Saviour

6.

Hashirama explained the situations

"He was sighted in the Land of Wind. He's apparently made a big mess there. Apparently he tried to capture Shukaku, the one-tail. But that's not our problem. Our problem is the sand ninja. They are trying to kill him."

I was taken aback. "But we had an agreement! Madara is to be captured, not killed, and handed over to us!" I put my hands on Hashirama's desk, leaning forwards.

"I know, but..." Hashirama sighed. The line in his forehead that had appeared the last year became apparent. It suited him, somehow. "This is not the Madara that left six years ago were dealing with. This Madara... I don't know how to explain this to you, because I can hardly understand it myself, but we're talking about a man that can change landscapes with brute force. He killed over one thousand sand ninja all by himself within one minute."

I stood, mouth agape. "Madara did that?" I whispered.

Hashirama didn't answer. He didn't need to. I pulled my fingers through my dirty hair, put my other hand on my hip.

"Shit..." I said.

"To deal with him, I think we need a shinobi of my calibre... or yours." He looked at me dead pan.

"You're stronger than me", I said.

"Yes, but barely so. Besides you're smarter, and..." He became silent.

"What?" I prompted.

"Madara loves you."

I was silent.

I was silent for a long, long time.

"He does?" I asked, hating myself for how pathetic I sounded. "He told you?"

"He didn't need to."

I donned my blue armour and white fur. I took my Konoha headband, that were not just square like most others but bent down at the sides to cover the sides of my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and sighed. Then I took off my armour again, together with the fur. I left my headband on my drawer. I want to meet him like this, I though. I want to meet him bare.

"You sure about this?" Hashirama asked when he was me clad only in my black trousers and turtleneck.

"Positive."

And I left.

I reached the Earth within the day. The landscape was a vast desert, and the horizon loomed on all four sides of me. I had tried to convince Hashirama I didn't want backup. In the end, we'd compromised on a team of twenty elite shinobi who would accompany me half a day behind.

I travelled for only a couple of hours in the desert before I started to notice a shift in the landscape that appeared very, very suddenly and became more and more apparent.

"Dear God..."

Large chunks of sandstone was splattered all over the ground, becoming larger and larger until they were hills that decorated the landscape, there were craters spread out, some of them so deep and wide it cost me several minutes to pass around.

And the most unsettling thing was they were man-made.

"Madara, my love, how?"

And that's when I learned how terribly me and Hashirama had misjudged the situation.

We should have realised that there were two separate problems on this mission; Madara but also the Sand ninja. As lost as we were in our joy of Madara having been sighted, we could only consider Madara. Of course, the Sand ninja would figure the Leaf would try to stop them from killing Madara and make sure they were prepared for that.