Arrow of Time
Dearest Tobira,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. It has been some time since I last heard from you as you did not reply to my previous letter. Please send word that you are doing well as soon as you are able, if only to set my mind at ease. I cannot help but worry about you when you are so far out of reach, brother.
You will be pleased to learn that the negotiations with the Sarutobi clan have come to an end. It took quite some compromise, and convincing Sarutobi Sasuke was no small feat, but we have come to a mutually beneficial agreement. I have attached an encrypted and abridged copy of the final contract for you. As expected, the merchants, farmers and traders are very pleased with our latest policies and have been very vocal about their support.
Not everyone is happy with all the changes, of course, but I really feel as though this could be the start to something good for us. Besides, knowing that you support this undertaking has given me all the reassurance I require. If the smartest person I know thinks this is a good idea, then I see no need to doubt myself.
As expected, introducing the children to the benefits of meditation was the right first step towards integrating the clan with the temple and shrine once more. I hope you do not mind, but I ended up using your fondness for kyudo to incite some more reluctant parties. Our more wary clansmen did not seem to believe me, but they appear to have been quelled for the time being. Perhaps this is due to your efforts in establishing a rapport with the ones who have been assigned to serve under the Daimyo?
I met with the head priestess of the shrine recently and she offered to hold a public ritual for the clan’s good fortune. The ceremony is set to take place on the night of the full moon. The Uzushio delegates look very intrigued by the whole thing. They have been telling me about their own gods and cults lately. I have managed to get them to mention Mito-him a few times as well, though I think they find it funnier to withhold information because it bothers me. I did not realise how cruel our sister clan can be.
I have missed hearing from you, so I hope you will not keep you poor old anija waiting any longer. Don’t forget your promise.
Love,
Senju Hashirama.
It is rare for Izuna to visit his mother’s family despite how frequently he makes the trip to the capital for the Uchiha’s dealings with other noble families and merchants.
Ordinarily, such deals and socialisation would be the responsibility of the clan head and their consort, but given Madara’s rather…unique and tempestuous disposition, it is unanimously agreed upon that Izuna is better off being the face of their clan to ensure the safety and prosperity of all parties involved. Even their father had known it—it is why he had ensured Izuna’s rigorous and unconventional education under his grandmother. All so that he could serve as his brother’s right hand in any and every way needed.
Always there and always ready to do what Madara can not or will not. That is Izuna’s purpose and duty.
And today that duty has brought him to his mother’s ancestral home in the capital where his maternal grandmother has put together an impressive luncheon to celebrate his youngest cousin’s first birthday. Izuna mills about the banquet hall, joining relevant discussion with a practiced charm and subtle grace, hiding all true intention behind a paper fan that he serves as his weapon of choice for the day.
“You always creep me out when you do that,” his cousin Banri notes with a wary sneer when Izuna rejoins him at the family table a few hours in. “You’re such a liar, Izuna-kun.”
“Better a liar than an outcast,” Izuna retorts pointedly, snapping his fan shut and hiding the carefully painted bamboo stalks from view. “You haven’t left your little hiding hole since the party started, dear cousin. This is why obaasan likes me more.”
Banri snorts and raises his teacup in acquiesce. If he is perturbed by Izuna’s words, it does not show on his face. He knows how to lie just as well as the rest of them, after all, though he may like to pretend he is above such social manoeuvring. A hypocrite; just like anyone else in this room. He is Izuna’s favourite cousin on his late mother’s side of the family.
Sliding into place beside the older man, Izuna comments, “I’m surprised you showed up at all.”
“Obaasan threatened to cut off my allowance if I skipped another event,” Banri admits with a disgruntled scoff. “I’d much rather—”
“—be holed up in one of your little libraries,” Izuna finishes, rolling his eyes. “Yes, yes, we all know just how much of a legendary scholar you are, nii-san.”
“You just don’t understand, Izuna-kun,” Banri protests, almost knocking over his teacup with how his flaps his sleeves carelessly. “I can’t let my guard down for even a second. Do you know how easy it is to be replaced in this field? Anyone—commoner or nobility—can become a scholar with the right resources if they’re smart enough. That’s a lot of competition to content with.”
Izuna casts a brief glance at his impassioned cousin before turning his attention back to loading his plate with outrageously expensive venison. “Don’t they call you a genius?”
Because Izuna truly can’t seem to escape them no matter where he goes. From Madara to that mokuton wielding bastard to Senju-fucking-Tobirama and even Hasegawa Banri, Izuna seems to be the only idiot still refusing to be left behind by the giants of his time.
Not that that’s relevant right now or anything.
Banri scowls down at the rippling surface of the tea in his cup as though it will somehow turn into sake if he simply wills hard enough. “Sure,” he mumbles dispassionately. “That was before darling Tobirama showed up.”
Izuna is unable to help it; he startles at the name and chokes, dissolving into a painful coughing fit that earns him disapproving or amused glances from much of the room. He ignores the attention where he might have normally bristled, too preoccupied with gaping at his cousin. “Who?”
Frowning in bemusement, Banri says, “Tobirama. Senju Tobirama.”
“What the fuck is he doing here?”
Banri arches a brow and inclines his head. “You know him?”
It is all Izuna can do to refrain from rolling his eyes so hard that they roll right out of his skull. He knows Banri is a sheltered little scientist who lives with his head in his books, too occupied by his little theories and experiments to pay attention to anything else, but sometimes Izuna forgets just how out of touch his idiot cousin really is.
Dryly, he says, “The Uchiha have only been at war with the Senju for some hundreds of years, nii-san. We’ve been trying to kill each other since we were nine.”
At least Banri has the decency to look appropriately sheepish. “Ah. Perhaps it is a different Senju Tobirama?”
As if Izuna could ever be that lucky. “What is that freak even doing here? Is he still in the capital?”
Not that it will do him much good even if Tobirama truly is in the capital. Shinobi are banned from bringing their conflicts into the Daimyo’s home territory after all.
“He only comes on the second week of every month.” Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Banri adds, “I didn’t even know he’s a shinobi. Is he…dangerous?”
“Deadly,” Izuna confirms grimly. He charitably does not point out that even the likes of a six-year-old shinobi could probably kill Banri with a blunt spoon with little to no trouble for how much of a challenge the older man would pose to someone in their line of work.
Banri pales and pushes his plate away. “Oh,” he says. “I heard the Uzumaki royal family are sponsoring him. I thought…”
“You thought he was a civilian?” Izuna can’t help the disbelief in his voice.
In his defence, he has no idea how anyone could look at Senju Tobirama and not immediately peg him as a threat. Tobirama doesn’t even try to pretend to be normal. Something about him has always just felt…off. Cold. Distant. Calculating. There’s a reason people mistook him for some sort of yokai when he first started running solo missions and fighting on the frontlines.
Banri flushes. “How was I supposed to know?” he argues, crossing his arms. “He’s a fucking expert in quantum mechanics and metaphysics at eighteen. The University professors are practically singing his praises from the rooftops. He’s working on the theory of a cosmological constant that defines the energy density of space, Izuna-kun. He is literally reinterpreting the field equations of general relativity to do it. Forgive me for thinking that anyone who conducts that degree of research could be anything but a full time scholar.”
Izuna stares, something cold sinking in his gut. “…he’s a scholar,” he repeats dully. “A physicist.”
Because of course he is. Of course, Senju Tobirama apparently spends his free time rubbing elbows with only the brightest minds of the continent’s most exclusive science university—threatening elite scholars just as easily as he does elite shinobi. Of course, he has time to be working out cosmological constants while Izuna goes out of his mind just trying to keep up with whatever new technique or strategy Tobirama has decided to invent. Of course, he isn’t even trying that hard.
All this time, Izuna had thought he was doing fine. He was keeping pace and giving that bastard a run for his money, when apparently, Senju-fucking-Tobirama has had enough leisure time to invest into becoming a scientist on the side as some sort of hobby. Where did he even learn quantum mechanics? When?
And what the fuck is this about the Uzumaki royal family sponsoring him?
“He isn’t even just a physicist,” Banri grunts. “Apparently he’s taking an accelerated course directly under the head of the biochemistry department.”
Izuna is going to stab himself with his fucking chopsticks.
“Fuck this,” he says, all of his grace abandoned as he sneers in a way that he knows would have his grandmother smacking him over the head. “Fuck that Senju demon. Literally, fuck this.”
Banri lifts his empty teacup. “I’ll drink to that, cousin.”
Fucking fine. Whatever. Let Tobirama run around playing scholar on the Uzumaki’s ryo. So what if he is apparently some sort of prodigal physicist? None of it is going to matter when Izuna runs him through with his sword one day. None of it is going to matter when the Uchiha finally, finally grind the Senju scum into the dirt.
Because Tobirama might be more of a genius than Izuna expected but that will mean nothing if Tobirama isn’t home to put his skills to use for the sake of his clan.
Hashirama watches the dancing flickers of light cast by the strings of painted lanterns hanging overhead and smiles, breathing in the scent of the fresh flowers used as decoration as he basks in the excitement of his clansmen enjoying the festival. There is music in the air, accompanied by the sounds of laughter and dance, and he is content.
In an hour, the miko from the Hachiman shrine will conduct the purification ritual using their azusa yumi, and Hashirama will have succeeded in his endeavour to raise interest in the shrine and boost the influence of the chief priestess.
It is a happy bonus that the Uzumaki delegation seems to be thoroughly enjoying the festivities as well, enthralled by rows upon rows of floral arrangements visible at every turn. Hashirama tries not to preen too visibly, but he is rather pleased with how his hard work has paid off on that particular front.
Tobirama would make some sarcastic comment about Hashirama’s inflated ego if he were here. Maybe Hashirama should preserve one of the flowers from tonight and send it along with his next letter. He thinks his brother would enjoy that even if he will never admit it. He knows that Tobirama is partial to the feel of Hashirama’s chakra and how densely present it is in his mokuton constructs.
Chakra signatures can be very telling about their owners if one knows to hone in on their instincts correctly. Hashirama vaguely wonders what Uzumaki Mito thought of him infusing his signature into his present to her family. He wonders what her chakra might feel like.
Salty, perhaps? Like the sea her home is built upon. Cold like Tobirama, or warm like his own? Or maybe—
“Hashirama!”
He blinks, turning around to face whoever is so frantically trying to call for his attention. When he realises that it is Touka, he tries not to let his heart sink. She volunteered to lead the patrol squads today—the fact that she is here with such a look of agitation on her face means nothing good for them.
“What is it?” he asks, mouth already set into a harsh line. “What has happened?”
“We’ve received word from Sakurai-san,” Touka reports. “He sensed a large force of Uchiha shinobi moving in our direction. They hid their signatures before he could pinpoint the exact number or location, but there is no mistaking it.” Her face is cold as stone, eyes like flint. “We must brace ourselves for an attack.”
The world goes silent around Hashirama as he stares at her, almost uncomprehending. “An attack,” he repeats slowly. “On our compound?”
Neither side has advanced this far in almost two generations. This is a massive escalation. Hashirama had thought they were doing well. These past months have been the longest they have gone without conflict with the Uchiha. What brought this on now? He’d thought he and Madara had—well, not peace perhaps, but something close to it. Mutual non-interference? An unofficial truce?
Not for the first time, Hashirama feels helpless in the face of that which is lost between him and his oldest friend.
“We don’t have much time, Hashirama,” Touka states grimly. “I’ve sent out orders to gather all available shinobi and have them fortify our defences. You need to put out an announcement and start moving civilians to the shelters.”
He grimaces, eyes closing. “The shelters haven’t been used in decades.” They should still be functional, but it is likely their capacity and equipment simply will not be enough. Exhaling, he opens his eyes and rolls his shoulders. “Call back our patrol squads. Send word to the armoury. I will start on evacuation. Our walls cannot be allowed to fall, Touka.”
She nods. “Roger that. By Sakurai-san’s estimate, we have fifteen minutes to prepare.”
“We’d better make the best of them then.”
His cousin’s eyes look like flint under the light of the lanterns. “They had to have planned this, Hashirama,” Touka says quietly, meaningfully. “You know what this means.”
He does. As much as he hates it, Hashirama does know what this means. He breathes carefully, centres himself and nods once. “I will see you at the gates soon, Touka,” he says, and it is an order.
She dips her head in deference and turns to prepare their soldiers into some semblance of a defence. Hashirama does not watch her go.
Instead, he allows himself a final moment, just one, to close his eyes and bow his head. “O Great Bodhisattva of Arms,” Hashirama murmurs in quiet prayer, “I beseech thy blessing upon my blood and my name.” It may not be much, but it will have to do.
Hashirama prepares for war.
Contrary to popular belief, Madara finds no real pleasure in battle.
Sparring is different, and fighting someone of equal strength is a rare delight that he relishes in if only because he gets to stretch rarely used muscles and truly push himself to test limits that he himself rarely gets to see.
But neither of those things come at the cost of anyone but himself.
Battle—war—is not so kind. A clash between clans will always result in more casualties than Madara is willing to accept. Death is inevitable and he struggles to come to grips with the fact that he alone cannot control any battlefield enough to prevent this. That, for all his genius, he is not smart or strong enough to keep his clansmen’s blood from shedding.
And yet, none of that changes how they stand at the precipice of yet another skirmish, creeping through the forest on nigh silent feet, the uchiwa branded into their armours glinting under the silver light of the full moon. A force of fifty for an ambush that they have spent weeks planning to perfection.
It is necessary, Madara tells himself. The Senju have been making uncharacteristic moves while laying suspiciously low for months now. Joining hands with Uzumaki and Sarutobi, arranging frequent meetings with merchant clans and information guilds, scuttling around Uchiha patrols with a pointed avoidance. It must mean something. They have to be biding their time while they plan something big.
It might leave a bad taste in his mouth, but Madara would take that over whatever fallout will result from ignoring such signs. He simply does not have the luxury of naivety or inaction. Not when the weight of the lives of his clan rests on his shoulders alone. He can’t have them pay the price for his indecision.
So, before, the Senju can spring whatever trap they are trying to lay out, the Uchiha will simply have to nip the scheme in the bud and act first.
They cross the river, breaching Senju territory. The tall walls of the enemy compound lie ahead. The night is quiet as death, as if in wait. Fifty pairs of sharingan gleam in the dark. Madara flicks his fingers in a silent signal.
They advance.
Immediately, it becomes clear that the enemy has been alerted and is waiting for them as a wave of arrows is fired off from the top of the walls. Madara splits off the group, leaping ahead and brandishing his gunbai, waving the arrows out of the way and following up with a concentrated fire jutsu that forces the archers to scatter lest they risk some serious burns.
It is annoying that Hashirama long since figured out how to increase the water content in his mokuton to make his constructs more resistant to fire. Unless Madara increases the temperature of his own flame (a feat requiring lots of focus and precision), the wood will not burn. In today’s plan, however, dealing with these walls is someone else’s job. All Madara needs to do is make it past them.
For someone of his caliber, it is a simple enough task to blow past everything in his path with all the force of an inferno. Madara plows through the defensive forces stationed at the walls and lands squarely behind them, feet planting firmly upon Senju grounds.
No Uchiha has breached this far into enemy territory for nearly a century. Their limited records on the Senju compound are hopelessly outdated. He can’t help but pause for a moment to simply take it in, curious in spite of himself.
Lit by rows of lanterns and adorned with long strings of sweet smelling flowers even this far into autumn, the compound clearly seems to be decorated for some sort of occasion. Madara frowns. Despite the suggestion of the décor, the rows of neat buildings are ghostly silent, not a flicker of life in them. The only people around seem to be shinobi thrown together in a hasty defense that quickly falls apart under his barrage.
Before he can get any further into the compound though, a wave of familiar chakra washes over the battlefield, ripe with an uncharacteristic killing intent so potent, it sets Madara’s teeth on edge. He whirls around and leaps away just in time to avoid a massive root bursting out of the ground, aiming directly for him.
“Madara,” Hashirama greets, voice lowered into a snarl that matches the wild—almost feral—look in his eyes. There is pain there, plain as daylight for Madara’s sharingan to pick up on, but above all else, there is a fury that Madara has yet to have pointed at him despite their years of clashing against one another.
‘Good,’ he thinks grimly. It is about time Hashirama gave up on pretenses and childish fantasies that would never come to pass. Perhaps now that Madara has crossed some line in the sand, setting fire to Hashirama’s very home, the so-called God of Shinobi will finally face him as a true enemy. It was always going to happen regardless of what they might have wanted as boys.
“Hashirama,” he returns, already weaving handsigns for his next jutsu.
The resultant katon is one he personally developed, well beyond the capability of the average shinobi, and yet, it barely even seems to register to Hashirama as an attack. The other man simply continues to stare at Madara like he is looking at some sort of ghost even as they dodge and snake around each other in a practiced dance.
It is…aggravating to say the least.
The familiarity of Hashirama’s regard, the weight of his disappointment and grief now—Madara hates that it still manages to affect him at all. That some part of him feels the echoes of the same loss that is written so plainly on Hashirama’s face.
“How could you?” Hashirama asks, striking out with his sword, the attack forcing Madara back. “My people—my home. I think you my friend, Madara.”
Gritting his teeth, Madara leaps away and draws his sword, snapping, “Wake up, Hashirama! I am an Uchiha and you a Senju. There can be nothing but hatred and blood between us.”
“You’re wrong,” Hashirama insists, meeting with his own blade, the resultant screaming of metal against metal sounding over the noise of battle as they clash in the eye of the storm. “There will be nothing but hatred if you never believe in the possibility of something else.”
“There can be nothing else.” Sooner or later, Hashirama will have to see it too.
Something flickers in his once-friend’s eyes, quickly lost in the reflection of the flames rising up in the Senju compound. “You certainly are trying your best to make it so,” Hashirama says, voice low and dark, vicious in the way he uses brute force alone to drive Madara away from the heart of the compound.
The accusatory nature of his statement is agitating. “We are at war, Hashirama.”
“Because you refuse to let us have anything more!”
“Don’t act as though you are so blameless,” Madara spits back. “We have not fought this war alone.”
Hashirama lets out a noise of frustration, waving his hand and causing massive branches to break earth to his call. Madara curses as his clansmen are forced to break rank under the onslaught. On reflex, he casts a glance around to check on Izuna. Since the White Demon is not here today, there is less reason to worry. Even so, Madara needs to make sure.
He barely manages to find his brother—engaged by the kunoichi who uses the naginata and wields genjutsu like an Uchiha. Still alive. Not gaining much ground against one of Hashirama’s generals.
“Not alone, no,” Hashirama agrees, very purposefully trying to keep the rest of the Uchiha at bay even as he engages with Madara, who does his best to make the best of his opponent’s divided attention by assisting his own clansmen where he can. “Do you know how many attacks the Senju have led since I succeeded my father, Madara?”
Madara pauses, caught off-guard by the inquiry. He isn’t sure, he realizes. All he recalls is the fact that they clashed at all, but details regarding who started it hardly matter once everything is said and done. He could name every clan member they have lost since he came into power, including the battle that they fell in, but pointing fingers has lost meaning in the Senju-Uchiha conflict after all these generations. They have wronged each other too much to even begin to parse through the specifics.
Hashirama seems to have expected his uncertainty because he answers his own question in the next heartbeat. “Eight. In the two years I have led the Senju, we incited conflict eight times against your clan.”
It takes more effort than Madara will ever admit to stop himself from freezing. Eight times, if Hashirama is to be believed. Madara might not know who started which battle, but he knows how many they have fought. If his old friend is not lying to him (and Madara does not know what to do with this unshaking faith in Hashirama though he knows better, he does.) then that means that—
“I have tried, Madara. My hand will always remain open to you, but I do not know how to keep holding onto nothing. I do not know what you expect me to do when you refuse me at every turn and force us to engage in a war that I do not believe in. A war I am trying to lay to rest as best as I know how.”
Madara stares. “You are lying,” he says, though he knows even as he speaks the words that he is wrong. “You’re lying to me.”
“I have never lied to you,” Hashirama refutes, and there is that disgusting grief in his eyes again that makes Madara’s skin crawl.
“If this is some sort of scheme, Senju—”
“There is no scheme, Madara. There never has been,” Hashirama interrupts softly. “Today, you have led your twentieth attack against me and my own. That is the truth.”
For a moment, they are suspended in stillness. Madara watches his enemy—his friend—and Hashirama does not flinch away from the scarlet of his sharingan, meeting the scarlet of his gaze as though he has nothing to fear at all.
Madara straightens, hand rising to fire off a flare that burns like a star streaking through the dark night. “Retreat!” he calls, because it will do him no good to clash against Hashirama when he feels so off-kilter for a reason he knows by heart but cannot name.
He turns tail (back showing because even now he cannot help this foolish trust in Hashirama that he will not harm Madara when he has his back turned) and leaps back over the Senju compound’s wall, barrelling through the line of enemy shinobi with nothing but brute force, lighting a path for his clan to follow in as they make to disappear back into the expanse of forest that lies between the Senju and Uchiha territories.
Hashirama’s unyielding gaze follows him as far as it can go, an accusation screaming in his silence. He does not stop Madara.