Jesses and Other Means of Control [REWRITE; HIATUS]

“Are you okay?” Madara asked, glancing over at Izuna, who sat crumpled in the passenger’s seat.

“Fine,” Izuna said shortly. He glared at the passing streetlights.

“Hashirama’s hair’s gotten longer,” Madara said, focusing his attention back on the road. A half-smile tugged at his lips. “He looks like a hippie.”

“Nii-san,” Izuna said. “The… plant… thing. You didn’t think to mention the plant thing?”

Madara blinked. “The what?”

Izuna twisted around to stare at him. “The plant thing,” he repeated. “The dude has magic plant powers.”

Madara met his stare out of the corner of his eye. “Izuna,” he said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Izuna began to pull at his hair. “Am I the only person in this city who’s not completely fucking lost it?” he demanded. “Madara, the warehouse looked like a fucking garden when we left it, didn’t that strike you as a little odd?”

“It’s spring,” Madara said blankly. “Plants… grow. In spring.”

“Not that quickly!”

“I was a little preoccupied to be noticing the topiaries, Izuna.”

Izuna reached over and pulled a violet out of Madara’s hair. He forced down the thought, Were you that ‘preoccupied’ when you were murdering our father? and chewed on the side of his tongue.

“Hashirama’s always…” Madara hesitated, glanced over his shoulder, changed lanes on the highway. “Plants have always acted kind of weird around him. It doesn’t mean he’s the one doing it.”

“His brother seemed to think it did.”

Madara cast a concerned look at Izuna. “You sound pissed.”

Izuna placed both hands on the dashboard. “Stop the car, nii-san.”

“What?”

“Pull over!”

Madara flicked on the emergency blinkers and dragged the wheel to the right. The tires skidded on the rough gravel of the highway shoulder. Izuna fumbled with the door until it creaked open; he all but fell out of the car.

Madara leaned over to stare at him through the opening. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“You!” Izuna hissed, hands on his knees. “What is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Madara undid his seatbelt and climbed out of the car himself, planting his hands on the roof and glaring at his brother through the darkness. “I did what you wanted, Izuna! I got with the program, I got ‘on board,’ like you said – what do you mean, ‘what’s wrong with me’?”

“Hashirama ‘was there,’ you said,” Izuna said, straightening and flinging a hand back in the direction of the industrial district. “’Was there,’ not – not ‘filling the room with poison gas that made me lose my –‘”

Madara’s face drained of color. “Shut up,” he said.

“Madara, he’s the reason you –”

“Shut up,” Madara snarled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Izuna. Who’s your source? Tobirama? A third hand account? You couldn’t just fucking ask me before you started jumping to conclusions?”

“I did ask you!” Izuna yelled. “I asked you point-blank what was going on with Hashirama being there, and you looked me in the eye and fucking lied! Again!”

“Hashirama didn’t make me lose anything,” Madara hissed, pushing off of the car and stalking around the hood towards his brother. “Izuna, take it from me – poison gas or no, flowers or no, fucking Hashirama or no – Tajima wouldn’t have left that dorm room alive regardless. Remember how I told you I didn’t remember what it was that set me off? Remember that? I have to apologize for another lie, little brother, as it turns out I do fucking remember –”

Izuna backed up as Madara advanced, feet slipping on the gravel on the very edge of the road. For more than a mile in either direction stretched empty farmland – the occasional passing car was a screaming blur of headlights and noise.

“Tajima came to our dorm with a gun,” Madara said. “Tajima came to our dorm high as hell, gun in hand, and Hashirama, the fucking idiot that he is, starts trying to talk him down – he’s a terrible negotiator, Izuna, so of course he leads with, ‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t actually want to kill your son, Mr. Uchiha –’” Madara laughed, a wild, bloody thing. “You know what Tajima did? I don’t know if even Hashirama remembers this, in the chaos. He shot Hashirama, point blank. I saw bits of his fucking ribs hit the walls of our dorm room.”

“What?” Izuna said, eyes wide, face pale.

“I’m not sure when the plants started coming in, but – you know that, like, mental hurdle most people have to cross? That little moment of hesitation you feel before you throw the first punch?” Madara scoffed darkly. “Probably not. You’ve never been in an actual fight, have you, Izuna?” He was still advancing, slowly. “That little hurdle just suddenly vanished. I honestly don’t know if it was some kind of poison gas, or if I actually am just some kind of psychopath, but suddenly, killing Tajima felt like the easiest thing in the world.” Madara stopped, raised a hand to run through the ragged curtain of hair in front of his face, choked out another laugh into the dark night.

Izuna stopped retreating, legs tense; trembling, as if ready to flee at the slightest notice.

“He shot Hashirama. I thought he was dead. Wanted to shoot me, too, before I broke his wrists.” Madara shook his head, the hair falling back over his eyes. “So. Little brother. Let me put it this way – really lay it all out for you – if Hashirama did use his magic plant powers to summon the poison gas, it was justified; if he didn’t – you know, on account of him being dead – then it was involuntary. The gas was secondary, Izuna. I killed our father.”

Izuna said nothing. His face was white.

Madara considered him silently for a moment. A humorless smile crossed his face; it disappeared as soon as it came. “Reconsidering that whole, ‘I am your brother, I love you and want to keep talking to you’ thing?” Without waiting for a response, he pulled out his phone, turned, and began to walk back to the car. “I’m gonna call you a taxi. Butsuma probably won’t mind.” He dialed a number and pressed the phone to his ear as he slid into the driver’s side.

Izuna watched him buckle his seat belt, turn the lights on, pull back onto the highway, and drive away.

“I thought you said –”

“I did,” Tobirama said sourly, arms crossed over his chest. “He already knew about it – Madara’s involvement, he knew you were there, he –”

“But he didn’t know about the flowers,” Hashirama said, unblinking eyes fixed on the road before them. “He didn’t know about the gas.”

“I was such an idiot,” Tobirama said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Of course he was going to react poorly. Fucking Christ. I’m just so used to it, I didn’t even think –”

“It is not your fault,” Hashirama said firmly. “It’s not your fault in the slightest.”

“He’s going to –”

“What, Tobirama? Stop me from seeing Madara?” Hashirama asked softly. “I’ve seen Madara. He’s alive. I’m –” His hands tightened briefly on the steering wheel, then relaxed. “I’m fine.”

Silence.

“I got to see him before month’s end,” Hashirama said finally. “That’s enough. He and Izuna can think whatever they want.”

“You’re not dangerous,” Tobirama said, sinking deeper into the seat.

Hashirama didn’t respond.

Tobirama leaned against the desk and clicked on the next slide. “If you didn’t get an email with the log-in information for the next segment, go bother IT. It’s not something I have access to, and I’m not putting in tickets for all of you.”

He scanned the faces in the lecture hall – some paying attention, some taking notes, some straight-up sleeping – and squashed the slight disappointment he felt when it became clear Uchiha Izuna was missing another class. This was the third one in a row since the disastrous scene outside the warehouse last Thursday. If Izuna didn’t show up to this Friday’s class, Tobirama was going to call him. He had no idea what he was going to say – apologize, maybe? – but he felt like he had to do something.

The lecture droned on. Tobirama barely even needed to look at the slides – he didn’t blame the students for sleeping. He’d sleep through this shit, too. Fucking entry-level biochemistry. Fucking Professor Homura.

The end of the month loomed over him like an axe every time he opened his phone, the little white date and time stamped on the lock screen mocking in their blank serenity. He was checking his phone now – a bad habit, almost as bad as the smoking. He had no new texts. It was 10:03. There were two and a half weeks left until the 31^st.

Tobirama stopped, mid-lecture, and looked down at the powerpoint clicker in his hand. He looked up at the projection screen. He looked out at the class. “You know what,” Tobirama said brusquely, walking over to his laptop and closing the lid. The projector instantly switched to a distraught string of numbers, scrolling sadly along the bottom of the large, white sheet. “Fuck this,” he continued, pulling his bag onto the desk and beginning to file away his papers. “You all have the powerpoint for this class, I sent it to you last week. There are video links in the comments sections if you get confused. Read chapters 10 and eleven before Monday. Class is over, goodbye.”

In the hushed, shocked silence of the hall, under the attentive stare of every conscious student in the room, Tobirama slung his bag over his shoulder, marched up the shallow marble stairs, and left.

The air outside was dense, humid, and cold in the way only spring air could be. The promise of rain cast a gray pallor over the sky. Descending the wide steps leading down from the hall, Tobirama pulled his phone out of his jacket and dialed Izuna’s number. It went directly to voicemail.

“Child,” Tobirama muttered, pressing the red End Call button. Storm clouds roiled overhead as he called a taxi.

Izuna sat on the couch in the parlor of the Uchiha Estate, watching the glowing TV with dull eyes. His feet were propped up on the couch arm; there was an unlit cigarette held loosely between his fingers. He scrolled through the channels absently, flicking the cigarette every once in a while as if to dislodge the ash that wasn’t there. The room was mostly dark; the tall thin windows were shuttered against the oncoming storm.

He raised the cigarette to his lips, only to remember that it was unlit, and let his hand fall back to rest on his stomach again.

He considered getting up and grabbing his lighter from the coffee table three feet away. He switched to another channel instead.

His phone buzzed, somewhere in the distance.

Izuna raised the cigarette to his lips again and just left it there, staring blankly at the TV screen. A cartoon dog was painting a tunnel on the side of a cliff face. Classic. Izuna chewed on his unlit cigarette.

Finally, he sat upright and reached for his lighter. His thumb scraped along the flint wheel; the spark caught in the pressurized butane –

– and there was a loud banging at the front door. Izuna pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and hissed, irritated; stood, and made his way around to the parlor entrance. The rain had started to fall outside. The drops hit the glass windowpanes with a dull roar.

The banging grew louder as he sauntered into the hall. Izuna stifled the uncomfortable familiarity of the scene and called, “I’m coming, Christ –”

He opened the door. The wide overhang of the porch sheltered the edge of the building from the now-torrential rain; Tobirama stood just beyond the threshold, holding a thick manila envelope under one arm, a hunted expression on his face.

“Izuna,” Tobirama said. His other hand rested on the folder. “Can I –” He stopped, looked back at the rain, turned back to Izuna. “Here.” He pulled the envelope out from under his arm and held it out.

Izuna looked at it.

“Lies,” Tobirama said shortly. “You said something about lies. I –” He was staring at the doorjamb with a cold intensity. “I did not think,” he continued, each word a visible effort, “that the mokuton was my secret to share. I failed to account for the –” He paused, floundered. “– impact that its knowledge would have had on your willingness to facilitate Hashirama and Madara’s meeting. I am sorry.”

Izuna folded his arms, cocked his head. “Impact.” He paused. “Facilitate?”

“I didn’t lie out of maliciousness,” Tobirama said flatly, still not meeting his eye. “I’m not used to talking about the circumstances my brother and I live in, and the importance of that information did not register as…” He let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know. Important.”

Izuna raised his eyebrows. He looked down at the envelope again. “What’s this?”

“The report.”

Izuna didn’t move.

“It’s my copy. The one Butsuma allowed me to have, in case it had some relevance to our attempts to generate another Sierra-Hotel 42. It’s the only complete, physical record that ever compiled about what happened.” He shook the envelope. “Here.”

Izuna unfolded an arm, reached out, and accepted the heavy packet with a steady hand. Tobirama watched him pull it to the doorway and unwind the string around the clasps; he turned to leave.

“Tobirama,” Izuna said, opening the seal and glancing at the thick cluster of papers inside. “Where are you going?”

Tobirama stopped, turned.

“It’s raining,” Izuna said, finally looking up. “You took a taxi? I’m not going to make you wait for a taxi in the rain.” He held the door open. “Come inside.”

“I can’t,” Tobirama said. “I have a deadline to meet.” He paused, pale red eyes darting to catch Izuna’s in a fleeting glance. His mouth opened – the hunted expression returned – then he turned, before Izuna could say anything else, and was descending the porch steps and striding towards the winding, cobbled road, shoulders hunched under the heavy rain.

Izuna watched him round the bend, then shut the ancient, metal-sheathed door. He returned to the parlor, tossing the folder onto the low coffee table; grabbed his lighter; considered it.

He hurled it at the wall. The plastic casing broke with a sharp snap.

Izuna seized the folder off the coffee table and all but sprinted for the stairs; his room was at the far end of the upstairs hallway, past the bathroom where Tobirama had seen him rehearsing his conversation with his brother – and oh, how well that had gone, Izuna wasn’t a fucking theater major for a reason – he skidded into the heavy darkness of his room and spilled the contents of the folder onto his desk. He turned on the lamp; powered on a computer that whirred with the satisfied purring of a machine worth more than some people make in a year; threw himself into the wheeled office chair and started to read.

His phone was downstairs. Every few minutes or so it would buzz or chirp with a notice from some social media app, or a text message from a classmate, or an email. The TV droned on, the woman now onscreen smiling far too widely with teeth that were far too white. The rain battered the windows.

Izuna’s desk was an island in a sea of darkness, the silence absolute except for the rustling of papers and the occasional rapid clicking of a mechanical keyboard.

In the old days – the days before the electric wires had been strung or the sturdy cast iron plumbing had been sunk into the earth – this room of the house had been used as a library, as well as a repository for family artifacts. It was built in the same fashion as every other inch of the house: thick plaster, hard wood floors, heavy rafters. It was as stained with smoke and incense as any temple; the white plaster of the ceiling was nearly as dark as the wood that barred it. The old family artifacts had long since been moved to their own structure – down the street a-ways, housed in their own shrine. The library of tomes and scrolls was mostly digital now, at Izuna’s grandfather’s adamant request that their archival be “kept with the best practices of the time.”

Every room in the Uchiha Estate had some similar history to it. Layers of history, legend and mythology – the oldest members of the clan could recite the genealogy nearly five hundred years prior, when battles still raged over the countryside and the red and white fan was a sign that inspired terror and awe.

Izuna didn’t really care about family history, though. He was reading a medical report and typing in the words ‘trans-mediastinal gunshot wound’ into the search engine of his browser. There was a dark frown growing in the corners of his face.

Hashirama knelt down next to the child and pulled one of the flowers closer. “This is hibiscus,” he said.

“Oh, I used to drink hibiscus tea all the time,” the child’s mother said from behind them. “I had no idea they could grow in this climate!”

Tobirama sat straight-backed in a leather chair. The clicking of the secretary’s keyboard echoed throughout the entryway. An elevator opened on the far wall; businessmen in crisp suits and expensive ties streamed out, laughing, smiling, exchanging business cards and shaking hands. No one so much as glanced at Tobirama.

As the last of the men left through the gleaming glass lobby doors, the secretary raised her head. “He’s ready for you now.”

Time blurred.

Izuna glanced over the data compiled about SH-42 and almost immediately discarded it. He didn’t need to know the specifics of the desiccated vines they’d pulled from the scene, or the faint residual chemicals they’d extracted from Tajima’s body before throwing it into the incinerator. His attention was entirely subsumed by the stack of medical reports, and the single email printout sent from [email protected].

“Disappointing,” said Senju Butsuma. He the manila folder shut and stood, adjusting his tie. “I’d say I expected better, but… you’ve never worked well under pressure, have you, son? You just don’t have the spine for it.”

Tobirama said nothing.

“I thought you’d have more hustle, given that the end of the month’s in –” Butsuma checked his watch, mouth twisting. “Fifteen days?” He shook his head, tutting, and slid the folder back towards Tobirama over the polished walnut desk. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo.”

The smile he gave Tobirama was meant to soothe, to reassure. Tobirama dragged his gaze up to meet his father’s eyes. “Don’t worry about it?” he repeated, as if unsure what the older man was saying.

“It’s not like I really expected you to succeed,” Butsuma said. “I’d hoped, but – well. I’d hoped the Foxes would win last night’s game, too. Keep working on it in the meantime. You have over two weeks, who knows?” Butsuma let out a short, dry chuckle. “Maybe you’ll have a breakthrough.”

Izuna read the email; reread it. Compared the timestamp to the medical reports. Read the email one more time. Pulled up a program from his computer desktop that was labelled canopener.exe. Punched in a long string of letters and numbers; watched code scroll across a loading bar. An error message popped up on screen. Izuna cursed, shoving his chair back from the desk and launching himself towards the door.

He thundered down the stairs, into the parlor, and began scrounging for his discarded phone. It was lying on the windowsill – chinks of sunlight broke through the wooden shutters. The lock screen on the phone showed him that three days had passed. Izuna ignored the massive backlog of notifications, opening the phone and swiping over to the contact list.

The phone went dark as he pressed the handset icon next to a name. Calling Uchiha Nezumi scrolled across the top of the screen in small white text.

Izuna paced from the window to the couch as the phone rang. After what felt like an eternity, a voice answered.

“Nezumi!” Izuna said, grasping the phone with both hands. “Thank god, I wasn’t sure if you still had this phone. Where are you now?” His face went a little pale. “Jesus. Are you – okay, alright. Three? Why didn’t you just stop at one?” A pause as the voice on the other end of the line jabbered out a long explanation. “Oh. That makes… that doesn’t make sense. Why piracy?” Another pause. Izuna pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah. Okay. Sure. Do you have wifi where you’re at? … Yeah? Great.”

He began to march back towards the stairs. “Look, I need you to get into some databases for me – no, it’s probably gonna be a… legal thing? Yeah. I figured. No, my keylogger isn’t working, and I don’t want to waste time coding another – yeah, the email’s [email protected] –” He stopped dead in the hallway, looking flabbergasted. “All of them? Already?” He screwed up his face in confusion. “Why do you already have access to all of them? No – no, no, I don’t actually want to know, I am better off not knowing – can you just send me the access codes? Yeah. Okay. Thanks a million. Love you. Bye.”

Izuna collapsed back into his office chair, staring blankly at the computer screen, phone dangling limply from his hand. Dealing with Nezumi was always a harrowing experience.

An email notification popped up on his desktop.

From: [email protected]

HEY COUSIN heres the cosdes u asked for hoope u have fun c U NEXT YEAR! <3<#<3<3

Izuna didn’t waste time worrying about the implicit threat behind the last part of her message. He opened the canopener.exe program once more, copied in the codes, and watched the numbers fill his screen. Nezumi had done more than just come through on the legal documents Izuna had wanted – as he watched the files populate on his drive, Izuna’s mouth slowly fell open.

The girl was a fucking lunatic, but goddamn she was a good hacker. She’d just given him access to Senju Butsuma’s entire computer network.

Izuna stood from the computer, watching the code run its course with the horrified reverence of a man watching a tsunami break over a sea wall. Then he turned from the computer, descended the stairs, and went to the kitchen to get some chips.

- U.I. 02:33

apology accepted