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The Uchiha are a clan of simple goatherds.
It is an indisputable fact of life. The sun rises in the east, the gods are cumbersome beings best not attracted the attention of, and the Uchiha are simple goatherds.
When it all goes to shit, it happens like this:
Madara is eleven years old. His life is easy, idyllic. He milks the communal goats and occasionally accompanies the elders on their infrequent visits to the nearest village to gain experience in trading in goat-related wares. There have been talks about giving him his own starting flock. His career is well on track. Things could not have been better.
Then, one day, while he's skipping rocks by the river, a voice pipes up from behind him:
"You need to throw it a little higher than you'd expect. Put some passion into it!"
The voice belongs to a weird boy with weird hair and nice (but weird) clothes. He calls himself Madara’s rock-skipping rival of all things, and ends up displaying an absolutely infuriating penchant for getting under Madara’s rather thin skin.
And that, that is how Madara's life cheerfully starts spiralling out of control.
"I'm a simple goatherd," Madara insists, exasperated. "I don't need to prove anything to you by doing this."
Hashirama pouts. "Don't you want to play with me?"
"No. I have told you this before."
"O-Oh," Hashirama says in a small voice. There's dirt on his nose and dead leaves in his hair. "I guess it's okay. If you're too scared to swim across the rapids, I mean. I understand. I don't want my best friend to die just because he froze midway out of fear."
"I'm a simple goatherd!" Madara yells, ready to wring Hashirama’s neck.
“Don’t yell at me!” Hashirama sobs, clearly faking his tears.
They end up swimming across the whitewater. Madara almost drowns twice, but the sheer exhilaration of making it to the other side more than makes up for the sheer terror of nearly dying.
He lays on the rocky bank, cold and wet and a little terrified, and laughs, and Hashirama laughs right along with him.
Madara gets his first flock of goats when he's twelve. He tells Hashirama about his responsibilities with no little pride. Perched precariously atop a boulder and swinging his feet, Hashirama showers him with enthusiastic questions and unwavering support.
Madara grows up, and his flock and responsibilities grow too. He doesn't have much time to spare for the river anymore, which he feels a little guilty about, but Hashirama still manages to pop up in whichever meadow Madara’s taken his goats to graze in. Madara’s always alone whenever Hashirama decides to wander by, and Hashirama always has a bright, happy, genuine grin.
Madara doesn't question Hashirama’s uncanny ability to track him down. The boy’s always been a weird one. He wouldn't put it past the idiot to stalk Madara in his free time.
He’s a little flattered by the attention, if he's being honest.
Madara’s twenty when he solidly presses Hashirama against a tree and kisses him.
It’s not his fault, really. If anything, Hashirama is the one to blame for suddenly developing flawless hair and flawless skin and mouthwateringly broad shoulders, and then using all of that to follow Madara around like an overly enthusiastic puppy. The impish grin and warm, brown eyes only add to the entire...situation.
It’s not Madara’s first kiss, so he doesn’t think he’s that bad. He eventually pulls back when the other boy refuses to respond. Hashirama stares at him, eyes huge and lips red, looking like he’s about to throw up all over Madara’s shabby second-hand sandals.
Madara’s cheeks warm. His ears warm. His entire body warms.
“What was that,” Hashirama croaks.
“A mistake,” Madara snarls. He turns and walks swiftly away towards where he reckons the nearest cliff is so that he can end his mortifying existence once and for all.
“Madara!” Hashirama calls out from behind him. He jogs up and grabs Madara by the arm, spinning him around. Madara musters the last bits of his dignity and tries not to swoon too much over the easy display of strength. “Madara, wait! I’m sorry!”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I don’t even care. Let go of me.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Hashirama seizes Madara’s hands. His eyes are wide and earnest, and maybe even a little misty. “I love you.”
“L-Love?” Madara squawks. “Who said anything about love?”
Hashirama drags him back into the copse of trees they had just exited. The leaves look much lusher, more vibrant than before. Tiny white flowers are sprinkled like stars over the shaded grass.
This time, when Madara slams Hashirama against a tree and kisses him, Hashirama kisses back.
“Did you fall or something?” Izuna asks, concerned.
“Fall?” Madara asks suspiciously. “Fall in what? Who said anything about falling? Did you fall?”
Izuna’s frown of concern deepens. “Did you hit your head? Why have you been walking around with that glazed look in your eye?”
“Gods above, stop looking into my eyes, Izuna. It’s creepy.”
“Did you sprain your ankle?” Hikaku asks when he limps back to camp one day. “Should I arrange a poultice?”
“For my ass, maybe,” Madara mutters under his breath.
“Excuse me? Didn’t catch you.”
“I said, don’t bother. What’s for supper?”
“Goat stew? As usual?”
“Mm. Smells delicious.”
Obito bursts into tears. “Please don’t die!”
“I’m not going to die,” Madara says, trying (and failing) to cajole the crying child. “Shh, I’m fine, see?”
“But what monster would maul your neck like that? Oh, Madara, it looks horrible!”
“Relax, kid. It’s barely a scratch.”
“Those are clearly bite marks!”
“Insects,” Madara says dismissively. “Large insects. I fight them off so that the rest of our family doesn’t have to.” He squats down so that he’s eye-to-eye with the boy and ruffles his hair. “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll tell everyone you’re a crybaby and nobody will ever respect you.”
“Please don’t,” Obito sniffles. “I want to be as amazing as you when I grow up.”
“Hello,” Hashirama smiles, and pulls Madara in for a kiss. He whips out a flower crown from somewhere and places it on Madara’s head. “How have you been?”
“Not bad,” Madara hums, winding his arms around Hashirama’s shoulders. “Food’s been plenty for the last few years, thank Zeus. My family couldn’t be doing better. Oh, I have a gift for you.”
“Gift?” Hashirama asks, delighted. One of his hands has already started to wander under Madara’s tunic and towards the bare curve of his ass. “I love gifts! What is it?”
Madara pulls out an earthen bottle stoppered with a cork from his satchel. “Mandrake wine,” he says proudly.
Hashirama uncorks the wine and gives it a sniff. “Smells potent.”
Madara grins. “I know, right? The foragers were lucky to find a crop last summer. Come, have a sip. It’s a family recipe.”
The both of them don’t meet all the time, and there’s no set schedule to their trysts. There never has been, and that’s perfectly fine with Madara. Sometimes they meet after mere days, sometimes weeks, and very rarely months.
Madara doesn’t spend too much time thinking about what Hashirama could be doing when they’re not together. Hashirama’s always been weird about his background, ever since they were children. Madara reckons it’s because he’s most likely the son of some minor nobleman from one of the nearer poleis. He certainly looks like one. No commoner can have hair or skin like that.
Not that Madara really cares for their difference in status. They are what they are. It’s nice. It works. He's happy.
Then, one day, while Madara is minding his own business tending to his goats in the hillside, he gets accosted by a strange woman.
She’s tall and stately, with copper hair that burns like a wildfire in the mild afternoon sun. Delicate jewelry adorns her upper arms and hair, but her footwear is practical. Madara stares at her as she marches through the meadow towards him.
The woman stares back, eyes narrowed and lip curled in derision.
Now, Madara may not be the most polite person around and may not be above beating up strange women who try to pick a fight with him, but he is a simple goatherd. He, like the rest of his family, wants to herd goats and live a simple life that’s devoid of trouble. Since the woman looks like she’s Someone Very Important, he makes a genuine attempt at being deferential for once.
“How may I help you, ma’am?” He asks, making sure to spit out the half-chewed stalk of grass from between his teeth before he speaks.
The woman leans forward till they’re nose-to-nose. Madara’s instincts scream at him to run away, so he doesn’t.
“Tell my beloved husband,” she says, warm breath ghosting over his lips, “to stay away from you if he knows what’s best for you.”
“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Madara shoots back, momentarily overcome by the fragility of her perfectly symmetrical nose.
She grabs his face, amused. Her nails are sharp like talons, and also red. They dig into his cheek. “Oh, I think you do, Madara Uchiha.”
She releases him and steps back. A violent gust of wind blows that makes the goats bleat in alarm. Some of the smaller ones go tumbling down the hillside. By the time Madara manages to get his hair out of his eyes, the woman is gone.
“Madara,” Hashirama begs, trailing after him. “It’s not what you think it is.”
“It’s perfectly clear that it is what I think it is, you asshole.”
“Will you— Will you stop?”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Then let me explain, at least!”
Madara whirls around and points his crook at him. “Explain? There’s nothing to explain. I know we come from different backgrounds, and I know you have a life outside of whatever we have. You should have told me when you got married. We could have still made it work. But if you think I’m going to just stand aside while your over-entitled, sorceress of a wife threatens me and my family and our livelihood, you don’t know me at all.”
“Mito...” Hashirama groans, frustrated. “Look, don’t worry about her. She’ll just make your life a little difficult, but it’s not like she’ll kill you or anything.”
“Oh, so I should be grateful that she won’t stoop to murder, is it?”
“...yes?”
“No!” Madara explodes. “No, I shouldn’t be. I’m not! What the fuck is wrong with you, you massive idiot?”
Hashirama winces and grabs his wrists. “I need to tell you something. Promise you won’t freak out.”
Madara tries to twist his wrists out of Hashirama’s grasp. They don’t budge. A few moments later, he relents. “Fine.”
“I’m going to let go now. Please don’t run away.”
“You have one minute to explain.”
“Okay,” Hashirama says. He takes a huge breath and releases Madara. He takes a step back and begins to— to glow. He glows and expands, and by the time he’s done, he stands at around twelve feet in height, clad in shiny armour and a rich, forest green cloak. An ornate crown of bramble and flowers sits twined around his head. The golden glow from earlier has faded marginally, but it’s still there.
“What the fuck,” Madara says flatly.
Hashirama attempts a sheepish smile. “Hi.”
“You’re a god.”
“Well, yes.”
“Which one?” Madara eyes the bramble and flower crown on his head and feels the blood drain out of his face. His entire body, really. “No.”
“Really, it’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. Things like this happen all the time to you mortals.”
“You’re Zeus?”
“That is my official title, yes.”
“That means— Gods above, that was Hera? I was threatened by Hera?”
“Threatened is not the correct term here. She was just having some, er, harmless fun.”
“I let Zeus sodomize me,” Madara says hollowly, staring into the distance. His voice drops to a broken whisper, “Oh no. I sodomized Zeus.”
“Zeus enjoyed it,” Hashirama reassures. “Zeus enjoyed it immensely and would like to do it again, if you’d be so kind.”
Madara breathes out through his nose. “Hashirama,” he says calmly. “Can you be human-sized again, please?”
“As you wish, my dear,” Hashirama beams, beginning to shrink. “I’m glad you’ve managed to see reason. I knew you would get over this little hiccup in our—”
Madara lunges forward and grabs him by the front of his cloak, a crazed look in his eyes. “Your wife is going to smite me! The Queen of the Heavens herself is going to smite me, and all you can think about is sex?!”
“I really like how you’re not worried about me smiting you.”
Madara punches him in the face. It’s exactly like hitting a very sturdy tree. His fist ricochets off, resulting in a handful of broken knuckles.
“I’m sorry!” Hashirama wails in horror. “If I’d known you were going to hit me, I would have turned off my divine invulnerability!”
“My people have only two rules,” Madara grunts, kicking Hashirama away when he tries to help with his injured hand. Thankfully, no further bones shatter in the process. “Tend to your goats and don’t mess with the gods. You made me break both of them.”
“To be fair, I was just looking for a friend. You kissed me first.”
“I would never have if I knew who you were! I wouldn’t even have been friends with you!”
“You know,” Hashirama pouts, equal parts reproachful and hurt. His divine aura dims further. “Most mortals would have been overjoyed to be graced by my presence.”
“Are you insane? I’ve heard the stories! Every human you decide to fuck either lives miserably or dies painfully. Usually both! Why would I ever want that for myself?”
“It wasn’t just a fuck!” Hashirama insists, completely missing the point. “I love you, Madara, I really, really do. More than anything else in the world.”
“Well, take your love and shove it up your ass!” Madara shouts. Hand throbbing, he corralls his goats and stomps away as angrily as his situation allows him to.
Hashirama materializes in his tent that night in full divine regalia, godly aura and all, causing Madara to yelp in surprise.
“Go away,” he hisses, once he manages to compose himself.
“Madara?” Mikoto’s voice drifts in from the outside. The flap of his tent lifts and she pokes her head inside. “Is everything all right?”
“She can’t see me,” Hashirama supplies from the side. “Or hear or feel me.” He walks over to Mikoto, sticks his arm through her head and waves it around. “Pretty handy, huh?”
“Madara?” Mikoto repeats, frowning in concern. “I thought you only broke your fingers. Did you hit your head again as well?”
Madara clears his throat. “I’m fine. Had a weird dream, that’s all.”
“Oh. Do you want to talk about it? I can break out the mandrake wine.”
“She seems nice,” Hashirama says approvingly. “It’s important to have a loving family.”
“No, it wasn’t anything bad. Go back to sleep, Mikoto.”
“If you say so,” Mikoto says dubiously and retreats. “Let us know if you need anything.”
Madara turns to fix his most hostile glare on Hashirama once she's gone. “Why are you here?”
The god wilts. “I wanted to see if you’re still mad at me. You clearly are.”
"We are simple goatherds," Madara sniffs, slipping into his bedroll. "We don't need your associates raining hellfire down on our extremely flammable camp, thanks."
“Relax, will you? Nobody will rain hellfire down on anybody.”
“I can not, and will not, relax,” Madara says, decisively turning his back to Hashirama. He pulls his blanket over his head. “Don’t even think about touching me in my sleep.”
Madara wakes up to find Hashirama lounging on the ground beside him, face mere inches away from his.
He closes his eyes and exhales slowly. His previously-shattered right hand feels as good as new.
He opens his eyes. Hashirama’s still there.
“Did you spend the whole night watching me sleep?” Madara asks evenly.
“Yep!” Hashirama chirps, shamelessly chipper.
“Get out.”
“You are a truly lovely sight, my love.” Hashirama’s eyes soften. “My light, I wish I could spend every morning waking up next to you, for the rest of eternity. I want your face to be the last thing I see, your embrace to be the last thing I feel as the Giants rise and the world crumbles around us into nothingness. I have never been as madly obsessed with anyone's body and soul, their very essence, like I am with yours.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Madara grumbles, caught between wanting to cringe violently and blush furiously.
Hellfire doesn’t exactly rain down on Madara’s head, but his luck takes a turn for the worse.
He’s walking along a well-worn path when he finds himself knee-deep in cow dung that most definitely hadn’t been there moments before. He tries to nap under a tree and a peacock appears out of nowhere to shit on his face. He gets chased by a bloodthirsty swarm of gadfly that ignores the forty-odd benign goats around him, and doesn't stop harassing him till he jumps into an appropriately prickly bush.
People begin to start throwing him concerned glances whenever he comes back covered in bruises and non-caprine excreta. Some of the little ones even have the sheer audacity to convince him to retire at the ripe age of twenty four. He would have snapped at them, but their worry is just so earnest and sincere that he just can’t. Even though his family has started to treat him like he's gone soft in the head, he supposes can't really begrudge them for meaning well.
Hashirama still drops by to visit him with the same frequency as before. Madara can’t exactly fight off the Lord of the Heavens with his goatherd’s crook, so he suffers through stilted one-sided conversations and loud, wistful sighs in contemptuous silence.
Then, Hashirama somehow manages to find out about Madara’s sudden and suspiciously bad luck and decides to enter the fray.
Madara trips over nothing and goes tumbling off a cliff. Again. He’d stopped counting after the first four times.
He squints at the ground as it rushes towards him. Is that— It is. It is a viper pit, the sides creatively lined with cruel-looking thorns. He crosses his arms and sighs. His hair streams behind him like the tail of a comet.
When he lands, the snakes in the pit have transformed into springy, moss-patterned, lavender-scented cushions. Instead of the thorns, there’s a winding marble staircase leading up and out of the pit. Beside him, there’s some exotic fruit in a gold bowl and an entire roasted pig.
“I don’t want any of this!” Madara yells, shaking a fist at the sky. “Don’t drag me into your marital dispute!”
As usual, he gets no response.
He takes the fruit and the pig with him when he leaves.
And then, things get really weird.
Madara wakes up and finds himself in an ornately furnished boudoir, staring into a mirror. An extremely beautiful woman with wise, dark eyes stares back at him.
“Will that be all, Your Majesty?” The maidservant next to him asks.
“Yes,” Madara growls. It doesn’t have the intended effect, considering how light and feminine his voice is.
He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s willing to bet the entirety of the Uchiha’s livestock that Hashirama is involved. An army of servants help him into an uncomfortably plush bed and leave.
Sure enough, the doors to the bedroom swing open and a beefy king of some sort strides in. He does a double take when he sees the woman whose body Madara’s currently inhabiting, and breaks into a blinding, familiar grin.
“Madara!” Hashirama exclaims. “You made it! I can’t believe that it actually worked!”
Madara narrows his eyes dangerously. “What did you do.”
“Oh, just a little bit of soul tourism,” Hashirama says breezily, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “You won’t let me spend time with you while you’re you, so I figured you’d be okay if you borrowed somebody else’s body.”
Madara feels a headache building up. “So you yanked my soul out of my body and stuffed it inside one of your other lovers.”
“Yes? This way, you personally don’t have to deal with whatever fallout your myopic mortal brain is so scared of. See, I do care about your happiness and well-being.”
“I’m not going to make a random woman pay just because you can’t keep it in your pants.”
Hashirama frowns. “What do you mean? This is not just any random woman. You’re in Alcmene’s body.” When Madara stares blankly at him, he adds, “Heracles’ mother?”
Eyes wide, Madara looks down at his bare breasts and then at Hashirama. “Heracles? That Heracles?”
“How many other Heracleses do you know?”
“Holy shit,” Madara says. “This is fucked up. How did I get here? I’m just a simple goatherd.”
“I’m the god of life and fertility, Madara,” Hashirama says loftily. “The Fates command me to bed these people to shape the course of human history and culture, and so I do.” He shifts closer and gently cups Madara’s — Alcmene’s — face, thumbs resting under the swell of the bottom lip. His voice drops to a whisper, impossibly sincere. “But you’re the only one I've ever chosen by myself.”
After a night of heterosexual (strange, but not as repulsive as he’d thought it would be) lovemaking, Madara wakes up in his own bedroll, in his own tent, in his own time. The smell of breakfast and the familiar sounds of his family milling around permeate the early morning air.
He heaves a sigh of relief and gets up to start his day.
The next time Madara ends up engaging in involuntary soul tourism, he finds himself in a fully furnished bronze chamber that’s most definitely underground. He settles back into the couch, sticks his hands behind his head and waits.
A glimmering, golden liquid starts raining down on him from the roof of his subterranean prison.
“You better not be urinating on me, you bastard,” Madara calls out. Do gods even urinate? Fourteen years of hanging out with one, and he still has no clue.
“What?” Hashirama’s disembodied voice echoes through the chamber, indignant. “Why would you even say that? This just happens to be the most convenient form for infiltration. Hang on, give me a minute. You’re going to love this.”
Madara gives it a minute as the liquid, viscous and sweet like honey rains down on him. It sinks into his skin, permeating every pore, setting his nerves alight. It builds up his pleasure layer by layer, till every inch of him, inside and out, is so sensitive that he can barely breathe. Ghostly fingers card through his hair and he feels the brush of celestial lips against his.
Madara orgasms so hard that he passes out.
Madara stares at the majestic white bull in front of him. It smells sweetly of flowers and looks back at him with a particularly leery glint in its eye.
“No,” he says, genuinely horrified.
Although it’s standing on all fours, the bull still somehow manages a shrug. It’s the most unnerving thing he's ever seen.
“I’m sorry,” it says in Hashirama’s voice. “But this is the only thing that would’ve worked on her.” Hashirama takes a moment to chew on some grass, and then belches thoughtfully. “To make up for it, I can take you on a joyride across the ocean, if you want.”
Madara has never been on a joyride anywhere, much less across the ocean. It sounds like a fun thing to do. He grabs Hashirama’s horns and swings onto his back, whooping in a distinctly unladylike manner as they charge into the ocean.
“A fucking swan, Hashirama? Really?”
“Mm. The child borne of this union will have a face that will launch a thousand ships.”
“...right.”
“Mito’s still at it,” Madara says, popping an entire date into his mouth. He’s currently occupying the body of a nice, normal princess called Thebes. Normal because Hashirama's human form had been enough to seduce her this time around. “Clearly, your plan to divert her attention has failed.”
Hashirama scowls, the expression of anger jarring on his otherwise easygoing face, and Madara is suddenly uncomfortably aware that his handsome idiot of a boyhood friend/adulthood lover is actually the Lord of the Heavens himself, revered for his benevolence and feared for his power by thousands across the land.
“I don’t know what she’s playing at,” Hashirama says darkly, unaware of Madara's brief internal crisis. “There’s no way that she can possibly find out I’m still seeing you. I made sure of it.”
“My clothes spontaneously turned into bees the other day,” Madara says. “When I jumped into the river to get rid of them, a naiad tried to drown me. She was extremely polite about it, but still. Your wife definitely knows something is up.”
“She doesn’t know about this.”
“Explain the bees and the naiad I fought off, then.”
“Aren’t you going to atleast thank me for the clothes I left for you?”
“You owed me those clothes."
Hashirama sighs. “Mito likes her games, but she’s not unreasonable. Of all my lovers, you're the one she should begrudge the least."
"And why is that?"
"You're violent, disrespectful and — no offence — your hair smells sometimes. You're no princess and you can bear me no children. You're not even immortal, so you'll just die in a few years anyway. In the grand scheme of things, your life is worthless. I can't understand why she's still paying attention to you."
"....must be all the declarations of love."
"No, I tell everyone I sleep with that I love them." He pauses and then hastily amends, "But you're the only one with whom I've ever really meant it! Anyway, gods aren't omniscient. She doesn't know I'm actually in love with you."
Madara straddles Hashirama. As he sinks down on him, he wishes that he had his own body; that he could just spend the rest of his relatively short life with Hashirama as himself, without the annoyance of simultaneously looking over his shoulder for a vengeful goddess and being treated like a nutcase by his family.
He promptly supresses those thoughts. Simple goatherds do not have the time for melancholy.
"Do you love her?" It's a clinical question.
"I do. Not how I love you, of course, but I do. How can I not? She's my other half, she's the goddess of family and tranquility, she's— Oh."
"Hm?" Madara enquires, running soft, small hands down Hashirama’s godly biceps.
Hashirama grins at Madara. "I know what needs to be done."
“We’re just simple goatherds,” Itachi mutters. He hikes Sasuke higher up on his hip. “We shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
In front of them, their camp is overrun by monsters of all shapes and sizes. Under the all-seeing moonlight, crimson-eyed clanspeople of all ages dance through the beasts, stabbing and slashing with gleeful abandon while the communal goats bleat in their pens in alarm. Kagami, Naori and Naka seem to be competing over who can take out most monsters before the night ends. By the smell of it, someone has even broken out the extra potent batch of mandrake wine.
“We’re just simple goatherds,” Itachi repeats stubbornly.
Shisui knocks their shoulders together playfully. “You know as well as I do that that’s a damned lie.”
They watch as a maniacally cackling Madara takes a running leap and lands on the Giant that’s apparently leading the attack. His eyes leave glowing streaks of red as he expertly weaves through flailing tentacles, chopping a few of them off with his wicked scythe in the process. Corrosive, golden blood sprays everywhere, turning the very ground it lands on infertile, but not quite managing to harm any of the Uchiha that get caught in the spray.
"Wasn't he going senile?" Itachi comments.
"Reckon he just needed to let off some steam," Shisui replies. "All of us do."
Itachi sighs and holds Sasuke out in front of him with both hands.
“Well, Sasuke?” He says solemnly. “Do you want to kill your first monster?”
“Mah!” Sasuke exclaims, an eerily bloodthirsty expression on his little face.
Shisui smiles fondly. “I’ll get him a spare crook.”
Itachi straps Sasuke securely on his back. He strikes his crook against the ground twice and it transforms into a fiery sword. Shisui coaxes two crooks into revealing their true forms and hands the spare sword to Sasuke, which shrinks to adjust to his tiny grip.
Eyes spinning red, the two preteens and one infant jump into the fray.
A few hours later, Olympus is in uproar.
“—escape Tartarus—”
“—sealed and destroyed—”
“—what did they want to achieve—”
“—check with Delphi—”
“—against protocol—”
“—the Great War—”
Seated on their thrones and fully armed and armoured, the Council of Gods argues loudly among itself. All of the Uchiha, from the babies to the elderly, stand rigidly in the centre of the divine throne hall, awaiting their judgement. Hashirama tries to catch Madara’s (red?) eye, who studiously avoids his gaze.
Half an hour later, Tsunade breaks out the wine. Gai devolves into speaking only in rhymes. Mito starts sharpening a blade with a loud whetstone, and the cacophony rises to a crescendo.
Hashirama gives them a fifteen more minutes to tire themselves out. Then, he raises his palm, and the room drops into silence as all eyes swivel towards him.
“Regardless of the technicalities," he says, "these mortals have displayed immense courage in protecting their realm. Courage the likes of which is seen only in the noblest of heroes. For that, we must reward them with a boon.”
“One boon to each or one to the entirety of their clan?” Touka asks.
“Excellent question! Granting thirty seven individual boons will be cumbersome. I say one for the whole lot of them.”
“Yeah, the parchmentwork is a real nightmare these days. Thanks, Hiruzen."
"Proper documentation must be followed where proper documentation is due," Hiruzen says primly and Touka makes a face.
Hashirama interrupts before another squabble can break out. “Noble Uchiha,” he pronounces grandly. His bronze skin is radiant and the air around him thrums with power. He hopes Madara finds the display impressive. “Speak your deepest desire and I shall make it come true.”
The Uchiha shuffle closer together to whisper furiously among themselves.
“Ahem,” Fugaku says after a few minutes of intense discussion. “Lord Zeus, we are immensely honoured by your kindness. If it is not too much to ask, we wish for you to grant us nicer, sturdier tents, please.”
Hashirama’s aura falters for a second before flaring back. “Are you sure? What about immortality? Ascension to godhood? Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
There’s some more heated whispering.
“We are quite unanimous in our desire for better tents, My Lord. We are but simple goatherds.”
“I understand,” he smiles pleasantly, suppressing the tic in his eyebrow. “But don’t you think it’s a waste of this great opportunity? Slaying one of the great Giant kings and decimating his fearsome army is no mean feat.”
Tajima taps Fugaku on the shoulder and whispers something into his ear before retreating back into the crowd.
“There is wisdom in your words, My Lord,” Fugaku says politely. “We apologise for our simple thinking. If it is not too much to ask, we would like to be blessed with the happiest and healthiest goats in the realm, for generations to come.”
Hashirama feels the beginnings of a headache — he should have known that the rest of Madara’s family would be as difficult as him.
Madara himself is still refusing to make eye contact. Not for the first time, Hashirama briefly considers smiting Madara for the offence, but then remembers that he loves the silly, dramatic man far too much to ever kill him on a whim.
“Hashirama,” Jiaraiya drawls, a lipstick smear on his temple. “Just give these mortals their goats and be done with it. I have some Muses I must entertain.”
“Mortals?” Tobirama finally explodes, with the distinct air of someone who’s maintained silence so far only out of consideration for decorum. He gestures violently at the Uchiha, specifically at their luminous crimson eyes. “Brother, I don’t know what these things are, but they are not mortals.”
“We are!” Someone protests, albeit ineffectually.
“We don’t know what they are,” Tobirama continues firmly, addressing the entire room now. “We don’t know what their objectives are and where their alliances lay. If they have managed to operate undetected until now, it is only because sinister forces are at play.” This gets a few considering nods. “There is only one option. We must eradicate this threat while we still have the chance.”
“All in favour of instant culling, raise your hands,” Danzo says immediately, raising his hand.
The words are barely out of his mouth when the hall bursts into black flames. The Council gasps and a few reflexive arrows go flying into the fire.
As one, the Uchiha gracefully drop to their knees, their faces turned upwards.
“Blessed Children,” a bone-rumbling, primordial voice slithers through the hall. The floor shakes and the Stygian flames flare higher, viciously eating through the decorative silk tapestry.
“Exalted Father,” the Uchiha chorus as if in a trance, staring blankly at the apex of the domed ceiling. Blood starts rolling down their cheeks, even the children’s. Hashirama surreptitiously glances up but sees only smoke, and neither do his eyes bleed.
“What are the only two rules I have always insisted you abide by?” The voice purrs, dangerously low.
“Tend to your goats and don’t mess with the gods, Exalted Father,” the Uchiha chant.
“And what did you do?”
“We tended to our goats and did not mess with the gods, Exalted Father.”
“Did you, now?”
“Yes, Exalted Father. We revealed our Blessed Eyes to protect our goats. It is the gods who chose to mess with us.”
“Correct,” the voice growls. “Hashirama.”
Hashirama straightens. His bramble crown has begun to smoke. “Yes, Lord Indra?”
“You will grant my children, present and future, immortality.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“My blood will be Olympus’ first line of defence in The Great War That Is To Come.”
“As you wish, Uncle.”
“My children will no longer live in filth. Unless they desire to, of course.”
“That is all I want too, Uncle.”
"Generations will sing about their ruthlessness in battle."
"I will personally see to it, Uncle."
The crowd of Uchiha starts to fidget.
“Is there anything you would like to add, Blessed Children?”
“Exalted Father,” Izumi’s reedy little voice pipes up. “Um, our goats…”
“Hashirama.”
“Still here, Uncle.” His hair is on fire.
“No harm will come to their little pets.”
“Of course, Uncle.”
“And Hashirama?”
“Yes?”
“My Eyes see all. I know what you did.”
“I— Ahem. I see.”
“Your tenacity towards your goals pleases me.”
“T—Thank you,” Hashirama squeaks.
As abruptly as they had come, the flames disappear, leaving heaps of charcoal, lumps of molten metal and dramatic scorch marks in their wake. The Council can only gape as the Uchiha rise and wipe at their bloody faces, with the distinct, awkward air of teenagers who have been thoroughly embarassed in public by their overenthusiastic parents.
“So!” Hashirama says with forced cheer, clapping his hands together and drawing attention back to himself. “That’s that, huh?”
Mito stands, her face and armour blackened with soot. Madara subtly disappears into the protective mass of his brethren.
“The way forward has been laid down for us,” she announces. “However, there is still a process to how we do things in Olympus. At the end of the day, we gods still have the freedom of choice. There will be a formal vote.” She lifts her hand. “All in favour of welcoming Lord Indra’s blood into our family, raise your hands.”
Hashirama’s hand shoots up immediately. The vote passes unanimously.
“Cousin,” Mito says, stepping out of an alcove and scaring the living daylights out of Madara. The fact that she's almost twice his height does nothing to calm his sense of paranoia. “Walk with me.”
With no less trepidation, he falls into step beside her. "Where are we going?"
"Does it really matter?"
Madara chooses to not answer that.
“You know,” Mito says after a few minutes of torturous silence. “I don’t really hate you.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Madara mutters under his breath.
Mito chuckles. “Believe it or not, everything I did to you was for Hashirama’s benefit more than it was for my amusement.”
“...okay.”
“My husband is...an extremely selfish man, Madara. Childishly so. When it comes to personal relationships, he lacks commitment and where the daily affairs of mortals are concerned, he lacks foresight. Everything I did was to make him realise how dear you were to him.”
Madara wants to ask her if she's realised how far her head is up her ass.
“Right,” he says instead.
“And it worked, didn’t it? He usually stops caring after the first one or two times, but with you, he opposed me at every step. His dedication to you was as admirable as it was surprising. I am the goddess of family and tranquility, after all. I would be foolish to not see or support the happiness he finds with you.”
“Hm.”
“Of course, you also happened to be extremely entertaining to toy with.”
“Thanks.”
They come to a stop outside a room with ornately carved wooden doors.
“A word of advice, Madara,” Mito says. “Hashirama is used to getting what he wants. What he needs, however, is someone who can suppress his worst tendencies while encouraging his best ones.”
“Noted,” Madara says stiffly.
Mito sharply knocks on the door with her knuckles.
“Coming!” Hashirama calls faintly from inside.
Mito’s eyes sparkle. “If you ever want to have a chat with a friend about how difficult he's being, my chambers are always open. I understand you are partial to mandrake wine?"
She reaches for his face. Madara flinches. She huffs out a laugh and pats his cheek. It feels a lot like being slapped by a large brick.
“Madara!” Hashirama beams, thankfully human-sized when he opens the door. He draws him into a hug and kicks the door shut. “I was just coming to find you!”
“Well,” Madara speaks into his shoulder, “here I am.”
Hashirama holds him out at arm’s length. “So.”
“So,” Madara parrots back stupidly. He thinks he’s grinning.
“Looks like I wasn’t the only one with secrets.”
“Father had his rules.” Yep, he's definitely grinning.
“So,” Hashirama repeats, a sheepish smile on his face. “In the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that I was the one who orchestrated the attack on your camp.”
Madara can’t even find it in himself to be angry. “I’m assuming it was another one of your dumb plans.”
“It was a solid plan!” Hashirama protests. “You’d take down a monster or two and I’d turn you into the god of goatherds for your bravery. If you’re a god, you’re one of us, and therefore Mito’s family. She wouldn’t hurt her family, and she would also get to see how I find my peace with you. Going against us would have been going against her job description. You and I could’ve been together forever.”
“People could have died, you know.”
“A small price to pay for the love of a god— Ow! I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Madara, dear, I would have intervened before things got to that point. Obviously."
"You sent a Giant into my home."
"It's not my fault that you lot dispatched the first few monsters so quickly. My aim was to make your feats look as heroic as possible, so I had to release Eurymedon for it to be a real challenge. Also,” he clears his throat, “you were really sexy down there. I was sad to see the battle end. We should— erm, we should spar sometime.”
As he watches Hashirama’s cheeks darken, Madara feels a sudden surge of kinship with Mito. He hopes that her offer of being a sympathetic ear was genuine and not another convoluted attempt at taking him out of the picture.
Madara sighs. “You tried to change my way of life.”
“You can still go back to pretending to be a simple goatherd. I don't mind, as long as we get to spend some time together every now and then.”
“You tried to change my way of life without consulting me, Hashirama.”
Hashirama grins. “I’m not apologising.”
“Good,” Madara growls and walks him back till the back of Hashirama's knees hit the bed. He shoves him down and clambers on top of him. “You have no idea how hard it's been, repressing the tendencies Father passed down to us.”
Hashirama runs his hand along Madara's hair and pulls him down, closer. "You smell like blood and smoke," he murmurs.
"Been an eventful couple of hours."
"Mm. I like it."
There's a beat of silence, and Hashirama starts beaming again, smug and looking beyond pleased with himself.
"I love you," Madara blurts out, far too loudly. Throwing it out in the open makes him cringe inside, but he powers on. "You're a dumbfuck like every god, but you're my best friend and you've always been by my side. And I love you. I've never told you this before."
Hashirama's mouth softens into a smile. "I know your soul, Madara. You didn't have to tell me. But I am very, very happy that you did."
Madara is twenty five when kisses Hashirama in his own body, on a bed, for the very first time. And even though everything he'd planned for has technically gone to shit, he finds that he doesn't really mind it at all.
FIN.