The Searching Sons
~~~
The feather soft splashes of the Naka were the only thing Hashirama and Madara could hear from their spots on the river’s edge, the two thirteen year old boys settled beside one another in quiet with their eyes searching the sky’s endless landscape in content. It had been one of those rare days that neither boy had the will nor interest to train with one another, being content with simply being in the other’s presence on the cool fall day that had come to be in the Land of Fire. They had spent countless hours splashing about and skipping rocks to pass the time, laughter and playful jabs (at least from Hashirama) echoing fluidly across the rocky riverbank they had come to call their meeting place. This very place had become a sanctuary of sorts with the passage of time, somewhere they could escape the harsh realities that came with being not only shinobi but clan heirs that never seemed to quite meet their respective fathers’ lofty expectations.
Family was a topic rarely broached between the two young teenagers, simply due to the fact that speaking of such things would inevitably lead to identities being revealed and their already precarious arrangement tarnished beyond saving. The rare moments where either of them even dared to mention their blood relatives was when they found themselves dreaming of a time without war, of shinobi fighting alongside one another under one banner within the Land of Fire regardless of their clan or allies, for one common cause. Dreaming of a childhood where they would no longer be molded into child soldiers but to solely be children that played, daydreamed, and explored the world around them. Both teenagers pondered what their lives would be like in a time of peace subconsciously, thoughts focusing almost solely on the ones they had lost far too soon, particularly their fallen siblings. Even outside their rendezvous at the riverfront, Madara yearned to hear his three youngest brothers’ laughter just once more, to see his mother smother her five children with attention and affection. Hashirama simply wanted the chance to hug Kawarama and Itama once more, to have someone to hold on the dark nights with even darker thoughts. Tobirama was never one for physical contact, being the clear opposite of Hashirama who thrived off of hugs and touches, and Izuna was abhorrent to Madara’s overprotectiveness due to how adamant he was to prove himself, often stating with great indignancy that he was fully capable of handling himself. Each elder brother couldn’t help but question that if in another world, would their brothers be the way they are or would they be more alike?
“What lengths would you go to protect your younger brother?”
Hashirama promptly turned his head just enough to face his friend, Madara gazing up at the sky with thoughtful and serious pools of charcoal, caution-fueled curiosity pumping through his veins. He would later feel a meager flicker of shame of how hesitant he had been when it came to answering Madara’s question, envy and bitter emotion crawling up his throat. From the moment he laid his eyes on Tobirama, uncertainty and excitement in his veins, Hashirama had wanted to protect his younger brother, his otouto and at some point, unbeknownst to him, such a mindset had changed. The thought of losing Tobirama was paralyzing, yes, but not for the fact that the white haired boy was his brother; no, the mere thought of being left as the lone survivor and forced to face the world alone was far more grievous. Was such reasoning appropriate? No, probably not, in fact mother would have scolded him for such thoughts if she was still alive. Yet, he still thought those blood-riddled, desperate thoughts, his field of vision steadily growing more tint with envious viridian, the years of pent up jealousy threatening to suffocate his lungs. All Hashirama wanted to do was scream, yet, for some reason, he still answered.
“To the ends of the earth.”
The near silent splash of their sandals’ respective bottoms hitting and thrusting off the Naka’s surface was damn near deafening to Hashirama’s ears, the long haired brunette dutifully following his group in tense silence. All four of them were dressed for war, their small squad moved into the forest without a moment’s hesitation, killing intent tumbling off the three shinobi moving alongside him, each one bearing a face of disgruntled focus. Mito, foregoing her traditional Uzumaki garb, had chosen to fit herself in Senju armor quite similar to Touka’s own, although hers happened to be a sheening violet that contrasted violently with her scarlet locks. The Uzumaki woman had taken the role of squad leader within seconds of Hashirama’s appearance at the northeastern entrance, Madara and Touka having already arrived at the predetermined location with their gear and themselves at the ready, and the Senju clan head could do nothing but follow behind like a lost duckling. Momentarily shifting his gaze to the left, the hokage was met with Touka’s determined form, the kunoichi an explosive tag just waiting to be set off and Hashirama knew better than to address his cousin when she was in such a mood.
“Touka is much like a yellowjacket, anija.” Tobirama’s pupil-less pools of endless merlot messily met Hashirama’s earth-rich ones, the albino pausing in his task of sharpening the length of his katana to do so. “Docile until provoked.”
Bile curdled dangerously within the back of his throat at the memory made the mokuton user inwardly and outwardly cringe, his stomach feeling as if he had eaten a hefty stone. A complicated mixture of emotions toiled about within him, his heart and mind at war over the reality that he may have been the one to send his brother, perfect Tobi, to his potential death. A part of his heart rejoiced greedily at the thought of Tobirama no longer existing, relishing in the mere possibility that they would be too late, that Hashirama would no longer be burdened with the truth of being the lesser, unintelligent son. Not surprisingly, the voice within him clashed madly against his beating organ, his heart aggressively snarling with its canines bared whilst it worked to rid his poor excuse of a soul of its poisonous envy. Tobirama was his brother, the one he had pledged to protect, love, and cherish from the day the young boy was brought into this accursed world, and he knew that a world without his otouto wasn’t one worth living in. That didn’t stop the feelings of past resentment from bubbling up to the surface however, oozing sleepily from invisible emotional wounds that never have seemed to heal no matter what either he or Tobirama did.
With a slight shake of his head, Hashirama purged his already brimming mind of those poisonous thoughts, trying to set his focus back on the task at hand, on pushing himself forward into the unknown set before them. There was no time to be wasted if they were going to reach Tobirama in time, a great if not impossible feat in itself. His otouto had come to create a jutsu, the Flying Raijin as Tobirama had proudly named it, to best the Uchiha’s sharingan and in turn became the fastest shinobi in the Land of Fire if not further and the likelihood of them reaching him before he met his intended doom was slim if second to none.
Such a heavy thought bore significant weight on all four shinobi’s minds as they ventured further from the village into the dense forests of the Land of Fire, not a word spoken between them. Truly, what could be said to mitigate the situation at hand?
Touka grimaced at the thought, grinding her teeth in raging opposition because they shouldn’t be in such a predicament in the first place. Oh how she wished she hadn’t paid mind to Tobirama’s requests, that she not defend him from his dolt of an older brother and his abusive excuse for a future husband. The urge to beat the ever living shit out of not only Madara and Hashirama but Izuna as well boiled dangerously beneath her skin, clenched fists tense and ready to strike either man in their party if they so much as utter a sound. They honestly had no business, no, no fucking right to be a part of this retrieval mission; those bastards were why her precious cousin was not only injured but on this suicide mission in the first place! Both men (if she could even call them that with how childish they acted) were absolute idiots with their own selfish goals and incentives and Tobirama had been their unwilling victim, years of abuse and conditioning from Butsuma and other Senju having warped his sense of self-worth to the near point of non-existence. Hashirama, bearing his own trauma and self-induced jealousy, ripped into his younger brother with conditioned purpose and Madara, once an avid enemy rapidly turned intended spouse in the span of just months, was crafted to be a bringer of war just as Hashirama was and taught from birth to bear hatred for the Uchiha’s eternal rival. While Touka could only postulate the troubling events and behaviors Madara and Izuna had both experienced, seeing as how she hadn’t been present in their lives aside o from the battlefield, but she knew without a fact that it gave neither of them the excuse to treat Tobirama the way they had. Madara had struck her cousin in a moment of emotional and physical vulnerability, having only been in such an unstable state because of the Uchiha and her damn older cousin in the first place, and kami how she wished she had been there in the moment to stab her naginata through the fool’s foul spewing throat-!
Now, she was fully aware that Tobirama was nowhere near perfect, no matter how hard he had tried over his seventeen years of life, but Touka knew without a shred of doubt that he deserved far more in life than what he had been given. He deserved a spouse that not only loved but respected, cherished, and worshiped him as if he was the greatest thing on this cursed earth; it was the least the Kami could do for him after experiencing the brutal childhood of sneers, broken bones, sickness, and abuse Tobirama seemed to endlessly endure. Right?
Mito, not oblivious to the internal war her husband and cousin-in-law were warring against their emotions, continued to flare the tendrils of her sensory field outward as she led the way towards the border, focused on finding any inkling of Tobirama’s soothingly cool chakra whilst continuously kneading more chakra to sustain her efforts. She herself was struggling to maintain her emotional composure, though one could not sense her plight just by looking at her person; no, the mask of emotional indifference she had come to craft over the span of her childhood in Uzushiogakure was one of her greatest masterpieces and one she relied on heavily in moments like these. Born as the second eldest child to the Uzumaki throne, Mito had to be epitome of perfection if she wished to be regarded, let alone be gifted with an ounce of attention and consideration, seeing as how she was forever stuck in her nee-san’s massive shadow. Countless hours of her childhood had been spent working on her fuinjutsu craft and training herself into an excellent kunoichi, Mito striving to be the one who just might catch her subjects attention for longer than just a moment. She refused to be the extra, the spare heir if the worst happened and her nee-san perished, and such a mentality needed a face of fearlessness and invulnerability to make her demands a reality. If Mito wished to be regarded seriously by those around her, she had to craft a persona of grace and perfection, one that spoke without a stumble of the tongue and stood tall with the confidence of a Kami.
“Those of the court are much like the sharks of the ocean, my beloved Mito.” Father’s tender hand cupped Mito’s cheek with reverence, her seven year old self gazing up at the man that was the epitome of dignity and grace whilst he gave her a bittersweet, knowing smile. “The second a drop of your blood hits the water’s surface, they will be upon you without mercy.”
So, with that knowledge in mind, even as a young child, Mito set about eradicating every shred of external weakness she could find within herself and in doing so became the revered Crimson Tide, one of the most powerful fuinjutsu masters of the Uzumaki clan. She reveled in her status with perfectly veiled pride by the age of twelve years old, bearing a selfless front as her heart relished in the spoils of her success, at hearing her people and the rare foreigner murmur their intimidated approval whilst she walked the streets conducting various acts of charity. Mito had been content with her life, each day full of learning and exploring every inch of the island and the waters beyond it, whilst scouring each and every millimeter of the royal library in search of new information to progress her research and studies. All had been well and then, on a stormy, summer’s day shortly after her fourteenth birthday, a gangly boy with skin pale as the moon and curls as white as a dove’s feathers appeared on Uzushiogakure’s shores.
To say the boy piqued her interest almost immediately was putting it mildly; Mito found herself unable to pull her deep violet gaze away from the mainlander who had crossed the ocean’s rugged landscape as if it were smooth as freshly woven silk. The boy’s features, while offsetting to many of her people due to factless superstitions that cankerous elders and fire and brimstone religious preached to stray the population from the unknown, were a marveling mystery that Mito desperately wished to dissect and consume. She studiously studied such features whilst the boy, Senju Tobirama as he had come to introduce himself as before her father and the council members present at the time, taking notes of his high cheekbones and scar littered skin, many of the marks a rosy pink which testified that he had acquired them recently. Mito listened on with vigor as Tobirama eloquently explained his reasoning for weathering the high seas to reach their island, bearing a scroll from his father, Senju Butsuma, who wished for his eldest son to marry one of Uzumaki Akaneo’s daughters in hopes of strengthening their ties both politically and economically. Her father, ever the studious and ruminative man, gave Tobirama no instantaneous action, expressing with great seriousness that he would need time to mull over the Senjus proposal and in doing so, promptly offered Mito as the boy’s guide until said decision had been made.
That very decision would change Mito’s life forever. As her father pondered on with his advisors, Mito found herself engrossed in the boy who would potentially become her brother-in-law. With a tongue sharp as silver and a mind fit as a freshly tuned biwa, Tobirama proved himself to be the epitome of a genius over the coming weeks, stumping Mito in matters of science and ninjutsu development, the twelve year old boy having already created a jutsu in which he could create multiple tangible copies of himself. Such a jutsu was astronomical in terms of advancement and difficulty but Mito found herself enraptured in Tobirama’s thorough explanation of his scientific process, to which he informed her that only were these copies capable of performing their own jutsu, they were autonomous yet interconnected with one another subconsciously at the same time! What proved to be even more impressive was Tobirama’s wealth of knowledge on fuinjutsu, with such knowledge having been attained and mastered through self-taught lessons from the meager age of four years old.
As time passed and the summer grew long, Mito came to accept that she had finally met not only her intellectual but physical match in no one other than Senju Tobirama. Her fourteen year old self relished in finding someone who not only possessed a brilliant mind and impressive sensory abilities, but an individual who could be quiet as a sunny day at sea one moment yet destructive as a hurricane the next. Tobirama’s incline to suiton nature happened to garner the attention of many as well, elders and young alike mystified that a mainlander could possess such a strong tie to water, and they would avidly watch on in interest whilst he and Mito sparred one another at the training grounds. In time, Tobirama had become one with the Uzumaki, assisting in staving off the harshest of storms when need be and teaching the young ones basic taijutsu and ninjutsu, a duty in which many of the elders loathed to undertake due to the rowdiness of the children. Oh many a nights did Mito find herself gazing at the constellations twinkling above in the night sky with Tobirama and her sisters at her side, the four of them listening on with wonder and stars in their eyes. Tobirama had become the brother the princesses had also wanted, one that provided comfort yet tough lessons, a confidant and an anchor amongst the brisk waves of life's ocean. How mortified Mito would feel upon learning that Tobirama had become such an astute individual and sibling due to being one of the sole caretakers for his and her future husband’s younger brothers, both of which she never had the pleasure of meeting due to them having been killed early on into their childhoods.
It was because of Tobirama that Mito would meet the man she would come to call her husband, her new friend assuring her that only was Hashirama strong, he was kind and a thoughtful individual who was dedicated to protecting his loved ones. It was because of Tobirama that she would venture from her home, the only place she had ever known, and settle in the Land of Fire, far from her family and deep into the mainland. It was because of him that she would gain not only a brother but a cousin as well, Touka swiftly becoming one of her dearest friends and closest confidants upon her arrival in the Senju compound. It was because of him that Mito would be spared from Butsuma’s cruel demands for her to consummate her marriage with Hashirama at the mere age of fourteen, to produce the next clan heir as if Tobirama himself had not been standing right there. It was because of Tobirama that Mito began to notice just how cruel Hashirama could be to a brother that he claimed to love with all his heart, how her eversweet husband could be so bitter to another human without batting an eye.
Mito couldn’t help the curling of her fists just at the mere thought of Hashirama’s kunai sharp words, of Madara’s ignorant and foolish actions, of knowing her precious otouto was in danger because of their arrogance. Her temper flared and her heart screamed for retribution, but she knew that now was not the time nor the place, no matter how much she craved for penance. Flaring the tendrils of her sensory field outwards once more, Mito steadied her internal self whilst taking the leap over the dense tree line that acted as the unofficial border line between the Lands of Lightning and Fire, focusing on the task at hand. She wasted no time waiting to see if her party was following her, Hashirama’s hefty and earthy chakra clashing deftly with Madara’s own fiery and ash-riddled signature acting as blinding beacons amidst the mainly empty forest. The kunoichi shifted her body just enough to dodge a poorly placed tripwire, her party members thankfully doing the same; they had no time to waste on trivial bomb tags that were clearly placed by a genin or an idiot of a higher ranking shinobi.
With a silent cry of her missing brother’s name, Mito sent her sensory field outwards in growing desperation, and just as she expected to be met empty handed as she had been every time before, chakra of frigid mint and fresh fallen rain flickered across the far edges to the northwest. In any other case, she would have felt relief at sensing her otouto’s precious chakra, but such relief evaporated the very moment she felt it fluctuate in and out of existence, which could only mean-.
“I sense him, 20 miles northwest of here,” Her words jarred the others from their internal dialogues, the three shinobi snapping to attention. “We won’t reach him in time if you wait on Touka and I! Go!”
“Mito-!” Hashirama, the damn fool, dared to argue, concern ringing true in his voice, and she didn’t hesitate to rip into the mokuton used without restraint. “Do you wish to see your brother alive or not, husband?! GO!”
“Listen to your wife, you imbecile! MOVE IT!”
Madara was gone in a flash of crimson and obsidian, the Uchiha racing towards Tobirama’s estimated location without abandonment, leaving the remaining three shinobi in the dust. The hokage, effectively silenced by her question and his best friend’s jarring shout, launched himself after the man without another word, leaving Mito and Touka to follow after them.
All they could do now was pray to the gods that Hashirama and Madara reached the teenager before it was too late.
~~~