Konoha, at the end of the ninth year.
Since that fierce battle, Masahiko, who rarely went out of his house, walked out of the village. After a while, he found himself in a place dozens of miles away from Konoha.
Here, in the heart of the wilderness, surrounded by crevices and cliffs. No one knew of this place before, it's just an insignificant point on the map, but from now on it will be called the "Valley of the End"!
"These two are really…" Masahiko sighed. If you leave out the fact that he was playing the dice with Hashirama for a whole year, the only regret he had in his heart lies in his failed attempt to stop the battle that took place here one year ago.
As a way to make up for his mistake, Masahiko practiced his sculpting hard, to leave a more detailed memory of the legends for future generations.
Looking at the surrounding messed up environment, Masahiko frowned.
"It seems I have to work as a cleaner first… also, I remember that there was a forest around here when Naruto and Sasuke fought… Maybe it will appear later?"
The rubble, debris, and remains of battle cleaning took Masahiko a whole day to do. He yells in his heart, "Show off! Why the hell did I come alone, why didn't I bring some errands to help me!"
"Huuuh…" Masahiko took a deep breath and performed a hand sign, "Doton – Moving Earth Core!"
"Doton – Terraform!"
"Doton – Rising Rock Technique!"
Masahiko used three techniques at once. Suddenly, massives block of rocks converted on the two sides of the lake, which he will use as the base stones to sculpt Hashirama and Madara statues. And there's a smaller cube of rock in the middle, which he will be suitable for writing inscriptions.
Masahiko nodded with satisfaction, but as the sky was getting darker, he sighed.
"Let's rest first. It was a long-lasting battle against nature…"
Masahiko said it was a long-lasting battle, but he didn't expect it will take… longer.
For three full months, Masahiko worked hard on sculpturing. And finally, he finished carving the statues of Madara and Hashirama.
In the face of his masterpieces, Masahiko nodded in satisfaction.
"Very good, this is it!" Masahiko murmured, he manages to sculpt life-like statues, even better than the original. LV10 Skills never let him down. If it wasn't for the wrong body shape and color, then no one would see any difference.
"But for the last touch… how to finalize it?" Masahiko got caught in a difficult situation. The final touch hasn't been done yet, which is adding the fabled hand gesture to the statues.
"Do I use the seal of reconciliation there?" Masahiko sighed, but the battle between Hashirama and Madara didn't end peacefully.
"Battle stance?" Masahiko scratched his head, feeling that it was not suitable.
"Or, I can just let them raise their middle fingers to each other, pffft…." Masahiko laughed so hard on his own joke.
"Huh?" Tangled, Masahiko suddenly felt a familiar chakra approaching him quickly.
Masahiko looked up and frowned.
"What are you doing here, Hashirama?" He was anxious, he was afraid that Hashirama will force him to play dice again.
"Second Grandpa," Hashirama got quiet all of a sudden, then shouted, "I came to see your work on the statues."
Masahiko's face got pale; he ended up adding a lot of "extra" features that are not present in Hashirama's true self… He was afraid that the future generation will disrespect Hashirama because of his funny face.
But when he came near, Hashirama took one glance at his statue, then fixed his eyes on Madara's.
"Back to square one again…" Masahiko sighed, looking at Hashirama, who seemed to fell into inexplicable emotions, and quickly interrupted, "Hashirama, since you're here, what do you think? Which seal should I carve for you two?"
Hashirama paused for a moment, and he noticed the incompleteness of the two statues.
"The Seal of Reconciliation, Grandpa." Hashirama sighed, then made his choice.
Masahiko didn't get surprised, he also thought of making that gesture. "Then I will start working on it, you can go back here after I finish it…"
Hashirama shook his head in refuse, "I have something else to do here."
Masahiko got confused, he couldn't understand even when Hashirama used that hand sign, "Mokuton – Deep Forest Creation."
Trees begin to emerge on the land; the trunks first, then the leaves, even flowers here, and there.
The once battle-scarred wasteland now slowly begin to transform into a lush forest.
Masahiko's eyes got widened, "Hashirama! You…" Even in the past battles, such large scale technique has rarely been used by Hashirama, let alone to make the wood grow leaves.
"Why did you do this? Your vitality…"
Shaking his head, Hashirama answered with a smile, "It won't be wasteful…" From his arms sleeve, Hashirama took a familiar necklace. The leaves on the trees withered instantly. On the other hand, the necklace on Hashirama's hand began to overflow with vitality.
"It has been ten years…" Masahiko muttered, he tried to guess Hashirama's purpose for doing this.
Sure enough, his explanation didn't surprise him.
"Aika is pregnant, this necklace will be my gift to my grandson or granddaughter," Hashirama said. "I've been injecting a lot of wood chakra in this necklace, it will help the wielder to live longer. And it can also suppress a tailed beast."
Masahiko nodded, not knowing whether he was happy or sad hearing this. The long-awaited Tsunade is about to be born, but Hashirama's life is approaching the end…
"Sigh…" Masahiko sighed and continue his sculpting. Hashirama didn't leave, he stayed there and watched Masahiko working.
Two days later, Masahiko finally finished the two hand signs and stood in front of the stone tablet.
"Hashirama, so what do you think? You two look great, right?" Masahiko smiled.
Hashirama looked really embarrassed.
"It seems that Madara's face is much skinnier than mine…" Masahiko's confidence crumbled.
"Ungrateful… let's just write the thing down…"
The top five words were, "The Valley of the End."
The description written on the tablet is as follows: "Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Madara, the two men that once have calmed down the turbulent flames of the Shinobi World. The path of these two ninjas, which has been claimed by people as Gods of Shinobi, has guided them to this very place, where they stood face to face for the final battle. This the Valley were Senju Hashirama, and Uchiha Madara battled."
And at the bottom: "A Witness Shinobi."
"Second Grandpa? Why didn't you put your name as a signature?"
Masahiko sighed, "The two of you are enough. Adding my name… will make it hard to be chanted."
Hashirama nodded, Masahiko felt that adding his name might cause the future generations some misunderstanding, they will probably think that the two were fighting over a beautiful woman.
The Valley of the End's issue was over, and both of them returned to the village.
Everything seemed calm and quiet on their way back until they get close to the village.
Two masked ninjas passed by Hashirama and Masahiko, carrying a bag of things, and nodded to them.
Hashirama then looked at Masahiko, "So these are Tobirama's Anbu? They look…"
Masahiko frowned slightly, then Hashirama turned around, it seems that the thing in the bag was actually a living person, he could even sense his chakra.
"Grandpa, are these spies from the enemy villages?"
Masahiko hesitated a bit. He couldn't really confirm, but he had some speculations in his mind.
"Let's go, we will follow them quietly…" Masahiko whispered to Hashirama and speeded up.
Hashirama hesitated, then reacted quickly, and caught up to him.
Just as Masahiko expected, these two were suspicious. They carried that bag away with them and didn't show any signs of returning to the village. Instead, they ran away farther and farther from the village, all the way to the north-east.
"They're actually…" Masahiko sighed, unwilling to believe what has just crossed his mind.