Put down like dogs? From what I can see, all of them are still just as alive as ever. [Someone else hasn't been clued into this whole future business, thus there's quite a lot of confusion to go with her statement.]
You didn't know Tobirama like I did. Tobirama is as stubborn as they come, no one would be able to put an impression upon him. It wasn't Hashirama being weak, nor was he not trying to instill his ideas in him. No, it was a valiantly fought battle, whether you believe so or not. I do not expect someone as low as you are to understand the affairs that went on between the two of them.
[On the other hand she's giving him the most shit-eating smile.]
A child's dream? Were you not the same child he was? Or, more correctly, already tainted by the darkness from the very get-go. He didn't change and his will become stronger and unable to be put out by the hardest of tasks. While you, on the other hand, fell underneath the pressure, fled, and warred with the one you once called friend. Hashirama had a heart, which is more than can ever be said of you.
[... Did he really just say what she thought he said, though?] Matters of men? Pray tell what sort of manly things I'm missing out on here. Do all men turn around and stab their friend when things don't go their way? Are men nothing more than children with tempers that befit children who have yet to understand the world? Do tell me what it is I am missing, because what I can tell is that I have more understanding on this subject than you seem to think.
[ Madara almost laughs. Really, he can't help himself. ]
Oh, you poor, unfortunate woman. I do believe you've become quite delusional, drunk on the power you've accrued from your station as Hashirama's breeding mare. You think you actually understand the intricacies of the struggle between Uchiha and Senju, and that you know anything of value at all.
But it is quite clear that you know nothing.
Not of the way Hashirama's people treated my own, and certainly not of the future.
Since you are so ignorant on these matters, let me educate you, woman.
Just a few years from where you now stand, Tobirama will corral my people into pens at the outskirts of the village and label them as second class citizens made to serve their great Senju masters. They will be reduced to nothing but guard dogs who have no claim over their own rights of citizenship and stripped of their political voices and any power they should have deserved. They will be made to suffer a political death long before the third Hokage issues an edict to exterminate Uchiha, men, women, and children. Even infants still in their cradles.
This, my dear woman, is the fate of my people, at the hands of Hashirama's blood.
So do not speak to me of your understanding, for I had forewarned Hashirama of this tragic fate, but he was too stubborn to listen. His own optimism blinded him to the truth: that Senju and Uchiha were never meant to call one another brothers, especially when those who live and breathe and rule with Senju blood would so much rather prefer to cut our throats and wash the blood off their hands to deny responsibility.
[And there's a new voice joining the conversation...]
What happened to your clan is a tragedy, Madara. I accept my share of the guilt for it, for creating the village that led it to happen. There's no denying that.
[Because of course he's far more willing to take the blame on himself than Mito is to put it there.]
But it wasn't inevitable. There were so many choices, so many forks, and if even one had been taken differently, none of this would have happened.
You know, for all your animosity, you and Tobirama are very much alike. [Whoops okay maybe that's not a way to get Madara to listen to him.] He judged all the Uchiha by you -- unfair, unjust, yes. And I was unable to stop him. And now you're judging all the Senju -- no, all of Konoha, all that's left -- by him. Is that not equally unjust?
What you're doing now is no better than what he did to your blood. More killing doesn't end the bloodshed -- you knew this when you were a child. How can you not see it now?
Because he doesn't want to admit that he is wrong, is it not obvious enough? [As it always has been, she's more apt to give him the benefit of the doubt in these situations. Heart in the right place and what have you.]
You can't reason with him, he'd just as well kill you than he would to make any sort of peace. A disgusting definition of a human being and regards no one on the same level as he is.
[Though she's a bit calmer than previously, just a tiny bit.] Nor do I take particularly kindly to being likened to a breeding mare of all things.
[ The problem really, is that Madara is far too human. That his love goes too deep. And it is because of love that he has become what he is. ]
Seeing as you had no reaction at all towards the fact that your husband's people extinguished my own, I find it ironic that you think you have any right to speak of humanity.
But then, I suppose you are just a container for a beast after all, and it would be unfair of me to hold you to the same standards.
[ The name comes out in a growl as the pinwheels turn in Madara's eyes, lighting ablaze. ]
Do not dare compare me with the murderous dictator of a man you call a brother.
My quarrel was always with you, you who had tricked me into joining hands with you who promised me and my people a lifetime of peace, and look at what your flesh and blood did to my own! Just how arrogant and hypocritical can you be, to feel you have some right to spout this nonsense of killing and bloodshed? Did you not speak of how you would create a village where children would not be made to go to war? And yet this was the same village that sent a child to exterminate his entire family to protect its delusion of peace.
[ Ohhh, Madara is angry, furious, at the future that is to come that he sees far too clearly. Perhaps his mun should've kept him completely canon, woops. ]
At least if Uchiha had fallen on the battlefield, it would have been an honorable death worthy of glory. Instead, we were put down like dogs.
[ He pauses, takes a breath here, grinding the words out between his teeth. ]
I do not judge Konoha by Tobirama's legacy, but by yours.
You filled my ears with talk of peace but for all of your blind optimism, you were unable to keep the promise you should have known your people would break so brutally.
[Now maybe if Hashirama actually had more of a spine he could pull out all the enormous gaping holes in your logic, Madara. But he's too much of a creampuff for that.]
You're right, Madara. [He bows his head, accepting the harsh words.] I do bear guilt for what came to pass. Had the clans not come together into the village, the entire sequence of events would not have begun.
The dream itself wasn't impossible, though! [This he believes, with his whole heart.] It didn't have to be this way! We could have... we could have, if we'd truly set aside the factions and enmities.
I tried to take care of your people -- the ones who surrendered to us during the war, and the ones who came to us in Konoha, both. I did everything I could to give them a safe, a good life.
If you're angry, then be angry with me. It was, as you say, my dream and my blood. Don't take it out on Mito. This is not her guilt to bear.
Perhaps you should have firmly instructed your woman not to meddle in our affairs.
But even had she not, I have every right to be angry at your flesh and blood and those who would ally themselves with you, who fattened themselves on the blood of my own.
[ And here Madara falls a little quiet, like a flame starting to lose its burn. ]
The dream we so foolishly spoke of when we were young... It was, in every sense of the word impossible, as long as men like your brother and those who would endorse his policies and beliefs, continued to live and thrive.
Even if you tried to take care of my people, Hashirama, your failure to take care of those who would rather have us enslaved or better yet -- dead -- meant absolutely nothing in the end.
It was a foolish dream.
[ Sometimes Madara wishes he never dreamt it at all. ]
She's my wife, Madara. Not my slave, and not subject to my orders. [Seriously man, you want to try making an Uzumaki do as she's told? Good luck.] If she takes an interest in what is said of the village she lives in, or of me, that is her own decision, but don't you dare attack her for things that she has not done, did not do. The Uzumaki had no part in what happened between Senju and Uchiha. She is blameless.
[And he quiets as well, echoing that tone.]
That is my failing, Madara. The dream was possible, but it needed a stronger man than I to bring it out, to teach the people like Tobirama that a different way was truly possible. It could have worked, it could have happened. Things are better than they were when unrestrained, unprincipled war tore all the clans! The villages have built times of peace between them. It isn't perfect, but it's something.
[Except for the Uchiha. Urg. It's hard to defend his dream when it ended so badly for his best friend, the man he still wants to count as a brother in spirit.]
This was why I wanted you to be Hokage. It would have healed things. That breach would have been more truly ended. [Because of course Madara wouldn't have been even a little vengeful toward the Senju. You know. Like he was and is.]
I tried, Madara. I tried.
sorry for the long delay T_T work work work... i hope this is ok!
It was not just you. It was you and your allies and anyone who grew fat and rich and prospered off the blood and guts and lives of my people, these lives that meant nothing to those who put leashes around their necks and made them property, stripped of honor and glory and all that was good and proud and synonymous with the name Uchiha. Those little lives, so easily put out, put down like dogs in the cold, hard earth and for what. For a so-called peace that was never really a peace because the war never ends.
The battlefields may change, move into the shadows of night with no diplomats to call it war, but don't be fooled, Hashirama, this is and always has been war, and peace is just an illusion.
So no, it was not just you who had failed, Madara wants to say, but Hashirama is cold and dead and he is talking to a corpse, and maybe here Madara is living and breathing and strong but he knows and has seen a future where he dies old and alone. So they are two ghosts arguing about ghosts and for all the words Madara has to say, none of it matters in the end.
[Hashirama knows how Madara does, how he thinks -- knows all the words that he should be hearing, all the anger, all the flickering, flaring emotions that should be pouring themselves into passionate words.
Instead, that. Just that. And Madara's done so much, over so many years, to demonstrate it...
They stand on distant shores, with a river too wide to cross. Madara stares flatly at Hashirama, takes in the dejected, drooped shoulders, the downturned eyes, reads the disappointment written all over his face. And he just turns, turns his back on that, on Hashirama who is not even alive. ]
[He can't let him walk away -- he's never, never been able to do that. Not when all he wants is to have Madara close to him, to reunite them, to return to what they were before the harshness of war and the bitterness of death pulled them apart.
He takes a few quick, hurried steps toward Madara, reaching out a hand to his shoulder, to pull him back, to turn him so they will face each other again.]
Hashirama should have known better than to approach Madara from behind, when Madara remembers far too well that old ache just over the space of his heart, the feeling of metal sliding smoothly through his body, the greatest betrayal, a wound that just would not heal. And perhaps he was the greatest fool in the end, for believing Hashirama could not do the deed, would not do the deed, that they could go on meeting swords for an eternity and call that some semblance of living (for there was almost nothing more glorious or powerful than seeing that fire rising in his eyes).
And so he is spinning on his heel and knocking aside the hand that was surely reaching out to commit some terrible injustice once more, and the blade of his kunai is pressing right against the tender part of Hashirama's throat, the part where his heart beats loudest.
There is no word for this, this unspeakable emotion that goes deeper than any well of hurt, burns hotter than any rage, and bleeds red into the night of Madara's gaze. ]
[It's true; Hashirama should have known better, and in the space between one breath and the next, that space where Madara realizes that Hashirama is coming up behind him, Hashirama realizes what this is an echo of, realizes how that one act, driven by desperate necessity, had resulted in this.
He freezes, the hand that would have grasped Madara's shoulder in companionship hovering instead in the air, his pulse pounding against the sharp blade of the kunai, so close to ending his life.
But he isn't afraid.
There's no fear in his eyes as they meet Madara's -- no, and no hesitation to lock with the Sharingan, despite full knowledge of what Madara could inflict on him like this.
Justifiedly, too. No matter what it had cost him to strike that blow, no matter how much he had wished, still wishes, that desperate necessity hadn't driven him to it, the truth remains that he did.
So there's no fear in him. He has lived his long life. What fear now of death?]
Will my blood ease your pain, Madara? [And he can't help it; there is affection as he says that name. There always is.] Will it repay the blood of your kin? I'll offer it to you willingly if so.
[And he actually leans forward just a little, just a hint more pressure on the kunai -- enough to part a layer of skin.]
[ Oh, how easy it would be, to drag the kunai across that tender flesh, to watch it break, watch the life pour out of it, feel it hot against his skin, taste it on his tongue. Would he feel satisfied then, he wonders, to have Hashirama's blood in his mouth, to watch him fall, a god amongst men, prostrate himself in a pool of his blood, the blood of a man who is already dead, whose legacy lived on to shine so bright it burnt the fires of Uchiha to the ground?
There was a time long ago, when Madara once believed that he could give his people the stars. They would live proud and free and glorious, high above the plains they once fought. Those plains are lost forever now, and no amount of blood, not even the blood of a god, can return his people to him and rekindle what had been so violently and hatefully put out.
And yet he wants to do it.
He wants to push the kunai in further. He wants to see the surprise in Hashirama's eyes when he does. He wants Hashirama to lick the dirt at his feet. To suffer as Madara has suffered, to know what it is like to have all that you are, all that you love, all that you have ever believed stripped away with a single well-placed stab through the back.
The scent of blood is as sharp as the scent of hate, and it prickles the insides of Madara's nose as he watches the thin red line open up the white of Hashirama's throat, the faintest trickle of bright red beading against cold, hard steel. Watches as the line wavers then, because Madara's hand is trembling and he can't seem to control that emotion that wants to destroy him, that thing inside of him that opens its mouth and lets out a scream to burn the whole world down and Hashirama with it.
It would be so easy.
Too easy.
And suddenly Madara realizes Hashirama is trying to trick him again, and he is watching Hashirama speak pretty words of peace and love to a brother that would never listen to a man whose words have no bite, to show Madara the conviction of his guts. And he is seeing himself stopping him, wanting so desperately to believe in a dream they once shared along a river.
(Burn the whole world down and Hashirama with it.)
Madara grits his teeth and digs the kunai in just a little more as he grabs Hashirama by the front of the shirt and drags him forward. ]
Tell me, Hashirama, if I extinguished your people from the face of this earth, how would that make you feel?
[ The words are ground out between his teeth in a hiss. ]
Tell me, what kind of payment would be enough for that?
[Hashirama waits, seeing the welter in Madara's eyes, seeing everything inside his friend that fights and screams and burns -- burns, because the essence of the Uchiha truly is fire, and Madara is a true son of his clan. There's so much passion in him, passion that Hashirama still -- still, despite everything -- believes could be turned toward good.
It hasn't been. Madara doesn't desire the good of all; it's a lesson he's accepted only through many battles, through so much spilled blood and expended chakra. Most of the scars he wears, he earned from Madara, in the battles they've never been able to stop fighting. Maybe it's just who they are. But he's had to accept Madara's ill intentions as a true, and with that acceptance give his all to striking down his dearest friend.
But he can't stop hoping, can't stop believing, wishing.
He could change the ninja world. But he can't change one person.
He swallows against the blade, feels it part his skin, a hot sting that every instinct screams could end him in a breath. But he fights down the insinct, fights down the gut-deep desire to live.
Because this is justice. This.. this is Madara's right. Even if his blood can't repay the destruction of the Uchiha, Madara's kunai in his throat can repay his sword in Madara's back. So he doesn't fight.]
I would be devastated. [It's nothing less than the truth, and he offers it honestly.]
I don't know what else I can give you. The lives of people who are innocent, who had no part in this... there's no purpose to extending that cycle. That's exactly what we tried to break by ending the old wars. But I... I know my part in what happened. I'm not innocent. So this...
It's your right.
[His hand rises to cover Madara's on the kunai -- not to push it away, but to draw it in just a little closer. Blood runs along the blade, drips from the point. He doesn't look away, doesn't break the lock of their gazes, as the blade hovers a hairsbreadth from taking his life. If Madara wants his blood, wants to cut his throat, wants to claim the only recompense Hashirama can offer...
[ Madara reads the resolve in Hashirama's gaze and in the firmness of his touch, which holds steady and does not tremble like Madara's own.
And he knows then that Hashirama would do this, would lay his life down at Madara's feet and cut open his own throat if it would mean absolution. He would perform this grand gesture of penance, sacrifice himself for forgiveness, and live on in memory as the pinnacle of nobility and honor and all that befits only the greatest of men. And perhaps it is Madara's right to take it, to hold it in his hands, feel it pulsing between his fingers and call it justice. He could watch the light go out of Hashirama's eyes, which are as calm and as still as a lake without a single ripple to break its surface in the darkest of nights, while Madara looks back with eyes of fire. With eyes of hate. With eyes that have only ever looked forward towards this man who stands before him now, steady and solemn and as patient as the trees he stirs to life from the ground.
It would be easy, too easy, to do it.
As easy as it must have been for Hashirama to stab him in the back.
But the truth is ugly and horrible and far more dangerous than Madara ever thought possible.
(All that I love--
and all that I hate)
That thing inside him, which is as much hate as it is love, rages hotter than a thousand suns, an inexorable burn that threatens to consume even the very core of him, that threatens to consume all that he knows. It makes him weak, makes his grip unsteady, even when he curls his fingers tight enough for his knuckles to go as white as bone.
And it angers him.
Shames him.
That he, Uchiha Madara, cannot even cut the throat of this man who is, and has always been, his greatest enemy. This man who was once a boy he stood with along a river called hope; a boy who dared him to dream, and dream large, when dreams were as dangerous as a knife pressed to the throat; a boy who grew into a man whose blood he knows as well as his sweat, who fucked him on the battlefield behind enemy lines between one battle and the next, who spoke of love and peace and a world with no more war, a world where they could stand side-by-side and grow golden and old, who he hated as much as he loved and needed as much as he wanted to destroy, who he cannot live with or without because this man, this insufferable, terrible, wonderful man, has come to become Madara's entire world.
Because Madara has nothing else, only the ghosts of his brothers and the love for a people who he could not protect, and Hashirama.
Hashirama, who would rather kill the man he called his best friend, than sacrifice the idea of a village that would only become another symbol of the war he failed to end.
(All that I am
or ever was
died in that valley of ends)
And perhaps Madara is as much to blame for not being able to protect his precious people, his heart of fire from which everything bloomed. Because he could not put to death the thing inside him that made him as weak then as he is now, standing before the one man he should have killed long ago but could not watch die.
Standing with a knife to the throat he can't slice.
There is salt on his tongue and in his eyes and Madara hates himself as much as he hates this man who he still can't let die. ]
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You didn't know Tobirama like I did. Tobirama is as stubborn as they come, no one would be able to put an impression upon him. It wasn't Hashirama being weak, nor was he not trying to instill his ideas in him. No, it was a valiantly fought battle, whether you believe so or not. I do not expect someone as low as you are to understand the affairs that went on between the two of them.
[On the other hand she's giving him the most shit-eating smile.]
A child's dream? Were you not the same child he was? Or, more correctly, already tainted by the darkness from the very get-go. He didn't change and his will become stronger and unable to be put out by the hardest of tasks. While you, on the other hand, fell underneath the pressure, fled, and warred with the one you once called friend. Hashirama had a heart, which is more than can ever be said of you.
[... Did he really just say what she thought he said, though?] Matters of men? Pray tell what sort of manly things I'm missing out on here. Do all men turn around and stab their friend when things don't go their way? Are men nothing more than children with tempers that befit children who have yet to understand the world? Do tell me what it is I am missing, because what I can tell is that I have more understanding on this subject than you seem to think.
1/2
Oh, you poor, unfortunate woman. I do believe you've become quite delusional, drunk on the power you've accrued from your station as Hashirama's breeding mare. You think you actually understand the intricacies of the struggle between Uchiha and Senju, and that you know anything of value at all.
But it is quite clear that you know nothing.
Not of the way Hashirama's people treated my own, and certainly not of the future.
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Just a few years from where you now stand, Tobirama will corral my people into pens at the outskirts of the village and label them as second class citizens made to serve their great Senju masters. They will be reduced to nothing but guard dogs who have no claim over their own rights of citizenship and stripped of their political voices and any power they should have deserved. They will be made to suffer a political death long before the third Hokage issues an edict to exterminate Uchiha, men, women, and children. Even infants still in their cradles.
This, my dear woman, is the fate of my people, at the hands of Hashirama's blood.
So do not speak to me of your understanding, for I had forewarned Hashirama of this tragic fate, but he was too stubborn to listen. His own optimism blinded him to the truth: that Senju and Uchiha were never meant to call one another brothers, especially when those who live and breathe and rule with Senju blood would so much rather prefer to cut our throats and wash the blood off their hands to deny responsibility.
I hope this is okay...
What happened to your clan is a tragedy, Madara. I accept my share of the guilt for it, for creating the village that led it to happen. There's no denying that.
[Because of course he's far more willing to take the blame on himself than Mito is to put it there.]
But it wasn't inevitable. There were so many choices, so many forks, and if even one had been taken differently, none of this would have happened.
You know, for all your animosity, you and Tobirama are very much alike. [Whoops okay maybe that's not a way to get Madara to listen to him.] He judged all the Uchiha by you -- unfair, unjust, yes. And I was unable to stop him. And now you're judging all the Senju -- no, all of Konoha, all that's left -- by him. Is that not equally unjust?
What you're doing now is no better than what he did to your blood. More killing doesn't end the bloodshed -- you knew this when you were a child. How can you not see it now?
/snugs
You can't reason with him, he'd just as well kill you than he would to make any sort of peace. A disgusting definition of a human being and regards no one on the same level as he is.
[Though she's a bit calmer than previously, just a tiny bit.] Nor do I take particularly kindly to being likened to a breeding mare of all things.
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Seeing as you had no reaction at all towards the fact that your husband's people extinguished my own, I find it ironic that you think you have any right to speak of humanity.
But then, I suppose you are just a container for a beast after all, and it would be unfair of me to hold you to the same standards.
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[Okay he is capable of being sharp for short periods. Don't say that about his wife! 8|]
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[
Nope, not a hissing cat at all.]If anyone should be guarding their tongue, it is your bitch of a wife who is diplomatic enough to start a war!
[ Someone's unhappy. ]
THIS IS EXCELLEENNNNNNNNNNNNNT omg /shounen boner / sob not enough icons
[ The name comes out in a growl as the pinwheels turn in Madara's eyes, lighting ablaze. ]
Do not dare compare me with the murderous dictator of a man you call a brother.
My quarrel was always with you, you who had tricked me into joining hands with you who promised me and my people a lifetime of peace, and look at what your flesh and blood did to my own! Just how arrogant and hypocritical can you be, to feel you have some right to spout this nonsense of killing and bloodshed? Did you not speak of how you would create a village where children would not be made to go to war? And yet this was the same village that sent a child to exterminate his entire family to protect its delusion of peace.
[ Ohhh, Madara is angry, furious, at the future that is to come that he sees far too clearly.
Perhaps his mun should've kept him completely canon, woops.]At least if Uchiha had fallen on the battlefield, it would have been an honorable death worthy of glory. Instead, we were put down like dogs.
[ He pauses, takes a breath here, grinding the words out between his teeth. ]
I do not judge Konoha by Tobirama's legacy, but by yours.
You filled my ears with talk of peace but for all of your blind optimism, you were unable to keep the promise you should have known your people would break so brutally.
eeeee yay <3
You're right, Madara. [He bows his head, accepting the harsh words.] I do bear guilt for what came to pass. Had the clans not come together into the village, the entire sequence of events would not have begun.
The dream itself wasn't impossible, though! [This he believes, with his whole heart.] It didn't have to be this way! We could have... we could have, if we'd truly set aside the factions and enmities.
I tried to take care of your people -- the ones who surrendered to us during the war, and the ones who came to us in Konoha, both. I did everything I could to give them a safe, a good life.
If you're angry, then be angry with me. It was, as you say, my dream and my blood. Don't take it out on Mito. This is not her guilt to bear.
<33 can i add you on plurrrk?
Clearly, this is relevant.]But even had she not, I have every right to be angry at your flesh and blood and those who would ally themselves with you, who fattened themselves on the blood of my own.
[ And here Madara falls a little quiet, like a flame starting to lose its burn. ]
The dream we so foolishly spoke of when we were young... It was, in every sense of the word impossible, as long as men like your brother and those who would endorse his policies and beliefs, continued to live and thrive.
Even if you tried to take care of my people, Hashirama, your failure to take care of those who would rather have us enslaved or better yet -- dead -- meant absolutely nothing in the end.
It was a foolish dream.
[ Sometimes Madara wishes he never dreamt it at all. ]
<333 yes yes of course~ my plurk is oceanica
So very relevant, oh yes.]She's my wife, Madara. Not my slave, and not subject to my orders. [Seriously man, you want to try making an Uzumaki do as she's told? Good luck.] If she takes an interest in what is said of the village she lives in, or of me, that is her own decision, but don't you dare attack her for things that she has not done, did not do. The Uzumaki had no part in what happened between Senju and Uchiha. She is blameless.
[And he quiets as well, echoing that tone.]
That is my failing, Madara. The dream was possible, but it needed a stronger man than I to bring it out, to teach the people like Tobirama that a different way was truly possible. It could have worked, it could have happened. Things are better than they were when unrestrained, unprincipled war tore all the clans! The villages have built times of peace between them. It isn't perfect, but it's something.
[Except for the Uchiha. Urg. It's hard to defend his dream when it ended so badly for his best friend, the man he still wants to count as a brother in spirit.]
This was why I wanted you to be Hokage. It would have healed things. That breach would have been more truly ended. [Because of course Madara wouldn't have been even a little vengeful toward the Senju. You know. Like he was and is.]
I tried, Madara. I tried.
sorry for the long delay T_T work work work... i hope this is ok!
You failed.
[ The words are too quiet, dangerously so. ]
no worries! I understand how that is, believe me u.u
[Taking responsibility all on him, making it just between the two of them again, all of this just between himself and Madara... he can handle that.]
But only me, Madara.
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It was not just you. It was you and your allies and anyone who grew fat and rich and prospered off the blood and guts and lives of my people, these lives that meant nothing to those who put leashes around their necks and made them property, stripped of honor and glory and all that was good and proud and synonymous with the name Uchiha. Those little lives, so easily put out, put down like dogs in the cold, hard earth and for what. For a so-called peace that was never really a peace because the war never ends.
The battlefields may change, move into the shadows of night with no diplomats to call it war, but don't be fooled, Hashirama, this is and always has been war, and peace is just an illusion.
So no, it was not just you who had failed, Madara wants to say, but Hashirama is cold and dead and he is talking to a corpse, and maybe here Madara is living and breathing and strong but he knows and has seen a future where he dies old and alone. So they are two ghosts arguing about ghosts and for all the words Madara has to say, none of it matters in the end.
So this is what he says instead: ]
I hate you.
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Instead, that. Just that. And Madara's done so much, over so many years, to demonstrate it...
So there's only one answer, really.]
I know.
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They stand on distant shores, with a river too wide to cross. Madara stares flatly at Hashirama, takes in the dejected, drooped shoulders, the downturned eyes, reads the disappointment written all over his face. And he just turns, turns his back on that, on Hashirama who is not even alive. ]
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[He can't let him walk away -- he's never, never been able to do that. Not when all he wants is to have Madara close to him, to reunite them, to return to what they were before the harshness of war and the bitterness of death pulled them apart.
He takes a few quick, hurried steps toward Madara, reaching out a hand to his shoulder, to pull him back, to turn him so they will face each other again.]
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Hashirama should have known better than to approach Madara from behind, when Madara remembers far too well that old ache just over the space of his heart, the feeling of metal sliding smoothly through his body, the greatest betrayal, a wound that just would not heal. And perhaps he was the greatest fool in the end, for believing Hashirama could not do the deed, would not do the deed, that they could go on meeting swords for an eternity and call that some semblance of living (for there was almost nothing more glorious or powerful than seeing that fire rising in his eyes).
And so he is spinning on his heel and knocking aside the hand that was surely reaching out to commit some terrible injustice once more, and the blade of his kunai is pressing right against the tender part of Hashirama's throat, the part where his heart beats loudest.
There is no word for this, this unspeakable emotion that goes deeper than any well of hurt, burns hotter than any rage, and bleeds red into the night of Madara's gaze. ]
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He freezes, the hand that would have grasped Madara's shoulder in companionship hovering instead in the air, his pulse pounding against the sharp blade of the kunai, so close to ending his life.
But he isn't afraid.
There's no fear in his eyes as they meet Madara's -- no, and no hesitation to lock with the Sharingan, despite full knowledge of what Madara could inflict on him like this.
Justifiedly, too. No matter what it had cost him to strike that blow, no matter how much he had wished, still wishes, that desperate necessity hadn't driven him to it, the truth remains that he did.
So there's no fear in him. He has lived his long life. What fear now of death?]
Will my blood ease your pain, Madara? [And he can't help it; there is affection as he says that name. There always is.] Will it repay the blood of your kin? I'll offer it to you willingly if so.
[And he actually leans forward just a little, just a hint more pressure on the kunai -- enough to part a layer of skin.]
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There was a time long ago, when Madara once believed that he could give his people the stars. They would live proud and free and glorious, high above the plains they once fought. Those plains are lost forever now, and no amount of blood, not even the blood of a god, can return his people to him and rekindle what had been so violently and hatefully put out.
And yet he wants to do it.
He wants to push the kunai in further. He wants to see the surprise in Hashirama's eyes when he does. He wants Hashirama to lick the dirt at his feet. To suffer as Madara has suffered, to know what it is like to have all that you are, all that you love, all that you have ever believed stripped away with a single well-placed stab through the back.
The scent of blood is as sharp as the scent of hate, and it prickles the insides of Madara's nose as he watches the thin red line open up the white of Hashirama's throat, the faintest trickle of bright red beading against cold, hard steel. Watches as the line wavers then, because Madara's hand is trembling and he can't seem to control that emotion that wants to destroy him, that thing inside of him that opens its mouth and lets out a scream to burn the whole world down and Hashirama with it.
It would be so easy.
Too easy.
And suddenly Madara realizes Hashirama is trying to trick him again, and he is watching Hashirama speak pretty words of peace and love to a brother that would never listen to a man whose words have no bite, to show Madara the conviction of his guts. And he is seeing himself stopping him, wanting so desperately to believe in a dream they once shared along a river.
(Burn the whole world down and Hashirama with it.)
Madara grits his teeth and digs the kunai in just a little more as he grabs Hashirama by the front of the shirt and drags him forward. ]
Tell me, Hashirama, if I extinguished your people from the face of this earth, how would that make you feel?
[ The words are ground out between his teeth in a hiss. ]
Tell me, what kind of payment would be enough for that?
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It hasn't been. Madara doesn't desire the good of all; it's a lesson he's accepted only through many battles, through so much spilled blood and expended chakra. Most of the scars he wears, he earned from Madara, in the battles they've never been able to stop fighting. Maybe it's just who they are. But he's had to accept Madara's ill intentions as a true, and with that acceptance give his all to striking down his dearest friend.
But he can't stop hoping, can't stop believing, wishing.
He could change the ninja world. But he can't change one person.
He swallows against the blade, feels it part his skin, a hot sting that every instinct screams could end him in a breath. But he fights down the insinct, fights down the gut-deep desire to live.
Because this is justice. This.. this is Madara's right. Even if his blood can't repay the destruction of the Uchiha, Madara's kunai in his throat can repay his sword in Madara's back. So he doesn't fight.]
I would be devastated. [It's nothing less than the truth, and he offers it honestly.]
I don't know what else I can give you. The lives of people who are innocent, who had no part in this... there's no purpose to extending that cycle. That's exactly what we tried to break by ending the old wars. But I... I know my part in what happened. I'm not innocent. So this...
It's your right.
[His hand rises to cover Madara's on the kunai -- not to push it away, but to draw it in just a little closer. Blood runs along the blade, drips from the point. He doesn't look away, doesn't break the lock of their gazes, as the blade hovers a hairsbreadth from taking his life. If Madara wants his blood, wants to cut his throat, wants to claim the only recompense Hashirama can offer...
He'll give it.]
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And he knows then that Hashirama would do this, would lay his life down at Madara's feet and cut open his own throat if it would mean absolution. He would perform this grand gesture of penance, sacrifice himself for forgiveness, and live on in memory as the pinnacle of nobility and honor and all that befits only the greatest of men. And perhaps it is Madara's right to take it, to hold it in his hands, feel it pulsing between his fingers and call it justice. He could watch the light go out of Hashirama's eyes, which are as calm and as still as a lake without a single ripple to break its surface in the darkest of nights, while Madara looks back with eyes of fire. With eyes of hate. With eyes that have only ever looked forward towards this man who stands before him now, steady and solemn and as patient as the trees he stirs to life from the ground.
It would be easy, too easy, to do it.
As easy as it must have been for Hashirama to stab him in the back.
But the truth is ugly and horrible and far more dangerous than Madara ever thought possible.
(All that I love--
and all that I hate)
That thing inside him, which is as much hate as it is love, rages hotter than a thousand suns, an inexorable burn that threatens to consume even the very core of him, that threatens to consume all that he knows. It makes him weak, makes his grip unsteady, even when he curls his fingers tight enough for his knuckles to go as white as bone.
And it angers him.
Shames him.
That he, Uchiha Madara, cannot even cut the throat of this man who is, and has always been, his greatest enemy. This man who was once a boy he stood with along a river called hope; a boy who dared him to dream, and dream large, when dreams were as dangerous as a knife pressed to the throat; a boy who grew into a man whose blood he knows as well as his sweat, who fucked him on the battlefield behind enemy lines between one battle and the next, who spoke of love and peace and a world with no more war, a world where they could stand side-by-side and grow golden and old, who he hated as much as he loved and needed as much as he wanted to destroy, who he cannot live with or without because this man, this insufferable, terrible, wonderful man, has come to become Madara's entire world.
Because Madara has nothing else, only the ghosts of his brothers and the love for a people who he could not protect, and Hashirama.
Hashirama, who would rather kill the man he called his best friend, than sacrifice the idea of a village that would only become another symbol of the war he failed to end.
(All that I am
or ever was
died in that valley of ends)
And perhaps Madara is as much to blame for not being able to protect his precious people, his heart of fire from which everything bloomed. Because he could not put to death the thing inside him that made him as weak then as he is now, standing before the one man he should have killed long ago but could not watch die.
Standing with a knife to the throat he can't slice.
There is salt on his tongue and in his eyes and Madara hates himself as much as he hates this man who he still can't let die. ]
(no subject)
sob idk what happened T_T; i think someone wants a fight.
u.u fighting is less cool after you stab your fight buddy
soooooooooooooooooobbing forever i cant take this ok
I SHOULDN'T WRITE TAGS WHEN I HAVE NOTHING TO DO this is what happens sob
I DONT KNOW WHAT THIS IS
IT'S LOVELY that's what it is
STARTING TO GET A BIT NSFW HERE IN DESCRIPTIONS. I REGRET NOTHING.
JUST A BIT also i have no idea what this tag is i kinda got sleepy halfway through writing it idek
holy hell i dont know what the fuck i just wrote ummm |D; also woops with all the edits.
oh man it's beautiful that's what it is
T_T yours was too....