Hidden Within the Arrangement

~~~

Madara bitterly knew that the moment Senju Tobirama stepped foot outside Konohagakure’s walls, they were already too late.  

What a painful truth it was, one that neither he nor the others were willing to accept let alone acknowledge as they made their desperation-fueled dash across the forested terrain of the Land Fire that gradually shifted into the rugged, mountainous lands of Lightning Country, the burdensome weight of the situation increasing with every step taken. Whilst each of the four individuals carried this general burden of worried concern, it was quite evident for all to see that Madara and Hashirama themselves carried ones of greater magnitude, the two shinobi bearing the additional weight of well-deserved guilt and shame on their muscled shoulders. 

Said guilt felt like a stone was sitting within Madara’s stomach and truthfully, with the dire situation at hand, how could it not? 

“Just remember, my little spitfire, to treat your Blessed as if they are Amaterasu herself, for you only have one lifetime.”

Had Madara harbored disdain towards the Senju? Yes, and to some degree, the Uchiha had been rightly justified, for the white haired man had murdered countless members of his clan and never showed himself to be remorseful of his actions unlike his elder brother. However, Madara had been just as guilty as his betrothed, if not more seeing how he, upon becoming clan head, had ordered his people to trudge onwards in their futile struggle against the Senju. Yet, rather than accept this truth and admit his guilt like the arrogant ass that he was proving to be, Madara intentionally utilized such information as a means of justification for his ruthless actions against Tobirama. He chose to belittle, ignore, and vilify Tobirama at every chance he could get and for what? To somehow fill his hole-riddled heart? To ensure Izuna and his relationship remained without additional tension over the younger man’s hatred for his rival? To appease the clan elders by marrying the man yet snubbing him at the same time? 

Madara sneered at the barrage of self-deprecating thoughts plaguing his mind– now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for himself, not when Tobirama’s life hung in the balance. They were now finally reaching the borderline between Lightning and Fire country, an arduous journey due to dense forests and various rogue nins and wild animals alike hiding within the shadows. Mito, the impromptu leader of their four man squad, had permitted little rest, the redhead urging their anxious group ever forward yet being mindful to not exhaust their energy and chakra reserves. Little words had been spoken amongst themselves during their urgent trek aside from strategy talks and directions spat out from an ever-livid Touka’s lips, the two kunoichi gifting Hashirama and Madara with a well-deserved cold shoulder whilst they attempted to use their sensing abilities to locate Tobirama’s chakra signature. Faint traces of said signature had been found early on, the singular drop of crimson colored blood on a sturdy branch bringing an already upset Hashirama to tears, a reaction that made Madara’s blood boil. The damn tree hugger had no right to have such a reaction, seeing as how they were mainly in this dire situation because of his foolish actions and lack of attention to detail! How does one not notice that their brother, no matter how great their acting skills or intelligence, is supporting injuries such as a concussion or stab wounds?! Madara always knew when Izuna was supporting an injury, his tells were blatantly obvious after years of being together as brothers, clan leaders, and one another’s confidants. Hashirama had always portrayed his relationship with Tobirama to be nearly identical to the one Madara and Izuna shared with one other, the two working together as well-synced partners to provide for their people and ensure the dream of peace was protected. Now, however, when Madara truly looked at past instances of the Senju brothers' interactions with each other that he himself happened to witness, it was quite obvious that tension, if not more, was present between them. Yet, when the topic of brothers appeared in their late night, alcohol saturated conversations after long days in the office, Hashirama would speak about his beloved younger brother in a positive light, to the point that Madara had been tempted to gag the man. It was hard for the Uchiha clan head to believe that all of those compliments had been insincere or untrue, but he knew for a fact that no man who truly loved their brother would have sent him on a suicide mission in his present condition like Hashirama had done. Just what was the relationship between Hashirama and Tobirama?

Glancing at said man from the corner of his eye, Madara took note of the grave look marring the brunette’s facial features, his chocolate brown irises wrought with concerned guilt. If Madara was honest with himself and if they had the time, he would have throttled the mokuton user an inch from death, the rage he felt towards himself, his best friend, Izuna, the Senju and Uchiha clan elders, hell even the kami, had begun accumulating within himself and was threatening to spill over. The Uchiha had little room to speak for himself, a part of the current circumstances was because of his own ill-suited actions as well, but the young child that hid deep within his heart, the one that still believed in soulmates and the Blessed of Amaterasu, was furious. 

‘How dare you endanger our Blessed,’it screamed, small fists striking the suddenly sensitive walls of Madara’s heart. ‘How could you do this to him?!’ 

They were the very same questions he kept asking himself over the past few days, the mantra repeating over and over again. Yes, both himself and Tobirama were at fault, these faults being their stunted communication skills due to rushed if not non-existent childhoods, Madara’s temper, and the albino’s cold yet submissive demeanor and behavior. Truthfully, if one were to take a step back from the situation and give it the briefest of glances, they would be able to tell that the arranged marriage Madara and Tobirama had been placed in was far from salvageable, if not doomed from the start. The child within, so naive and innocent was he, refused to believe such truths, and some part of him, whether it be due to guilt of what had already transpired or some other hefty emotion he was unable to identify at the moment, did not want to surrender just yet, that it was still possible to turn things around and make this politically-driven marriage work-! 

“Wait.” 

The simple order had Madara, Hashirama, and Touka grinding to a sudden and silent halt within seconds, the trio’s attention falling upon a studious Mito, the Uzumaki witch moving to take a kneel and pressing an open palmed hand against the ground beneath her feet. No one dared to say a word, countless years of training and experience scraping out the natural urge to question why they were being told to halt; however, this didn’t mean that each of them weren’t waiting on a razor’s edge, tense and awaiting some hopeful news or words of instruction. 

After a painstakingly long moment, Mito’s deep, violet pools snapped open, her unblemished face contorting with anxious concern whilst she leapt to her feet. “We need to move, now.” 

Not one of them spoke, the air so taut with unease that it felt as if Madara would choke on a simple breath as they followed the kunoichi further up the rugged mountainside, each step taken growing heftier than the last. Touka moved like a viper stalking its prey, each of her movements saturated in deadly intent, and Hashirama, rarely the serious individual, bore a look of stagnate consternation on his tanned features. The weight of urgency was unbearable to Madara, the raven haired man feeling as if his body would combust any minute and he had no inkling as to what emotion within himself would set off the explosion. Flaring his own chakra sensory field outwards in hopes of detecting even a shred of Tobirama’s chilly yet soothing chakra, Madara focused interchangeably on searching and keeping up with others until he felt it. 

No. 

In a flash of chakra, Madara thrusted his body forward, ignoring the cries of his group members as he did so, and with a sole bounding leap, the young shinobi found himself landing within a busy camp of unsuspecting enemy nin. Cries of surprise left the pair of shinobi that were within his vicinity, a quick flick of his wrists leaving both with kunais lodged in their throats as his sharingan bled into existence, wet gurgles echoing in the air. He wasted no time in snatching his gunbai from its holster and plunging himself into the chaos the camp had now devolved into, blocking blows and incoming kunai with ease, grabbing one’s wrist and flinging them into a group of approaching nin as if they were light as a feather. Just as his gunbai swung outwards to shield himself from a rogue katon attack, releasing the kama attached to the large war fan and wedging its razor sharp blade into the occipital lobe of an angry screaming kunoichi, he could feel Hashirama, Mito, and Touka join into the fray, their unique chakras flaring with powerful might as they went to work. A bulky shinobi to his far right slammed his feet into the ground beneath him, a shout of ‘raiton’ something following close behind, and Madara swiftly found himself leaning backwards and sliding across the gravel ground on his knees to avoid a lightning strike from the individual. Before he could retaliate, Touka was stabbing the blade of her naginata through the man’s skull and shoved him forwards, a spray of crimson staining the earth whilst his body fell to the ground with a sickening thud. 

Ripping her weapon from the man’s cranium just in time to block an incoming strike from a kunoichi’s katana, Touka turned her attention to Madara with a shout, putting her remaining effort into neutralizing the woman. “We can handle these fools, go!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. A shower of freshly turned earth flew through the air as a wave of Hashirama’s killer vines burst from the land beneath his feet, each of the creepers piercing into the hearts of nearby enemy nin and ripping said vital organs out of their chests. Such a sight surprised the sprinting Uchiha, seeing as how Hashirama often if not always dealt non-fatal blows to his enemies, whether they were Madara or not. 

Switching his attention back to the task at hand, the raven haired shinobi sliced, dodged, and skewered his way through a sea of enemy ninja that seemed to be standing protectively in front of the tent that was stationed near the center of the encampment. He didn't care that his person was rapidly growing redder by the moment, blood from decapitating a shinobi’s head drenching the right side of his face with a sharp slap and most likely ruining his armor beyond repair. He didn’t care that he was leaving behind piles of dead or steadily dying, their bodies weeping rivers of carmine that were promptly forming into an never ending ocean of metal, flesh, and bodily fluids. He didn’t care about the cut to his upper arm, nor about how Hashirama was skewering their enemies like child’s play, decisively ignoring how Touka and Mito working hand in hand to quite literally explode a man from the inside out with a simple katon and a fuinjutsu seal slapped to the back of their neck. All that mattered washow the typically unfaltering chasm of fresh rainfall chakra was flickering in and out of existence like a candle in the midst of being extinguished. 

Madara could feel the anguish present in Tobirama’s ordinarily tranquil aura, said anguish riddled with desperation and concession, as if the teenager had already conceded defeat. He could feel the waves of agony wafting off his betrothed, his chakra reeking of hopelessness. 

Had they been too late-?

Mere yards away from the tent’s entrance, Madara found himself facing a singular remaining individual, a boy no older than fourteen years old, a headful of ash blonde curls sitting atop of his sunbaked head and a kunai clutched in his left palm, ready to strike. The boy stood firm with intention, said intention being to eliminate Madara before he reached his target, clearly ready to die with honor in protecting the man who had slaughtered countless lives, shinobi and civilians alike, all in the name of accruing esteem and nationwide recognition. Madara’ father had taught him and his younger brothers to kill with honor and purpose, never to fulfill one’s bloodlust. To take lives undeserving of the death given to them was taboo amongst his clan and had been for centuries, said belief acting as kindling to the once ever raging fire that had been the war between the Senju and Uchiha because spilt blood was to be met with spilt blood. 

Should Madara have been perturbed by how easy it was to snap the teen’s neck with the nimble jerk of his wrist, how the sound of bone cracking mercilessly washed over him without a single reaction? Perhaps, but one had to remember one crucial piece of information. 

Uchiha Madara was a ravenous demon that was forever itching to shed the blood of his enemies. 

Flicking his gunbai with practiced ease, the clan head of the Uchiha paid no mind to the moist splash of blood striking blood, nor how the damp ground beneath his feet squelched with every gory step. The twenty year old’s senses warned him of the foe hidden within the tent, a sky full of damning, hot lightning crackling housed within Raikaku’s boisterous frame shuffling imposingly forward, a scent of killing intent steadily tainting the already metallic smelling air. Madara forced his magma hot temper under his ironclad self-control, his gloved grip on his gunbai and kama growing so tight that his knuckles cracked warningly under the exertion, and he readied himself for the foreboding task at hand. 

He never would forget the following moment for as long as he lived, the coming memory forever ingrained within his brain. 

 With a shit-eating near maniacal grin on his scarred and weathered face, Raikaku emerged from the inner bowels of the encampment, his battle worn figure bearing a white breast plate that was held against his torso with a strap over one of his meaty shoulders. A large fan of red and white constructed to look as if it had been made from feathers rested in his right hand, a massive gourd shaped container slung across the expanse of the back. Nevertheless, Madara’s attention was not focused on the man himself nor the weapons and armor he bore, but rather on the individual clutched in the shinobi’s enormous hand. Resting limp as a doll in Raikaku’s hand was Tobirama, the older shinobi clenching onto the seventeen year old’s bloodied silver curls without a care as he dragged the boy’s broken form across the unforgiving gravel like a dead animal. Tobirama, for a better lack of words, was an absolute mess; his face mottled like the hide of horse, the awkward angle of both of his right forearm and left calf informed the Uchiha that both limbs had been broken, the albino’s right shoulder evidently dislocated as well. 

“Ah, Uchiha Madara! I was wondering when you’d come looking for your wandering little bitch here,” Raikaku lifted Tobirama’s head just enough to reveal the state of the boy’s face. Bearing a deeply split bottom lip, Tobirama’s right eye an array of colors whilst being swollen shut, his nose resting at an awkward angle and weeping a small but steady stream of vermillion from both nostrils. Bruises littered his tattooed cheeks like a speckled cow, some showing signs of being days old while others were clearly freshly made, some shaped like fingerprints, the marks on the seventeen year old’s pale neck even bearing an entire handprint. “I have to say, it put up more of a fight than I thought it would, seeing how it's a freak of nature and all!” 

His sudden confusion must have been evident on his face because before Madara could even comprehend just what the man was implying, Raikaku let out a booming laugh, his grip on Tobirama’s hair shaking from his laughter. 

“You truly have no idea what I’m talking about, do you Uchiha? That’s hilarious!” Raikaku roared with laughter, nearly folding his imposing figure into two with how hard he was laughing. 

Madara could only snarl in response, taking a threatening step forward and pointing his blood splattered gunbai towards the enemy nin standing before him. “Enough of your taunting Raikaku! Release him-!” 

Tauntingly lifting the unconscious albino into the air, the Scribe of Raijin chortled with psychotic glee. “Him? You make me laugh, Uchiha! You must truly be delusional to refer to this thing as him when it is no more a man than it is a woman!” 

What in the-? What was this lunatic spouting on about?! Tobirama was male, he was Hashirama’s younger brother for kami’s sake-!

Before the Uchiha clan head could blink, Raikaku’s fan dropped to the ground with a resounding thud, the noise reverberating through the chaotic camp like thunder. With his hand now free, the bastard reached the appendage across his body and took hold of the waistline of the tattered midnight black pants covering Tobirama’s lower half, the damaged fabric giving away with a sharp tug. A part of Madara wanted to scream, to attack the man for doing something so humiliating and degrading, but that part suddenly grew silent the moment his eyes landed on the teen’s exposed genitals. 

Both sets.

Madara felt as if he had been dunked into freezing cold water, limbs unable to move, his mouth abruptly unable to speak. As expected, his betrothed had a cock just like Madara’s own, though he’s appeared to be slightly smaller in regards to its girth, and pair of decent sized balls rested at the cock’s base; yet, just below his male genitals, was clearly a vagina, the outer labia glaringly obvious.

“I was quite shocked when my right hand told me of her ‘discovery’ upon conducting a strip inspection when we initially captured the Senju Ghost. I was even more surprised to learn that such a rare being had been allowed to survive childhood, let alone infancy. Senju Butsuma must have truly been as mad as my sources reported to keep something with not only visible deformities but a physical one as well.” Raikaku’s fingers traveled downwards, touching the sparse if nearly non-existent space between Tobirama’s private parts with the tip of his finger nail in a mocking manner. “Yet, for all its issues, this pretty little thing sure knows how to sing and provide a man with a good time, even if it cried like a bitch at the beginning.” 

It was at that very moment that the force that kept Madara frozen in place shattered and the Uchiha’s vision abruptly turned red. 

“You sick bastard!” 

He had little time to react, yet alone turn his head, before Touka burst into his field of vision from the corner of his eye, the already typically irritable kunoichi ablaze with fiery rage and naginata posed to attack. “RELEASE HIM! NOW!” 

“Ah, ah, ah, Senju. You wouldn’t want my hand to slip now, do you?”

With a crazed grin, Raikaku snapped his fingers and in milliseconds, lightning bega to crackle menacingly across his brutalized appendages. Both Madara and Touka tensed at the scene unfolding before them, the two Konoha shinobis’ grips tightening around their respective weapons. The Lightning nin’s captive never once stirred in his captor’s hold, a detail that placed Madara further on edge; his current state was telling of just how injured was Tobirama, him being the very same individual who defeated a swarm of Hagoromo shinobi twice his size with two broken wrists AND a half shattered rib cage while leading a platoon of his own clansmen without a single mishap. 

Just what had happened to the young man whilst in Raikaku’s control? 

Seeing as how Tobirama was incapacitated and in the hold of the enemy, there was little either Touka or Madara could do in that moment to ensure no further harm came to the teen, the older man’s brutality and willingness to cause harm wholefully evident.

“Oh, you have no inkling at just how excited I was when I found this wandering little rabbit on my front doorstep, so eager to prove itself the monster it truly is by killing a good portion of my forces like it was simple arithmetic! So bloodthirsty, its chakra practically oozing its killing intent!” Maneuvering Tobirama’s mangled form to meet the insensible Senju face to face with a laugh,  a look of exhilarated joy pooling over his scarred facial features, his appearance and actions like that of a child receiving a new toy for its birthday. “Imagine how astonished I was to discover how submissible the Senju Demon is to a real man like myself. In fact, he hardly resisted at all, as if the will to fight had already been removed from his soul! Breaking an accepting bitch is never as enjoyable as one who puts up a fight but who am I to complain? A virgin’s a virgin, after all, am I right?!”

Those damned words, no, that accursed question of rhetoric, had Madara’s previously stone heavy stomach crashing into the ground, his heart flailing miserably beneath the sudden and all-encompassing pressure squeezing the vital organ, mind cracking and threatening to shatter completely. Then, like a well-worn blister bursting under force, his chakra-fueled rage exploded within himself like a supernova, the ground beneath his feet melting into a boiling pool of scorching lava. 

Despite the circumstances and the magma oozing underneath his rigid persona, Madara found his outward demeanor to be deathly calm, his baritone voice ice cold and like a serrated edge. “In most situations such as these, I would provide you with two paths: one of mercy or one of death. However, an arrogant and repulsive creature like yourself does not even deserve to touch the ground beneath my sandals, let alone waste precious oxygen.” 

“So, tell me Scribe of Raijin,” Pointing the tip of his gunbai at the deranged missing nin, the Uchiha clan head spoke with untainted certainty, stern and unmoving in both speech and stance. A resounding thud sounded off to his right and he had no need to spare the newcomer a glance, murderous intent reeking of freshly toiled earth and outrage gracing his sensory field, promptly informing him that Hashirama had concluded his minute scuffle with the remainder of Raikaku’s men. “Are you prepared to face the judgment of the gods of shinobi?” 

Mito, having appeared at some point to his left, spoke up with a swift flick of her war fan, a squelch of crimson meeting earth echoing through the tense air as her raging chakra whirled wildly around her ever pristine person. “Enough with the theatrics, Uchiha-sama. Do you not know that it’s rude for one to play with their food?” 

Raikaku sneered at the Uzumaki’s backhanded retort, his hold on Tobirama’s hair becoming non-existent as he dropped the teen unceremoniously to the ground with a soft thud. “Ha! You make me laugh, Uzumaki witch! By the time that I’m finished with all of you, it will be your blood that quenches my tongue!”

“I found myself agreeing with you wholeheartedly, my love.” Hashirama twisted his neck just enough for an audible crack to grace their ears, his tanned face now decorated in the tattoos that only appeared upon the Senju entering sage mode, once dark irises now an unnatural shade of gold.  “His head should have already been on a platter the moment we stepped within this shithole. Not that it would even scratch the surface of the well-deserved reparations that his family and Kumogakure will owe us for their transgressions here today.” 

“Are you fools finished with this foolish dialogue yet?! Let’s kill this bastard already!” Touka launched forward with a war cry of a thousand warriors and Madara, Hashirama, and Mito wasted no time in joining her. 

Once they were finished with him, Madara swore with a swing of his gunbai, the earth would forever be stained crimson. 

~~~