From that encounter on Hashirama continued to meet with Madara by the river, never without the knowledge of his family. Together Hashirama and Madara trained and taught each other their shinobi techniques, always talking about a way to change the hard times they lived in.
At first Hashirama had been opposed to the idea of training with Madara since she was a girl. Madara on the other hand, would not accept no for answer. At first she had tried goading him into fighting her, however when she realized there was nothing she could say to him that would antagonize him into a fight she forced him to practice with her after throwing the first punch. Surprised by her strength, Madara had kept Hashirama on the defensive for most of the fight until he realized she wouldn't stop until he put some real effort into their fight. After that Hashirama had been forced to admit to himself that Madara was extremely strong, bordering his own strength. It was no wonder that despite her gender she was allowed to fight alongside her clansmen in battle. Girl or not, she was a prodigy just like him.
After one such training session both were heavily panting completely exhausted.
"Your taijutsu and kumite are good," Madara admitted to him. "You can even tie with me."
Hashirama looked at her in disbelief. "This is not a tie. I'm still standing!"
"Oh?" she asked him coly.
Out of nowhere Madara threw a rock at Hashirama so hard he landed flat on his back.
"What were you saying?" Madara asked him gleefully.
Rubbing his head Hashirama told her, "You're kind of a sadist, you know that?"
Madara only laughed getting up off the ground. Grabbing some water she sat down next to him while handing him his own. That was their routine. They trained until both were too tired to stand, then would relax and talk about what it would take to change the way they lived.
"But the problem is," Hashirama was discussing with her a little while later. "How can we concretely change something? I can't get a clear view of the future."
"First of all," Madara explained to him, "you must hold onto your ideals and become stronger. If you're weak no one will listen to you."
Hashirama couldn't help but agree with her. "That's right, if we master a lot of jutsu and become stronger, adults won't be able to ignore us anymore."
"You need to overcome your weaknesses and the jutsu you're not good at. Well, I'm already stronger than your average adult on that," Madara said matter of factly.
While it sounded like mere bragging, Hashirama had learned by now from his time with Madara that this was not the case. Madara was indeed strong, and he could see her being just as powerful as she boasted herself to be.
Looking up at the sky she told him, "It's getting late. My brother will start to wonder where I am. I better get going."
He stood up with her. "Ok, when should we meet next? Two days time?"
"No, I can't. I'm busy then." A strange look had crossed her face as she told him that.
"Alright." An uneasy feeling had settled in Hashirama's stomach. Deep down he knew why she was "busy", but chose to try ant not think about it. "When then?"
Madara thought for a moment, "Five days from now."
"Sounds good to me," he told her. Madara couldn't but notice that his usual cheery grin was a little forced.
"See you," she told him with a sad smile.
As they both left the river Hashirama suddenly called back to her, "Madara!"
Madara stopped to turn around, but made no move forward. "Yeah?"
For a moment he hesitated before he told her with a sad look, "I hope you get home okay."
Madara was shocked for a moment. There were different ways to interpret what Hashirama had told her, but she knew exactly what he had meant. While the two had become good friends and liked to talk about their dreams of the future, there were still things they could never tell each other. In this way he was honoring her wishes by not actually coming out to say it, but still letting her know he cares. Madara was touched.
Returning his smile she waved to him, "Of course. I'll see you later."
On his way back home Hashirama couldn't steer his thoughts away from Madara. He knew that she would be going out to battle, and he couldn't help but feel nervous for her. However underneath his anxiety, he was also forced to think about things he liked to avoid thinking about.
The ugly truth was that despite being friends, Hashirama had no idea who Madara was. For just as easy as she could belong to a clan that was an ally, she could also be from an enemy clan. If the latter was true he wasn't quite sure how things would end but he knew that he would probably have to stop seeing her.
Having spent enough time with her Hashirama knew that if he really wanted to, he could just figure out which clan it was on his own. The truth was that he didn't want to know.
When he arrived home he was confronted by Tobirama. "Hey, you've been gone for a while. Where were you?"
Hashirama turned to face him, "I was out training, why?"
Tobirama gave him a look, "Father asked about you. He's started to notice that you've been disappearing a lot recently and was asking questions."
Hashirama tried not to tense up. "I've just been training in the woods by myself. There's nothing wrong with that."
Tobirama wasn't satisfied by his answer. "You've been acting pretty secretive lately. What? You get a girlfriend or something?"
"WHAT? NO." Hashirama couldn't help the flush on his face.
Tobirama stared at him. "You know I was only joking right?"
"Whatever," Tobirama said walking away when Hashirama started to sputter.
Five days later Hashirama was sitting by the river waiting for Madara. Since parting he had hoped that nothing bad had happened to her.
His thoughts were interrupted as a stone skipped across the water. Turning he saw that it was Madara. She looked a little banged up and bruised, but nothing that he could see was serious.
"Hey," she said to him. "Ready to train?"
Smiling back he told her, "Yeah, get ready to lose."
"Madara, I came up with a fantastic new jutsu! Let's master it together!"
"Oh, what kind? She asked unfazed by how excited he was.
"Secret taijutsu, super katon genjutsu cutting big shuriken double drop technique!
Madara blinked. "I don't get it."
"You see the trick is-" he started to explain.
"Yeah no, I have a better idea. We'll have a vertical wall climbing challenge," she told him matter of factly.
To her great annoyance Hashirama was once again on the ground sulking in his usual depressive state. "Stop sulking! You can't always act like that every time you don't get your way. That's your weak point."
Almost as soon as she had finished speaking Hashirama had jumped up and started running for the wall. "AHAHAHAH, and you shouldn't be so gullible. That's your weak point!" he yelled back to her. "See you at the top!"
Madara was livid as she watched him get a head start. "Jerk! You were faking the whole time!" Not wasting any more time she ran after him to try and catch up.
"I…won…" Hashirama told Madara trying to catch his breath.
"Oh course you did…cheater," she spat out between breaths. They both sat down next to each other and gazed out at the vast forest in front of them. Somewhere behind all the trees the both of their clans lived.
"You can get a view of the whole forest from here," Hashirama told her gazing out into the distance.
"Yup, you can see really far out into the distance. Though I'm confident that I can beat you when it comes to seeing. Want to test that out?
Noticing a change in arrogance he asked her, "That's kind of sudden. You seem to be really proud of your eyesight."
"Of course! I have a-…" she suddenly cut off as though all the air was sucked out of her body. Madara cursed at herself internally. She couldn't believe that she had grown so comfortable with this boy that she had almost slipped something like that to him. Next thing she knows, she might accidently tell him her surname.
"What's wrong?" Hashirama didn't know what she was going to say, but he could tell she had been about to tell him something she wasn't supposed to.
"No…it's nothing to brag about really." The words were extremely hard for her to say.
Hashirama tilted his head and smiled. "Heh, modesty doesn't suit you."
Madara however continued to look solemn. "If I was really elite…my brothers wouldn't have…I couldn't protect them…what good is the…what is…"
As she spoke Hashirama couldn't help thinking about Itama and Kawarama. He sympathized with her in a way no one else could. "But you still have one brother left right?"
"Yeah, my youngest. I'll make sure nothing ever happens to him. I promised my mother."
Wanting to cheer her up Hashirama said, "Let's build our village here! We'll make it a place where kids won't have to kill each other. We can build a school where children will be taught how to grow and get strong, missions will be chosen depending on personal skills and strength! Seniors will assign the proper level. In our village children won't be sent out into the battlefields!"
Madara shook her head smiling, "You're the only one who comes up with such silly ideas." She would never admit it out loud, but she liked how optimistic Hashirama was. It made her feel hopeful.
"What are your thoughts then?" Hashirama asked.
"I like it, and when we build our settlement I'll be able to watch over my little brother. I'll be able to keep my promise."
The two continued to talk for another few hours looking out at what would one day become their village. When they finally came down they skipped rocks to each other from opposite sides of the river.
"We both made it to the other side," Hashirama told her smiling.
Madara smiled back. "That's a good rock for stone skipping, you keep it until the next time we meet."
And with that both children departed from the river.