Regret never sat right with shinobi.
Dying with regrets was as if your entire mind-set, your entire being, your entire lifetime had suddenly been questioned, picked apart and rearranged, so that only the worst things you ever did or experienced came to mind.
Madara had, like any other shinobi, regrets. It wasn´t necessarily the blood that stained his hands. It wasn´t necessarily the screams of the people dying by his hand, not only during this time but also during the great fourth ninja war, either.
He tells himself he doesn´t regret and marches on ahead without looking back, ever since the day he awakened his sharingan. He tells himself his resolve won´t waver, no matter how many men begged for mercy or how many woman and children he had to rob of their lives. He tells himself that if it was for family, for Izuna, Madara would do anything.
Everything.
And everything is what he did.
He is spiteful and angry, always has been, but he never has been filled with as much hatred as right after Izuna´s death.
He doesn´t recognize himself when he looks in the mirror for months, years, after that, but that doesn´t matter.
He founds the village with Hashirama and Tobirama – his kin killer, the man who killed his brother, the man who he wants to see dead at his feet – and tells himself it´s for the clan. Clan is everything. Family is everything. If the children live longer than they could before, if the Uchiha children wouldn´t have to be slaughtered in senseless war, Madara could go ahead without looking back.
He tells his thoughts to be quiet when they say that Izuna should have been in the children´s stead. Tells them to quiet when he has the violent urge to strangle those who have accepted peace, even if that includes himself.
Traitor, Izuna screams in his mind, but he tells himself to ignore it, for he knows his brother would have never spoken to him that way. For he knows, Izuna loved him, and he loves Izuna.
He disassociates the days after he henges into Izuna and looks in the mirror for hours without blinking, just to not have to think about it.
Madara tells himself he feels no regret when the emotions – the village – overwhelm him and he leaves. Tells himself that Izuna had been right from the beginning. Tells himself that that is also what he read on the stone tablet, so the choice he made was the right one.
Hashirama was delusional. A fool who looked into life with too much optimism. Madara doesn´t regret.
Uchiha Madara tells himself that even if he regrets – he does, but he won´t admit it – he won´t look back.
When he comes back to life and slaughters the shinobi that came together to fight him, Madara doesn´t feel regret. Genuinely doesn´t.
The only thing he feels is bitterness and spite.
Coming together for peace, they preach, when moments before they have slaughtered each other just like they had back in his time. How laughable.
How disgusting.
Madara feels no regret when he is betrayed by kin. He doesn´t feel sad either, nor angry, which is rather rare. Obito was – not an ally. Not an enemy either. He was a puppet whose strings were cut by a rather annoying person. It didn´t matter.
Madara knows he can bring peace without that traitor. Madara knows he can finally bring a peaceful world with how far he has come, so he doesn´t look back. Not even when Zetsu appears.
He should have looked back.
Madara doesn´t like having anyone standing behind his back. That´s where he had been betrayed the most, suffered the most. It was where he was the most vulnerable, for all that his doujutsu was superior.
Madara doesn´t like having anyone behind his back, just like he doesn´t like having regrets pile up behind him, just because he never looked back to deal with them.
Maybe he should have.
He regrets.
When Hashirama stands over him, talks to him, he also accepts.
Madara has many regrets, as much as he tells himself he doesn´t. Never looking back might have just been one of them.
If he did, maybe he would have seen Hashirama standing further away, reaching a hand out to him when times had been rough. Maybe he would have seen Izuna´s ghost, looking at the clan children with an uncharacteristically soft look, reminded of their brothers and wishing it could have been them. Maybe he could have even saved Izuna, if he looked back for a moment during battle and intervened that day.
So when he opens his eyes after he died for the last time, he tells himself to look back this time, look back to the land of living as he stands in hell and watch as the newest generation, the generation from the village Hashirama and him founded, builds true peace.
But when he does, that´s not what he sees.
He´s not in hell either.
He´s not – which was pretty expected – in the pure lands either.
He´s in the compound. In the Uchiha compound. The compound of his clan that was killed by its own kin.
And for the first time in a long time, Madara aches.
Madara hopes.
No one stops him when he runs out of the room. They do call out for him to ask what was wrong, but this time, not looking back was the only thing he could do, because there was something worth looking ahead for.
He stops when he sees Izuna – That´s Izuna. His brother. His long hair tied the way it usually is, a smile plastered on his face as he speaks with their clansmen. Casual attire they wore whenever they were in the safety of the compound. But most important, alive. Alive. Alivealivealive – standing further away from him and speaking to Hikaku their cousin.
He doesn´t hear what they say. Doesn´t care to either.
But what he does instead, is lunge forward and grab Izuna, pulling him in a tight embrace, startling his younger brother.
“Madara? What´s going – ack!”
Madara doesn´t look back this time, not even to see if he was put under an illusion, or to question how Izuna was alive. He didn´t care. Even if this was an illusion, it´s the best he could have been trapped in.
He doesn´t regret when tears fall from his wide, unseeing eyes. Only clings tighter when he feels Izuna´s heartbeat, alive and well
What he does regret, is how he lived last time. And if this was truly real, then this time he would not do the same mistake.
This time he would live his life to not regret, and would occasionally spare a glance back.