Chapter Text
At the riverside, Madara calls out to his friend excitedly; “Hashirama!”, and the choppy-haired boy turns with a grin, play-throwing his skipping rock in the Uchiha’s general direction, sending it wide so that it wouldn’t strike true. The other boy responds with forced outrage.
These are the best days of their lives - and they don’t know it yet.
—
“Hashirama. Why this?”, he thinks to himself. For the first time, Madara’s eyes are aglow with the sharingan’s red. They’re kept wisely turned away from his father’s face, Hashirama notices. He knows his friend better than his own father does.
He knows - or at least thinks he knows - what awakening the sharingan truly means. A loss of something which defines one’s life. He knows that Madara has lost three brothers and, still, this - this is the defining moment for his friend. The death of hope, of joy, and he tries not to think of what that implies.
That night, Madara is kept awake by his clansmen for celebration. Their most promising young warrior finally releasing it is a good sign. They tell him that he’s a man now, and he tries not to think of what that implies.
—
When Tobirama’s blade tears open Izuna’s side, Madara rushes to his brother. When Hashirama intercepts him, his voice is guarded, gaze level and direct. More than anything, he wants to protect Izuna. More than anything, he wants to get away from this place.
“Hashirama…”
The Senju casts aside his sword and raises the hand of friendship. In spite of the bleeding brother in his arms, visions swirl of days at the river spent dreaming, chatting and skipping rocks. If he could have those idyllic years back—
It’s Izuna that stops him and reminds him of all that he’s lost. The hurt in his voice is what carries them from the field.
Hashirama stands there. He will one day be recognized as the God of Shinobi. He could hunt and route them: he knows where they are going. Instead, he lingers to argue with his own brother, playing dumb, pretending that he is less capable than he is. When the other Uchiha surrender, he pleads their case.
—
“Hashirama!”
When they meet again, it’s with hatred aglow in Madara’s eyes. His Susano’o stretches above him, wreathed in eldritch blue light. Again and again through the transcourse of a fight that never seems to end, Hashirama tries to plead with him.
“Hashirama!”
“Madara!”
Their fight lasts a full day. At its end, Madara lays defeated and he prays, prays, to see his brother once again. But first: he would see the score settled. A life for a life. Izuna’s, for Hashirama’s or Tobirama’s.
When Hashirama strips himself of his armor, panic rises in Madara’s chest suddenly, unbidden. With all the strength that he has left, Madara stops him. If he’s to survive, he doesn’t want to lose this too. Not Hashirama.
Hashirama, of the idiotic laugh. Hashirama, the dreamer. Hashirama, the kind, the gentle. A man so great that exploiting his power or influence never occurs to him.
—
“Hashirama! Wake up.”
Madara keeps his face willfully blank, hands on his hips as he considers the slumped figure on the desk.
—
A girl intimidated by Madara’s scowl is placated by Hashirama’s flowers. The greatest man that he’s ever known smiles, and something in his chest shifts sideways.
“Hashirama.”
His voice commands the man’s attention again.
—
Time passes and Madara receives less and less of Hashirama’s attention. His dark eyes are drawn to other things, and to other people. The man’s heart is grand - bigger than anyone’s ought to be, the Uchiha thinks - and he showers his affection and regard on all equally. Naturally, he comes to receive less of it.
Just because Madara’s world revolves around him does not mean that Hashirama’s does. The Senju, he realizes bitterly, has more to live for.
—
Repeatedly, Hashirama tries to get Madara to open his heart.
He looks at Hashirama through a leaf, enjoying the sight of the sun’s rays gilding the man’s hair. Light’s edge makes it shine. The Uchiha’s affection is reserved, and the man receiving it never seems to notice.
—
Later, Madara is possessed by something that Hashirama recognizes easily as hatred. The light in his eyes is the same now as it was the day his sharingan was first awakened. For the first time, Hashirama feels that he’s truly lost him.
—
Hashirama sees him in the places that he used to occupy. Often, he finds himself calling out to ghosts, sharing his latest ideas with a man that no longer graces his side.
When they fight, it comes as little surprise. Hashirama’s heart has space for more than one, unlike Madara’s.
—
Years pass. Hashirama has come and gone, and Madara avoids learning how the first hokage died. The man didn’t outlive him by much.
One day, someone will remark that Hashirama didn’t want to outlive his childhood friend. The thought makes him furious. The thought makes him glad.
And more than anything, anything at all, Madara feels that he has something to prove to a man that no longer lives. It’s for his sake, after-all. All for him. If only Hashirama could have seen that, if only he could have just understood…
—
“Hashirama…”
In his old age, Madara often talks in his sleep. At times, Obito finds himself thinking of the man as some kind of tree. Aged beyond comprehension, withered beyond belief. There’s a wrongness to him which is unsettling at times, but he knows it to be common in elderly shinobi.
All those years wear on someone. All that killing, all that witnessing killing, does something to them. Rather than think to save him, Obito thinks it may well be better to take a torch to him. Once something has rotted like that, there’s no changing it.
Obito is sure of this because he's felt the same way ever since Rin died.