There is no winter in a country where brothers Uchiha were born. So, when little Izuna comes to north and for the first time sees a tree without leaves, he thinks that it had withered and burns it with his Katon.
"Why have you done it?" sadly asks an unknown boy with long brown hair, appearing suddenly next to him.
Another boy quenches a burning tree with water, but it's too late: when the smoke clears away, they all see charry branches.
"Those, who are ill and weak must die," Izuna angrily repeats what his brother likes to say. He needs Madara very much: they are usually together and now, when he is alone, he does not know what to do and what to say. "And this tree was ill, it had no leaves!"
"You're an idiot." A tow-haired boy looks disdainfully at him. "Haven't you seen a winter yet? The tree would have had new leaves at spring!"
Izuna's pride and fear of the strangers do not allow him to admit his mistake. Besides, a sad look of the long-haired boy irritates him. Izuna is angry: isn't it silly to be upset about a worthless tree?
"It doesn't matter now," he says with a challenge in his voice. "It's already dead!"
He looks at the strangers with arrogance, turns around and goes away. He thinks he must be satisfied with himself: he's cut these two down to size. He'll tell Madara about everything at home and they'll just laugh at them.
Though for some reason he feels uneasy and at the last moment turns round.
A first boy stays next to the burnt tree and at first Izuna sees only his long hair fluttering in the wind, but then he notices something that makes him flinch: the black branches are blossoming with green leaves.
"But that's impossible," he thinks perplexedly.
"It was an illusion," Madara laughes at his story. "It seems like I held you too long under the genjutsy last time and now you have hallucinations."
"Next time the one having hallucinations will be you!" Izuna sneers. "By the way, I'm better with genjutsy than you."
"We'll see about that!"
And they go to the training grounds.
…He furiously resists for a long time, bites and scratches his enemy like a wild cat, makes seals, but all of his attempts are useless and both of them understand it: eyes are the main force of Uchiha and Izuna does not have eyes any more.
"Give it back!" He says helplessly in the end. He wants to command like a proud Uchiha should, but in spite of himself makes a request, humble and pitiful. "Give my weapon back!"
"No," the invisible enemy objects. "What for?"
Izuna's wrists are entangled in something supple and firm; he's awfully tired with this struggle and even more with awareness of his weakness. Finally he gives up his attempts to break away, lies down on the ground and breathes air, saturated with smoke. He asked his brother to send him to the battle himself, expecting to find here a long-awaited death, but his destiny seemed like jeering at him and kept him protected from enemy jutsu, no matter how much he had rush to the attack being absolutely sure that this time it will be the end.
Finally he had a thought that enemies simply took pity on him and it was so unbearable, that the last barrier separating Izuna from suicide, an Uchiha's pride, was broken.
Uchiha without sharingan is not Uchiha in the end.
So he is nobody now.
But even this was beyond Izuna's power: an enemy snatched kunai out of his hands when he was going to cut his throat.
"What for?" repeats Izuna almost soundless and stretches out on the ground. He suddenly feels another scent mixing with the smell of blood and smoke and it is strange: this scent reminds him of a sunny morning in a pine forest… Or maybe he is just having hallucinations again, olfactory this time? "Those, who are ill and weak must die."
"It's just a winter, Izuna."
Izuna doesn't understand the meaning of these words. What he cares more is how did the enemy find about his name. Has a questionable fame of crazy Uchiha, who'd given his eyes, his main force, on his own will spread all around?
However later on he forgets about this, too. He agonizingly wants to understand, what scent it is, so familiar, how can it be here? All the forests are burned, all the plants are trampled down.
The fetters, squeezing his wrists, suddenly break up and Izuna tries to reach for his kunai but finds another thing: a blossoming branch of a tree which has appeared as from nowhere.
And then he finally understands.
"It doesn't matter now, Hashirama," he mutters. "I'm already dead."
Head of the Senju clan bends over him and speaks, very quietly, though it seems to Izuna that he is scorched with a hot summer sun and at the same time poured with water.
"And I have the ability to return to life."
Izuna keeps silence while squeezing a blossoming branch in his hand. His fingers are all dirty with a sticky resin, young leaves adhere to his palm, velvety petals of unknown flowers tickle his skin.
"My brother is itching to find out a main secret of the Senju clan," he says finally and throws back his head. "It's so funny that I've revealed it to him many years ago."