Chapter 3
It is the natural human condition that every single person, in some form, wants to be loved.
Even if isolated for their entire lives, and without ever being told what human connection is, or even what another person is, a human will still be lonely - longing for something they don’t understand. People fail at building connections often, and loneliness is a very permeable poison that will sink into everyone with time. But, regardless of success or failure, people never stop wanting connection. People will never stop trying for it, no matter how many times it fails, and no matter if they don’t want to try anymore. It is a desperation that is from birth to death, can kill you and can make you kill, can start wars and end them.
Wanting to be loved would guide a man to die if he thought that death would love him.
—
The olive branch that served to first really entice the Uchiha was the establishment of Konoha’s hospital. The Senju were renowned for their healing capabilities, and because of them their clan possessed a tenacity that none other could claim. A Senju shinobi could be seen retreating off the battlefield with a fatal wound to the stomach, only to be once again at the front lines during the next fight.
Most things an Uchiha shinobi would die from, a Senju shinobi would shake off with a month of bedrest.
As such, the Senju guarded their secrets preciously.
“Gently,” Tobirama’s voice coaxed softly through the sterilized air of the med ward.
Nozomi’s hands rested on a cut on Tobirama’s arm. The wound was clean and small, bleeding fresh and red.
The head of the Senju iryo corps, Senju Shizuki, had taken one look at Uchiha healing techniques and decisively declared that it would need a total overhaul. Madara would have been offended, if not for the way Nozomi’s eyes glittered with curiosity and agreement.
“Destruction is part of creation,” she explained to Madara, “If our foundation is crumbling, then it is only natural we tear down what we have built on it. Then, we build anew.”
So they started from scratch.
“Thin your chakra as fine as you can get it,” Tobirama instructed, “thread it through the flesh, and bind it to the other side. The more precise your work, the less chakra you expend. Only Hashirama has chakra reserves large enough to heal fully through brute force. Work small.”
He closed his eyes, focusing on what Nozomi was doing.
“That's better,” he said, “use those threads like roads to guide the natural energy within the cells to follow. It's the energy that resides within everything, within the entire planet. It's hard to directly manipulate, but easier to guide. Use it to stimulate healing. Good, good. I know it's hard to feel it, but keep practicing and you’ll be able to sense that energy easier.”
Even if Madara hated the man, he could admit he was fascinated. He turned to Hashirama next to him.
“Are all Senju shinobi this skilled?” he asked. The marks on his face seemed to burn in that moment.
“No, but it’s still pretty cool right?” Hashirama cheerily replied.
“They’re just healing a cut.”
“You're such a sourpuss. Just wait until they get advanced enough to learn the hard stuff. I once saw a guy get his leg cut off and they managed to stick it back on.”
Holy fuck.
Hashirama either didn’t notice the look on his face, or didn’t register it because he started counting off on his fingers.
“Yeah we can do amputation, replantation, treat infection, set breaks, restore nerves, all sorts of things. You’d have to ask Shizuki or Tobirama about it.”
Madara swallowed, “You said you could reattach limbs, what kind?”
“Pretty much anything if it’s fresh enough. Even I can’t heal tissue that’s completely dead.”
“Could you do eyes?”
Hashirama’s expression sharped, “You know that we’re not bloodline thieves.”
“I wasn’t implying it,” he snapped back, perhaps too harshly.
Tobirama’s voice rose suddenly.
“Must you get your feathers ruffled by everything?”
Madara scowled, “Stay out of this, Senju.”
“You’re disrupting my concentration,” Tobirama sneered, “Not that it would matter I suppose. Even Senju techniques can’t fix that broken attitude of yours.”
Madara seethedfrom where he was watching them work, suddenly whipping around to Hashirama, “Why isn’t Senju Shizuki leading this?”
Hashirama blinked, “does it matter?”
Tobirama looked over at them, “If you’re going to talk over my teaching then both of you can get out.”
And so Hashirama and Madara found themselves kicked out to the hallway, the door slamming shut behind them,
They could still see into the room, via an observation window, but Madara could no longer hear whatever Tobirama was saying. He glared at the man through the glass, still conducting his lesson unaffected.
Madara’s frown deepened, “The Uchiha will take it as a slight to not be taught by your best.”
Hashirama huffed, “So? Tobirama is the best, unless you want me to try and teach how I heal. Which Tobirama will kill me for.” Hashirama honestly looked confused, “Shizuki will still run the hospital.”
“Then why not have her teach.”
Hashirama frowned, “because you asked for our best expert.”
“And you sent him?”
“I just told you he was the best.”
“He is a front line shinobi! He’s not even part of your medical ward.”
“Not technically, no.”
“So why?”
Hashirama blinked again.
“Hold up,” he said quickly, “where do you think all of our healing techniques came from?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I think this is a key piece of info.”
“Why?”
Hashirama pinched the bridge of his nose, “because Tobirama invented like over half of them.”
Now it was Madara’s turn to look confused.
“What?”
“Yeah, no, he had an obsession with healing after-” Hashirama suddenly clicked his jaw shut, “well it doesn’t matter. Point is you asked for the best, and he’s our best.”
And it did prove to be true. In the coming days, Tobirama continued to lead classes on Senju healing with the Uchiha. He knew things that sounded unbelievable to the ears, but given a simple demonstration proved true. He showed how to fix things Uchiha had long thought unfixable.
It was amazing, and at the same time disturbing.
Madara could not help but think of his mysterious soulmate. If he were truly Senju, then it was possible that the techniques he used had been invented by Tobirama. That scared Madara for some reason. It perturbed him.
He could not picture the man who had saved his life being associated in any way with the man who had been willing to kill his brother. One of them was a selfless savior, his guiding star, his only scrap of sanity left in his terror. The other was the danger, the darkness, the terror itself.
After about a week of teaching, Tobirama left the rest to be handled by Senju Shizuki, citing his own workload.
Tobirama left the halls of the hospital, and Madara pretended not to breathe a sigh of relief.
His presence, no matter how knowledgeable, disturbed everyone there. The Uchiha did not trust him, and they certainly did not like him. It was not particularly comforting to be taught how to save a life by the person who had ended many of theirs.
Everything Tobirama invented was in one way or another a weapon. It all contributed to the war in some manner. Him teaching iryo jutsu only served to remind everyone about that: this was how the Senju fought so ferociously. This is how a clan could fight to the point of breaking themselves and be able to do it all again tomorrow. Each life saved was another they could put on their frontlines.
Weaponry all the same.
Purpose, Madara wondered about purpose.
Tobirama never did anything without it.
He could have had Shizuki teach from the get-go, but he didn’t.
Purpose.
Tobirama had entered the halls of the hospital with a purpose, and he ran from them with a purpose too.
—-
There was a cat sitting alone in the rain.
It was a mangey creature, with a missing eye, a clipped ear, a ratty tail. Its gray fur was rough, and there were scars across its nose, old and gnarled.
An ugly thing…It looked more like a drowned rat than any sort of feline.
Tobirama was walking home, but he paused to stare at it. The cat stared back with its unblinking green eye.
Being half past midnight, nobody was out besides him and the cat. A soft shower of rain had begun to fall on Konoha, leaving the streets cold and wet, shimmering in the moonlight. Tobirama could not help but feel at home in the darkness and the rain - obscured and somehow safe in the danger. There was no more war - not for anybody else. All there was was frigid rain, as he had always known there would be.
The cat meowed at him. The sound was cracked and broken. Pitiful, and small, and ugly.
Tobirama walked over, and picked the thing up. Water squeezed through the gaps in his fingers as they pressed against the soaked fur. The cat went pliantly, not hissing or scratching.
With a seal, Tobirama wicked the water out of its coat. He tucked the thing beneath his chin, and together they walked through the rain.
—-
The first time Tobirama had spotted a mop of curly black hair among the crowd for his lessons, he didn’t make much note of it.
Senju clan children came in all shapes, sizes, and colors. And while they were young, before they were introduced to war, rank, and Tobirama’s endless signage of blood, they were not afraid of him. A good portion of the fighting shinobi in the Senju today had been where these children stood before, watching him make slow signs with his hands and making water butterflies float through the air.
It was a good introduction to manipulating chakra and performing basic jutsu. As much as Tobirama hated to admit it, it was good for war as well. It helped train them young without keying them into that fact.
Tobirama rationalized that he only did it to help them survive. And in a way, it was true. If there was a guarantee that children would never face death, then he would have never taught them jutsu. He would never teach them how to hold a blade, how to add power to a strike, how to throw kunai with pinpoint accuracy. He would have been content to teach inane, peaceful things.
But that was not the world they lived in. So Tobirama trained as much as he taught - hoping to give them at least a chance when the children finally had to take up arms.
And now, even with peace, they were shinobi. So he continued to teach, and Senju children continued to swarm around his ankles demanding to see water butterflies, and dancing lightning, and to learn it.
When a new child joined, he did not take much notice. He continued to teach as he would.
But Tobirama would have been an idiot to keep missing it forever. The way between tepid earth tones, cool waters, and dancing winds, he could catch sparks of a hot chakra. The pair of dark, curious eyes that watched him from between the crowd. The dark, high collared clothing.
Somehow - and for the life of him, he could not figure out why - he had managed to gain an Uchiha child among his class.
“I don’t get it!”
And a very vocal one at that.
Tobirama looked over to where the young Uchiha was sitting, looking up at Tobirama with bright eyes and a scrunched face.
“Where are you lost?” Tobirama asked.
The Uchiha boy frowned, “no matter how many times, I can’t summon water.”
Tobirama smiled gently, “That’s no matter. You’re naturally fire natured - water would be the hardest nature for you to release. Try again with your fire nature instead. Change your hand seals from inu to tora.”
Tobirama clasped his hands together, forming the tiger seal and blew gently, a wreath of fire igniting over the heads of the sitting children. He watched the Senju clan children gasp, shrinking back from the fire passing harmlessly above, smiling in wonder.
The Uchiha boy, however, frowned deeper.
Tobirama released the seal and shook sparks from his hand.
“Would you like to come up and give it a try?” he asked.
“I still don’t get it!”
“Get what?”
“If you have the water affen, uh, affet…”
“Affinity,” Tobirama corrected gently.
The boy nodded vigorously, “-the water affinity, then how come you can do the fire release?”
“I trained very hard. Fire was the hardest for me to learn.”
The boy brightened, “Then I can learn the water release!”
Tobirama blinked, “well, yes…”
“Then how can I do it?”
“It will be substantially harder.”
“What does substantially mean?”
“Much more. Greatly.”
“But not impossible?”
“No.”
Tobirama received a beaming smile.
“Then I can do it!”
For a moment, he was dumbfounded. An Uchiha wanting to learn a water release. Tobirama was not sure he ever thought he would see the day. Uchiha were nearly all fire natured, with wind and lightning being the possible exceptions. An earth release or water release coming from the enemy side had been something Tobirama seldom saw during the war. In fact, water seemed to be a wholly Senju trait.
Even if an Uchiha could master it, he also doubted they wanted to.
The Senju were the clan of a thousand talents. They could muster up fire if they wanted to. But it was fire that killed their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers - their cousins and nieces and nephews. Fire killed Senju. So Senju didn’t use it often.
Water killed Uchiha.
Somberly, Tobirama thought that this Uchiha child had yet to witness war. Then, slowly, the thought crept in - he would never have to witness it, would he?
Maybe, water didn’t kill Uchiha anymore. Maybe fire didn’t kill Senju.
Tobirama looked down at the bright eyed boy, smiling unknowingly up at a person who had killed multitudes of his kin, and saw the innocence of a child who had not seen war. The possibility of a child who had not seen hate. The freedom of a child unburdened by the blood of countless, timeless slaughter.
“Yes,” Tobirama felt his voice speak, as if moved by a force besides his own; a welling of power and clarity that overtook him like a tide of water, “yes, I’m sure you can.”
He looked at the kid, and smiled.
“What’s your name?”
The bright eyed Uchiha beamed back at him.
“Uchiha Kagami!”
—
It was an argument they had had so often that it felt rehearsed.
“Let me go, Madara!”
“Izuna wait-!”
And yet still they continued to step into their roles.
“I don’t care if you forbid it, I’m going anyway!”
“Izuna I’m not saying you can’t go, just be careful…”
Terror was not a new emotion for Madara. He felt it every time he stepped out onto a battlefield, knowing that his little brother might not make it back. Madara had never feared for his own life, save for when he was very young, and for a darkness in a blizzard. But terror came easily to him anyway. Hashirama, for all his power, had never aimed to kill Madara. Their fights were practiced, almost showy, and never to the death. They fought each other so they wouldn’t have to fight anyone else.
It was never the same for Izuna and the white demon. From the moment Izuna and Tobirama first met on the banks of the Naka river, they had tried to kill each other. Izuna returned home each battle covered in bleeding wounds, some so deep and red they made Madara’s heart stop dead in his chest. Each time he watched Izuna don armor again, he wondered silently if it would be the last time he ever saw his brother alive and breathing.
So he prayed each night for Tobirama to die. He wished with delirious fervor that Izuna would strike him true, and the demon would be dead. He hoped that Tobirama would die on a mission, or die from a disease, or finally realize his place and die so that the world would be better for it. He knew that it would never happen. The Senju white demon could outrun death itself - or so the story went.
And so Madara continued to fear.
But then Tobirama had the opportunity to kill Izuna and he did not take it. That should have meant something to Madara. Should have felt relieved that finally, finally, he would stop having to worry about his brother’s death. The ghost had been the only one who was a threat to Izuna for a long time, and with that threat gone, Madara should have felt elated.
He didn’t.
He felt even more terrified.
Because now he had seen a blade close enough to Izuna’s neck to slit it, and was powerless enough to do nothing but watch.
Izuna always worried him. But suddenly, his brother was mortal. Tangibly, irrefutably mortal. The only thing that had stopped his death was a butchered promise, and the sick plans of a monster that for some reason decided he must live. And those things were much much thinner than skill. Skill could keep someone alive reliably for years. With a promise, it only took a moment.
Izuna could die, Madara had almost seen him die. And it terrified him.
“What I don’t understand is why you’d even want to go on a mission!” Madara shouted, “You hate Konoha! Look! You even scowled at the mention of its fucking name! You don’t believe in this peace at all, so why on earth would you fight for it!”
“Because I’m bored to fucking death!” Izuna shot back, “And I, for one, am not content to watch the Senju steal power and position within this rickety treaty by sitting by and doing nothing. Unlike you!”
Madara scoffed, disbelieving, “Oh so now I’m doing nothing? Last I checked, you’ve been the one moping around, complaining to elders and turning your nose up at anything we manage to accomplish in this village! You have no idea how hard I’m working, you ingrate! Do you know what it’s like to have to work next to the person who almost killed you everyday!”
Izuna’s face turned red with anger, and he snapped.
“Shut up! Don’t you dare hold that fight over me!”
“The fight where you almost died?” Madara hissed, “The fight where I almost watched you die and could do nothing?”
“God fucking damn it, Madara! Stop treating me like I’m made of glass!” Izuna screamed, “I am a Uchiha shinobi, I have survived countless battles, and let it not be forgotten, I am one of the four most powerful fighters within fire country.”
“You could have died-!”
“I didn’t, though!” he exclaimed with desperation. He grabbed Madara’s hand and placed it above his still beating heart.
“I am still alive, Madara! Tobirama did not kill me, so stop treating me like I died on the battlefield that day!”
Madara jerked his hand back and his expression darkened, “You’re only alive because he let you live!”
Izuna let out a frustrated scream, “You’re not hearing me!”
“You’re not hearing me!”
“Just because I almost died does not make me weak! I have never been weak! I will never be weak, and even if I die someday I will have died a fighting, capable shinobi! You need to stop treating it like I’ve been crippled.”
“You could have been-”
“And you could have died too,” Izuna cut him off, his tone harsh and cutting “your soulmate was the only thing that saved you from a pathetic death at the hands at the Hagoromo! And I never treated you less for it, did I? I never argued with you about going on missions! I never treated you like you would break! So why won’t you do the same for me?!”
Madara reached a hand out, but Izuna slapped it away.
“I’m heading out. Don’t fucking follow me” he said, turning away
“Where?”
Izuna snapped, “God, do I have to tell you everything? I’m not going to get shanked and die from going out.”
His brother was already at the door by the time Madara cried out, “Izuna!”
But Izuna was not in any mood to listen to him. He glared over his shoulder.
“Don’t follow me. And I’m going on that fucking mission after I get back. ”
And then he was gone.
Madara was alone.
Always alone.
He backed up until he hit a wall, then slid down to the floor. The room was quiet and still. Lonely, cold. He and Izuna hadn’t said so much as a kind word to each other since the peace was formed. They tolerated each other at best now. It was a far cry from how they had been before the peace.
Madara laughed humorously.
Wasn’t that ironic?
Madara was oh so very tired. Unbidden, a hand reached up to touch his cheek, his fingers passing gently over the red left there. Roses were all too gentle for him, too beautiful for a face like his. He even, for a moment, felt a spark of anger. Not at his soulmate, but directionless to the universe. That it had brought them close enough to leave a mark, but just far enough for them to never meet again.
Madara was terrified they would never meet again.
Then he would be truly alone, wouldn’t he?
“Would you even like me?” he asked no one in particular. Then he huffed hollowly again and shook his head, “who am I kidding? I wouldn’t care.”
He didn’t need them to be perfect. Didn’t even need him to be good. Madara only needed him to be real.
He looked out into the empty room. Light was streaming in through the door - still left ajar - illuminating the new wooden floors. Glowing veins of chatoyancy lit up in the summer sun. Hashirama had spared no expense when it came to building the Uchiha main house. Imbued even the littlest detail with warmth.
But it all felt sterile and sad now, alone with no one to sit with.
Madara turned his head out into the world beyond the room, where the sky was blue and cloudless. Past the engawa, there was a garden. A sloping sakura was aglow in the middle, dripping the last of this year’s blooms onto the stones below. Beneath it, the transplants from his mother’s rose garden sat struggling to grow. The journey had been rough on them, and the new soil had not been forgiving either.
“I always imagined I’d find you, and I’d get to let everyone know,” he smiled ruefully, “I’d drag you around to everybody I knew, even to people I didn’t. In some dreams, you loved it. In others, you hated it and yelled at me when we were finally alone. But I’d just sit there like a grinning fool, trying and failing to hide how much I loved you.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t think this peace will last. But I am trying, you know, I’m trying. So that, maybe, maybe, I can meet you. And even if our clans end up against each other as the peace ends, I can spirit you away. Nothing will be able to separate us again.”
He was silent for a second. He felt his face tremble, and blinked the sting out of his eyes.
“I wish,” he admitted with a wavering voice, “that you were here. And that somebody could tell me what to do. ‘Cause I’m scared, love… I’m so fucking scared.”
But Madara was alone, so nobody replied.
—
Madara walked for a long time after that.
As a Shinobi, life wasn't slow very often. When battles were fought, you either had to move fast or end up on the wrong end of a blade. You had to move so fast that you flickered by, had to move so fast you could outrun death.
When the war had been drawing to its unknowing close, Madara had already been losing his vision. Each and every activation of his eyes only made it worse to the point he was basically rationing his own body - carefully chipping away at it so that he would be able to stretch his use until he finally went blind… or worse, he had to take Izuna’s eyes.
He thinks he remembers, when he was much smaller, how disorienting shunshin could be. You moved incredibly fast, and often the eyes could not keep perfect track of it all. When Madara developed his sharingan though, he no longer faced that problem, and with time, he forgot about it.
It was grueling to learn how to do it all again without that crutch. But he learned, if only to buy himself the seconds more before someone would be blinded.
In that time, that whirl of images he struggled to comprehend, he learned how much he lost with speed. How much he lost when moving too fast.
Madara believed he had been moving too fast for a long time now.
Now he walked, with the hope to catch something he may have missed. Something important that he once fought for, that he still wanted to fight for - because if what he saw now was all there was to it, Madara didn’t know what he would do. If all he had was distrust, fear, and anger, then he had nothing.
So he walked the streets of Konoha for once, and used his repaired eyes of his to look out onto a world he had not stopped to observe. He had walked this path before, of course, but had he been looking? He didn’t know. He walked to work in the morning, and walked home in the afternoon, always lost in his own head, always thinking forward, worrying about what might come.
Madara now finally tried to step into the present.
He drifted aimlessly through a summer night, with the air hot and humid. Beneath his feet he could hear the crunch of gravel and packed dirt. Scents and sounds lingered in the street, oil crackling, meat hissing on the grill, people chattering, even laughter among the sound. Lanterns strung zig-zagging from one side of the street to the other, where people passed illuminated below.
Civilians from both clans had moved in with their shinobi, and with them, regular people and merchants from nearby had followed suit. Konoha was a city of shinobi, but between the cracks people who dared to try a new world had slipped in, covered the streets with lanterns and filled the air with smells and sounds.
Madara was not some sort of raging bull, blinded by hate. He could see that Konoha was good, that peace could be good. As he dodged through the busy street, eyeing children playing between their parents' legs and vendors bargaining their wares, he had to acknowledge there was something there, something they were building, and something beautiful.
It only terrified Madara more.
At the end of this all, what would happen to these people?
All of this happiness, all of this hope, gone.
Madara did not despise peace - he was just unconvinced it would last.
He continued to walk down the street, shutting out the memories of his youth that the village sparked. In the children, he could see himself and Izuna when they were young. Laughing and playing without a care in the world. Then they grew up, and suddenly where had those days gone?
He passed by a shop selling sweets from a stand. Kids were crowded around it, parents dragged unwillingly along. Madara smiled softly at one pair - an Uchiha mother and her son. She was his cousin, fourth or fifth, he couldn’t remember which, once removed. Her kid had been getting ready for his first mission just before peace was drafted.
It was nice to see them here, instead of where they could be now. Madara knew how many young kids died their first time facing the Senju, he knew how their flesh smelled on their funeral pyres.
And by the light of Amaterasu, that boy was a child. Old enough to be sent to war, but young enough to drag his reluctant mother along to buy candy. Madara couldn’t help but wonder if he would already be dead by now, if not for the peace…
He paused, staring blurrily at the shop before him, and the children who dreamed of nothing more than sugar and games.
Again, the thought struck him that this would surely end…but.
But maybe it was just rationing all over again. Maybe it is them buying the seconds more they never had before. Maybe, even if temporal, the peace gave them just that much more time, that fewer battles, that many kids are still alive. Each second was life, dripping down from somewhere high above and leaving them to catch it with their imperfect hands. Trying, at the end of it all.
Peace would end. Madara knew that. But for those few seconds, it mattered. It mattered.
“Enjoying yourself, Madara?”
Madara groaned and turned around, “I was until you showed up.”
Tobirama’s impassive face stared at him, his hands folded neatly behind his back.
“So what is it, Senju? Taken to stalking me?” Madara taunted.
Tobirama lifted a sculpted brow, unimpressed.
“I do have a life,” that smooth voice reprimanded.
“Color me surprised. Now, get on with it.”
Tobirama had the audacity to look surprised. “On with what?”
Madara scowled, “We’re not friends-” he spat the word out like a curse “-by any stretch of the imagination, Senju. You don’t come to me unless you need something, that was the deal. I do my job, you do yours, that’s it.”
Tobirama sighed, “must you call me that?”
It took Madara a second for his words to process. Call him what? He hadn’t said anything insulting, at least not with a name. Oh there were plenty of things Madara wanted to call Tobirama, but he at least had the civility to restrain himself to a curt “Senju”- Wait, there was no way…
“Are you seriously taking offense at me calling you by your surname?”
Tobirama only had a few inches in height over Madara, but what little he had he used to his leverage. The subtle titling of his head up, the softly lidded eyes gazing lazily down - it all gave the impression that somehow Tobirama was miles above him. Like he had stepped foot on the lowly earth to grace Madara with his presence. If it didn’t infuriate him, it would have made Madara feel small.
Tobirama curled the edge of his lip up - his mocking face in stark contrast with his cordial tone, “Forgive me, but when you spit out the name of a clan you have historically destested, it gives the impression that you might hate them.”
“Why on earth would I care what you think?”
Tobirama leaned forward to quietly hiss in his ear, “Your actions don’t exist in a vacuum, Madara.”
Madara’s eyes shifted over to Tobirama’s, challenging, “And?”
Tobirama stared at him long and hard for a second. Not even mad, just genuine pause that slowly turned to exasperation. He straightened and dragged a hand over his face.
“I cannot believe I have to spell this out for you.”
“What-”
“Believe it or not, o’ master of the Uchiha,” Tobirama began, “But I am not the only Senju out there. In fact, as someone of your status should be aware, there are quite a few. So, each time someone overhears you complaining about ‘that damn Senju’ or ‘that Senju bastard’, they don’t just assume it's me.”
Oh.
If Madara wasn’t so mad right now, he would even be inclined to admit that it made sense. But refusing to give an inch to Tobirama, he stayed stubbornly silent and glared at him.
Tobirama looked thoroughly unimpressed.
“Maybe you don’t care,” he continued, “but my clan does, and frankly your clan does too. Your shitty attitude affects other people, and sets a precedent for what is and what is not okay. So, if you want to uphold your end of the bargain, either stop it altogether or at the very least get more specific. I do have a first name.”
Madara stared at him for a second, “You’re not saying…”
Tobirama scoffed, “I’m not a bashful maiden, Madara. I already call you by your given name.”
“Which I never allowed you to do,” Madara interrupted.
“We both know that I am in the habit of doing what is effective and efficient, not catering what you like. It’s easier.” Tobirama shot back.
Madara was going to flay him alive and burn his skinless body.
Tobirama continued, “I am not asking you to treat me with respect Madara, your respect is not high up on the list of things I desperately need right now. I am only asking you to be more specific in your insults. White Demon, Monster, Tobirama whatever, I don’t care. Just make sure it's not Senju.”
“Are you seriously telling me you want me to call you a demon?”
“It would be preferable.”
“Do you have no sense of pride?”
Tobirama rolled his eyes, “It is a pawn worth sacrificing. Besides, I have already wagered my life on this, what’s an insult to a dead man?”
Madara recoiled, “You disgust me.”
“How?”
“I don’t- Augh! Just the callousness of it all! Do you seriously value life so little?”
The white haired man’s mouth thinned into a line.
“Do you seriously want me to answer that?”
Madara realized he didn’t. Not when those hands had held Izuna’s life in them before.
“Get out of my sight, Senju.”
Tobirama leveled him with a flat look. For a second, Madara thought he might have been able to see some sort of sadness in those dark eyes. But as always with Tobirama, he could not tell if it was a genuine glimmer of something, or a facade the monster used to further some agenda of his.
What must it be like to live like that, he wondered. To live a life caught between the real and unreal. He wondered if Tobirama even knew where the act stopped and his real self began. He wasn’t sure if there was a difference, or if Tobirama was sure either.
Madara’s eyes skimmed that blank face searchingly for some answers,
A life like that…sounded worse than hell.
Tobirama shifted his gaze, breaking the spell. Now he looked over Madara’s shoulder, fixated wholly on something besides Madara with such a fearful fondness that for a second he could not breathe.
He wasn’t sure why that disturbed him.
Following his eyes, Madara turned around. He was looking at the candy vendor again. More kids had joined the crowd around it. There was the chatter of childish pleas and fond parents - the sound of coins being forked over and gentle conversation. Again, Madara spotted the Uchiha in the crowd. But Tobirama was not looking at them - instead fixed on another pair. Half a year ago, Madara would have had to turn on his sharingan to understand why, but with his newly healed eyes it was rather obvious. A father and daughter were holding hands by the stall, tan skinned with chestnut brown hair and green eyes - the both of them. On their backs, standing soft white against the cream of their haori, was the finely embroidered Senju crest.
“That is who you’re insulting whenever you spit out that name, Madara.”
Tobirama’s voice was quiet, but no less firm and cutting. Madara could not help the way he flinched as the truth of that statement reached him - the shame.
Tobirama continued, “I do not give a damn about my pride Madara. You can call me anything you like, say anything about me you wish, but speak ill of my clan again, and tarnish their sacrifices for this peace, spread hate when you could as easily shut your mouth, and I will make sure you suffer for it.”
“I-”
Tobirama cut him off, “Don’t.”
Madara did not let him end it there. He grabbed his arm and forced Tobirama to look at him.
Red eyes met Madara’s dull black ones.
In them, Madara saw nothing of fear, nothing of admiration.
“I’m sorry, Tobirama,” he said. Even though it felt grating, it was true.
Tobirama seemed genuinely taken aback. His mouth parted open slightly, and his eyebrows titled just ever so up.
“You don’t have to-”
“I need to. That was our deal, right? Consider this an official apology from an Uchiha leader to a Senju one,” he dipped his head a small bow, “I am sorry to have disgraced and disparaged the efforts of the Senju clan.”
There was a short silence, where Madara dared not look up. Then he heard a small intake of breath, and Tobirama spoke.
“I am not here to antagonize you, Madara,” Tobirama said, “I do it when it’s convenient - to get what is necessary. I do it for them…”
Madara looked up, and saw with shock that Tobirama’s impassive mask had somehow begun to crack. His eyes glanced nervously to the side and his brows were pinched together in something that resembled uncertainty. Madara didn’t know Tobirama could be uncertain.
Noticing the eyes on him, Tobirama trailed off. Within a moment's breath, that mask was slammed back on.
“What I’m saying,” The thing masquerading as a human said, “is that we are on the same side, Madara. I am glad you could figure that much out.”
Madara frowned, “And here I am trying to be the amicable one.”
“No one would have ever guessed you were capable.” Tobirama smirked.
Madara threw Tobirama’s hand away, snarling.
“Your a fucking asshole, Tobirama.” Madara bit, “I was wrong to ever associate the Senju with you. They don’t deserve to be insulted by the comparison.”
Then Madara turned hashly on his heel and stormed off. Honestly! The one time he tries to be anything other than infuriated with Tobirama, he is met with nothing but scorn. He should have known there was no point to even trying with him.
And if Madara thought he caught Tobirama smiling gratefully as he turned away, then he must’ve been mistaken.
Monsters didn’t smile.
For as long as he could preserve this peace, he could pretend that.
—
Izuna felt his mood go from bad to worse as he approached the Konoha gates.
His mission had gone fine, but as far as blowing of steam went, assassinations were not particularly satisfying. He was still pissed at Madara and downright enraged by everything else. So when he spotted Tobirama leaning contentedly against the walls of Konoha, staring him down, he felt his blood pressure rise.
Intent on ignoring him, Izuna set his jaw and rolled his shoulders, eyes fixed resolutely on the village and deliberately refusing to stray as he walked closer.
He reached the gate and placed his hand on the cool metal. He could physically feel the chilly presence of Tobirama on his skin, but refused to turn to look at him.
He tensed, ready to push the gates open, when a voice spoke.
“What? You can’t even meet the eye of your rival after all this time? You wound me, Izuna.”
Even as he kept his eyes dead straight, Izuna couldn’t help himself as he snapped.
“Refusing to meet your eye? Please, I’m not some sort of Senju.”
“You seem awfully cowardly for an Uchiha then. What? Did I scare you into meekness after that last fight?”
He whipped around, furious. His pinwheel eyes met Tobirama’s calm red ones. The sheer absurdity of it almost snapped him out of his rage - it was the first time Tobirama had ever looked him in the eye.
Regardless, he raged.
“Shut up! You should have just killed me if you wanted to hold it over my head!”
Tobirama scoffed and sneered, “how on earth would I hold it over you if you were dead? Corpses aren’t particularly offended by insults.”
Izuna seethed, “We both know that’s bullshit. Hashirama made you stop your skeleton war years ago, but you don’t forget jutsu!”
“Oh?” Tobirama asked, “Maybe I’m the real Uchiha then and you’re the Senju in your eyes. Perfect memory and perfect cowardice.”
It took physical effort not to draw his sword.
“Why are you even here?” Izuna demanded, “To mock me?”
“How could I not be here?” Tobirama shot back, “Your chakra was so aggravated that I could feel it from miles out. Like thousands of spiders crawling over my skin.”
“So what? You came to finish the job to shut it off?”
“I’m here to mock you, obviously.”
Izuna physically recoiled, “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what?’” Tobirama mimicked, “I thought it was well established we hated each other?”
“You don’t mock me - you never mocked me! You just fought silently, like a creepy fucking doll. Most I could ever get out of you was grunts of pain.”
“Well clearly I have years of unsaid material.”
“Augh!” Izuna screamed, pulling his hair, “what are you trying to accomplish right now? Getting me to attack you?”
Tobirama looked at him like he was stupid, “ obviously!”
Izuna did a double take, “Wha- Are you trying to break off the peace?”
“Are you stupid? What I’m trying to do is help you blow off some steam so you don’t. I’m trying to goad you into sparring me, idiot” Tobirama explained, “or did you seriously think I get pleasure out of mocking you. Please, I’m not a child.”
“Then why-”
“Because you act like one, so I’m trying to accommodate for your level of intelligence.”
“Oh I’ll show you a spar-”
Tobirama punched him square in the face before he could finish. Izuna felt his body catapult backwards, hit the floor, and skid heavily through the ungroomed dirt of the forest. He flipped himself, digging a hand into the ground to slow his momentum, leaving furrows in the ground. When he looked up at Tobirama once more, Izuna’s face was covered in dirt, and reddening scratches, blood beginning to well.
His nose was broken, gushing down his lips.
“Take it easy, you bastard!” he screamed at Tobirama.
Tobirama was shaking out his hand with disinterest, flicking blood off his seal-red hands. He looked up at Izuna once more at his exclamation, and tilted his head with that same detachment - for a moment, Izuna could only see the stone cold enemy he had fought for years. But then Tobirama rolled his eyes and curled his lip in an almost showy display of dissatisfaction.
“Why?”
Izuna was incensed, “This isn’t a fucking death match! It’s a spar!”
Tobirama looked more confused than anything, “So?” he asked with a scoff, “since when were you made of glass?”
Izuna’s eyes widened.
Then, he began to grin - the air around him grew thick with static, and lightning began to jump from his fingers.
Then he launched himself at Tobirama faster than an arrow, leaving the grass behind him streaked with electrical burns.
Tobirama met him halfway, and the ground shook with their clash.
Hours later, the two of them lay splayed out on the torn up ground, chests heaving with heavy breath and limbs too tired to move.
“Hah,” Izuna gasped for air, “f-fuck you, Tobirama.”
Tobirama swallowed another breath, “same time next week then?”
“God, I hate you.”
“So yes.”
“I’m going to,” a deep breath, “beat your ass I swear-”
It occurred to him he had never heard Tobirama laugh before. He supposed there were first times for everything.
He heard a shuffling sound and Tobirama's face popped into view. Hands fell onto his face, and when he tried to squirm away, he was held still and reprimanded with a firm "stop moving". He almost threw another punch at Tobirama, but a cold, soothing chakra flowing into his own stopped him. He felt the pain in his nose fade away, even as Tobirama grabbed the bone and readjusted it into place. After another minute more, Tobirama pulled away and flopped back down in the dirt.
"Don't put any pressure on that for a while. I don't have enough chakra to heal it fully."
Izuna was almost too shocked to speak. He had never, in a million years, expected Senju fucking Tobirama to heal him of all things.
"Why?" he croaked. It was a loaded question. Why did Tobirama heal him? Why did Tobirama spare him? Why did Tobirama want peace? Why did Tobirama do anything?
"Because I don't like war Izuna."
"Bullshit. You were the most bloodthirsty person out there."
"The same could be said for you, no?"
"Don't try that with me," Izuna spat, "I was a soldier. A spymaster and an assassin too, but never what you were. I was nothing like you."
"Like what?"
"A tactician. Every single battle had your strategies written all over them."
"You understand me that deeply then?"
Izuna huffed, "of course I do. I had to in order to survive."
"Then tell me, Izuna, why on earth would a strategist give up their most valuable weapon to their enemy with zero strings attached. Why on earth would I ever heal you?"
Izuna didn't know.
"To trick me. To trick the Uchiha. So you can eradicate us at our most trusting."
He heard Tobirama sigh, "that's so uncreative. Seriously, do you really think I would waste all this time and resources, spare one of the Uchiha's best fighters, and provide the Uchiha with invaluable knowledge about Senju healing, all for what? A cleaner defeat? Oh yeah, marvelous idea right there. You really must be an idiot."
Izuna hated him. He hated how he was right. But he just couldn't accept that, he just couldn't move on, couldn't part from the ineffable truth that Izuna could not dislodge from his heart: simply, and with no other defense...
“I just can’t trust you.” he admitted to Tobirama, "I don't know how."
He heard the Senju hum, “I do not expect you to.”
“Then what am I supposed to trust?”
“Your gut, Izuna, or your brother, I don’t know. Find something. I’m not a fucking psychic..”
It occurred to Tobirama that he had never heard Izuna laugh beyond scorn. He supposed there were first times for everything.
“Try teaching,” he offered.
Izuna craned his neck upward, looking at the top of Tobirama’s splayed out form. He scowled.
“Do I look like the teaching type to you?”
Tobirama looked up at him, face cold as always.
“Do I?”
“Obviously not.”
“Then you would be surprised.”
Izuna scoffed, then choked on his spit from the motion. Tobirama let him hack out his lung without making fun of him - it really did seem like the taunting was just to piss him off the first time. To get something out of him. There was no joy in it.
“There’s no way,” he finally said once he finished coughing.
Tobirama shrugged, or at least Izuna thought he did. It was hard to see him from his angle, but he heard the rolling crunch of dirt and fabric from some movement.
“You don’t know me, Izuna. I don’t know you.”
“I know how badly your sword cuts.”
“I apologize.”
“No you fucking don’t.”
“True.”
"I don't think this peace will ever last, Senju."
"Do you have anything to lose for trying in the meantime?"
There was a long silence, the only sound of their heavy breathing.
“...fuck it.”
A week later, Izuna stood in front of three newly graduated Chunin, the first batch the academy had ever churned out. He stared down at them, an Uchiha and two Senju girls. All three of them stared at him with wariness in their eyes, and beneath that, simple nervousness.
“Stand up straight!” he snapped.
The girls jumped to attention, startled and wide eyed.
“Names!”
“Uchiha Yuko!” , “Senju Tomoko!”, “Senju Kazumi!” they announced in sequence.
“Listen up!” he commanded, pacing in front of them, “Right now, you are all wimps. But I was challenged by an even bigger and more annoying wimp to do this, and so because I cannot lose to him, I will turn all of you from wimps to warriors! By the end of our time together, Tobirama will have no choice but to acknowledge your collective awesomeness, and my superiority by proxy as your teacher!”
“Senju T-Tobirama?” Yuko stuttered, “the demon?”
Izuna nodded solemnly, “the very one. Now, who’s ready to kick some ass?”
They stared at him in abject terror.
“Verbal responses are required. I’ll ask again. Are you ready to kick some ass?”
“Y-Yes!” they yelled back this time.
—
When Madara pushed the doors open to the council room, it quieted to an immediate hush.
The Uchiha elders had called together an immediate assembly and demanded his presence. Madara wasn’t sure what for, but whatever it was he was wholly disinterested. As Konoha had grown, it became evident that elders would matter less and less. Power was in the hands of clan heads more than anything, because the village was in their hands. Elders were consulted less frequently, and bestowed less authority.
They were old, and the world the village was built on was new. Their ideas repelled against each other as oil refuses to give voice to water.
In a way, Madara suspected they dragged him to this meeting just to prove they could. To show that they still had their barbs in his skin
Madara strode now into a room of spitting old oil, whose eyes fell upon him with weighty consideration and lofty expectations. Madara allowed his own gaze to cut sharply across the room. Wherever it was that his eyes fell, silence followed and people withered back.
Suspicion.
Inwardly, Madara sighed. It was going to be a rough meeting.
He strode briskly to his seat at the head of the room, and roughly took his place.
He looked across the room once more, and trepidation breathed back at him.
“So?” he asked, “what mattered so much that you needed my audience?”
Suspicion writhed before him again - nervousness. He didn’t need to activate his sharingan to notice the way the elders glanced sweepingly around, licking their lips and wringing their hands together. A scowl began to form on Madara’s face and his expression darkened ever so.
“So you’d drag me here to flaunt your authority and then refuse to explain?” He raised a singular brow, “Forgive me if I don’t take kindly to that.”
Finally, someone mustered up the courage to speak.
“The Senju have handed over their healing techniques.”
Madara looked over to elder Ako, hiding her face behind a fan. She was, as she always was, poised. Back straight, hands delicate, eyes dark.
“They have,” Madara admitted slowly.
Elder Ako’s voice was the withering kind. Airy and strained, like old grandmother’s have - lacking all at once any type of grace or beauty while ever in the attempt to imitate it. Her head was high, and she did not look at Madara when she spoke. Her cracked, carmine lips opened and thin flesh peeled away from a once straight row of teeth. Withered and old, in some sort of mockery of civility and grace.
“Then we have nothing left to gain from peace.”
If a sentence alone could cause desolation, then Ako’s voice left a wake of silence as destructive as a swath of black fire. A tense moment passed.
…Slowly, Madara began to laugh. An unbelieving, dark sound. Deep from his chest growing louder by repetition as his eyes slid shut and his head fell, shaking disbelievingly into his hand.
His teeth were bared in a facsimile of a grin, and his brows were pinched in some form of cruel humor.
When he looked back up, the smile was gone, and darkness eclipsed his face. His eyes burned blood red, deep beneath their sunken insets.
“Did you seriously think that would work?”
Ako straightened up, undeterred “If we were to strike the Senju now, we would surely find victory. We have nothing left to learn from them, they’ve handed all their weapons right into our hands.”
“Careful Ako…” Madara warned.
“We could eradicate them, Lord Madara. As easily as we could put down a sleeping dog.”
Madara felt angered heat rise beneath his skin as she continued to talk. Refusing to look at him, spouting all manner of nonsense while sitting above a floor built by their once enemy. Sitting above the lands they had decided to try to dedicate to peace. Threatening, as casually as she might mention the weather, genocide.
It was not a foreign concept to Madara. Genocide, complete eradication, had been the subject of their war for as long as anybody could remember. And Madara held no doubts that peace would fail.
But even then…
The hundreds that would die.
By a woman’s words - a woman who had not seen the field since she was a child in her own right..
Senselessly dead.
Men, women, children…
All the children Madara saw were playing in the streets of Konoha. The children Tobirama looked upon with such fondness that it blindsided Madara. The children who for the first time in centuries would be able to look out into a world that did not seek to devour them.
Eradicated.
Put down like a sleeping dog.
“You supersed your station,” Madara hissed darkly.
Ako’s eyes slid over to him, now flashing red, “You have abandoned yours.”
Anger burned bright in Madara.
He rose halfway, the ground beneath his feet smoldering.
“You’d dare-” he bared his teeth dangerously, “This is blatant mutiny.”
She held his gaze, eyes behind drooping lips.
“I am doing this to save the Uchiha,” she replied candidly, “Something which you have seemed to have forgotten as your duty.”
“I have made a sacred promise in front of Amaterasu herself-!”
“Break it.”
If words could devastate…
Ako turned up her nose from her clan head. Disrespect running rampant. Madara’s eyes swept across the room of elders who looked pale… but didn’t say anything against Ako.
They had planned this beforehand.
Subtly, slowly - so that not even Hikaku had caught it. His cousin was thorough. It only spoke measures to their carefulness, to the insidious nature of this undertaking. Mutiny. Blatantly.
Hatred so strong they would go behind their clan’s back. Only telling him beforehand because they thought-
They thought he would agree.
They thought he was some sort of rabid dog. As easily manipulated as the Senju could be killed. They thought he would willingly break his oath, if only for the taste of Senju blood to yet again wet his lips. They thought he was a monster.
The marks on his face burned against his skin.
Of course.
Why would anyone ever think anything else?
He was a tool now, wasn’t he? A tool for Hashirama’s peace. A tool for Tobirama’s gain. A tool for the Uchiha’s vengeance. For destruction and hellfire. That he might only burn for their will, they cast their bets on him.
Something was building beneath his skin. Something he did not know how to name, but it was dark and thick, some sort of hatred he could not contain. Some sort of protectiveness he had never known before and had never mustered. Some sort of promise he had to keep. Some sort of dream- Some sort of duty- sort of fury- of fear- terror-
of of of
A bow within him was drawn - he did not know the fingers on the string.
Were they his, or someone else's? He could not tell. Frigid fingers on the cusp of his heart, squeezing and squeezing. Taught- the bow grew.
Choking and tepid, it built in his lungs. Sharp as senbon piercing his skin in the blizzard cold, his heart beating rabbit fast in his chest. The sweat on his brow. The sound of the world fading away, so he could no longer hear the words said on the elder’s moving lips, ringing, ringing, ringing.
The world sharpened to sharingan clarity, and Madara felt the bow snap.
When finally he came back to himself, however long it took, a single thought echoed in his head.
Tobirama, he needed Tobirama.
—
Tobirama gasped and stirred from his lab work as he felt a searing chakra grab hold onto the outskirts of his.
Iron-soot-smoke felt like ash on his tongue, and he set down his pen and paper with a click. The seals on his desk fell out of focus, and he zeroed in on the fire desperately lapping at his senses.
Tobirama knew Madara was a sensor, thought of no comparison to himself. He had never expected Madara to reach out in such a way - a way only a fellow sensor could understand. To barb into another’s chakra and pull for attention.
And pull desperately.
It was intimate, in a way, to even brush chakra. Some aspect of souls caught in an embrace - or a blow, for even violence held untold intimacy - and catching edges in sparks. He never thought Madara would ever willingly do so. Not with the distaste that lined the man’s chakra every time Tobirama drew near.
But now fire burned into Tobirama’s side. As Madara demanded his attention. It was not a call, or a barb, or even an ask. It felt like Madara was clinging on to him. Like a lifeline.
—
By the time Tobirama arrived at the Uchiha compound - to which he came as quietly as a shadow - Madara was curled up in a ball in the corner of the meeting room. His eyes were wide open with a sharingan shine, and there was sweat dripping down his face.
Tobirama’s gaze swept cursorily around the room, taking in the scene before him. Around ten Uchiha elders were staring blank eyed into a certain nothingness. Tobirama waded between them, stopping when his foot bumped against something heavy.
He looked down to find Uchiha Ako’s head in a puddle of blood.
Tobirama spared it a long glance. Then his eyes turned to Madara.
“What did you do?”
Madara raised to look at him. He could not help but huff a sardonic laugh at Tobirama. Tobirama, with his voice ever so empty. Not an ounce of accusation, not a minutia of anger. Blankness, carefulness, calm.
What Madara would give to have that.
“What you told me to.” He croaked in reply.
Madara noticed, belatedly, that Tobirama wasn’t wearing his happuri. His rough hair fell in curtains over his face. He looked softer like this, somehow. Disheveled almost. Even in the crystalline world of the Mangekyo, there was little fault to be found in Tobirama’s expression. With the exception of the slight raising of his eyebrows, and a slight sheen of sweat on his face, one would never guess anything beyond perfect calm.
The idea of Tobirama rushing anything was almost absurd. But here he stood in simple shinobi blacks, his happuri forgotten.
Tobirama sighed once, taking in the room again.
“Traitors then?”
“They expected me to join them.”
“Fools.”
Madara sneered, “Spare me it, Senju. You and those ‘fools’ think about me the same way. What? Do you really think I’ll just do everything you say because we have a deal? Do you think I’m some sort of animal at your heel? Do you seriously think you can buy me?”
“Yes,” Tobirama replied frankly.
“You-”
“Luckily you thought long enough to not simply kill your entire council,” Tobirama continued on thoughtfully, “one death will be hard enough to hide. Over ten elders dead would have been disastrous. I’m sure you know the repercussions if the truth gets out?”
Madara glowered, tightening in on himself.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Tobirama nodded, “what did you use this time?”
“Tsukuyomi.”
“Smart. Some of these people have lived long enough to resist anything else.”
“What do I do, Tobirama?”
Madara’s own voice was so broken that for a moment, he did not even register it was him speaking. He was Uchiha fucking Madara. He was feared throughout the elemental nations. He was strong, he was fierce. He did not plead. His voice did not quiver. He did not sound lost. He did not become lost.
But here he was anyway.
“Replace their memories. The meeting concluded with a stern reminder of what loyalty is - and to who. Then we monitor them closely, we slowly limit their power more and more, and if needed,” Tobirama shot a glance down to Ako, “we take care of them.”
Madara buried his head between his knees.
“You’d have me kill my own clan.”
Somewhere beyond where he had hidden himself, he heard Tobirama scoff.
“Grow up. You are a shinobi.”
“I can’t do it, Tobirama, I can’t kill an Uchiha.”
“You already have.”
Madara felt the painful truth lance through him. He had killed his own kin. In cold blood. To protect the Senju of all people. Maybe Ako was right, maybe he had forgotten his duty.
“Is this how you plan to deal with all the threats to your precious peace, Senju?” Madara spat, “Kill anyone who gets in the way? Murder and hide the evidence so nobody ever knows?”
A quick shuffling sound was the only warning before Madara found himself yanked up to eye level by Tobirama. A scowl was firm on the other man’s face, twisting his red tattoos angrily.
“Let me make something abundantly clear,” Tobirama said softly - dangerously - “it is not my plan to kill my way to peace. If that was the case, Izuna would be dead and rotting. You, Madara, you did this. And I am helping you fix it, so either get your shit together or get out of my way.”
He pushed Madara away from him. The Uchiha stumbled back and stared at Tobirama with an almost sort of bewilderment.
Tobirama flicked through a couple hand signs, and Madara watched as the blood soaked into the tatami and paper walls lifted and collected above Tobirama’s hand. The Senju then turned to Ako’s body, and the blood flew from his hand and back into the cooling channels of her neck. He picked the bloodless head from the ground and placed it on the severed edge of her body.
His hands lit up with a green glow, and the flesh began to stitch itself back together.
“Wait-” Madara panicked.
Tobirama sent him a stern look.
“I am fixing the problem, Madara. If you don’t want me to, then go turn yourself in.”
Hashirama had described replantation of limbs before, and Madara had lurked around the hospital enough to get the general gist of the idea. But to watch a lifeless body be unbroken and pieced back together left the realm of the unbelievable, and went straight into horror.
Madara had done this.
He had done this.
“How…” he began to ask.
“The body does not know it is dead yet.” Tobirama explained tersely, “just like those statues you’re holding onto over there. They’re gone, they just can’t tell. From there, you can make them do most anything.”
“How will we explain this?”
“Explain what?” Tobirama asked, shifting his hands ever so slightly to the right and revealing a strip of unmarred flesh, surrounded on other sides by deep severance, “as far as anyone else is concerned, Ako died peacefully in her sleep. With the Tsukuyomi, you could even give yourself an extra day or two after the meeting in leeway. She never had enough friends for anyone to regularly visit. When they find the body, Madara, we won’t need to explain. An old lady with a markless death? They’ll draw their own lines just fine.”
It occurred to Madara just how much Tobirama knew. About the Uchiha, about Ako… maybe even about him.
“You knew I would do this,” he accused.
“Of course I didn’t,” Tobirama snapped back, “I expected you to have at least an ounce of restraint, or at least subtlety, but I prepared for you not to.”
“Oh god,” Madara braced himself against the wall, “I really am your fucking dog, aren’t I?”
“That was the deal. This-” Tobirama gestured to Ako “- is the deal.”
“You planned all of this out.”
“Not to the detail,” Tobirama’s hands were covered in blood, or was that just the tattoos? Madara could not tell anymore, “but I have never been one to not think ahead.”
“Izuna too-”
“Planned, obviously.”
Madara could not help the strain in his voice, “Why?”
“Peace,” came the succinct reply.
“And you what? Wagered your life on a bet? Wagered Izuna’s? Wagered mine?”
Tobirama scoffed, “Wagered what? When I took Izuna captive? That wasn’t a bet, Madara. That was simple cause and effect. The bet is now. The die have been cast, and we are playing out the rest of the game together, whether you like it or not.”
Izuna.
Tobirama hadn’t called it a bet.
“You knew I would save Izuna?”
“Of course. You couldn’t have let Izuna die. He’s your brother - you love him.”
There was blood on Tobirama’s hands. Or maybe it was just the tattoos. Or maybe, for a glimmer of a second, Madara might have imagined red stained fingertips to match his cheeks. Might have heard what he had so long wished for someone to say, what he wanted his soulmate to say, only to come out of the person he hated most.
“What would you know about love?” Madara shot back sharply.
For a single moment, Tobirama paused.
Then he grimaced, and returned his glowing hands to work, “I think a little bit, at least.”
Madara wrinkled his nose, “And this peace? What is that for? Hashirama?”
“Of course.” Tobirama replied.
“You’re a monster.”
“Of course.” Tobirama replied.
The body in his hands sat cooling. The remaining elders stared into endlessness, awaiting a dream from Madara.
“Don’t you have any empathy?” Madara asked.
Tobirama looked down at him cooly, “Is that what you needed me for?”
And Madara supposed it was not.
The night passed summarily, and soon Tobirama rose from Ako’s perfectly still body where she slept below. Nobody could have guessed her dead then. She looked so small, and Madara wondered again if he really needed to kill her.
Had there been another way?
Madara imagined there was. Looking at Tobirama, he knew there was. He knew somewhere in that unfeeling brain of his, there were thousands of possibilities in which peace proceeded on smoothly. Madara could not see any of them. All he could see was war, and violence, and violence to stop war, and war for peace. A house of cards at best, flint over sparkpowder at worst.
“Take her home.” Tobirama said.
“I should burn her,” Madara didn’t answer, “I should burn her.”
“Burn her when she dies, Madara.”
“I am a monster.”
“Grow up,” Tobirama snapped and rolled his eyes, “I am under no pretense that you are holding to our deal out of any honor, or duty, or god forbid any fondness for me. I placed a bet because I knew that you wanted peace, or at least would be willing to try. I am not a fool Madara, you are not like me. You are not alright with war. A disaster? Sure. Pathetic? Most definitely. A monster? Ha! You don’t have the talent.”
And Tobirama turned to leave, as swiftly and suddenly as he came.
In the end, Ako ‘died’ two days later. They burned her body, they mourned her, and nobody was any the wiser.
—
Another clan joined the village.
There had, of course, been talks about it happening. Madara had never really expected it to actually happen. Who in their right mind would move into a growing powderkeg? Who’d risk that with so many sparks?
But then suddenly they were watching a caravan of Sarutobi enter the village. Dozens of horse drawn carts pulled their luggage - their lives - with them, as they moved into their newly constructed district. Children played in the streets, music played, drinks shared.
A festival was held that night. Madara couldn’t remember a thing about it. All he could recall was Tobirama sipping sake, eyes cutting analytically over the festival.
Almost apathetic, without an ounce of surprise.
And the clans kept coming.
In the next two months, the Shimura, the Yamanaka, the Akimichi, and the Nara joined as well.
And suddenly there were clan children playing in the street, all manner of background. Different clans… playing together.
Suddenly, the village began to look like a village. Tension, terrifying anger and fear still remained. But the village grew. It grew faster and stronger than anyone could have predicted. Hashirama was hastily made Hokage, and a council was created from the clan heads. Elders found themselves with less and less power for politics outside of their clan. Things changed like swiftwater, unpredictable and erratic, so fast you got swept away in it.
Through it all, Madara could not take his eyes off Tobirama. He could not forget the blood on his hands, the secrets of Madara's soul that he somehow seemed to know, and that blinder-bound determination forward. Devout to peace to the point of destruction.
—
“What is this?”
Madara slammed a stack of papers down on Tobirama’s desk. The man in question caught his shaken pot of ink before it spilled, and looked up at Madara with a tired expression.
“That is one way to ask a question, I suppose.”
Madara scowled, “cut the shit. Explain this to me.”
Tobirama glanced down at the stack of papers, and then backed up at Madara.
“This is a village plan. Basically how this works is it outlines-”
“I know that!” Madara growled, “What is it about?”
Tobirama nodded solemnly, “My condolences, I was not aware you couldn’t read. These are plans for the Academy, which you may note have already been approved.”
Madara let out a scream of frustration. He flipped through the papers hastily, his sharingan activated, until he reached the right page. When he did, he jabbed a finger into the paper and glared back up at Tobirama.
“This! Explain this to me!”
Tobirama looked down. Madara was pointing at a line reading ‘integration of cross-clan professors’.
Ah.
“This is a new revised draft, pending approval, actually. As stipulated below the line you’re currently trying to stab your finger through, it would mean that the teachers in each class would not need to be from the clan of the children being taught.”
“When you proposed the idea you said it would be up to the clans to decide who taught their students.”
Tobirama shrugged, “Is it not? The clans will vote on this, and teachers will be subject to review.”
Madara’s eyebrow ticked, “You implied that meant we would have professors teaching their own clan’s children.”
“Oh, yes, I did,” Tobirama admitted freely, “but that was during the opening pitch of the academy, and it was when an elder was grilling me over clan separation..”
“So?” Madara needled.
“So, I lied.” Tobirama stated blandly.
The paper underneath Madara’s hand caught fire.
Tobirama summoned water with a flick of his hand and put it out.
“Those will have to be reprinted, you know.”
Madara flared angrily, “Do you seriously think you can just lie to people to get your way?”
Tobirama, seemingly done with listening to Madara, picked up his pen, cleared the sooty water off his desk with a single hand seal, and returned to working on the copious paperwork that had built up.
“It has worked so far, has it not?”
“You fucking-”
Tobirama glanced lazily up at him, “Integration means closer ties between our clans, it means more knowledge crossover, it means covering historical weaknesses with another’s historical strengths, it means forming bonds, it means children making friends who bear a different last name. Integration strengthens us. Isolation separates us. Isn’t emotional connection a major tenant for the Uchiha? Look at it through the eyes of that. And besides, they’re only teaching the basics. Clans can still teach their clan children supplementally.”
Tobirama rolled his eyes, “Connecting our clans is worth lying for - plans will change as they develop, it's how they work, and it’s easier to make those more radical changes when the ball is already rolling. If I need to lie, or cheat, or manipulate to get us to the starting line, I will.”
Tobirama huffed, “I am playing politics here, Madara, even if you hate it. Besides, at the end of the day, it still comes down to a vote. So vote against it if you think the idea is bad, rather than the fact you’re mad because I lied about it.”
Madara glowered at him.
Tobirama smiled venomously, “But you won’t, will you? Because you’re not a fucking idiot.”
One day, Madara would kill him.
—
“Interesting move!” Senju Kameyo exclaimed, peering closely at the shogi board.
Tobirama hummed and sipped his tea, “I learned from the best.”
Elder Kameyo was an old woman. Greyed hair, withered face, once piercing green eyes that had long lost their shine and grown over with cataract. She was the Senju chief strategist before Tobirama had taken over. She had once been Bustuma’s right hand woman.
She waved a hand amicably, “oh please, you flatter me.”
She placed her own piece.
Tobirama smiled gently, but did not respond. He took his turn, a wooden piece clacking onto the board.
“It really is a shame your talents are wasted here,” Kameyo mused, “you were always my best student. Lord knew I tried to teach that brother of yours, but he couldn’t ever get it.”
Her clouded eyes trailed slowly over the board.
“What moves people,” she drawled, voice dropping in volume, “what brings them down… He could kill just fine. He didn’t know how to destabilize, how to dismantle, how to destroy…”
Tobirama laughed lightly, “he has always been a little thickheaded, hasn’t he.”
“Just like his father, I swear! Bustuma didn’t have the mind for strategy. None of his children did either.”
Tobirama looked up through his lashes, smiling slyly, “please, give me some credit.”
Kameyo faked a gasp, “oh of course I didn’t mean you! You know I cherish you too much for that. I’ll give Hashirama credit, the best thing he ever did was hand the war over to you. He could have never done it, peace loving as he was.”
Kameyo placed a piece, taking one of Tobiramas.
“He never knew how to press a victory,” she continued on, “it's a hard lesson to learn, isn’t it. It roils the stomach of some.”
Tobirama moved a piece. Kameyo took it too.
“Butsuma at least knew that much,” Kameyo continued, “he could press a victory like no other, fierce man. But I guess some traits are not genetic.”
“I suppose not.”
“I’m glad you inherited some of his ruthlessness, I knew you were his son the moment you first killed a man. Others doubted it, but I knew. You could follow in his footsteps. None of his other children had the stomach.”
“I have always dared to do what others have feared to,” Tobirama replied, “that has never changed.”
Kameyo regarded him coolly, “Of course, of course.”
“Lady Kameyo?”
Kameyo looked up at him once more, sharp green eyes sliding over Tobirama’s stone-like face.
“Yes?” she asked.
This time, Tobirama was not smiling.
“I forget, since it was not a problem during Hashirama’s command as it was in Bustuma’s. Remind me, how did we deal with deserters?”
Kamayo hesitated for a moment.
“We killed them.” she replied slowly.
“And traitors?” Tobirama furthered.
She could not keep the coldness from her tone, “Killed and burned.”
Tobirama hummed softly, “I am drafting the paperwork for an elite group of Konoha shinobi, directly under the Hokage’s command. The Anbu will be responsible for everything that other shinobi do not have the skill or mettle for. As someone who orchestrated the assasination or traitors and competitors to Bustuma’s reign, what do you think?”
Kameyo swallowed thickly.
“I am retired-”
Tobirama laughed, “Your claws have by no means been dulled, Kameyo! My teacher is far too clever for that.”
Kameyo looked down at the shogi board and Tobirama’s sparse pieces.
“You’re throwing the game.” she said softly.
Tobirama leaned forward, still smiling amicably. “Am I?” he asked
Kameyo was a smart tactician.
She knew what a sacrificed pawn looked like. Before her stood a very dangerous one. She wasn’t dumb enough to challenge a man who didn’t care if he lived or died. There were few things more deadly, more unpredictable than that.
When Bustuma had come to her all those years with the order to kill a young Hatake man, Kameyo had not thought about how far reaching the effects of one little death would be. Now, she finally understood. A vengeful Hatake ghost sat before her with his wolf fangs fully bared. She suspected his claws had been buried in her for far longer than she could have ever known.
Kameyo had always hated Bustuma - he was stupid, erratic, and emotional. His only positive trait was his pure loathing for the Uchiha and unwavering commitment to wipe their bloodline from the face of the earth. Now, she hated him even more. Somehow, the accursed idiot had managed to spawn the monster of his own destruction. Years after they had killed that poor Hatake bastard, Bustuma had somehow managed to sire a son who was only his in one aspect, blood.
In everything else, Tobirama was a nightmare of his own making.
And Kameyo did not need the brain of a master tactician to gather what he was insinuating, nor grasp the certainty of it.
She closed her eyes, and drew her fan from her obi, fluttering it in front of her face.
“Interesting move, Tobirama, very interesting indeed.”