.
.
It's the day of the Naming Ceremony, and Madara's daughter is excited. "They're gonna pick a new Fire Shadow!" his daughter says, and she spins around the house yelling at topmost volume, "Fire Shadow! Fire Shadow! Fire Shadow!" She runs up and down the hallway, excitedly.
Hashi is supposed to take her to the ceremony, but his daughter insists Madara come with them. "My Sensei is going to be the Fire Shadow, Daddy! I want you to come see him!"
"Your Sensei is an idiot. Why must your father see him?"
"Because it's my Sensei, Daddy!"
Madara cannot think of a good argument not to come, so he loads the other two children up in a wheelbarrow and pushes them through town. His daughter cranes her neck, trying her best to look out through the crowd of gawking civilians who have gathered. Madara sighs loudly, then picks her up, putting her on his shoulders.
"Look, look Daddy!" his daughter bounces on his shoulders. "There's my Sensei! See him?"
"I do," Madara says, and his daughter laughs and kicks her feet excitedly, hitting him in the chest. Hashi bites back a laugh.
"Anata. That was a good thing you did for Obito." It's nighttime now, and Hashi turns and snuggles Madara in bed. "Everyone thinks you're so terrible but you actually have your soft spots."
"Hmph." Madara sniffs. "I had my reasons."
Hashi hugs him. "Because even after all that's happened, you're still fond of him."
"No." Madara starts to laugh. "Because I can tell that over-emotional idiot to take me off that stupid team with the Uzumaki brat and the Taijutsu moron!"
"Eh?"
Madara's eyes glitter. "Tsunade has long refused to remove me from my keepers. Anyone she would have picked would inevitably do the same. Now that Obito is in power, he can remove me from that team and let me work alone and in peace, the way it should be!"
Hashi frowns. "So, this whole thing you did - the heart-to-heart, the grudging apology, the acknowledgement of each other's strengths and weaknesses - that was just so you wouldn't be watched by Naruto and Gai?"
"YES!" Madara laughs psychotically. "And it worked! It worked all according to plan! Everything fell into place exactly as I wanted! Uchiha Madara will no longer bear the shackles of mediocre idiots! With this I have finally exacted revenge!"
Hashi frowns at him. "You are such an idiot," Hashi says.