Notes: This takes place during chapter 619, page 13. The dialogue between Tobirama and Orochimaru is taken from Mangastream's and Mangapanda's translations. I'd warn for blood and dark themes, but I doubt anyone will be shocked, really.

Summary: There are many types of ignorance, forced or otherwise, but the worst kind comes when one is convinced that they know all that there is to know.

Ignorance.

"You seem to be fixated on Madara… Does he frighten you so?"

Orochimaru's grand theatricality clashed with the dust and cobwebs covering the old Uchiha shrine. The only sources of light in the room were a pair of candles against the far wall; the shadows of his expansive movements skittered over the walls, giving shape to the ghosts of the past.

What a fool, Tobirama thought, taking a moment to appraise the man in silence. What a naïve, insensate fool.

Yes, Madara frightened him so and he was not ashamed to admit it. Fear was just another tool in a ninja's arsenal, just another sense they could use to survive. And Madara's darkness ran deep enough to carve itself a permanent place into any ninja with an ounce of sense.

Tobirama had disliked the man in life. He had been unstable and unpredictable, an unstoppable force whose gravity could tear the world around him apart. His presence had unnerved Tobirama even when they had supposedly been allies. And after the Uchiha had turned his back on his clan and the village, that unease had been confirmed as all tethers to whatever sanity the man had left snapped loose.

Yes, he fixated on Madara. His senses could not help but be drawn towards the distant roar of his out-of-control power. He had been afraid of him in life without knowing the full extent of his madness. Death had now unveiled to him all the reasons why the man should be feared.

He remembered arriving at the Valley of the End, following Hashirama's chakra, picking his way over a canyon of rocks recently gouged out of the landscape and down to the bottom of a newly-formed pool. There, his brother had lain unconscious, blood flowing from his exposed chest and mixing with the waters in spidery fingers of red.

Tobirama's heart had leapt to his throat at the sight of him, so still. His shock was so great that he had allowed himself to forget the first rule of survival for a ninja: to always be aware of his surroundings.

Hashirama had been cold when he reached him, but he soon realized that it was simply due to the water draining the heat rather than for any more sinister reason. He had been kneeling next to Hashirama, trying to pull him into a sitting position, when a hand had closed around his throat. Only then did he realize his mistake.

Madara.

Tobirama had looked to the side and there he was, armour torn off him by the brutality of battle against his best friend and skin that had felt as cold as Hashirama's. His eyes, however, were blazing, spearing in their intensity. He had been so close that Tobirama could smell the sweat underneath the blood.

Before he could think to reach for a weapon, to finish at last what his brother had started, Madara's eyes had come to life. The red burst from his pupils as paint in water, black designs inking themselves before him, turning an already malevolent stare into the glare of a death god.

Tobirama was paralysed, trapped in a genjutsu so powerful that no pain could have broken it.

"Tobirama…" the Uchiha purred, leaning closer so that the sound travelled directly into his ear. "You're lucky I need everyone to believe that I'm dead or I'd take great pleasure in putting an end to your life right here."

His fingers had constricted around Tobirama's airways, to the point where he could not breathe. Every instinct the Senju possessed cried at him to react, to lash out, to fight back, to break loose, but the genjutsu holding him in place had been too strong. He was at the other's mercy.

"I should just stick a blade in your gut right now, slowly so I can feel the flesh part every milimetre of the way. Nowhere vital nor too deep, just enough that your own stomach acids could eat their way through your insides. It would take you days to die… Do you know how agonizing it would be? I do. So did Izuna."

Madara's voice was velvety, at odds with the gruesome things he described. Tobirama became all the more convinced that, somehow, the Uchiha had to die. He was too far gone. He would destroy the world with a smile on his face. If only Hashirama had seen it sooner, he and Tobirama could have eliminated him before things had gotten to this point. Now, with Hashirama out cold and Tobirama helpless before the sharingan, there was nothing to be done. They were dead and the village would follow.

"So you're very lucky, Tobirama," Madara continued. "You would not be able to explain your wound, so, today, I will let you live."

The genjutsu had run its course then and Tobirama had joined his brother in unconsciousness. By the time he had woken, he had had no memory of ever seeing Madara and merely helped his brother limp his way back to the village, convinced of their triumph.

The unease that overcame him at the thought of Madara had never left, though. He had always found it strange that the thought of a dead man should inspire so much dread in him. Now he knew. The Uchiha's genjutsu had kept the knowledge from him, but deep down he had always known that the danger had remained. And now death had revealed all the truth to him.

"Youngster…" Tobirama told Orochimaru. "You know nothing of Madara."