Madara Uchiha looked at his old friend, so excited that he seemed to have already seen the ending.
"Do you see it, Hashirama? True peace is about to descend!"
He gave Hashirama Senju no chance to speak before sneering, "What did you say back then? To protect the village, no matter what happened, you could never back down. Protecting the village meant protecting everyone—protecting the shinobi and the children. Even if they were friends, brothers, or even your own children, as long as they dared stand against the village, you would never spare them."
"I warned you back then that you had it backwards. If you kept going, sooner or later, you would turn the village into darkness with your own hands."
Madara's laughter was filled with mockery.
"I've already heard that Konoha was ultimately destroyed by that Will of Fire of yours. The Jinchuriki created to protect the village turned around and destroyed it instead. Well? Isn't that especially ironic?"
"Hahaha!"
That burst of laughter made Hashirama Senju's expression grow increasingly grim.
After he had stabbed Madara Uchiha in the back, Hashirama Senju had gradually strayed from his original ideals. At first, he had only wanted to protect the children of his clan. That was why he and Madara had built a village that could bring peace.
Yet in the end, the village had come to outweigh even his own clansmen in his heart.
That was precisely why Madara Uchiha had condemned him before his death. Hashirama had long forgotten that the village had originally been established so that clansmen and children would no longer die in war.
Cultivate oneself, regulate one's family, govern the state, bring peace to the world.
Any whole was made up of countless individuals. If one only cared about preserving the whole while allowing