Ah finally, after a break for a week Naruto is back and continues its flashback of Hashirama and Madara's past.
The chapter starts exactly where the 623 left off, with heads of both clans engaging each other and from the first page it states that the current heads are equals in terms of battle prowess.
What does this mean? it means the battle wont be decided by the adults but by the children, however both Tobirama and Izuna are equal in strength as well, leaving only Madara and Hashirama as the wild cards of the battle field, whoever wins the fight between those two wins the war between Senju and Uchiha.
What I found interesting was how both parents went for the other's son instead of each other, after a brief clash they both thought it would be easier to simply kill the other's offspring and hope the shock of seeing their child die infront of their eyes would be enough to weaken his rival.
A very cold thing for a father to do to another father and it further shows the hatred between Uchiha and Senju from just one panel of how they would throw kunais at children in the hope of getting a small advantage.
However both of the older siblings finally interferes in protecting their younger brother, its interesting how they both do that, they protect their brothers with each other's stones, and not their own.
Another thing I found interesting was how a rock can stop a sword and a kunai but the I thought this is a callback to something Zetsu said much earlier.
I get the feeling from the panels shown that already Hashirama and Madara had surpassed their fathers in strength. Sadly protecting his brother convinces madara that peace is not possible anymore and he therefore gives up on his dream and seems to almost join his father, with regret though, but even though he might be willing to fight Hashirama he knows he would lose and tells his father as much.
In almost every instance of comparing strength, Madara has admitted he is weaker than the first Hokage and this trait apparently started very early in their rivalry.
Madara awakens his sharingan, and promises to meet Hashirama on the battlefield, the first time of many to come, and after many battles finally the Senju decide enough is enough and opt for a treaty between the two clans.
Despite all their battles Hashirama still wants peace, this is consistent with what Tobi said earlier about how the Senju approached the Uchiha for a peace treaty and here we see the start of that, sadly though it only happens after the death of Izuna.
Its mentioned that the Senju are stronger than the Uchiha, which conflicts what Tobi said though who said the clans were equal, it would seem that in their time in the cave Madara may have lied to Tobi about some key aspects of their history.
It seems Tobirama's slash earlier killed Izuna and in his last moments he gave his eyes to Madara, for once you can see why Madara thinks peace is impossible, he just lost his brother to a man who keeps talking about peace yet Hashirama's own family kills more Uchiha.
Finally Madara lies defeated and asks to have a swift death, Tobirama's all too willing for that yet before he can deliver the coup de grace, Hashirama interferes to protect his old friend.
While this may show the first hokage's mercy it also shows weakness I think, the cycle of hatred could have been ended right then and there with the death of Madara, especially considering what had happened afterwards, had he just killed him the whole shinobi world war wouldnt exist right now.
I dig the death glare quite a lot, a nice reminder of whose boss between the brothers.
Our chapter ends with Madara proposing that to gain his trust, either Hashirama or his brother must die, yet knowing that they both become future hokages that obviously wont happen, my guess is that Hashi says he will kill himself but is stopped before he does by Madara, who becomes convinced peace might exist just by watching what Hashirama is willing to sacrifice to achieve it.
And thats all from me for this chapter, thanks for reading.
