I own nothing.

"So… The Edo Tensei, once again? It seems that my jutsu is rather easy to mimic."

"Yes, it's very straightforward, and one you should have kept locked away in the recesses of your mind."

-0-0-0-

"Little one, you know nothing of Madara." And be glad that you do not, the Nidaime adds mentally.

-0-0-0-

"Not only your jutsu, but the political climate you helped foster has a negative impact on the future generations. It even trickled down to this time."

-0-0-0-

"I knew they'd rebel eventually. Madara's will was secretly shared by quite a few."

"You unwittingly fanned those flames, Nidaime, by forming the Konohagakure Military Police."

He scoffs. "Nonsense."

"Those who keep the peace are often hated, and as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. You even went so far as to have their headquarters based out of a place that had once been a prison; I can't imagine that you were unaware of the sort of message that must have sent to the Uchiha. Under the guise of maintaining the peace, you drove them to the outskirts of the village. In those circumstances, Madara must have found fertile ground from which to draw follower and sympathizers."

-0-0-0-

On more than one occasion, Tobirama has been accused (usually by his brother) of having a "thing" about the Uchiha clan. Usually, this accusation came about after he had set in place another measure to make sure that the clan that looked at the village with grasping, resentful eyes would be less likely to try to make a grab for power in Konohagakure. And as usual, when the accusation comes, Tobirama pays it no mind.

It is always necessary to keep a close eye on the Uchiha clan. Tobirama didn't discover this until after Madara had tried to kill his brother, didn't realize until then the folly of letting the Uchiha clan run around unwatched. If a member of the Uchiha could be driven to kill a man he had once considered his closest friend, then what about the rest of them?

The day his brother was brought back to Konoha on death's door, and his sister-in-law hardly in any better shape, that was the day Tobirama realized that they couldn't play nice with the Uchiha clan anymore.

Believe it or not, Tobirama doesn't actually hate the Uchiha clan, despite everything they did. Nor does he hate this boy, who stands before him now, the boy for whose sake he was drawn out of death, yet again; the child seems to Tobirama more victim than victimizer, and is lost deep in the throes of what he has over the years come to think of as the Uchiha curse. But rarely does the Uchiha clan produce a child that can truly be called "stable", and once the Sharingan activates, even the most stable of them tend to slip and fall down into darkness. The Uchiha are dangerous, even when they aren't reaching for power.

Hashirama wanted to work with them. He saw the Uchiha's affliction and felt pity. He looked at their power and saw a force that could easily be made to do good. Even after what Madara did, Hashirama still saw the good, but refused to see the danger.

Hashirama feels too much, hurts too much, loves too easily, forgives and forgets too easily. Tobirama loves him for it, and concedes that Hashirama could not have been the great leader of men that he was, could not have founded Konoha, had he been more like his brother. And Tobirama can only admit that he pities the Uchiha for their affliction as well; no one should be hated for a tragedy of genetics and heredity. But if Tobirama has a "thing" where the Uchiha are concerned, Hashirama has a massive blind spot. If Hashirama had had his way, the Uchiha would have run amok, ungoverned and uncontrolled.

Everything Tobirama did, he did for the village he and his brother built, to keep it safe and strong. Hadn't he devised the Edo Tensei and been willing to use it, over Hashirama's strenuous objections, for the good of Konoha? Hadn't he occupied the Uchiha with the police force, and kept them away from people they could have hurt, for the good of Konoha? How could anyone ask more of him than that?

Tobirama died before the close of the War, and when he died, he believed that he was leaving behind a Konohagakure that was safe and strong.

But death, and more particularly, being brought back from the dead and exposed firsthand to what his actions have wrought, tends to give a man a healthy dose of perspective, even if he doesn't want it.

The Tsuchikage of the time, Tobirama now recalls, had hated him utterly for his use of Edo Tensei during the War. The fact that Tobirama only ever used Edo Tensei against the forces of Iwagakure did not help; the fact that some of the resurrected shinobi had been students of the Tsuchikage, and all of them had been Rock nin only made things worse. Tobirama did not live to bear witness to the political atmosphere after the close of the War, but now, he realizes uncomfortably, he can guess what must have happened.

Hashirama had called him "obsessed", as regards to the Uchiha clan. Even now, Tobirama believes that he was right to be suspicious of them, but… Is this child, Uchiha Sasuke, supposed to be the only member of the Uchiha clan still living? Was Konoha really so desperate that they would be willing to turn another Uchiha child against his own, to have him kill not only the shinobi in their prime, but the elderly, the children, the infants suckling at their mothers' breasts?

Could Konoha really have been so desperate?

Looking at the boy who has been the recipient of all this grief, rage and desperation, and realizing that he's not seen an Uchiha so deeply lost in that clan's curse since Madara himself, Senju Tobirama, Nidaime Hokage, wonders exactly what his legacy in this village has been.

Out of Hashirama and Tobirama, I expected one of them to turn out to be kind of sketchy. Given what we already knew about him, I wasn't surprised when Tobirama turned out to be the sketchy one. As for that bit about the Tsuchikage (Muu, in this case), when he was introduced, he referred to Edo Tensei as "that cowardly technique" or "a foul jutsu" depending on the translation. Pretty strong words, so I figured there was probably some history there. (And Hashirama wasn't all that different from how I imagined him either, though to be honest, I wasn't expecting the First Hokage to be such a dork).

Anyway, I was planning on eventually writing some stories on the founders of Konoha, and this is basically serving as both my response to chapter 619 and a test run for my interpretation of Tobirama's personality. I hope you liked it.