☆Surrender☆

☆Chapter:-1☆

On the third day of spring, under a dark gray sky, Uchiha Madara surrendered himself to the Senju Clan. He wore in a gray kimono and bore no weapons. He let them blindfold him and tie his hands.

This was how he was presented to Senju Butsuma and his sons - on his knees, with a kunai at his throat.

Uchiha Izuna was dead and cremated. His ashes were scattered in a quiet grove.

"Don't tell me the son of Uchiha Tajima has come to defect," Butsuma told his kneeling form.

"I have not come to defect," said Madara. "I'm already dead. I will not fight anymore." He raised his head slightly - the kunai at his throat raised with it - and his blindfolded eyes stared directly at Hashirama. "I surrender. Your youngest has killed my brother; let your oldest kill me."

The guards looked at Butsuma. Butsuma looked at Hashirama. Hashirama's face was calm and steady - this was not a clash on a riverbank, and he wasn't twelve years old anymore.

"Honorable father," Hashirama said quietly. "I would ask to speak to the prisoner alone."

"Denied," said Butsuma.

"No," said Madara, simultaneously. The Senju guarding him shot him an incredulous glare.

"Honorable father -"

"Hashirama," Butsuma said. "Out of respect for the clansmen his death here will save, I would grant his request that you be his executioner. He is correct, and it is fitting that my eldest be the one to take his life. But," Butsuma's voice lowered. "I grant you, Hashirama, only the mercy to end his life quickly."

"And if I do not take it?" Hashirama's voice was steady.

Madara said nothing.

"Then he will die by my hand," Butsuma said. "He has come here to die, and I will oblige him this. His body will be returned to the Uchiha by the riverbank."

Hashirama's face was still, and his hands did not tremble. But there was bubbling anger in low in his throat when he said, "He said he will not fight. What threat is he to us? Why not -"

Butsuma did not strike his son. He, too, was older than he had been at the riverbank. He understood things now that he had not before. But when he raised his hand, Hashirama fell silent all the same.

"He is a threat," Butsuma said, "Because he is here to be killed by you. Hashirama, do you understand?"

"Honorable father." It was Tobirama this time. "I have a suggestion."

"Speak, then."

"Honorable father, Uchiha Madara's death will protect our clansmen from his sword, it's true," Tobirama said. "But what of his clansmen? Do they know he's here? Does Uchiha Tajima know that he has surrendered himself to us?"

Hashirama sucked in a breath. He didn't know where Tobirama was going with this, but it was surely better than Madara dying at his hands.

Butsuma was looking at Madara thoughtfully, brows creased. "Well, boy? Does Tajima know where you are?"

Madara licked his lips. "No," he said at last. "If I had told him my intentions, he would have killed me himself. And that... was not acceptable to me."

"But dying to Hashirama was."

Madara didn't answer.

"Honorable father," Tobirama continued, voice like sliding silk. "Maybe there is use in keeping him as a hostage? Would it not dull his clansmen's blades to keep him here, alive?"

"It might just as easily sharpen them, Tobirama," Butsuma said. "And hostages are not kept indefinitely. There are no demands I would make of the Uchiha clan to warrant the risk."