The Warring Sons
~~~
How does one become something they are not?
The world was off-kilter. Time no longer maintained its steady pace, no, it was crawling at a snail’s pace, so painstakingly slow. The albino felt as if he was underwater the moment he shunshinned away in desperation, the world around him blurry and unintelligible to his muted senses. Numbly raising a hand to steady himself on a blurred structure somewhere in his currently limited range of senses, Tobirama could only stand there and try to stave off the sea of emotions toiling within him, to not lose what little control he had over his life. His mind felt as if it was filled with cotton, muddled and brimming with thoughtless thoughts and utter nothingness, for if any coherent idea came to mind all he could envision was his deform-!
Tobirama physically shuddered at the image, the taste of bile filling his mouth, heart aggressively slamming itself against the bars of his ribs.
“-has to make a good impression before their wedding night when Madara-chan finds out about his deform-!”
“-he peace we’ve created hinges on the success of their courting and marriage!” Hashirama’s piercing gaze never left Tobirama’s emotionless one, voice void of malicious intent but his words dripping in demeaning venom. “Madara-chan says you’ve been quite distant, Tobi! I know being emotional and touchy doesn’t come easy to you but you need to at least try to get along with him!”
“FREAK!”
“An oni is what you are, boy, a blight on our family and a curse to our clan! I should have killed you the moment I laid my eyes on you!”
“Tobirama, you must promise me you will never speak of this with anyone aside from I or your grandmother! Do you understand me?!”
“-You, however, are the undeniable proof that no one can escape the judgment of the Kami, not even the great Senju Butsuma.”
“You’ve ruined everything! I finally had someone that cared about me and you ruined it like you always do!”
“I am so sorry, Tobirama. I failed you.”
Tobirama had not realized it was raining until he felt the vague feeling of moist droplets hitting his trembling form but when he did, the teen soberly noted it was pouring freezing rain.
Touka-nee will be furious with me for being out in this weather.
Why does that matter? Many would be thrilled to see him succumb to illness and die. All would rejoice that the White Demon of the Senju was dead, even those of his clan. The clan elders would be most pleased-.
The health of a monster does not matter.
“What on earth are you doing here, Senju?”
Vermillion irises refused to meet obsidian at the sound of Izuna’s vexed voice echoing from somewhere in front of him, senses flaring as he came to feel the man’s blurred figure of smoky flamed chakra standing just a few yards away. How did he arrive here? Why had he-?
“Whatever it is Senju, you had better have an acceptable reason to be trespassing within our compound or-!”
“Shut. Up.”
The abrupt silence that followed the terse order was tense and the air was tainted with the scent of furious bloodlust.
“How dare you?! You trespass on our land and you have the nerve,” Izuna, in all his fury, stepped off the front engawa of his and Madara’s shared home with a growl, the sharp ‘shing’ of his katana being unsheathed echoing across the space between them. “-to tell me to shut up?! Just because you are my brother’s bastard of a future husband does not mean you have the right-!”
Chilling bitterness filled Tobirama’s veins as the Uchiha gave his rant, hands curling into fists and tongue sharpening with overwhelming anger. The sea of emotions was beginning to thrash dangerously within, the chilling winds clashing unforgivingly with the boiling waters, a threatening dance of overflowing feelings.
“Izuna, what in the Kami is-?! Senju?”
Tobirama’s head raised in recognition against his will, nerves fraying at the mere sound of Madara’s gravelly voice, a deep fissure under the raging sea’s surface breaking open.
Madara’s inferno-like chakra came to settle beside Izuna’s bonfire, the Uchiha clan head’s body language conveying cautiousness. His own future spouse was afraid of him, afraid of the Senju Demon, of the monstrosity that was Senju Tobirama.
He could not blame him.
The man spoke once more, voice leveled yet jagged at the same time, calming yet accusatory. “Why are you here, Senju? Has something-?”
A snarl ripped from the seventeen year old’s curled lips, his nails digging relentlessly into the flesh of his palms, unwilling to meet the man’s enticing charcoal irises. “Tobirama.”
“What?”
“I said,” Anger and chakra flaring, Tobirama came face to face with the surprised one of Uchiha Madara. “My name is Tobirama, not Senju !”
“Fine, Tobirama . What are you doing here?” Madara was not backing down in the slightest, in fact, he was beginning to size Tobirama up as if he were an enemy.
They were enemies, they had been enemies since Tobirama took his first cursed breath, since they stood opposite of one another on the battlefield from childhood leading into adulthood and in those damned peace negotiations that he had put his heart and soul into to ensure everything would succeed because it had been Hashirama’s greatest dream since they were children and yet again, here he was screwing everything up! He wanted to be the brother Hashirama wanted, to be the son his mother wished for, to be the weapon his father craved, to be the husband that Madara deserved-.
Yet…
“I am a fool.”
Madara and Izuna watched on in confused silence as they watched the albino’s rage slip under the chilling waves of his chakra, a crazed smirk appearing on the Senju’s face.
“What a fool I am for actually believing this arranged marriage would work, that I could ever convince you to love a cursed, deformed monster of a creature like me for the sake of peace! At first, I believed your indifference to me to be unintentional, for how conflicting it must be to be forced to marry the very boy that fuels the nightmares of your people, the very one who slaughtered countless of your kin for a pathetic war that had no rhyme nor reason! But now, oh now I see that could be anything farther from the truth because there was never any hope for whatever we call this sorry excuse for an arranged marriage because there never was any to begin with! Because you are incapable of love-!”
Izuna glared at the ranting seventeen year old with growing ire, teeth clenched and fingers itching in anticipation. “Enough Senju-!”
“Tobirama! My name is TOBIRAMA!” The albino shouted in avid desperation, effectively silencing Izuna before he could speak another word. “I am no Senju, nor have I ever been, for what people attempts to murder a child sixty-three times before the age of nine if they are seen as kin?! What clan allows their leader to beat his child an inch from death and then praise him for his deeds, of ridding them of the curse wrought by past transgressions?! WHO?!”
“ENOUGH!”
Tobirama froze at Madara’s bellow, chest heaving from exertion, both emotional and physical.
“You come to my clan’s compound, to my home ,” The Uchiha clan head wore a mask of displeased stoicism, the man’s bulky form beginning to trek toward Tobirama’s soaked one with murderous intent. “For what purpose? To shout at my brother and I about your faults, your transgressions?”
He continued his trek without pause, each step becoming more enraged. “Oh what nerve you have, Senju , to accuse me of being incapable of loving when it is you who is not able! I have done everything in my power to ensure this arranged marriage is at least bearable for the both of us and all you have done is meet me with indifference or insulting slaps across the face! You are the one that has depleted any hope from this blasted arranged marriage, you are the one causing conflict between us, it is all YOU!”
“We have finally managed to achieve what was believed to be unattainable, peace between our peoples, and here you are,” Madara now stood before Tobirama, mangekyou sharingan swirling and their noses almost touching from how close the older man was standing next to him. “-attempting to absolve the very thing this entire village has been built upon, and for what?! Does your hatred for my people truly run so deep that you crave to destroy the dream your brother and I have dreamt since childhood?! To put children back into the crossfire in the name of what?! To fulfill your bloodlust?!”
“ANIJA!”
The scent of wet, rusted iron and death flooded Tobirama’s nostrils, tongue coated in a sticky, metallic substance. Once vibrant chakra of freshly toiled earth and aloe runs stale-.
Deafening thunks of dirt meeting the top of the far-too-small coffin filled the teen’s ears.
“ANIJA! HELP ME!”
Chakra of tangy citrus, fresh spring breeze vanishes from his senses, the taste of blood saturating his tongue.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
“You are no better, Uchiha .”
Before Madara could even combat what was happening, Tobirama staring into the raven-haired man’s eyes without a hint of hesitation, vermillion irises swarming with barenaked emotion.
“You have rejected my courting gifts, you have insulted and assumed every step, you have not come to me with your discontent regarding our courting but to my brother when it is truly none of his business,” With the calm before a storm, Tobirama refused to break eye contact with Madara’s crimson-obsidian eyes, voice steady as the earth beneath their feet. “I have accepted your terms, your rules, your culture, your barbed words, your hatred for me. So, what have you done but do the opposite?”
“Peace has been attained due to my concession to your demands of marriage. The children no longer fight one another on the battlefield but play together in the village streets, the clans live amongst one another peacefully and fight alongside each other as if they are of the same kin. Your dream is secured regardless of whether this arranged marriage is successful and do you know why?”
No words left Madara’s snarled lips, the chilling rain falling harder and jaw locked in shocked silence. “It is because I am willing to do the impossible if that is what is needed. I would readily offer myself to the Shinigami if it means I will not have to see Hashirama or any child join my mother, sister and brothers in the Pure Lands before I.”
“I conceded to being wedded to you, the very man of the clan that thoughtlessly slaughtered both of my younger brothers without a second thought. Itama begged your clansmen to spare him, did you know that? A seven year old child begged for his life, only to have his throat slit in return.” A sobering smile bloomed on the albino’s pale facial features, red-slitted tattoos creasing with the movement. “You are no better than I in the end, Uchiha. The only difference between us is that I am willing to accept the monster that I am.”
The silence between them was tumultuous, sharp as kunai and heavy as the weight of the world. Both of them were naked as the day they were born, their emotions out for all to see, opposing perspectives revealed, vulnerable and open. One might think their argument to be the magnum opus all had been waiting for.
Such thoughts were all in vain.
Quietly, Madara took a stride backwards and turned away, face dark as the stormy sky hung menacingly above them. “Get out.”
“What?”
Anguish flooded Tobirama’s features, suddenly feeling as if he was free falling through the air.
“You heard me, Senju,” Bitter rage swirled in the Uchiha’s gravelly voice. “Get out, before I escort you to Hashirama for breaching the peace treaty myself.”
The air was thrust out of his lungs as his cracking form crashed into the grounding earth of reality below. He could not, he could not, he could not-.
In a blur of movement, patterned irises mercilessly slammed into Tobirama’s sanguine, a roar ripping from Madara’s throat whilst his gloved hands shoved the teen away.
“OUT!”
Having not expected the shove, Tobirama was sprawling backwards, ass hitting the soaked grass and an unforgiving, stern surface striking the back of his head. The world spun widely upon impact, a surging wave of nausea flooding his senses, and it took all of Tobirama’s little willpower to not heave what little food remained in his digestive system. Muffled voices spoke not too far from him, or perhaps they were close, he could not tell anymore– everything was simply wrong .
“-did you do?!”
Senses fluctuated with irregularity, everything either so close or too far, he felt as if he was floating, field of vision slowly but steadily growing dark. Hands touch him on the arm, a blurry face is suddenly in front of his own.
“-nju, are you alright?”
Izuna but not Izuna- his voice was not that deep. Pain, there was pain in his head. He needed to get away-.
Calling on his chakra with the simple movement of his hand, Tobirama was shunshinning and abruptly, much to what was probably his concussed confusion, crashing against a hard surface, a sharp, stabbing pain flaring from his side upon contact. Groaning, the teen forced himself off the surface, only to promptly collapse onto what he assumed to be the brick flooring of the lab. His vision was fading, the dark abyss of unconscious lurking ever closer, and all Tobirama could do in that moment as he laid there on the cold ground, concussed and in pain, was wonder what consequences the future would have in store for his injudicious actions.
~~~