.
.
"You're giving up your engagement?"
Tobirama looked in disbelief as Hashi folded her hands at the desk, a serene smile on her face. She nodded. "Please tell Uzumaki-dono I send my regrets, but after everything that happened, I cannot marry him."
"Sister, this isn't wise - we need that strategic alliance with their clan."
"There is a daughter, is there not?" Hashi's eyes flicked upward. "Uzumaki Mito sealed the Kyuubi within herself. Her father has deemed her therefore unmarriageable. You told me she was beautiful once, right, Little Brother?"
Tobirama's jaw tightened. Hashi stood, then walked toward the window.
"I've given so much for this village." Her voice was soft. Slowly she lifted her hand, then rested her fingertips against the window. "I killed the only person I'd ever love. Please, Little Brother. Just let me have this."
Tobirama was silent. He gave her a short nod.
"Okay, Sister," Tobirama said. "I will let the Uzumaki know."
xXx
.
Tobirama and Uzumaki Mito were married within the month.
Hashi loved being an aunt. The children would run into her office, and Hashi would squeal and lift them up by the armpits. She'd use her mokuton to perform silly little tricks, making them laugh. At night, after her many meetings, she would join Tobirama and his family for dinner, trading stories and laughter and playing with their kids.
Some nights were fine. She would go to the Hokage compound, lighting a candle and incense and saying a prayer for Madara and for the ancestors to be kind to him. Sometimes she would speak to her mother and ask that she look over him. "He doesn't have anyone," Hashi would say. "I imagine he'd be as harsh to those around him in the afterlife as he was alive. Please take care of him." She would clap her hands and bow her head, and leave an offering of inari on a small plate in front of the shrine.
She had nightmares. The feel of her sword driving through warm, living flesh. The look of shock on his face that she would actually kill him. Some nights she would dream about their last conversation the mouth of the Valley, her leading the Senju army while Madara stood, ready to raze Konoha just by himself.
Please, she had begged him. Please don't do this. I love you, you're my brother. The two of us are family.
He looked at her with Sharingan eyes. "My family is already dead," he said.
xXx
.
The children grew. Hashi yearned for freedom, and so in her fiftieth year, she granted the title of Hokage to him.
She started storing her chakra in a small black diamond at her forehead, a technique that would be passed down for generations. The Byakugo no In kept her youthful in appearance. While the men who knew Madara grew old, Hashi stayed preternaturally young.
"My dream," she told Tobirama, who was already along in years and whose face now bore the wrinkles and lines of old age, "is to die old and surrounded by the people who care for me." And many people did love her - her brother and her nieces and nephews, the grandchildren that soon came after. Her days were filled with love and laughter, but at night she would look around herself, see the emptiness of her bedroom, the looming shadows on the wall, and be filled with an aching loneliness.
The passing of time did nothing to ease her regret.
She was eighty years old, though she looked like she was twenty, when she climbed into bed. Curling on her side, she wrapped her arms around a pillow and imagined she was cradling Madara against her. She would brush back the hair from the line of his neck, let her lips find the tender curve of his jaw. She would hold him in their sleep and they would feel content.
They found her body the next morning. The chakra seal had broken, and her once youthful appearance had shriveled into cold skin and brittle bones.
xXx
.
"Anata, can I tell you something?"
"What is it?" Madara asks. Hashi shifts beneath the covers, burrowing herself against him.
"I missed you so much. I used to be so lonely."
"Are you thinking about the old days?" Madara says, and Hashi nods, leaning against his chest. She feels his hand gently rest on her head.
They make love quietly in the darkness. Afterwards, he lets her sleep curled up against him. Her face is partially hidden, but he can feel the damp wetness of her tears. He gently wipes her eyes with his thumbs and holds her close, kissing her brow before falling asleep.