Chapter Text
Nagato felt the vastness of the void around himself as he entered the Kamui dimension, it was enormous, a construct that seemed to emanate with hundreds of different chakra signatures. It seemed as though this dimension had been accessed and added to by thousands of Mangekyou Sharingan users across the expanse of time. However, Nagato could not focus on the academic potential of this place as he had a fight to finish. He was still tangled in a brawl with the black aberration and its foul master. The aberration had his Susanno’o on its back, he was pinned, or so his adversary would have liked to think.
He used the arms on the back of his Susanno'o to push himself up and begin spinning his foe like a pinwheel, at the last possible moment he threw the monstrous being as hard as he could into the nearest stone wall. The aberration growled in agony as Nagato did a somersault to put some distance between himself and his foe. He had his scimitar and shield materialised in moments and at the ready. He filled his Mangekyou with chakra again, not willing to let his Susanno'o dematerialise in the midst of this fight. The black construct stood then and faced Nagato with its sickly yellow eyes.
Nagato sensed a momentary increase in chakra output and a fiery phoenix burst forth from the construct’s mouth. The jutsu was so fast that he had barely a moment to dodge it; he failed to dodge it and raised his shield to take the blast of the jutsu. It was more powerful than he expected and the resounding explosion managed to destroy his shield and vaporise the arm of his Susanno'o all the way to its shoulder. For a moment the entire construct flickered as if it would dematerialise, Nagato dug into his chakra reserves again and managed to reform his Susanno'o arm just in time to receive the charge of this “Madara”.
The blow shook him to his core and tore pieces of his Susanno'o from the main body, but he hit back hard, weaving a few hand signs in quick succession he sent a bolt of lightning to his Susanno'o blade and sliced into “Madara’s” Susanno'o. The lightning exploded inside the body of the black Susanno'o and sent “Madara” flying from the construct’s head and into the stone wall behind him. The construct, however, did not dematerialise and continued its attacks. Nagato called forth his second scimitar and laid into the black aberration. He sliced it into ribbons and retreated from close quarters combat in order to throw up an Amaterasu cage around the remains of the construct.
The roiling mass of black chakra roared its frustration with being confined in the black-red flames of Nagato’s Susanno'o, but it did not attempt to leave its prison. Nagato then turned his blood stained face towards where he had thrown “Madara” and was pleased to see that the man was standing, bleeding profusely from his left shoulder. His right hand was firmly planted on the wound to stem the flow of blood and his orange battle mask had obviously seen better days. The right side of the mask was terribly damaged and cracking in several places.
Nagato had this “Madara” on the ropes; he could feel it, his chakra reserves were low, Nagato could sense it. Nagato’s own chakra reserves weren’t in great shape either, but he was uninjured and in the position of power. He turned his head to look behind him and check on Itachi, the boy was still sleeping soundly, wrapped in the embrace of Nagato’s genjustu. He took Itachi into his arms and slowly allowed his Susanno'o to dissipate, the chakra construct slowly shrank into its creator and Nagato gradually descended towards the ground. His sandals made a light clicking sound as they touched the hard stone floor of the dimension. Nagato lowered Itachi to the ground and gently left him there to sleep.
Nagato refocussed his attention on “Madara” and charged his Mangekyou once again, ready to continue fighting. “Madara” had tied a make-shift tourniquet above his wound and had drawn a scythe-like weapon from a seal. Nagato drew his katana from the seal on his left wrist and held it firmly at the ready, his foe had tenacity and he could respect that, despite the fact that he would still fight with his all against this imposter.
“You do know that this would be far easier on you if you simply surrendered,” Nagato said, a deadly sneer on his lips.
“Madara” tensed at the word surrender, but followed through with a remark of his own, “And where would the fun be in that?”
Nagato began to laugh, at first a snigger, then a chuckle and finally a full blown guffaw at the sheer joy at finally facing a truly tenacious adversary in over a decade.
“I do hope you manage to survive our battle,” Nagato said, a smile playing at his lips, “because I have a few questions to ask you.”
“That’s if you survive this battle,” said ‘Madara’, “I may be injured, but I assure you that I have plenty left to give.”
Nagato smiled gleefully and charged at his foe and attempted a quick strike to his head, ‘Madara’ blocked it with his scythe. With laughter pealing from his mouth Nagato let loose a deadly barrage of attack against his foe, however, ‘Madara’ managed to meet each of his blows, deflecting them with precision.
Nagato was not a patient man in any sense of the word and quickly became irritated with his lack of progress. He feinted right and struck left at ‘Madara’s’ wound and managed to draw blood. ‘Madara’ growled and struck at Nagato and managed to cut him above his left eye, causing blood to pour profusely down his face and force him to close his left eye. This effectively cut off Nagato from his Amaterasu, as his right eye produced the flames, but his left eye allowed him to control them.
The two fighters jumped away from each other and began circling like tigers before striking their prey. Nagato tried in vain to get the blood out of his eye and ‘Madara’ again tried to stop the bleeding from his arm. The two men eventually gave up in their struggles and sized each other up once again. Nagato could sense that ‘Madara’s’ chakra levels were decreasing to critical lows, he needed one last great burst of speed and strength to finish his opponent. He focussed on his left hand and concentrated on his lightning chakra, pooling it in his palm he manifested a chidori jutsu and let the lightning coat his lower arm. He was angry now and he was determined to finish this fight before ‘Madara’ could escape.
Nagato was the first to charge, however, ‘Madara’ had also broken into a charge, lightning coating his blade. The two fighters collided and as Nagato’s katana connected with ‘Madara’s’ scythe, the katana was cut clean through, however, Nagato anticipated that would happen and used his blade as it was being destroyed to force ‘Madara’ to Nagato’s right. As ‘Madara’ was reeling from having his entire course changed, Nagato spun around and slapped ‘Madara’ in the side of the head with his left hand and allowed the chidori to discharge directly into ‘Madara’s’ head.
The momentary gasp of shock from his opponent pleased Nagato as ‘Madara’ fell to the ground, completely unconscious and now under Nagato’s tender mercies. It was then that Nagato felt a pinching pain in his abdomen and looked down to see a kunai firmly planted in his side, just below his kidney. The pain was blinding and Nagato’s vision blurred just as his forehead hit the ground.