I own nothing. This is just the combination of a WMG on TV tropes (which I do not claim ownership of) and my own wacky imagination.

Uchiha Madara has always been first and foremost a man with a vision and a will to carry out that fantastic, impossible vision. If nothing else, he will live long enough to see his dreams come to fruition, unlike Hashirama. Hashirama, as much as Madara admired him, was unworthy of his dreams and his vision. He wasn't willing to do everything possible to achieve the dream of a strong village and died because of it.

In the end, Madara will see the world brought to peace under his hand. With the power of the Juubi at his disposal and Tsuki no Me in place, war will cease and all will come to a standstill. That foolish young Uzumaki, the child with the gall to think that he could possibly be the prophesied savior, the child who screams for war, will finally be killed to make way for peace. That accursed line will be ended, at long last.

To this end, Madara has made a mockery of the system of government among the nations. He has pulled down the masks and the façades to show it all to be nothing but rot. He manipulated the Yondaime Mizukage for years and no one noticed, no one at all; it wasn't until he had the misfortune of coming across a Kiri nin with an implanted Byakugan eye that he was discovered.

They are weak. They are foolish children, running about like ants. This is why I must control them, contain them. I'm the only one who can.

Madara has his vision of a world of peace. He'll do anything to bring it about.

Now, he wishes he could say that this was all his idea and his alone. Madara wishes he could say that, and he will never admit to anyone that it's not the truth.

The truth is worlds more bizarre than that.

There is this sound, in the back of his head, something that Madara has always heard, from old age to youth to the womb.

Four beats, in quick succession, sharp and staccato, deep and deliberate. It is Madara's constant companion, his only friend, his torment. Hashirama had gawped at him in disbelief and foreboding when Madara told him of it and actually presumed to suggest that they find a way to get rid of it. Fool. He had mistaken Madara's elation for anguish. Even if it is a torture it is Madara's primary source of joy.

The more he listens to it, the more everything makes sense, and the closer Madara comes to success and the zenith of his accomplishments, the louder it gets. The closer it becomes.

And now, Madara can hear it, so loud and bold and clear and triumphant, that he could swear that the source is right behind him.

It's almost time. He smiles beneath the mask, and holds his arms out in the endless rain of Amegakure.

Here come the drums.