An odd little piece that just came to mind one day, reflecting on Madara's general lack of regard for anyone. It's not plain dislike or hate with him; it's a matter-of-fact contempt for anyone he considers inferior that's much worse in its own way. So here is this random, may-not-mean-anything-much short writing on his views on respect.

On an unrelated note, the piece itself is 987 words long XD. And there may or may not be more such shorts forthcoming; depends on where my thoughts lead me.

O.O.O.O

Contrary to popular belief, Uchiha Madara is not incapable of giving due respect to another person, even despite suffering a defeat at that person's hand. Or perhaps it is precisely because he lost to that person, that the person has Madara's respect.

Two people have his respect, in fact. And when Madara is in the right mood, he does not mind admitting it. Not too much, at any rate.

Senju Hashirama is the first of the two. Leader of the Senju Clan, and thus Madara's rival in the days before the hidden villages were established. Co-founder of Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, along with the Uchiha leader. Elected as the Shodai Hokage, which Madara took issue with.

It might have been the Senju belief in the Will of Fire, along with peace and harmony and all those ideals a war-hardened man of ambition did not put much stock in. Soft and weak as that way of thinking was to Madara, it had been enough to sway his own clan against him. This certainly did nothing to convince the Uchiha of things, since he regarded it as betrayal of the highest order.

Losing the support of the very people whose lives and livelihoods he had fought so hard to safeguard ticked him off, to say the least. But first he had a bone to pick with Hashirama.

It is well known that Madara lost the battle. It is less well known that he survived it. While it might be perceived by some as a failure on the First's part, Madara is quite willing to concede that he was beaten.

After all, he has always known that the man was not just a charismatic leader, but also a skilled, talented shinobi, in possession of a rare and powerful bloodline ability, not unlike Madara himself. To defeat both Madara and the Kyuubi no Yoko, though, took more than just being skilled and talented.

It should not be forgotten that Madara hates Hashirama. The man took nearly everything from him: his village, his clan, his power….

But yes, Senju Hashirama is every bit Madara's equal, dispute or no.

He has had the better part of a century to come to terms with this blend of respect and hatred he harbours for the First Hokage. The fact that one Namikaze Minato has earned his respect is a sore spot that still chafes, even if Madara will not stoop so low as to admit this wound to his pride.

The young man did take the title of Yondaime Hokage, but to Madara few names or titles mattered; it would take much more than that to impress him, when one had lived, seen and done as much as he had.

And the facts were that Minato was not from any clan or bloodline of note. He almost certainly had no bloodline limit ability. All he had was the taint of the Will of Fire, and what Madara had thought was ordinary genius. No ordinary genius could stand against the Uchiha name, much less one hailed as a genius even amongst the once-powerful clan.

Madara had the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, greatest of the tailed beasts, under his control again. He had his own unique skills, many decades of knowledge and experience, and security in the knowledge that no one knew he still existed, much less what he could do.

He was forced to flee in defeat.

He was forced to flee in defeat, by a man of no notable ancestry, not yet thirty years of age, only the latest in the long line of fools who did not know how weak their soft hearts made them.

It is a good while later, recovering from the wounds Minato inflicted, that he begins to piece the picture together. It is years later by the time he learns just how much the whelp managed to accomplish.

He had never seen Minato's techniques, before or since. Evidently, the Fourth was capable of inventing powerful jutsu of his own. Not just any techniques, even, but sealing techniques and space-time manipulation, on a level much more complex than a summoning contract. Madara would know; he had spent ages researching the methods regarding the creation of a jinchuuriki.

Creating a jinchuuriki, it seems, is not beyond Minato, and he sealed the demon into his own son, no less. The almost completely ruthless pragmatism of this act surprises the Uchiha, when he finally learns what happened to the Kyuubi.

Konoha now has a powerful weapon to use against Madara. Madara himself will find it a challenging exercise at best to attempt to retrieve the tailed beast; three-quarters of the village may hate the boy, and almost all of them remain unaware of his parentage, but the village will protect its own, nonetheless, until the child can fend for himself. So Minato has protected both Konoha and his son, armed them against their greatest foe, all in one fell swoop.

There is a certain elegance in this solution that Madara can admire. The only flaw in this plan, to his mind, is that Minato gave his own life as the sacrifice for the sealing, instead of using another; exactly the kind of foolishness to expect from one who believed in the Senju ideals, to remove the village's most powerful defender from the equation simply because of some belief that he could not ask this of anyone else.

That was how Hashirama had died. That was how Tobirama had died. That was how Madara's own brother had died. And Minato had followed in those footsteps, naturally.

But not before ruining Madara's plans so thoroughly, it was as though Madara himself had told him the plan and invited him to find a way to counter it.

Oh yes, Namikaze Minato had Uchiha Madara's respect, all right, even as Madara sought to prove him and the First Hokage wrong, once and for all.