A thick veil of sweat gleams in the sweltering, summer sun, producing tiny fractures of light on fair, porcelain-marred skin, and curled in one fist is the staff of a great gunbai, the second hand bare from weaponry. Screeches echo in Madara's left ear, and he sways to the right, basking in the splatter and howl of a katana against his fan.
Blood trickles down his limbs, but sluggishly so, producing an acute ache within his subconscious. No matter how he ignores this itch and dances with the lightest (Or second lightest? He scowls at the thought.) step, this itch flows through his gunbai, extends to the burn in his thighs, and at the call of his younger brother — to which he'd forgotten he was even sparring with — Madara stops.
"Is something on your mind?" Izuna asks.
Madara shakes his head. "Fight."
"If—"
"I said fight. The more you talk, the weaker you are. We don't have a use for weakness."
So they fight until the sun shifts to the west, and with no victor and the endless caw of blade and flesh, Madara finally relents.
"With this strength," Izuna pants, and his eyes whirl into the crimson red of the Mangekyou Sharingan. "With this strength, it wont be long before we've won the war. The Senju can't avoid their fate forever."
"Fate?"
"Yes, fate." Izuna smiles. "They wont be able to hurt us any longer, once we've won the war."
"Do not indulge in foolish notions. Strength is all that matters, not this 'fate' you speak of. If you wish to survive…"
"And how else will I survive, unless we win? You know their kind. Betrayers, are they not?"
And later, as Madara lies atop his futon in the grime of his own training, pondering this very question, he finds himself at one particular answer he despises more than any other: No, they may not all be betrayers, because there is this subtle notion that had things somehow been different, the face of that blubbering idiot he once called his best friend might have stayed by his side.
But this is an endless warfare, one which has no place for such hope, and he resolves himself to this truth, because to hate Hashirama is far easier than to withstand that annoying prickle of hope.
