3.
Madara, Hashirama decides, walks the uncomfortable line between an intense desire to be liked and an equally intense unwillingness to appear even remotely likeable. It's frustrating, it's agonizing, trying to reason with him. Once he's dead set on something, nothing will stop him, regardless of the consequences, regardless of collateral damage.
"Once we get stronger, the adults will have to listen!" Hashirama had said, many years ago. Now he is an adult, and Madara too, and everything is turning to disaster. Just last week things had seemed so simple. Last week Hashirama knew with absolute certainty that Madara was just as tired of the fighting as he was. He knew that during their last battle, Madara was very nearly blind. Over the years of constant war, Hashirama had watched his once-sharp eyes cloud over with tiredness and overuse; watched as his face gathered lines far too early; watched as hollows deepened in his cheeks and his ribs appeared under his ever-loosening tunic. Watched—never interfered. Until now.
"Why bother with the Uchiha?" Tobirama had scoffed as Hashirama tore up the latest ceasefire draft and started anew.
"We need the Uchiha," Hashirama had insisted, slumping back in his chair and running his hands down his face. The words swam in front of his aching eyes. Alliance, truce, reparations, peace, greater good.
But, Hashirama thinks, last week things were simpler.
He should have seen this coming. He and Madara will fight until one of them dies and then whoever is left will fight until he dies and whoever is left then will keep fighting—and so many people, so many siblings and parents and friends and lovers, will die in their wake.
And—
And children.
Izuna Uchiha was only twenty-four years old.
Hashirama still feels like a child, some days, and other days he feels weary and sore and exhausted. He understands why Butsuma was always so harsh, so bitter, so steadfastly pragmatic. Sometimes it is all he can do not to yell at Tobirama (and he will not yell, he will not), but the urge to raise his voice keeps surging up in him. Increasingly so, lately.
Izuna died three nights ago, according to the defectors from the Uchiha, which is the only thing they seem to be able to agree upon.
"Madara's dead," reports one defector at the emergency clan meeting that night (Hashirama's blood runs cold). "He decided to join his brother in the afterlife."
"No," pipes up another Uchiha. "He's still alive. He never picked a successor. Madara wouldn't abandon the clan."
"He ripped his brother's eyes out of his skull before his body had gone cold," says another, doggedly stabbing a kunai into the table, and Tobirama's eyes meet Hashirama's own from across the room, his face unfathomable in the bobbing candlelight. Hashirama looks away, knowing exactly what Tobirama wants to say, but all they have to work with are rumors right now. And the rumors fly:
"He's barricaded himself in his quarters. Hasn't eaten. Isn't sleeping. Refused medical aid."
"He killed Izuna himself, I heard. Slit his throat. Nobody saw it happen. Everyone is too afraid of him to say anything."
"Well, it wouldn't be the first time."
Hashirama closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. The Uchiha defectors continue to deliberate and argue, but Hashirama can barely hear them anymore; a deafening cold anger is rising in Hashirama's throat, pounding in his eardrums, and he clenches his hands against the table and feels wood crack under his fists. They don't know Madara. None of them know Madara.
A shinobi is one who endures. Hashirama doesn't know of anyone who's endured more than Madara has.
