Chapter One

The End Of The Beginning

Everything was all ready darkening, he could feel himself slipping. He wasn't dying, but if left alone….Madara knew this would be his end. It was strange, that those who claimed to know him, were the ones who knew him the least of all. Madara did not stop his smile, and let his throat utter words which would offer themselves as a warning. Maybe he still felt something, and maybe it was just a play off of what could have been. But either way, the words he said, the visions he had seen were more than he could bear alone.

"You're mistaking the cause for the end, one day that will become darkness, and envelop the village." Madara's body fell, his chest hurt and his heart twisted sharply, he couldn't see, he should've fallen unconscious but he couldn't, his chakra was building where his chest writhed under his skin. Hands pulled at his shoulders and Madara struggled to move away, before his chakra pulsated wildly in his torso, spreading, further and further.

"This is your punishment, for reducing me to a mockery." The demon fox's voice rang out in his skull, and Madara wailed, reduced to following his body's reactions of which he could no longer control. Hands and hands forced down on him, keeping him down, he flailed madly trying desperately to stop, to make it stop. But nothing was working; distinctly he heard an agonized scream and one pair of the hands left him.

Madara curled into himself, alone. He was alone and anyone who was once there had long since left him, to help the one who had screamed. Two hands tried to keep his form open, but Madara didn't dare leave himself open. He heard the fox's laughter in his mind, and nothing was making it stop. Madara felt his breath catch in his throat, a hand curling around his neck, ready to snap. To end his existence.

"Touch him….I dare you to try." Madara's body stilled, and the hand moved away in complete and utter shock. Distantly, he remembered the chakra to belong to Hashirama's younger brother, Izuna's murderer.

"Izuna!" A harsh cry that was brought force from his lips, no longer caring for how he came off. Izuna was dead, stone cold and dead, buried in a casket of white, dressed in white and blinded by white. He couldn't be here there was no physical way for Izuna to be here, only his eyes which he had given to Madara as he died in his arms.

"It has all ready spread so far…..I can't do much." Izuna's voice was calming, a soft whisper although tinged with worry. Madara didn't care, he felt fire racing through his veins and his heart felt as though it were imprisoned.

"What the hell is going on?" Tobirama's voice was a low, intimidated snarl. Izuna's laughter rung out in his mind, and Madara realized that Izuna had indeed laughed to Tobirama's face. Where was Hashirama again? The scream…his wife to be. Hashirama had left him in his agony for a mere woman, and the thought hurt almost as much as what he was experiencing now.

"Nii-sama pissed off Kurama. Well, you know him as the kyuubi I suppose, but any way, it isn't exactly easy keeping topic with you. Always changing the topic and bouncing around from here to there, though I don't suppose I really care." Izuna's voice was light and even hearted, Madara felt the fire fading from his limbs and his body turn to lead. He was numb now, and he stopped his useless, futile struggling. Izuna's hand over his face, though larger than he remembered.

"What the hell is going on, and what are you doing?!" Tobirama rose to ask once again, and Madara feared for Izuna's life. But Izuna was dead, so why was he afraid? Izuna's hair brushed the cheekbones of his face, desperately he grasped at the thick, soft hair with a free hand. Anything to know that this was not an illusion, not a personal hell created for him for eternity.

"Funny, the need for mercy." Izuna wasn't making any sense now, was he even making sense before?

"How we bleed all mercy now, hoping for a false dream. You are all nothing but a bunch of gathered fools, and where fools gather, idiots prosper. Didn't you know? Of course you did. You killed me after all, and only my murderer would know of that which is what I speak of now." This was where Madara finally lost his consciousness, hand entangled in a long low ponytail, the dark tresses tangled around his hand, keeping it suspended.

Tobirama could only stare, because he did not believe in spirits. He did not believe in legends without an explanation, but the scene in front of him made little to no sense. He couldn't understand what Izuna was saying, he heard him, but his words made no sense. Even when Izuna insisted only he could know, so why did he feel like he knew nothing at all? With words of foolishness and mercy, was he speaking of his death, the village or the fox? Tobirama didn't know despite how much he knew he needed to.

A red light in the form of soft water droplets seemed to suspend around the Uchiha siblings, and Tobirama could only stare, watching as Izuna's face angled into something far more sinister than he had ever known. Dark scarlet red markings seemed to paint themselves into Izuna's face, two angled slash like markings under his eyes, the markings broke off, and two tiny black bars formed over the bridge of his nose. Tobirama watched the water pooling into Madara's chest, and Madara did not move.

Izuna however stuck his hand into the giant bubble of water and took away the red energy gathered there. Nothing else from what he could see, changed in his appearance. The red light suddenly engulfed the brothers and what was left, an ebony haired boy (Madara Tobirama's mind supplied) , and a genetically altered Izuna. An Izuna who should be dead, by all rights and means.

Warily, Tobirama approached the duo, and found both to be unconscious. A hand clasping over his shoulder brought him back from his confusion, and upon turning saw his brother, the deceased form of a certain Uzumaki in arms. It was Madara's fault. But he saw no blame in Hashirama's eyes, only a hushed, silent seething. The fool blamed no other person or being, save for the fox. Tobirama desperately wanted to tell him, to just end this madness now. But he couldn't find his voice, and his throat didn't dare make a sound.

"Retrieve them both, to the hospital and have their rooms sealed." Hashirama spoke with a steeled authority, and Tobirama despite how head strong he was, would never disobey his brother when he spoke in such a tone. Creating a shadow clone, he picked both of the Uchiha up, scowling down at their unconscious forms. The Uchiha were an insanity personified, and Izuna…..he didn't dare to think of what he said. It would only give him a headache later on.

Possibly drive him mad with the need to know just what the hell he was talking about. For now however, he would deal with it, and upon the waking of either one of them, he would bring down on them interrogation. Even Hashirama could not deny him of this, because the council had decided, interrogation for all those who abandon the village.

One problem was though, Izuna was not a part of the leaf village. That would cause Tobirama trouble, the leaf village trouble. Because Izuna was strong, Tobirama wouldn't deny this. The other, newer villages would be set in an uproar to get him, and Tobirama wasn't sure of just what Izuna knew and could be capable of now.

He wouldn't admit it, but for that one moment…when he swore to end Madara's life swiftly. He had been terrified. Not of Izuna, but of how he spoke, and how he acted. Tobirama only hoped Hashirama had seen what had happened.

Come morning however, Hashirama didn't even seem to care about the Uchiha brothers. Instead preparing Mito's funeral, and it was a funeral in every aspect. With white roses and a cherry wood casket. Everyone wore the darkness of the night stitched into their clothing, and Hashirama spoke out, a swift certainty to find the Kyuubi and seal it within himself.

Tobirama could only curse in his mind, Hashirama shouldn't have to bare this burden. The ninetails should never have been summoned, it was supposed to just stay a legend. But Madara had to summon it, bind it to a summoning contract of all things! It was foolish and when the people dispersed, he left, quickly moving back to the hospital.

He wasn't worried for them, they could die, rot for what they've done to his brother. But Tobirama feared Madara and Izuna being left alone, both madmen with nothing but bloodlust. Leaving trails of corpses in their wake, a bloody slice in the earth's crust as they roamed.

But running he did not do, Hashirama would take notice, and stop him. He would lecture him for his 'irrational fears' and that it was truly nothing to worry over. He snorted, opening the door to the room of the brothers starting silently as he saw Madara, as young as he had been at the riverside so long ago, sitting up in the bed, frowning. Wide awake. The boy turned to look at him, and activated his sharingan, Tobirama moved off of instinct, bringing twin whips of water to the air.

"I warned you not to touch my brother." The voice descended upon him as well as a body over his back, hands holding his face and jaw in place. Izuna's dark eyes stared down at him, no recognition, only the realization that Tobirama was a threat. The water whips faded from the air, boiled into steam.

"Izuna-Nii! Get off of him!"