How Hashirama wished this were a simple world.
If only it were as simple as the last Engraved Tsukuyomi World.
Then he could tell the good people from the bad at a glance.
At least he would know what to do.
But this world was full of twists and mysteries.
Especially in the last cycle. The Imperial Court had not wiped out his entire household; the martial factions that had once stood beside him had. That made right and wrong even harder to judge.
Hashirama did not rush to call those factions evil, either. What if the Imperial Court was evil, and they had acted because they thought he had defected to it?
So far, though, Hashirama had seen no clear sign of evil in Madara. He could not conclude that the Imperial Court was evil.
He was at a loss.
Hashirama thought long and hard about what options he had left.
Then one came to him.
He had tried winning, losing, refusing to fight, and surrendering.
But Hashirama remembered the first time Madara had knocked him off a cliff. He had remarked then that, with his strength, even a fall while gravely wounded would not kill him.
In other words, he had one option left: death.
Or rather, faking his death.
Since he and Madara had switched roles in this world, perhaps he ought to follow the fate that had originally been Madara's.
Why not try faking his death and slipping away?
With that thought, Hashirama took action.
He stood Madara up and left the Valley of the End.
After their previous clashes, he doubted he could make Madara strike to kill.
That left him no choice but to find another way.
In principle, this was no different from the third cycle, when he had avoided the fight.
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