Chapter 68

"Where did he go?" Was the thought both Salem and Cinder had in their minds. Even the Nine Tailed Fox looked uncertain, looking around itself. Whether it was angry or cautious, or some mixture of both, couldn't be known by its facial expressions alone. Salem was little different in that regard. Whatever happened, it wasn't something she had expected.

She was well aware of Madara's speed, as well as the gradual decrease with each Tailed Beast he absorbed. Even if he managed to "reset" that degradation, one of them would have been able to see which direction he went in. the Rinnegan could track movement almost flawlessly, no matter how fast the opponent was. It was possible that he had some kind of teleportation ability, but never before had he been seen using one. Therefore, that was unlikely as well.

They finally located him, although they couldn't figure out why they hadn't seen him earlier. It was as if he appeared out of thin air. They found him standing on top of the Fox's head, looking up at the two. It somehow hadn't noticed him yet. When it did, it rapidly flailed around to shake him off. Madara jumped high above, and formed multiple hand seals.

Madara spat out a massive ball of fire, one large enough to engulf the fox and then some. If the ground wasn't already black, it would have been after what he did to it. The heat could easily melt metal, evaporate water in an instant, and vaporise a human body. But when the flames extinguished, the fox appeared completely unharmed, albeit severely pissed off. It roared at Madara, before creating another Tailed Beast Bomb in its mouth. It grew to half the size of its own creator, big enough to destroy an entire academy in one shot, before it was launched at Madara.

It flew through the sky on course to hit Madara, but he was ready. His left eye activated and he held his hands out to intercept. The purple chakra sphere slammed into Madara, but he held firm, and it was rapidly absorbed into his hands and body. In seconds, there was nothing left, and Madara touched the ground.

He grunted contentedly, squeezing his fist. "Hm, the more the better."

His own chakra, which was enough to rival the strongest people in the world. Tailed Beast chakra, sought after by countless shinobi for its raw strength and destructive capabilities. Senjutsu Chakra, a power unreachable to most and comparable to a sixth sense. All three flowed through his body like a thousand rivers. It was an opportunity that perhaps he was the very first to ever have experienced.

Both of his eyes were the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, and he had entered Sage Mode. Madara put his hands together, and surrounded himself in a cloud of smoke. When it settled, there were seven Madaras, all were the same as the original. The seven Madaras simultaneously smiled at their opponents, one of which looked genuinely unnerved.

"If I simply used a transformation jutsu and became a woman, would I also obtain the powers of a maiden?" he wondered, only partially serious. He shrugged, dismissing the idea.

Madara and his doppelgangers ran towards the fox. It thrusted its tails forward at the incoming targets, as if they were massive orange spears, trying to crush or impale them against the ground. However, not even a single tail landed a hit. Some of the shadow clones took advantage of the opportunity, climbing the tails and getting closer to the fox. It tried to sweep them off with its free tails and arms, but to no effect. It then attempted to slam its tails, and the fleas that latched onto them, into the ground. However, the shadow clones let go and released their own attacks.

The Nine Tails was pelted by large stones, crushed and shifted off of its feet by a flood of water, cut into by blades of wind, and shocked by bolts of lightning. It was even bombarded by explosive tagged-Kunai, three of which were ejected by one another's explosions. However, that was far from enough to put down the strongest Tailed Beast. Though injured it let out another roar, one that was no less powerful than the last.

In an attempt to slow the turning tables, Cinder swooped in to attack the counterfeits. If she could at least do that, the fox would have a better chance. She did so, hearing Salem's command to stop only as background noise. With all the strength left in her, Cinder brought the elements of the world together before her. Everything that Madara had put on display, she was determined to match. She was the Fall Maiden, and she wouldn't be outdone without showing her all.

She held little back: a wave of fire, a hailstorm of snowflakes sharp as steel, lances made out of ash and glass, miniature tornados, and her own lightning. She attacked all of the clones at once. It was a dangerous gamble that cost nearly all of her energy. She would only have enough left to return to Salem's side, literally. But if it worked, it would be worth it. In the worst case scenario, Salem could retrieve her and finish the job. She might be scolded or punished for insubordination, but surely she would also be recognized for helping to eliminate a genuine threat. She made sure to keep enough distance that she would be able to react and respond. The Rinnegan would ensure that she wouldn't be caught by surprise, even if she couldn't use its power anymore. She was confident.

And that, if only for a single infinitesimal moment, was her fatal error.

She suddenly gasped and yelped as she felt a sharp pain, two sharp pains, sticking into her back. Before she could reach behind her, one of the Madara clones was already in front of her. He reached his hand out towards her face. She desperately tried to back away, to escape death's grasp, and suddenly felt herself being pulled to the ground.

She looked behind herself, to see that the objects sticking into her were kunai, kunai with incredibly thin wires attached to their rings. At the other end, another Madara stood with his arm extended. He held the other end of the wires that were tugging at her. Without a doubt he had planned to use the kunai to surprise her, but she couldn't understand why there was another shadow clone. She accounted for all seven bodies and positioned herself to ensure he couldn't get behind her.

And then she realized. Of the three kunai that had been blown away and out of her view, only two had hit her. The other, it must have been something. Was it perhaps a shadow clone in disguise? But how?

The answer to that, she would never know. The eighth Madara had grabbed ahold of her, putting his arms around her neck and head. As the pressure increased, she felt her aura shaking, bending, and shattering. She heard one last sound, a snapping sound. Another moment later, she felt an even greater pain, as if something was being ripped out of her, but she couldn't scream. For whatever reason her throat refused to let anything out. She couldn't move. She was powerless, helpless, and all she could see with her one still-functioning eye was Salem's disappointed and irritated face.

It felt somewhat odd. Previously, it was his own that would evolve. That said, it wasn't the first time this had happened. More importantly was the actual transplant. It wasn't a difficult choice of which to replace, and the operation itself wasn't difficult either. He was more than familiar with performing the "delicate" process quickly. Even as the Nine Tails recovered and attacked, It couldn't stop what was already in motion.

As he moved away from the fox, a green aura appeared around his eye, flowing like a fire before quickly disappearing. The fox once more tried to crush Madara, but it was blown away for its troubles.

"It's been a long time coming." Madara breathed a sigh of relief, a breath he had been holding in for well over a decade. After everything he'd been through, the setbacks and obstacles that he'd much rather not have to deal with, it was satisfying to know that things were finally going his way.

His right hand was clenched into a fist, and with a little pressure, something exploded inside of it. Better to be destroyed than to be potentially used against him after all.

Madara looked up to see hundreds of dark red energy raining down upon him. However, he simply held his hand up and smiled. The bolts that came within a meter of him distorted and were sucked into his hand like the Tailed Beast Bomb before.

His clones were making quick work of the fox. Their repeated attacks using high-powered techniques were finally having an effect on it. Madara looked at his clones and nodded. Likewise, they did the same, and quickly ejected themselves from the injured fox. It looked tired; the perfect opportunity.

Salem did everything she could to keep Madara away from the fox. She summoned the utmost of her power, of her forces, but it was all for naught. Anything that she tried to do would be demolished or bypassed. Salem finally showed an emotion on her face: anger. Her eyes and hands twitched as she realized how much had gone wrong. She raised her hands into the air, and channeled as much energy as she could. Her immortal body granted a near-endless supply of magical energy; it was just a matter of time. She would kill Madara, no matter what it took.

Unfortunately for her, it was well over too late. Madara had already reached the fox, and azur blue chains restrained its entire body. Its chakra moved swiftly into him, causing it to shrink and shrink.

"I won't let this happen!" Salem shouted, glaring angrily at her foes.

With what she decided was enough, Salem hurled the largest amount of power she had ever produced, power that could level a mountain range, at Madara. His clones gathered together, activating their Susanoos and acting as body shields. Immediately upon impact, there was an explosion. It covered a good portion of the continent, causing the beach waters to heat up and evaporate.

When her ears stopped ringing, she heard a voice. "It wasn't quite enough."

The clones and their constructs were gone, destroyed in the blast. However, the fox was gone for a different reason.

"It's over. Time for you to go to sleep for awhile… Chibaku Tensei." Madara said coldly. He held out his hand, and something appeared in his hand. It was a black ball that glew with a white outline. He wound his arm back, and with great force, he threw it at her.

She tried to destroy the projectile with another blast of magic, but to her horror, the sphere seemed unbreakable. It pierced through her attempt, continuing on its flight towards her. She moved aside to avoid it, but was inevitably pulled towards and into it. She looked confused at first, and noticed Madara's smirk. The ground around him started to shake and crack. First, it was just a few large rocks that were pulled towards her. Then it became boulders, and then finally massive chunks of the ground. She was being buried, crushed from literally all sides as she became the new core of a new planetoid.

"I won't die from this. I'll return in time." Salem muttered, struggling to even move her mouth.

He didn't need to respond. In the next few seconds, the hole that she managed to talk through was sealed by another piece of rock. He continued to pour chakra into his Rinnegan, increasing the strength of the sphere's gravity. More and more mass was added to the asteroid. A little ways into it, he felt a numb pain spread through his body. Eventually, it stopped growing once it was as large as a mountain. For good measure, he spawned a sealing tag, and tossed it at the surface of his creation. From it, lines of black symbols and letters spread across the entire spherical body. It would prevent the transfer of anything from and to the affected party.

And finally, everything was silent.

There was nothing near him. The few Grimm that could be considered "a medium distance away", wouldn't be able to sense him at all. While he looked up at the artificial satellite, he felt something. It was perhaps the first time in his entire life, maybe his multiple lives, that he felt it.

"...heh, hahahaha." he couldn't help but laugh. Unfortunately he was too tired to do so loudly. For at least

His right eye deactivated, reverting to its regular charcoal black. Though his left eye didn't, both of them soon closed. The dark pigmentation that covered his face faded away, and he simply sat down. His body, his soul, his everything felt much lighter.

She was gone, at least for now. Once he reclaimed the remaining three Tailed Beasts, he could put her away for an eternity. All in due time. Right now, he very much wanted to rest. Just a few hours of shut-eye and he'd be back to full energy. But there was still one more thing left.

"I don't have enough chakra to return right now." he recounted with a disappointed frown. It'd take at least half an hour before he could fly his way back to Mantle. That was, at least, what he thought.

He suddenly felt his near-empty tank refill itself. It wasn't completely, but was just enough. He wondered what just happened, but immediately understood. He smiled again, but said nothing. He knew what happened, but a "thank you" was probably unnecessary and definitely unwanted. It wasn't quite time yet where something like that would matter.

They had done everything they could to repel the seemingly endless enemy forces. The losses were substantial, with hundreds of lives being claimed in defense of the human populace. The more that died, the harder the fight became.

And just as their supplies and energies dwindled, things took a sudden turn. For once, it was for the better. A lot of the Grimm that were attacking, in particular the portions furthest from Mantle's defensive line, seemed to just stop and wander away. As if the thing they were aiming for, or their reason for attacking, up and disappeared. They didn't know why it happened. They certainly wondered and asked why it happened. But not one person wasn't glad that it did happen.

All that was left was a third of the original invasion force, which was much easier to deal with now that they had a definite goal and number to aim for. With the resources that remained, and the eight blue avatars that seemingly re-empowered, they managed to grasp victory.

"Tired" was an understatement, and so was "exhausted". It was more fair to say they were at the brink of death. Without even the strength to stand, let alone walk, Team RWBY had to be carried away on stretchers.

The fun began when they arrived at the infirmary. To none of their surprises, they each had their own variety of issues. They had all fought even when their aura had run out. Yang certainly had it the worst, with torn muscles, deep cuts, and fractured bones all across her body. Her right arm was completely broken, from the bicep all the way to the forearm. With the exception of the broken arm, her faunus partner was just about the same. Both of Ruby's legs were broken, and half of her face was covered. Not that her eye was damaged or anything, but even having it open caused a painful burning sensation. Weiss seemed to be in the best condition out of all of them, getting away with some minor injuries and some pulled muscles.

Team RWBY had seen better days.

But it was fine. The mission undeniably ended in success; Mantle, and by extension Atlas, was safe. To an even greater extent, the world was now by a wide margin safer. They survived and their wounds would heal in due time.

Though certainly, something was missing. They were all laying in beds besides each other in the same infirmary, with bandages covering their bodies in different patterns. For the most part, the schedule for the next month or so seemed to be sitting in bed and recovering. Certainly not the most exciting experience, but a good change of pace.

Yang was out like a light the moment she hit the bed. She looked more exhausted than she ever had before. Blake was more or less the same, except instead of snoring she made a quiet purring was soundly sleeping, not moving a muscle. But Ruby wasn't asleep. Despite every inclination and incentive to do so, she was still wide awake. Her shiny gray-colored eye was stuck to the door that led outside.

Ruby looked at her partner and friend. She was sitting upright in the bed beside Ruby, albeit not covered from head to toe in bandages. She had been looking at her phone for a while now,occasionally typing something. What was she looking at? "Weiss?" She said softly.

"You're worried about him, hm?" Weiss asked empathetically.

Ruby let out a mix between whimper and a grunt. "When do you think he'll be back?"

"Who knows? Wherever he went, I bet it's really far away." her words didn't seem to have any effect on Ruby's mood. She still looked dejected. Her mind remained clouded. She put her hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. He'll be back before you know it. Just get some rest okay?"

"But I've been in this bed for forever. I wanna get up and move." She pouted.

Weiss looked at her Scroll again, making an unsure face before putting the device down. "Here, I'm going to try something." Weiss pinched the side of Ruby's neck with one hand, causing her to yelp. With her other hand, she pushed her index finger against Ruby's forehead. Putting a little pressure into both places at the same time had an unexpected effect. Ruby simply lost consciousness, slumping back into the bed,

With Ruby asleep, Weiss returned to her Scroll and typed something. A few seconds later, the door slid open.

"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes." Weiss said, looking at the person that entered. He looked tired, the first time she'd ever seen him like that. He also seemed relieved as he looked at the four of them. "I don't even wanna know why you know how to do that."

"It's useful, isn't it?"

"Wish you would've told me about it a year ago. The amount of nights I could've spent sleeping…" She muttered, looking unimpressed.

Madara ignored the stare she gave him, and walked towards Yang. His hands glowed green as they came near her injured parts. After a minute or so, he decided it was enough and stopped before moving on to healing Blake. The same thing happened with Ruby. Weiss was the last in line, and being the only one conscious, the only one to notice the change in him.

"I see you've been busy." she said, looking at his lavender left eye. "So you won't be going after her anymore?"

"When I need to." Madara answered. "At least, it won't be until the other Tailed Beasts are found."

"How many are left?"

"Three." Madara answered as he straightened his back. "Your wounds are healed and your weapon's sitting outside. Do whatever you need to, but be ready to leave in fifteen minutes."

It took a moment for Weiss to process, let alone act on what Madara said. "R-right…" she said, unsure yet not refusing.

He could sense her confusion. "I got lucky today, I won't be as lucky in the fights ahead. So, I might need someone to assist me. I also need a reason to come back, I made a promise after all."

Weiss looked at Ruby, Blake, and Yang hesitant to move. They were her teammates and friends. Could she really just leave them, without so much as a goodbye? Of course not, it would never sit right with her. She looked back at Madara. "Before we go, we both have something to do."

"And that is?"

She wasn't going to, and neither was he.

With a sudden jolt, Ruby sprung up from her plain white bed. A doctor in a white coat stood over her, retracting his hands away from her face. She frantically looked around herself, seeing Blake and Yang standing next to her bedside. Both of them had all of their bandages off, looking good as new.

"I-wha? W-what happened?" Ruby asked her sister and friend.

The doctor made a loud throat-clearing sound, to which drew the girls' attention. "You were somehow rendered unconscious by pressure point manipulation. I don't know why, but I managed to reverse the effect."

Ruby looked at him confused for a few seconds, before groaning loudly. She definitely knew what happened and who was responsible. He must have arrived some time after she was out, healed them, and left. But there were more important things, more pressing matters and questions.

"Wait, where's Weiss?" She asked, confused.

"Uhh, about that." Yang muttered, scratching the back of her head. She reached behind her and took out a piece of paper. "When I woke up she wasn't there, but this was on a chair. It's a note from them." She explained, holding out the letter. They both had read it themselves, making her the last who hadn't.

Ruby nodded and accepted the offer, holding up the paper to her face to read for herself. It was broken into two separate sections, though both were rather short: only a few sentences each. Even so, it somehow contained a large amount of information that necessitated multiple re-reads. It wasn't until well after the doctor left the room for other matters to attend to, that she lowered the paper from her face. The face she made was one that neither of her present team members could properly read.

She sighed to herself. "I see…" Ruby whispered.

"Sorry, Ruby." Yang said, frowning.

"Nah, it's fine. I probably would've done the same" Ruby chuckled sheepishly, before hopping out of bed and onto her feet. "Besides, we'll see them again sooner or later." They still had their scrolls, all of them did. So long as that didn't change, there wouldn't be any loss in communication for quite some time.

"What do you wanna do now then?"

"How about going back home? We haven't seen dad in a while."

"Sounds like a plan."

The three soon exited the infirmary, much much faster than they expected they would. The door opened and closed itself for them, automatically shutting the lights off when it noticed that nobody was present. While they walked down the hallways towards the transport hub, they discussed what they would do on their way home. They didn't exactly get to spend a lot of time in Vacuo. They didn't even visit Mistral. There were still places down in Mantle they thought about.

Although, something else sat in the corners of their minds. Though none of them said it aloud, they all knew the same thought was shared. When was school resuming?

FIN

I suppose that this is the "final" chapter. The Epilogue is coming… Well, it's coming. But that aside, I have some stuff to talk about.

Thank you all for reading all the way to the end. This is a 220k+ word fanfic that started over two years ago. I remember writing chapters one and two, the first reviews I got. And the result of those reviews. My two beta readers who, unfortunately, went down to one early on. For a good while I had no beta reader and was on my own, before they came back. I'm grateful for everyone, the reviewers, my beta readers, my readers, everybody. Thank you all for keeping me motivated enough to keep writing.

Like I said before, I do plan to revise the story, probably make a new fic for that stuff, but that won't be for awhile. I've been thinking about quite a few things, a lot of old ideas, and some newer ones. Atm I have two things planned. One is to restructure and restart my other most recent story: the crossover fic between Fate and Highschool DXD. I think I have a more interesting premise this time.

The other one is something I haven't tried before. I do a lot of crossover work, but this next time, I have something I wanna try. If it's not the revisions to TSSC, my next rwby story will be a solo-fic without any other series. If it goes as I want it to, it'll be a very different story than I'm used to, one that I think people will like. At the current moment, for one reason or another, I'm calling it "Remnant Lostbelt". If you are aware of FGO, you'll probs be familiar with the term "lostbelt", though the fic itself has nothing to do with FGO.

To give a brief description, I've been working on an AU of rwby. It uses some headcanons from back during RWBY volume 2, and is very different from the RWBY we all know. Most importantly, it diverges from the main timeline during the Great War. the idea that started it was "what if the King of Vale used the relics?"

For now, I'm taking a break from stuff to just think and plan. First time I'm actually planning properly, and it won't even be a grandiose "save the world" story, heheh. Until then, thank you for reading and I hope to see you all soon.

Thanks to Redler Red7 and William for being my Beta readers.

Thanks to my 978 Favs and my 1,104 Followers

Thanks to WATCHER89 for suggesting I get a beta reader in the first place

Thanks to The Baz for being my first reviewer

Thanks to Greer123 for being around since the beginning

Thanks to JustSk8n for being one of the more recent reviewers that I can name off the top of my head and giving me the idea for the Omake.

A special thanks to Rain-XIX for being that one guy who I argued with which was entertaining. Sadly you blocked me after insulting me so I can't actually DM you.

And I apologize I can think/name everyone else, but nonetheless I thank you deeply.

Sincerely, Asianpotter1.