infallible

I've already written onesided-HashiMada in 'apodyopsis', but I realized that canon veers more towards onesided-MadaHashi. I mean, the guy has his best friend's face carved on his chest.

I therefore present to you: desperate!Madara.

Hashirama's eyes are still open when he dies. They were never particularly interesting. Simply a shade of plain brown that embodied the warm, yet strangely ascetic way he lived.

There isn't any relief, and by this Madara is confused. There is no sense of the reification he's searched for, of the finality he's dreamed of. Even as he leans down to harvest his once-friend's cells, his fingers are numb.

He remains by Hashirama's body for another hour, sitting mutely and glaring up at the darkening sky. The realization builds slowly, that he's overlooked his actual goal, and that another man stands by Izuna's side in his mind. He shouldn't stand there, it's wrong, but he does, and Madara prides himself on righting his wrongs through tautology and with that he makes his decision.

His eyes spin red as the Mangekyo sighs and Yomi releases an image of its captive.

~o~

Madara can see him as long as he keeps his eyes open, and as long as the Mangekyou remains active. This version of Hashirama is fuller than in life, filled with the parts of him that had always stood out in the most detail. The strange kindness of his smile is multiplied, in this realm, and his hair is as short as a boy's.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Hashirama asks as they walk away from the Valley of the End. "The others will believe you have perished in our battle-of-epic-proportions."

"I will wait," he says, holding the sample of Senju cells tightly in one hand. "It will take a long time to pry open the secrets of our bloodline, and I must see if my idea can bear fruit."

"Your idea? What does this involve?" His voice lilts in that teasing way he's always had.

Madara says, "the body of the Juubi."

~o~

For the next decade, though, he spends more time building his own world than changing then one around him. Tsukiyomi is a powerful tool, a knife to the neck of reality. He uses it like a mould of clay, sculpting it cleanly until it's so redolent of the Uchiha compound that he almost smiles when he sees it.

And within this compound, under the red sky, there is a main house, and within the main house where he once lived, there is his room with an Uchiha fan on the wall and a futon to one side, and sitting at his desk is Hashirama with his limpid smile.

"You've grown talented, Madara," he comments. "This is incredibly real. It's almost… more real than outside, actually."

"Don't talk like that. That Senju would never say such a thing. He would complain about it being unhealthy." Madara walks forward to settle into the other chair, eyeing the papers scattered across the surface of the desk. One clean sweep of his hand sends them flying off and shriveling to pieces. It's unhealthy.

"Oh, alright. Well," Hashirama takes on a sterner tone and straightens in his chair. "This isn't healthy, Madara. It's really not. Because… wait, why isn't it healthy?"

"Be quiet. Just be quiet. It's fine as long as you stay silent."

He looks perfect. But personalities are difficult to emulate. That will take decades.

~o~

And thirty years later, when all the pieces of his memories have been carefully retrieved and incorporated into the whole, Madara talks to him. In reality, his throat is old, that of a fifty-year-old man. It's parched from a lack of water in the cave, and generally hard to speak from. But in the realm of Tsukiyomi he's young, young like Hashirama's eternal twenty-five.

"Is it wise to connect yourself to the body of the Juubi like that?" Hashirama asks. "Wouldn't you rather just die peacefully like I did?"

"To die peacefully would be to take the easy way out. I will persist until I have accomplished my goal," he replies.

"Ah, the moon-thing, right?" Hashirama taps one finger against the desk, just as he once did in reality. "Somehow I don't find myself entirely agreeing with this prospect. It seems superfluous when there's already a world out there. As clan head, you've experienced enough about the human condition to understand that suffering is inevitable as long as scarcity exists, and no matter how hard you try to provide for them, it always will."

Sometimes, Madara wishes he would talk of other things, because the illusion isn't aware of his true goal - he's only told it that he wished to bring about a world of peace. But he knows that Hashirama must be as perfect as he once was in life, and his stubbornness is too deeply embedded in his character.

And at other times, he wonders how solid his creation really is.

~o~

In the real world, he grows the cells. The Juubi gives him the chakra needed, and soon there's life that stands before him in the statue's cave.

"Interesting!" The white creature says, flexing its hands. "So I don't need to eat food like you do. Or go to the bathr-"

"Yes. From now on, you will be my eyes and my ears," he tells it. "You will be the army that destroys the five countries."

The thing made from Hashirama's cells blinks. "But Madara-sama, how did you make me – us – without previous kinds of life? Isn't that impossible?"

It has most of his knowledge, he's given it the benefit of intellect. Somewhat. Madara slowly settles back into his stone chair, feeling the Juubi flood his chakra points. "Ah, but you were made from life. From a person. Someone perfect."

~o~

He's never touched the image before, and it takes a while to realize that it's perfectly solid.

"Is this what you wanted from me when I existed?" Hashirama asks one day, after Madara decides to lean forward and press their mouths together. "It's no wonder you were so opposed to taking a wife."

"Are you saying I can't do this?" He says. They sit in the room of the Tsukiyomi, and late evening light streams in through the only window. Hashirama is younger, this time. Twenty. His skin is still soft and unmarred from battle. Madara feels that his own form is just as young, and his hair falls over his shoulder like black silk.

"Of course you can," he chuckles, reaching forward to kiss him deeply. "You can do whatever you like. This is your world, after all."

"You've slipped. Hashirama would never say a line like that," Madara laments. Despite that, he kisses back hungrily, twining his hands into his loose shirt and easily tugging it open. "I do remember how you look, from those times you bathed in the river. Maybe this will not disappoint me too greatly." He's startled when Hashirama points to a slight scar on the inside of his leg.

"You remember more than you think you do, Madara," he replied softly. "No one else would have recalled this one. Give yourself more credit."

Eyes hungry, he says, "then I will," and the sound of ripping fabric echoes through the illusion.

~o~

Over the years, Hashirama watches him make a fool out of the world.

"You play with your own descendants as cruelly as you play with mine," he says while they lie over a futon decorated with the Uchiha fan, translucent with Tsukuyomi's brilliance.

"Because they are worth the same," Madara scoffs. "Look at the clan head, Uchiha Fugaku, all power and no mind, no ambition. What little he has is wasted on him. How is he any different from that granddaughter of yours? Useless, they're all useless."

Hashirama pulls him back down, strokes a trail of warmth along his collarbones. "You are too harsh. They're perfect as they are. The next generation must succeed the previous, after all."

And suddenly the words are so like him that he stills for a moment. But the slight disproportion in the length of the fingers that touch him remind him that there is still more to accomplish. Nevertheless, he responds by arcing backward, feeling the tree-like firmness of Hashirama's chest.

"You were always good at justification," he sighs.

Sometimes his inner thoughts say stubbornly that illusions are useless. But he's abandoned that type of philosophy. The world deserves to play out under his watchful eye, and truth is what he makes of it. It's fine that Hashirama's false mouth is pressed insistently against his, because he's invested so much time into this false world that it has become more precious than reality.

The voices still speak, sometimes, in Izuna's wise tone, gentle enough to scrape lines across his frail fibers of his mind. But for now he clenches Hashirama's shoulders tightly and moans as he swirls into oblivion.

~o~

The years pass with an aching speed, and every turn of the world marks another scar into his ancient bones. Madara contents himself with watching. It's all he can do as his body concedes to frailty.

When he dies, he finds it impossible to pinpoint the moment at which life escapes him, because it seems like a mere continuation of what's been done to him for centuries. A continuum, fading slowly over the years, darkening with imperceptible differences until the life he had has slipped easily away.

And when he looks down at his Edo Tensei hands, Madara smiles.

~o~

"Obito, do it now. We have no need for the other two Jinchuuriki, this alone will be able to cover the world, and when they look up at the moon they will be entranced like all the others."

"But Madara-sama, what if-"

"Do it now, Obito, unless you wish to have a pointless battle of epic proportions in which that idiot Konoha nin will inevitably tug at your sanity."

The masked boy peers at him for a long moment, and then nods, placing his hands together. Madara watches the land shake at the Juubi's arrival. He has no patience. He looks on at the entire shinobi army as they face its descent to the sky, and then he looks towards the sky.

It happens quickly, before he can think. He keeps both Rinnegan eyes fixed onto the moon, willing to be the first sacrifice to the new ideal. Some others cower and avert their faces in a faint, desperate try for rebellion but he keeps himself from blinking as the Juubi's shadow overtakes the world.

It's red, incredibly red, a translucent light that shines down onto the land. Madara keeps his eyes trained for minutes even after it's complete, dreading to look down and face the possibility that he could have failed.

When he finally does, his breath catches in his throat. He hasn't.

This time, Hashirama stands before him a living man, more than a dream, more than the powerful illusion it really is. He wears his Hokage robes, with the wide-brim of his hat carving a shadow onto his face. There isn't a single discrepancy in the proportions of his body or the power of his expression, and he smiles a smile so wide the years flee from Madara's thoughts, the thoughts flee from his mind, his mind flees and takes away the unwanted shade of reason.

Madara crosses his arms and looks at his final success.

"Welcome back, idiot Senju."