Time Heals All Wounds

Summary: The day Tobirama died happens earlier, during Hashirama's time as Hokage when they are at war with almost every new village but years after Madara's death. Only he didn't die. He somehow ended up in a time not his own and met a familiar face he though gone forever. Can he get back? And what of his new friend?

"There is no way we can come out on top of this," Senju Toka said to her cousin, Clan Head and Hokge as they and the entire military might of Konohagakure and even reinforcements from Uzushiogakure stared down the unexpected alliance of the other four big shinobi villages and even the smaller ones littered throughout the Five Elemental Nations. Every capable warrior was put in the army behind them and Senju Hashirama knew it was not enough. He may be hailed as the God of Shinobi, but even he had his limits and he, much like everyone else behind him, had been fighting nonstop for weeks now. He was reaching his limit and there was nothing that he could do.

Even with Mito so graciously giving him half of her chakra reserves, he knew he wouldn't be able to hold out for all that long a time period before he could not fight any longer. He wasn't even sure if he had the strength or the concentration to enter Sage Mode at this time. If he's not careful about it, he'll just be turned to stone. Or maybe wood, given his Mokuton. And even if he could, with how exhausted he was and how many enemies there were waiting for them, there was no way of knowing if he would be able to hold up under the strain of any of his grander jutsus.

Tobirama had been right. Giving out the biju had been a terrible idea.

Tobirama ...

Just thinking of his last younger brother, MIA and more than likely KIA given who his last opponents had been, made his eyes water and his throat burn. 'I have failed in everything, old friend,' he thought to a man long dead and idly wondered if he could even hear him or if he would even want to. 'I have failed you. I have failed our dream. I have failed our village. And now I have failed my own brother.' Would it have been different, if his friend had never left? The Uchiha had been so cold towards their Clan Head but Hashirama had seen a few of them actually praying for him to give them strength and to watch over their clan from the Pure Lands. Maybe Hashirama should pray for the entirety of their village, too? He feared the opposite would happen out of spite. He should have never gone for his back. 'I wish you would give me guidance.'

Madara would have known what to do.

Madara had problems adjusting to peace because he was so good at war.

If only Madara were still here, this war would have never happened. Tobirama would have never been-

A thunderous boom came from one of the rock constructs in the middle of the desert they had, thankfully, all decided would be the best place for this war to take place. It was equally away from all villages and there was no one who lived anywhere near here for miles upon miles and no flora or fauna to worry about. The battle that will take place will be devastating, so it would be for the best if it occurred somewhere where it won't cost them food and resources. There wasn't even any water in sight, which was good, as otherwise it would be painted red by blood.

The boom, though, was a surprise.

It didn't come from their side.

And it hadn't come from the opposing side, either.

And the blinding flash of light really wasn't helping anyone figure out what was going on, but the wave of chakra that hit everyone seconds later would have been enough to collapse smaller trees. And it was familiar. By the gods, it was familiar and Hashirama wanted to cry and laugh and scream his relief to the world because that was-

"Tobirama!" Toka beat him to calling his brother's name when a figure in blue armor and dark clothing appeared on the same rock that the boom and flash had come from. The familiar shaggy head of silver hair nearly had Hashirama's knees buckling. His brother was too far away for him to see any details but he's sure that the younger man isn't standing weirdly, so he's at least not grievously injured! "You're alive! Hey! Over here! Tobirama!"

"Who's that with him?" Shimura Danzo, one of Tobirama's students, squinted into the distance and Hashirama only then noticed that there was, indeed, another person there with his brother. Possibly the person who had helped him or saved him. There had been no news of the Gold and Silver brothers and as good of a ninja as his brother was, Tobirama had been reported too exhausted to have managed to beat those two monsters on his own. Uchiha Kagami had drilled it into his head with bleeding eyes as his newly awoken Mangekyo Sharingan spun in threatening circles, just barely holding back from lashing out at him with a possibly deadly genjutsu.

The boy was now also squinting into the distance, along with every other Uchiha and Hyuuga, though no one seemed to be able to voice what they were seeing. Most of the jaws were slack, nearly hitting the ground.

"What's going on?" Hashirama demanded after a long moment of watching what appeared to be Tobirama helping someone into armor. He'd seen armor put on enough times in his life to recognize the movements even at this distance.

"No way. That's impossible!" The Hyuuga patriarch, rumored to have the strongest Byakugan in this generation, warbled.

And then the other person came up to stand beside Tobirama at the edge of the rock, arms crossed, long hair whipping in the wind, to look down on their enemies and Hashirama felt like the world had fallen from under him.

That was just not possible!

That was-!

00000

"Uchiha Madara!"

"It's him!"

"Wasn't he dead?!"

"How!?"

"Oh, sweet gods, why!?"

"It's definitely him. Uchiha Madara!" Madara zeroed in with his Sharingan on that one, a young boy, perhaps his age or close to it, bearing the insignia of the Village Hidden in Rocks. He seemed familiar, if as if from a long forgotten dream. Or memory, in his case.

"It seems like everyone has been busy since I was gone," his friend mused darkly and Madara shot him a worried glance. Tobirama was staring in the opposite direction, where a much smaller army waited. Madara could only just make out the stylized leaf on their headbands and knew those were Konoha shinobi, their allies. Their numbers were dismal in comparison to the opposing army. "You sure you still want to do this? This is more than I would except you to take on as your first ever battle."

"My first ever battle was against those two brutes who attacked and nearly killed you. Twice." Madara felt the need to remind blandly, getting a slightly annoyed look in return. And he knew Tobirama was annoyed because Madara was right. "I did fine."

"This is a bit more than two shinobi, overpowered as they were, Madara."

"I have armor," the Uchiha pointed out, gesturing at the red armor Tobirama had taken out of one of his scrolls and the outfit underneath. Something about it all just made him relax and feel right at home with the high collar and the length of the mantle. One would think it would only be a hindrance in a fight but, well, Madara was refusing to tie his hair out of the way so why should he change into something more like what Tobirama was wearing? A part of him just protested the idea. "Though I do have to wonder where you got one that fits me so perfectly."

"Perhaps something to discuss another time," Tobirama said just as both of their senses alarmed them of an incoming attack and they both had to jump out of the way of a reaching mass of sand. Madara found himself plummeting down the height of a several stories building but no panic gripped him. He was already letting himself be ruled by 'learned instinct' from another life and softening his own fall by making chakra act as buggers throughout his body. He landed perfectly balanced on the sand below and felt his chakra sing at the prospect of a good fight.

"Very well," he murmured to himself, feeling the tomoe of his Sharingan give a lazy spin as he straightened. He eyed the other side and actually saw a few of them shaking and a handful bringing up some sort of rosaries to pray for their lives. He wasn't all too sure how he felt about that but didn't waste time analyzing it. Instead, he sought out with his senses where Tobirama had landed and looked in his direction when he found him. He grinned. "I feel Uchiha-levels of overdramatic! Take my MP4 and that big pill looking thing and play Courtesy Call!"

"You can't be serious!" The Senju shouted back even as he shuffled Kurama in his hold so he he could do as he was told. The big pill was a speaker Madara had gotten from Ren a few years ago for Christmas, under the condition that he never amped up the volume to the maximum. Madara was very much looking forward to breaking that rule right now.

"Just play it, Senju!" He called as he took a step towards his opponents, feeling his blood rushing with adrenaline. He took note of how many faltered or took a step back in tandem with his own steps forward. A thick cloud suddenly hid the sun, making the moment even more dramatic and Madara could just feel Tobirama rolling his eyes as the song started playing.

Madara figured it was fitting that he has music for his first proper dance.

He knew the song by heart so when he started running towards his enemies and their war cry drowned out the music, he could still hear it in his head. "Don't look directly into his eyes!" The kid from before yelled as the army rushed to meet him and Madara just ...

Let it go.

The first rows of shinobi he encountered were sent flying from the sheer strength behind his first attack just colliding with them. Once in their midst, he found that he could really start dancing, speeding up a little to keep up with the music. A broken arm here, a slash across a breast there, kick those two idiots charging at him away. He whirled and spun, blocking attacks from kunai and katana and naginata with ease, his eyes tracking every movement, memorizing the location of each opponent, predicting every move before he moved. Dust and sand steered up from the amount of chakra he used to jump from one part of the battlefield to the other, a sizable body count already on the ground. He wasn't killing them - that would be too easy, a part of his mind whispered and he agreed, as killing was much easier than simply incapacitating - but it was clear they wouldn't be coming back up to their feet anytime soon.

A fool came at him with a katana from behind, aiming for his back but Madara whirled around, broke his collarbones with a single, swift slam of his elbow and took the weapon in his hands, briefly testing the grip and the balance. He felt like something was missing but it didn't prevent him from twirling around with the sword like it was an extension of his arm, showing every fool that came at him that they stood no chance against him. A single slash, not too deep but deep enough to be painful enough to stop them from getting up, was enough before he moved on to the next one, his hair whipping behind him with every move, every spin, every light step of his feet.

He was glad he had listened to Tobirama and let it grow even longer than he usually did. It made him look even more dramatic and graceful, he thought with amusement.

Something flew at him from his peripheral and he swiftly turned around to catch the kunai, tear off the paper bomb, slapped it onto the nearest Suna shinobi and then he threw back the kunai automatically aiming to kill. He kicked the man trying to take the bomb off into his comrades and winced when the thing blew up, killing a good number of people there. Whoops.

The explosion, predictably, caused a smokescreen to raise up and Madara found himself the only one able to not only 'see', but also the only one who remembers where his enemies had been. He wrestled weapons from them and flew through their numbers with ease, still doing his best to mostly just incapacitate them. This was for his memories, not for the sake of killing.

And it was to show these bastards to stay the fuck away from his village.

It didn't matter who or what came at him or what weapon fell into his hands, muscle memory that should not be there guided him through the battle. A few times, he came into the position of being unable to protect a side but what he couldn't get with taijutsu or kenjutsu, he handled with genjutsu, leaving several fools sitting on the ground and drooling like mindless zombies before he moved on to the next one. The form or the original use of the weapon did not matter, either, as he threw katana around like either shuriken or kunai, letting them sail through the battlefield and hoping he didn't inure too many people too much. Konoha was supposed to be about peace. Killing all of the other side's soldiers tended to leave people unwilling to make long lasting peace.

A particularly persistent shinobi kept coming at him with a sword lit by lighting, obviously not having learned from her fallen colleagues that he didn't get hit. Not once since he started. He moved swiftly when he saw a foolish opening and grabbed the kunoichi by her neck, easily holding her up as her sword dropped. He tried not to sigh in disappointment. "Do you want to dance with me, too?" He's not actually sure anyone here could keep up.

A sudden gust of wind, though, had him blown away, right out of the enemy lines, somersaulting in the air until he regained his bearings and landed, sliding through the sand a couple of feet before he came to a stop, eyes searching out a confident looking kunoichi with a giant fan she seemed to be maneuvering rather easily. Good for her. He could probably read her lips to see what she said since she was too far away to actually hear her but he didn't care, when all was said and done. Rather, he let his eyes quickly scan the new situation and his hands immediately fell into a position - a hand seal - they found familiar and appropriate, fire filling his lungs and he would have smirked if it wasn't dangerous to change the shape of his mouth right then.

"Katon: Goka Mekkyaku!" He was both surprised and not at all to see a literal sea of flames erupt from his mouth, spreading wide and fast enough that he knew no one would escape it. He couldn't see through the fire but he could sense suiton shinobi lining up and spitting out a huge water wave to counter him. He smirked inwardly. Oh, the difference in their levels was obvious. No wonder they feared him. 'I wish I remembered how to do this when Asama was being a git.' That would have shut him up.

He shook such thought away, letting the flames linger even as he made another hand seal and split the oncoming wave of chakra into several smaller ones, creating dozens of big fireballs and running forwards with them just as the collision of water and fire ended and a hot, steamy mist descended on the place. They must have had a sensor, because most of them were turned towards him when he burst through the thickest part of the fog but it was no use. They were too slow to defend themselves and he was in their midst once more, cutting down everyone in his way. They were as blind as before, all things considered, while he could actually see this time, too.

Which was why he was surprised when sand met his borrowed sword. It blocked it, the first time, and when he went to cut down another shinobi, it held it so he let it go, jumping out of the mist to see who was controlling the sand. And older man with a big, white mushroom hat with the kanji for wind in a small blue part that was just hilarious stood with his hands up, directing the attacking sand as it chased after the Uchiha. His Sharingan allowed him to avoid it even in the air, sometimes using the sand itself as a jumping board to avoid the next attack.

When he finally landed, though, it was to have a big shadow fall over him and he looked up to see a Jinchuriki, possibly of the Hachibi, a charged Bijudama in their cracked open jaw as they were coated in a higher level chakra cloak aimed right for him. Then chakra surged under his feet and a platform of rock rose from the sand, sending him straight into the path of the Bijudama and Madara felt his tomoe spin and change as dense, blue chakra burst from him, forming a giant as familiar to him as his own reflection. a smile played at the edges of his lips as its arm blocked the attack and even threw the Jinchuriki back. It came right back, not a moment later, and sand tried to drag his Susanoo down, to trap it, but Madara just added two more sets of arms, one arm catching the Jinchuriki and bringing it down to his level so his Sharingan can trap it in a genjutsu and then throwing it away as the biju's chakra started receding back into the host's body while the other five freed him of the sand and sent slashes of energy with Kusanagi swords through the allied forces until there was no one standing when he let his Susanoo down and he Shunshined where he felt Tobirama now standing with the other side.

The second he landed, all eyes were on him and staring. He cocked an eyebrow, challenging them to say something. But before anyone else could speak, a small body threw itself at him and somehow, that was familiar, too, and he was ready to catch the curly haired boy. "Shishou! Madara-shishou, you're alive!" The boy sobbed into his chest, his grip almost bruising as he held on as though Madara will disappear if he lets go.

'Ah,' he thought, arms coming to hold the boy close. 'It seems to be working.' "I am well, Kagami." That only made him sob harder and cling tighter. Madara didn't mind. Something in his chest had relaxed upon seeing Kagami, a once disciple in a different life that he could still not call his own with how little he knew of it.

"M-Madara-sama?" Another Uchiha, brown of hair but of familiar sharp features, Sharingan active as though he feared it to be a genjutsu, came closer, looking desperate to touch but not daring to lest he indeed prove to be an illusion or even just a ghost.

Another knot loosened and Madara grabbed his cousin into his arms as well. "How many times must I tell you not to be so formal, Hikaku." The man instantly gripped him as tightly as Kagami, not willing to let go.

"You're alive," he breathed, a hiccup building in his throat. "H-how? E-everyone said ... And then the body disappeared ... But the wound had went straight through your lung and your heart! How? Just how? I don't want it undone." The last was whispered in a voice more befitting a young child than a war veteran and Madara tightened his hold on them both, searching through the memories he now had for the answer ...

Only to come up blank. "I don't know. I don't remember enough."

Before either of them could ask further questions, a long haired brunet man staggered towards them. Immediately, both of the Uchiha clinging to him whirled around, weapons pointed at the Senju, by the feel of him. "Madara ... I ... You're here ... But ... I ... "

"We can talk later," he cut in, feeling the stirring of the army at his back. The enemy still hadn't had enough. "I still have a lot of dancing to do, it would seem, but I feel like something is missing."

"More dramatic music?" Tobirama called sarcastically as he approached with Kurama in arms and his MP4 and pill in hand. "Good choice, though. Really fit the atmosphere. You want me to play it again?" Kagami gasped in relief and more tears fell down his cheeks as he threw himself at Tobirama this time, calling out much the same greeting as he had to Madara except he was 'sensei'. Madara didn't remember that yet, which meant he really did have a lot more fighting to do. Damn.

"While that would be nice, that's not what I meant. My hands," he said, looking down. Slight wounds were starting to threaten to open from handling weapons when he had never held them in this body in his life. "Something's missing."

"Oh!" Kagami exclaimed, turning around again and taking out a pair of dark leather gloves that instantly called to Madara's very being. "I took Shishou's gloves when they brought back the- Anyway, I took the gloves since Shishou always said that these gloves are to either be burned or handed down to a worthy Uchiha. I don't think anyone's worthy of your gloves, Shishou, so I kept them with me like a good luck charm." The boy - around fourteen, fifteen - was both blushing and beaming up at him as he handed over the gloves. Just the feel of them in his hand untangled another knot.

Putting them on was like coming home. "Oh." Oh, yes. This was much better. A familiar tug at a seal woven into the inside of his gloves was all it took for Madara to suddenly find another thing that was like coming home with the handle of it in his hand. His gunbai, as glorious as ever. "Oh, yes. This is exactly what I needed."

"So that's where it was this whole time," Hikaku commented in realization and Madara chuckled. A grin split his face.

"I'll be right back."