League of Shadows Base
Max had long since left with Thena after the transplant procedure was done.
Lady Shiva sat on Pain's vacant throne, the one he had left for her, drumming her fingers absently against the armrest as she stared straight ahead. To tell the truth, she missed him a little,him and his strange witty underling, whose amusing dynamic with Pain she had quietly enjoyed. She had secretly hoped he would come back, but when he didn't show up at the funeral and didn't show up after, she accepted it.
He wasn't coming back.
As for whether he was alive or not,she honestly had no idea.
She was pulled from her thoughts when she felt a presence behind her. She was on her feet instantly, Sai drawn and already mid-swing before the thought had fully formed ,only for it to be caught between two fingers. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw the Rinnegan. But the most shocking part was the familiar face.
Slade Wilson.
'So that's what happened to his body,' she thought as she withdrew her weapon.
"Max," she murmured.
"Yes, it is me," Slade's voice replied.
"What happened to Pain's body?" she asked.
"He sacrificed himself to close the Boom Tubes from Apokolips. As much as I was in control of him most of the time, he was still his own person to a degree. That final choice was his."
"I see." She paused. "And his subordinate?"
"He passed away shortly after the funeral."
A brief silence fell between them.
"How can I help you?" she asked.
"I have a request. I severed my ties with the League through Pain, but I have one final ask." He met her gaze steadily. "If something happens to me,watch over the kids from the shadows for me."
"It would be an honor," she said without hesitation. "What else?"
"Give Slade a proper burial. I wish I could have done the same for Floyd but couldn't." He said then paused before speaking again. "Take care of yourself Shiva."
The Rinnegan faded from Slade's eyes, returning them to their natural state. His body collapsed quietly to the floor.
Lady Shiva stood over him for a long moment.
Then she spoke to the empty room.
"It was a pleasure working with you... Max Schiller."
Meanwhile at Max's hideout,
Max sat in a meditative position beside the bed where Thena lay recovering. The ground occasionally trembled from the explosions outside on the training grounds, caused by his clone sparring with Terra, but he was far too deep in thought to be distracted.
The topic occupying his mind was Ultra Instinct, the technique that even gods struggled to master.
In Dragon Ball, Ultra Instinct was not simply another transformation like the Super Saiyan forms. Those forms were mostly raw power multipliers. Ultra Instinct, however, was different. It was a mental and spiritual state where the body acted independently of conscious thought, allowing instinct itself to become perfect.
It was a technique built on control, mastery, awareness, and most importantly, mindset.
Which meant that, in theory, Max could learn it but there was one major problem.
His templates.
Each template carried its own fighting style, instincts, habits, and mentality. The clash between them was so intense that he often had to consciously restrain himself from making reckless moves that some of his less disciplined templates would naturally make him attempt. Wolverine's template was one of the worst offenders followed by Garps, constantly pushing aggressive and animalistic impulses into his movements.
The same issue applied to his standards and expectations. Templates like Madara and Goku Black had warped his perception of combat so heavily that anything less than perfection felt inadequate. Their influence constantly pushed him toward overwhelming dominance rather than calm precision.
And that was the problem.
Ultra Instinct demanded absolute mental stillness and harmony between body and mind and Max's mind was anything but harmonious.
'But it would be a waste to not even attempt it. It's too good of a leap in combat power to pass up.'
Max rose from his meditative position and activated Limbo. An invisible clone materialized before him. He gave it a single nod, then closed his eyes.
The Limbo clone launched a punch toward his face.
He could feel it coming. Closer and closer, cutting through the air toward him. He clenched his fists at his sides, waiting,and at the last moment his right hand shot up to catch it but wad too late.
It landed square in the middle of his face.
Max grunted and turned away, clutching his face and muttering curses under his breath. Behind him, Thena stirred slightly in her sleep. He glanced back at his clone.
It shrugged as of saying.'Hey, you're the one who told me to do it.'
Max sighed. He motioned for it to follow him toward the entrance, away from the bed so the commotion wouldn't wake Thena. They stopped before the Gedo Statue. All nine of its eyes were now fully open,which was odd, because nothing seemed to be happening. No surge of chakra. No tremors. Just nine open eyes staring out into the silence.
Neither Max nor his clone noticed.
Max took a long breath and closed his eyes again as the clone punched again.
This time, before the fist could reach him, his hand shot up and caught it cleanly. He opened his eyes to see his clone shaking its head disapprovingly.
Max released the fist, closed his eyes again. The clone punched again.
It hit him in the face again.
Max grunted, rubbing his face slowly. His Limbo clone pressed a hand over its mouth, shoulders shaking as it tried and failed to stifle its laughter.
Max stared at it flatly.
Then he summoned a second Limbo clone, which immediately punched the first one hard across the face and sent it flying into the wall of the hideout. A small tremor reverberated through the structure.
Back in the recovery room, Thena's eyes slowly fluttered open when a dull tremor shook the bed beneath her.
The first thing she noticed was the difference in her vision.
She activated her Sharingan instinctively. Her right eye's vision quality improved slightly,but it still wasn't quite the same as her left. She swung her legs off the bed, summoned a shadow clone in front of her, and for the first time saw her own reflection clearly.
Mismatched eyes. One crimson. One lavender.
She felt the difference immediately,the heavier chakra drain coming from her left eye and a strange, unfamiliar sensation at the back of her mind. The feeling that she could do something she couldn't before. She filed it away, dismissed the clone, and immediately went to find Max. His chakra signature was nearby, still within the hideout.
The scene she arrived to was odd.
Her father stood watching what appeared to be clones fighting each other on the ground. But something was wrong,she couldn't sense them at all. If she hadn't been able to see them she would have had no idea they were there. Almost like they existed just outside the reach of normal perception.
Then it clicked.
'Limbo: Border Jail. That's the jutsu he told me about once. So I can actually see them now,because of his eye.'
Max dismissed the clones and turned toward her.
"How do you feel?"
"I think I'm fine," Thena said. She covered her right eye, then her left, testing each one separately. The difference was immediate and clear. "Yeah. I'm fine."
"Honestly I wasn't expect-"
The ground rumbled.
Max stopped mid-sentence. They both felt it at the same time,a deep, resonant tremor rolling through the earth beneath their feet. Then the sound of chains rattling, loud and frantic, echoing from deeper within the hideout. A roar followed,low, ancient and enormous,shaking the walls.
The Gedo Statue was breaking free.
The hideout began to collapse. Chunks of the cave ceiling broke away and crashed downward. Max appeared beside Thena in an instant, took her hand, and vanished. He reappeared directly before the statue, placed his other hand on it, and vanished again,all three of them materializing in the middle of the Sahara Desert. The same stretch of scorched earth where Darkseid had fallen.
Max pulled Thena back immediately, putting distance between them and the statue as it continued thrashing, its movements throwing massive walls of sand into the air around it.
"What's happening to it?" Thena asked.
"It's awakening," Max said.
The thrashing slowed. Then stopped entirely. The sand it had thrown hung suspended in the air, drifting in great golden curtains across the desert.
Then the tails emerged from the settling dust. Ten of them in total. Enormous and sweeping outward one by one. Two massive arms followed, and then the silhouette,vast and monstrous ,cast a shadow over Max and Thena that swallowed them completelyas the dust finally settled.
The Ten Tails stood fully revealed, its colossal form looming against the sky. Slowly, its gigantic Rinne-Sharingan opened to the world.
Above them, the moon turned crimson.
Then it roared.
ROAAAAAAAAAAAR!
End of Chapter
Chapter 39:The juubi Jinchuriki rises once again
Chapter 40:A job?
Chapter 41:The promise