Notice of Execution

It was a mountain path that led to the top of one of the tallest mountains in the world.

The way was narrow, torn by the wind, and had little in the way of cover. Madara Uchiha strode the path without deviating to either side. His red eyes peered up toward the shrine far above, where the Priestess Shion resided.

"Are you certain we should be wasting our time here, Madara?" asked Izuna, the only one besides him. "The Senju might strike while we are away."

"Fear not, Izuna. I have seen the Senju's battle preparations, and they are not complete," said Madara. "Moreover, we left in absolute secrecy. Only Father knows where we've gone."

"But why us?" asked Izuna. "Others could have done this errand?"

"I trust no one else to handle such an important matter, of course," said Madara. "Seeking a council from this priestess is not a task I'd hand to anyone other than you or myself. Others might not reveal the full truth for their own gain."

He had contemplated sending another but decided against it.

"As you say, brother," said Izuna.

It took hours, but they finally reached the top of the mountain. All the world around could be seen, and Madara wondered if this was how gods saw things. In any event, he and Izuna strode out of the light of day and into the darkness.

And beyond lay the inner sanctum. Madara felt suddenly as if what came next could only be done by him. "Now, I will go in alone. Stay out here on watch."

"With all the bad luck we've been having, someone may have followed us."

Madara entered and found himself in a very nice garden with flowing water. A beautiful, blonde woman was gazing down as koi. This place seemed the sort of place that ought not to be possible at these heights. It must have had a connection to the spiritual realm.

"Priestess Shio, I take it?" said Madara, in no mood for formalities after such a climb.

"Madara Uchiha, I have been expecting you for some time," said Shion. "I had wondered when you would choose to visit me. You're going to sit down whether I tell you not to or invite you to do so, so I won't."

Madara remained standing. "I think you'll find I shall stand for the remainder of this conversation."

"Yes, but perhaps you only remained standing because I mentioned it," said Shion. "We are all caged by our fate, in the end. All a man can do is become wise enough to see beyond the bars."

"I am told you are capable of seeing into the far future," said Madara. "Of seeing events far away that other men can only dream of. Of perceiving a man's death."

"A poetic exaggeration," said Shion. "Life is a river. I perceive the general currents and so can see where things may end. How the fish navigate it, however, is a very different story."

"In a few generations, we will all be very different people. Our deaths will just be footnotes in history."

"Then you must already know what I intend to ask," said Madara.

"Do you know what you intend to ask?" asked Shion, looking at him for the first time. Those eyes... they were not a Sharingan. Madara would akin them to the Byakugan, but they were violet. He'd killed Byakugan wielders, but those blank eyes had never made him doubt himself.

Why had he come? And how could he say the reason without forsaking his pride? Considering that he needed a straight answer, Madara decided to just say it. "...My clan is dwindling."

"Our wars with the Senju are costly, but there is something else. The Uchiha Clan has been suffering from... poor luck. Events never seem to turn out quite how they should. I know my own skill, and I know the skill of clan."

"I also know that my neighbors are putting up a far better fight against us than they should. And every generation of Uchiha is... weaker. Fewer in number."

"Something is wrong."

"And there have been... other consideration. I am not by nature a religious man, but I begin to think we may be cursed. People seem to have an innate aversion to us; they hate for no real reason."

"You are cursed," said Shion. "But not by hatred or by another. You are cursed by yourselves."

"I do not understand," said Madara, and he hated saying it.

"Have you heard the tales of the Izanagi?" asked Shion.

Madara wasn't sure how she had heard of such things in this place. But then she did perceive the universe. "The legendary power that allows an Uchiha to sacrifice an eye to rewrite reality. Yes, it was a technique my clan used to often achieve. However, as ages passed, fewer of us have achieved it."

"What of it?"

"There was a time when the Izanagi was being used constantly by the Uchiha Clan," said Shion. "With it, they could not be defeated. When they were outwitted and destroyed, they rewrote reality and destroyed their enemy."

"When those who achieved this technique began to run amuck, the Izanami was developed."

"Yes, I know my own clan's history," said Madara. "The Izanami traps someone in an eternal loop until they are willing to 'move forward.' It was developed to punish Izanagi wielders, but it was actually useless for that purpose. You had to waste an eye to using it, you see. And whoever had gone mad would have already used one eye."

"So you might as well kill them and take the other. Then you could take their remaining eye off their corpse. You thus would have a net gain of one eye. Instead of breaking even and going to great risk to do it."

"You speak casually of killing your family," said Shion.

"I am a ninja as well as a family man," said Madara. "If a member of my family has gone insane enough to need putting down, I do it. The alternative is leaving a psychopath with the power to reality running lose."

"By the time I need to use an Izanami, I have no need to keep him alive. Especially since he's already killed members of my family."

"And what was the Izanami actually used for?" asked Shion.

Madara had the feeling that Shion already knew the answer. But he decided to play along. "The Izanami operates by forcing one to relive a set of moments eternally. At least until they are willing to move forward. Of course, 'moving forward' can mean many things."

"Using it strategically, one could force a hated enemy into becoming your slave. You simply need to set the situation up right. If 'moving forward' involves serving your interests, you can brainwash anyone you like."

"Though, of course, they would have to be very powerful."

"Have you never wondered why it became a lost art?" asked Shion.

"My Father tells they were more trouble than they were worth," said Madara. He remembered his lessons under the old man. "The idea that our mistakes could be undone no matter how serious made us get careless. And the Izanami required a very special setup. Often the results were unpredictable."

"In practice, you were better off just turning men to your side the old-fashioned way."

"But what does this have to do with our bad luck? No one has used either of those techniques for centuries. I do not see how they could cause us to harm now."

"The Uchiha Clan has been dying a slow death for centuries because of the Izanagi and the Izanami," said Shion. "Both techniques interfere in the affairs of gods. Affairs mortals were never meant to touch."

"The Izanagi was used over and over to deny the rightful victories of superior opponents. It was akin to cheating. And by cheating, you caused immense suffering and hatred on the part of those you defeated. Moreover, you gained nothing from it."

"Since any mistakes you made were instantly overwritten, the Uchiha Clan became complacent. Everyone became obsessed with attaining those two arts. And their interest in that came at the expense of other, less glamourous powers. This led to defeat, and thereby more reliance on the Izanagi-"

"Leading to our diminishment," mused Madara. "Yes, that was one of the reasons given by my history. Yet that is not truly karma; it is merely poor tactics and a lack of long-term thinking."

"The two often overlap," said Shion. "But I take your point."

"The Izanami was far worse."

"For it destroyed the free will of those who you used it on. A person caught in the Izanami cannot kill you. Nor can he escape. And he cannot win. Nor can he choose to remain defiant. Even ending his own life is not an option."

"They are trapped eternally in their own mind until they break and 'move forward'."

"Free will is the most prized of the gifts the Gods gave mankind. What you did does not technically violate it. But it effectively renders their free will irrelevant."

Madara contemplated the idea, and it made a certain sense. If he'd had a choice between death and becoming something other than himself, he'd gladly take it. "That may be so."

"But why would use such abilities affect our foreign policy? Many of the clans who hate us on instinct have never even met us."

"Because people are not merely puppets of flesh," said Shion. "Every creature that exists has a far greater self that exists elsewhere. All realities are real in some sense. What we see in this world is merely the reality that has been brought to the surface."

"The Izanagi does not warp reality. It merely brings an alternate sequence of events to the front. And it does so while altering nothing else."

"However, those you killed and cheated out of their victory remember it. Everyone they have a bond with remembers it. Their clans suffer beneath an onslaught of Uchiha, and the survivors want revenge."

"And reality wants it too."

"Reality?" asked Madara.

"Of course," Shion picked up a small, smooth stone. Raising it over the serene water, she dropped it. "Look at this stone, Madara. When I toss a stone into it, there are ripples. Every action we take is a stone." Madara saw the ripples and didn't see the point. "Now, observe this." She reached into the pond and took out the stone. It caused many more ripples. "I have reached into the pond and taken a stone out. But my hand is wet, and water will remain on it for some time. And, I've created even more ripples. I've changed how other stones were lying just slightly."

"The whole riverbank is different if only a little." Then she dropped the stone again and repeated the process. Soon the ripples were groping more and more elaborate, becoming small waves. Her hand moved in a blur, and the water became disquieted.

"I have just dropped that stone and taken it out twenty times," said Shion. "I am creating twenty sets of ripples with one stone. And that stone lands in twenty different places."

Madara saw fish. Fish he hadn't noticed that were swimming in a frenzy. "And the fish become more disturbed."

"Yes," said Shion. "The Uchiha Clan dropped many stones and also took many others out before dropping them too. Now the fish are in a frenzy. They are confused, hostile, and some of them might bite your hand."

"Fish cannot harm a human," said Madara.

"But humans are not fish," said Shion. "Your actions have caused massive changes to the world. They have forced many people to become something they never chose to be. A woman loses her husband when one Izanagi uses, they would have grown old together. A son who never would have existed is born to a couple that never would have been together. And he feels out of place because reality did not fit when humankind chose"

"Now, perhaps some of those changes are for the better. But human beings want to be part of a world they choose. So they feel a sense of strangeness around the Uchiha. All because your clan is the source of that strangeness. They cannot view you as normal.

"They can worship you as a god or call you a demon from hell. But they can never view you as just another person with a different power set. If they get to know you, perhaps they can see past your strangeness. But, not many people try to get to know one another these days, and the Uchiha have been... undiplomatic."

Madara knew she was being polite. He himself had never been personable with those he viewed as weak. And many among his clan were worse.

"Speak plainly," said Madara.

"The Uchiha Clan has pulled the threads of reality to change the universe. As a result, itself now revolves around the Uchiha to an extent," said Shion. "You have made yourselves gods in this world. But you are not worthy of being called divine.

"Uchiha's are every bit as flawed as any other human.

"And because people see that the universe revolves around you, and see your flaws. They hate you because you have been handed things they have spent their life history working for. Others envy you and seek to take your power for themselves, whether by marriage or other methods.

"A few worship you and find their faith... unrewarded when you inevitably fail to live up to the image they have of you in their minds. These people invariably either delude themselves further or come to hate you."

"There are no shortage of powerful clans that abuse their power," said Madara.

"Yes, but most of them do something stupid and end up getting crushed," said Shion. "They lose prominence, every claps, and they reenter the game later. The Uchiha, however, have been sheltered.

"Every time they come to the brink of defeat, some miracle allows them to win. Then they scorn their enemies as inferior. So you were never defeated, no matter how much you deserved it. Every single little grudge that has ever been held against an Uchiha has built up.

"And in the end, victory defeated you, didn't it?

"You continued as you were. You never faced humiliation no matter what stupid decisions you made. You were never disciplined by your own failings coming back to bite you. The only thing that could stop an Uchiha was another Uchiha. Or a Senju, in a pinch.

"And one day, you, Madara Uchiha, woke up.

"You realized that even though your clan had never been defeated by anyone but the Senju, you were dying. And you came to me.

"Why?"

Madara found himself uncomfortable. He had no desire to be the last great Uchiha leader. The prospect that fate itself was against them was worrying to him. He was all for worthy opponents, but he liked to know them before he killed them. And fate was... unknowable. "When will this end?"

"When the last Uchiha is dead," said Shion, without hatred.

It was not the answer Madara expected, hoped for, or even conceived of hearing. It was a death sentence, plain and simple. No option of escape was presented to him, no vision quest to be overcome. "...Is there nothing that can be done?"

"A great deal can be done," said Shion. "Some actions may extend the life of your clan; you may make them last a generation longest. But you will die. The Uchiha shall become close-knit, reclusive, and obsessed with their past glories. They will grow weaker, stagnate, and at last, die a pathetic death.

"They will come to their end, scheming against the hand that feeds them, too easily killed by a rogue ninja."

Madara stopped dead. "One assassin? Hashirama?"

"Hashirama will be long dead," said Shion. "The killer will be a mere shadow of you. One overlooked and dismissed as weak and pathetic. He will destroy your clan as an afterthought. An extra thing on his to-do list and no one will ever hold him responsible for it.

"Your clan will die, and all that remains of you will be the memory of a high-handed and arrogant military asset. One that was more trouble than it was worse."

Madara was feeling... somewhat intimidated. He had faced impossible odds now and then, but he'd gotten used to doing the impossible. Shion was not speaking in anger, however, and her reputation was well deserved. The prospect of the Uchiha Clan dying ingloriously and pathetically was...

Troubling.

Madara had expected their end to come in some final glorious battle. But the Izanagi had stopped those ends, hadn't it?

The problem wasn't that the Uchiha were about to fight fate.

The problem was that the Uchiha had picked a fight with fate centuries before Madara was even born. He had simply inherited the battle they had never known they were fighting, and now they were on their last legs. And for the first time in his life, he was at a loss. "What can be done then, to... account for this?"

Shion looked into the waters that were calming a bit. "...Your clan is doomed.

"However, there is still time to leave a legacy worthy of remembrance. Actions taken now may delay the end and may leave your memory less tainted. As things stand now...

"When the last of your brothers dies, meet Hashirama Senju in battle. Seek him out in single combat."

"My brother..." asked Madara. He wasn't going to lose Izuna too. "My brother will not die. Izuna is strong, not as strong as I but-"

"Tobirama will kill him if he does not die by another's hand," said Shion. "Reality favors the Senju over the Uchiha. He will fight gloriously and die well, but Tobirama will kill him. I suspect the Uchiha have been tolerated this long only as a counterbalance to the Senju."

Madara paused. "...What if I kill Tobirama?"

"Then Hashirama will kill you," said Shion. "He is not nearly so naive as he pretends.

"And if you kill Hashirama, Tobirama will destroy the Uchiha. You are stronger than him, but fate will ensure he wins anyway. Reality itself is your enemy. You are fortunate that it chooses to act against you in the shadows."

Madara considered possible outcomes. "...What if Hashirama kills me?"

"Then Hashirama will keep his brother in check and so long as he lives," said Shion. "The Uchiha will not die by the hand of the Senju. Even Tobirama will not be able to make it happen, no matter what he does.

The one who engineers your destruction shall have no bloodlines. Though he will not deal the deathblow himself, he shall gain by it."

"Why not the Senju?" asked Madara. "What purpose is served by having us be wiped out by some... resentful commoner?"

"Because that is the attitude you take toward lesser men," said Shion. "The Uchiha respect the Senju as enemies and regard them as equals. And so the Senju have no right to your head.

"Judgment will be carried out by those you disregard as inferior."

This was... bad. Very bad. "Is it not possible to atone for our transgressions in some way?"

"Theoretically, yes," said Shion. "If you, Madara Uchiha, become a benevolent and wise leader with compassion for all, it will help. But it won't be enough. Not unless your successor is as benevolent and wise. And his successor after that, and so on and so forth.

"The Uchiha Clan is on thin ice in the middle of a frozen lake that is melting in the hot sun. If you move too fast, you die. If you move too slowly, you die. If you don't take exactly the right path with no mistakes, you die. And even if you get to the shore, the people on it might kill you. No one is happy about how you've treated them, and even if you do redeem yourself, they'll still want to get even.

"I encourage you to attempt what I have described. But the Uchiha Clan becoming a race of saints overnight is... unlikely. And even if they do, they'll probably be destroyed anyway. Some people hate saints as much as they hate monsters."

Madara was beginning to form a strategy. "What hope is there?"

"Of indefinite survival?" asked Shion. "None. And you are not alone. All men die, and most men die horribly—the curse just a speeding up of what would have happened anyway. From that perspective, your clan has lost a few hundred years of its life.

"But, if you wish for hope, I would suggest that you find it in life, not in the manner of your death. The Uchiha Clan may yet do much good and leave a lasting legacy. But for the clan itself, nothing will remain.

"I'm sorry, Madara.

"I don't like predicting the annihilation of everything you care about. But it would be worse for you if I lied."

Madara analyzed the situation, considered his options, and devised a strategy. "Well, of course.

"Now I know my enemy, and it is fate itself. And fate will learn that Madara Uchiha is not easy prey. Is there anything else?"

"More than this, I cannot predict," said Shion. "The manner of your death will reflect your life, as it does with all men."

"Then I shall take my leave," said Madara, bowing politely. "Thank you for your time."

Madara left, and as he did, he noticed that he hadn't sat down during the entire conversation. Did that count as a hopeful omen? No matter, it was at this point irrelevant. "Izuna!"

"Madara, what news?" asked Izuna.

Madara smiled. "We're doomed, apparently."

"Doomed? What do you mean?" asked Izuna.

Madara told him everything.

"This is... this is awful. Madara, we must tell Father-" said Izuna.

"No!" said Madara. "Father is to know nothing of this. If we tell him, he'll only try to develop some sort of time travel jutsu. Or worse, try to use the Izanagi to undo our use of the Izanagi.

"He'll be quite useless to us if he knows everything. If anything, he'll make the situation worse."

"Then what will we do?" asked Izuna.

"For now," Madara sighed. "We must change our approach. The Uchiha Clan has a poor reputation, and steps must be taken to amend that. We will tell Father that we have been facing much negative karma because of the many wars we have fought. It's true and will satisfy him.

"If we cease our wars and make certain gestures of respect, it will buy us some time. We'll also have to reign in the more psychotic of our clan."

"And what will we use the time for?" asked Izuna.

"To create a strategy to defy our destiny, obviously," said Madara. "I cannot give you details immediately. But, I have a general one.

"I think I had best seek Hashirama out to do battle. One on one, of course, it should provide an excellent vehicle for making a truce."

"You want to make a truce with the Senju?" asked Izuna.

"Of course," said Madara. "At the moment, fate itself is on the side of the Senju. Only a fool would battle an enemy with such an ally. So, I must go to Hashirama, play to our old friendship, and convince him to redirect the Senju to other matters.

"Tobirama follows his brother's lead. And Hashirama is only not a leader out of respect for his Father. I have confidence he will be able to delay things."

"Then we are fighting a delaying action?" asked Izuna. "To what end?"

"To a glorious end, in a worst-case scenario, but preferably survival," said Madara. "All karma passes eventually. Our business is to have the Uchiha Clan stall our negative karma long enough to get a positive balance.

"It will take a few generations, and none of us will likely live to see it. And I admit, it is a longshot.

"But, that means that we must begin our preparations immediately. It is time we gave peace a chance."