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Hashirama Senju died two weeks ago.
It was a quiet death and an even quieter funeral, quite the opposite of what one would expect for someone hailed as the God of Shinobi. Being such a figure, though, Hashirama knew his impending death would affect the tentative balance that he had struck between the Five Great Nations, so his last official order was for his funeral to be a private affair, just for family and close friends, and for no word of his death to be announced, not even to the Konoha public, until a month after his passing, time enough for his successor, his brother, to be comfortably situated into the role of Second Hokage.
Despite valiant effort, however, people began to gossip:
“Lord First hasn’t given an address in nearly three weeks. That is unlike him.”
“It has never been officially confirmed, but it is clear he has been ill for some time.”
“Lord Tobirama has been absent as well. Perhaps it is connected.”
Within ten days, all of Konoha knew, from their own presumptions, that their leader had passed. It took only four more days for the news to reach past the northernmost tip of the Land of Fire, into unclaimed territory, and to a man long presumed dead.
Madara had almost believed that Hashirama would never die, could never die. He was a man bigger than life itself, so it was logical to assume he was more powerful than death as well. No man, no group of one hundred men, could kill him, and Madara simply could not imagine another way for him to die.
Gods did not succumb to illness.
Disbelief was partly why Madara had traveled three days to Konohagakure. His eyes had never failed him, and so he needed to see for himself the stiff, cold body, the pale, bloated corpse, the maggots, the sludge, the bones, in order to believe what he had overheard two village farmers, two nobodies, discussing in a sweet potato field.
There was another reason too, a much softer and gentler reason, but Madara chose not to acknowledge that.
Madara had expected Konoha to look completely different from the last time he had seen it. He had also expected those feelings of anger, of betrayal, of hatred, to resurface, to bubble over from his gut up into his throat, choking him, burning him, the moment he passed over the village border. But neither of those things occurred. Instead, the dirt roads and the rich oak buildings that he remembered all too well called out to him, like a mother whose son had returned home after a journey far too long.
“I missed you,” they whispered through the soft gusts of wind, “Please tell me that this time, you will stay.”
His heart pushed against his ribcage, that desperate, aching feeling of emptiness, of longing, making his brittle bones crack under its weight. Konoha, though, deserved no such feelings. It was not home, and, he thought bitterly, it never had been. It was hard convincing himself of that, though, as he passed by buildings he remembered helping construct himself. He pulled his hooded cloak tighter around himself, concealing himself from passersby and cutting off his periphery, blocking the familiar sights of the village. It made the aching in his chest subside.
Overhead, there was the distant rumble of thunder.
Even the cemetery was practically unchanged since he had last seen it, its staticity a testament to the peace that had resulted from Hashirama’s vision and had persisted since his own departure. Flat headstones peeked out of the grass in neat rows, the newer ones in the front with sharp, deeply-carved letters that stood out against the pale granite. The older ones sat in the back, many of those having names but no bodies beneath, as they were merely memorials for those who had passed on before the village had been founded in one of the many, many wars.
In the very back, though, there was a plot of freshly dug earth underneath a large oak tree. There was no grave marker, not even a plain, uncarved rock, but Madara knew immediately who it was for. He walked over to it and stood at the foot of the grave.
The cemetery was silent. The only sound that Madara could hear was the soft rustling of leaves of the tree above. They were just starting to lose their color, many of them a pale yellow-orange that signaled the beginning of fall. A few had already fallen off and laid brown and dried out beneath his feet. Not even the birds were chirping, all taking shelter from the impending storm as growing clouds slowly darkened the sky. It seemed as if nature itself was mourning.
“He asked for you.”
Madara turned around and saw a woman standing alone in the middle of the cemetery dressed in a simple black kimono. Mito.
“On his last day, he asked for you to be with him.”
Madara pulled his hood down, revealing himself. “Yes, well, then perhaps he shouldn’t have killed me.”
“You don’t look dead to me.”
The unfortunately went unsaid. Mito came closer, now just a few feet away, and Madara’s lip twitched. She had never been intimidated by him, and he had always hated her for that. It was the kind of hate, though, that had no real teeth to it and would always burn itself out whenever he tried to stoke it.
She looked different from the last time he had seen her. Her flame colored hair had lost some of its color, now merely a dull bronzy brown. Her face, too, was pallid, the only color coming from the rouge on her lips, which looked almost foolish in its attempt to make her appear youthful. Her eyes, though, were exactly the same as he remembered: piercing, lucid, and stubbornly intense.
He wondered then what Hashirama must have looked like. Had his deep, silky hair gone wiry and gray? Had his flushed face been marred with lines and wrinkles? Had his plump cheeks sunken in?
Had his eyes still been just as warm as they had been the first time he saw them, all those years ago?
Madara turned back around, and Mito kept walking until she was standing next to him, a vague outline in his periphery. The tags in her hair billowed in the wind. They stood together silently, their gazes fixed on the fresh dirt.
“Tobirama wants a monument,” she said suddenly, almost casually, as if she were talking about something as simple as the weather, “a testament to the Will of Fire.”
“Why should I care what that idiot wants?”
Mito didn’t reply. Madara glanced over at her, but she wasn’t looking at him, her gaze still fixed on the grave. Her lips, though, had formed into a tight line. Madara could see her chin quivering.
“What do you want?” he found himself asking in a rare, precious moment of kindness.
“I don’t know. I almost don’t want anything, not even a headstone.”
Madara hummed. He almost expected her to ask him the same question until he realized how grossly presumptuous that was. He was not his brother, and he was certainly not his husband. He was not even a member of the village. He had no right to give his opinion on how Hashirama should be remembered.
Still, though, he found that the tree he was buried under now suited him quite nicely.
“He asked for you to be memorialized next to him.”
Madara couldn’t help the puff of air that escaped him upon hearing that, half a sigh and half laughter. Hashirama would waste his final breaths asking for something as inane as that. Mito’s lip turned upwards into the closest thing she could manage that resembled a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. They were growing wetter the longer they stood there, but she refused to let the tears fall.
Madara wondered if Hashirama had asked for her to be buried next to him as well. He supposed it didn’t matter either way. Nobody truly ever heeded dying men’s requests. Mito would be buried next to him if that’s what she wanted, if that’s what Tobirama wanted, if that’s what the village wanted.
Did it make him a bad person if he hoped he hadn’t asked?
Madara kicked at the dirt that seemed to mock him.
The grave was so still, so peaceful, and Madara began to wonder against his wishes whether his last few days had been peaceful as well. He didn’t care, he so desperately didn’t want to care, but all he could think of as he stared at the still dirt was whether his pillow had been soft enough, whether he had had enough water to drink, whether he had had a hand to hold.
“Had he been happy?”
The words escaped his mouth before he could bite off his tongue to stop them.
Mito gave no indication that she heard. She stood as stiff and cold as marble, the wind that was rustling her fabric hiding her small tremors.
“I think that a part of him died with you that day, out by the valley,” she finally said. Without the evocation of you, you, you, Madara would have been convinced she was talking to herself. “He was much quieter, sadder, after that. He was distant, like he was searching for something that was lost and was never coming back. There was nothing I could do to reach him, and I tried. I tried so hard.”
Madara said nothing. His heart felt heavy in his ribcage. He was suddenly painfully aware of the stolen cells metastasizing in his chest, and he wanted nothing more than to rip them out. Maybe the blood loss would kill him. Mito finally turned to look at him.
“Did you ever love him?” she asked.
Madara saw himself reflected in her eyes, weak, haggard, and old. Matted hair, sunken eyes, and a hunched, bony frame.
Pitiful.
Clinging desperately onto life in a world that brought nothing but pain.
How many years had it been? How many years had he spent alone? How many more must he endure?
I never stopped.
Madara opened his mouth to speak, but whatever words he was going to say died in his throat.
Mito dropped her gaze.
“Well, at least he is at peace now.”
No more words were exchanged between them. They simply stood together for what could have been seconds, or what could have been centuries, close enough for either of them to have reached out to the other, to take hold of their hand, though neither of them dared. A few times, Madara thought that he heard Mito sniffle, but her cheeks were always dry. It was strange, but he found that he wouldn’t have been bothered if she cried. She had the right to, after all, much more than he.
Then, Mito stepped forward and placed her hand against the tree. She stayed there for a few moments, head bowed, and then turned to leave.
Without looking at Madara, she said, “If you are not across the border by nightfall, I will personally alert every shinobi in this village of your presence.” The words were meant to be biting, but they lacked all sting.
Taking the kindness for what it was, Madara smiled.
“Goodbye, Mito.”
Mito didn’t reply, and Madara listened to the soft sound of her footfalls and crunching leaves as she made her way across the cemetery.
When he was finally alone, it started to rain.