Wabi-Sabi

***

You get a strange feeling when you leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you miss the person you are at this time and place because you'll never be this way ever again. 
Azar Nafasi
***
The Senju Compound is not a compound at all. It's not a village or a town or even a loosely scattered settlement.
It's a military fortress.
Not even the Uchiha Compound has such extensive defenses. 
It's brick and mortar and nothing living, and Hashirama hates it more and more every time he sees it.
He was born here. His brothers were born here. His father and mother were born here, and their parents before them, and it sucks a little bit more out of him every day he spends in it.
These days, not even the great forest flanking the north and east is enough to ease his heart. 
He follows Tobirama home because it's horrible, but it's still home, much to his disgust.
And only until he can take them all somewhere better.
He can't wait until the village is home. The warmth of those wooden buildings and the strength of the forest surrounding them.
They'll have to fireproof them, and the thought makes him smile. The Uchiha are a little too fond of their Katon to live safely in a mostly wooden village without some -re: many- precautions.
And Kami knows both clans are competitive enough that there's going to be at least a handful of attempts to see who can create the biggest fireball of them all.
They get stopped at the gate because being Butsuma's sons doesn't save them from his paranoia. 
Hashirama had a peaceful morning and afternoon at the Naka, enough to refresh and recharge him after a couple of draining years since he and Madara last managed to get away to the Land of Snow, but most of it fades away with the first step across the wards. 
He's so focused on the weight that comes crashing down, the cloak of misery and rage that settles over his shoulders, that he doesn't notice Tobirama, a few steps ahead, come to a stop and turn back to look at him.
"Do you hate it here that much?"
Hashirama doesn't hear him the first time, too lost in his own misery and the dream that will finally drive it away.
That will drive the misery away from all of them, not just Hashirama because he tries very, very hard not to be that selfish. He wants them all to be happy and healthy and safe. To be able to make plans for a future that is beyond more than just a few weeks. 
He wants Tobirama to be able to obsess over experiments and studies that are for happy things and not just new ways to kill.
"It's not that I hate it, Tobi. We were born here, after all. I do have some happy memories. But...my eyes have been opened and glimpsed something wonderful, and they will not be closed again."
I want to open yours too, he thinks. But you are not ready.
Tobirama, like the rest of their clan, will not see it until he is willing to, and until then, Hashirama's words fall on deaf ears.
That it's unavoidable doesn't make it any less painful. Or frustrating.
***
Hashirama eats alone that night. Something that has become more common for him and far less so for the rest of the clan.
He may not be the strategist Madara is, but he can recognize a flanking maneuver when it's being used against him. Butsuma is slowly but surely isolating Hashirama from the rest of the Senju.
The only question is if it's another of his stupid lessons about power or if it's the beginning of his war against his son. 
One he can ignore, but the other... the other is honestly probably overdue since Hashirama has pretty much dropped all pretense about his goals and his opinions in the last few years.
Butsuma has always died too soon to see the truth of Hashirama's plans, but maybe this time he won't.
He and Madara haven't been fighting one another seriously for some time, and more than just Tobi has noticed.
It's amusing, in a horrible way, that the Senju Clan, which was beginning to splinter when his father became clan leader, has become so much closer now that Hashirama is trying to end it.
There shouldn't be clans, he's realized; there should just be the village. But even he's not idealistic enough to say that to anyone, especially Madara. The clan is life to the Uchiha, and as much as they want the village, they have no intention of giving up the clan.
That was part of the issue originally, Hashirama thinks. None of the clans were willing to give up the clan for the village, even though they all joined and benefited.
It will have to be different this time, no matter what any of them want.
That's a battle for another day, though. And one he thinks will be easier fought when they are not staring down the point of kunai held by the original immortal powerhouse and her psychotic creation.
They need the village to defeat her.
They need the village just to survive. The Age of Clans, of this Warring Era, is coming to an end whether or not they want it to. The rest of the world is growing without them, and they need to catch up before they wither away, lost forever.
Hashirama will not let that happen.
Even if he has to drag them all kicking and screaming into the light.
Even if they hate him and curse him for the rest of time. 
Hashirama will sit in the Pure Land once it's done and laugh every time they spit on his name.
But they will do it together, and that is what matters.
He thinks again of Tobirama and the wrinkle that appears between his eyes and around his lips when Hashirama says something that displeases him.
How funny, that of the two of them, Hashirama is the one that wants to burn it all down. 
***
The next day, Butsuma summons him to the Kiasho and, for the first time in many lifetimes, manages to surprise him.
It is three years too early for Mito to set foot on the Land of Fire, and yet there she sits next to his father, the seat of the honored guest.
Her hair as red and her skin as bright and her eyes as blue as his best memories. 
He thinks suddenly of Naruto, one of Madara's favorite people. And then of Sasuke. 
And then he thinks of Madara and Mito and how they never really got to know one another in any life because she was always his wife and Madara was always the clan head, and it always got cut short. 
Hashirama thinks even the lives where they died of old age got cut short. 
He can't imagine they wouldn't like one another if they had the time. They share the same sharp intelligence, driven by instinct and always several steps ahead. Madara's an awkward fool when it comes to people, and Mito would teach him how to be graceful, political, and supremely polite while telling someone to fuck off. 
He's so struck by the image that he misses Butsuma's introduction and makes an utter fool of himself to his father's rage and Tobirama's clear embarrassment.
True to form, Mito lets nothing show. Merely bows politely while Hashirama fails and responds to his greeting as if he had sputtered through the whole thing.
It ends up being the first day in years that he doesn't fight with his father or Tobi or anyone else in the clan. 
He follows them around, Mito specifically, like a puppy he knows, without Touka pointing it out multiple times as she tours the compound. 
Tobi keeps shooting him looks of disbelief, and he catches Butsuma's eye twitching a few times, but he acts enough like a doting suitor that neither of them say anything.
A couple of times, he thinks he catches amusement in Mito's eyes, but they don't know each other well enough in this life to be sure. He keeps waiting for everyone to leave them alone.
Well, as alone as they could be with Mito's two cousins acting as handmaids and chaperones. 
Butsuma makes no secret of his desire for the Uzumaki seals or of his confidence that the Senju can serve as the military arm the isolated clan has never bothered with. 
Tobirama doesn't say much at all, but he's never had the patience for politics, so it's not surprising. And he's clearly still mad at Hashirama.
The chance finally comes in the late afternoon. There's still hours until the evening meal, but they lost Tobirama at lunch, when he finally lost his patience and retreated to his lab while Butsuma and Touka were distracted. 
Butsuma was called away by the Elders, and since Touka only saves face when he can see her, she darted off as soon as he was out of sight. Hashirama still has some sway; when he waves away the rest of the guards, they jump at the chance to escape boring escort duty, and then it's just Mito and Hashirama and her younger cousins, Nadeshinko and Behito.
He doesn't remember much of them. Doesn't think they were her escorts in any other life. Probably because of their age. Three years from now, they would be eligible for marriage to the Uzumaki, and female cousins of the clan leader's family were valuable. They were likely married off to lesser alliances before Mito ever traveled across the sea.
They walk in silence for a while, and Hashirama less than subtly steers them towards his private garden. He's the only one in the clan with a garden just for enjoyment. Butsuma hates wasted space, and if it's not geared towards war, it's not wasted. 
Hashirama has slaved over the simple plants he keeps and the small fruit trees that have only just grown taller than him, but Mito seems pleased with it none the less. 
She stops to smell a lemon tree while Hashirama tries not to stare too obviously. Failing, if Nadeshinko's judgmental eyes mean anything.
"Do you not wish me here?" Mito asks, voice so soft that it takes a moment for Hashirama to realize she spoke.
"Of course, I want you here! I've been waiting." He's too eager, and he knows it even as the words are leaving his mouth.
"And yet, this is the first time you've spoken to me, and we have spent all day together." Half her face is hidden by the leaves of the lemon tree, but her sharp eyes, her beautiful, gleaming eyes, are on him, and he finds he cannot move under their attention. "Were you not aware your father was negotiating our marriage?"
"I just...had not realized it was so soon." He'd completely forgotten in the face of everything with Tobi and Madara.
"Nothing has been agreed." A warning. A polite one, but a warning nonetheless. 
Hashirama's disappointment must be obvious. Too obvious, because he distantly registers the surprise in Nadeshinko and Behito's chakra as well as Mito's. "Do you not wish to marry me?" He asks, well aware he could be setting himself up for heartbreak.
"I do not know you. And you do not know me," Mito warns. She doesn't find his too-strong disappointment cute. She probably hasn't found him attractive at all today since he's just continually made a fool of himself.
Mito was always a practical woman. Who understood the world and how it worked and her place in it. She had never gone through their wedding ceremony in love with him, but it had grown honestly in the years that followed. So Hashirama feels a bit disappointed in himself for being so disappointed in her words.
Her smile turns mocking, "Or are you going to sing me a song of love and passion and how your heart has waited for me?"
Hashirama is not her only suitor; he never is. Though she never speaks of the others in any detail, out of respect for them and her own sense of respect and propriety. 
Hashirama has never wasted much thought on them before; she chose him after all, and he finds he won't be in this lifetime either.
"I would not waste your time, my lady."
"And yet you look on me with something beyond curiosity." 
Sharp, sharp Mito.
"I look upon you as I look upon the future because that is what you are."
"Your future? So certain, are you?"
"You are hope."
Someone, he thinks it was Behito, gasps and is immediately hushed. 
"My hope. The hope of brighter days and warmer years and laughter." He's a sap. It's the one thing Tobi and Madara agree on, but he can't help it now. "I look at you, and I see all my dreams become flesh. Beautiful, brilliant, brutal flesh."
It's the brutality that gets her, not that she'll ever tell him that. Men write poems about her eyes and sonnets about her lips, but no one has ever called her brutal and made it sound like a love song. Mito is more proud of her intelligence than she is of anything else, but she worked for that. What she is, at her core, is a shinobi. A good one. A brutal one.
She survives.
She wins.
And no possible romantic partner has ever looked on that part of her fondly. They want the princess. The lady. The beauty and the grace and the prize.
Mito is not a prize.
She is a general.
And apparently, she is the future. To this foolish oaf who didn't manage to hide his interest for one second and clearly has no instinct for politics. 
Or for that fact that his own father is plotting against him.
If he'd been on time for their meeting this morning, he would have heard his father talking up his younger brother. A clear hint that there's a shift coming, and it's not like Mito saw something disagreeable about Tobirama. On the contrary, he was perfectly agreeable and clearly eager to help his clan.
The perfect sacrificial lamb to bear their burdens without complaint until they've drained the last drops of blood and sweat from his corpse.
There is nothing about Hashirama that says lamb, no matter how silly he's acted today.
Mito loves her family and her land, but they are not hers'. They are her father's and her mother's and all those that came before them. Mito wants something to call her own. Something she can build.
Or help build, at least.
Like this dream her spies have heard about.
This star-crossed friendship that sounds like something out of her younger sister's beloved, utterly irrational plays.
She needs to meet this Uchiha, she thinks, but first, she needs to take the measure of Hashirama. 
Before she decides if his life is something worth signing her own to.
"It's a pity you were late this morning, my lord." He looks confused at the sudden shift. An honest man, then. "Your father was rather eager to tell me of your younger brother's achievements." The darkness comes on suddenly. "I personally do not find it a viable or tasteful option in war, but he seems quite convinced."
The stillness that comes over Hashirama is rather terrifying, and Mito can feel Nadeshinko and Behito reach for their weapons. An instinctual response to the sheer force of the killing intent coming off the man who seemed like a simpleton until moments ago.
He knows exactly what Butsuma bragged about this morning when she broke her fast with the clan leader and his younger son who couldn't meet her eyes and no one else.
She feels the clan wards go off. Signaling a threat to the clan inside its walls.
It seemed her spies had failed to discover the true extent of Hashirama's strength.
Mito, at her best, would be no match. Even her chains would fail to hold him, and her clan's strongest would never manage to land a blow.
She wonders if there's anyone in his clan that could as she watches the swirl of smoke and leaves that remain in his wake.
***
Edo Tensai.
How did Butsuma find out?
Hashirama ordered Tobirama to destroy it, and Tobi had sworn he'd done so. Hadn't spoken to Hashirama for a week after, but he had understood why it was important. Why it had to be destroyed.
Even if he'd been brokenhearted. 
Hashirama had been brokenhearted, too. He missed the Kawarama and Itama of this life. Hell, he missed the Kawarama and Itama of all his lives, even the ones where Kawarama became a nightmare.
But the dead were dead, and no matter how much it hurt, they needed to stay that way.
Tobi knew that no matter how logical an argument he could make for the other side.
Hashirama had foolishly assumed that Butsuma didn't know about the Edo Tensi. Tobi was so secretive, and Butsuma was only interested in his younger son when he wanted to use him against Hashirama.
How had he missed it?
.....
Well, he knew how, and the guilt bloomed, blistering and painful in his chest. 
Hashirama had been distracted, focused on Madara and Zetsu and the future, and not paid attention to what was happening now. 
Was this why he and Madara couldn't seem to succeed? Why Zetsu and Kaguya always won?
After all this time, were they still such fools?
Butsuma knows.
Butsuma knows exactly what Hashirama is there for when he bursts into his father's office.
The clan wards are screaming, and Hashirama can feel his clan members taking to the walls of the compound, trying to figure out what's happening.
Butsuma sneers, "What the hell do you think you're doing, boy?"
"You can't actually be stupid enough to try and use it?"
His father bristles. Butsuma has always been sensitive to any slight, and on another day, if he was in a kinder mood, Hashirama would be sympathetic to a man destroyed by his own father, but today is not that day.
"You're too softhearted. It's a miracle you've survived this long."
"Against the Uchiha or you?"
Butsuma has never been foolish enough to actually speak of removing Hashirama, the Senju have never looked fondly on familial infighting, but he doesn't bother hiding it now. When it's just the two of them in his office, and the murderous intent rolling off Hashirama is enough to send the clan scrambling.
If he stopped to think for just a second, Hashirama would realize he'd blown any chance of winning this battle. 
He's the aggressor now. Over something he wouldn't dare breathe a word of in front of anyone, so he has no way to justify his actions.
He can't even count on Tobi because he still cries over their brothers when he thinks no one is looking, and he's so angry at Hashirama.
"Your worthless heart, boy."
"It's worth a lot more than your fist, father."
"And yet my fist is going to win. Again."
The Mokuton strains at the edges of Hashirama's consciousness. He can taste blood. 
The soldier inside him points out that Butsuma has outlived his usefulness to the clan. Is actively endangering them now.
Butsuma is no match for him. 
But Butsuma has never fought a fair fight a day in his life. 
Unfortunately, Hashirama doesn't remember this until the floor beneath his feet is exploding and pitching him through the air.
He sees but doesn't notice Touka and several of her year mates responding to the explosion, closing in to protect the clan head as he rolls to his feet in the wide, empty main street.
Mito is somewhere nearby, watching, but not close enough to get caught up in the fight.
Tobi is...Tobi is standing at Butsuma's shoulder, though he doesn't look happy about it.
And in all fairness, he does think Hashirama has lost his mind, and Hashirama hasn't done all he could to dissuade that belief.
Tobi is safer there, anyway. 
For now.
What Hashirama has to do now is not something Tobi should have to bear. Hashirama didn't think he could bear it himself until this second.
He has to kill Butsuma. 
But he can't. 
Not like this. 
Butsuma's crowing his victory now as he declares Hashirama a traitor, a criminal who attempted to kill the clan head himself. Hungry for power and unwilling to wait or be worthy.
Touka is furious, but Hashirama honestly can't tell if it's because she believes Butsuma or because Hashirama has destroyed any semblance of the Senju moving forward peacefully. She was always closer to Tobi, anyway.
Did she tell Butsuma about the Edo?
Most of the clan is confused and scared, so much so it's almost a physical weight in the air.
If Hashirama puts up a fight now, he'll likely have to kill a good portion of them, not to mention the damage to the compound. 
.....
If he runs, they could live long enough to change their minds.
A shinobi never runs, Butsuma always said. They sneak, they hide, they lie, but they don't run.
How that was supposed to be inspiring Hashirama still hasn't figured out, but the Uchiha have a similar saying, so he's accepted that it's just one of the many things about shinobi he needs to change.
He hears the horn announcing the start of a hunt as he lands in the lush, swaying fields beyond the eastern wall of the compound.
One hundred leagues in front of him, north along the Naka, is the Uchiha Compound.
Unless he veers East to the river and the forest that lines it, there's nothing between them but flat, golden fields.
He runs.
***
The Sharingan is a parasite. 
A living, breathing thing that digs its way in until it's infected every nook and cranny it can reach, and there's no possibility of removing it.
It has its own mind, its own will to survive, its own desire.
That's what those outside the Uchiha clan don't understand. And only partially because the clan guards its Kekkei Genkai so closely.
They don't, really. They've never stopped someone from marrying out or marrying in, though they do keep track of who's where and whether or not the Sharingan develops.
They're not like the Hyuga who rip the Byakugan out of those who want to leave or the Kagura who simply don't allow anyone to leave.
At their worst, they've made expensive offers to bring children who do develop the Sharingan back to the clan, but those have been few and far between.
After all, the Sharingan has its own mind; it wants to live, and the best place to do that is in the clan.
It's why the bloodline thieves of the Hogoromo and the Senju and the Kazukiki stopped wasting their time trying to seduce and turned to kidnapping and harvesting.
If they'd ever been successful, they would have learned that the Sharingan is not above killing itself and whoever was stupid enough to implant it in their head.
The only reason the Uchiha even know that will happen is because of a single woman who married outside the clan generations before. She had a son who developed the Sharingan, and no amount of money could convince either of them to come back to the clan.
For whatever reason, the son had sold one of his eyes to the Hagoromo's sister clan, the Kura, before any of the Uchiha of the time could stop him. The eye the Kura implanted in one of their strongest had immediately taken hold, and he'd killed his entire clan before killing himself. 
The Sharingan that the boy had kept had turned on him, and he'd killed his mother, father, and two younger sisters before taking his own life.
Even the Uchiha had been horrified by the extent of it.
Madara's half of a mind to just let anyone who wants it take it if they're stupid enough, but he knows there's no member of his clan that would give it up willingly.
When he was younger, only a few months after Tajima had died, Madara had lost two small children to bloodline thieves and went after the group with such rage and violence that the Damiyo had personally censored him. The first time he'd done so to one of the Noble Clans in thirty years. Hashirama had snuck into the Uchiha Compound the night after to make sure he was okay.
Madara is painfully aware of their numbers this go around. There aren't enough of them to fight Kaguya and Zetsu on their own. Not even with Hashirama in their ranks. 
He can't afford to lose anyone.
They've already gotten their one advantage: Madara and Hashirama's knowledge of events, and they aren't going to get another one.
This is the year Zetsu awakens. Madara has already started keeping an eye on the villages near the cave, but he can't get too close without revealing his hand.
Zetsu was obsessed with Hashirama and has been in most of their lives, so it wasn't just Madara that first go around, and Hashirama has to be careful to stay even further away.
Madara is itching for a real fight after all this time preparing, but as he follows Izuna back to the compound, it dawns on him that he's about to get a fight of an entirely different kind. 
The hierarchy of the Uchiha is unique in the world of shinobi, and it's due entirely to the Sharingan.
As with most of their existence.
And just a little bit due to the fact that Kikyo is still alive and likes to pop in at random times to lead them in a war against the Mother of Chakra- there have been thirteen so far, but only the Uchiha fully remember them. Other clans carry stories and myths, but the Uchiha remember every second.
Leadership of the Uchiha comes down to a single factor: the strength of the Sharingan. 
The strongest rules, and it has been a blessing and a curse throughout their history.
Tajima came from a poor civilian branch of the clan, and his development of the Sharingan was a shock in and of itself.
That it had developed into the strongest one of his generation had nearly gotten him assassinated when the former clan head refused to give up his position as tradition dictated. 
The other Sharingan bearers of the clan had come together and forced the clan head to step down- they'd actually killed him, but in deference, the clan referred to it in a kinder way.
The same way they referred to the position of a clan head as one of blood, not strength. The other clans would never understand, and they don't need to add any more reasons to the long list of why the Uchiha are ostracized.
When Madara's Sharingan had developed at only six years old, he should have immediately become clan leader since it was already stronger than his father's, but no one had been comfortable, including Madara, with a clan leader that young. 
As a whole, the clan had voted that Tajima would retain his position until Madara was of age- eighteen- unless he died before then.
And he had, so Madara hadn't even had to worry about forcing his father out if the old man decided he didn't want to give it up.
After the Clan Leader were two, often opposing groups, the Clan Elders and the active shinobi with the Sharingan.
Due to the clan's reverence for the old ways, they never had to worry about the size of the Elder Council. Not like the Hyuga with their uselessly large body that was good for nothing but offering impossible advice and drawing on clan resources.
Likewise, because they were a warrior clan, the number of active shinobi with the Sharingan was never excessively large either. 
In their heyday, the clan had numbered in the thousands, but repeated wars with Kaguya and the Senju and the changing times left the Uchiha struggling to number in the few hundred. Of those, only a third were active shinobi. Civilians made up another third, and the last the shinobi who were either too young or too old to be on the active rolls and where ninety percent of Madara's problems came from.
Both the Clan Elders and the Sharingan bearers held influence over the clan as a whole and were meant to advise the clan leader, but they tended to stick to their areas of expertise. The Elders worried over practices and traditions and how everything looked and their reputation and how much money the shinobi and civilians were bringing in.
The shinobi worried about their performance on the battlefield.
And Madara would always take being lectured over missing a blow than hearing the Elders drone on and on about how he was failing to uphold the glory of the clan and how the Senju were winning and he was letting evil overtake the land.
Dramatic fuckers.
One of the few upsides to the Sharingan was that if you lived long enough to go blind from it, it tended to become too dangerous to use. Most of the Elders could no longer use their Sharingan if they'd even had it to begin with, so Madara didn't have to worry about any of them trying to kill him during an argument. 
Not that they were that obvious.
The Elders tended to prefer backhanded and behind-the-scenes attempts. Slipping poison into his sake or making sure his home was given tainted meat in the daily rations.
On one memorable occasion, Oda had gotten someone to rig the steps in an onsen Madara had visited on a mission. Between the sake and the heat from the water, Madara had actually fallen a few flights before his addled mind had remembered he was a shinobi, and he'd caught himself. 
Hashirama had thought the story was hilarious.
Even after Madara had shoved him in the Naka.
Usually, Izuna handles the councils in his position as Madara's heir. Midoriko has been helping him ever since they married, and she's proven to be more diplomatic than either of them, even when Oda and his ilk call her a whore and make disparaging remarks about her lack of a child even though they both only turned twenty this year.
She came to Madara about it once, when it first started, and she'd had to physically stop him from storming into Oda's home and ripping his dick off.
Oda's wife had been a talented kunoichi with a middling amount of chakra, but her marriage had ended her service. She'd died in childbirth after delivering six children in five years. Oda hadn't been present for the births of any of his children, and his wife's family had famously not invited him to her funeral. All but two of Oda's children had chosen to reside with their mother's family and barely spoke to their father now, though it didn't stop Oda from bragging that all six had developed the Sharingan. It was one of the great feuds in the history of the clan.
Madara hated him almost as much as he hated Kaguya, but Oda was the senior elder and a clan leader who went around killing his elders wasn't a true clan leader.
Plus, he's already tried that and learned it didn't work. And he doesn't need another lecture from Hashirama -you can't just kill everyone that disagrees with us, Dara. Winning the battle doesn't mean you've changed anyone's mind.
More and more, it becomes obvious why defeating Kaguya and founding the village requires both of them.
The Rinnegan gives a pleased hum.
He follows Izuna into the Kaisho and steels himself for what's to come.
***
The core of the Uchiha's current battlefield strength circles around the strongest Sharingans currently active in the clan and ripples out from there.
Madara is, of course, the strongest. No one else comes close to matching his Mangekyo let alone the Rinnegan. But he is also the clan leader, so he doesn't function as a Taichō unless it's one hell of a mission, and Madara usually does those alone anyway.
Yoruichi is the youngest Taichō, appointed only last year when she got sick of waiting and fought her way through all the others until she reached Izuna and Madara. At thirteen, she's the kind of genius Kakashi will become, and he can't help but picture the silver-haired man whenever he looks at the purple-haired girl. She's Oda's youngest, the one his wife died bringing into the world, and by far the strongest of her siblings. Both in terms of strength and in her hatred of her father. Oda brags about her, but she won't even deign to speak to him, which Madara always finds amusing. She's brought a fledging into the clan, an orphan named Kisuke, who's nearly as strong as her, though none of them can figure out where he comes from. She's petitioned the clan to adopt him, but the Elders are holding out. It's rather clear to anyone with eyes that she'll end up marrying the boy someday, and Oda's aiming for a much more profitable match for his most valuable child.
Not that she'll ever listen to him, but the old man's delusions hold strong.
Kisuke, for his part, is quiet and unobtrusive, and Madara would think him meek if he hadn't already corrected Madara's understanding of chakra coils. Madara had tasked him with rewriting all the Uchiha's instruction manuals as a way to slip him some money to live on until the Elders gave up.
Izuna and Midoriko are both Taichōs and two of the clan's most experienced. Alongside Hikaku, whose patience runs so deep that none of them have ever seen him truly angry.
By Uchiha standards, anyway.
There are a few others that have grown strong enough to last.
Kasumi. Bright, vibrant, vicious. There's no one in the clan better with a sword. Madara has seen her split a piece of string floating on the wind.
Kindhearted Itachi, who nurses wild animals back to health before he lets them go, and who can cast genjutsu that give Madara nightmares. His name always makes Madara think of their descendant, who will bring such honor to both his names.
Bai is the oldest and longest-serving Taichō and the one least likely to agree with Madara's opinion on anything. He's almost an elder himself and will be officially if he survives another four years. But he believes in the clan, so for the next four years at least, he will always back Madara against them.
Ami and Aki are twins. Middle-aged for shinobi- thirty- and eerily in sync in everything. It makes them nigh untouchable on the battlefield and creepy everywhere else. Neither's ever shown any interest in marriage and Madara's heard the unsavory rumors about them. But he's never seen them hurt someone except on the battlefield, so he ignores it. Twins are rare, even more so in shinobi clans, and there were more than a few who thought the birth of the twins was a herald for the destruction of the clan. If their mother and father hadn't been so strong and so well respected, he doubts they would have survived the first few years.
They're a bit of a motley crew, he thinks, as they face him in the Kaisho. But they manage to be intimidating at the same time. 
These are the Sharingans that Madara's own reaches out to when he's in trouble, as rare as that is. They are the Sharingans the Rinnegan choose to share with.
That alone was enough for Madara to relax. 
Just a little.
Because he couldn't tell without asking just how much the Rinnegan had shared.
And if he asked how much, at least one of them would know there was probably more, and then it would all come out, and that was...not ideal.
He was more than willing to own up to his actions, mostly because he didn't actually regret all of them. He regretted the wasted time and wrong turms, but sometimes, the only thing that let him get a few hours of sleep at night was the satisfaction of remembering what it felt like when Kaguya splintered or the warmth of Oda's blood on his hands.
Morbid, but what shinobi wasn't? Madara's lived enough lives by now to know that you had to take the happiness where you could find it, even if it wasn't the most conventional idea.
His silence is too much for Izuna. As always. For someone so adept at stealth, his baby brother has never been good with silence in any other facet of life.
"Spill, brother."
It takes a heartbeat to steel his heart and his spine. He could lose them all if he says the wrong thing, and clearly, he hasn't figured out the right way to say any of it yet, or he wouldn't be on try number whatever he was on.
"The village-"
"Kaguya, brother. The grandmother from hell is back. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I think she's a bit more than grandmother," Yoruichi smirks. Leave it to her to be amused by the whole situation.
Izuna mock glares at her, but there's no heat to it. He adores her as much as Madara does. 
"How did you find out she was back?" Kisuke asks, focused on solid evidence, as always.
"She isn't back." They look confused, "Yet." They stiffen. "But she's coming."
"We can't fight her until she's here," Midoriko states.
"And none of the other clans will believe us," Aki mutters.
"Not without proof," Kisuke adds.
"It wouldn't matter. They can't put up much more than we can," Ami sniffs.
Bai's the one that brings them back to the important part. "How do you know?"
So Madara takes a deep breath, summons the most horrible memory of Zetsu he has, and pushes it at his Sharingan. 
His spins.
Theirs begin to in response.
He knows once they've seen it. Ami's face twists in disgust, and Itachi gags.
"What the fuck is that?" Bai demands. He's never dealt well with things he doesn't know. Or situations he can't control.
"He calls himself Zetsu. He calls Kaguya mother."
"Great," Izuna drawls, "Now we have a crazy uncle too."
They strategize for hours. Until the sun is completely gone and the moon itself is beginning to wane. It's nice and useful to have new sets of eyes on the problem, and they do come up with some good ideas.
Unfortunately, none of those ideas can be implemented until Kaguya is free or Zetsu is pinned down, and neither of those things will happen quickly.
By the time they've resigned themselves that there's no battle to pick immediately, Madara has made headway in his argument for the village.
For Konohagakure.
And they're really only stuck on one last argument against it.
"I understand we will need them. They will need us or they will perish at her hands just the same. But how can you be sure that they will not turn on us as soon as she's defeated?" Ami says for what must be the hundredth time.
"They will expect us to do the same," Aki adds. "That is why it's guaranteed that they will turn."
"It's the fucking circle of life," Bai adds, and Madara's frustration gives way to hopelessness. 
They are the ones he needs at his back. Where he goes, they will follow, and where they go, the clan will follow.
Maybe that's why it slips out.
"Someone has to break the cycle."
They stare at him, eyes bright despite the long, heavy hours.
"Whoever does will die. You know that." Itachi.
"They may even kill us all before they come to the same realization." Kasumi.
"If they get there at all." Bai.
"If the Uchiha die, there will be no one left that can destroy the God Tree. Kaguya will win. Maybe not this time, but the next time for sure." Ami.
Madara can't look any of them in the eye. They are right. He even agrees with them. "That doesn't mean the answer is to let the cycle continue."
Because he and Hashirama are right, too. That's one of those truths about life that people ignore. That two sides can be right at the same time. Or wrong. That both sides can be good or bad.
That bad people can do good things. 
And good people can do bad things.
"It's a hell of a risk," Izuna murmurs.
"I know." Madara will likely be the first to die when they do it, anyway. There's no one the rest of the world wants to kill more.
It's Midoriko that breaks the oppressive silence.
"But perhaps it's not impossible." She offers, "If we had some kind of security. Or an ally to get us through that first few moments. That could be all it takes."
She looks right at him as she says it. 
Izuna's expression of resigned disgust is just a bonus.
***
Madara orders a Blood Dance to celebrate. 
One of the Old Ways, a practice most of the clans abandoned when they stopped using blood wards. Meant to bring blessings and luck on the clan from Amaterasu herself. 
It's a sacred thing, and his heart swells as they light the fires and the music starts. 
The Sharingan bearers always start the dance.
And they always end it. 
Some dances go on for so long that they become exercises in stamina all on their own. Especially in the colder months when it takes longer for the ground beneath their feet to warm and the blood to rise.
It's coming on high summer now, so it only takes an hour of dancing before the heat and the pounding of the steps raises the blood out of the ground.
The music picks up in response, the force of the steps and the constant exhale of chakra that it takes to keep their bodies moving in the fluid, sensual movements that signify the Uchiha style follow.
Madara feels the first vestiges of blood between his toes as the smell rises. Nothing can make rotten blood smell tolerable –another reason they fell out of favor- but the smoke from the fires and the pipes diffuses it enough that it doesn't damper the festivities.
A new war against an old enemy is on the horizon. A new battle for the only clan that was truly made for it.
This new time they're crawling into is confusing and terrifying, but fighting Kaguya, they know. Sadly enough, it's a welcome reprieve.
They're hours in when Hashirama arrives at the open gate because there are no closed doors while the dance takes place, and even Madara is too distracted to notice him approaching.
Hashirama's only thought is that if the Uchiha could try to look a little less intimidating and attractive when dancing in blood, it'd probably be a lot easier to get the rest of the clans on board with the village.
 
***
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
***
~tbc~