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?

It was crazy how comforting it was to see Madara's wild grin, billowing hair, hands in leather gloves and his gunbai in hand. The armor and his usual Uchiha mantle were a bonus but all that defined Madara was right where it should be and the fire in him burned brighter than the sun or any other star in existence to Tobirama's senses.

Somehow this felt more like coming home than when his brother had nearly strangled the life out of him with one of his customary hugs before he started shaking him in hopes of getting an answer out of him. Apparently, he had thought Madara to be an Edo Tensei summon, but when the legendary Uchiha had unexpectedly come to complain about something missing, they had all seen that Madara's sclera was perfectly white.

Madara was alive and he was wiping the floor with the four allied nations all by himself.

Nothing new there.

Hashirama had always been the only one who can battle Madara and come out on top.

Though the way Madara was fighting now ...

It was different and it was painfully easy to see. Even while clearly aiming to simply incapacitate everyone he could instead of outright slaughtering them all, Madara was, for the first time that he could tell, not holding back. There was a precision and calculation to his movements that he had never noticed before, every move, every breath planned ahead and executed with graceful precision. It was nothing like how Madara used to fight with flashy jutsu and overpowered moves. He didn't hesitate. He didn't look to the side to check anything. He just moved and fought like the machine of war that a lifetime of it has created him to be.

And for the first time, as he watched from the outside and not the battlefield, Tobirama understood why.

Madara was alone down there. There was no one to watch out for, no one to protect, no reason to hold back. Those were his enemies, people who will kill him if given the chance, no one who will impact the rest of his life. This was not like the Uchiha-Senju Clan Wars, simply because there was no best friend on the other side that Madara didn't want to make hate him or hurt.

Madara fought like a shinobi should. And right now, it showed, just the difference of what he was capable of when he had no reason to temp down on his own skill, on his own power. There was no Izuna to worry about. His whole clan was well behind him, if he even cared about them with how little memories of his past life he currently possessed. It was him, his gunbai and the poor sods who were foolish enough to continue attacking him when it was so clear that he could take them down with ease.

"Holy shit," Toka whispered even as she draped herself over his shoulders, her own form of Hashirama's too enthusiastic greeting. "How come he never fought like this before? He looks like he could take down Hashirama with both hands tied behind his back."

"Hokage-same defeated the Uchiha before. More than once," a Nara, one Tobirama had never spoken with before, young and foolish, apparently, spoke up.

"Hm, but not this Madara," Tobirama felt the need to point out, gesturing to where Madara was now showing the kunoichi with the fan from before how one fights with a proper uchiwa. And combining his katon with the futon of his gunbai. While baiting out a second Jinchuriki, the Nibi's this time. 'Perhaps Madara is having too much fun down there.' Tobirama certainly wasn't going to be the one to rob him of it. The teen probably needed some stress relief after the shit he went through with his 'family'.

"He looks younger," Mito commented, intrigued.

"I'm not sure how it happened, but he ended up in the future, reborn but with the same chakra signature and no memories of this life. Then they started to come back after he fought and defeated Kinkaku and Ginkaku-"

"WHAT!?" Several voices thundered, Hashirama's positively the loudest among them. "But you couldn't defeat them!"

"Well, I'm not Uchiha Madara, Anija," he felt the need to point out, rolling his eyes. Though, if he was honest, he had been shocked when Madara had beaten them as well, but Hashirama didn't need to know that. "Anyway, there came a situation, he nearly lost it, got some new memories back and said there might be something dangerous he had left behind. But he doesn't know what because-"

"It's lost in his memories," Toka nodded, sighing. "I guess we should just be grateful that Uchiha memory isn't exactly normal memory, huh."

"He looks ... Different," an Uchiha said from behind them. A look over his shoulder showed Tobirama that it was one of Madara's diehard loyalists that had stayed with the man until Hashirama defeated him and they finally ended the war, one of the few that had, despite being scared of his Clan Head, turned up for the ceremonial pyre they had held on Madara's death despite there no longer being a body for them to burn. This Uchiha was definitely old enough to remember Madara as he was at this age the first time around. "He fights differently."

"That's because Madara had never went all out. Not without grief and fear of hurting others clouding his judgement." Everyone once again turned their attention to him instead of Madara swatting his enemies away like flies with his gunbai and breaking the earth golems left and right with his bare hands. Some were even throwing boulders his way but Madara seemed to be sending them back with a simple backhand of his most prized weapon. And then there were the fires he set to the enemy lines. Tobirama really wondered if those people down there were suicidal. Hashirama had been the only one to step up on Madara's battlefield to fight him since the man turned fifteen and set the entire battlefield on fire in a single breath for the first time and to survive.

"What do you mean, sensei?" Asked the curious Kagami and Tobirama smiled bitterly as he explained his own realization.

"All of his life, Madara was surrounded by people he cared about on the battlefield. To unleash his full potential meant he could possibly hurt them, so he held back. Now, down there, there is no one whose loss would impact Madara in any way and he is fighting like none of us has ever seen before. Because before, there was always something to hold back for, to be careful about. And after Izuna's death, despite the new power and the want of revenge ... Well, we are shinobi. To fight with our heart instead of our head, to let emotions cloud our judgement ... It is suicide."

"Madara-sama didn't even wait for his eyes to heal after the transplant," Hikaku said bitterly, forlornly, to himself and Tobirama closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotions. He had done that. He had broken the great Uchiha Madara, the greatest war general the Uchiha had ever had, their strongest warrior, a shinobi that could rival Hashirama and occasionally win their 'battles'. He is the one who had made his friend lash out and go into a battle he must have known would have been his last had Hashirama been even just a little less stubborn about their once shared dream. Just thinking that he had caused such grief to the boy that had been a source of comfort, familiarity and content for the past several weeks, even if it was in another lifetime and Madara didn't remember, made Tobirama want to hurl in his own mouth.

"Anija, you've never fought this Madara before," he told his brother when he could force himself to open his eyes. He had to, as the image of a prone Madara lying on that battlefield, telling Hashirama to just end him if he wants his peace, with his own sword raised at the ready to kill him ... Of the pale, cold body Hashirama had carried through the village gates after their final battle ... They were engraved into his eyelids and keeping his eyes closed would make him sick when he thinks about the happy tears Madara had shed only hours ago when Tobirama had given him his birthday gift. "You don't know him. He has nothing but his own life to lose and a shinobi that has nothing is a weapon. As long as there is no one to stand on the battlefield that he may care for, Madara is a completely different beast. You may be stronger, but he is the one who is ultimately more skilled. If he were not to hesitate, he could just kill you and you wouldn't even see it coming."

And Tobirama knew this to be true. His brother was too used to having Tobirama and an entire council of generals to do the long-term planning for him, especially after the village was formed, with Madara chief among them. Every problem that he could not solve by bulldozing over it with sheer strength and enormous chakra reserves, he had left it for them. The Uchiha, on the other hand, didn't just go into battle without forethought. Madara may seem to just rush into a fight arrogantly, foolishly, but the Uchiha was bred for battle in a way none of the Senju could ever be. His mind raced and he made plans and contingencies and contingencies for his contingencies until he created an entire loop so he gets the desired outcome. Tobirama had seen it first hand, after the village was formed and he and Madara were sent on a few missions together. Madara always stoically looked down at the fight he was entering. Once, Tobirama had thought he was looking down on the enemies in arrogance. Then, he witnessed how methodically he took them down and knew that was not the case. It was planned and he saw a mind beneath all of that hot temperament and wild hair that had intrigued and honestly frightened him.

Hashirama had perhaps known this, on some level, when he had suggested Madara be the first Hokage. Perhaps it wasn't just an attempt to keep the man from leaving the village.

Tobirama will never know. Hashirama had not spoken his friend's name, let alone about him, since the battle at the Valley of the End. He'd simply had two statues erected there and would sometimes be seen coming back from there more solemn than anyone would usually expect him to be. He'd put on an act as soon as he realized he was being watched, but, ultimately, he could not fool Tobirama.

In hindsight, had he really been fooled by his incapable-of-lying older brother? Had he seriously not noticed just how much Madara's death had shaken him up? He'd thought Hashirama had gotten over it when he'd stopped gazing sadly into the distance, towards the Naka river with a stone perfect for skipping in his hand. It had never really occurred to him that Hashirama was hiding his pain from others so as not to bring them down, to make them doubt him.

He would have never known had he not felt the exact same spike in Hashirama's chakra when Madara had landed before them now that he used to feel every time his brother returned to the village from one of his 'walks' in the woods. How foolish he had been. Perhaps being around Madara and people whose emotions he could not fully discern due to their weak chakra signatures had finally thought him a lesson on how to better read people. How to better understand them. He had been given insight in a way he had never allowed himself to see before. Almost two months of doing nothing war or clan related had finally opened his eyes.

To many things.

To Madara.

To his own brother.

'I won't make the same mistakes again,' he vowed, red eyes locked on Madara, who seemed to be locked in battle against the other four Kage and seemed to be whipping the floor with them. Was that ... Is he using Kage Bunshin!? When had he learned that? Tobirama wasn't sure if he'd ever used that jutsu around either version of Madara, not while the teen was awake, anyway. Or not properly so.

Then sixteen Susanoos appeared and Tobirama's mind went blank.

"Had anyone known he could do that?" Toka asked, sounding awed and excited and not at all terrified like she should at the prospect of her clan's greatest enemy having the control required to safely combine such two chakra-draining jutsus and keep on fighting. The clones were the ones to engage the other village leaders and Madara seemed inbound back towards them again.

The teen, when he was back with them, was flushed from battle, an exhilarated air about him that only Uchiha Madara could feel after trouncing half an army of four other great shinobi villages and their Kage and all the smaller villages that had decided to stand against Konoha. There was a reason Tobirama had known the other villages would not dare attack Konoha if only Madara was still alive. The man was a battlefield fiend, his power legendary and ultimately, people fear a sea of fire more than a forest coming to life. He was also far more ruthlessly efficient in battle than Hashirama would ever be. In that, Tobirama and Madara were all too similar.

"Had enough fun for the day?" Tobirama found himself asking when Madara confidently made his way over to him. He heard several rows of shinobi behind him shuffle further back and away from the should-be-dead-but-obviously-isn't Uchiha. Cowards. (Or perhaps they simply had better self-preservation instincts. A debate for another time.)

Madara just shrugged. "I figured I played around enough with them. I could go on but from what I understand, peace would be better so I thought intimidating them into rethinking their stance against Konohagakure no Sato would be a good idea."

"I don't think there is much more you can do to intimidate them, Uchiha-sama," a terse, tense Hyuuga sniffed and the people around him all scattered when Madara looked in his direction. Tobirama had to bite his cheek to prevent himself from laughing at them. Fearing Uchiha Madara is probably the smartest thing to do, no matter his age or lack of memories. The Hyuuga stiffened, his joints locking and Tobirama knew that if Madara were to truly take offence and decide to kill him, the man was too afraid to even try to move out of the way or to defend himself.

But his friend only arched an eyebrow, almost mocking as he drawled. "Challenge accepted." Then he turned to Tobirama and made what he would have called grabby hands at the fox-that-might-not-be-an-ordinary-fox-but-so-much-more in his arms. Kurama, predictably, happily went to the black haired teen, even though there was some blood on his armor and dust and sand all over him from fighting in a desert. "Wanna terrify some bastards into submission?"

Tobirama actually flinched back when the fox bared its teeth in a bloodthirsty grin. Everyone else flinched back when Madara returned it before he used Shunshin to go back to the battlefield. The clones and their Susanoo disappeared, drawing everyone's attention back to their creator. Tobirama and the whole of Konoha's and Uzushio's army inched forward to see what the teen planned to do as he crouched down. Tobirama could no longer see Kurama in Madara's arms, which were on either side of him and as he moved around, taunting, possibly giving the other side one last warning before he did whatever it was he planned on doing, there was no sign of him, either. Which kind of worried him as he had grown somewhat attached to the damned beast that always glared at him for being too close to Madara.

(Not that he would ever admit that. Especially not to the beast itself.)

Then the enemy side launched an attack, a clear sign that they didn't appreciate being given an ultimatum from a measly teenager, whoever he might be, and Tobirama kind of winced in advance for whatever Madara had planned for them.

And then Madara crouched down, there was a surge of chakra that tugged on the veil of the world - a summoning - a huge summoning seal appeared underneath him ...

The wave of chakra that hit them was perhaps enough to send them to their knees as a large smoke cloud appeared and when it cleared, it wasn't just the enemy side that was shaking in fear, weapons dropping from numb fingers. The Kyuubi no Kitsune was, after all, a terrifying sight, the strongest of the biju, with fiery fur and blood red eyes, its nine tail trashing about and causing small earthquakes every time one of them struck the ground. Its roar was deafening and Tobirama felt his knees go weak when he recognized Kurama in this beast, large enough to crush mountains in one hit. And on its head, like in the last battle he had been seen in before his death, stood Madara, gunbai in hand and eyes ablaze with his Sharingan. Then the shinobi all flinched back further when blue chakra started manifesting around the biju, creating impenetrable armor, the perfect Susanoo covering the Kyuubi in a way only Hashirama had seen before. The opposing shinobi actually fell to their knees, one by one, their chakra signatures choked with despair and fear and Tobirama understood perfectly and didn't judge them for crying.

Madara's Susanoo was a sight to behold and to run from.

Madara's perfect Susanoo has never been seen to live to tell the tale.

Madara's perfect Susanoo over the strongest of the biju ...

"Look on the bright side," Mito said consolingly, though to whom is a mystery as they all watched white flags and handkerchiefs and any other fabrics begin being madly waved in the air to signal a surrender. "At least he's on our side this time."

Someone laughed hysterically.

(It may have been a sob.)