Only one of us is going to be Hokage, and at this rate… Madara's not going to win. But what if…

Hashirama thought quickly—it was a rough idea, but it had potential.

"…What if we both became Hokage? The two founding heads, a representative from the Senju and the Uchiha. Even if they see me as the founder, there's no way that the Uchiha would refuse equal representation from their own clan." The words fell out of Hashirama's mouth before he could fully think them over. Tobirama's arms dropped from their crossed position in shock. "Give him a chance. I'll put the option out there and you'll see. We'll both be great leaders. I'm only asking you to try."

"Brother…" Tobirama's furrowed brow spoke volumes. "You already know that I do not trust him. Giving him an equal position in the leadership of the village…"

Hashirama set his hands flat on the desk, affirmed and fully committed to the idea already.

"I trust him. I always have. He was my friend long before he was ours. I think I would know who he is."

Tobirama's critical eyes sought his and Hashirama watched suspicion flash through red eyes. "I did say that the title would be decided by democracy. You're free to put your idea out to the advisors. We'll see what the village has to say about it."

Something flickered in Hashirama's periphery. His heart flipped uneasily, but he felt as if they'd dodged a particularly dangerous bullet. "Tobirama? Did you feel like someone was here?"

His white-haired brother shrugged carelessly, still visibly perturbed by the new developments. "I wasn't using my chakra. Anyway, we've been talking too long—we have to get to that meeting."

The light of the day was already fading into red by the time Hashirama was able to get out of the village meetings, but the difficulty of enduring the diplomacy of village leadership was worth it in the end. As expected, the idea had created waves among the Senju and Uchiha councilmembers, but the surprising amount of consideration that they gave the idea was enough to fuel Hashirama's hopes. There was still a divide between the two clans, but hopefully with the joint-Hokage idea they would be more willing to accept each other by example…

Hashirama yawned widely and stretched his arms, accidentally whacking the doorframe he was passing through in the process. "Agh!"

"Only you would manage to do that." Hashriama blinked rapidly and cleared his vision only to see Madara leaning against a fencepost a few meters in front of him looking half-smug and half-troubled.

"Hey! You wouldn't like to be stuck in five hour meetings as much as I would, Madara," Hashirama said, walking the few paces left to stand in front of his friend. "Were you waiting for me? You didn't have to."

Madara sniffed and tossed his head. "Not for long. I happened to be passing by." Hashirama smiled, touched, and was about to reply when a serious look entered his friend's eyes. "But I did want to discuss some things with you."

The smile dropped off his face and Hashirama moved to lean against the post next to Madara. "Is this about the Hokage position? There was an idea I put forth today—"

"Yes, I heard."

"How? Unless…"

Madara shifted, avoiding his eyes. "I was listening to your conversation with Tobirama, yes. I wanted to hear the council's reaction to your idea." That was all that Hashirama was looking to hear from him, completely forgetting the fact that Madara had eavesdropped on their conversation.

"It went surprisingly well, actually." Madara's eyes followed his gestures as he recounted the events of the meeting with enthusiasm. "They had taken it for granted that there would be only one leader for the village, they didn't even see it coming that there might be two! We spent the entire meeting discussing the merits of the idea. I think it would be good to have a sort of check-and-balance system with two heads of leadership." Hashirama paused. "The only caveat seems to stem from the same positive, I suppose. Decisions may not come as quickly or as conclusively as if they were from one person. There may be dissent because decisions are not unanimous without the other's approval. But that's give-and-take."

Madara nodded slowly, staring at the slowly darkening sky. "I see."

Hashirama frowned. "I know I told you I would nominate you for Hokage, and I still will, but... you are not adverse to sharing the position with me?" Madara's eyes slid from the sky to fix on Hashirama's eyes.

"If it's you, I'm sure it will be fine." A pause, and then Madara shoved his arm lightly and picked himself off of the fence, moving in the direction of the village's fledgeling market. "Let's go get dinner. Inarizushi sounds good."

It had been a week after the last village meeting and Hashirama was looking for Madara. The Senju and the Uchiha had taken a preliminary vote and the odds were in favor of the joint-Hokage position.

However, Hashirama was neither blind nor deaf. He didn't know if they were true, but there were rumors among the Uchiha of Madara having stolen Izuna's eyes. He was aware of the general sense of distrust between Madara and the Uchiha but was hesitant to believe it. Madara was no wild dog whose only instinct was to pitch himself into war. He had seen his better nature when they were young and he was confident that time had not eroded those hopeful ideals. He'd become what he was today out of the need to protect his family members.

Maybe he was wrong. But he had nothing but faith in his old friend. Both the Senju and Uchiha would see. Only time would tell.

But Hashirama frowned at Madara's exclusion from the village meetings. It was just more evidence of the rift that had opened up between the clan members and the clan head. But, Hashirama smiled, that would change with this meeting.

Which was why he was searching for Madara at this very moment. Madara usually wasn't this hard to find.

Hashirama sighed. There was no helping it then. He flipped off the rooftop that he'd perched on to land on the ground. Then he concentrated on gathering natural energy from the environment around him.

Madara was at the Nakano River. Doing what? His chakra was churning, swirling around him in billows of irascibility. A sense of unease settled in Hashirama's stomach.

Dispelling the collected natural energy, Hashirama launched himself up from his sitting position and into the direction of the Uchiha complex.

The violent splashing of water. Rocks viciously being thrown into the current.

Hashirama approached carefully, worry welling up deep in the pit of his stomach. "Madara?" A rock was thrown at his face with a dangerous velocity, but Hashirama caught it easily. "What…"

It was the rock Madara had skipped across the river when they were children. Run, it told him.

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"Why you still trust me after all we've been through. After what I kept doing to you." Hashirama kept his face carefully blank and Madara growled, looking away. "I kept besieging your clan. All the conflicts, you can't tell me that you still believed in me after all that." Another rock went spiraling into the water, disappearing quickly under the surface. The current did not stop.

"I always believed in you."

"Liar." Another rock.

"Maybe once or twice did I lose hope, but I always remembered when we'd talked about making that everlasting peace as children. At the core of things, I don't think you've changed."

There was a tense silence from Madara. The sun reflected brightly off the surface of the river, making the rocks on the riverbed glow an ethereal white from the light of high noon. It was exactly the same as he remembered it from his childhood. Hashirama flipped the rock over in his hands, noting how the words had blurred and faded into the ridges of the slate rock.

"You are a fool to think I haven't changed. We both changed. I changed more than you did," Madara said bitterly as he pitched another two rocks into the river. "My clan members do not even recognize me. I know you are not stupid, Hashirama, but surely your idealistic nature has not blinded you to the animosity my clan members have towards me."

Madara was… a broken man, Hashirama realized.

He exhaled sharply and picked up a rock. "War made us the way we are. I became an idealist. You needed to gain the power necessary to protect your loved ones. Everyone just has to realize what you've done for them." Hashirama stepped back and threw the rock, watching it fly from the palm of his hand and across the river in six skips. "You just have to put a little more passion into it. Make everyone believe you."

A few moments passed and Hashirama looked from the rock on the other side of the river to find Madara's attention fixed on him.

"You never ran from battle. Why?"

"I never had anything to run from." Hashirama said, looking at the skipping stone. He would not ask. "Should I have run?"

Madara said nothing, but he fingered the stone in his hand. He threw it up in the air, caught it, and flung it across the river. Hashirama chuckled and watched the stone fly across in seven skips. Suddenly, he remembered his purpose for finding his friend. "Oh, that's right. I need you to follow me to the council building." Madara blinked, surprised at the sudden change of topic. "Well, you don't actually need to come, but I thought you would like to hear what's going on with the whole village leader thing. The idea was tentatively approved just about an hour ago. I came right to get you since no one seems to know where you go sometimes."

Madara straightened, casting a strange look at his friend. "Doesn't matter. You cheat using Sage Mode anyway. And my clan approved it?"

Hashirama grinned. "The majority, yes. Much more than the Senju, obviously, but that'll come with time. We're only just getting started, after all."

A sigh escaped Madara's lips and a wry look settled onto his face. "Lead on, then."

"I can't believe…" Madara mumbled.

Hashirama chewed through his dango. "What did you say?"

"I said," Madara grumbled, picking at his sushi. "I can't believe that you're going to have our giant heads carved into that mountain."

Hashirama laughed and set down the now-clean dango stick that he'd just finished polishing off. "You're not worried about your looks, are you? I know I said that you had a face only a mother could love, but I'm sure the sculptor will do it justice." Another laugh escaped Hashirama's throat. "Though you might be more hair than face right now. Are you sure you don't want to get a haircut?"

Madara dropped his stick. "Take that back."

"What, the fact that in about a month from now the people will have a mass of hair as their Hokage?" Hashirama chuckled as he watched a vein throb in Madara's forehead.

"Like your hair is any better! Soft and smooth and cut like a woman's!"

The Senju fell forward, long brown hair in question falling in curtains around his face and obscuring his facial expression. "You don't really think that, do you?"

Hashirama heard Madara's chopsticks clatter onto his plate. "No, I don't really think that, you know how I make excuses…"

"It's alright, I know you're just jealous of how little care I have to put into my hair to get it this nice…"

"Stop using your depression issue to take advantage of me!"

Hashirama laughed and stole a piece of sushi off Madara's plate. The Senju and Uchiha passersby laughed nervously and walked by a little faster.

"Hey Madara, come here for a moment."

Madara eyed Hashirama suspiciously. "What's with the look? You don't look like that unless you've got a new jutsu or you know it's something I'm not going to like." He came closer anyway and as soon as he was in range, Hashirama unsealed the storage scroll, pulled out a geometrically-shaped red hat and swiftly placed it right on his friend's head before he realized what was happening.

"Hashirama, what…" Madara pulled the hat off his head and examined it. "'Fire'… oh, I remember. Don't tell me this is part of the Hokage uniform. First the monument and now this?"

"The Daimyo's design. Remember how he'd insisted? It just came in today, what do you think?"

"I didn't know the Daimyo had such bad taste in fashion," Madara said, but the disdain in his voice could not hide the childish excitement Madara seemed to exude. Madara replaced the hat back onto his head, looking in every direction as if to check his range of vision. The white cloth veil flowed gently with the light breeze of the high altitude of the future Hokage monument. "There's only one. Where's yours?"

Hashirama chortled. "Why would I wear something like that?"

Madara's single visible eye twitched.

"You're not leaving me alone to wear something as tacky as this!"

"I'm kidding. That's the prototype. Keep it. And it's not something that we have to wear all the time, anyway! It's only for the sake of ceremony." Hashirama unsealed the rest of the uniform in one succinct motion, holding the remainder of the Hokage uniform up for Madara to see. The fine silk of the red kimono and white haori fluttered in the wind. "What do you think?"

The Uchiha's hand fingered the red cloth of the Hokage's kimono. The hat hid his expression. "Our dream… it's really becoming real. This is proof…"

Hashirama let go of the cloth, letting it fall limply in Madara's grip. "This? This is nothing. Look out there at all the buildings. That's our dream." He let out a small laugh. "You're the first to see the design. I wanted to show you first! By the way, where do you want to put the Sarutobi clan?"

There were five clans and a few civilians in the village by the time he and Madara were formally inaugurated as Hokage.

Naturally, there was a speech.

"Ten years ago this village was nothing but a dream between the two of us," Hashirama said from the top of the newly-erected Hokage building. "We were children living in a time of blood and war and we dreamed of a peaceful world. That dream is now a reality. We built this village, but I don't mean the two of us—I mean all of us. All of us who are a part of Konohagakure, the village hidden in the leaf. Cooperation is the first step towards peace." Hashirama nudged Madara in the side and slung an arm over his shoulder, leaning close and speaking in a quiet voice. "Your turn, Madara. No cold feet now."

Madara's eyes flicked towards Hashirama and he cleared his throat. "What is a Hokage? We are not only the leaders of this village, but we... together," he glanced quickly at Hashirama, "we have sworn to protect the village and all within it with our lives. Our dedication knows no bounds.

"This was our dream," Madara shouted, clutching the hand of Hashirama's arm draped over his shoulder. "But now this is our reality! Welcome to Konohagakure, our home and our hermitage for all ninja!"

The intensity and vivacity of the cheers from their village would stay with Hashirama for years to come.

Naturally, Madara was absent from the afterparty. He had not noticed his friend leave, too caught up in the congratulations from the clan heads and elders of the newly joined clans. The man could be a right shadow sometimes.

There was no helping it, though he wondered why he was always the one seeking out Madara instead of the reverse. What a twisted game of hide and seek they had going on.

Hashirama smiled and settled down on the Hokage roof to activate Sage Mode.

The fluxes of swirling chakra, turbulent but at the same time, lively like a controlled storm. His fellow Hokage was in the Uchiha compound, in front of the newly-constructed Naka Shrine. Hashirama did not know much about it other than it being the meeting place of the Uchiha heads. He wondered what Madara was doing there but he did not stop to think about it.

Launching himself into the air, he set off in the direction of the shrine.

"Ah, Hashirama. I knew you would come," Madara said from his perch on the shrine steps. The Hokage hat that sat on top of his friend's head never failed to make him look ridiculous, Hashirama thought, grinning widely. His friend seemed to cotton on quickly and he hastily swiped the hat off his head and set it on the porch, revealing his usual messy head of hair, restrained only by a neat ponytail that Hashirama insisted he wear for the celebrations.

"You knew I would come only because you knew I would use Sage Mode. I always do. So, what are we doing here, Madara?"

Madara stood up and patted himself down, turning to walk into the shrine. "Follow me. I have something to show you."

Hashirama blinked but followed Madara into the shrine curiously. The shrine itself was beautiful, wood lacquered a deep red and halls lit with decorated, traditional lanterns. The Uchiha, Hashirama surmised, had an enviable respect and love for tradition that the Senju could learn from.

They came to a stop in front of a large room, painted in the same traditional shade of red to match the theme of the rest of the shrine. The only thing out of place was the Sharingan-patterned slab of rock in the middle of the room.

"Is this…"

"Don't be impatient, Hashirama." Madara smirked and began a series of hand seals. Hashirama watched this all with open fascination. He wondered if he should turn away for propriety's sake, as the seal sequence seemed to be a passcode. Possibly a secret Uchiha technique…"Open!" Madara said with the final formation of the seal and the stone began to move, sliding slowly off a secret passageway. Madara walked down into the passageway, seeming to take it for granted that Hashirama would follow him. Hashirama almost didn't want to follow him just to see the look on his face when he realized Hashirama wasn't close behind, but his curiosity overpowered his sense of mischievousness and he followed Madara down into the dark.

The darkness ended in dim light. In the sparse, far end of the wooden room was a tablet.

"This tablet," Madara said, "has been passed down the Uchiha for generations. Not once has an outside clan laid eyes on it." So he was the first outsider to see the Uchiha tablet. He didn't know whether to feel awed or honored, and Madara watched as he floundered for an appropriate response.

Hashirama settled for a grin, though he was still shaken by the enormity of what Madara had done for him. "Thank you, Madara."

"It's nothing." Though through the dim light Madara's face seemed to show that it was not, indeed, nothing. Madara's eyes flicked to the tablet almost in a nervous gesture. "This tablet... you need a special eye technique in order to decipher the secret text that's written here.

"From what I've been able to decipher so far, it says…" He paused. "'In the quest for peace, God divided things into yin and yang. The opposing forces worked with each other and, in turn, gave us the universe.'" Madara glanced again at Hashirama's face, lit by firelight, and noted the realization dawning on his face as the implication sunk in. "Yes, I thought so too. It's why I wanted to show it to you. A wise, if generic principle. In other words… by having two opposing forces cooperate… we can achieve true happiness…" Madara paused and took a step towards the stunned Hokage.

"I wonder… if what we have achieved now is true happiness." Madara's eyes fixed unerringly on his own as he approached. "I wanted to thank you in this way."

"Are you happy, Madara?" Hashirama asked, watching his friend carefully. The other Hokage averted his eyes to fix on the tablet and he stopped walking.

"I'm happier than I thought I could be," Madara said slowly. "I thought I could never be happy again, since I could not follow through with my promise to protect Izuna." Hashirama grimaced and looked away, unable to meet Madara's eyes—he had told Tobirama not to touch Madara's brother, but even if he had ignored his orders, as clan head, Hashirama still felt that the death of his brother was on his hands. Again, by the Senju.

Hashirama was startled by a soft touch on his forearm. "Stop it. I know you're thinking about his death. It's not your fault. I've…" Madara's fingers tightened minutely on the loose sleeve. "…gotten over it. But none of it is your fault." Madara looked away. "Though I do wonder what Izuna would say about our alliance."

"Madara…"

"Do you understand?" Madara said forcefully, eyes fixed carefully back on his face. The light of the dim fire flashed in the reflection of Madara's eyes, accenting the dangerous fire blazing in the form of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Hashirama hadn't even realized that they had activated. "I don't have Izuna anymore. My clan members are only beginning to trust me again. But in the end, even that is due only to your efforts. I have only you left. Why do you even bother with me?" Madara let out a sharp breath and a self-deprecating laugh escaped his mouth. The hand on his arm tightened. "I don't know what would happen to me if I lost you. These eyes do not get any more powerful. Do you understand?"

The rage of a wounded animal. This world and its endless war had turned the friend he had known since childhood into something so very damaged.

"You don't understand how much you mean to me, idiot Senju," Madara exhaled, but it sounded more broken than anything else. "Nobody…"

"I'm sorry," Hashirama said and gathered a startled Uchiha into his arms as they both slid to the floor, unable to bear even the weight of their own bodies anymore. "I'm sorry. You'll protect me. We'll protect our village. You won't let me die."

A month since the Hokage inauguration:

"Hashirama!" Madara shouted, flying over the newly constructed rooftops to land matter-of-factly in front of the white-clad Senju clan head. "Skipping out on the meeting again, I see. You didn't miss much. I don't know why they need to have us both there. I always end up telling you what happens anyway." The location made itself apparent to Madara in a few moments and a wary light entered his eyes. "Building districts again? Don't tax yourself. Remember last time?"

Hashirama did indeed, remember last time. "Ahh, but you were there to catch me." Embarrassingly enough.

Madara flushed bright red. "Idiot Senju! I will not always be there to catch you the next time you overexert yourself building half the village!"

Hashirama smiled indulgently. "Sure you won't. But it's good you're here! Perfect, actually. This is the perfect location for the Nara, but there's a pond where they would like their main house to be." Hashirama pointed at the medium-sized pond sitting in the middle of the clearing. "Good space around here to set up their deer herds. And you know how my specialty isn't fire jutsu…"

Madara gave no warning as a huge ball of fire erupted from his mouth and engulfed the entire clearing, and a fierce rush of steam blew back Hashirama's (and the unfortunate Nara clan members') hair. Hashirama jumped back, narrowly avoiding the flames.

"Warn me next time!"

Madara released his fire jutsu. "You can handle a few burns." A slow chorus of clapping came from the Nara onlookers. Madara ignored the mumble of 'showoff' from his co-Hokage. Though, every time, Hashirama never failed to be amazed by the Uchiha's hesitant, shy acceptance of peoples' thanks. As if he had always given but never received.

Hashirama rolled his eyes. "My turn. Mokuton!"

Sturdy wooden buildings rose from the clear, dried ground, reaching up towards the heavens. Like this, Hashirama and Madara would construct their reality as they had constructed their dream. Together.