Kindling

Tobirama was…. annoyed. That was a good word for it. annoyed. This set of experiments were just fucking stupid and if the General asked him one more fucking time if it was finished he was walking the fuck out of here. He sat back wiping at his forehead with a chalk covered hand- fucking alchemy- and stared at the seal array on the floor, it wasn’t enough to do what the General wanted but he was done for today so the old man could just suck it as far as Tobirama was concerned, he wanted to go home. Or, well, not go home, but just not be here anymore and- he took a deep breath, trying to ignore the way it shook; he was doing this for a reason, it would be worth it, it had to be worth it. “Tobirama?” a soft voice called, and he forced his back to straighten and his face into something calm and steady “Mito, I thought you left already.” The redhead smiled a little, a tense expression that sat too familiarly on her lovely face, “You should know I wouldn’t leave without you, honestly Tobirama, it’s like you’ve forgotten we have to finish our book.” He grimaced biting back a growl of annoyance, cameras might not work in a casting chamber, but microphones definitely did, for Mito to be pulling out code… “Alright Red, give me a minuet to wash my hands.” He said and she nodded glancing over his work as he walked past, her eyebrows going up as she got a good look and sending him a shocked look; he shook his head as slightly as he could, she blew out a slow breath but didn’t argue and followed him out into the night, slipping on to her motorcycle as Tobirama settled himself behind her and they blasted through the city’s too bright lights (Tobirama missed when the night was actually the night, missed knowing- mattering- what time of day it was, what season, but those days were gone now for years).

Mito pulled the helmet off, releasing a flood of sunset colored hair to spill over her shoulders as he led the way into his Spartan apartment, once upon a time it would have been filled with books and little trinkets from his trips all over the world but now… now it was little more than a place to sleep at night for all its rich top of the line appliances; the only mark of habitation a small pile of paperback books stacked next to the couch- he slept there almost more then his bed, Mito normally taking that when she came over which was most nights at this point-. Mito smiled to see them- as she always did- and brushed her fingers over the top one, “Still reading these? I know you have them memorized” he shot her a dirty look for the teasing in her voice and she smiled wider, some of the stress fading off her face as she teased him “I know you think that King Madara Uchiha is hot-“ “I don’t think he’s hot!” he said, unable not to rise to the bait as he always was “I just…. He was a good king, and sometimes I just wish that- well. that we had a leader like that I guess, or that he had lived long enough to make things better, maybe then things wouldn’t be the way they are now.” He couldn’t keep the melancholy out of his voice and Mito’s smile slid away.

“Still asking the impossible?” she asked quietly and Tobirama threw himself down on the couch next to her “No. I mean… not quite, I know I can do it, but Mito… if I create a gate like that I’ll be the only person that can power it, it’s to complex to teach anyone else especially when it will have to be based off of my chakra coils, if you wanted to do it you would have do start all over, if it even worked” Mito’s face pinched, she was smart, very smart, but she wasn’t Tobirama, if he said no one else could do it she believed him “and that means that I would have to stand there and hold open a gate for the General to poor troops though, I would be directly responsible for thousands of deaths. As it is we’re as much in a dead lock with Sunna as we always have been but a gate… it would change everything.” His voice was tired and conflicted, and Mito didn’t know what to say. Tobirama had always had… trouble with knowing when things were morally ok, he existed in a gray area that made it difficult sometimes for him to know how to act- it was part of what had led to the General having so much power over him to begin with- and he craved having someone who could just tell him what the right thing to do was, just tell him where the boundaries were. As much as she teased him she was fairly sure that as half his love of King Madara; he was no historian but he always had been drawn to the tales about the Fireborn-King, the king that cared and did what was right but not in the name of some ideal that Tobirama couldn’t understand or fight for, but because he cared about his people and wanted those he loved safe, like Tobirama did, just with the sense of morals he felt he lacked.

“If you don’t give him what he wants…” she said softly, he snorted, dropping his head back to look at the celling, “I know, but honestly Mito, I’d rather go back in that fucking cell then stare at his dumbass equations for the next year and try to tell him that alchemy or jutsu or whatever the hell he wants to call it doesn’t work the way he wants it too and that I can’t just wave may hand and make it work.” She bumped his shoulder with hers “That’s what you get for getting a reputation as the most powerful seal-array alchemist oh, White Dragon of the west.” He groaned deeply “I hate that name,” he whined before cracking an eye at her “not like you’re much better Many-tailed Fox, the only thing is that you never got yourself locked in prison” she sniffed, sticking her nose in the air haughtily “Never got thrown in prison yet, give me time Dragon.” He laughed, deep and only a little bitter so Mito counted it a success. In truth both of them knew that what awaited if (when) they refused to give the General what he wanted was much worse than a little time locked away even in the high max vault they had placed Tobirama in (she had seen it once, a large seal covered cadge with only one solid wall and a celling made of bars, it was barren and cold and utterly exposed she knew from the pictures she had seen that he had used his sheets to hang from the ceiling, knew he had maintained flexibility and strength through aerial routines, knew he had done it in part because it freaked people out, knew that he had nightmares of it, knew that things worse than that awaited them if when they didn’t bend).

She reach over plucking one of the books off the pile and peered at the cover before snickering, “You’re reading this one? Really?! oh my god Tobi” he twisted, saw what was in her hand and groaned deeply covering his face and not doing anything to stop her “oh my god The Story of the Fireborn-King and his great Love and the blurb, holy shit ‘the story of the Fireborn-King- also called Susanoo- and his dragon guard is the most famous love story in history, the tale of the proud passionate King who fell so deeply in love with his most fearsome guard that he would have forsaken all others! And the guard’s love for his king was so great he defeated whole armies for his king! It is a story of two truelovers torn asunder by death and mystery! No one knows what happened to the dragon guard when he disappeared, but all rumors of unfaithfulness were struck down- it is said that there was never anything clearer than their immortallove for each other- and in the end King Madara took his own life rather than live without his great love! Leaving the throne to his sworn blood brother Hashirama instead, unable to carry the weight of the kingdom without his lover! Tobi- Tobi-“ she wheezed, laughing to hard to speak as she waved the book; Tobirama buried his head in a pillow, refusing to look at her as she laughed “Fuck off.” He hissed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said (“no you’re not” he muttered sullenly) “but you have to admit it’s a terrible book.” He groaned again but peaked out at her from behind his pillow with a sigh, pouting at her for a minuet before lowering it “Yeah, fine, it’s awful, so, so, bad. I was hoping to find something new, but all the author writes about it how ‘The king Susanoo’s hair blew in the wind like a banner of coal and his faithful servant watched it with tears in his eyes!’ it’s bad. To bad to even be funny after a while. Which is annoying because everyone knows the story about how the King fell in love and then killed himself when his lover disappeared, so I had hoped for something interesting, but it’s just a pile of drivel.” She snickered at his pout “Oh honey, I could have told you that, look at this shit!” she opened her mouth to read more of it, so he did the adult thing and stuck his tongue out at her.

(“what were you worried about earlier? Why the code to go home?” sigh “I…. the Captain is asking questions again, I know you hate spreading rumors but if I go home with you, well, there are a lot of people that will hesitate to do anything if they think it will piss you off. As for the other… they asked me to start binding the minds of soldiers” “cannon fodder” “unthinking, every kind of freedom torn from them”)