaining strength as analytical thought overrode panic. "And my EMS perceived something. Something my conscious mind rejected but my eyes recorded. Now, when my mental defenses lower during sleep, that recording plays. Forces me to witness something I don't have the context or capacity to understand."
"What did you see?" Izuna asked quietly.
Madara's hands were shaking. Actually trembling, this man who'd faced armies without flinching. "War. Combat on a scale that makes our conflicts look like children playing at violence. Nine beings—no, eight beings plus him. Each one powerful enough to destroy worlds. Fighting. Really fighting, not the restraint we use in shinobi combat. Full power. No holding back. And the universe... the universe was collapsing around them."
"Nine beings," Izuna repeated. "You're certain?"
"Eight attackers and him defending," Madara clarified. "Each of the eight was... I don't even have words. Like if you took the concept of divine and made it flesh. Some looked almost human but wrong—too perfect, too powerful, radiating presence that made me want to kneel even through the dream. Others were animals but cosmic-scale. All of them were trying to kill him. And he was trying not to kill them."
"Trying not to kill beings that could destroy worlds," Izuna said, disbelief evident. "Why?"
"I don't know," Madara admitted. "But I felt it through the dream. Felt his reluctance. His pain—not physical, but emotional. Like he was fighting family. Like every strike he landed hurt him as much as his opponents. And that hesitation, that holding back... it cost him. They landed hits that wouldn't have connected if he'd fought seriously. Wounded him with that crimson corruption we saw in the crater."
Izuna's eyes widened. "The poison. The wounds that are still healing fifteen centuries later. You're saying he got those from fighting divine beings while refusing to kill them?"
"I'm saying he got them from saving divine beings who were trying to kill him," Madara corrected. "The dream ended with him sealing all eight. Not destroying. Sealing. And as he sealed them, he drew that crimson corruption out of their bodies and into his own. Sacrificed himself to purify them. Then he collapsed and... and fell through some kind of storm. Space-time distortion. Ended up here and most importantly I see the distorted visual as my mind and soul can't able to decipher the scene fully because I am too weak to even view that battle."
"We need to tell Hashirama and Tobirama," Izuna decided. "This is too important to keep between us."
"I know," Madara agreed. "But Izuna... I don't think I can sleep again. Every time I close my eyes, I see it. The scale of that battle. The power involved. And I understand, with terrible clarity, that what we witnessed in the crater—that quarter-glimpse of his eye opening—was him at his absolute weakest. Wounded. Exhausted. Corrupted. And even at his weakest, he made the world tremble. What is he at full strength? What could he do if he wasn't holding back?"
Izuna had no answer.
Because there was no answer that didn't terrify them both.
Part Two: The Gathering of Brothers
The next morning, all four of them met in the sealed room where they'd formed their pact.
Madara looked worse than he had immediately after the crater incident. Dark circles under his eyes. His hands steady through force of will rather than natural calm. His Eternal Mangekyō active despite no apparent need for its power.
"Tell them," Izuna prompted gently.
Madara did, recounting his dream in as much detail as he could articulate. Hashirama and Tobirama listened in silence, their expressions growing progressively more disturbed as the narrative unfolded.
"You're certain this is his memory and not symbolic representation of trauma?" Tobirama asked when Madara finished.
"I'm certain," Madara confirmed. "The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan doesn't create. It records. What I'm seeing is recorded data that my conscious mind filtered out as incomprehensible. Now it's surfacing during sleep when my mental barriers lower."
"Eight divine beings," Hashirama said slowly, his voice filled with awe and horror. "You're describing a war between gods. And he fought all eight while trying not to kill them. That's..."
"Insane," Tobirama finished. "That's tactically, strategically, and practically insane. You don't fight to disable when extinction is possible. You fight to eliminate threats as efficiently as possible."
"Unless you love the threats," Madara said quietly. "Unless you're fighting family. Then you do stupid things like sacrifice yourself to save those trying to kill you."
"That makes him more dangerous," Tobirama observed. "If he's capable of that level of sacrifice for beings attacking him, what would he do to protect beings he actually cares about? What would he do to threats to whatever he considers worthy of preservation? Everything is connected to HIM, the entire Shinobi world connected to HIM somehow and even the creations of Nine tailed Beasts somehow related to HIM as Nine Divine beings"
The implications settled over them like ash.
"We need to see this memory," Hashirama decided. "Not secondhand through Madara's description. We need to witness it directly. Understand the context. See what kind of being we're actually dealing with."
"How?" Izuna asked. "Madara's Sharingan recorded it, but that doesn't mean we can access it."
"Actually, it might," Tobirama said, his analytical mind already working through possibilities. "I've been researching ways to interface with doujutsu abilities. The Sharingan records visual data. If we can create a technique that accesses that data and projects it into a shared mental space..."
"You want to build a jutsu that lets us enter Madara's dreams," Izuna realized.
"Not dreams," Tobirama corrected. "Memories stored in his Sharingan. But yes, essentially. It would require all four of us working together. Madara to provide the source data. You to help structure the Sharingan interface—your Mangekyō has similar recording capabilities. Me to provide the space-time framework, while I have access of Yamanaka memory technique reference which I decipher on my own. And Hashirama to stabilize us all with Sage Mode chakra which also protect our mind while we see everything in clarity."
"That sounds dangerous," Hashirama observed.
"Everything about this situation is dangerous," Tobirama replied. "But we need this information. Need to understand what that being is capable of, what he's fought, what wounded him. Because if beings like that exist elsewhere in the cosmos, we need to know. Need to understand the scale of what we're preparing for."
"Plus," Madara added, "I need to stop experiencing this alone. Need to know I'm not losing my mind. Need confirmation that what I'm seeing is real memory rather than elaborate hallucination."
"When can we attempt this?" Hashirama asked.
"Give me three days to finalize the technique," Tobirama said. "I've been developing something for unrelated purposes—a method of marking targets for instantaneous teleportation. The underlying principles are similar. Space-time manipulation combined with chakra signature recognition. I can adapt it."
"Hiraishin," Tobirama continued, seeing their curious expressions. "Flying Thunder God technique. It's not complete yet, but the theoretical framework gives me what I need to create the memory-viewing jutsu."
"Three days," Hashirama agreed. "We'll meet here. Prepare yourselves mentally. If what Madara describes is accurate, witnessing it even secondhand will be... intense."
They separated to handle their respective duties, but all of them felt the weight of anticipation. In three days, they'd attempt something unprecedented. Enter the recorded memories of a cosmic being through the medium of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
What they would see might shatter their remaining illusions about their place in the universe.
But they had to try.
Because understanding was the first step toward preparation.
And preparation was the only response that made sense when extinction was possible.
Part Three: The Ritual of Witnessing
Three days later, they reconvened in the sealed room. Tobirama had prepared elaborately—seals covered every surface, creating a network of spatial anchors and chakra conduits that would link their consciousness while protecting their physical bodies.
"How does this work?" Izuna asked, studying the seals with his Mangekyō.
"In theory," Tobirama explained, "I'll use these seals to create a shared mental space. Not quite reality, not quite imagination—something in between. A pocket dimension constructed from chakra where consciousness can interact. Madara's Eternal Mangekyō will provide the source data. Your Mangekyō will help interpret and structure it. My technique will provide the framework. And Hashirama's Sage Mode will keep us all stable, grounded, alive."
"And if something goes wrong?" Hashirama asked.
"Then hopefully we just wake up with headaches," Tobirama replied. "Worst case, we suffer brain damage from consciousness overload. But I've built in safety measures. Automatic ejection if anyone's mental state becomes too unstable taken safety protocols from Yamanaka clan."
"Comforting," Madara said dryly.
They took positions according to Tobirama's design—Madara in the center, Izuna to his right, Tobirama to his left, Hashirama behind him.
"Last chance to back out," Tobirama offered.
"Do it," Hashirama said simply.
Hashirama activated Sage Mode first. His eyes changed, taking on the distinctive markings of someone perfectly balanced between human chakra and natural energy. He placed his hands on Madara's shoulders, channeling stabilizing chakra through the connection.
Madara activated his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, the pattern spinning, focusing inward rather than outward. Accessing stored data rather than observing reality.
Izuna activated his Mangekyō, the pattern syncing with his brother's, creating a resonance between their doujutsu.
Tobirama performed the seals with practiced precision. "Memory Viewing Technique: Shared Consciousness Space."
The seals on the walls blazed with light. Space-time folded. Consciousness separated from flesh.
And suddenly, they weren't in the sealed room anymore.
They were nowhere.
Part Four: The Void and the Scale
The transition was instantaneous and disorienting. One moment, physical bodies in a sealed room. The next, formless consciousness floating in absolute darkness.
Not the darkness of night. Not the absence of light.
True void. The space between spaces. The nothing that existed before something.
"Where are we?" Izuna's voice echoed despite the lack of medium to carry sound.
"The memory is anchoring itself," Tobirama replied, his analytical mind already working to understand the physics of their current state. "This is what Madara's Sharingan recorded before the actual battle. The context. The starting point."
"Look," Hashirama said, his Sage-enhanced perception detecting something in the void. "There. A light."
It started as a pinpoint. A single spark in endless darkness. Then it grew. Expanded. Became something recognizable.
A planet.
Their planet. Elemental Planet or Earth. But seen from a distance and perspective no human should have. Floating in space, a marble of blue and green and white, beautiful and fragile and impossibly small.
"That's home," Madara whispered, awe in his voice. "That's what we look like from beyond."
They drifted closer—or the memory pulled them closer, it was hard to distinguish—and the planet grew. They could see continents now. Oceans. The curvature of the world they'd never questioned from ground level.
"We're so small," Hashirama said, the words barely audible. "I knew intellectually that the world was round, that we were on a sphere floating in space. But seeing it..."
"Wait," Tobirama said, his attention shifting. "There's more. Look behind us."
They turned—a strange sensation without bodies—and saw it.
The sun.
Not the sun as viewed from Earth's surface, filtered through atmosphere and distance. The sun as it actually existed—a massive sphere of burning plasma, so large that their entire planet could fit inside it millions of times over. Radiating heat and light that had traveled unfathomable distances to reach their world.
"By all the gods," Izuna breathed.
"And there are more," Madara said, recognizing this from his dreams but now he see everything in full clarity as three more person take the loads especially Hashirama Sage Mode. "Watch."
The memory accelerated. Pulled back. Showed them the solar system in its entirety. Earth and seven other planets, all orbiting the sun in elegant patterns. Each world unique. Each one a potential home for life, though most appeared barren from this distance.
"This is just our system," Tobirama realized. "Our sun and its planets. But there are more. Countless more."
The memory continued to pull back. The solar system became small. A collection of lights around a bright star. And around it, they saw other stars. Thousands of them. Millions.
Each one potentially the center of its own system. Each one possibly hosting worlds where life might exist.
"This is a galaxy," Tobirama said, his voice filled with wonder despite his usual clinical detachment. "A collection of billions of stars, all held together by gravity, all rotating around a central point called Supermassive Black Hole which distort Space- Time naturally just by existing . We're just one star system among billions."
The galaxy was beautiful. Spiral arms of light, rotating slowly, filled with more stars than they could count or comprehend. Nebulae—clouds of gas and dust where new stars were being born—added splashes of color to the cosmic tapestry.
"And there are more galaxies," Madara added, remembering this part of his dream with crystalline clarity.
The view continued to expand. Their galaxy became one among many. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Each one containing billions of stars. The numbers became meaningless, too large to process, but the visual impact remained.
This was the universe. Vast. Ancient. Beautiful. Terrible.
And they were nothing. Less than nothing. A single planet around a single star in a single galaxy among billions. Four humans from one species on one world trying to comprehend infinity.
"I need to sit down," Hashirama said, despite having no body to sit with.
"I understand why Madara couldn't sleep," Izuna added. "If this is just the context, just the setup... what could the actual memory be like?"
As if responding to the question, the memory shifted.
No longer pulling back. Now focusing. Zeroing in on something.
A disturbance.
A ripple in space-time itself, spreading outward from some epicenter, warping stars in its wake, bending light around something massive approaching.
"Something's coming," Tobirama said, his sensory abilities detecting what his eyes couldn't yet see. "Something that's tearing holes in reality just by existing."
The ripple grew. Expanded. Became visible as space itself warped around some massive presence.
And then they appeared.
Nine figures. Each one radiating power that made the void itself tremble.
Eight arrayed in a circle, facing inward.
One in the center, surrounded, trapped, desperate.
"That's him," Madara said quietly. "That's Anant. But before. Before the wounds. Before the exhaustion. This is him at full strength."
And facing him were eight beings that should not exist.
Gods. Actual, literal gods.
And they wanted him dead.
Part Five: The Divine Host Revealed
The eight beings that surrounded Anant were each unique, each magnificent, each terrible in their own way.
The first appeared as a massive lion, but not any lion that walked on Earth. Its mane was made of literal fire—not metaphorical flames, but nuclear fusion occurring in a space too small to contain it safely. Its roaring breath, when it came, would shake planets from their orbits. Its eyes burned with intelligence that predated written language, predated civilization, predated humanity itself.
The Lion God. Primal. Dominant. The concept of kingship and sovereignty given form and fury.
The second was an elephant, but cosmic in scale. Its trunk was long enough to wrap around moons. Its tusks gleamed with material countless times harder than diamond, sharper than any blade humanity could forge. Each step it took caused space-time to ripple outward in visible waves, gravity bending in protest at mass that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space.
The Elephant God. Patient. Inevitable. The embodiment of memory and the weight of time itself.
The third took the form of a garuda—the great bird of legend—but real in ways legend could never capture. Its wingspan could eclipse largest planets or even stars. Its feathers were each the size of continents, and when they fell, they became meteorites. When it moved, dimensional barriers cracked, unable to contain the displacement its flight created.
The Garuda God. Freedom. Sky. The limit of upward aspiration and the refusal of earthly bonds.
The fourth was a naga—serpent-bodied with humanoid torso—but scaled in darkness that absorbed light. Their coils could wrap around stars like thread. Their venom could corrode the fabric of reality itself, eating through dimensional walls. Their eyes held the wisdom of species that had lived and died before humanity's ancestors drew first breath.
The Naga God. Cunning. Transformation. The power of shedding limitations and becoming something new.
The fifth appeared as a monkey, but divine in its imperfection. Massive. Muscular. Radiating the kind of wild power that came from refusing to accept order, refusing to be contained, refusing to submit to any hierarchy. Its staff—a simple-looking weapon that was actually condensed neutron star material—could split planets with casual swings.
The Monkey God. Rebellion. Chaos. The revolutionary spirit that refused to bow before kings or gods.
The sixth was a horse, but celestial. Its hooves struck sparks that became newborn stars. Its mane flowed with captured solar wind. Its speed transcended normal space-time—it didn't run faster, it simply decided distance was irrelevant and appeared where it wanted to be, causality bending to accommodate its will.
The Horse God. Swiftness. Inevitability. The concept that nothing could outrun fate once fate decided to pursue.
The seventh was a dragon, but not the legends humanity remembered. This was an eastern dragon, long and serpentine, covered in scales that each reflected entire galaxies in miniature. It breathed not fire but raw creation energy—the same force that had sparked the universe into existence. Where it flew, new matter spontaneously formed from quantum foam.
The Dragon God. Creation. Elemental fury. The raw power of existence manifesting will into reality.
The eighth was a phoenix, and unlike the others who radiated threat, this one radiated sorrow. Beautiful beyond description. Burning with flames that didn't destroy but purified. Its fires were not killing but transforming, not ending but renewing. Ash fell from its wings, and from that ash, new life tried to form even in the void of space.
The Phoenix Goddess. Rebirth. Sacrifice. The understanding that all things must end so new things can begin.
And in the center of this divine circle, surrounded by beings that each represented fundamental cosmic principles, stood Anant.
He looked different here. Not wounded. Not corrupted. Not sleeping. His skin still had that luminous brown quality, but now it glowed with power barely contained by flesh. His eyes—those golden eyes—were fully open, and the light they cast made stars seem dim by comparison.
On his forehead, clearly visible now, the watchers could see seven palace-like structures arranged in a perfect circle. Each one was architectural perfection made manifest in flesh—spires and domes and walls that glowed with their own internal light. These were the Seven Dharma Palaces, representing seven aspects of cosmic law that Anant embodied.
And at the very center of his forehead, where the palaces formed their circle, was a crimson dot. Not decoration. Not marking. A seal. A compressed singularity of power so intense that even looking at it through memory made the four brothers feel like their consciousness was being pulled apart.
Within Anant's body—visible to their consciousness-forms as translucent overlays—they could see the Eight Primordial Star Chakra Gates. Not concepts. Not metaphors. Actual stellar phenomena compressed into biological housing.
Each gate was a star from before the current universe. Each one burned with fusion reactions that had been occurring for time periods that made "eternity" seem brief. Each one represented forces so fundamental that removing even one would cause localized reality collapse.
"He's not just powerful," Hashirama breathed, his Sage Mode perception allowing him to sense the natural energy flowing through Anant even across memory and distance. "He's not just strong. He's... he's fundamental. He's what happens when cosmic law decides it needs an enforcer."
"He's divine," Izuna said, awe and terror mixing in equal measure. "Actually, literally divine. Not a metaphor. Not an exaggeration. He's a god walking among gods or Primal God."
"No," Madara corrected quietly. "He's something that makes gods kneel. Look at them. Really look."
And they did. The eight divine beings surrounding Anant—each one radiating power that could unmake worlds—were afraid. Not showing fear openly, but it was there in their stances, in the way they'd positioned themselves in a circle rather than attacking individually, in the desperation that underlay their divine fury.
They knew what he was. Knew what he represented.
And they were trying to kill him before he killed them.
The eight divine beings moved as one.
Not with the telegraphed movements of shinobi combat. Not with techniques that required hand signs and preparation.
They simply acted. And reality screamed.
Part Six: When Reality Becomes Casualty
The Lion God roared.
The sound was not just audio. It was force. It was concept. It was the idea that kings commanded and reality obeyed made manifest. The roar traveled faster than light, carried on waves of distorted space-time, and where it passed, stars flickered and died.
Anant raised one hand, and the roar stopped. Not blocked. Not deflected. Simply ceased to exist, as if reality itself had decided that sound didn't occur in this location.
The Elephant God charged, its mass warping space so severely that nearby asteroids were pulled into its gravitational wake and crushed to powder. Its tusks, sharper than the concept of sharpness, could pierce dimensional barriers.
Anant sidestepped. Moved faster than thought, faster than causality, appearing behind the Elephant God in a position he couldn't have reached through normal movement.
The Garuda God struck from above, talons extended, each one capable of tearing through planetary cores. Its wings created hurricane-force winds in the vacuum of space—not air movement, but space itself being pushed aside.
Anant caught the talons. Actually caught them, his hands gripping claws the size of continents, and the impact created shockwaves that radiated outward in all directions. A nearby star—massive, ancient, in the prime of its life—took the shockwave directly and simply exploded. Not a supernova. Not a natural death. Just instant annihilation as the forces involved exceeded what stellar matter could withstand.
"He destroyed a star," Tobirama whispered, his analytical mind trying and failing to process the scale. "That's not a technique. That's not chakra manipulation. That's just... the byproduct of his movement. The collateral damage of existing while fighting."
The Naga God struck from below, coils wrapping around Anant's legs, binding him with scales that could crush neutron stars. Its venom seeped into the space around him, eating through dimensional walls, creating holes in reality itself.
Anant's body blazed with golden light. The Eight Primordial Star Gates within him activated—not all at once, just one, the Gate of Destruction—and the Naga's coils shattered. Not broke. Shattered, as if the concept of binding had been rejected by existence itself.
The freed Naga God recoiled, wounds appearing along its body where the scales had connected with Anant. Not physical wounds. Conceptual ones. Places where its essence had touched something so fundamentally opposed to corruption that contact itself caused damage.
The Monkey God attacked with its staff, swinging with force that created visible distortions in space-time. Each swing was a planet-killer or even star - killer, and the Monkey God was swinging thousands of times per millisecond, creating a storm of impacts that would have pulverized solar systems or even Galaxy.
Anant blocked with his bare hands. The impacts rang out like the death knells of galaxies, and each block sent shockwaves spreading through space. A black hole—ancient, massive, with an event horizon that stretched for light-years—took one of those shockwaves and cracked. Actually cracked, the singularity itself fracturing under stress it was never designed to handle.
"That's impossible," Izuna gasped. "Black holes don't crack. They can't crack. They're collapsed space-time. They're—"
"Being destroyed by forces that exceed their design parameters," Tobirama finished, his voice shaking. "We're witnessing combat that operates on a level where physics becomes optional. Where the laws of reality are suggestions that can be overridden by sufficient will."
The Horse God moved, and suddenly it wasn't where it had been. It was everywhere and nowhere, existing in quantum superposition, striking from every angle simultaneously. Its hooves, moving at speeds that made light seem stationary, created impacts that resonated through dimensional barriers.
Anant's response was elegant. He simply spun, one complete rotation, and the spin created a barrier of pure force that caught every hoof strike simultaneously. The impacts were redirected—not blocked, redirected—sending the kinetic energy harmlessly (relatively) into empty space where it created new asteroid fields from spontaneously forming matter.
The Dragon God breathed, and creation itself became a weapon. Raw existence poured from its mouth—not fire, not energy, but the fundamental force that turned potential into actual, that made the universe be rather than not-be. This breath could birth galaxies.
Aimed at a target, it would force them to exist more than they should, overloading their physical form with existence until they collapsed under the weight of their own reality.
Anant countered with the Gate of Transformation. The creation energy hit him and changed—not disappeared, changed—becoming something else. Something beautiful. The energy that should have destroyed him instead became a nebula, vast and colorful, spreading behind him like wings of cosmic dust and newborn stars.
"He didn't block it," Hashirama realized, his Sage Mode perception allowing him to understand what the others couldn't quite grasp. "He transformed it. Changed its fundamental nature mid-flight. That's not combat technique. That's reality manipulation. That's the power to look at existence and say 'no, be different instead.'"
The Phoenix Goddess, who until now had held back, finally struck. Her flames were not physical. They were conceptual. They burned not flesh but essence, not matter but meaning. They were the fires of ending, the heat of transformation, the understanding that nothing could remain unchanged forever.
Anant took the flames directly. Let them wash over him, through him, around him. And for a moment, the four watching brothers thought he would fall, would burn, would be transformed into ash and rebirth like everything the Phoenix touched.
But instead, Anant smiled.
Actually smiled, even as flames that could end galaxies consumed his form.
And the flames stopped.
Not extinguished. Stopped. Frozen in place, held by a will so absolute that even the concept of transformation had to acknowledge a superior authority.
"Enough," Anant said, and it was the first time they'd heard his voice in the memory.
It wasn't loud. Wasn't threatening. Wasn't commanding in the way the Lion God's roar had been.
It was simply absolute. The voice of someone who didn't need to raise their volume because reality itself was listening.
"I don't want to fight you," Anant continued, and there was pain in his voice. Genuine pain. "You're my family. My kin. My brothers and sisters in cosmic duty. Whatever madness has taken you, whatever corruption has poisoned your thoughts, I can heal it. I can save you. But you have to stop. Please. Stop."
The eight divine beings responded by attacking harder.
Part Seven: The Sacrifice of Love
They came at him with everything.
All eight divine beings, all their power, all their techniques, all the fundamental forces of existence they embodied—all of it directed at Anant in a simultaneous assault that should have been impossible to survive.
The Lion God's roar of absolute dominion.
The Elephant God's crushing weight of time and memory.
The Garuda God's freedom that rejected all bonds, including the bond of physical form.
The Naga God's transformation poison that corrupted essence.
The Monkey God's rebellious chaos that refused all order.
The Horse God's inevitable fate that nothing could outrun.
The Dragon God's creation force that demanded existence.
The Phoenix Goddess's ending flames that forced rebirth.
All of them. At once. Full power. No restraint.
And Anant held back.
Even then. Even facing extinction from all sides. He held back.
The Seven Dharma Palaces on his forehead blazed with light, each one activating, each one representing a different aspect of cosmic law: Order, Chaos, Creation, Destruction, Time, Space, and Life. Seven principles that underlay reality, all focused through one being, all used not to kill but to restrain.
The Eight Primordial Star Gates within him opened—not fully, never fully, but enough. Enough to channel power that made the earlier displays seem like candle flames compared to supernovae.
Gate of Creation formed shields of pure matter, birthing particles from nothing to intercept attacks.
Gate of Preservation maintained Anant's form against forces that would unmake him.
Gate of Destruction unmade the attacks before they could land, returning them to quantum potential.
Gate of Transformation changed hostile energy into harmless forms, redirected killing intent into empty space.
Gate of Revelation analyzed each attack, understood its nature, found its weaknesses.
Gate of Concealment hid Anant's true position, making the divine beings attack where he appeared to be rather than where he was.
Gate of Binding created invisible chains, trying to restrain without hurting, to hold without harming.
And the Gate of Liberation... that one remained sealed. That one, even now, Anant refused to open.
Because opening it would mean fighting seriously. Would mean ending this conflict with efficiency rather than mercy. Would mean killing family to save himself.
And he wouldn't do that.
The cost was immediate.
The Naga God's corruption poison, enhanced by the Dragon's creation force, forced its way through Anant's defenses. Not because the defenses were weak, but because defending against everything meant defending against nothing perfectly.
Crimson corruption seeped into Anant's body. The same poison they'd seen in the crater, the same wounds that were still healing six centuries later, began to form in real-time.
Anant gasped, pain evident on his face. Not just physical pain, but the pain of betrayal, of fighting loved ones, of being forced to hurt those he was trying to save.
"Stop," he begged, and his voice carried genuine anguish. "Please. I can still save you. I can still draw the poison out, seal the corruption, restore what you were. But only if you stop. Only if you let me help."
The eight divine beings, corrupted by madness they couldn't control, didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
They pressed harder.
And Anant made his choice.
Part Eight: The Seal of Blood and Love
The crimson dot on Anant's forehead began to glow.
Not the gentle glow of the Seven Dharma Palaces. Not the stellar radiance of the Eight Gates.
This was different. This was the seal that held back his full power, the limiter that prevented him from accidentally destroying everything he touched, the containment that made him merely god-level instead of something far worse.
And it was opening.
Just slightly. Just enough.
The universe screamed.
Reality itself protested as power that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space began to leak through. Stars in nearby systems flickered, their fusion reactions stuttering as fundamental constants temporarily lost coherence. Black holes shuddered. Nebulae contracted. Galaxies spiraled faster, their rotation rates increasing as space-time warped under the strain.
"No," Hashirama whispered. "If that seal opens fully..."
"Then this entire dozens big cluster of galaxies ceases to exist," Tobirama finished, his sensory abilities perceiving the spatial distortions spreading outward. "That seal isn't holding back power. It's holding back a force that power can't measure. It's holding back something that makes the concept of power irrelevant."
Anant moved.
Not attacking. Despite the seal opening, despite power sufficient to unmake universes becoming available, he didn't attack.
He restrained.
Faster than the divine beings could react, faster than causality could process, Anant appeared beside each of the eight. His hands—glowing with golden light intensified by the partially opened seal—touched their foreheads.
And bound them.
Not with chains. Not with techniques. With his own blood.
His blood, glowing with that same golden light, seeped from his fingertips and wrapped around each divine being. It formed seals more complex than anything the watching brothers had ever seen, more intricate than the barrier seals protecting the crater, more fundamental than the jutsu that sealed Kaguya( As a Reference ).
These were seals that operated on the level of essence rather than energy. Seals that bound not just physical forms but concepts. Seals that said "you are bound" and made reality agree.
The eight Divine beings struggled, but it was futile. Anant's blood contained power from the Eight Gates, authority from the Seven Palaces, and something from beyond the seal—something that even gods couldn't resist.
And then Anant did something that made the watching brothers understand why he'd been so reluctant to fight.
He drew the corruption out of them.
The crimson poison that had driven them mad, that had made them attack their brother, that had transformed divine beings into mindless killers—Anant pulled it from their essences and into his own body.
All of it.
Every drop of corruption, every trace of poison, every fragment of madness—he took it into himself, sacrificing his own purity to restore theirs.
The effect was immediate.
The eight divine beings stopped struggling. Their eyes cleared. Intelligence returned. And with intelligence came understanding of what they'd done, what they'd tried to do, who they'd been attacking.
"Brother!" the Lion God roared, but this time the roar carried grief rather than aggression.
"What have we done?" the Phoenix Goddess whispered, flames flickering with sorrow.
"Forgive us," the Elephant God's ancient voice trembled. "We didn't know. The corruption... it made us see you as enemy. Made us attack the one we should protect."
"I know," Anant said gently, even as the corruption spread through his body, even as wounds opened across his form, even as power that had seemed limitless began to falter. "That's why I couldn't kill you. That's why I held back. Because you're family. And family is worth dying for."
"No!" the Dragon God protested. "We can heal you! We can—"
"It's too late," Anant said, a sad smile on his face. "The corruption is designed to kill Origin Devas. To end beings like me. I've taken all of it from all of you. There's too much. Even I can't survive this."
The seal on his forehead began to close, the power receding, conservation of cosmic balance requiring that such force couldn't exist uncontained for long.
"Listen," Anant said, his voice growing weaker. "All of you. You're sealed now. Bound by my blood. Bound by my sacrifice. You'll sleep for eons, scattered across the cosmos, until the corruption I removed fully dissipates from your essences. And when you wake... when you finally wake... remember this. Remember that I loved you. Remember that I chose to save you rather than destroy you."
"We'll remember," the Naga God promised, tears—actual tears—falling from eyes that had witnessed the birth and death of universes.
"We'll find you," the Monkey God added. "However long it takes. However far you fall. We'll find you and wake you and—"
"No," Anant interrupted gently. "Let me rest. Let me heal. The corruption will take time to purge. Centuries. Millennia. Maybe longer. I'll be somewhere, sleeping, recovering. If you wake before I do... if you wake and find yourselves restored... live. Be what you were meant to be. Protect the balance. Guard the cosmos. Do the duty we were all created for."
The eight divine beings wanted to argue, wanted to stay, wanted to help.
But Anant's blood seals were already activating, already pulling them away, already scattering them across dimensional barriers and spatial gulfs too vast to measure.
One by one, they vanished. Sent to sleeping places where they could heal, where they could recover from the madness that had consumed them, where they could wait for the day when they would wake and remember what their brother had sacrificed for them.
And Anant was alone.
Alone in the void. Corrupted. Wounded. Power fading as the seal on his forehead closed completely, containing what remained, preventing him from accidentally causing more damage as he fell.
He smiled one last time. A smile of satisfaction, of completion, of duty fulfilled despite the cost.
Then his eyes closed, and he fell backward into space.
A storm was forming. Not a weather storm, but a space-time storm—a dimensional rift caused by the massive energy expenditure of the battle, reality attempting to heal the wounds inflicted by divine combat.
Anant fell into the storm. Was pulled through dimensional barriers, through the gaps between realities, through the spaces where distance became meaningless and direction was optional.
He fell for what might have been seconds or centuries—time didn't work normally in the spaces between spaces.
And then he crashed.
Into a planet. Into Earth. Into the crater that would become forbidden ground, that would be sealed by Hagoromo, that would become the sleeping place of an Origin Deva who'd sacrificed everything to save his family.
The memory ended.
Part Nine: Return to Flesh
The four brothers gasped simultaneously as consciousness snapped back into their bodies.
They were in the sealed room in Konohagakure. Tobirama's seals had held. Hashirama's Sage Mode had kept them stable. Madara's Sharingan had provided the source data. Izuna's Mangekyō had helped structure it.
But they were changed.
Fundamentally, irrevocably changed by what they'd witnessed.
For the first time they know their name or Identity "ORIGIN DEVAs"
Hashirama was trembling and crying openly, his Sage Mode markings still visible, tears streaming down his face. "He saved them," he whispered. "They were trying to kill him and he saved them. He took their poison into himself to restore their sanity. That's... that's the most beautiful and terrible thing I've ever witnessed."
Tobirama sat perfectly still, his analytical mind trying to process data that exceeded its design parameters. His hands were shaking—actually trembling—something that never happened. "The scale," he managed to say. "The absolute scale. We're not just insignificant. We're not even rounding errors in cosmic calculations. We're less than bacteria to beings like that. And he's just one. There are eight others like him. And probably more. How many? How many beings operate on that level?"
Madara's Eternal Mangekyō was still active, still spinning, his eyes recording data they couldn't fully process. "He held back," Madara said, his voice distant. "The entire fight. Every moment. He was holding back because he didn't want to kill them. The seal on his forehead—that crimson dot—if that had opened fully..."
"At least the Galaxies would have ended," Izuna finished, his own Mangekyō spinning slower now, exhausted from the effort of helping structure the memory viewing. "Maybe multiple galaxies. We witnessed restraint. Not full power. Restraint. And even his restraint destroyed stars, cracked black holes, bisected nebulae like they were paper."
They sat in silence, each processing the implications.
"Those wounds," Hashirama said eventually. "The corruption we saw in the crater. That crimson poison that's been healing for fifteen centuries. He got those saving Origin Devas who were attacking him. He sacrificed himself—killed himself, essentially—to restore their sanity. That's why nature loves him. Not just because he's powerful. Because he's capable of that level of sacrifice."
"It makes his awakening more terrifying," Tobirama observed quietly. "A being capable of sacrificing himself for those attacking him... what would he do to those who threaten what he's trying to protect? We need to be on the right side of that judgment. We need to prove we're worth protecting rather than purging."
"The eight Origin Devas," Madara said. "They're out there somewhere. Sealed. Sleeping. But they'll wake eventually. And when they do... will they remember? Will they search for him? Will they find Earth and realize where their brother fell?"
"We can't predict that," Hashirama said. "But we know this: Anant is healing. Slowly. Those wounds are closing. The corruption is being purged. And when he wakes—when he fully wakes, not just stirring but actually conscious—he'll remember what we just saw. He'll remember sacrifice. He'll remember choosing to save rather than destroy."
"Which means mercy is possible," Izuna said. "Not guaranteed. But possible. If we can prove we're worth it. If we can show we use power to protect rather than consume. If we demonstrate that we're bringer of peace and see we formed the First Village system in the Clan era which should bring peace to the world."( How naive is he)
"That's our hope," Hashirama agreed. "That's what we build toward. That's why the village matters, why cooperation matters, why every choice we make to be protectors rather than predators matters. Because when judgment comes, those choices might be the difference between mercy and extinction."
They slowly stood, each of them unsteady, each of them forever marked by what they'd witnessed.
"We don't speak of this," Tobirama said. "This stays between us. The battle. The sacrifice. The eight devas. All of it. If this information became public..."
"Mass panic or mass worship," Madara agreed. "Both problematic. This is our burden. Our knowledge. Our responsibility."
"Agreed," Hashirama said. "We carry this knowledge. We use it to guide our choices. We prepare humanity without revealing what we're preparing them for."
"And we hope," Izuna added. "Hope that when Anant wakes, when those golden eyes fully open, when he evaluates what humanity has become... we hope that we've done enough. Built enough. Proven enough."
"Hope is all we have," Hashirama said quietly. "Hope and the understanding that trying matters. That choosing to be better matters. That sacrifice and service and protection matter even if we're so small that cosmic beings might not notice our efforts."
They filed out of the sealed room one by one, each returning to their duties, their lives, their roles.
But none of them would ever be the same.
They'd witnessed divinity in combat.
They'd seen sacrifice on a cosmic scale.
They'd understood that beings existed who made gods seem small.
And they carried that knowledge forward, knowing that someday—decades or centuries from now—judgment would come.
And all they could do was try to be worthy of mercy when it did.
[END OF CHAPTER EIGHT]
Author's Note: This first half establishes Madara's nightmares as recorded memory bleeding through his EMS, and the setup for viewing them collectively. The cosmic zoom-out from Earth to universe gives proper scale and context—they understand they're witnessing something far beyond planetary concerns.
Author's Note: This completes the cosmic battle vision, establishing Anant's nature as someone who values family above survival, who sacrifices himself to save even those attacking him. The scale of the battle—destroying stars, cracking black holes, bisecting nebulae—gives proper context for how wounded and weakened he is in the crater. The Eight Divine Beings( Now officially Origin Devas as they know their identity ) are revealed as family rather than enemies, corrupted by poison that he removed at the cost of his own health. This recontextualizes everything: he's not just a hunter of Ōtsutsuki, he's a protector of balance who values preservation over elimination. The four brothers now understand both the scale of cosmic power and the nature of the being they encountered. This knowledge will shape every decision they make going forward, knowing that judgment isn't just about power, but about whether humanity demonstrates the same values Anant exhibited—sacrifice, protection, choosing to save rather than destroy.