He thinks, frowning too. "The Third Hokage was in charge then. He'd been in charge a while. I'd... Be surprised if there was anything he couldn't have changed." He shrugs. "I think the Fifth Hokage banned early graduation, I remember someone mentioning it. She's your granddaughter, so..."

"A granddaughter, huh? That's kind of amazing... I've always been afraid of what will happen when I have kids, my father's been pushing me to marry, but I don't think I want any children while he's clan head..."

Sasuke nods. Hesitantly, quietly: "I used to want to restore my clan. Something happened, and I'm now the last, but... I don't know if it's worth it."

He looks away, uncomfortable.

He nods, seriously. "Even with a village... I don't think I'd want kids that didn't have a clan protecting them."

Hashirama tilts his head back to look up at the strange sky. "The shinobi world needs to change. A lot. And... I guess I'm sad, that my great dream of founding a village didn't get us all the way there. But... It sounds like you didn't have to fight until you were twelve. And that's... It's not a revolution. But it's a lot."

"...Yeah. Maybe it is."

Hashirama sends him a warm glance, and asks, "How much do you know about my life? I can't imagine the shinobi tendency for secrecy has changed much either, even if it's something that should..."

He shrugs. "Not much. You founded Konoha with Madara. You have one brother, Tobirama. You have a wife, and a granddaughter."

He goes sad a bit - but not mopey. Pensive.

"I didn't always have just one brother. I used to have two more..." he begins, explaining how his baby brothers died in the fighting, how he decided it was enough - meeting Madara, who'd lost three of his four brothers as well, dreaming of an end to the fighting - Tobirama following and betraying him to his father, the split between him and Madara and how Madara seemed to have abandoned their dream in favor of protecting his family...

"It's still something I want. Desperately," he finishes. "It was too late for my brothers, but... Maybe not for other people's brothers. And if I can learn what went wrong in your world... Maybe I can make it better. Reach farther. Leave a bigger impact."

"...That's a good goal."

It stirs something in him, now that his choking, stupid grief has had time to move to the back of his mind. (He shouldn't be mourning Itachi but he can't stop and every time he thinks of it his eyes burn.)

What happened to him was horrible.

He thinks... Hashirama would maybe not... Not do that thing he hates, cooing about oh no, or ignoring it as something inconsequential or less important than his own grief, but would...

Would say 'that should never have happened. Let's fix it so it doesn't.'

Sasuke doesn't think he can form the words though, not yet.

"I'd hope so. There's a lot of things wrong with the world, but... I'm going to do as much as I can." He stretches. "Wonder if people here have the same problems as us..."

Shrug. "Dunno."

"Guess we'll have to talk to them to find out."

Sensing that Sasuke's done talking - "So! Wanna explore the volcano?"

Sasuke makes a non-committal hum but will follow when Hashirama sets off for adventure.

The volcano is not much like descriptions they will have heard of volcanoes. There's lava tubes, which are large and very interesting to explore, but the lava itself isn't easy to find. No convenient pools in the middle to stare dramatically at. Very disappointing, really.

Hashirama's still pretty fascinated! Some of it echoes weirdly, but not like limestone caves! There's types of rock he hasn't seen before!

Sasuke follows along, aloof but a bit amused.

Hashirama's boundless energy will eventually lead them back out of the volcanic tunnels, and onto the slope. Here'd be a really good place to camp, but it's still barely midday, and he's not sure he wants to linger that long.

So off in a vaguely village-wards direction it is!

The coral hills and groupings change, as do the animals - the coral's more frequently fan-like near the village, the bird-things more strongly composed of gliders. There's streams that combine into a larger river that seems to feed directly to the village, or at least most of the way there, that's probably the best route for them to follow.

One advantage of the change in coral is there seem to be less of the punching shrimp, here - more eel-like creatures, which spark with electricity if someone gets too close. More things that're probably crabs, shells composed of differently colored bits of a glassy material fused together.

This place is pretty cool when it's not trying to kill him, and it really only did that the once, so!

Oh, look, something very big is moving on the northern horizon!

Sasuke stills, activates his sharingan, and jumps up to the top of a coral hill to observe it.

It's apparently a flying shark.

A very, very, very large flying shark, about seven times the length of Sasuke's body. It's lazily floating back and forth, apparently scanning the area around it.

Not good.

He'll jump down to warn Hashirama they may want to take cover until it goes away.

It notices the movement - 

And turns to rush towards them.

It's extremely fast.

...Make that grabbing Hashirama and running! They've been conserving chakra, so can accelerate quite a bit -