Summary: When Madara breathed out his last words, he did not foresee getting up ever again. He should've known better than to tempt fate by now. (In which Madara wakes from his death, became an animal, and is then introduced to the world of onmyoji and youkai. Chaos ensues.)

When Madara breathed out his last words, full of heartbreak and heavy with acceptance, he did not foresee getting up ever again.

With his gradually dimming vision, he envisages Hashirama's optimistic appeal to drinking together before submitting to eternal damnation. The image in his head, of Hashirama's joyous laughter and his quiet amusement as they toasted for a final time, was appealing.

Madara unexpectedly only feels a certain fondness for the man, not an ounce of bitterness clouding his sight at the impossible proposal. Hashirama has always had a way with words, always the romanticist, always the dreamer. The corners of his chapped lips gave the barest of upwards tilt as he observes Hashirama's undead visage slowly wane from his peripherals, his surroundings turning obscure.

"Well... I suppose... if you... insist... that's fine... by m-"

He would have preferred to openly enunciate his agreement, or perhaps even respond with a simple yes, that sounds nice, but it plainly wasn't meant to be.

Human emotions were such tricky things to control, and even when at death's door, Madara's agreement to Hashirama's conciliatory offer remained abstruse and petulant at best. As a soldier trained by a callous father since the day he could remember, other than rage, he was never given the chance to express himself with words alone, lest he desired the taste of his father's fists.

Ah, Madara muses with a touch of regret, such a shame. It would have been gratifying to emote with clarity for once in his life.

If his soul had not departed by then, Madara would have laughed wearily at Hashirama's mournful response to his choice of final words, cracked eyelids with an undertone of grey lowered as if he was crying despite his undead body's incapability to produce tears.

"Stubborn 'til the very end... That sounds just like you, old friend." The painfully affectionate whisper, rather than being heard by its intended, fell onto deaf ears.

Madara, by all accounts, should not have regained any sort of awareness after that debacle he called a master plan.

(He does.)

Madara was startled awake by the sudden hooting of an owl, the rustling sound of leaves on trees, and the nostalgic scent of rainforests in a place where nature should be barren as only ruins were left following the wake of chaos which ensued the Fourth Shinobi World War. His level of alertness jumped from zero to ten in a matter of seconds.

Shinobi instinct took over.

He simulates unconsciousness whilst simultaneously checking his body's condition, searching for internal damages and debilitating wounds that could prevent him from ensuring his safety. The first sign that something was amiss was the noticeable lack of chakra in his veins, a cold sort of sensation having replaced the burning lava he often employs. What followed immediately after was an overwhelming kind of hunger that could render a man temporarily hors de combat.

Without caring for subtlety, he scrunches his eyelids tighter, a groan leaving his lips as he curls into himself, akin to a shriveled shrimp. Which was already odd in itself since Madara was someone with a partiality for blood and pain, borderline masochistic even. He thrives in melees, craves pain like no other as it brought forth feelings of euphoria and aliveness.

This gut-wrenching hunger, however, was a different matter altogether. It made him crave for death, and Madara has never been suicidal despite how much his mental state deteriorates over time and how manic he behaves in battle. When one dies, he fancies going out in a blaze of glory (not that he did, but beggars can't be choosers). For him to even consider taking his own life... it made him snarl in unadulterated rage.

By sheer stubbornness, Madara uncurls from his foetal position and moves to claw his way to his feet in search of sustenance, only to falter at the hoof that appeared in his sight. A four-toed-hoof, to be more specific. Pain forgotten for the moment, Madara stares. Intensely.

If Madara was a lesser man, he would've fainted by now. Thankfully, he was not. He only shrieked a little.

In hindsight, he should have realized how wrong his body felt in the first place. He blames the hunger for his lack of insight, it was making him delirious.

Shinobi training grounds him enough to compartmentalize, his focus sharpening as he raises rather unsteadily on all fours. With how near the grassy ground was in parallel to his sight, Madara could only assume that he was no taller than a domestic cat.

A once-over was enough to conclude that he was in the body of a Malayan tapir, and he was bipedal no more. But somehow, unlike other tapirs, Madara has a bushy mane that was styled similar to when he had still been human.

As much of a confident person he is, Madara wasn't entirely certain how to feel about his rebirth. He had somewhat been anticipating eternal damnation upon death, but reality, once again, proved to be more puzzling than man's wildest expectations.

Honestly, if he had been given the option to choose which animal he was to be reincarnated into, he would've preferred to be a feline. Cats were, at the very least, sophisticated creatures filled with the utmost grace. Tapirs, on the other hand, were lumbering blubbers that weren't at all pleasing to the eye.

Although, he grudgingly concurs, that shaping him into a meek type of animal was certainly a fitting punishment for a dominating battle maniac like Uchiha Madara. He sighs ruefully at that. What a shame that tapirs have no tusks or opposable thumbs. However, that didn't mean that Madara was going to accept the fate of being a herbivorous animal at the bottom of the food chain.

Madara would've proceeded to endeavouring self-discovery in order to be more confident in this new body of his. Unfortunately for him, his stomach refuses to cooperate and this left Madara with no choice but to swallow his pride. Sneering at the low branches of a hulking tree nearby, he stumbles towards it. Tapirs feed on vegetation, and as much as this pains him to act upon his primal instincts, the hunger was killing him, literally.

As he begrudgingly gnaws on the branches, he idly wonders why a tapir - which was a crepuscular animal - has night vision, his eyes flicker back and forth to scrutinize his surroundings whilst he simultaneously ponders on his next course of action.

Somehow, Madara has a feeling that he knows this forest, a feeling as if he had traverse through this location hundreds of times before, yet not at the same time. An odd sense of Déjà Vu, if you will.

"Oh dear, what a rare find! A newborn yōkai with that much yōki and without a guardian? It must be this one's lucky day!"

Snapping his head upward to glare into the leafy canopy above him, Madara was alarmed into doing a double-take, backtracking at the sight of the humanoid creature wearing a faded blue yukata.

If its gleeful voice filled with malicious intentions did not put Madara on guard, the creature's greyish skin tone, a lack of a face, and inhumanly long limbs would've inevitably done so. Even Zetsu had not been this unnerving in its appearance. Madara couldn't help but question if his eyes were playing tricks on him, or if this creature was a demonic being and Madara was currently in Hell.

The demonic creature cocked its head to one side, and although its lack of facial features gave nothing away, it was no doubt enjoying Madara's wary response to its presence.

The tangled mess that was its blonde hair was floating by itself as if gravity meant nothing, the thin branch it was leisurely sitting on had not shifted despite how hefty the creature must weigh. It was as if the creature wasn't chained by the laws of the universe like humans were, as if the world does not register its presence into elements needed to form the mass that was a living creature's body.

Now that unearthly creature has made itself known, Madara became hyperaware of the spine-chilling cold that was radiating from it. How he had not noticed beforehand, he faulted it on his hunger pangs, which were still distractingly ongoing.

"Is the little one scared? Don't worry, this one won't allow the little one to suffer. This one is very merciful towards this one's food and will swallow the little one whole," It cooed giddily as it shifted into an unsightly crouch, as if a predator ready to pounce on its prey, the branch still unmoving underneath it. "It's good that the little one woke this one up - this one had been injured by that hateful onmyoji and needs to replenish this one's yōki."

Madara didn't wait for it to finish whatever it was it wanted to say. He had already bolted as soon as it uttered the word 'food' from its mouthless face. Despite that, he could still hear its voice echoing from the surroundings.

Fleeing was not something he was proud of doing. But alas, as a tapir, he did not have horns or claws of any kind to defend himself with. Not even chakra.

When he hears the creature's gleefull laughter as it chases after him, he peers back. He regrets it almost immediately. The sight of the creature flying to catch him left him chilled to the bone. Its body was bent in an inhuman angle. It was eerie. He decided to focus more on his limbs' coordination, lest he trips over a wayward root.

Whilst his body worked its hardest to escape from that monstrous abomination, Madara's mind did not falter, it continues to develop hypothesis after hypothesis. With what little he had on hand, he could only come up with a probable answer that was riddled with a plenitude of holes.

When that faceless creature had made itself known, it had directed its unseeing gaze at him whilst praising itself for having good luck at finding a newborn yōkai. It made Madara wonder if his regrets in life were intense enough to turn his soul into a yōkai.

However, from what Madara knows, yōkai and ayakashi were myths told from elders to children as mere bedtime stories. They weren't supposed to be real, along with their onmyoji counterparts. The creature had also complimented him on his abundance of yōki - demonic force, his mind auto-translated for him - which was most definitely the chilling not-chakra he was currently feeling in his veins.

As much as he'd rather not be in such a precarious situation in the first place, this did, however, bring forth satisfactory revelations. Madara still holds power, not chakra, but something wholly unnatural in a human (or tapir, in his case). Now, he just needed a way to survive this encounter long enough to utilize this power within him.

His cunning mind was distracted when his stomach, yet again, made its complaints. He stumbles slightly, and the sudden and raw sensation of the organ in question eating itself from the inside out made Madara fall snout first into the grassy ground. He groans whilst inwardly shouting profanities.

"Oh dear, is the little one done playing onigokko? Then, itadakimasu."

Madara blanches when a shadow soon fell upon his tiny body, a sticky-like fluid dripping to the ground just slightly away from his face. Wearily, he peers at the faceless creatu-youkai that was looming above him, a fanged grin was on its neck, its head tilted heavenwards as its salivating mouth drew nearer.

Madara's current body couldn't resist its herbivorous nature to quiver. And he hates himself for it.

Pathetic, he berates.

With a grunt, he raises to his feet and snarls, blunt teeth on full display. Uchiha Madara has never backed down even at the face of death, and he would not start doing so now!

Unaware that his wrathful nature had triggered awake this body's unearthly bloodline, Madara lost control of his senses and blackout. The last thing he saw was the faceless youkai rearing back and a purple hue lighting up the shadowed canopy above them.

When Madara came to, disorientated but refreshed at the same time, it was already dawn.

As soon as the memory of the previous night was recalled, his eyes snap open and he promptly jumps into a flight-or-fight stance. Unexpectedly, rather than come face-to-face with the faceless youkai, he was hit by the familiar and heavy stench of fresh blood.

There was a faded blue yukata on the grassy ground, almost dyed fully red, along with his surroundings. He could only assume that it used to belong to that faceless youkai's, blood and all.

(Did he... eat it...? With that amount of blood... He did, didn't he...?)

When Madara dazedly realizes that he could see two human appendages held defensively in front of him, sticky with blood, he turns his gaze downwards, his mind in turmoil. A sound of confusion was released from his throat as he studies his body, small and pudgy like a toddler's, and exposed. He was, once again, bipedal, and not a tapir. He could also feel chakra in his system, the same amount he had at his prime.

Madara was confounded enough to fall back into his childhood habit of pulling at his hair whenever he was troubled.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the 'whys' and 'hows' since this was not the time for it, he grabs the only article of clothing available and wraps it around his body, uncaring that it was practically drenched in youkai blood. It was only blood. He had worn worst.

Due to to the garment's long length, he tore at it until it was a suitable length for him. Raising a hand to inspect the sleeves, he realizes that it was trembling. He was trembling.

(He feels ill. He ate it. He ate it.)

Madara didn't have time for this. He wasn't a weakminded civilian and he wouldn't go into shock just because of this. He was a shinobi. He knows to compartmentalize and prioritize.

Clenching his fists in a white knuckle grip, he left the area and took to the trees with the finesse of a veteran shinobi long used to tree traveling. The only way for him to understand where he was and what the youkai was, was to find someone - something. Or a village. Civilization meant information. And information meant comprehension.

He didn't ponder too deeply into why he wasn't feeling hungry anymore.

(The back of his tongue tasted like blood and rotten beef. He ignores it.)

A/N:

This story is brought to you by Mister Procrastination and Miss Spur-in-the-moment. My plotbunnies bred an egg that was filled with three types of themes: Japanese mythology and folklore, shapeshifting, and de-aging. It was too much of an exciting combination to throw into the recycling bin.

Inspired by (AO3):
1. PandaFlower's "Kamikakushi"
2. BoyGirlBothNoneImTheUniverse's "shi-bi no kitsune"
3. Kalira's "Loop"

Update schedule: whenever Mister Procrastination and Miss Spur-in-the-moment decide to collaborate again.