"Here's to the alliance between the Senju and Uchiha Clans and the future creation of our village!" Hashirama said, a wide goofy smile on his face as he held out his hand to Madara.

Madara smirked back, starting to reach out as he idly glanced over the optimistic faces in the crowd. He couldn't see Izuna standing behind him, but at least that meant he didn't have to look at the badly hidden smitten look Izuna had been wearing since the peace talks had introduced him to Senju Toka.

At least the woman in question seemed just as interested in Izuna, if more composed about it. Madara supposed that if his oldest baby brother absolutely had to go gaga over a woman blatantly capable of crushing his head with her thighs, it was probably a good thing that she seemed interested in reciprocating.

And their younger three brothers seemed far too entertained by Izuna's ridiculousness to be bothered by the possibility of a Senju sister-in-law, so there was that too.

This was a good time to be alive, Madara thought, shaking Hashirama's hand. They had achieved their dreams, Madara's family had made it through the worst of their battles alive if roughed up and damaged, and even Tobirama had stopped being an icicle long enough to smile—

Madara froze.

Tobirama didn't smile, he realized, unease dripping down his spine. Madara knew Tobirama and even at his most pleased and content, the man never smiled widely like that. Small hints of smiles, maybe. Smirks more likely, but still infrequent. But Madara knew Tobirama far too well to overlook a smile like that for normal behavior, he...

Wait, he thought, why would I know Tobirama that well? The battlefield is a separate situation. He could be... and he should be "Senju" not "Tobirama"... except no, no I was right the first time, he's... Madara grimaced, flexing his jaw to try popping his ears. There was an uncomfortable pressure in his head, and another between his eyes like he had a sinus infection. Except like hell is he going to believe he just developed symptoms of an illness within seconds.

"Alright, everyone!" Hashirama called out. "Let's proceed!"

The other man gestured everyone off towards the food while he tossed an arm around Madara's shoulder and casually dragged Madara in the opposite direction.

Madara scowled, reflexively shrugging the man off him, but not actually putting a kunai in him which... would have been the normal reflexive action, right? Except... Hashirama always did that...?

But no, no he did not, Madara thought, glancing suspiciously back at Tobirama's white hair even as he followed Hashirama. Hashirama most definitely had NOT kept casually manhandling him since they'd stopped meeting in person when they realized their fathers were having them followed. They'd only been able to see each other on the battlefield after that until their fathers died and they started peace talks. There had never been the chance for Hashirama to get comfortable with impulsive touch during those situations.

Hell, they hadn't even had that much touch as kids. It just didn't happen for kids who grew up in the Clan Wars. Except...

All around him sounded a dull, barely audible cracking noise like wood splintering, accompanied by the faint smell of charred trees. Hashirama didn't react though, and Madara gave up and caved into the desire to firmly pinch the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. It didn't do anything for the damn headache though, and nothing shifted or wavered like it was a genjutsu.

"Are you alright?" Hashirama asked, quietly.

"I— no," Madara decided. "No. Something's wrong. Your brother smiled."

Hashirama laughed. "He does do that sometimes, Madara. And today's a good day for smiling. We've finally gotten past the first step in our dream."

Madara slowly turned to stare at Hashirama. Because that was the precise opposite of a complaint Madara knew, fucking knew, he remembered correctly where Hashirama had dramatically bemoaned his brother growing up to be a too serious, anti-social little genius who never smiled.

He was tempted to punch Hashirama in the face. It would be a really stupid thing to do when the official peace treaty didn't even have ink dry on it yet, but the impulse was there. Hashirama wasn't taking him seriously, he didn't notice anything off, and he apparently couldn't tell that Madara was genuinely serious which didn't match with Madara's instincts which said Hashirama knew how to read him better than this.

"Hashirama," Madara started slowly, Sharingan flickering to life as the fully developed tomoe started shifting, "what are your younger brothers' names?"

The other man looked confused, "Madara, you were introduced to them ages ago. They're Itama and Kawarama."

Got you, Madara thought grimly. He fed more chakra to his Sharingan pushing it to the Mangekyo stage and was really infuriated to realize that he still couldn't identify the genjutsu. He knew it was there now, and since he knew, he could finally pin down the patterns in the chakra around him that were just a little off center from what they should have been. But he couldn't find the seam in the genjutsu; that place where the foreign chakra met the host chakra to alter it.

Hell, he shouldn't even need it when using the Mangekyo, but if it's deep enough in his brain to effect memories even when he already knows it's there, it could be interfering in how his doujutsu works.

"What's the meaning of this Madara?" Hashirama questioned, carefully shifting a foot backwards but staying non-aggressive for the sake of their nosy watchers in the distance.

"We don't talk about our brothers," Madara replied darkly. "We don't. Outside of Izuna and Tobirama, we never speak of them."

"Why would we not speak of them?" Hashirama questioned idly, body language shifting to something strangely still.

"I—" don't remember, Madara thought to himself, fury building steadily. "You know what? I'm done talking to myself. You are a goddamn lie. This entire place is a illusionary lie, and I will get out and back to reality if I have to burn it all down with Amaterasu!" he yelled.

Then he lunged sideways and away from the katana Tobirama had stabbed towards his back.

If he had needed a single piece of reassurance he was right, that was definitely it. Tobirama loved taking shots at anyone careless enough to leave their back open, but Hashirama's idly inquisitive look towards Madara was utterly out of character for the dork. He should have been futilely trying to reprimand his brother about appropriate treatment of comrades.

And the fact that the distant Uchiha and Senju were just standing there watching and idly eating without reacting at all was just so wrong it was actually creepy.

"You realize Amaterasu is far more likely to burn you to death than actually let you escape?" not-Hashirama asked, a strange echoing undertone to his voice creaking in Madara's ear. Not-Tobirama straightened, still creepily imitating all the micro-movements Madara was used to observing when his teammate practiced kenjutsu, but he supposed that made sense. If Madara was trapped in an unprecedented genjutsu, it could be drawing on details from his own mind rather than relying on the castor's knowledge.

Hell, he'd say it was a Tsukuyomi genjutsu except that required an Uchiha to cast it...

Madara frowned at himself. Had he been sparring with an Uchiha before this? He was the strongest in the clan right now, but there were others better at genjutsu. Madara had always been a little too straight-forward in everything for genjutsu to come reflexively outside the Sharingan. Elder Mikoto had been able to run rings around him as his genjutsu teacher when he was a small kid even if she'd never possessed the necessary chakra to outlast him.

Except what was the point of this? It wasn't embarrassing like Izuna would have gone for. It wasn't traumatizing or informative like the Elders preferred. It was just extremely off-putting and disturbing.

Besides, literally everyone in Konoha knew that Madara had no issues dragging someone to a swampy training ground and repeatedly slamming them into the mud when he was pissed off. It easily limited the number of people willing to mess with him at the sacrifice of their laundry.

Was it just meant to distract him? Distract him from what, though?

"You seem really convinced I can't break out of here. It's getting kind of insulting," Madara refuted, drawing on more chakra and ignoring the increasing pressure behind his eyes. Some of the surroundings had wavered for an instant: shading out and darkening as if they were transparent over a black background. He grit his teeth, held his chakra flow immobile for a—

There! That's what they hadn't wanted him noticing! There was a damn chakra leech in his network somewhere! It wasn't a simple one-way drain which was how it went unnoticed for so long. It was draining pooled chakra from his system while foreign chakra casually seeped in to replace most of what was lost, hiding the fact that it was there.

It was probably why the Mangekyo couldn't break through the genjutsu either. Despite knowing his surroundings were fake, he wasn't dealing with the constant reapplication of the jutsu through his chakra.

It was tricky as hell, but Madara tried drawing as much chakra as possible further into his core and away from the drain. It drew more of the foreign chakra in when the current reversed, but that was fine. If he could unbalance it enough that it collapsed, he could dispel the genjutsu once and for all.

The fake Tobirama attacked, but Madara held still and cursed as the katana sank into his left shoulder.

"I'm gonna take that as a sign I'm right," he said, baring his teeth at narrowed red eyes.

Not-Tobirama bristled and twisted the blade sideways causing Madara to curse viciously. His chakra instinctively bucked and he grabbed at it, pushing it and the foreign chakra down further. His eyes blazed with a twisting pain, which made no sense at all since the Mangekyo deactivated without active chakra, and there was a ringing in his head pulsing in time to a rapid succession of louder cracking sounds.

Not-Hashirama frowned upward at the sky, and Madara laughed before patting not-Tobirama on the cheek condescendingly.

"You're not half-bad, but the real one would have gone for the heart if I was actually an enemy."

And then everything shattered.

.

.

Madara groaned, squinting up at the bright light streaming in through the cracked wood.

"Excuse me," demanded the red haired, backlit blur in front of him, "but I believe you said you and Izuna fixed that potential issue with your Mangekyo Sharingans!"

"Hello to you to, Mito," Madara groaned, blinking rapidly as he tried to focus, ignoring the trickle of liquid running down his cheeks.

The kunoichi ignored him, reaching into the wooden prison with a shred of her sleeve and roughly wiped the blood out of his eyes. Madara jerked his right arm free of the wood around him, feeling strangely better as the foreign chakra assimilated with his own while the chakra drain fractured somewhere. He squinted up at Mito, watching the teenaged redhead blink and still with a strange look on her face before she reached in and yanked his left arm free at the shoulder.

"OW! Fuck, Mito! Ow,ow,ow,ow!"

"You're not injured. Stop overreacting like a child, Madara."

"It sure feels like it!" he snapped back, rotating his shoulder and trying to convince his body that the phantom stab pains weren't actually there.

Mito gave him unimpressed look worthy of a noble court and moved away from the opening.

He climbed out, noticed the seal-covered cocoon he had been in, took one look at all the cocoons hanging alongside his from the titanic root of the God Tree, and groaned.

"I had wondered if you remembered our predicament," Mito said with a passive smile, ignoring the sounds of battle in the distance.

Madara felt like sulking. If it wouldn't have reminded him of every irritating time Hashirama had done just that despite being eighteen now, he might have actually done it. Mito would have calmly backhanded him for it, but Madara was already resigned to having the most unsympathetic teammates in the village. It's not like he was any better really.

"Do you think we could have the next crazy person come from somewhere outside Konoha? Is that too much to ask!" he demanded. "Where's Tobirama?"

"Or at least not from the Uchiha Clan," Mito agreed dryly. "Perhaps you could make it a decree, if you become Hokage?" she offered, smile falling as she frowned at the distant battle. "And Tobirama's in a cocoon along with every other shinobi. They were all enclosed when the Infinite Tsukuyomi was activated."

"How did you avoid it?" he asked, activating his Sharingan and scanning the cocoons. There were far too many to search one-by-one and unfortunately the God Tree obscured the chakra signatures of those it encased. The amount of chakra inside was visible though so if they ruled out every pod that didn't display enough chakra to match Tobirama's gigantic reserves...

"I didn't," Mito corrected. "When the genjutsu hit, those with the Mangekyo like yourself and Izuna were able to resist longer. Hashirama did something with his sage techniques alongside Izuna and they were able to shield themselves and a few people nearby. At that point, the others held off the enemy while I came to find you. We need to get you back and win before the captives become converted to Zetsu. Right now, the God Tree is giving him too much chakra for Hashirama and Izuna to beat him by themselves. Especially with the Bijuu captured."

Madara scowled at the reminder of Mito's almost-death but shook his head. "We have to find Tobirama first."

Mito looked at him. "Defeating our enemy before he destroys us is our first priority right now, Madara."

"Our people are our first priority always, Mito," he snapped back. "We've always agreed on that. And in this situation that means finding Tobirama first!"

"Tobirama would understand the necessity—"

"And Tobirama's an idiot sometimes," Madara interrupted, ignoring Mito's habitual backslap to his arm for his rudeness. "But in this particular case, you are also an idiot. Uchiha Sasuke has decades on me and Hashirama, enough brilliant crazy to manipulate his way back to life, and a massive tree feeding him chakra from all the people on the planet along with the Bijuu. I'm not risking any of my family on a rigged battle. We find Tobirama first. He's got a trick that'll even the odds."

Mito pursed her lips but recognized that fighting with him would actually waste more time that helping him.

"Well, lead on then," she said, gesturing elegantly towards the rest of the tree.

Madara rolled his eyes back at her and took off upside-down along the underside of the root towards the closest cocoon with a kage-level signature as Mito followed. Tobirama had been nearby when they went down so that had to be him or that new asshole Tsuchikage, Onoki.

"How did you find me to break me out anyway?" he asked once she caught up.

"I followed the feeling of discontent," she answered, dodging a root that tried snapping at her ankle. "I figured that the only one who would be experiencing negative emotions while in a genjutsu designed to fulfills its victims' desires would be a shinobi with both the Mangekyo and your stubborn contrariness. And I didn't break you out. I was able to immobilize the tree roots nearby and break the cocoon, but breaking the genjutsu proved impossible."

"Except you did it obviously," he retorted.

"You did it yourself, obviously," she responded. "Look in a mirror. Your Sharingan's changed, and you now have the Rinnegan. Congratulations."

"You're fucking with me," he groaned, dodging her kunai. "I just mastered the Mangekyo! There's practically zero information on the Rinnegan in the Naka Shrine. I don't have time for this, and Tobirama's going to turn me into a research subject for another three months! I like getting laid!"

"I had overlooked that particular benefit," Mito mused, blithely ignoring his frustrated glare. "And kindly cease complaining. We need a Rinnegan to undo this genjutsu, and now we have one. Thank you for your unintended contribution to the continuation of life as we know it. Besides, Tobirama's research and constant experiments meant you mastered your doujutsu multiple times faster than anyone else on record, and you well know it."

Madara just scowled as he slid to a stop nearby the cocoon in question before jumping down and flipping mid-air to cling to the side of it. "Just— just go find a corpse from one of your clan members while I get Tobirama out of here. And maybe some of the other Senju, too. I'm pretty sure that one there is Toka."

"Exactly why do you need the body of one of my family members," Mito questioned icily, as she looked down at him from where she was carving seals into the root's bark above his head. A push of her chakra and the entire tree nearby froze and stopped trying to entrap them.

"I don't need it, so don't blame me that Tobirama's jutsu has morbid requirements!" he defended, reinforcing his fingers as he thrust them into the wood and carefully cracked open the cocoon. A glimpse of dark blue armor had him grinning victoriously and prying the rest up. "It's not like we have the opportunity to go grab the exact DNA we need, so we'll just have to hope Tobirama can use someone similar."

"Exactly what are you hoping to have Tobirama do?" Mito demanded as she got back to her feet.

"If we're lucky?" Madara said, distracted as he reached a hand in to carefully brace Tobirama's limp neck as he awkwardly levered the other young man out. The Rinnegan design staring blankly back at him where sharp red eyes should be was yet another infuriating and unnerving part of this shitty day. He scowled and looked back up at Mito.

"If we're lucky, we're going to bring back Uzumaki Naruto."

FIN

AN: Title comes from the Mad Hatter's line in Alice in Wonderland.

This weird little idea appeared while I was marathoning my Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. I'm not sure how it came to be. I just know that all of a sudden I thought, "huh. What if Madara was the one in the Infinite Tsukuyomi?"

The story doesn't explain everything outright because for these characters this is normal. I don't have a complete background in mind, but the one rule for this verse is that the generations are roughly flipped. So Madara, Mito, and Tobirama are Team 7 while Naruto & Sasuke were famous shinobi in the founding time. And it's not just them, ALL the generations are flipped. So Sarutobi & Danzo are one generation older than Team 7 while Kakashi is one generation younger than the Founders.

If you like the verse, please see the notes and comments on AO3 for a ton of world-building. No guarantees I'll write more here though because I'm working on a different fic.

.

PS: For those wondering how Madara got the Rinnegan without Hashirama's DNA, that's the God Tree's fault. The Tree canonically draws on their chakra, but it also changes them into Zetsu. I theorize that since a lack of chakra should just kill them, they must also get chakra back from the Tree. Since this verse had the Senju Clan join Konoha when their numbers were very low and actually gain strength since then, there were a lot of Senju along with Uchiha trapped in that tree. Theoretically someone besides Madara could develop the Rinnegan as well if they stay in the tree long enough, but Madara sped things up by drawing more chakra into himself. Hell, it could technically be Tobirama's fault since he was the strongest Senju trapped close by.