six for gold
Indra kept the mission blacks and mesh armor when he stepped through the mirror, trying to place how close he was to the edge of Fire, the sounds of a fight close by on the other side of the trees holding the shinobi frozen for a moment, was he ready to see this? Was there any choice? Gritting his teeth Indra walked through the trees, leaping up into the branches to get a better look at the battle torn glade in the forest; forcibly reminding himslef that he couldn’t change anything that was happening as he saw Tobirama (thin, dressed the a mostly shredded ANBU uniform, his snowy hair long enough it curled around the nape of his neck at the longest, brushing his adam’s apple and matted with blood at one temple, lovely and broken as the seals glowed with their activation and no fear showed on his face) block a blow from a huge man, twisting down and under and kicking up at the other man, equally large but silver haired this time. One of the brother’s shouted something and the memory smeared, a blur of movement and blood spraying and then Tobirama had the brothers split, silver thrown across the clearing (water dragon?) and he was on gold like a tsunami, hands blurring with speed and face calm as anything as the gold brother stumbled back, burying a blow in Tobirama’s stomach over his kidney as he fell back.
(Oh, oh – he, he wasn’t even trying to stay alive, he didn’t care what they did to him if he came closer to taking one of them down with him, he truly didn’t care if he lived or died in this fight. Had that always been true? Had the seals always done that? Or – or was that, was that what happened when he lost the bond?) Tobirama ducked under a swing and came up straight into a kunai into his shoulder, apparently shocking the gold brother for long enough that the hand covering in crackling chakra punched through his chest straight into his heart. The gold brother’s mouth dropped in shock as he spat out a shocked gout of blood, eyes wide and disbelieving even as the silver brother screamed and burned red and his blade punched through Tobirama’s chest, just left of his heart. Tobirama’s face reflected nothing, no anger or fear or pain, as he leaned in close to the gold brother, lips near the man’s ear but voice as loud as if he had spoke into Indra’s; “Told you you would never touch him or his children, they are beyond you, everything is now.” and a chill curled down Indra’s spine. “He threatened you” Indra just about jumped out of his skin as his head whipped around to look at the faint Tobirama sitting on the branch next to where Indra was crouching, kicking his feet and looking exactly the same down to the blood dripping down his chest except for the way that his edges were fraying and misting away.
Empty, cold red eyes turned to Indra “He threatened you and Reina, and Faria and Kosuke, I couldn’t let him live after that, I knew that you could take the silver brother but – truly you could take both but they were cleverer than they looked and without Kinkaku Ginkaku is much, much more rash. Besides, I am allowed to be protective I think.” There should have been something satisfied in his tone and there wasn’t as in the glade gold collapsed and the sliver brother ripped his blade out of Tobirama, the albino keeping his feet and spinning with a snarl and still fighting but – nearly trying to die to Indra’s educated- experienced- eye (he had been there once, mad with pain and bitterness and blood and only wanting it to end). The Tobirama next to him hummed thoughtfully as in the glade Tobirama fought like a dying wolf but, shrouded in red power, the silver brother was beating him down brutally (Indra felt sick, seeing this was…), the air flashing red and bright with pain (memories were strange things), the sound of bones breaking over loud and every injury echoing strangely in the air. Next to him the misting Tobirama started humming, an eerie, mournful, strange sound that was underscored with the sounds of Tobirama’s brutal, torturous death. Still though, it was disturbingly cold, unemotional, the pain a resonating sound in the distance as the silver brother pinned Tobirama to a tree by his throat, both arms broken and at least one hand shattered but still kicking weakly.
“I dreamed a dream you know” the Tobirama next to him sing-songed, leaning his chin on an upraised knee and his other still kicking idly in the air, “I dreamed many dreams of things gone by, I wished and wondered, and then we saw the village rise and all my dreams were lost to thunder. He thought then that life would be forgiving, he knew you wouldn't ever choose him, but dreams are stupid and so afraid and we knew you would never chose him.” in the glade Tobirama’s movements were getting weaker “Then there was a price to be paid, for you clan so revered the bonded – what might you have done just to see what was fated?” Indra ripped his eyes from the Tobirama in the glade, staring with horror at the singing one next to him and the implications (had Tobirama thought that Madara would accept the bond and a soulmate he hated? Though, he truly believed Madara hated him, he thought that Madara had softened his demeanor or at least been more professional to him recently and he knew that their peace was the most important thing to him, he knew how the Uchiha felt about soulbonded, had he thought that he was going to trap Madara into a bond he hated for his clan and the village). In the glade the silver brother ripped Tobirama from the tree, tossing him down on the ground with a small sound of pain that echoed like they were in a fishbowl as the Tobirama in the tree went back to humming that sad, lilting song.
“But the whispers come at night” the ghost in the tree sang softly “with their voices soft as thunder, as your dreams are torn apart and they turn your hope to shame.” Red eyes flicked to the side to look at him “Hope slept that summer by my side, the first since I had lost my endless wonder, I thought perhaps you might take my childhood in stride, but I was wrong and all was turned to shame. But still he dreamed you’d come to us, the huddled dreams of lingering child’s-hope. But there are dreams that cannot be, and there is blood that cannot be washed away, we had a dream our life would be so different from this one I’m living. So different now from the children we could never have given, but they make you so happy and it is a good life you are living, even if it has no traces of the dream of me-“ snap, in the glade Tobirama’s neck snapped, head lolling as the silver brother screamed, apparently not intending to have killed him so soon. Indra’s head snapped around to look at the strange ghost in the tree with him and froze, it was looking him dead in the eyes with a tiny frozen smile as it melted into mist and snow.
Indra shuddered, cold to the bone as the silver brother kept brutalizing Tobirama’s corpse in the glade; this, this was not what he had been expecting, not the cold absence of emotion in the memory, not the ghostly (mad) second Tobirama, not – not the fact that Tobirama hadn’t even tried to survive this attack (had – had he sought it out? Had he gone looking for this fight? How soon had it happened after that festival where Tobirama met Madara’s children?). So much of this sat so wrong with Indra and it was making his skin crawl; there was no closure here for him, seeing Tobirama’s death told him nothing about how it had turned out like this and brought him no closer to understanding. If anything it only brought up more questions in Indra’s head; what was that ghostly second-Tobirama? What had the seals done in the end to mutilate Tobirama’s emotions like this? What dreams had the…ghost been singing about? – and what about the hope he mentioned? Had he really believed that he would be trapping Madara in a loveless bond? He had already mentioned as a child that he wanted Madara to have a choice (especially if he killed Izuna, even then Tobirama had known that Madara would never be able to bear a bond with his brother’s killer), had it only grown strong over time?
Indra glanced back into the glade and then looked away, retching dryly (he – he hoped Hashirama had never seen his brother’s body) covering his eyes with his hand, kami this was…and wait, where was the feather? Feeling ill Indra glanced back to the clearing trying not to look straight at the bloody ruin of Tobirama, flashes of white showing exposed bone but no tell-tale glow of a feather. The silver brother was pacing around the edges, muttering to himself, as Indra’s eyes landed on the corpse of the gold brother with a bloody cavity in his chest and a faint glow. What-? Why in the kami’s names had a shard of Tobirama stayed with that –(“He threatened you and Reina, and Faria and Kosuke, I couldn’t let him live after that…Besides I think I am allowed to be protective I think.)- had it, had it really mattered that much to Tobirama to keep Madara and his children safe? That – that was a silly question wasn’t it, he had seen how Tobirama had smiled at his children like they were his own, he had seen already what Tobirama would do for Madara. Why had it not occurred to Indra that Tobirama would leave a piece of himself here, in his last fatal stand for the soulmate he gave up.
Sucking in a deep breath Indra leapt from the tree, trying to ignore the smell of blood and death and the silver brother’s muttering; carefully not looking at the desecrated ruin of Tobirama’s body as he approached the gold brother. The feather was longer and sharper than the others he had collected so far, closer to a flight feather than a wide banded secondary feathers and though it was piercing the gold brother’s crushed heart it wasn’t marred with blood though the edged looked sharp as a honed kunai. Carefully as possible Indra reached into the cracked open cage of ribs and curled his finger on the sharp tip of the feather, crashing to his knees as the impossible weight of Tobirama’s drive to protect pierced him straight through like the steel strong shaft thrown by an expert; then the barbs- still bristling and sharp- brushed over his fingers, first harsh on his skin and then soft as they recognized Indra and softened to him, curling over his fingers like the immense sense of Tobirama’s intent red eyes watching his back, wings of protection mantled over him. It was breathtaking, mind breaking, world changing, finally, finally, Indra felt safe; the way he hadn’t since he was a small child and grandmother was sealed, since he realized his father would never look at him the same or accept him and his eyes (the Sage had ever had an issue with sharing power, he and grandmother were alike in that), since the whispers started, he felt safe, he hadn’t known he could feel safe anymore (Madara certainly never had, there had been a reason that he had hated people at his back) and yet…
Greedy, almost wild with hunger, Indra pressed the feather to his chest feeling it sink through his skin and curl up the line of his spine, finally feeling safe from behind with Tobirama’s all seeing eyes watching out for him. Shuddering, Indra curled in on himslef, something hot and wonderful shuddering up his spine; heady and desirous and filling him with want. This – this was not what Indra had expected at all and he was, kami, he was so glad that he had chosen to keep trying for Tobirama just for this.