☆HashiMada OneShots☆

Illusion

"If I disappeared," Madara said. "Would you look for me?"

"Of course," Hashirama answered, squinting up at him. The light from the setting sun hit his eyes and caught them elite, twin amber flames searching through his obsidian depths. "Of course, I would, Madara. I would never stop looking."

And that was that. At ten years old, Hashirama had more resolve than most of the adults Madara knew. Crouching there, by the river they had met not too long ago, he looked no different than the other Senju Madara had slaughtered in battle. Sure, he was only eleven but Madara was no stranger to bloodshed. His father introduced him to the battlefield when he was seven and awakened his sharingan the same year when he witnessed his elder brother's deceased body being torn apart by coyotes. It was not a pretty experience but it had done its job - give him access to a power all true Uchiha should have. And yet the void within his chest had only gotten larger, a black inky swirl of angst and anger in the centre of where his heart should be, spinning faster and faster with each passing day until he could barely breathe.

"Oi, Mada-chan!" The brown-haired boy grinned up at him, wadding into the water. "You gonna stand there sulking all day?"

Madara frowned. "You know I don't wish to get wet."

Hashirama snorted. "Don't be such a stick in the mud. We only have an hour till sundown, come here and play with me!"

"No."

The word had only barely passed from his lips when he felt a root sprout from the ground and slither around his ankle. His eyes widened.

"Hashirama, don-argh!"

The wood user cackled as Madara splashed into the water, emerging looking like a wet cat. "Ha! That's what you get Mada-chan!"

Madara glowered. "I told you to stop calling me that."

"Stop calling you what, Mada-chan?"

"That! It's unbefitting of me and-"

"Aww, I think you're a bit over your head, Mada-chan."

"Hashirama, I'm warning you-"

"Mada-chan, Mada-chan, Mada-cha-" He let out a yelp as Madara lunged at him, dunking his head underwater.

Hashirama shoved him off, sputtering and giggling, his wet hair

falling over his forehead. Madara watched, a small smile tugging on

his lips.

The air passed easier from his chest.

___

"You are fraternizing with a Senju."

Madara sat kneeling in front of his father, a young boy of thirteen, head bowed low, almost to the ground. His tongue swiped over his chapped lips, fingers curling over his knees in an attempt to hide their trembling.

"I don't know what you mean, Father."

His father's voice was dangerously soft. "Don't you, Mada-chan?"

The nickname sent a violent flinch down his spine. It sounded different coming from his father's lips sounded cruel and twisted and terrifying.

"F-father, I-"

"Look at me, boy."

His eyes stayed trained on the ground, he tried once more to appease his father's anger. "Father, I didn't-"

"I said look at me!'

And so he did. His eyes were mesmerizing, red and spinning and petrifying and Madara found himself lost in them, every nerve being pulled from his body, into those eyes like knives, sinking into his flesh, cutting him open so that every secret he had ever kept from his father was now exposed for those very eyes.