Chapter Text
Madara sat behind his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked down at what had to be the fiftieth proposal for clan segregation in schools since he had officially begun his administrative duties nearly half a year ago. The village was still very new. It would only be a year old in just over three months, and some of the clans in the newfound village still hadn’t gotten the point of them coming together to form a single collection of shinobi instead of having various clans scattered throughout the Fire Country. It was for unity . Separating the children from each other while they were still young and impressionable would completely defeat the purpose of all their hard work.
He pushed himself from his desk and walked to his door, pushing it open, still clutching the proposal in his hand. It was from that damnable Hisaki Huugya. He knew why the document had ended up on his desk, of all places. It wasn’t as though it was a secret that the Uchiha and the Huugya had an ongoing rivalry due to their ocular jutsu. This had really just been something petty from the bastard to further emphasize the fact that the clan head wasn’t impressed with the thought of the children of his clan mixing with the children of the Uchiha clan.
He stormed his way to his secretary, who was looking over a few documents at her own desk. Yuna Yamanaka was a pretty woman with long, blond hair, and bright blue eyes. He hadn’t highered her because of her looks, however. He’d highered her because he’d watched her give him a distinctly unimpressed look when he’d gotten angry at a Shinobi in his office one day. She hadn’t flinched from his explosive amount of killing intent and had simply given him the documentation that her clan head had sent her with and had wished him a good day. He’d needed someone like that. Someone that wouldn’t cower every time he got angry, because his temperament was as fiery as his jutsu.
“Is there something that I can help you with, Madara-Sama?” Yuna asked him, turning in her seat to look at him stalking over.
“Yes, actually,” Madara snarled at her, slamming the proposal down onto her desk. “I want you to reply to this, and tell Hisaki Huugya that he can take this idea and shove it firmly up his ass!”
Yuna blinked at him, cocking her head to the side. He could feel a few stares on him from the others that were also working in cubicles outside of his office, but he easily ignored them in favor of the all-consuming rage that was roaring through his blood.
“We both know that I cannot tell him that,” Yuna informed him. She grabbed a piece of parchment anyway and placed it in front of her. “I will write something suitably polite and petty to get the point of the denial that you’re looking for across.”
Madara grinned sharply at her, knowing that the reply would say enough to get the imperious fucker’s blood pressure to raise, but not enough to come across as obviously rude.
“I imagine that you just got through reading Hisaki’s proposal?” Hashirama’s voice came from behind him, and Madara whirled around and saw his friend standing a few feet away. His long, brown hair was as shiny and as perfect as ever, brushed over one shoulder carelessly. He had a knowing smile on his face that told Madara that he’d been subject to the same trash reading material and he hadn’t thought very much of it himself.
“That fool sent it to you as well?” Madara demanded, surprised. There was no way that Huugya thought that Hashirama, of all people, was going to sign off on it.
“Now, now, Madara,” Hashirama admonished, “we’re trying to endorse friendly relations between clans, and having a clan head name-calling another head of a clan isn’t friendly at all. That being said, I will admit that I don’t think that the suggestions from the proposal are ones that we are going to use. We’ll just have to see what Tobirama’s opinions on this one are.”
Madara blinked in surprise. Hisaki had sent the proposal to the three most powerful and influential men in the village. He and Hashirama were both against it, but Tobirama’s voice did have quite a bit of weight in their meetings and delegations as well. With how much the man seemed to detest the Uchiha, it was almost a safe bet that he might agree with the thought of segregating the classes by clan.
A door a few feet from Hashirama opened a few moments later. “Can I ask what all of the noise is about?” an irritated voice asked. It was as if speaking about the younger Senju sibling had summoned him from his own office.
“Ah,” Hashirama said, spinning around and looking at his younger brother as he walked outside. His white hair was as spikey as ever, and even in his casual attire of a blue kimono shirt and black pants, he looked every bit as deadly as he did back in the old days when he fought on the battlefield. “You were just the person that we were looking for!”
Tobirama raised a single pale eyebrow and looked both Hashirama and Madara over with calculating red eyes. Madara already felt judged and attacked from the look alone.
“He may have been looking for you, but I certainly wasn’t,” Madara groused, looking away from Tobirama after a moment and around the room at the office workers who were still watching their impromptu meeting. As soon as Madara met their eyes, they quickly looked away and got back to work.
“Well, then brother, since you were looking for me, even though I don’t think that you were the one that was shouting like a lunatic,” Madara didn’t have to look back at Tobirama to know the other was staring at him with a look full of attitude, “what is it that you needed?”
“Have you read Hisaki’s proposal?” Hashirama inquired.
Madara did look back at Tobirama this time, waiting for the other to agree with the concepts that the Huugya had thrown on the table.
“Oh, yes,” Tobirama said nonchalantly, “I believe I came across it a couple of hours ago. Why? Is that what this is all about?”
“Don’t make it sound so unimportant,” Madara snapped at him. “What are your views on the matter, Senju?”
Tobirama frowned at him and crossed his arms over his chest. “Watch who you’re talking to, Uchiha. I’m not one of your lesser clan members or your younger brother. I won’t cower down to you.”
Madara’s temper, which had already been near boiling because of Huugya, flared at the clear challenge. He took a step forward and brought his hands in front of him, prepared and willing to show Tobirama exactly why he should be cowering down to him. Tobirama didn’t look perturbed by him at all and had taken a step forward himself, his hand angling down to the small pouch on his waist where Madara was certain a few of his customized kunai were housed.
“Now, now, you two!” Hashirama called loudly. He moved a couple of steps to the side, effectively placing himself in between the two irate shinobi. “Friendly relations, remember! This is hardly the time nor the place to be squabbling! As the leaders of the village, we should be setting examples. Now, why don’t we have a peaceful conversation in Madara’s office. Poor Yuna probably needs to get back to work anyway.”
Madara turned to look at his secretary, who looked as unbothered as always, and nearly called Hashirama out on his feeble excuse to get them behind closed doors, but he refrained. His friend was right, after all. He imagined that being friendly with one another didn’t involve duling in the middle of a workplace.
“Fine,” Madara grumbled, turning around. He stalked into his office and waited impatiently for the pair of brothers to make their way in as well.
“What’s all this about?” Tobirama asked tiredly as he shut the door behind him and turned around to face them with an impatient scowl. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I have a few projects that I’m trying to see to, and I can hardly get any work done in here, answering this fool’s questions!”
Madara made a noise of protest in the back of his throat before he opened his mouth to hurl an insult in return. Before he could get the first syllable out, Hashirama had already cut him off with a loud groan. “Come on, you guys! Can’t you get along! Is it really too much to ask for you both to act civilly toward each other during work hours! It’s not as though I’m asking you to become close friends, or even see each other outside of work!”
“You are so asking us to do that!” Madara said, pointing an accusing finger at his best friend. “Don’t even try to lie! How about all of those outings that you force us on! It’s nearly always a trap when you invite me out somewhere! I think that we’re going somewhere to spend some time together and before I know it, that white demon shows up because you forgot that you invited him too !”
“That’s a bit harsh!” Hashirama shot back. “Tobirama has feelings too, you know!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Madara sneered.
“I’m right here, brother, Uchiha,” Tobirama spoke up coldly. “I have no interest in having anyone arguing on my behalf.” He stared straight at Madara and said, “You’re a hot-blooded, arrogant idiot that thinks he knows people when he doesn’t know a damn thing about them. Why the hell would I want to be friends with someone like that? I’m glad that you don’t like me, Uchiha, because the feeling is definitely mutual.” He allowed his eyes to linger on Madara, so he could see the unbridled disgust deep inside, before he turned and looked at Hashirama again.
“What is this about?” Tobirama repeated. “Either answer the question or let me go. I’m not going to waste my entire day here.”
“Hisaki’s proposal,” Hashirama said, his voice tired. Madara turned and looked at his friend, suddenly feeling a ball of guilt swelling in the pit of his stomach. He looked as though he was one more harsh word from a bout of depression. “What did you think of it?”
Tobirama rolled his eyes. “It was trash,” he shrugged. “I figured that it wasn’t worth keeping or replying to, so I used it as a kindling for my fireplace. I figured it was the only thing it was good for.”
Madara felt his jaw get heavy, and it dropped after a few moments as he blatantly stared at the other man. It was...surprising to say the least. Tobirama looked in between him and Hashirama a few more times before he said, “If that’s all, I’ll be taking my leave.”
Hashirama silently nodded and Tobirama turned around and left the room, shutting the office door behind him with more force than strictly necessary. Madara still hadn’t looked away from the place that Tobirama previously stood as he felt something that was horrifyingly similar to grudging respect begin to simmer in his gut. Maybe Tobirama had more invested in the success of this village than he thought.