Gravitational Lensing
“Oh, Tobirama, you’re back!” Hashirama cheers, shooting from his desk and practically flying across his office with how quickly he makes it over to his brother. “How was your trip? You took so long to get back; I was getting worried!”
Tobirama blinks even as Hashirama starts fussing over his dusty travel clothes, remarking about how Tobirama looks like he has lost weight. When he gets like this, his brother easily beats him for the monicker of ‘fastest ninja’. “I apologise for extending my trip on short notice. My grandmother asked a favour of me.”
Hashirama waves away the apology, absently cloaking them both in his rainforest-daybreak-willow-storm, the soft affection and delight he is feeling becoming even more pronounced as they circle around Tobirama’s senses. “No worries. I heard she asked you to deal with a disease outbreak of some sort.”
“Yes,” Tobirama confirms, rolling his eyes but letting his brother turn his head this way and that as per the requirements of his impromptu inspection. “The Hatake have been contracted to guard the refugee settlement Hinan, and they had an unfortunate situation with measles. I designed a vaccine for them before my departure.”
Gasping, Hashirama claps his hands together. “Oh, that’s amazing, Tora!” he remarks, eyes gleaming. “How remarkable! Our medical hall will surely be interested in picking your brain for that. I suppose the Daimyo might find this information useful as well. I must write to him as soon as possible.”
“Anija,” Tobirama cuts in before Hashirama get carried away any further, “Izuna was there.” For a moment, Hashirama’s face is blank with incomprehension. Tobirama emphasises, “Uchiha Izuna.”
Immediate horror. “Uchiha Izuna?!” Hashirama repeats, his voice reaching an impressive pitch for a grown man. “What? Why? Are you okay? Did you have to fight? Did he hurt you? Are you injured somewhere?”
Tobirama bats his fluttering hands away; he has already put up with one inspection with good grace, he doesn’t have the patience for another. “I’m fine,” he states. “We didn’t fight, don’t worry. I was there as a physician and even the Uchiha couldn’t afford to mess with me when their own shinobi needed treatment as well.”
“The Uchiha were in Hinan.” Hashirama frowns, something unreadable in the set of his mouth. “And you…helped them?”
“Well, yes.”
Hashirama blinks. “But why?”
Eyebrows rising, Tobirama inclines his head and asks, “Would you rather I didn’t?”
“No!” Hashirama flaps his hands quickly. “I only meant—well, I would think that you might find it more cautionary to reduce their soldiers. It wouldn’t have even been your doing, really. I’m just surprised.”
“They would have blamed me for withholding treatment all the same, and they wouldn’t be wrong in doing so,” Tobirama points out. “This way, at least, they know that the Senju truly want no animosity with them anymore and that I’m willing to look past old grudges to perform my duty. Besides,” he shrugs, “I was there at my grandmother’s behest as a Hatake representative. It would have complicated matters for everyone because of a conflict that isn’t theirs.”
Making a hum of acknowledgment, Hashirama chews on his lip. “And Izuna didn’t try anything?”
“We argued,” Tobirama says honestly, “but no physical altercation took place between us.” He pauses, weighing the benefits and drawbacks of hiding the trial of honour from his brother. On one hand, it would mean peace of mind for both of them for now, but if Hashirama happens to learn the truth at any point later down the line…Tobirama sighs. “There was a duel, though,” he admits. “Between me and Hatake Rei. He used to be my uncle’s apprentice.”
Hashirama’s eyes nearly bulge right out of their sockets. “Masa-san’s apprentice challenged you to a duel,” he repeats faintly, his tanned complexion gaining a pale undertone. “You—I really can’t leave you alone, can I? Tobirama, if you keep getting into trouble like this, you’re going to kill your poor old anija; my heart can’t take this. What even happened?”
“He demanded a trial of honour because he believes it my fault that Masa-san left.” Tobirama purses his lips. “The matter has been settled now. It will not be brought up again.”
A pause as Hashirama digests this information. “Did you…?”
“He’s alive,” Tobirama supplies.
The flicker of some unreadable emotion crosses through his brother’s dark eyes. “I see.” Hashirama sighs. “Well, in any case, I should let you go home now. You’ve clearly had…an eventful time. Some rest would do you well. Thank you for coming to see me first.”
Recognising the dismissal for what it is, Tobirama dips his head and says, “Of course.”
As he turns to head out of the door, however, he is stopped by Hashirama calling his name. He looks over his shoulder to find his brother aiming a small but sincere smile at him.
“I forgot to say it earlier, but welcome back, Tobirama.”
Tobirama blinks, allowing a small smile as he nods and reaches out with his own glacier-thunder-nightfall-snow, transferring a trace of safe-thankful-warm-home-is-wherever-i-am-with-you to Hashirama to make up for words he has never been good at saying.
“I’m home.”
“Oh, my, is that our esteemed clan heir himself?”
Tobirama pauses, unsurprised to find Touka waving him over from the edge of the dock leading to the lake. “You have a mission to leave for before noon. Is it really a wise idea to be drinking tonight?”
His cousin waves him off and beckons for him to sit down beside her. “I’ll be fine,” she dismisses. “A night like this just calls for some sake, you know.”
He eyes the bottle she offers and shakes his head in polite rejection. “If you say so.”
Touka looks at him amused and says, “One would think you would have developed the taste for alcohol by now.”
Wrinkling his nose, he looks away. “I don’t think I ever will,” he comments with surety, “and I enjoy the feeling of inebriation even less.”
A look of understanding crosses Touka’s face. “Messes with your sensing, right? I forgot. My bad.”
He shrugs. It is common among natural sensors to lose control over their abilities when intoxicated and get sick from the overwhelming input they’re constantly having to block or sift through on the daily. Tobirama learned the hard way that he is no exception and has been careful to stay away from all inebriants ever since.
“Well, if you’re not looking for a drink, why are you up at this time of night?” Touka asks, idly kicking her feet in the still water and sending ripples through the reflection of the full moon on its surface.
Tobirama watches the ripples. “I was at the shrine.”
“Kyudo?” Touka asks, staring at him incredulously when he hums in confirmation. “Seriously? It’s almost midnight.” Her eyes narrow, zeroing in on his face despite the way he dodges her searching gaze. “Nightmare,” she concludes with a frown directed at the shadows starting to show under his eyes. “Bad one too. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
Tobirama sighs in acknowledgement of his defeat. Touka has always had good intuition when it comes to reading him. “Unfortunately, no, not since I’ve returned from my trip,” he admits. It’s getting to the point where he has taken to extending his sensing full time to track the Uchiha’s positions for his own peace of mind. Tobirama hasn’t needed to rely on doing that as a source of managing his paranoia in quite some time.
Frown deepening, Touka makes a vague noise low in her throat. “Is something wrong?”
“Not really,” he says, and it’s the truth. All things considered, he’s doing rather well for himself and has no unusually active perpetrators for stress that would result in nightmares.
Touka doesn’t look particularly convinced by his claim, pressing her lips into a thin line. “Nothing happened on your trip, did it? Or did Hashirama say something again?”
Levelling her with a pointed look for admonishing their clan head so casually even in private, Tobirama rolls his eyes. “I told you—everything is fine. Nothing traumatic occurred during my visit, and I’ve never lost sleep over anything anija has ever said to me.”
“I guess,” Touka relents with obvious reluctance. “He has been running around singing your praises to anyone who’d listen, so I did think the both of you were doing fine, but I also know you’ve struggled plenty with each other and I couldn’t be sure.”
It’s a startling reminder that Tobirama hasn’t given much thought to since his memories reoriented themselves to allow for all the future information. Though he can recognise that his most vivid recollections are the ones from this timeline before his quantum leap disrupted it and that he feels too…young to be the man he remembers becoming, Tobirama also remembers enough that it is instinctive to act on the future information he has on hand. An interesting side effect of that, it seems, is the way this phantom experience colours his interactions with his brother now.
At this age, they’d both been in difficult positions and supported different ideologies with regards to how their clan should be led. Tobirama hadn’t understood what Hashirama’s peace looks like and had instead resented him for putting him in a position where he had to master the delicate balancing act of corroborating with the warmongering faction while also keeping their power in check enough to curb anything even mildly treasonous. In return, Hashirama had seen their father in Tobirama and had never let his guard down on principle, resulting in frequent clashes and hurtful barbs from both sides.
Only with the establishment of peace and the distance of maturity and age had they managed to come to a truer understanding of each other. Hashirama had learned to navigate Tobirama’s harsh edges and read in between the lines when Tobirama couldn’t bring himself to be honest about his heart, and Tobirama learned to handle his brother’s reactive emotions with patience and care.
It is an easy instinct now that Tobirama knows the way to inculcate it, and without even realising it, he has employed it to soothe his relationship with Hashirama ahead of its natural course.
He inclines his head skywards and thinks this over before carefully saying, “I understand him better now.”
“This is about the war,” Touka notes.
“It’s about peace actually,” Tobirama corrects quietly.
Her searching gaze remains fixed on his profile for clues he does not provide. “I thought you believed the notion to be foolish,” she probes, tone entirely neutral.
Tobirama smiles wryly. “And now I think there might be some merit to the foolishness.” He shrugs. “I’m not fond of the high risk involved, but I suppose no reward comes for free.”
“That’s rather unlike you,” Touka comments, face unreadable. “What brought on this change?”
“Anija,” he states factually.
His cousin’s dark eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Did he say something to you?”
“Only that he wouldn’t know how to live through losing me.”
Quietly, Touka says, “He is strong.”
“His heart is fragile,” Tobirama counters. “He would survive almost anything, I understand, but that wouldn’t mean he would be living. I refuse to be the reason he loses that chance.” He had seen once how Hashirama had seemed to wither away after Madara’s death, and he would never cause his brother the same suffering if he can help it. He meets Touka’s eyes and states, “I would do anything for him, you know that.”
“That shouldn’t come at the cost of yourself though,” she insists softly.
It must be harder for her to understand, strong-willed Senju that she is. They have all been raised to believe that there is no higher price to pay than the sacrifice of one’s own beliefs, and just like the rest of their clan, Touka’s foremost loyalty is to her ideals. To her, this would seem like Tobirama setting aside his core values for his brother.
And she isn’t correct in this instance, but the assumption itself is true. Tobirama would pay that price if needed. He already did in one life, and he would do it as many times as needed. In this way, at least, he is all Hatake. Tobirama’s loyalty lies with his love and not his ethics—it is given away, and he is willingly bound to it. He doesn’t know any other way.
He fixes his cousin with a wan smile. “You’re overthinking it—things aren’t nearly so complicated.”
Touka sighs and turns back to her bottle of sweet smelling alcohol. “I can’t help but worry about you. Someone has to, after all.”
“Thank you for taking on such a harrowing task, oh noble warrior,” Tobirama drawls insincerely, rolling his eyes.
That earns him an immediate slap to the back of the head and a warning glare. “You should be grateful,” she scolds.
“I said ‘thank you’, didn’t I?”
“Shut up!”
“Lots of mixed messages from you tonight, Touka. Maybe you are drunk.”
Kagami yelps as his foot slips against the wet mud, barely managing to right himself as he throws himself forward despite how it twists his ankle awkwardly and causes a jolt of pain to flare up his leg, heart hammering in his ears and blinking water out of his eyes. He doesn’t even know if its rainwater, tears or sweat anymore; he lost track ages ago. His pursuers have only drawn closer to his tail, and it hasn’t left him able to think of much else other than getting away.
Not that it’s going too well. Kagami has the sinking feeling that unless something miraculous happens right about now, the bloodline thieves chasing him will catch up soon. He may be the fastest among his peers, but Kagami is only six. He has done his best to outpace the adults after him, but he’s already starting to lose speed and he gets the horrible idea that they might just be toying with him like the bakeneko mess around with mice they catch sometimes.
“Give it up, little Uchiha,” a voice taunts him, and Kagami startles at how much closer it is than he expected it to be. “How about we stop playing this game, hm? If you come with us quietly, maybe I’ll even give you a little treat.”
A hand clamps down onto his shoulder, nails digging into skin, and Kagami cries out as he tugged into a vice-like grip. “No!”
“Stop squirming, you brat,” comes the hissed reprimand.
That just makes him struggle harder, though it all seems to be in vain. The man holding him is much stronger than Kagami, and he isn’t kind in his hold, bruising and twisting in whatever way to get his captive to stop moving.
Kagami is crying for sure now, unable to help it. His wrists, ankle and shoulder hurt, he is surrounded by a group of five armed adults all eyeing him with hungry leers, and he doesn’t see any way out of this situation. Bloodline hunters are among the worst fates an Uchiha can meet, even more so for Uchiha children. Kagami should have never left the compound.
And then, out of nowhere, there is a startled cry of pain and a spray of blood as one of the hunters fall to his knees with wide eyes and a slit throat. Kagami stares, numb with fear, feeling his stomach churn painfully at the metallic smell of blood that fills the air.
Standing there with his blade still drawn is a tall man with hair that glints like silver under the pale moonlight. Carved into his sword is the Senju clan symbol. It flashes in the light as he lifts the sword into an arc, bringing it down swiftly to cut right through the arm of another hunter, his face a perfect mask of cool imperceptibility.
Kagami cringes away from the horrible scene, eyes squeezing shut while he tries desperately to swallow down the taste of bile filling his mouth as pained screams fill the night. There are the sounds of an ensuing scuffle, the whistling of a sharpened blade cutting through the air, the clashing of metal against metal, the horrible wet sounds of open wounds and the consequent calls of pain.
He doesn’t know what happens in the time his eyes are closed, but as soon as Kagami feels the grip on him loosening, he wrenches himself away and stumbles back. The Senju is upon the hunter in that very instant, immediately making the most of the opening Kagami inadvertently provided with his escape. There is the singing of blades meeting, the quickness of precise motions that Kagami only barely catches even with his newly sharpened vision, the shout of alarm as the hunter is stabbed fatally.
And then there is silence. There is only the rain pattering against the leaves, the distant rumbling of thunder, and Kagami’s own heart pounding unsteadily.
The man’s eyes snap to Kagami’s and the boy stills, instinctively holding his breath as crimson eyes catch on his.
He has never met this man, but he knows without needing to be told who is standing before him: The White Demon. Senju Tobirama.
Somehow, even with the men hunting him now dead, Kagami’s isn’t quite sure his odds of surviving this ordeal have risen by any appreciable amount.
Without his meaning to, a whimper tears out of his throat, and he hurries to clamp his hands over his mouth to muffle it. The endeavour is fruitless because now that he has started, he can’t seem to make himself stop. His breath catches and stutters painfully in his chest, as though it is clogged behind the tears that he is helpless against no matter how furiously he tries to blink them out of his vision.
“I’m sorry,” he says, swiping at his face. “I’m sorry. Please—” his breath hitches— “please don’t hurt me.”
He is startled out of his panic by a touch of cool chakra against his, and instinctively, Kagami shrinks away from it. The chakra follows insistently, twining with Kagami’s citrus-starburst-ozone-embers and running even circles around it in an almost meditative pattern. Surrounded as he is by the glacier-thunder-nightfall-snow, Kagami is cocooned in the feelings of safe-stable-stagnant-calm that are not his own but serve to lure him out of his fright, nonetheless.
“I mean you no harm, little one,” Senju Tobirama says, pushing sincerity into the blanket of his chakra. He doesn’t look away from Kagami’s eyes as he lowers him slowly and pointedly drops his sword, holding his hands up to show that they are indeed empty. “You will be alright now. I will not hurt you.”
Even through the daze of this heady coolness, Kagami has enough presence of mind to express his suspicion at that. “But you’re a Senju.”
“And you are a child,” the man refutes in the same low, even tone. “I would never hurt a child.” Perhaps he sees the conflict still playing out on Kagami’s face because he adds, “The Senju and Uchiha have an official agreement that children are not to be brought into the war between us. You are not my enemy. I will not harm you.”
Kagami swallows hard. “I—” his voice breaks around a sob. “I want to go home.”
Tobirama’s entire face goes soft at that and it makes something in Kagami’s chest hurt even more. “I know, child. It is alright. We’ll get you home.”
“I don’t know the way,” Kagami admits, wiping at his face.
“I do,” Tobirama says. “I can take you. Will you let me?”
Sniffling, Kagami peers at the man. “You’ll help me? Really?” he asks, unable to help the blooming hope in him.
“Yes. I promise.” Tobirama pauses. “Are you hurt?”
As if in reminder, Kagami’s ankle throbs. It feels hot and tender, and he winces. “I fell,” he says lamely by way of explanation. “My arm hurts too.”
Tobirama hums, mouth going a little pinched as he eyes Kagami’s ankle. “May I take a look?”
Kagami bites his lip and twists his fingers into the material of his shirt. “Will it hurt?”
“Not for long,” Tobirama answers.
Considering this for a moment, Kagami nods his assent. “Okay.”
Tobirama approaches him slowly and crouches down, hands glowing a strange pale green where they are carefully clasped around Kagami’s wrists. This time, Tobirama’s chakra feels like nothing but a tingly coolness that spreads through his system and makes him shudder a little. It pools around Kagami’s forearm, and the boy watches with wide eyes as the bruises there fade away back into pale unblemished skin.
“Woah,” he breathes. “That’s so cool! How’d you do that?”
“Iryo-ninjutsu is very handy,” Tobirama says. “A useful skill for any shinobi.”
“I’ve never seen anyone do that before,” Kagami gapes.
Tobirama doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he frowns and says, “Your ankle is sprained. You’re also running a fever.”
Kagami blinks and feels for his own forehead, though he can’t really tell. “I don’t feel sick,” he says.
“That would be thanks to the adrenaline in your system.”
“The adrela-what?”
“Ad-re-nal-ine,” Tobirama pronounces clearly. “It is a substance your body releases to help it respond to stressful situations.”
“Oh.” That makes sense. Kagami was definitely stressed. “Can’t you heal that?”
Tobirama regards him with a tilt to his head. “I can,” he admits slowly, “but it is advisable for children to ride out sicknesses on their own as much as possible to build immunity.”
Kagami blinks at another unfamiliar word. “What does that mean?”
“It is the ability to resist germs.”
“I know what those are!” Kagami says, clapping his hands together. “Mama said they’re what make us sick.”
“That’s right.” Tobirama’s mouth pulls into a small smile. “Very good.”
Kagami beams. “Then are we going home now?”
The man makes a vague noise and turns to look skywards as another bout of thunder claps overhead. “Let’s get you out of the rain first. The storm seems like it will only worsen for the night, but it should clear up by tomorrow. We’ll go back then.”
It’s not exactly what Kagami wanted to hear, but he is beginning to feel too tired to walk anymore. His legs are starting to hurt now, and he has a headache pulsing against his temples. Maybe Tobirama’s on to something. “You promise we’ll go home after?”
Gentle fingers card through his hair, moving the wet curls away from his face. “I promise.”
Kagami passes out almost as soon as Tobirama manages to find them a little cave to take shelter in, curled against the older shinobi to soak up his warmth. Even hours later, the child is shivering ever so slightly, but Tobirama doesn’t build a fire. There are no other pursuers that he will risk alerting, but he also doesn’t want to increase Kagami’s body temperature much further.
Instead, Tobirama starts to circulate his own chakra to thermoregulate and uses his body heat to keep the boy from feeling too cold. Sick children are fragile little things; they require a delicate balance in caretaking while still allowing development of their bodies’ natural defences. Tobirama has no fever reducers on him anyways; if he uses his usual means of attempting to burn the virus out of Kagami’s system, he could risk fatal overheating instead.
So, this will have to do for now. He will keep Kagami from getting too cold with his own heat and use the inherently cool nature of his chakra to slowly bring that fever down as much as he is able. And once the downpour has cleared by afternoon, they will make their way back towards the Uchiha compound where he will leave Kagami near a patrol squad.
There is a part of him that feels dissatisfaction at the thought of their separation being so soon after their reunion. The protective, possessive part of his mind that Tobirama inherited from his mother recognises Kagami as one of his from a lifetime worth of memories where Tobirama had cared for his students as he would his own children, and there is the instinct to keep the little one while he is so much smaller and helpless than Tobirama remembers him being, but he knows it is not yet his place.
He has done his part already by rescuing Kagami from the bloodline hunters. Any more would be presumptuous and put him in territory that is dangerously uncharted.
“To’rama-san? You’re still here.” Kagami slurs, stirring slightly and rubbing at his eyes, clearly still dazed from sleep.
Tobirama’s mouth twitches and he doesn’t resist the impulse to smooth Kagami’s unruly hair away from his face. “Yes, I am, Kagami-kun. How are you feeling?”
In response, Kagami yawns widely. “Tired,” he admits, shifting to press his cheek to Tobirama’s shoulder. “Is it still raining?”
“Yes.”
“So, we can’t go home yet.”
“I’m afraid so,” Tobirama confirms. “How did you end up so far from home in the first place?”
At this, Kagami flinches and Tobirama must exercise great amounts of patience not to sigh because he already knows he isn’t going to like whatever his troublesome student has to say. “I told Miki-chan it was a bad idea!” he bursts out insistently, sitting up straight and turning to stare at Tobirama as though begging to be believed. “I told her that we’d get into trouble because Mama told me never to leave the compound without a grown-up, but then Miki-chan said that it was safe now since they even reduced the number of guards and that I was a wuss. I am not a wuss so I said fine, and we all snuck out together and then Kaoru said we should play hide and seek, but I ended up getting lost and I couldn’t find anyone.” He falters, gaze lowering to his hands as he finishes, “And then the hunters found me, and I just started running even though I didn’t know where to go.”
Tobirama does sigh and wordlessly rubs Kagami’s back in comfort. “I’m sure you are aware you did a very bad thing by leaving your compound without permission.”
Shrinking, Kagami nods minutely. “I know.”
“When you go home, you will apologise to your mother for not listening to her very sound instructions and for worrying her,’ Tobirama says firmly. “You are very lucky I found you, little one.”
This has the boy blinking and peering up at him curiously. “How did you find me, Tobirama-san?”
“I am a sensor. I felt a child being chased and surrounded so I intervened.” It is mostly the truth, barring the fact that Tobirama knew full well exactly which child had needed his help.
“Oh,” Kagami says. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You’re welcome, Kagami-kun.”
“Can I be a sensor?” the boy asks next.
Tobirama inclines his head, amused because his student had asked him the very same thing when they first came under their mentor-apprentice arrangement in the future. “All shinobi can learn how to sense to some degree, although it requires quite a bit of control. Sensor type shinobi, however, have a much greater natural sensitivity to chakra signatures and can learn the skill almost instinctively.”
Kagami is predictably displeased by this information. “That seems unfair,” he huffs, cheeks puffing out.
“Well, it has its own sets of advantages and disadvantages,” Tobirama responds, shrugging. “Although sensing is an immensely useful skill, it can be overwhelming for natural sensors to learn how to navigate the constant input from their surroundings. Children, in particular, struggle with headaches and anxiety as a result if they are not taught control early on.”
Frowning, Kagami says, “Oh. I didn’t know that. Did you have a hard time too?”
“My mother was a sensor as well. She taught me how to control my abilities when I was very young. Even younger than you, in fact.”
“Really? My mama teaches me stuff too,” the boy informs. “I can already stick four leaves to my forehead, you know!” He deflates slightly. “Kaoru is already learning kata for taijutsu but mama won’t teach me yet. She says we have time before I need to learn.”
A result of their mutual bans on child soldiers, no doubt. While there are some who still train their children as though they will enter battlefields soon, there are also plenty of parents who have taken the opportunity to allow their children some leeway in training. Hashirama refuses to allow anyone below the age of fifteen to join his forces after all, and no one below the age of twelve can take missions outside Senju territory without supervision. Madara has enacted similar policies.
Tobirama does not tell Kagami that he’d already made his first kills by the time he’d reached the child’s age. Instead, he says, “Your mama is right. You are young yet, and you will learn in due time. There is no need to rush.”
“I guess,” Kagami allows in resignation, faced with an adult who obviously will not side with him.
Chuckling, Tobirama shakes his head. “Have you learned any katon yet, Kagami-kun?”
This manages to make the child deflate even further. “No,” he answers grumpily, crossing his arms. “They only have us do stupid breathing exercises all the time.”
“Well, power in katon comes from the breath, so that’s a very important foundation to develop,” Tobirama points out reasonably.
“Do you know katon, Tobirama-san?”
“Some,” he answers. “It is not my best element though, unfortunately, since my natural affinity is water.”
Leaning forwards, Kagami braces his hands against Tobirama’s shoulders and asks in awe, “You can use more than one?! The only people I know who can do that are Madara-sama and Izuna-sama!”
And how is Tobirama supposed to resist a little bragging when his rival is dragged into the equation. “I can use all five elements actually.”
“No way!” Kagami exclaims, clapping his hands delightedly, his eyes gleaming as though Tobirama admitted to personally hanging the stars in the sky. “Can I do that? Can you teach me?”
“One day, perhaps,” Tobirama says, unable to help but return Kagami’s smile. “With enough practice, I’m sure you will be able to do the same someday. However,” he adds before the child can get carried away, “for that, you must first practice your breathing exercises for katon very diligently since that is your affinity. Only when you fully understand and master your element can you move onto the others.”
“I will,” Kagami vows. “I really will, I promise. And then you have to teach me, okay? You swear?”
For any other shinobi, making such an oath would be an unwise thing to do. He is a Senju and the child in his lap is an Uchiha who is currently being raised to one day stand across from in war. But Tobirama is no ordinary man. He would do anything for his children, including founding the sturdiest foundations for peace that he could possibly build. Such a simple vow is nothing in the face of the undertaking he has already embarked upon.
Easy as breathing, he smiles and says, “I swear.”
Madara snaps out of his meditation as soon as Kagami’s signature enters his sensory range, accompanied by an adult signature that is also unfortunately rather familiar to him. Before he can even consciously decide on a course of action, Madara is leaping out of the training field, the ground cracking under the force of his jump, and tearing right over the walls of his compound to burst into the surrounding forest.
Kagami’s and Tobirama’s signatures remain on their path towards him at a downright leisurely pace, whereas Madara pushes himself to the very limits of his speed. The child has only been missing from their territory for just short of twenty-four hours, but that’s twenty-four hours too many in Madar’s opinion.
And now for him to turn up in the company of none other than the White Demon? Madara’s mind goes blank with white-hot rage and more than a little panic.
He sees them before he has finished his approach, sharingan spinning and sharpening his vision, and that is almost enough for Madara to falter because not only does Kagami look completely unharmed, but he is also outright skipping at Senju Tobirama’s side, smiling up at the man with guileless trust.
They’re holding hands, for Amaterasu’s sake. Tobirama is actually deigning to smile back.
The Senju tugs on Kagami’s hand to bring them to a stop as he crouches down to the boy’s height. Madara narrows his eyes and focuses on reading his lips as the man says, “Madara-sama is almost here. He will take you home now.”
Kagami’s face twists into a frown. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes,” the man says, and Madara has to swallow his own fear when he lifts his hand for a seemingly innocent pat to Kagami’s head. “Be good, Kagami-kun.”
Kagami nods. “Bye, Tobirama-san. Don’t forget your promise!”
Tobirama’s lips twitch into a smile. “I won’t,” he says. “Goodbye, little one.”
And then he honest-to-god disappears into thin air just as Madara breaks through the last of the distance to reach them.
“Where did he go?!” he demands, scanning through the trees furiously to find the bastard because he wouldn’t have gotten far enough to leave his sight with just a shunshin. But, no, Madara realises with a frown that he can’t register the Senju anywhere within his sensory range either, which means he has either hidden himself entirely somehow or managed to leave the Uchiha territory completely. Neither option should have been feasible, and yet.
Little Kagami blinks at his clan head. “He’s gone,” he states the obvious.
Madara turns his attention to the boy, quickly scanning him for any sign of injury. “Are you okay, Kagami-kun?” he asks, taking the child by the shoulders and turning his around to continue his inspection. “Did that bastard hurt you? Don’t you worry. I’ll bring you his head for daring to take you away from us. The lines he crossed—”
“Tobirama-san didn’t do anything to me!” Kagami shouts, wrenching himself away to glare at Madara. “He saved me. See?” He hands Madara a storage scroll—the kind they use to keep corpses in stasis for missions. “I got lost and a bunch of bloodline hunters found me, but Tobirama-san found me. He even healed me with jutsu, Madara-sama. Did you know that was possible? And then he helped with my fever and brought me back home just like he promised. You can’t hurt him!”
Madara blinks, the wind very effectively having been taken out of his sails with this information. “Tobirama did that?”
“Yeah,” Kagami nods emphatically, “and if you try to hurt him, I’ll bite you!”
What the fuck does Madara say to that? He can’t remember the last time a six-year-old threatened him with bodily harm in the last decade. “I—what?”
“You can’t be rude to him, Madara-sama,” the boy continues to insist. “He was so nice to me. And his sword was so cool. I’m going to make him my sensei, so you have to promise not to be mean.”
Madara has no idea how to even begin explaining to Kagami the multitude of reasons why Senju Tobirama might not be able to serve as Kagami’s teacher, the first and foremost of them being a literal war. He is so severely unequipped to be having this conversation with a child.
Dazed, he says, “Let’s just…get you back home, Kagami-kun. Your mother is waiting for you.”
“Oh,” Kagami brightens, “okay!”