Madara was a methodical man. If he wants to feel truly victorious and devoid of any paranoia, he needs to make sure all sorts of obstacles to his goals are dealt with one way or another.
While facing Danzou was going to take much more than a few chats, there was something that he could already work with. And that was convincing the other members of the Shimura family to be with him in his plans. Differently from his older sibling, Hanzou was a different kind of kid. He was still into becoming a shinobi and being a proud warrior himself, but he wasn't as eager and pushy as his brother.
It was possible it was due to Danzou's own cautionary words influencing his approach to it, and his childhood making him a very paranoid child. Madara expected to find a troubling opponent to face but… Hanzou proved to be difficult for other reasons. He didn't speak much but with a few others, and he behaved quite tense around those he wasn't that familiar with. Conversations weren't that… meaningful. Those lacked substance and the chances to gain more info on some aspects about the woman he was currently courting.
So, he decided to study the matter and try to get something positive out of it. And it all culminated in a single discovery: Hanzou's main hobby beyond training was… fishing. The mere thought of it left the Uchiha in a brief state of unease. Not like he hated the activity, but he always saw it more like a necessary thing than something to make a hobby out of it. The Uchiha Clan Head saw no reason to strongly oppose this, but he felt quite sour at the notion of having to deal with it to get some support out of the young boy. Hanzou was still skeptical about his offer, but he accepted it nonetheless. The child, in Mineko's mind, wanted to have someone that could keep him company while he was fishing. He just didn't want to tell anyone or try to get anyone to do that.
So, by the woman's own explanation, the offer had to have stunned him in a positive way. But Madara wasn't sure if that was really good for him. And at first, the annoyance aimed at the hobby was met with true consolidation via the silence and the need for patience this activity required. Both of which, the man, couldn't spare at the moment. It was ironic how the only way he could find to get the boy to speak was through a hobby that required the opposite of talking. Very upsetting, but Madara had endured much worse than this.
The pond picked for the occasion was limpid and clear from anything that would prevent a proper look of what kind of fishes were swimming in the water. There were a few common ones, a few rare ones, all of which could be caught and used as kitchen's ingredients for delicious meals. The two sat by the edges, with Hanzou being the only one with a bucket, a fishing rod Danzou had built for him and some worms to use as bait. Once the preparation was over, it was time for the real action time.
Which was sitting and waiting for a fish to get caught.
Far from amusing and entertaining… he needed to make some conversation.
"So… what intrigues you about fishing?"
Silence answered him, but Hanzou tensed just briefly to make it clear he had caught his question and… he replied to it a little bit later.
"It's quiet."
"Quiet?" It was an unusual answer coming from a child but… Hanzou explained what he was referring to.
"Before the war, there were times where to survive I would have to fish on my own," The child elaborated. "The rain… always made the activity difficult. Both because it caused the fishes to hide in the depths of the ponds and because… I couldn't hear if any animal got too close to where I was."
Madara nodded, digesting the words and thinking about the rain himself. Rain would make the whole situation worse. That, and the Uchiha hated the rain himself for his own reasons. Many times the weather would get dark when it was time for a funeral. He remembered how his older siblings would say it was the sky crying for the loss of their clans. Hashirama then argued that the sky cried for everyone's dying. At times it was intense, at times it was calm and manageable. Yet the rain still created distraction in battle. The kind of distraction which could easily kill one. Rain might be seen as a way to justify the passing of someone… but also causing this event to happen.
"I see… Can you tell me more about your approach?"
A deflection, one that Hanzou allowed as he too could feel uneasy at the topic. Still, the ensuing conversation made up for the previous awkwardness. The session felt a little more exciting as the boy was answering his questions with incredible accuracy and interest. None of those impacted the boy's own privacy, and all of those revolved around his hobby. It made up for a pleasant way to go through the activity and, while Madara didn't get his wish of knowing more about the boy, he couldn't help but feel that he had done much more than just that. He could tell that, through his presence and conversation, he had provided the child something that he too once had asked for and got through Hashirama.
Someone to talk to that wouldn't judge him for his unusual thoughts. The child was far from the happy but shy kid he imagined, and it added an extra layer on how the bond between the two siblings worked into this context. Very unusual, but connected perfectly to each others' qualities and flaws.
At least now he would have a reason to skip some unpleasant affair. "I'm going to fish with my future younger son," He would say and… yes, it sounded quite a brilliant excuse to have a good conversation away from the usual fools.