Madara Uchiha

"In this world, whenever there is light, there are also shadows. As long as the concept of winners exists, there must also be losers. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace causes wars and hatred is born to protect love."

- Madara Uchiha (to Obito)

Madara Uchiha is the foremost antagonist of the manga and anime series Naruto. He is the co-founder of the village of Konohagakure and its first Rogue Ninja. Though thought to have died, Madara survived and planned to rule the Ninja World as a god. He is responsible for setting up Akatsuki and making Obito Uchiha into his apprentice Tobi, the main villain of the series. He is eventually resurrected as an indestructible undead and takes part in the Fourth Great Ninja War as his plan comes to fruition.

Madara as a child
Madara Uchiha was born around a century before the start of the story. In these times, ninjas were organized as huge clans of mercenaries hired by the lords of warring nations. The most powerful clans in existence were the Uchiha and the Senju, both descendants of the legendary Sage of the Six Paths, the man who built the fundamentals of Ninjutsu. While the Senjus descended from the younger son, who inherited his father's strength and ideals, the Uchiha descended from the elder brother, who inherited the Sage's eyes and power. Through the brothers' conflict for succession after their father's death, the Senju and the Uchiha were bound by rivalry and conflict throughout history as mortal enemies.

This was an era of permanent war, in which ninjas were forbidden to tell their last names to strangers and were forced to fight and risk their lives at a very young age, many of them never going past childhood. As a child, Madara befriended Hashirama Senju, both unaware that the other was their family's mortal enemy at the time, as both lost many of their brothers from the conflict. Like Hashirama, Madara hated the senseless slaughter of children forced to fight in the battlefield. Unfortunately, upon learning of the other's identity, they were both forced by their fathers to stage an ambush, while managing to warn the other. Seeing that the conflict was inevitable, Madara immediately relinquished his friendship with Hashirama and declared him his enemy, as he valued his family and his remaining brother more.

Madara in his Prime
Madara Uchiha and his brother Izuna eventually awoke their clan's greatest ability, the Mangekyo Sharingan, and became their leaders. As the leader of the Uchiha, Madara had to fight countless times against Hashirama, who had become leader of the Senju. Hashirama, who was tired of the pointless fighting, repeatedly offered a truce but Madara refused it, as he came to regard their past friendship as a mistake. (Obito has said however that many Uchihas shared Hashirama’s feelings and tried to push Madara to accept.)

During a battle with the Senju clan, Madara fought evenly against Hashirama, but Izuna was fatally wounded by Hashirama's younger brother Tobirama. Madara refused Hashirama's offered truce at Izuna's request and fled with his brother. Later, as Madara was going blind from overuse of the Mangekyo Sharingan, he accepted Izuna's dying request and transplanted his eyes to regain his vision, awakening the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Though he intended to use this power to destroy the Senju, Madara was still defeated by Hashirama. However, he finally accepted peace between their clans upon seeing that Hashirama was willing to kill himself to prove his resolve. This led to the creation of Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in Leaves (which Madara christened), the first of the Five Shinobi Nations.

Though considered to become the First Hokage (Lord of Konoha) by Hashirama, Madara was robbed of the title when Tobirama stated that it should be decided via popular vote, a vote that elected Hashirama. Taking great offense to the act, Madara attempted to rally his kin to stand against the Senjus, but his clan regarded his mistrust as lust for violence and turned their backs on him, incensing him even more. Madara knew that Hashirama would be unable to name him his successor and that Tobirama would become Second Hokage. Madara rejected Hashirama's suggestion of proving himself worthy of the title to the village and promptly left Konoha, while telling Hashirama that he intends to make his dream a reality.

Madara's Madness
Having studied the Sage of the Six Path's legend, Madara devised the "Eye of the Moon Plan" to create his ideal utopia (a world where he would control everyone and everything). This involved gathing the nine demonic Tailed Beasts and use them to revive the nightmarish Ten-Tailed Beast from which they were born, to become its jinchuriki (host). He would then be able to project an Infinite Tsukiyomi that allow him to alter reality and unite every mind under his control, in order to become god-like in all senses of the word.

As a Rogue Ninja, demonized by all but Hashirama, Madara took control of Kurama, the mightiest Tailed Beast, to begin his plan at the cost of Konoha's peace. This ultimately led to him and Hashirama to have their final battle in the area that the conflict terraformed into the Valley of the End. Despite Hashirama's pleas, Madara refused to back down from his goal before the fight came to a violent conclusion. In the end, Kurama was sealed within Hashirama's wife Mito and Madara was presumed to have died in battle. Since then, the people of Konoha carved two immense statues of Hashirama and Madara in the cliff wall, permanently facing one another at both sides of a waterfall, as a symbol of their never-ending rivalry. However, Madara survived and went into hiding. Having obtained a sample of Hashirama's DNA during the battle, Madara used it to heal his wounds and became a near-genetic match to the Sage of the Six Paths.

Madara's Final Years
By the time Madara gained Hashirama's Mokuton power (Wood Style) from the DNA he stole, which in turn evolved his Sharingan into the Sage of the Six Path's Rinnegan, he had become too old and withered to use it. Madara brought down the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path on the world, being forced to continuously infusing himself with the Statue's chakra to survive. He also used the Statue to harvest Hashirama's DNA and create plant-like humanoids from it, one of which became Zetsu. Later, Madara secretly transplanted his Rinnegan to Nagato as part of a scheme to revive himself, knowing that he needed someone to carry out his work. To that end, he also inspired Nagato's friend Yahiko to build the Akatsuki.

During the Third Great Ninja War, Madara saved the life of Obito Uchiha and eventually made the boy into his apprentice. Madara trained Obito and passed on his vast knowledge relating to the Sage of the Six Path's legend, eventually turning him into the villain known as Tobi. Shortly before his death, Madara perfected Zetsu by infusing him with a part of his will, and instructed Tobi to resurrect him with Nagato's power when the Eye of the Moon plan would come into fruition. Using his mentor's name as his own, Tobi altered Akatsuki from its intended purpose into tools to fulfill Madara's agenda.

Personality
"Anything that can be passed down to you... is hatred."

- Madara Uchiha

Madara Uchiha's most defining trait is his monumental ego: He is very proud and confident in himself and his abilities. He cares only about might and skills, which shows as he belittles everyone he deems weaker, including the immensely powerful Kage and the formidable Kurama. The only one he respected was Hashirama Senju, whom he admired immensely and hated even more.

Madara is a staunch battle-loving individual who lives and breathes to fight, (which he calls "dancing"). However, he only involves himself in battles he deems challenging, going as far as keeping his foes alive as long as he is having fun. On the other hand, he will slaughter mercilessly those who do not interest him or worse, keep fighting after he lost interest in them. Although he never bothers fighting at full strength, he is a humongous show-off who uses immensely powerful techniques for no other reason than that he can. Despite this, he remains cautious no matter what the situation. He also proves to be quite honourable, giving genuine praise whenever someone exceeds his expectations and harsh but constructive criticism when he sees it necessary. However, any praise he gives is usually followed with a statement about how far beneath him and Hashirama his foes are. Finally, he is a very intelligent strategist and a talented manipulator.

Madara is cruel, aloof and spiteful, with a dark sense of humour. Growing up in an era of permanent war made him highly warmongering and vindictive, to the point of paranoia. He hated the Senju so much that he was unable to ever conceive the possibility of an armistice. He was persuaded that their offers of friendship concealed attempts to subdue his clan and sought to maintain hatred against everyone’s wishes. He believes that will and hope are irrelevant, that hatred is the only thing that can be passed down to the following generations, and that the never-ending conflict plaguing the Ninja World is part of a destiny that cannot be reversed. He also demonstrates a very strong desire for domination, which first made him want Konohagakure to dominate every other nation, and culminated in his desire to rule reality in itself.

All in all, Madara appears as a repulsive and petty individual, to the point that not even the Tailed Beasts can stand him. His ego and hatred for the Senjus made him unwilling to accept being beneath Hashirama or less worthy of the title of Hokage than he was. As such, his main motivation for enacting the Eye of the Moon Plan can be summed up as rising higher than Hashirama ever could.

When he had grown old, Madara became very bitter and disillusioned, regarding the world as worthless and believing that some must always be losers so that others can be winners, doubtlessly a reference to his past failures against Hashirama.

In all fairness however, Madara is not entirely devoid of qualities, as he dearly loved his little brother Izuna, even more than Itachi Uchiha did his brother Sasuke Uchiha, and was enraged when Hashirama brought up the subject of his death in their last battle. He also did genuinely want the best for his clan, although he was unable to fathom that their wishes could differ from his own and instead felt they did not respect him enough. Similarly, he describes his goal as the only way to attain global peace (with him on top), even though everyone he tells about it reacts with disgust. The second Hokage has states that the Uchiha's Sharingan is powered by their grief and rage, at the risk of corrupting them, which can explain why Madara's ego and hatred eclipsed the best aspects of his personality.

Powers and Abilities
Madara Uchiha is by very far the mightiest ninja ever seen in the series. He already was unbelievably powerful when alive, but as an undead he was restored to his prime while retaining the special powers he obtained after his defeat, putting his might to absolutely ludicrous levels. As if that was not enough, being undead gives him unlimited regenerative abilities and limitless supplies of chakra (energy), making him virtually unstoppable.

After his revival, Madara proved to be an extraordinarily powerful shinobi, whose power was god-like. He was able to fight the entire Fourth Division under Gaara by himself easily without being touched by anyone other than Gaara himself, as well as effortlessly overwhelm both Gaara and Onoki, the Third Tsuchikage, with a single technique, which also devastated most of the Fourth Division. He was also able to hold his own in a one-on-five battle with the five Kage, all of whom he managed to equal, overwhelm, and nearly kill multiple times while holding back most of his power and using relatively weak techniques in his arsenal and who, in the end, Madara single-handedly defeated.

Fighting Prowesses
Madara is an extraordinarily gifted fighter with immense fighting skills, strength, speed, spryness and reflexes; able to dodge highly fast attacks or to take a weapon from its owner with no effort. He was seen using swords and giant shurikens in battle, but his signature weapon is a huge war-fan which he uses both as a spear of some sort and a shield. His war-fan is connected to a chain which he can use to swing it like a flail, with a scythe attached to its other end. Also, he can channel his chakra through it to increase its sharpness, raise barriers of chakra from it, and absorb any kind of attack to reflect the impact in a given direction.

Madara has huge amounts of extremely powerful chakra. He also mastered the mightiest fire-based attacks in existence, being able to conjure overwhelming streams of fire that need many powerful water attacks just to be contained and powerful fireballs shaped like dragon heads, just to name a few.

Sharingan
Madara was the most proficient user of the Sharingan (Eye of the Copy Wheel), the hereditary eye power of the Uchihas, of his time. The Sharingan gives its wielders several abilities:
 * To physically see the flow of chakra and perceive traps, illusions or hypnosis.
 * To read through movements to mimic them, and predict their outcome in order to avoid attacks. (Though the wielders remain unable to avoid movements too fast or unpredictable for them.)
 * To copy any technique (save from special powers) used by a foe to near-perfection. (Though the wielder cannot copy his/her opponent degree of training and mastery.)
 * To hypnotize foes, either to trap them in illusions or to control their actions. Madara's Sharingan was notoriously powerful enough to gain complete control over Kurama.

Mangekyo Sharingan
Should Sharingan users witness the death of the one they hold dearest, they awake the Mangekyo Sharingan (Kaleidoscope of Hypnosis). Madara was one of the first Uchiha to gain the Mangekyo Sharingan, which he awoke in his teenage years. The Mangekyo Sharingan grants three purely fearsome powers, (although some users were able to develop different ones unique to them):
 * Tsukuyomi: An attack named after the Shinto God of the Moon, which traps its victims into an extremely realistic illusion able to alter their perception of time and space, and makes the pain they recieve real. To its most advanced point, it breaks the victims' spirit and plunges them into a coma.
 * Amaterasu: An attack named after the Shinto Goddess of the Sun, which generates a black fire that can consume almost anything and is never extinguished until seven days and nights after its target is reduced to ashes. The only thing Amaterasu has ever failed to be effective against is Gaara's Shield of Sand, which the black flames failed to burn through or into. With the proper training, its wielder can manipulate the black fire and shape it at will.
 * 134px-Madara's_Final_Stabilised_Susanoo.jpgSusanoo: A power named after the Shinto God of Storms, extremely difficult to master. It conjures a multi-armed giant made of pure chakra around the wielders, which forms a near-impenetrable protection and uses energy weapons that differ following its wielder. Madara’s Susanoo uses two undulated swords, can perform hand seals to cast spells, and is able to use an attack called "Yasaka Magatama" (powerful, coma-shaped energy projectiles linked through a tread, which it can send together or separately). Susanoo's only weak point is that he cannot block attacks from below. However, this is nonexistent in Madara's case as his has a lower section, inclusive of feet.

The Mangekyo Sharingan gradually leads its wielder to blindness. Yet, by transplanting his brother’s eyes, Madara gained the "Eternal" Mangekyo Sharingan. He is now able to use its powers without strain, and unfathomably stronger than before. Madara’s complete Susanoo, for instance, became a skyscraper-sized warrior, whose blows have insane reach and can casually slice mountains in half. Madara only uses his perfect form of Susanoo against opponents he deems worthy enough to see it. After the five Kage used their full power as a group against Madara during their battle, he responded by using this tailed beast-sized Susanoo, which outclassed and outmatched the five Kage, who were immediately terrified upon seeing it. According to Madara, this is his full strength and its said that anyone who looks on it dies. Only the five Kage, by sheer luck, survived their encounter with it.

Rinnegan
Shortly before his death, Madara eyes evolved into the Rinnegan (Samsara Eye), the mightiest special power in existence. Madara masters it with even greater proficiency than Nagato himself, being able to conjure immense meteors destructive enough to obliterate an entire battlefield. The Rinnegan enables its wielder to master the five elements (fire, water, earth, lightning, and wind) and virtually any existing normal technique. It also enables him to summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path: the empty vessel of the Ten-Tails which has immense strength; can conjure stake-shaped chakra receivers able to infuse what they pierce with chakra to control them, energy chains, and soul-absorbing energy dragons, and deadly energy blasts; whose power increase depending on how many Tailed-Beasts it has absorbed.

More importantly, the Rinnegan grants six dreadful powers:
 * Deva Path: The power to attract anything towards the wielder and to repel anything, be it things people and attacks with variable force. It can also generate an orb that attracts anything around and crush it into a sphere of debris.
 * Asura Path: The power to turn the wielder's body parts into mechanized weapons, including extremely powerful chakra cannons, clusters of missiles, tentacles, and rocket-punches.
 * Animal Path: The power to summon giant beasts under the wielder's control.
 * Nakara Path: The power to summon the King of Hell, a demon able to absorb its victims' life-force, to store their soul or even resurrect them.
 * Preta Path: The power to absorb chakra either directly from the victims or to cancel attacks. This is the only power than Madara has displayed so far.
 * Human Path: The power to read the victims' thoughts and rip off their souls.

Mokuton
By grafting Hashirama's DNA to himself, Madara gained his rival's special power to create and control trees, plants and everything made of wood; which is also one of the few means to subdue the Tailed Beasts. Madara is as proficient with it than Hashirama himself, being able to grow huge forests from the ground in a matter of seconds and attack his foes with it; to grow giants flowers that spread toxic or sleep-inducing pollen; to create an army of wooden clones of himself with the exact same powers as him; and so on and so forth. He even masters the mightiest Mokuton technique, which conjures a wooden Chinese Dragon, big and strong enough to constrict Kurama, able to absorb chakra and to sprout trees on its wake.

Cryptical Mentions
Madara Uchiha is not mentioned in the first part of the series, as Orochimaru served as the primary antagonist while the Akatsuki were a looming presence yet to enact their plan. But Madara is cryptically mentioned several times: In Sasuke Uchiha's flashbacks about the Uchiha Clan Massacre; when Itachi Uchiha tells Sasuke about the Mangekyo Sharingan, he says that should Sasuke awake it there would be three to share this "blessing", mentioning a yet unknown wielder. (Although he believes said wielder to be Madara, he in facts refers to Tobi.)

When Sasuke later defects from Konoha, he and his former best friend Naruto Uzumaki (the series' eponymous primary protagonist) do battle at the Valley of the End, the same site where Hashirama and Madara had their final battle. This event is the start of Sasuke being compared to Madara, a fellow rouge ninja who defected from Konoha. When Sasuke and Naruto meet again at the start of the second half, Kuruma compares Sasuke's chakra to Madara Uchiha.

Obito, now going by the alias Tobi and posing as Madara, used his mentor's name to inspire fear to force the Shinobi Nations to unite under one banner to enact the Eye of the Moon plan on his own when Nagato sacrifices himself to revive his victims. Obito later laments that this resurrection spell was meant for Madara, forced to take his master's place in their scheme.

The Fourth Great Ninja War
Shortly after his war declaration to the five Kage, the leaders of the five Shinobi Nations, Tobi is approached by Orochimaru's former apprentice Kabuto Yakushi, who offers him an alliance. As Tobi attacks him, Kabuto reveals that he perfected Orochimaru's Reanimation technique and used it to revive many powerful ninja as indestructible undead, which he offers to add to Tobi's army. Kabuto then forces Tobi to accept by revealing another one of the ninjas he resurrected, who is eventually revealed to be none other than Madara Uchiha, with his body restored to what he was in his prime. Later, as the Ninja Coalition is gaining the upper-hand, Kabuto decides to release Madara on the battlefield. Madara quickly realizes that he was not brought back by Nagato as expected, and Kabuto explains the situation to him through the reanimated Mu.

Irked both by the alliance of the Ninja countries and by Kabuto's manners, Madara proceeds to utterly annihilate most of the coalition's Fourth Division, but Naruto (acting through one of his Shadow Clones) engages him with back up from Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage (lord of Iwagakure, the Village Hidden in the Rocks) who met Madara ages ago. Madara blocks their attack with Susanoo, but Gaara, now Kazekage (lord of Sunagakure, the Village Hidden in the Sand), manages to drag him away from it. Madara then reveals that he wields the Rinnegan and uses its power of energy absorption to nullify Naruto's attack, before conjuring a monumental meteor to obliterate the battlefield, knowing that he would regenerate shortly after. As Ōnoki attempts to lessen the impact, Madara conjures a second one, wiping out almost everyone in the Fourth Division.

After regenerating, Madara attempts to summon Kurama, only to learn that he was sealed within Naruto as the Nine Tails help his Jinchuriki out of loathing for Madara. Shortly after, A the Raikage (lord of Kumogakure, the Village Hidden in the Clouds), Mei Terumi the Mizukage (lady of Kirigakure, the Village Hidden in the Mist), and Tsunade, the Hokage and granddaughter of Hashirama Senju, are teleported on the battlefield. The five Kage resolve to defeat Madara and they order Naruto to find and get rid of Tobi, who is eventually exposed as Obito.

The Kage seem at first to hold their own against Madara through teamwork, but he conjures another forest, flowers with sleep-inducing pollen, and a tremendous fire attack, which they barely escape. He recognizes Tsunade as a Senju and resolves to kill her first, seeing her as a stain on her name, but she attacks him with renewed resolve. However, Madara used a susbstitution jutsu to escape being sealed as he attacks Tsunade from below. Tsunade then manages to shatter Susanoo's blade and strike Madara with it while Ōnoki's blasts him from behind, but he effortlessly cancels their attacks. Madara reveals that he was toying with them and creates an army of wooden clones, five for each Kage, to overwhelm them.

Against all odds, the Kage manage to defeat Madara's clones and combine their elemental powers to trap him, but he releases the complete form of Susanoo and breaks free from their grasp. Just as he is about to obliterate them, Itachi Uchiha defeats Kabuto and forces him to cancel the Reanimation Jutsu, sending every reanimated ninja. Unfortunately, Madara is able to cancel his contract with Kabuto, and remain resurrected. Now bored with the Kage, Madara swiftly crushes them, leaving them barely alive, and joins the fight opposing Obito as he began the Ten Tails's ressurection.

Scolding Obito's for the deviations to their plan, Madara resolves to capture Naruto and Killer B, jinchuriki of Gyuki the Eight-Tails, so the Ten Tails's resurrection process is complete. Naruto attacks Madara with the power of Kurama, but he uses the war fan he got back from Obito to deflect the attack and summons a giant wooden dragon to battle the boy. Unfortunately, Naruto's team's failed to prevent the return of the Ten-Tails. As Obito and Madara take control of the Ten-Tails and use it to finish off their enemies, the remaining troops of the Ninja Coalition barge in and launch a wave of collective attacks to trap the demon into a pit and attack the rogue Uchihas before Ten-Tails matures into its true form and launches several Destruction Spheres that obliterates random locations across the world before striking the Coalition’s Headquarters and all the ninja of the Intelligence Squad within. Madara suggests ending it once and for all but Obito silences him, reminding him that he needs his cooperation to accomplish his plan (while voicing his disgust at the fact that he must die to revive his mentor). Since Madara is forced to let Obito handle the fight, Madara oversees his apprentice decimate most of the alliance and attempt to break Naruto's spirit. However, by the time he was severed from the Ten Tails as it begins to run amok, Madara grew bored with the current fight yet expresses an insane delight of sensing the chakra of the recently reanimated Hashirama.