"Do we know each other?"

Every second that follows feels like eternity for Hashirama. Deep inside, he wants Madara to say yes, because then, things would be easier, wouldn't they?

But what should he do then? If they know each other, then what?

‘Maybe the nightmares—no, dreams—would stop’, says a voice in his head.

"No," Madara finally answers, "no, we don't."

"...Ah," Hashirama manages to say after a while, frowning with his eyebrows knit together. He's not sure why he's disappointed though. He looks at Madara to search for any sign that would suggest that he's not telling the truth. All he got is the same stoic expression, except for his eyes—they look like they hadn't seen color for a very long time.

Madara is the one who breaks eye contact first, as if he's afraid that Hashirama might see through him if it lasts a second longer. "Why'd you ask?" he questions.

‘Because I dream of you...of us’, says the voice in Hashirama’s head again. "...Because you know my name," he answers instead.

Madara scoffs. He sighs as he gets up and walks toward the direction of the cave. "You're the god of shinobi, Hashirama," he says as a matter-of-factly without turning his head back, "everyone knows your name."

With a tug on his heart, Hashirama watches as his silhouette vanishes from the distance.

Just then, a particularly strong wind blows—a cue for him to get out of the water—so he grabs his clothes and dresses up.

‘I'm just confused’, he tells himself, but the more he repeats it, the less he's convinced.

-----

Madara unconsciously clutches his chest as he walks back to the cave. He's used to hiding his emotions and he’d like to say proudly that he’s doing it very well. Now however, he realizes he’s reached his limit. Tears start to blur his vision and it takes every effort to keep them from falling.

He'd already made up his mind when he left Konoha. It’s a hard decision to make. Still, there are times when he'd ask himself if he really made the right choice.

And now it seems like fate has played a joke on him once more.

Here with Hashirama, it feels like torture—a sweet agony of pain and comfort—but he's glad that he's alive, and seeing him so is more than enough for him, a reminder that he’s made the right decision.

‘This is for the better’, he tells himself, ‘it's better this way.’

He pauses on his tracks, taking it all in as if a mere deep inhale would be enough to ease his aching heart, then wipes his wet eyes with his palms. After a long, deep breath, he proceeds on his way.

A series of light footsteps come from behind him without warning. Putting on his practiced smug attitude, he says, "So, bath time is over, huh?"

It’s a second too late when he senses that it isn't Hashirama's chakra signature. Quickly, he tries to draw a kunai from his back pocket but his effort is futile, realizing that he left it in the cave.

The man is dressed in black and his face is covered with a ceramic mask. He throws a couple of shuriken towards Madara, who skillfully dodges them. However, one lands and cuts his upper left shoulder. He internally curses at himself, calling it plain stupidity not being able to even a weapon as simple as a shuriken.

He activates the Sharingan and with the initial shock from the ambush now gone, he starts to fight back. Within a split second, he makes a hand sign for a katon jutsu and the man is immediately reduced to charred ashes.

Looking back to the direction of the river, the next thing that came to his mind is Hashirama. He’s about to run to his direction when a group of men, also dressed in black and faces covered with ceramic masks, appear. They attack him all at once, but he’d seen it all with his Sharingan. He immediately launches a fireball in their way before their weapons could reach him.

Using the next few seconds during which the enemies were recovering from his attack, Madara quickly searched for Hashirama's chakra signature. He learns that he's still by the riverside and is fighting a couple of attackers, too.

He's doing fine, yes, but Madara knows he has to act quickly before things escalate. He already has a pretty good guess who the enemies are, or rather, who sent them. He couldn’t stop from blaming himself for being too careless, but he can't do anything about it now. What he can do now instead is to divert the enemies' attention to him.

After finishing what he started with his attackers, he quickly goes back to the river where Hashirama is.

"Madara!" Hashirama calls his name when he appeared within his sight. His eyes widen when he sees Madara's bleeding left shoulder. As if on reflex, he reaches his hand out to his wound. “Let me—"

Madara cuts him short, however. He swats his healing hand away before it could even land on his body. "This is nothing," he says. He looks around and sees that the last enemy is down, or so he thought—he senses someone with a massive chakra approaching them, accompanied with many others.

He's standing in front of Hashirama now, face painted blank as he makes a couple of hand signs for a jutsu he knows Hashirama couldn't recognize.

Hashirama watches him close. His brows furrow, having no clue what's going on. He flinches when Madara suddenly places his hand against his cheek. Madara's hand feels ice-cold, but Hashirama finds it very pleasant against his rather warm skin. He finds himself leaning to his touch. He places his own palm over the hand on his cheek, so naturally, as if he'd done this a million times before.

He smiles fondly at Madara and he gives him a look that says, ‘it's okay, we're gonna be alright.’

But Madara's response is that of someone who's already lost hope. His teary eyes slowly close as he places a tender kiss on Hashirama’s lips.

"This is goodbye, Hashirama."

The last thing Hashirama saw before consciousness left him was the Mangekyo Sharingan.

-----

It all felt like a distant dream.

Hashirama woke up on a sunny morning underneath a Sakura tree, only half a mile away from the North gate of Konoha.

How he got there, he has no idea.

He could remember as far back as the cave, that after he and Madara fought, they retreated to the cave and he took care of Madara. He still remembers every dream he's had during those sleepless nights, how he felt when Madara finally woke up, and all the conversations they had. He remembers the night when he bathed in the river and Madara's answer to his question, and after that, Madara walked away, and—

—and what happened after that?

"Maybe you're just tired, anija," Tobirama told him. "Get some rest and don't worry about it too much. What's important now is that you're safe," he supplied, although Hashirama could see the worry in his brother's face.

It’s been days since Hashirama came back but he'd been silent about all that happened. 'We fought, he lost, and I came home,' was what he simply told him. He refused to answer any of Tobirama's questions nor say anything more after that. Since he came home, he's also been sleepless and would spend most of his day on top of the cliff overlooking Konoha, isolating himself from other people's presences as much as possible.

It doesn’t reach his awareness that Tobirama is watching him through all of that. He doesn’t know that his younger brother wishes to help him, that he wants to reach out but at this point, he doesn't know how yet.

"I told you I'm fine," Hashirama says monotonously one evening when Tobirama visited him in his room.

What Tobirama sees, however, is the exact opposite of the word 'fine'. He shakes his head. "Here, drink this," he says, handing Hashirama a cup of concoction that he made to help him sleep.

Hashirama gives him a questioning look.

"It'll help you get some rest," he explains.

Hashirama smiles weakly at him and Tobirama's heart aches at the sight. He takes the cup and slowly drinks the bitter liquid.

Tobirama waits for him to say something once he's finished it—something about how awful it tastes or a clever comment on Tobirama's ability to make him drink such a bad-tasting substance—just like what he usually does.

But Hashirama just drinks it all and only says a kind 'thank you' to him before retreating back to his futon.

Tobirama realizes that he prefers the insults instead.

Sighing heavily, he pulls the blanket up to his older brother's torso. He forces a little smile before turning his back from him as he walks towards the door.

Unexpectedly, Hashirama speaks, "Can I ask you something, Tobirama?"

Tobirama almost jumps. He slowly turns around and nods at Hashirama, only to find out that the older is not looking at him but outside the window instead. He’s holding the pendant of the necklace he's wearing, caressing it absentmindedly with his thumb.

"This necklace," Hashirama starts, turning his head slowly to meet his eyes, "whom is it from?"

-End of Chapter 8-