REWRITTEN
Uchiha Madara’s POV
After getting jumped while returning from an escort mission in Lightning - by a bunch of trigger-happy Hagaromo, no less- I fully expect to open my eyes in the Pure Lands, or, at the very least, the Infirmary at the Uchiha Compound.
I don’t expect to wake up in a small cot, in a tree, with a soft, hissed argument going on over me.
“-waking up!”
“I know! What do you want me to do?! I have no training, Toneri!” Comes a familiar hiss, “It’s amazing I even managed to use that stupid jutsu, with all the chakra I have - he invented it to use less chakra, you know?!”
“That doesn’t stop him from waking up! You need to knock him out before he sees us - sees me!” The other voice - Toneri? - hisses back, “It’s bad enough they know you exist, you bleeding heart-!”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to just let the kids die!?” Bug, Tadpole, whatever-her-name is almost snarls at him, and her hands clench down on the blankets next to my left arm. “I can’t let my clans die any more than you could stay away from yours, you ignorant twat! Those kids will live - every! Single!One! You hear me?! Every child I’ve saved is gonna make it to eighteen years old! They won’t be like my Village! They won’t!”
“The Sage brothers didn’t send us back here for sentimentalities and sob stories!” Toneri hisses, “The Sage of Six Paths may have given your brother his power, but he only gave it so that fool could buy time - he gave you knowledge! Which one wins these kinds of wars, you simpleton?! We’re already behind schedule, this surgery just cost us another day!”
“This surgery just saved Madara’s life!” She snarls, I feel her nails pierce cloth - faintly, in the back of my mind not currently attempting to fit this pothole-filled information dump together, I wonder if the cloth she ripped was a blanket over me or my robes. “This surgery will make sure that someone at some point ends up-”
“Happy?” He scoffs, pointed and blunt and she flinches, like it’s a length of ninja wire or a landmine or an Inuzuka hound-partner, anything other than a word. “Like you are?”
“I…I don’t need happiness.” She defends, he scoffs again, and something boils in my blood - not quite the same section of soul that boiled and sang and called for blood when those Hagoromo jeered and circled like foxes out of the brush, but something close, something angry. “I just-”
“You need - we need to focus.” Toneri snarls lowly, “Now make him sleep.”
“Wha…” She untangles a hand, gently touching my forehead, “Shit.”
I wake up in her tree hollow next, and she’s wearing different clothes than last week. The tomoe design around the neck and sleeves are the same, but this hooded robe is green and black, almost emerald in it’s intensity.
“I know you heard us, Madara-san.” She hands me my own water bottle and medkit, the holes from senbon repaired with mismatched threads. It’s damp. “How much did you hear?”
“You were - the two of you? - sent here from somewhere by the Sage.” I admit, sitting up and accepting the proffered items easily, I set them on my lap as I look up at her. “Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t.” She says, meeting my eyes without fear or shame or any of the other dirty, dark, small emotions an Uchihas eyes usually give people. “My family was killed in war, and I am here now. What war it was, who we were fighting, why or how I got here - you never asked.”
(Shit, she’s got me there.)
“Okay, but my brothers and Hashirama’s brothers surely have.” I point out, her shoulders drop slightly, the tension unwinding like thread, and her hands relax from the fists they were trying to form around her knees. “Why…do you like them all so much?”
“They remind me of my family - if I close my eyes, I could almost pretend it was them around me.” Something hollow and dark opens up in my chest the same time her eyes turn dark and empty. “...we all have to wake up sometime, Madara, but those boys keep me sane while I’m here.”
“That guy he…he said you were wasting time,” I don’t want to use the words, especially as she flinches away from me, her eyes skittering away with something close to shame flickering like dying embers in there. “He said you needed to focus - that you were behind schedule.”
“The person who killed my family,” She inhales tightly, her ribs trapped as she wraps her arms around herself like a vice, “They’re here too, Madara. They… The Sage of Six Paths, he sent us back to a time he thought they were weakest, but I d-don’t-”
She bows her head stiffly, and she trembles.
(“-yeah, right!” I scoff at Kou, “Why would any woman who carries herself like that call herself Bug? O-Or Tadpole, for that matter-”
“Tadpole was something her father called her.” Kou states, voice harsh I turn to him with wide eyes, and the light from beside his bed is haunting so deep in the night. “She’s never explained Bug to us, but she always gives Izuna and Itama extra snacks when they call her Bug-neesan and hug her the right way.”)
“Y’know,” I murmur softly, a few too many pieces sliding into place, “Everybody expects the second son to be some cocky, arrogant, overconfident guy - but I’m still really scared sometimes.”
“Why? Your father might make a cease-fire with the Senju by month’s end.” She doesn’t look up at me, staring instead at the small, narrow stretch of river her doorway exposes, “Your brothers’ will have the largest area of safety in Fire Country, with some of the strongest, meanest allies to boot.”
“If it works.” I point out, she pauses, “You inspired the Clan Heads, but clans only follow when they want to. If they don’t want to follow, then we’ll be besieged in the house, too.”
“Kou could take over, if it fails. Hashirama on the Senju side.” She murmurs, I tilt my head, “Headship has passed over when there were living predecessors before - during political turmoil, civil unrest, or sudden disability that affects battlefield prowess-”
“Hang on-” I frown, and twist to face her a bit more, “Th-that’s…”
(That’s something only a Clan Head would know - that’s something only somebody…)
My eyes widen as she looks away from me.
“It’s just a thought.” She murmurs, voice soft and almost inaudible, “You don’t even have to suggest it-”
“Can you come back to the Compound with me!?” I almost knock over the medkit, and send my bottle flying, “Please! Can you come to the Compound with me-”
“She has patrol.” A dark, displeased voice states from the door, Bug flinches as I kneel next to her, “Tell him, Dragon-”
“It wouldn’t hu-”
“I could make it.” He snarls lowly, I turn to glare, “I wouldn’t lay a hand on her, and I’m offended you thought I would - but you, boy? You, I would pulverize and sleep like a baby afterward.”
“Toneri, please,” Her voice is soft and sweet, “They just need a little more help-”
“No!” He shouts it now, “No more helping - for either of us!”
“Coward.” I spit the word in his direction, and Bug grabs my sleeve like a lifeline - or maybe a straightjacket restraint. “She wants to help, but it involves some messy emotions so she’s not allowed because it makes you uncomfortable-”
SMACK
A gust of air pushes gently across my face, Bug’s arm extended quickly enough I couldn’t see her move as she glares nervously at Toneri - Toneri in his White Tiger mask, with questionable eye sockets, and very questionable line work - as the back of his hand rests, gentle and bent, against her open palm.
“Why did you block me?” Toneri growls,
“Because he’s my friend-”
“Again with the sentimentalities!” Toneri shouts,
“-and he’s a son of the main family.” Toneri takes a step back quickly, Bug quickly tucks her arm back around herself, exhaling softly as I glare at him.
(Those words-)
“Madara-san?”
“Hm?”
“Can you walk home from here?” Bug asks me softly, I look over, and she’s avoiding my eyes again, but she leans against my shoulder a little, “And tell Kou my suggestion?”
“Kou’s definitely better with words than I am.” I grumble, “I’ll walk home.”
“The fuck you mean, ‘her boyfriend is an ass’?!” Kou almost throttles me, Togakushi and Kuro are having to work together to hold Izuna back from assisting in the violence.
(Please, Tou-san, HURRY-)
“The FUCK you MEAN, ‘she blocked the slap meant for ME’?!” It feels very, very much like Kou is attempting to rattle my brains out of my skull, “What do you mean, her boyfriend made her not walk you home even though she wanted to-”
“Kids?” Hikaku pokes his head in, we all pause, “Madara, do we need to kill a cousin?”
“Not a cousin,” I wheeze weakly, “But yes-”
“We’re not getting involved any further in Senju Clan affairs until your dad finishes up the treaty.” Hikaku glares at us, looking at each of us in turn, and Izuna quickly hides the kunai he had been attempting to use. “Do I need to ground you on his behalf, Izuna? Just ‘cause your cute doesn’t mean you can stab.”
“Of course it does!” A cheerful voice states warmly, Hikaku quickly snaps upright, giving us a glare, but turns to face them as he leaves the door open a crack, “Why else would Itachi-san’s darling imouto get away with it so much?”
“Shisui, I am begging you, with tears in my eyes to please just shut the fuck up-”
“Itachi-san, have you ever met another Uchiha in your life?” Hikaku asks dryly, snorting softly, “How can I help the three of you today?”
“Since I’m too weak to catch him, I asked Itachi-san for assistance with taking Shisui-san on a walk around the compound today!” A girl’s bubbly voice states, “Honestly, if I knew they argued this much, I’d have asked Mikoto-san for help…”
“Stood up by your mom-”
“Izumi-san, may I please-”
“No violence against patients, Itachi-san! How many times do I have to tell you?!” Izumi scolds, “‘Adopted brother’ doesn’t count as a reason to throw him into a straightjacket, either - don’t think I don’t know it was you.”
“Busted!” Shisui cackles,
“Do I want to know why he has bandages on his eye? Or shall I just assume fire hazard and make a note?” Kou drops me at Hikaku’s jab, and we all clamp a hand over our mouth, but at the contemplative silence and rather offended gasp that follows, we all start giggling. “Boys.”
“...speaking of a fire hazard-” Itachi-san says idly,
“Missing your siblings again, Itachi?” Izumi-san doesn’t hesitate,
“So mean!” Shisui whines, sounding like Izuna when he doesn’t get one of us to be a testing dummy for a new (and TERRIFYING) jutsu. “This is why Hotaru is my favorite!”
“Hotaru is everyone’s favorite.” Izumi dismisses, Itachi gasps quietly, “Oh, shush, like you aren’t proud of that!”
“...no.” Itachi says, tone suddenly as somber as a funeral pyre, “I am proud. I’m as proud of that as Dad is, Amaterasu help me.”
“Alright three fire hazards that need basic training,” Hikaku teases, Shisui shrieks with mortification, “Sounds like you’re available for the five AM slot~ How about Hotaru and…”
“If you can catch them, then you can ask Sasuke and Hotaru, but until then…” Itachi shrugs hard enough that we can see his hands over Hikaku’s shoulders. “Good luck, sir.”
Hikaku laughs easily as we giggle harder.
“Alright, alright, easy enough.”
“Hotaru was wall-walking at two,” Itachi deadpans, Hikaku pauses in his note-taking, “Oh, and Sasuke is fond of this lightning jutsu he picked up from a Hatake when he was twelve - it’s called Chidori - it tends to cause piercing damage similar to that of a whaling harpoon.”
“...nevermind. They sound fantastic.” Hikaku states, “Good luck finding them!”
“Why do you think we’re so far from the hospital?” Izumi chirps cheerfully,
“You’d think a nineteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old would hear their mother say ‘don’t wander far, we have something important today’ and would stay close, but no!” Itachi snickers quietly, and Izumi giggles as Shisui starts complaining, “Seriously! I wanna talk to the pretty girls - can’t that be the secondary reason we walk this far?! Just once!?”
“Maybe tomorrow!” I shout helpfully,
“Grounded.” Hikaku deadpans,
“But he’s helping me-” Shisui whines loudly as he gets dragged off, Hikaku watches them walk off with a smile - and then, with a chilling, icy, nerve-wracking slowness…
He turns to us with that smile.
“Diplomacy lessons.”
“WHAT?!” Kou shrieks,
“NO!” Togakushi wails,
“PLEASE, ANYTHING ELSE!” Kuro cries, crashing down next to me,
“MADARA WILL APOLOGIZE! WE PROMISE! JUST-” Izuna starts,
“NOT DIPLOMACY!” They scream in sync,
(She’s sitting on her butt, knees tucked up to her chest, arms wrapped around her ribs like a vice, and she’s not meeting my eyes.
““Kou could take over, if it fails. Hashirama on the Senju side.” She murmurs, I tilt my head, “Headship has passed over when there were living predecessors before - during political turmoil, civil unrest, or sudden disability that affects battlefield prowess-”)
“Diplomacy could be good for us.” I decide, in that instant, and they all turn on me, wide-eyed and slightly pale. “Entomology isn’t very interesting, this is the next most time-consuming thing, right?”
I stare at Kou as I say it, and his eyes flicker with recognition.
“Oh my god, Izuna, lightning really does strike twice.” Kou quickly elbows the most intelligent of us, Hikaku looks down at his waist, where a container of his holy life’s blood - coffee - rests, hanging from his belt. “Madara had a good idea.”
“These metaphors are too on the nose, you idiots, you’re all tickling sleeping dragons.” Izuna uses one of the idioms that our grandmother pulls out regularly, with a straight face too, and Kuro and Togakushi light up like lanterns.
“Careful - you’ll make it sound like-”
“Enough!” Hikaku states, with a tone of finality, “I’m bringing you all to your father.”
It only takes until ‘Madara had a good idea’ before Dad is crying from laughter.
(Hikaku seethes until Dad makes him put a Seal on the door and we tell him what’s happened in the last week, then he’s mad we didn’t tell him sooner.)
“What part of ‘we are all one big family’ makes you think this is acceptable!?” Hikaku smacks Dad over the head with a file folder, but Dad just laughs harder, “She could have POISONED THEM, Taijima! Madara would have been HEIR, you idiot!”
“HEY! WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!?” I shout, my brothers collapsing into fits of laughter,
“IT MEANS, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU’LL VISIT YOUR GRANDMOTHER FOR LESSONS ON DIPLOMACY IN YOUR LIFE!” Hikaku roars back, livid, seething, “AND IT’S BECAUSE OF SOME OUT-OF-CLAN GIRL, NONE OF US KNOW, THAT YOU ALREADY STARTED FLIRTING WITH!”
“LIKE YOU WOULDN’T IF YOU MET HER!” I shout back, Dad puts his face in his hands, my twenty-something cousin puts his hands on his hips and glares at me, “YOU’RE CLOSE ENOUGH TO OUR AGE AND YOU LIKE GIRLS - YOU’LL FIND HER JUST AS HOT AS I DO!”
“OH, WE’LL SEE!”
(A MONTH!? A MONTH!?)
I stare at the calendar, feeling frazzled, but Kou passes me a mug of tea, and I try to rake a hand through my hand.
“Where does time go?”
“It dies like a human soul.” Kou deadpans, “Slowly, hauntingly, sufferingly-”
Dad smacks him on the back of the head with a newspaper as he passes us, and passes me the family-mix of Uchiha style curry spices.
“Togakushi and Izuna are demanding curry rice for breakfast, Kuro is requesting tamago - personally, I think both sound wonderful.” Dad hints, I roll my eyes and Kou snickers, but I slam my tea back like a shot, and wish that the caffeine would kick in like alcohol. “Kou, would you please save the depressing bullshit for after breakfast? Or, at least, after I have drank my coffee?”
“Of course, my dearest father,” Kou gets a shit-eating grin on his face as he turns, and Dad lets out his signature long-suffering sigh as I grab the rice from under the sink. “Whatever else should I talk about? The weather? The garden? The - Hikaku, what the fuck?”
“You know exactly what the fuck.” I turn as Hikaku hisses quietly, almost snarling as his voice cracks with sleep-roughness, “Taijima-sama, I am so sorry to ruin your morning-”
I drop the egg on the floor as I stare at a Hatake, wearing a white mask, shaped like a wolf, dog, or hound, with a Mangekyou Sharingan staring out of the left eye socket and an Uchiha, with one eye, a matching Sharingan staring out of his right.
“Where’s Dragon?” The Wolf-Dog-Hound demands, sleep-rough and pissed off,
“You said diplomatically.” The Uchiha - who we don’t know, can’t name, who stands nearly half a head taller than the rest of us - hisses under his breath. “That’s not diplomatic!”
“That was before I got a rude reminder as to who raised her.” The masked Hatake replies, “Along with about two thousand kunai to the face.”
“...Madara-”
“Hell no, he’s not-” Kou starts,
“Send Izuna, Toga, and Kuro to fetch her, together.” Dad shoots Kou a look, “And make sure they’re armed…heavily.”
“If they’re small and cute, they get stickers and candy.” Comes the snarky, pissed-off reply, the Uchiha face-palms, shifting weight onto one foot, “She plays favorites just as hard as I do, that cheating cheater who cheats.”
“...on it.” I deadpan to Dad, who’s a rather ghastly shade of white as he stares at them.
Dragon/Tadpole/Lightning Bug/Firefly’s POV
“Toneri, please-”
“No, breakfast!” He pulls me out of bed, and it…it doesn’t hurt, but the reminder that he’s just as strong, that I can be moved when I’m not paying attention, that…that I’m weak- “It’ll keep your head on your shoulders today.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, tone almost as dry as the eggs he’s tried to scramble - he’s mostly just avoided burning them. “What’s in store for today? Are we traumatizing an Heir to the Senju this week? A Hyuuga, perhaps-”
“I am fully capable of taking those eggs back, you know.” He threatens, turning around in the ridiculous pink frilly apron the boys brought me and pointing an Uchiha-branded spatula at me the same way he points unfamiliar swords at White Zetsus. “I can use them to…to, uh…”
“Yeah?” I ask, raising an eyebrow he won’t be able to see, smirking as his cheeks color, “What’chu gonna do?”
“I can take those eggs back and use ‘em to catch a fish, you ungrateful-”
“With threats that weak, I’m grateful to interrupt the insult.” Comes a familiar deadpan, I choke on my eggs, “Don’t worry, Bug-neesan, we can’t see your face from this angle-”
“But we really need you!” Kuro pipes up, panicked and slightly frantic, “There’s these weird people at the Compound - a Hatake with a Sharingan-”
“What!?” Toneri turns,
“MASK, YOU FOOL!” I thunder, “WHAT IF IT’S NOT HIM?! WHAT IF-”
“HOW MANY OTHER HATAKE HAVE A SHARINGAN!? DINNER SAYS THOSE GAY FUCKERS SHOWED UP HOLDINGS HANDS OR SOME SHIT!” Toneri shouts back, I pause, hesitating,
“Mask.” I insist,
“Obviously!”
Uchiha Obito’s POV
(Just until she gets here.)
I inhale tightly through my nose, feeling Kakashi shaking next to me, feeling the trembling straight through the Mangekyou as he tries to rattle out of his skin from adrenaline.
(Just until Firefly-chan gets here, and then I can go back to-)
“KAKA-”
“NO NAMES!” Her voice is a thunderclap, almost as furious as her chakra, but the boy is new.
(With her trust issues? He's a suspect.)
Kakashi’s eyes almost turn pinpoint, and he turns toward the door with his jaw hanging the same way it would before he lunged at me with teeth bared and mouth aiming like he’s trying to take a chunk of flesh as a trophy.
“Inu.” I state lowly, he snarls silently as familiar, loud - to my shinobi ears, probably near-silent to hers - footsteps almost slap down the hall. “Your teeth-”
The door slams open and a fucking Hyuuga stands there, spread eagle, back to us, facing Firefly like the stupid bitch could stop her once she realizes it’s us.
(Once she realizes it’s Kakashi.)
(It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t.)
“We will go carefully-”
“I will carefullyput you through a wall if you don’t move your ass, Toneri.” Firefly snarls low in her throat, not looking away from his eyes as the three Heirs come sprinting after them, panting and holding house slippers.
“I know it’s been a while,” I state blandly, both of them snap rigid, “But I would think that Auntie Mikoto’s lessons about slippers in the house would stick for a few years after her death.”
I get a slipper slammed against the back of my head for my effort.
“She has been living in the woods for kami-only-knows-how-long.” Madara snarls lowly at me, and my hair stands on end as my blood boils,
“She what?” Kakashi and I snarl in sync,
“We need to check them-”
“Check-” Kakashi turns to them and pauses, I turn to face them also, but the vial of yuck that Firefly is holding is unmistakable. “...White Zetsu?”
“And Black.” Firefly says, trembling slightly, staring down at her bare toes,
“...not a genjutsu check?” Taijima-sama asks, tone non-committal, voice not conveying the obvious fear in his eyes,
“He’s not human - why would he use a human-styled attack?” Firefly asks darkly, handing over the vial to this…‘Toneri’ guy. “I-”
“We can sit with you in the hall.” One of the Uchiha Heirs I don’t recognize stands up, quickly grabbing a mug of tea from the counter, “Madara, when will breakfast be done?”
“Ten minutes, give or take.”
“Good.” Toneri states, and inhales deeply, Firefly gets led into the hall by children younger than Sasuke, and brighter than Naruto, and more determined than Sakura.
(By Amaterasu,)
Toneri advances like it’s an execution.
(She re-built Team Seven, using Uchiha.)
Maybe it is an execution - after everything I’ve done, after all the parts I’ve borrowed.
(Will her Team succeed where ours and Kakashi’s failed? By the Flames, I hope none of them end up like me. End up a monster like me.)