A/N: I missed a week entirely. Oh, but what a week it was. Only through the most laborious of toils and the most courageous of battles did I even survive it. In short, I was murderously busy. (And even with chapter 11 up for two weeks, it still didn't get as many reviews as usual, hmm. My hypothesis: it was my mistake to recommend people check out TVTropes. They did, and then they never returned.)

Enjoy the chapter! (Because the next chapter ain't gonna be so sunshiny.) And please remember to review and let me know what you think.

xxxxx

Last Peaceful Day

xxx

Proof of what a good mood Madara was in: he actually suggested that Hashirama take a day off. Madara would take over the Hokage's duties.

This wasn't because Madara was so cheerful he felt like being charitable. He enjoyed being in control. The only reason he didn't try to get control of Konoha more often was because it would look like he was trying to usurp Hashirama's authority. He was just so cheerful that he didn't care what people thought about him now.

But Hashirama cared about Madara's public image. So he agreed to take a day off, but only on the condition that Madara would get a day off later, because Hashirama didn't want to overwork him. (And Hashirama would act like he'd gotten the idea to take a day off, and that he had asked Madara to fill in for him. That way, if the people were going to speak ill of anyone, it would be Hashirama, and he was fine with that. So was Madara.)

Taking a day off didn't mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that Hashirama stopped working. He voluntarily took a mountain of paperwork home with him. Most of it was the daily pile of inner-village reports, but a fair portion consisted of letters from other nations and villages that still had something to say about Konoha's capture of the Yonbi. (Letters had been coming in for weeks and weeks.) Only Hashirama could reply to those letters. Madara was more than happy to let him handle the paperwork.

So they parted on happy terms: Madara, gleeful at the prospect of running Konoha alone for the day (and at the prospect of doing so much more regularly in the near future); and Hashirama, gleeful at Madara's glee.

xxx

Tobirama had not been alerted to Hashirama's plans to hand Konoha over to the dread Uchiha Madara. This was by design. If Tobirama had known, he would have gone insane doing everything he could think of to try to talk Hashirama out of it. For some reason, he still didn't trust Madara. For some strange, strange reason. Hashirama couldn't think of a thing Madara had done in the past... oh, what was it now, over two years since the founding of the village, over three years since the initial Senju/Uchiha truce? Madara hadn't done anything in the past three years that was at all untrustworthy, had he?

But Tobirama still didn't trust him, and Hashirama hadn't wanted to deal with his griping and his worries and so on and so forth. (On some level, he was afraid of his brother's accusations.) So he just... hadn't brought it up, and when it actually happened, Tobirama was gone on a mission. He'd been gone for several days now in the Land of Straw, to assist a team in repairs at the site where they had battled the Yonbi. Clean-up had been ongoing since the battle itself, months ago though it was. (Of course, Sarutobi Sasuke was there, too. He and Tobirama had probably spent more time cracking jokes than cleaning up.)

Today, he was supposed to come back. Since Hashirama had the day off, he decided to wait at Konoha's gates to greet Tobirama when he arrived. And break the news to him.

And, most importantly, head him off before he could burst into the Hokage's office, discover Madara at the desk instead of his brother, and conclude that Hashirama had been assassinated.

Tobirama was pleasantly surprised to find that Hashirama was waiting to greet him, and slightly embarrassed. (He'd been hauled into the village half-bent, red-faced, held in an chokehold by Sasuke. Sasuke quickly let go and they straightened up.) He was unpleasantly surprised when Hashirama explained why he wasn't currently working.

"But you can't—" Between Hashirama's warning glare, and the attentive interest of eleven other ninja who would probably be absolutely fascinated to hear whatever the Hokage's younger brother was about to say about the Hokage's second-in-command, Tobirama changed his mind. "Right. Uh. Is he... already running the village, then? For today?"

"He has been since before you even woke up," Hashirama said. Based on the dark rings under Tobirama's and Sasuke's eyes, they'd had a late night, so they'd probably woken up late. Based on the relatively energetic states of their other teammates, they were the only ones.

Sasuke jabbed an elbow in Tobirama's ribs. "How about that?" he murmured. "Madara-san's been in charge for almost a day and a half." (So Tobirama hadn't even been to sleep?)

Tobirama jabbed him right back. "Not in front of—" He cleared his throat. "Uh... So."

"So." Hashirama would have to hear this story later.

"So, who's supervising Madara? ... San," Tobirama asked.

"Tobirama, he's acting as Hokage today," Hashirama said. "Who usually supervises me?"

"Madara-san does," Tobirama muttered disapprovingly.

It wasn't the answer Hashirama was looking for, but he'd go with that. "And Madara-sama is perfectly capable of supervising himself as well."

Tobirama didn't seem to like that. But before he could say anything, Sasuke poked him again and said, "Hey. Have you ever heard any of those stories about demons that appear if you say their name?"

"No?" Tobirama said, giving him a puzzled look.

Sasuke gestured behind Hashirama. "Well, they're true."

"I heard that."

Hashirama and Tobirama both jumped, and Hashirama turned to look. Madara was leaning against a building in the shadows, just almost out of view. Where in the world had he—had Sasuke just called him a demon?

"Just making conversation, Madara-san," Sasuke said innocently.

"Better a demon than an ape," Madara retorted (and yet so lightly, so flippantly), walking up to the group, and then promptly turning his attention to Hashirama and ignoring everyone else. (Hashirama thought nothing at all about Madara's comment; Sasuke had insulted him first, the retort was self-defense.) Before Hashirama could even ask what he wanted, he practically shoved a scroll into his hands. "The Nara clan has apparently decided they're too lazy to turn their patch of forest into an actual complex. They want your permission to leave it as a 'wildlife preserve' so they don't have to develop the land, and I can't sign off on it—"

He stopped suddenly, and then glanced (rather pointedly) between Hashirama and Tobirama. Hashirama realized this was the first time Madara and Tobirama had really seen each other since... he couldn't remember how long. The last time he could remember for sure had been at the meeting when Konoha had been formally named, and that had been two years ago. (They'd both gone on the mission to seal the Yonbi, but Hashirama had suggested Tobirama try to avoid Madara, and he had been more than glad to comply.) Hashirama hoped Madara didn't say anything inappropriate. He really, really hoped Tobirama didn't say anything inappropriate.

Tobirama did. "So where are your fancy robes, oh Hokage-san?" he asked. Madara was wearing his usual outfit.

"Red isn't my color," Madara said simply, as if that made any sense in the slightest. Hashirama was worried that Madara would add a harsher retort—he couldn't even imagine what he'd come up with. But, all he did was glance again between Tobirama and Hashirama, snort, and mutter to himself, "Somebody forgot to tell somebody they adopted him." (And there was that tiniest of smirks, that smallest of sparks in his eyes, enough to indicate that he was just joking and didn't mean anything by it—but of course nobody but Hashirama knew him well enough to pick up on that.) Madara raised his voice again. "I'll leave their request with you," he gestured at the scroll with the Nara clan seal, "and let you get back to your, ah... 'family' reunion." Without even waiting for a reply, in two leaps he was atop the nearest building, and running along the rooftops back to the Hokage Residence.

"Didn't even say hi," Tobirama grumbled, then looked at Hashirama. "What was he talking about with the adoption?"

Uh. What did he say? The last thing he wanted was for Tobirama to think (even more) badly of Madara, so... "Nothing," he said, looking at the scroll rather than his brother. "He was just talking about... nothing." That was smooth.

Behind Tobirama, Sasuke snorted. "Same thing Madara-san's always talking about," he said, and Tobirama laughed.

It took a long time after that for Hashirama to start liking Sasuke.

xxx

"Hey, Hashirama."

"Mm. Yeah?" Hashirama was trying to read a report, from a team that had been hired to escort and guard a shipment of silver in a neighboring nation. Who was this team, anyway? "What?" Tobirama was bothering him. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to take him up on his offer of lunch. (Then again, Hashirama expected that if he hadn't agreed, Tobirama would have found an excuse to go to the Hokage Residence and breathe down Madara's neck the rest of the day.)

"You're working too hard, you know."

Hashirama laughed shortly. Tobirama was right. He wasn't even at the office; but Hashirama wasn't going to overwork Madara just because he himself was having a day off. (Hashirama was a workaholic anyway. He would probably be doing this even if it weren't Madara subbing for him. Although that did give him some added motivation.) "I'm just reading a few reports."

Tobirama raised an eyebrow at the towering stack of papers battling Hashirama's lunch for table space. The papers were winning.

"It's fine, Tobirama. I'd just have to do it later anyway." Who was this report from? He'd assigned a Yamanaka to the mission, who'd promised to find a few teammates. The signature on the report wasn't the Yamanaka clan symbol. Or any other clan symbol. It was three random kanji stuck together.

"That's the idea of a day off, Hashirama," Tobirama said. "You do the work later." Hashirama continued trying to ignore him.

It wasn't very easy when Tobirama started pulling his hair. "Tobirama!" Hashirama jerked his hair out of Tobirama's hand, slapped down the report on the table (a decisive victory for the papers against the lunch), and glared at his brother. "What."

"When's the last time you cut your hair?"

"About a month ago," Hashirama lied. Now that he thought of it, about a year ago.

"You've got split ends." Tobirama pinched up a few strands of Hashirama's hair.

Hashirama swatted his hand away again. "I didn't think you cared so much about how my hair looks," he said testily. But Hashirama cared. Did he really have split ends?

"It means you haven't cut your hair in a while," Tobirama said. One of his pet peeves. "Weren't you going to do that?"

"It's not going to kill me," Hashirama said, exasperated.

"It might." Tobirama tugged on his hair again, but let go before Hashirama had a chance to knock his hand away. "What's been keeping you? I thought you said you'd cut it twice a month."

"Once every two months." Honestly, twice a month?

"You haven't been doing that, either. Why not?"

Hashirama shrugged and picked up his report again. Because he was too busy? Because he was always going to get around to it but never did? Because he had more important priorities? Because...

He ignored the question. "Do you recognize this, uh... symbol?"

Tobirama gave him an annoyed look. But he glanced at the... whatever written at the bottom of the report. Then looked closer. "Huh."

"That's not a clan, is it?" Hashirama thought he knew all the clans in Konoha. He should, he was Hokage. He'd recruited them all.

"Don't think so..." Tobirama frowned. "How's that even pronounced?"

"Inoshikachou?"

Tobirama shrugged. "Maybe? I dunno."

"I'll go look it up tomorrow," Hashirama said, setting the report aside.

Luckily, Tobirama didn't bring up Hashirama's hair again. (But he thought he would get his hair cut anyway. Well, not cut, but. Just trim the ends off a tiny bit. If he did have split ends. He was the Hokage, he could have long hair if he wanted but he couldn't represent his village while looking like a slob. ...Plus, he liked his hair.)

He had an actual reason why he just... wasn't cutting his hair. Allowing it to grow. A little bit. (Since he had last cut his hair, it had grown half a foot longer.) But it wasn't exactly a reason he could share with Tobirama. It wasn't exactly a reason he could share with himself.

(He hoped Madara hadn't noticed his split ends.)

xxx

It should be noted that the rest of the day passed uneventfully.

No radical new policies were put in place, no old policies were abolished.

No wars started.

Nothing exploded.

Madara did his job perfectly well, without stepping out of bounds at all, and he didn't even gloat about it.

So there.

On some level, Hashirama felt vindicated.

xxx

Hashirama had planned to wait... a couple of months, perhaps, until he made his announcement. So that it wouldn't look like he had rushed.

Somewhere in there, they caught the Three-Tailed Giant Turtle. Madara did it almost entirely himself. Hashirama was there, but he'd tell anyone who asked that Madara did almost the whole thing. (In fact, this may not have been true. But Hashirama was eager to give the credit and Madara was eager to take it, so the truth is irrelevant.)

There were the requisite celebrations. Hashirama and Madara both ducked out of as many as possible.

It was after the celebrations died down that Madara said he wanted to cash in on that day off Hashirama had promised him. He didn't give a reason why he wanted a day off. He didn't need to.

That was when everything came crashing down.

xxxxx