The Curious Son
~~~
Uchiha Madara may be a man of little words, but that hardly meant he did not know how to speak his mind. However, it seemed, Senju Tobirama was quite skilled in leaving the Uchiha clan head not only speechless but utterly mystified to the point that the man felt as if he was walking through a dense fog. He would be a liar if he stated that he ever understood the second Senju clan heir at all, though, not many seemed to be able to anyway when it came to Tobirama.
As a man who possessed no filter and a tongue as deadly as a freshly sharpened kunai, Tobirama was a force to be reckoned with on and off the battlefield, even from the meager age of five years old when the boy of ghostly appearance slaughtered an entire squad of Uchiha all on his lonesome. Madara himself had only been seven years old when his clansmen returned from the latest battle in worse shape than his young self had ever seen before, many of them speaking of the cursed child that Senju Butsuma, the bastard, had wielded at their people. His own father had even seemed perturbed by the boy’s presence, whether it be his size or his deadliness at such a young age, Madara could never decide, but the man wasted no time in placing what they called the Senju Ghost near the top of their high priority kill list. The only person that stole the position of first place from the boy was the bloodthirsty Senju clan head himself.
Battles and missions after that were filled with clansmen falling at the hands of the Senju Ghost, accounts always describing an emotionless child that slaughtered without a second thought, eyes as red as the blood he spilt. Madara and Izuna found their training doubled in the months following the demonic albino’s appearance, their father adamant on not losing either of them should they be needed on the battlefield. Said training was intolerable at first, often leaving Izuna and himself aching terribly or sporting wounds and broken bones, but as Madara experienced the tragedies of war firsthand with the deaths of his younger twin brothers, he came to accept it as a necessity to survival. With that reluctant acceptance and stubborn determination, Madara was able to withstand the physical and emotional weight that came with the deaths and burials of his beloved mother and youngest brother. In turn, such tragedies and his war tainted upbringing shaped him into the highly skilled shinobi that he was today, one that could go toe to toe with the very man that was known as the God of Shinobi. Yet, with the positives, there were most definitely negative effects, especially when it came to his personality and people manners.
From a young age, Madara found himself being seen as a temperamental, hot headed, judgmental child. Never was he afraid to speak his mind nor to point out the faults of others, especially when they uttered something truely idiotic. His mother thought such behavior was quite unbecoming of him, always urging Madara to not be false in character but to be conscientious of his words and judgments and their impact on those around him. Father deemed it acceptable as long as such disrespect was not directed towards the clan elders nor himself (though Madara often had been his most vocal critic in the end.) Those outside his immediate family loathed him, specifically the fellow clan children who were far too tender-hearted in his opinion and cried to their mother because “-Madara-kun is saying mean things again!”
Madara’s younger brothers never seemed to have an issue with his standoffish nature, most due to the fact that he did not behave that way when they were together. Most of the short childhood he shared with Izuna, Kasai and Kaji, and Ryuma was full of laughter and comradery, of practice clan hiden with their father, and listening to their mother sing sweet lullabies that were soft as feathers and sweet as sugar. Kasai and Kaji always begged Madara to show them the newest katon style jutsu father had taught him that day in training, the identical twins eager to utilize it in their newest prank amongst the compound. When they died, no child asked to learn any jutsu from him ever again, for he wouldn’t even entertain the idea; teaching the clan hiden to children was a duty that fell upon Izuna’s shoulders. Ryuma, the youngest of them all and the sweetest child that had ever been in existence, was simply happy to sit in his lap or to produce his best attempt of braid using Madara’s mane. When he died, Madara swore he would never put his hair up ever again and with the death of his mother, it simply remained a tangled mess of raven locks that Izuna threatened to set aflame every so often when it grew out of control.
Izuna, his first and last brother, was always Madara’s most vocal supporter and his greatest critic. At moments, the urge to strangle the younger boy was overwhelming but when it truly came down to the bare bones of reality, Madara would slaughter anyone that threatened to harm the only immediate family member of his that remained. There was Hikaku as well, his paternal aunt’s lone remaining child of two, and while Madara was protective of his cousin, the elder of two had no issue in reminding him that he was quite capable of handling himself both on and off the battlefield. Father had been of the same mindset, at least when he and Butsuma locked katanas and in a disastrous attempt to finally kill the other, dealt unrecoverable blows that left Uchiha Tajima permanently crippled and Butsuma on the road to his eventual death bed less than a year later.
Madara was supposed to grieve when the man eventually passed away, to be an inconsolable mess because his father had died, but, much to his own confusion, he found himself more relieved than grieved. Perhaps it was the fact that his parents would once again be reunited, or that father would no longer be in pain from his incurable state of injury. In the end, his fellow clansmen saw him as heartless and outsiders spread rumors of the Uchiha phoenix, the one that reigned down hellfire and death on all of those who opposed him. Many began to forget that Madara, beneath his stone cold exterior, had emotions, that he cared for things and hated others, that he was human.
Senju Tobirama was proving himself to be one of the few individuals that saw Madara for who he was; an emotionally stunted, blunt man that rarely played nice with others, no matter how much Hikaku or Izuna begged him to.
The Uchiha couldn’t help but watch the peculiar Senju saunter away with an air of cool confidence, so submissive and face bare of any emotions any time they were together, and Madara couldn’t help but salivate with wonder as to what made his fellow shinobi (and future spouse) tick.
Such curious hunger to understand the genius happened to be nearly a decade old, the seed of curiosity having been sowed the moment Madara found his blade interlocking with Tobirama’s own at the age of nine years old, heart staunch in crazed grief due to the recent loss of Kaji and Kasai. At the time of their altercation, Izuna was bedridden with a particularly nasty fever, leaving Madara to face the Senju Demon all on his lonesome without interference. Their fight that day was more of a dance, the two working against one another in perfect tandem, hit for hit, blow for blow. Both of them fought with the intent to kill, it was either that or death awaited, and a part of Madara found himself studying the younger boy between their continuous clashes, obsidian eyes raking over the albino with curiosity. The Senju Ghost had been quite small, even for his supposed age at the time, and up close, one could tell that there was something medically wrong with the boy. With thin and pale, almost translucent skin, the kid was muscularly fit from what Madara had been able to tell but other than that he was nothing but bones, there being no shred of fat in sight, not even in his cheeks.
Their fight eventually ended in a draw, with the Senju Demon bearing a fair amount of burns from various katon and Madara limping away with a broken femur, something that still ached from time to time even to this day. His curiosity of the albino never ceased to exist for the following years, ever keeping an eye on the Senju’s Ghost that often locked blades with his remaining brother on the battlefield and plagued the forests on the other side of the Naka River and beyond. He only came to know the boy’s name by accident during the times he spent with Hashirama at the riverfront, the emotional mess of a tree hugger often mentioning his lone remaining sibling, Tobi’ as he called him. The brunette would lament on how emotionless his younger brother was, how their accursed father beat the boy and treated him more as a weapon than he ever had a son, and Hashirama would cry over not being able to protect the boy from their bullying and abusive fellow clansmen. Madara had felt angry for the neglected and brutalized brother Hashirama spoke, always imagining Izuna in similar situations, how the Uchiha clan heir would murder anyone that dare lay a finger on the only living sibling he had left. Often, the Uchiha would urge Hashirama to protect his brother, “to do something goddammit-!”, but in the end, as truths of their lineage came to light that fateful day at the Naka, Madara finally understood why his friend had done nothing.
For his brother, the thoughtful and maddingly intelligent Tobi’ as Hashirama described him as, happened to be the Senju Tobirama, the demonic ghost of the Senju, the very boy that had slaughtered dozens of Madara’s people. Such a revelation did nothing to staunch to learn more about the brother of his closest friend however, not even now when the man met him submissive yet dismissive mannerisms and behaviors, ones that left him frustrated yet yearning for more.
So, as he stood there in the middle of the freshly made street, one question weighed heavily on his already heavy mind.
Just who was Senju Tobirama?
~~~