When the first rays of the sun illuminated the sky, Madara woke up and exited the tent, only to see his brother and f.u.kushū sparing against each other.

"Brother! Good morning!"

"Good morning, Sensei!"

Both of them greeted him at the same time earning a smile on his pale face.

"Good morning to you two. f.u.kushū, Izuna, halt your training! You must be fully recovered by the end of two days, so no more jumping around!"

Both of them looked crestfallen, bu they did understand what he ment, so they could only complain silently. Madara send them a cheering look and pa.s.sed by them, moving in the direction of the forest. This immediately alerted f.u.kushū.

"Sensei, why are you heading back into the forest?" A trace of distrust appeared in the eyes of young, seventeen-years-old Uchiha.

"I'm going to search for that girl from yesterday. I couldn't see her in the forest on the mountain, so today I'm going to search through the forest around here. I can't let the potential danger to roam around freely" Madara stated and started to walk firmly.

f.u.kushū told Izuna his goodbyes and hastily followed behind Madara. Madara stopped abruptly and f.u.kushū b.u.mped into his back.

"Sensei.." He tried to complain.

"You are staying back." Madara cut him shortly. f.u.kushū's eyes became round and filled with confusion. Seeing him in this state, Madara sighed and 'explained' himself.

"f.u.kushū, we are at war. In the whole clan, you are the strongest after Izuna and myself. We need someone to protect the wounded and those who are unable to fight and resting. I want to entrust this task on to you." f.u.kushū stared Madara right into the eyes and didn't outer a single word. "Well, if you don't want to be of help to the clan and me, then go ahead and follow me." Madara added some oil to the fire and f.u.kushū, while turning away muttered. "Who said I don't want to?"

Madara smiled weakly and raffled f.u.kushū's black hair.

"You better do a good job!" and walked off.

As soon as he left the gates and entered the forest, he checked if anyone was tailing him. No one was. He activate his Sharingan, searching for any hidden chakra signatures, yet again none was spotted. He deactivated his eyes and speeded into the depths of the forest sending a signal to already awake Malika.

*********************

I woke up, but it was still dark, so I had enough time to do my morning routine. A took a bath in the river and change into some clean clothes that covered most of my skin, but didn't abstract my movements. I now wore a long green, sleeveless top and black loose pants. I then did some morning exercises and cooked a meal for myself.

While eating my vegetable soup, I waited for a signal to come. It came soon after the sun started to raise. I cleaned up the place of any evidences of someone's else's presence and teleported in front of Madara. Looks like he didn't expect for me to appear so fast and almost fell from the brunch of the tree. He made an elegant backflip and safely landed on his feet. I jumped down, clapping my hands. I was truly amazed by his reaction speed and grace.

"Stop that. It's not funny." He said with grampy look.

"Why should it be funny? I was just admiring how good you were!"

"Oh, please. Even if Hashi, his brother and I teamed up we wouldn't stand a chance against you!"

Oh, so he was talking about that. Should I cheer him up a little?

"I will explain where your thinking is wrong a little later." He froze and his grampy look vanished, while being replaced by a serious one.

"You said that you had some heavily wounded people on your side. For how long so you think they will hold out?"

A faint expression of helplessness flashed on his face.

"At most, till noon and some till tomorrow evening. Luckily, no one died during the night."

So it was just as I expected.

"I was going to start gathering their memories right now, but I think I should heal them first."

A thin, bluish tread appeared from my finger and was soon split into the invisible strings that extend themselves, entering the camp and the tents where all of the wounded were lined up I send around a thousand more strings to the Senju clan as well.

Those strings entered their bodies and started to repair them. Internal wounds were healed almost fully, but I left a lot of external wounds that wouldn't endanger their lives.

"All done." I retracted my mana, informing Madara. "I left some wounds unattended though. If those who were deemed to be severely wounded, were to be all good and healthy all of the sudden, something an expected might come up."

He nodded. "How are you going to extract their memories? Should we go back to the camp?"

"No. You'll stay here. I will go alone."

"Hm?"

"I've got my ways around your guards. Look." I casted an invisibility spell and not even my shadow remained. "I'll enter the camp while desquasing my self with this. I won't actually enter the camp anyways, so it shouldn't be a problem."

He no longer being surprised by my dids, looks at me with concern.

"How will you get necessary information then?"

"The same method I used while healing them. Mana strings. I will make them enter the brains of Uchihas and make a copy of all of their memories."

"What will be my role?"

"After I gather all of information, I won't be able to do anything. Hundreds of lives will be placed into my head and some even will try to take over. That's the hard part of the process. As soon as I'm going to be done, I'll teleport here. You'll have to carry me away from here back to the mountain and place me into a circle drawn there. It is a barrier. I will be literally battling with my own consciousness, so the risk of me losing control over my mana is really high."

"Got that."

We provided with our plan and it went just the way we predicted. I was placed into the formation and black flames appeared around me, slowly enclosing the s.p.a.ce until only a dome of fire was left with me trapped in the center.

I layed there with my eyes and mouth shut tightly. Hundreds of different memories, personalities and experiences were tearing apart my mind.

'Looks like it will take a long time.' A sigh unintentionally escaped my mouth.

I concentrated all of my will power and started to separate them. One by one they were taken out of the group and placed in a spherical capsil inside of my head, sealing them away. Finally the last one was sealed with great effort. The last one was especially difficult.

I opened my eyes and removed the barrier. The sun rises of the sun hit my eyes, blinding me for a moment. I tried to stand up, bit my body felt weak and I fell back, only to be caught by someone. Slowly adjusting my eyesight, I saw Madara's worried face.

"Really, you!! You should have told me about this flame beforehand! Can you imagine my panic when those flames started to close right above you?!" I received a severe scolding from Madara.

"Sorry. I forgot to tell you..." And I suddenly remembered something.

"You have a student there right?"

"Yeah. f.u.kushū. He is a brilliant young shin.o.bi."

"His memories were the heaviest and the hardest to seal. I didn't look into them, because if I did, I most probably would lose myself in them. I was way too tired by the end."

"Be a little careful with things you say around him. My gut feeling tells me that something might happen, but nothing certain."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"By the way, what time is it now?"

"A little before noon." Wow, the process took less time than I expected.

"I think you should head back. You are the head and if you won't return for too long, they will become worried."

"Will you be okay from now on?"

"Yup. No problem." I stood up to show him that everything is completely fine and he, after a few more minutes of MORE scolding, was on his way to his clan.