Chapter 3
???’s POV
The adults quickly leave after that lovely surprise, and I’m left with the twins, who look at me like I’m a god standing in front of them and…
(I’m not going through those stares again, never again.)
I stick my tongue out at them, and the stares break off into bubbling giggles.
I happily stuff them full of tea and sweets, spoiling them rotten before Kawarama and Itama show up sulking and pissed off - and then I spoil them rotten with tea and sweets too. I cover the four of them in kisses and hugs until they squeal.
I rake my fingers through their hair, grooming them a little bit as they calm down slightly, stuffed like turkeys, and when they want to take naps - I shoo them off homeward. I chuckle slightly as I watch them wander off, stumbling slightly as they doze into each other.
“They’re cute when they’re sleepy.” The person hiding in my house whispers softly, I snort softly at them. “What? They remind me of you as a child.”
“I wasn’t near as calm.” I state simply, standing up with the tea set in hand, I turn and the dragon in human form smiles softly at me as he leans against the doorway. “Your majesty.”
“Ha! The same could be said to you, Tadpole-hime.” I roll my eyes as I step past him, the Prince follows me easily, his silver hair floating etherally around his head, his golden horns shining in the sunlight, his clothes float slightly around him. “Now, I believe you have news of our quarry?”
“I do.” I place the empty dishes and trays in my sink, sighing deeply, as I rest my forearms against the coarse wooden edge. The Prince tilts his head at me softly, but doesn’t press as I take a moment to gather myself.
One of the countless tears I’ve been holding back trails down my cheeks instead.
“Do you know what the worst part of this is?” I ask softly, gently touching the coarse grains of my sink as I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling.
“...missing your siblings?” I spear a branch through his neck, catch him before he can leave, another branch lassoing his knees from the cabinets, a few more winding around his torso and capturing his arms.
“I had to tell his father.”
I change the white Zetsu clone into a strawberry bush, planting it around the back of my tree easily. It’s corpse will make delicious desserts for the peace talks - just like the others have been.
I calmly go on patrol afterwards, the loop I make around Fire Country feeling longer and slower than normal, even though I finish faster.
I find nothing.
(It’s like he just dropped off the face of the Earth…)
As I walk up to my home, I slip out of my boots with a sigh, feeling calmer, safer as my bare feet touch the grass.
(Where is Black Zetsu?)
Madara Uchiha’s POV
“What?!” I roar,
“Madara.” Father replies icily, I snap my mouth shut, but my temper simmers - and I make no attempt to hide it. “We need to, if nothing else, check.”
“She hasn’t done anything to endanger anyone!” Ibiko snarls lowly, his own hair bushing out slightly in rage, Father sighs, “Not to mention she has saved our lives-”
“Enough!” He bellows over us, but he looks tired, and heavily defeated - more so than he ever did arguing with the Elders or fighting against Butsuma. “The reward said female Sage, and we will ask her about it. That’s all.”
We simmer down, but we’re all angry now - even Izuna, who doesn’t really like her, is mad at the idea of turning her over to the Daimyo.
“Go to bed, boys, we will see her in the morning.” Father orders, gently reaching for the latest in his reports. We all grumble loudly, but obey.
As we reach the clearest area of the river, we find the Senju main family standing on their side, arguing with an annoyed-looking Butsuma - and Father sighs just hard enough to capture their attention as we glare at him again.
“Seriously!?”
“You guys too?!”
“She has helped all of us!”
“We are only asking!” Our fathers shout over us in sync, Father rubs his temples angrily, and Butsuma sighs heavily, but we all simmer down and walk behind them as they lead us up the river. As we catch sight of her tree, however, our fathers visibly reconsider.
I would too, if I saw an angry woman mid-argument with a dragon, strangling someone with her hair without using hand signs.
“-mean it, Thunderwings! If they can find me, then they can find the kids - I am not going to explain to the Lords Uchiha and Senju why a fucking demigod is trying to kill their kids! We will find their mountain!” She snarls, her hair waving slightly behind her as she throttles the three floating…people? (They have human bodies, but their skin is too pale, their hair is the wrong shape, their skin is flaking like bark on a tree, and their eyes…there’s too many things wrong with their eyes for me to even start on that list!) “If you have to call the fucking Council of Sky then by the Kami, do so! I want this bastard found!-”
“My Lady, we are trying, the entire Council is! But the Black Zetsu has been evading everyone for ten thousand years! Don’t you think it’s time to warn the-” Hashirama stumbles, stepping on a branch, and snapping the damn thing loud enough to wake the dead.
Two pairs of murderous golden eyes land on our group, the dragon stepping over her protectively, but as Kitten/Tadpole/Lightning Bug blinks away her shock, she places a hand on his arm.
“Don’t…” She trails off into a sigh, placing a hand over her face as the dragon looks down at her quietly, “Th-they have a right to know…and it will mean we can stop arguing…about this, at least.”
He huffs loudly, snorting a small puff of smoke at her, but steps back, settling down low to the ground. “Fine, but if they disrespect you-”
“They’re witnessing me strangle non-humans with my hair - not to mention argue with you.” She points out to him, his giant lips curl slightly as she shakes her head disapprovingly, “I doubt they’re feeling brave enough to do much at the moment.”
Apparently she does this a lot, because she buries the bodies quickly, and even manages to grow some flowering berry bushes and a fruit tree from them.
We all, very politely, do not say anything.
The dragon takes one look at our green faces and snickers as loud as thunder.
“Thunderwings, I swear…oh dear.” She mumbles as she notices our queasiness, “Please tell me you noticed they weren’t human-”
“Oh, thank fuck-” Tobirama exhales with a wheeze, only to immediately get clapped upside the head by a mortified Butsuma, but she laughs at him gently, and pats Tobirama on the shoulder. “I-I mean, I thought-”
“At one point, they might have been.” She states, pausing gently, but then shakes her head harshly, “But honestly, ten thousand years trapped in a decomposing god’s body is enough to change anything. I don’t think they qualify anymore. Not to mention that these might be some of the ones that come from my time period and somebody inserted foreign DNA into it in order to run genetic experiments and-”
“S-slow down!” Butsuma splutters, Tobirama looks horrified, and I can feel my own stomach turning at the thought. “They were in what?!”
“Trapped in a dead god?” She asks, sounding baffled and mildly impatient, then she blinks, “Oh. Yeah, that does sound slightly insane.”
“Only slightly?” Izuna whispers, Ibiko makes a small noise halfway between laughter and whimpering, and Father puts an arm around each of them.
“In my defense, I’ve been dealing with this for nine years.” She looks defensive now, too, but the dragon lets out a small yawn, and there’s a small flash of light- “Really, Thunderwings? Really?”
“If they’re going to be this stupid the entire time, I want to be small enough to be between you, and them.” The now…semi-human…dragon? states, (this is getting weird) and he wraps an arm around her shoulders gently, resting one of his curving horns against the top of her head. “Besides, you’re not wearing your armor-”
“You make it sound like I’m naked under this.”
“Might as well be with the amount of knives they have.” She rolls her eyes, sighing loudly, but doesn’t argue further.
“You…have armor?” Riki asks quietly, sounding suspicious, I notice both of the twins are staring at her with some side-eye.
“You don’t ever look like you’re wearing armor.” Ryu points out, Father chokes on air, I facepalm massively as heat flushes through me like wildfire, and both Itama and Kawarama cackle.
“And just what would that look like?” She asks them, sounding almost teasing, I immediately lunge for them-
“Madara says it makes him look fat-” I can’t cover their mouths in time, and the entire table cracks up as I clamp the traitors’ mouths closed, getting bitten for the trouble. The dragon absolutely roars with laughter, the human next to him laughing obviously but so softly behind her hand I can’t hear it.
“You little shits are going in the corner when we get home!” I growl at the twins as I wrestle them into my sides, they bite me again, wriggling their complaints and no doubt shrieking against my gloves as hard as they can - but I survived Ibiko and Izuna, I can survive them!
“Oh my Gods,” Comes the soft wheeze, “I’ve never agreed and disagreed with someone so much at the same time!”
I look up at the dragon, baffled, as he continues to wheeze.
“I like that one. Can you keep him?” Kitten chokes on air at her dragon’s words, and swiftly smacks his abdomen, just hard enough to make him double over and choke too. “Okay! Okay! No keeping! No keeping yet!”
She gives him a dirty look as her cheeks turn bright pink.
“I’m sorry, ‘keeping’?” Hashirama asks, slightly breathless from laughter, she shakes her head as her cheeks turn pinker.
“The dragon version of a marriage ritual - you ‘keep’ each other for life.” She sums up, I choke on air, the twins just about riot and knock me over, the dragon looks immensely pleased with himself as I get pounced on by all of my brothers, and the Senju all choke. “Boys! Your manners!”
“But-”
“You’re gonna break his ribs again! Get off!” She’s admonished them, sounding completely horrified by their behavior - downright motherly, even. “Thunderwings, wipe that look off your face before I do it for you!”
He does so while she looks at him, but continues being a smug asshole while her back is turned. (But he doesn’t complain when Tobirama stabs him in the shin with a small senbon for it, either, looking mildly impressed by it, actually.)
Once we all managed to tame the wild heathens, she brought out steamed wild rice, grilled vegetables, smoked fish, and matcha tea. Surprisingly, no one commented on the tea - although there were several whines about ‘Madara, can you warm this up please’ regarding the rice.
Lightning Bug wasn’t mad, and even welcomed it.
“I wasn’t expecting guests today, this is actually leftovers from dinner yesterday.” She apologizes, bowing her head, Thunderwings snorts derisively at her, and she stabs his knuckles with her chopsticks. “Your children eat more than five Akimichi when they're here! I’m gonna have to go hunting again, Thunderwings!”
“Yet you have leftovers.” He states,
“One of them didn’t show up. This is half of Majestia’s meal.” We all pause, staring at the multiple portions we all have. I feel my eyes raise, as if by themselves. “Please, continue eating, I’m not gonna be able to eat all this by myself.”
“We will, it’s just…this is half a meal?” Kawarama asks worriedly, then turns to Thunderwings, “Are you getting enough, sir?”
“I already had breakfast.”
“Can’t you smell his coffee breath?” Tadpole and Thunderwings speak in sync, and Thunderwings chuckles at her odd remark, we all give her baffled stares until Tobirama perks up.
“Oh - I think I know what that is!” We turn to the albino, “It’s that new caffeinated drink out of the Land of Tea, right? They make it out of roasted beans, if I remember the article correctly.”
“You are!” She tells him cheerfully, “It tastes disgusting-”
“It’s delicious!” Thunderwings is appalled,
“They keep burning it!”
“Buy from a different company-”
“There’s only one company right now-!”
“Then ask for fresh beans and roast them yourself!”
“With what spare time?!”
“Kids.” Father interrupts the argument quickly, they look over at him, deeply offended, and the entire table has to work to not laugh. “How can summons drink the same thing as a human?”
“Humans and dragons actually have remarkably similar chemical makeup to humans.” Thunderwings states, Firefly nods, calmly taking a drink from her tea, “Although some of the spices you use are frankly terrifying.”
“Spices humans use, or spices I use?” Firefly asks bluntly, the table pauses, “I know what’s safe for normal humans, I separate them by cabinets - just don’t eat out of the locked ones.”
“Wh-what do you eat?” Itama asks nervously, looking at her with visible anxiety,
“Well, lately I’ve really gotten fond of nightshade, but-”
“Please, Kami, say you’re kidding.” Hashirama looks panicked, she looks entertained, but Thunderwings looks exhausted. It feels like my stomach drops out of my chest at the thought. “You actually eatdeadly nightshade!?”
“Yes, it’s delicious!” She tells him cheerfully,
“She’s not lying, Anija.” Tobirama almost whimpers,
“Why would I? It would keep you all from testing my poison resistance - that’s always annoying.” She states,
“You always looked so pissed when someone messed with your ‘seasonings’ at festivals.” Thunderwings sighs heavily, gently resting his elbows on the table as he drops his face in his hands. “Then you’d spend three days tracking them down and beating the fear of humans into them - no matter how big they were.”
“W-why does that sound like they were, uh, dragons?!” Ibiko asks weakly,
“Because they were.” She tells him, her close-lipped smile looking remarkably like a cat who got in the cream. “Now, I doubt you all came here to hear us argue or to hear about how I used to terrorize the dragon kingdoms. What did you really come here for?”
We all point at our fathers - like the little traitors we are - and they glare at us all as Thunderwings snorts loudly at us in obvious amusement.
“Are you, uh, aware of the…” Father pauses quietly, gently swirling his tea as he thinks, “Request-”
“Really?That’s the word you’re going with?” Butsuma mutters, Father shoots him a look, and I share a look with Hashirama. “The Daimyo put a price on you.”
“Did he now?” She asks, curious, her chopsticks stilling with a grilled zucchini halfway to her mouth. “Do either of you have the contract or wanted poster with you?”
Tobirama pulls a wanted poster out of his haori, silently handing it to her before anyone can stop him. She snorts softly as Hashirama smacks him on the shoulder harshly, but as she unravels it, a look of surprise and shock flits over her face, and Thunderwings leans over quickly.
“Oh, those brats-”
“Hush, assuming this hurt no one.” She looks entertained - no, gleeful - and she rolls it up quietly, then passes it back to Tobirama. “Technically, we have no idea if they’re even right, either. Both my parents were Sages, so technically, I could be-”
“You just lack training, like you do with everything else.” Thunderwing harps, she shoots him another smug cat smile, and I share another baffled look with Hashirama. “My Lady, what if this is not Hound?”
“Then it’s Tobi - that bastard.” She rolls her eyes easily, he chuckles softly, “You know those two cause more problems than all my other cousins combined. That’s when they’re separated, too! Oh, Gods, what if it’s both of them?! I’m gonna wind up gray!”
She grabs her head exaggeratedly, and Thunderwings lets out another roaring laugh.
“You’re sure it’s not the Daimyo?” Father asks nervously,
“Well, he signed it for them, certainly, but he didn’t request it.” She states, giving us all a much more reassuring smile. “I know the codes of my family. Gods know how many messages I picked up on as a child.”