The cries of agony mingling with the smell of blood and death were overbearing on the senses even with the sounds of war ringing out around them, wave upon wave of shinobi and kunoichi alike charging and retreating, attacking and defending, killing and being killed.
It was almost enough to make him want to stop.
Just watching them struggle, desperately clinging on to that last thread of hope that their way of life would continue on, unimpeded by the will of a single man. The sheer effort put forth, the fact that they were able to put their differences aside, the fact that they attacked him under a single banner, the fact that they continued fighting, fighting, fighting despite how truly hopeless it was... he could have smiled.
Despite appearances, despite the methods, and despite the views he had of the world and the beings inhabiting it, Uchiha Madara was certainly not an evil man. There was no true thing such as the concept of Good versus Evil; the world just didn't work that way. The world was not just black and white; rather, it was many different shades of gray. Everything has a reason and explanation for being what they are; nothing is just inherently one thing or another. He had regrets and faults and problems of his own, and he accepted them. He was not perfect and he knew it. Nobody was, and these humans, these shinobi, these warriors, they were certainly farther down the road to understanding and accepting each other than he was, no doubt about it in his mind. They would be up to the task to bring change to this lawless, hateful land should they win this war. But still...
It wasn't enough. He did not smile.
Uchiha Madara was certainly not an evil man, but he knew that just as no one was inherently evil, no one was inherently good. Humans needed strife to grow, they needed to be hurt to learn how to heal, and hat's off to Nagato, human's needed to know pain. That was just how the world worked. Even if the threat of Akatsuki had pushed the nations to form an alliance against him, even if they won the war, it wouldn't last. Nothing could escape the threat of time.
Akatsuki defeated, the Tsuki no Mai plan stopped, and Madara dead. What next? Where would the world go then? Yes, it would be peaceful for a few decades, maybe even a century or two. But once all the survivors of the war died off, the memory of the horrors of war would fade into history books (Maybe. The Elemental Nations had a terrible track record for keeping its own history recorded). The very real threat that had forced the world to the brink of subservience would disappear from the hearts and minds of the populace. People would fight, wars would start, the peace would never last. History had proven that, all the way back to the Rikudo Sennin and his sons.
No, Madara would ensure that the future these humans so desperately wanted would never occur. If the way the world works gets in the way of peace, then all he needed to do was recreate the world in his image.
"Where are you, Uzumaki Naruto?"
Who said humans couldn't be inherently good?