Hashirama first hallucinated approximately four months after killing Madara Uchiha.
His life up until then had been rough at times; his days oddly void when he was alone and his nights not seldom consumed by nightmares.
(When the morning would come, he'd never remember just exactly what he had seen in his dreams, but the stench of blood would fill his nose and sometimes Mito would look at him sadly and embrace him until he'd stop shaking.)
The Hokage was on a stroll through the forests surrounding his beloved village (so beloved) to take his mind off of the empty feeling in his chest and the heavy weight of duty. He took his wife along, because he couldn't stand being by himself for too long lately.
And then it happened for the first time.
He had just been staring ahead, trying to focus on the woman's soft voice and her words, when he spotted a figure seated on a branch in the crown of one of the trees. Out of habit (because they had peace now, finally) he took the warrior's stance.
The figure made no move, but something about the sight of it filled Hashirama's veins with ice and made his lungs contract painfully in his chest.
He blinked, and suddenly the person was gone.
"Did you see that person, Mito?" he questioned, but she merely shook her head no, wide-eyed and full of concern. His eyebrows furrowed and he glanced back at the place where he had seen the person, perched there as if seated on a throne.
"I must have imagined it. I am sorry if I scared you" he said and offered his wife a gentle smile, and she smiled that sad smile she sometimes wore when the soldier in him came to the surface.
From that day on, Hashirama felt an ominous presence accompanying him everywhere he went.
It was unsettling, the feeling couldn't be shaken off and the hunter never revealed himself, so he didn't even know what to run from, and if not maybe, he should be chasing it. (At least it meant he wasn't alone.)
Sometimes Hashirama would catch a glimpse of the figure that nobody else seemed to notice, and every time that happened, the void in his chest would expand and swallow him whole and he'd spend the rest of the day in a daze. (His family noticed, but perhaps they didn't know how to handle it and let it slide. "Give him time" he'd heard Tobirama say to a distraught Mito.)
Three months after the first mysterious spotting, and an hour after Mito's pregnancy had been confirmed, Hashirama met the figure once more.
He had stumbled into his bedroom, joy over the news still tingling inside him and warming his heart, but also as tired as a man who has lived a thousand years.
Madara is sprawled on the bed. "There you are" drawls the familiar voice, tone slightly accusing as if Hashirama were late for their meeting.
The man on the bed rose (always so graceful) from the mattress. Hashirama fell back a step and used the wall for support, because his legs felt too weak to be trusted to keep him upright.
Madara smirked at the display, and Hashirama felt like vomiting.
The room spun dangerously for a moment, but Hashirama withstood the force pulling him down and pushed himself away from the wall in order to face his old friend with just a bit more of dignity.
He had to think, quickly, but his thoughts were a jumbled mess in knots and clearing it didn't work how it always used to.
While Hashirama's own body was betraying him, the dead man walked towards him leisurely. In life his movements were always hurried and stiff as if he expected the world to fall back into war any second. (In death he'd finally found peace then, well wasn't that fantastic.)
Before the Senju had fully comprehended the situation, Madara's arms were around him and his lips on his own.
"You're dead" he stated when Madara pulled back (he didn't push him away as he should have). "Of course I am" the other snarled back, his features pulling into an ugly grimace of anger. Within a second, his expression relaxed again and an eerily calm look entered his eyes instead, somehow much scarier than any wrath and fury could be.
"You made sure of it" Madara said casually, no accusation or bitterness in his tone, if anything, there was a mirth. Hashirama watched with dread as Madara took another step back, a ghost of a face on his corpse-white face.
As in slow-motion, a flower of red blooms on the front of Madara's shirt. First only a tiny spot of dark red on the fabric that slowly morphed into a large stain over where Madara's heart used to beat. It is quiet, until the innocent drip-dripping sound of blood disrupts the silence.
Hashirama merely watches in silent horror as his friend seemingly dies a second time before his very eyes, from a lethal wound that he had dealt him.
The disturbing gentle smile that Madara wore as he bled out turned cruel at Hashirama's despair and grief. "It isn't very pretty, is it?" the dead man questioned as if he were talking about the weather, and Hashirama felt lightheaded again, his body trembling as Madara stepped closer once more.
With a thud, Hashirama fell to the floor, head raised and gaze fixated on the spot where he knew he ran his sword through that fateful day. But it was too easy to catch sight of that smirk, so he placed his shaking hands over his eyes so he wouldn't see anything anymore.
Hashirama flinched when a pair of hands grasped his wrists and carefully pulled his hands away from his face. He wanted to fight it, he did not want to see, yet he lacked the strength to defend himself against that gentle yet persistent pull.
The face he saw when his hands were at his sides was that of his deeply concerned wife.
Madara was nowhere to be seen.
There was no blood on the floor.
(And somehow he knew that it had never been there.)
Madara returned soon, no longer hiding as a shadow at the edge of Hashirama's vision, but openly revealing himself to him.
Sometimes though, he played games with Hashirama, leaving a trail of crimson on the polished floorboards in Hashirama's home. The first time, Hashirama had panicked and tried to scrub away the blood so that Mito wouldn't see and ask, and he'd have to reply that the man he killed had bled out all over the floor. (Mito would know which of his many victims he meant by that.)
The problem was just that there was no blood, not until he had scrubbed so long that his own hands bled and Mito walked in.
And that is how he knew.
He was being haunted by the ghost of Madara Uchiha.
(He knew, he went insane.)
Living with the ghost of his friend was hard in the beginning. It served as a constant reminder that Madara, the real Madara, was gone (taken out of the world by nobody but him). This thing was a living memory, not a real being.
And sometimes the ache of missing Madara took away Hashirama's breath.
But months pass, and the Senju manages to even get used to this ghost.
It still hurts, when he sees Madara as he walks down the street, but he is the only one who sees him, and when he looks away for a second and then back again, then Madara is always gone (as if Hashirama had imagined him).
(the pain was dull by now, like the edge of that sword that he never touched again.)
Hashirama and the ghost never spoke much; just when Hashirama lied in bed with his sleeping wife and absently rubbed her swollen belly, Madara would lie down behind him, wrap his arms around him like he never did when he was still alive, and he would whisper terrible, accusing words into Hashirama's ear, and Hashirama would feel Madara's blood soaking the sheets.
The world kept spinning. Years passed. Madara never left.
(He left long ago, it was Hashirama who didn't let go.)
When Hashirama held his first-born son, after a long and difficult birth, Madara was there and told Hashirama not to touch that child with those blood-stained hands. When Hashirama made love to Mito, or kissed, or held her, Madara afterwards pressed their lips together, as if remind him to whom he really belonged.
(Hashirama wondered if this would count as him cheating.)
(Could you cheat on someone you love with a hallucination?)
(Or was he cheating on Madara by loving Mito now?)
Hashirama ran his village, and managed his family, but he forever avoided being alone with that ghost. Whenever he did, Hashirama covered his eyes and pretended not to hear a word.
Hashirama's body is slumped against a rock; the hard sharp edges would hurt, if the Senju's body hadn't gone numb already. The last desperate sparks of chakra dance across his skin in an attempt to heal the worst of the damage, but Hashirama knows too well that the gash the enemy tore into the flesh of his abdomen will not close.
He has accepted his fate.
He thinks of his wife, of his children and little Tsuna as the life pours out of the wound, not wanting to leave them behind, but knowing that he must. At least like this, none of them will have to watch them die, that sight they must not bear.
(But Hashirama is selfish and he doesn't want to die alone.)
"Hashirama" calls Madara, and Hashirama is surprised to see him here. The older he got, the less frequent he hallucinated, slowly dealing with the pain eating away at his broken heart. The last time he had seen Madara had been over a week ago, compared to Madara's constant presence when he first showed up.
Madara looks older now, which strikes Hashirama as odd because the ghost haunting him never aged. There is also no bloody stain on his front, no blood dripping; Madara now is dressed in a plain black robe that swallows him. Hashirama wonders if he is wearing it in mourning.
The other crouches down besides his dying body and regards him with a cold sort of curiosity, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. A pale hand emerged from one of the too long sleeves and reached out, pressing down on the injury. First lightly, then with increasingly more pressure until red leaked out from between his fingers and a pained hiss escaped Hashirama.
When Madara frowns, Hashirama cannot help but chuckle, even if it causes him more pain. "Sorry, Madara. I'm not longer the God of Shinobi it seems" he tells him apologetically. The Uchiha obviously doesn't appreciate his humor and shoots him a glare, immediately looking much younger.
"Stupid old man" he hisses, "getting yourself killed by some nobody. Peace—" "Made me weak" finishes Hashirama for him, and Madara looks vaguely pleased. 'At least you can see it too' says the look in his tired eyes.
"This death doesn't fit you" mutters Madara after a short moment of silence, now playing with a strand of Hashirama's matted hair, something akin to regret in his tone. Hashirama feels rather flattered. "You would've rather had you had been the one to kill me" he observes, knowing full well it was stupid to feel flattered because a creation of his own broken mind indirectly complimented him.
"We are equals. Of course the only hand you should die at is mine."
Hashirama shudders, because a strange amused glint has entered Madara's eyes that is rather unsettling, as if Madara knew something he doesn't know.
Hashirama coughs, more blood pouring forth, and he wonders silently if Madara will stay until the end.
There is shuffling and then Madara leans against the same rock as Hashirama, winds his arm around his neck and pulls him over to kiss him. (Hashirama had forgotten how warm Madara is, but wait, why is Madara warm?)
The seconds their lips part, Madara has rammed a kunai deeply into Hashirama's chest, a little below his weakly beating heart.
Hashirama chokes as blood fills his lungs, but his main concern is Madara, who stands up slowly and dusts off the robes he is wearing. The dying man struggles to reach out to him, grab the black fabric and keep Madara by his side, telling him all these things that he had always failed to tell him when he was still alive, but Madara easily brushes him off, a smirk on his handsome face.
He waves, once, and then leaves Hashirama to die alone.
(And to wonder, how could a ghost kill him?)