Kindling

Mito was waiting, she knew how to do that and she knew that eventually she would have a chance; the Senju heirs may have been utterly terrifying on the battlefield, each of them so cleanly compensating for the others flaws that they were all but unbeatable (how did Butsuma keep them under his control? He may have been powerful but not more than them and yet he was able to bring them to heel), it was that teamwork that had brought down Izuna and Madara for all that shouldn’t have been possible. They should have been too evenly matched for it to work, Izuna and Tobirama a balance and Hashirama and Madara perfect foils and any other matchup would lead to a decisive victory by the older brother and yet…. And yet the Uchiha had been defeated and neither brother had even been that injured in the fight. (It had been a master work of strategy and ruthlessness that took advantage of every ounce of information and power they had, wearing out the Uchiha brothers with what amounted to canon fodder shinobi- the idea of the Ghost they all said- while holding back themselves before engaging, a vicious tactics but one that worked with very few Uchiha fatalities.)

Madara watched Hashirama move across the courtyard as he did every time he had a chance; if there was a way out if would be through Hashirama, he knew that even if this older version of his friend was so different than the loud bright boy he had know as children. That Hashirama had almost never talked about his last little brother, certainly not about who Tobirama was as a person, for all that he had talked about his other (dead) brothers, going on about what they were like but never really talking about the brother he had left. It had bothered Madara then, a little, but he had assumed it was some sort of thing where he wanted someone to talk to about the little brothers he wasn’t normally allowed to talk about but he had seen how Hashirama had looked at his brother that day as the river, sharp anger and total lack of understanding then. But now? Now it was rare to see one without the other nearby and Hashirama revolved around Tobirama as much as the albino did around him; they stood close and talked softly, they both watched constantly but where Tobirama watched the others (watched the beaten clans) Hashirama watched Butsuma or their strange cold stepmother, always angling himself between his little brother and their father. Always watching each other’s backs here where they should have felt most safe.

Tobirama was thin and pale and newly eleven when Hashirama saw him next, and he flinched from his brother’s touch without saying a word; in fact he didn’t say a word for days, nodding and shaking his head when addressed and not even a sound of pain slipping past his lips when training got too rough. And Hashirama understood rough training now in a way he hadn’t before, having relied on his mokuton and its nigh-on unbeatable power to keep him from needing to much precision; but that didn’t work when father was bored and turned his need for his sons to be perfect on his oldest for the first time. Now just being able to obliterate a target wasn’t good enough anymore, now he had to destroy it and nothing around it, and then part of it but not the whole thing and then the targets around it but not touch the one in front of him, and so on until Hashirama’s chakra coils ached. It was… wareing, and he suddenly understood Tobirama’s quiet and coldness a little better; it wasn’t just natural reserve- though that must have been part of it- it was that father had trained him (slimmer, albino, less chakra, water natured) like this since he was a child and that after a while you got so tired even emotion was too much work. After a while you became so sharp that everything else wore away and you didn’t know how to not cut, and Hashirama could see that now though he had so far avoided it.

He didn’t know all of what had happened to his little brother while Tobirama was gone, but he was even better with his chakra now than he had been, so precise that it almost hurt (and Hashirama knew what it took to be that good now, like he never had before), and even more invested in books and his learning. He did know that Tobirama must not have been allowed to speak very much if at all because the first time he got his brother to respond (not by asking about Tobirama, no amount of pleading had convinced the albino to tell him anything) but by implying that he needed to know something to keep father off his back; Hashirama didn’t remember what it was now, all he remembered was the way Tobirama’s voice had cracked and broken, and rusting with long disuse (it hurt). And he did find out what the thin red lines on his little brother's cheeks were- lines he hadn’t had before he left- and it was the most horrific moment of Hashirama’s life when he saw Tobirama fall to the floor convulsing and unable to even scream when three hand signs made the tattoos burn with a bloody sulphureus light.