❝ my dear Madara? ❞

after she opened her eyes was how blurry everything looked. Her whole body felt hurt and sore. It was like being crushed by something very heavy. Her fingers twitched, while her face scrunched up with discomfort. Feeling her lack of glasses.

Where am I?

"You're awake!" someone exclaimed, running towards her. Shizuka didn't know who he was, all she could see were red and brown. His voice also felt familiar.

"...Hashirama-sama?" she managed to utter his name. Her voice sounded hoarse.

"Yes, it's me," he said.

"How? How am I still alive?" Her breath started to shorten while her palms started to sweat, shaking. "Madara ... that meteorites ... I thought I didn't make it ..."

"Calm yourself first. Take a deep breath," Hashirama's voice turned very gentle, causing Shizuka to calm down while taking a steady breath. "I found you in the meteorite heap and luckily your head is fine. I'm sorry I'm late to save you."

"... It's okay," she muttered, leaning her head on the ground. She made her body relax, enjoying it after hours of fighting Madara relentlessly.

"You're great, you know? Fighting alone against Madara and managed to survive," said Hashirama. "Not everyone can do it."

"Maybe if he's alive I can defeat him," Shizuka whispers quietly so Hashirama couldn't hear what she said. "How about Madara? And the Ten Tails?"

"The Ten Tails have been defeated by your friend and Madara ... He came back to life," he explained.

Shizuka widened her eyes. Feeling both proud and shocked due to the information she just got. She tried to sit up but failed as she could feel something pressing against her body. She gingerly lifted her hand to her stomach, feeling the familiar skin of wood.

"Your connections with trees are so deep that they want to heal you," Hashirama spoke. "I did heal you too. But I'm not very good at it."

"Please stop, I already owe you a lot," whispered Shizuka. After feeling the wood creeping away, she tried to sit down even though it was hard.

She took a deep breath, glancing at the First Hokage from the corner of her eyes. "Hashirama-sama, can you please take me to the battlefield?" and before he opened his mouth, Shizuka continued. "Maybe I can get treatment from Sakura."

Hashirama exhaled because of her stubbornness but still agreed. "Alright."

Shizuka took out her spare glasses from a scroll. Being a ninja who wears glasses makes her have to bring some spare on her.

Hashirama led Shizuka to jump through the shards of the meteorites. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see, let alone remembering her terrible, intense, battle with Madara.

"Tobirama?" Hashirama's voice made the girl open her eyes. She saw the Second Hokage lying on his stomach with some black iron stuck on him.

"Brother?"

But Shizuka's gaze was fixed on someone a few meters from Tobirama. Seeing Uchiha Sasuke lying still face plant on the ground. She became curious. She was sure Sasuke was not someone like that. He and Naruto both have an unyielding soul in a battle.

Or don't tell me...

Shizuka broke away from Hashirama and headed towards Sasuke's body. She sat down, feeling the man's almost imperceptible chakra and heartbeat. She quickly spread the openings of his shirt and pressed her ear against Sasuke's chest to make sure.

He's dying.

Automatically ―even though Shizuka didn't like Sasuke― she immediately put her palm on Sasuke's chest. Using ordinary medical ninjutsu ―because her chakra is not that big to use Midorima's medical ninjutsu― to heal the stab wound.

She cut Sasuke's skin, then with her left palm covered in a green light, entered the slit that she had cut. The palm of her hand helped to pump Sasuke's heart. And the other hand covers his nose as she leaned in.

I can't believe I'm going to do this ... she muttered and gave Sasuke artificial respiration while still helping to pump his heart.

"I can help," a voice approached her. She leaned back, looking at someone who is shirtless and has a skin color that is so pale it can even be said to be white.

"Who― Kabuto?" she frowned seeing Kabuto's figure which was very different from what she remembered. She also couldn't see Kabuto in the war.

"I'm here to save him," said Kabuto while crouching down.

"And how can I trust you?" Asked Shizuka warily.

"You don't have to trust me," he said. "Because of Itachi's Izanami, I now know who I am. And what I must do. I wish from the bottom of my heart to not lose my home."

Shizuka bit her lip, before sighing. "Alright."

Kabuto put something like a white snake on his stomach against Sasuke's chest. Transfering something into him. Shizuka didn't know and didn't want to know what it was, but she could feel Sasuke's chakra returning. Looks like he really wanted to save Sasuke.

It took some time for Sasuke to wake up. And the first time he did was give her a side glance before heading to Tobirama. Pulling out the black irons easily. "Can you teleport, Lord Second?" asked Sasuke.

"Yeah, since I'm linked to the Fourth's markings," he answered. "At my current strength, I can only teleport one person."

"That's fine," and he disappeared. Shizuka stared blankly at where Sasuke was standing earlier, his aura and chakra felt different. What happened when he was dying earlier?

She then turned her gaze to a very tall tree not far from their place. That tree ... It was different from an ordinary tree ... Shizuka could feel an enormous amount of chakra and a familiar sensation creeping up her body.

"That tree..." she murmured.

"It's when the Ten tails turned into a tree," Tobirama explained. "I'm sure Naruto and Sasuke have defeated the Ten tails. But if the tree appears again it means ..."

"...Madara already caught them back," Hashirama finished.

Somehow Shizuka ended up heading for that tree. As if there was a pull that made her have to go there. About the tree, she seemed to have read it in on an old scroll belonging to her clan. Something about the first human to have chakra from eating the fruit of a tree.

Is this tree the same as the tree in the myth? The Divine Tree?

Shizuka's steps stopped when she realized that all the old team 7 members were in the same place as her. And there is Madara who has now changed his appearance. Now all white. Very inversely proportional to the usual Uchiha clothes, which are always dark.

"Oh, you're still alive huh," Madara said, making everyone focus on her.

"It won't be that easy for you to kill me," Shizuka replied coldly.

"Shi-chan?"

"Shizuka!" Sakura exclaimed in surprise. During this war, she didn't find Shizuka other than when she summoned the red dragon. The girl seemed to just disappear.

And now Shizuka stood before her, with a completely different appearance. She had tied her green hair in a low ponytail with a black ribbon. Her left arm was now exposed and the hem of her clothes was burnt. Cut marks and dirt are everywhere. But what was the most terrible was the huge bloodstain on the abdomen which contrasted sharply with her white clothes.

Judging from her conversation with Madara that means ... Shizuka had been fighting Madara all this time? Alone?

Sakura went straight to Shizuka and gave her some treatment. Noticing her slight chakra and the wide wound that still opened. The Midorima didn't refuse, allowing Sakura to heal her. Her eyes were fixed on Madara's fight against Naruto and Sasuke.

From appearance alone, Shizuka could notice that there was something new about Naruto. There were several black orbs behind him and his strength seemed much greater than usual.

"What happened to them?" she blurted out her thoughts. Confused by their sudden increasing power.

And the next thing she knows is some ground lifted up and made some giant rock-like meteorites in the sky. Shizuka swallowed hard. Two large meteorites had just hit her, and now there are several more?

Naruto and Sasuke advanced, easily destroying the meteorites. And Sasuke suddenly heading straight at them with his Susanoo. "Hey! I could've hit you with my Rasen Shuriken!" Naruto shouted as Sasuke landed in front of them, creating a huge wind. "Hey! Land more softly too!"

Sasuke used his Susanoo to cover them with its wings. Blocking them for something that's going on outside.

Shizuka gasped. Her body stiffened as she felt something terrible. "Shizuka? What's wrong?" asked Kakashi who was the first to notice the change in her attitude.

"This is the Deep Forest Emergence," Shizuka murmured. "He's binding people using the Divine Tree's life energy. I'm sure Madara has activated the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

"What? We have to stop it!" exclaimed Naruto.

"Naruto! Don't do it right now!" Sasuke quickly stopped him. "Without this Susanoo that my eye made, you'd get bound up in his genjutsu as well! We need to bide our time! And I'm sure we're the only ones who are not affected."

"The Infinite Tsukuyomi, huh?"

"So right now, everyone's ..."

"...inside a dream."

In the end, Sasuke let go of his Susanoo. And just like what Sasuke and Shizuka had said, everyone was bound by the divine tree and was in a dream.

"I won't let you do anything else," Madara said as he landed on the ground. There's an eye on his forehead. "I just severed the karmic cycle of this world. I'm the savior. I freed humankind from their suffering, their pain, and their futility."

"But it's all just a lie!" Naruto shouted.

"Naruto, you're the one who's interfering with everyone's happiness. Enough with this sideshow," Madara said. "I've turned hell into heaven. Wake up... It's all over."

Jab! Everyone gasped at the black Zetsu that thrust his hand into Madara's chest. "Wrong Madara, you are not the savior, nor is this the end of things," he said. "How can you say that you, unlike Obito, are able to completely take advantage of others? Isn't it presumptuous to think that you alone are different, my dear Madara?"

"What are you talking about, black Zetsu?!" he exclaimed. "I created you! You are my will incarnate!"

"You're wrong. My will is..." he trailed off. "Kaguya!"

Madara screamed in pain and at that moment, a large amount of chakra burst out of the ground and headed towards him. The chakras make his body bigger as Shizuka deduces that maybe it's because Madara can't hold that much chakra.

Then Madara slowly turned into a woman with pale skin. She had extremely long, sweeping white-grey hair and a white clear like byakugan eyes. There are two brown horns that stuck out from her head and a third eye like Madara.

"Isn't she the one that super gramps mentioned?" Naruto asked.

"Otsutsuki Kaguya!"

She floated up, heading towards Naruto and Sasuke. From her existence alone, everyone could feel her immense chakra. To the point that it made Sakura stiffened.

"This place... This land is my precious nursery. I cannot let it be damaged further. Let us stop fighting," Her cold voice and words successfully made everyone speechless. "Here that is. I shall erase you all here!"