Hashirama Senju

Hashirama Senju is a character in the Naruto series. He was a legendary shinobi, who led the Senju clan prior to and after forming Konohagakure with his rival, Madara Uchiha. After the founding of Konohagakure, Hashirama became the village's First Hokage.

Background

Hashirama was born into the Senju clan before the era of shinobi villages, before his younger brother, Tobirama. He grew to become the leader of the Senju clan. Throughout the years, due to the fact that they were the only ones capable of equaling them, the Senju clan had fought constantly with the equally powerful, battle-oriented Uchiha clan, and as such, Hashirama had an undying rivalry with Madara Uchiha, the leader of the Uchiha clan. Desiring to end the constantly fighting between their clans, Hashirama offered the Uchiha a peace truce. While Madara himself was reluctant to accept, the other Uchiha anxiously accepted his offer. Their alliance formed a pact with the Land of Fire, who needed help controlling their territory, in which Hashirama and Madara founded the village of Konohagakure. Later, the villagers chose Hashirama to be the First Hokage, prompting Madara to contest him for the position. Despite this, Hashirama held the position firm, and Madara defected from Konohagakure after his clan turned on him when he tried to gather their support to challenge Hashirama's leadership, and he challenged Hashirama's rule. Hashirama confronted Madara at the place that would later be called the Valley of the End, where his rival used Kurama, the strongest tailed beast, against him. After a devastating battle that created an entire valley, Hashirama managed to defeat both Madara and Kurama. He had his wife, Mito Uzumaki, seal Kurama inside herself to prevent its power from causing any harm, and two statues of Madara and Hashirama were built on the sides of the waterfall created in their final clash on the battlefield, facing each other in battle poses, symbolizing their undying rivalry. Hashirama barely survived his final battle with Madara himself, and believed Madara died after he defeated him. In fact, Madara had survived and gained his Wood Release kekkei genkai. Hashirama went on to train the young Hiruzen Sarutobi with his brother, Tobirama, the two teaching him the Will of Fire. Hashirama had collected several of the tailed beasts, and gave them out in times of conflict to the other shinobi villages to maintain equalty in power between them, the only exception being Kurama, who Hashirama gained last. During the First Shinobi World War, Hashirama died, appointing his brother the Second Hokage.

Naruto

Hashirama, and his brother, Tobirama, were revived by Orochimaru, a major antagonist of the series, during his battle with Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, in order to give Hiruzen the feeling of what it was like to face one's former masters. Before being robbed of their free will, Hashirama and his brother briefly conversed with Hiruzen, Hashirama lamenting that no matter when one lived, their was always war. Afterwards, the two were forced to battle Hiruzen by Orochimaru, who was controlling them. Hashirama, using his Wood Release and taijutsu prowess, and Tobirama, using his Water Release mastery, eventually overwhelmed Hiruzen to the point of summoning his partner summon, Enma for aid. However, the brothers' perfect attack teamwork still proved to much for him, and he summoned the death god with the Dead Demon Consuming Seal technique. Hashirama(though in the anime it was Tobirama) then used his Genjutsu: Bringer-of-Darkness Technique to drown the area in darkness, but Hiruzen still managed to catch him and Tobirama, allowing the death god to reach into them and grab their souls, despelling the darkness and freeing the brothers from Orochimaru's control. Their consciouness restored, Hashirama and Tobirama apologized to Hiruzen for the trouble they had caused him as the latter sealed their souls into the death god's belly, along with his own.

In part 2, after Orochimaru had been revived, led Sasuke Uchiha, Suigetsu Hozuki, and Jugo to the Uzumaki clan's mask temple and got the death god's mask, and travelled to the Uchiha clan's Nakano Shrine, he performed a ritual that freed the souls of Hashirama Senju, his brother, Tobirama Senju, their student, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage. Having regained his arms in doing so, Orochimaru sacrificed four White Zetsu clones(which were composed of Hashirama's cells) and revived Hashirama and the other previous Hokage so that Sasuke could learn from the ones who know everything.

Personality

Hashirama is the complete opposite of his rival, Madara Uchiha, in personality. He believes that love is crucial to peace, and that war only begats war. Along with this, as Hokage, Hashirama believes that his people are as much a part of him as he is a part of them, and that being Hokage means believing in one's people just as much as they believe in him. These beliefs, known as the Will of Fire, are shared by Hashirama's brother, Tobirama, who with him taught these beliefs to Hiruzen Sarutobi, who would become the Third Hokage. Hashirama possesses great love for everyone in the village, even the Uchiha clan. Despite their rivalry, he possesses a mutual great respect for Madara Uchiha, showing that Hashirama has a sense of honor regarding his opponents.

Powers and Abilities

Hashirama is an extraordinarily powerful shinobi, the strongest of his time by far, and was able to fight on equal footing with and defeat both his rival, Madara Uchiha, and Kurama, the strongest and most powerful tailed beast, at once. His might and prowess is so great, that when people heard tell of his power in times past, they considered him a fairy tale. He is the only one powerful enough to defeat Madara Uchiha at the latter's full strength. Despite his pride and confidence in his own immense power, Madara himself has openly admitted that even now, after his revival and with all the greater power he has amassed since their last battle, Hashirama would still be able to stop him during his battle with the five current Kage in unison, all whom fell to his feet in defeat. Hashirama is the most powerful shinobi in the history of Konohagakure, and the most powerful Hokage. Hashirama's most famous and distinctive ability is his Wood Release kekkei genkai, which only he possessed out of the Senju. He utilizes it by properly mixing Earth and Water Release chakra natures in his hands, allowing him to grow trees, forests, and other plant life components at will. His skill with Wood Release is said to be equal to, if not greater than that of his rival, Madara Uchiha, who has shown immense skill with the element since his revival. He was able to construct the buildings of Konohagakure using Wood Release. Part of his ability with Wood Release, and the one that made him partly qualify to become the First Hokage, is his ability to subdue and control tailed beasts, though his ability in this area is less in magnificence if compared to that of the less powerful Madara, who can subdue and control tailed beasts just as easily using just his standard Sharingan, as well as summon them, a feat which Hashirama isn't capable of. His Wood Release mastery shows Hashirama is very skilled in Water and Earth Release.

Hashirama possesses great taijutsu prowess, with prodigious speed and strength, able to easily overwhelm Hiruzen, his former student, in physical combat after his first revival. In the anime, his physical strength was shown to be so great that he once even disarmed Madara Uchiha of his gunbai in a single move, though it took everything he had. During his lifetime, Hashirama was able to clash with Madara Uchiha in close physical combat equally every time they fought. After his first revival, he showed great teamwork ability in combat with his brother, Tobirama.  Also in the anime, Hashirama showed great skill in kenjutsu and sealing techniques, able to catch his rival, Madara, off guard in their last battle, and employ the Contract Seal, which he used to break Madara's control over Kurama, allowing him to put the beast to sleep with his Wood Release and restrain it with his Wood Dragon technique. In the manga, He showed tremendous genjutsu prowess after his first revival, able to create darkness that even Hiruzen couldn't dispel. Along with the great skill he possessed in the areas that he was familiar with, Hashirama possessed considerable understanding of techniques and areas that he was otherwise not skilled in, creating a large scroll that is filled with forbidden techniques and considered sacred in the village of Konohagakure.