Wabi-Sabi

***

The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.
Ted Hughes, Letters of Ted Hughes
***
To be fair, Madara realizes his mistakes in the end. 
And not, to his credit, in his final seconds.
About ten minutes before.
Ten seconds after that, he loses all hope.
That's how long it takes him to realize that there is nothing he can do now to change what has happened.
Or to make up for it.
He just needs to die. Let them kill him, let them win, the good, the future, these children who learned so much better than Madara ever did.
There's even one of his blood left. Still young enough to become even greater than he already is. To keep their bloodline alive. 
He can even see a little girl, life yet to come, and the blinding yellow light at his side that will never flicker.
Madara just needs to die, and he needs to take Kaguya with him.
It's easier than he expected in the end. An odd sort of clarity comes over him. With all the loss, anger, and hurt stripped away, he can see things in a clear light.
Can see every mistake he made.
That Hashirama made.
That those that came after them made.
Can see Kaguya's touch all the way back to the beginning.
That bitch.
He can watch the miasma infecting the world slowly until Zetsu was strong enough to rise to summon Kaguya.
In all things, we are strong. In all things, we love. In all things, we are devoted until death.
The Old Ways are gone. 
Even when Madara was young, the Uchiha were holdouts among the clans. Hashirama had never been able to understand, though he'd listened more than most. The rest had just been unwilling, and that had made the Uchiha equally unwilling to change.
They all had their roles in the failure. In the collapse that will come long after this generation has defeated Madara and Kaguya this time around.
Hashirama was too idealistic. Focused on the dream instead of the steps it took to get there.
Tobirama was too jaded. Unwilling to trust in anything and unable to hide it.
Madara was too angry. Unable to forget.
In the end, none of them figured out how to talk to one another, and one by one, they fell.
Madara is the last one left, and even he's not...whole.
He just...he just loved them so much, and then they were all gone, and he was alone.
So alone.
Uchiha are not meant to be alone. 

They need someone to love. People around, within reach. Something big and all-consuming that they can pour everything they have into. It's too much for most people outside the clan, which adds to their reputation on the battlefield and their isolation everywhere else.
Loneliness drives them mad.
Look at what it did to Madara.
He thinks, too, that might be part of Zetsu and Kaguya, each locked in their own prisons, away from what they loved.
They're monsters, but still, the loneliness is there.
Maybe loneliness makes monsters?
He realizes all of this ten minutes before he finally dies, all his old ghosts standing around watching, and even dead Tobirama looked way too pleased to see Madara fall.
Bastard always did love being right.
It doesn't change anything, though. Madara has nothing left. It's over, and no matter what he wants, his body, this life, is gone. 
There are two bright boys that will lead the village into a brighter future until even their light is smothered and finally extinguished. 
But the infection is still there. That dark miasma Kaguya and Zetsu spread. Eventually, it would come back, and these boys won't be there to stop it.
And everything Madara and Hashirama dreamed of would be turned to ash.
The Rinnegan pulses. 
Madara is too wrapped up in his morbid musing to notice it at first. 
He's thinking about his father, his siblings, Izuna. Everyone that had to die to make Madara what he became. 
The sad thing is...he's not sure many of them would be disappointed in the result.
So much anger and hurt, and maybe the curse of the Uchiha isn't a choice. Maybe no one escapes it. 
Maybe some people are just better at hiding it? Or they die before it becomes obvious. 
The Uchiha have always died young. Even after the village, after the dream that was supposed to stop that.
His last descendant isn't even twenty, and he's fighting to save the world. 
A world that doesn't even seem to like him.
But maybe it does. That bright light that refuses to leave him, the stupid kid that won't stop smiling and won't give up, was equally hated. 
Kill them with kindness, Naruto's teacher had said once, while Madara happened to be spying on them. 
How delightfully vindictive. 
He might be of Madara's blood too, but he never looked close enough to know for sure.
Mura no tame no subete.
All for the village.
The Uchiha who came after had chosen that.
Chosen to love the village no matter what.
Madara's blood is strong and noble, even when he isn't. 
Maybe that was his true purpose? Drive them to greater heights, to a greater love.
Maybe, but unlikely. 
There's no point in delusion now. 
The Rinnegan pulsed.
This time Madara noticed. 
What was it doing? Madara no longer had control over his body or chakra.
The Rinnegan is acting on its own.
There were many fundamental misunderstandings of the Sharingan in Madara's lifetime. Even now, it seems no one truly understands it. It adapts and changes just like the shinobi who carry it, different from one day to the next.
The Rinnegan, the most powerful, even more so than the Rinne Sharingan, is even less understood.
But the greatest misdirect seems to be that the Sharingan is a simple body part of the Uchiha.
It's not. 
Madara realized moments after he gained the Sharingan that it had a mind of its own. 
A desire to live.
An appetite for strength and life and love. 
It was a parasite that an Uchiha could live in harmony with if their goals aligned or slowly be eaten away to nothing if they didn't. 
Madara's hadn't. 
Until now.
Now, the Rinnegan is pulsing, pulling chakra from reserves Madara didn't realize he had, and maybe from Kaguya herself, for something.
No one else has noticed. 
Not even the great Mother of All Shinobi. Not Zetsu, who despite his machinations, is an idiot, Madara has realized. 
A stupid child desperate for love and affection from the only person who ever pretended to give it and too uneducated to realize the love was really abuse.
The Rinnegan pulses, stronger now. In a pattern that Madara recognizes as a heartbeat. 
But who's?
Kaguya starts screaming. She's losing, and a vicious glee ripples across the scattered pieces of Madara.
Let the bitch scream.
It's over. 
All her grand plans for naught. 
At least for now.
She'll be back. Or someone else will, another Ōtsutsuki, most likely. That rotten blood they all came from that refuses to let go.
Madara hopes he maintains awareness long enough to hear her die.
The Rinnegan pulses, strong enough that someone else had to feel it. He thinks he feels a ripple of surprise through his descendant and the bright one.
And then....
The Rinnegan pulses and spins.
It turns back.
Madara wakes up on his futon, two days shy of his tenth birthday, newly awoken Sharingan spinning by itself. 
Oh.
***
Marry, and you will regret it; don't marry, you will also regret it; marry or don't marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world's foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world's foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it... Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don't hang yourself, you'll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy. 
Søren Kierkegaard
***
~tbc~