Chapter 2
Hashirama and Itama are weeping, unabashed in their sorrow even in the face of their father’s disapproval. Disapproval at the grave of his youngest son, but then again, Butsuma has long since lost his ability to grieve. Too many deaths and lost loved ones has numbed him, conditioned him to turn his pain into hatred.
(Madara has been taken)
Tobirama is not nearly as numb. He wants to cry too, wants to give in and bawl like his siblings are doing, but he can’t. He is the firstborn. If he is perfect, then their father’s disapproval won’t fall on Hashirama or Itama. They will be spared, looked over, forgotten, and Tobirama wants nothing more. For them he will bottle up all the pain and emptiness Kawarama’s death brings, dealing it away and not thinking of it again. It may not feel like it’ll be okay, be worth it, but it has to be. And as he steps in front before Hashirama can make another naïve, ever hopeful and impassioned plea to their father, Tobirama knows he doesn’t have a choice.
(Gone before he understands what’s going on, gone before Tobirama understands, for he is no longer of this world)
He’s killed too many children, many of them barely older than Kawarama, to do anything different.
(Hasn’t been for a long time)
He meets the boy at the river again. Sits next to him, eyes closed and senses extended. Itachi isn’t a sensor, trusts Tobirama as little as Tobirama trusts him, but sits still just the same. Tobirama pretends he doesn’t recognize the ash and ozone that clings to the boy’s chakra. Perhaps Itachi pretends something similar about him.
(Tobirama’s brother is there, at the place Madara was taken to)
They’ve met there before. Sat, and talked sparingly. Itachi has a younger brother, Tobirama knows, and he’s mentioned his own brothers, but this was the first time they’ve met since three became two. Tobirama hates it, and he says so, the first words he’s spoken since arriving. He’s not one for speaking, neither of them are, but words pour out all the same.
(Isn’t, but is at the same time)
They live in hell. Hell where children die and their fathers go to their funeral with pride and disappointment, where he is but a child himself while so many others just like him have fallen at his hand, and it isn’t the way it should be. Hashirama and Itama shouldn’t have to deal with this. They should be allowed to be children. Hashirama with his wild and impossible dreams, Itama his freedom and boundless thirst for more. Tobirama does not hate the same way Batama does, wouldn’t be here if he did, but he hates nonetheless.
(A piece of him stolen away as if it could encompass his massive dreams and bountiful love)
There’s silence for a while afterward. It stretches for long enough that Tobirama thinks his words have been allowed to go unnoticed, but of course they haven’t. Itachi responds. He talks of his brother, of Sasuke’s cries for teaching, his demands to practice yet another jutsu, his wish to learn theirkekkei genkai. His want to spend time with his older brother in a society in which there’s no other way to ask. Itachi admits he is a pacifist, and yet again Tobirama finds himself surprised. He didn’t hate the Uchiha, or he wouldn’t be here, but he hadn’t thought they could wish for peace beyond what existed at the river where they met. That, he supposes, might be the point.
(They give it to Madara, Tobirama’s studentforces it upon Madara)
Itachi talks of peace, and Tobirama listens. He talks of a village, a home they can live and grow, and where children can be children. Of a place where shinobi aren’t tools to be set against anyone a corrupt or weary leader desires, but people who can take pride in what they do, even when it’s hard. He says it as if he knows how ridiculous the idea is, but Tobirama is already consumed by the logistics of the matter. An academy. A market. A hospital. A police force. Roads and gates and buildings. It comes to life in in Itachi’s dreams and Tobirama’s pragmatism, and at the end Itachi asks if he believes it could be real. If he thinks they could build such a place to protect their brothers, because so much of their longing comes back to that. Protection for the siblings who mean so much to them. For children that mean everything. Asks if he thinks they can protect their brothers.
(There is anger such that Tobirama hasn’t felt in a long time)
Tobirama says he does, or he wouldn’t be here.
(Anger that his teachings have come to this)
He can’t.
(There’s nothing he can do)
Itama dies.
(Madara will die)
There is only one brother left to protect. Just like Itachi, but so, so much worse, because there were three, there were two, and now there’s only one.
(A moment of clarity in the haze of so many lost years, but only a moment)
Butsuma showed only pride and disappointment at his fourth son’s funeral, anger and hatred at his third son’s, and Tobirama feel relief at his father’s. There is grief too, of course there is, whatever his flaws, he was his father, but relief is just as strong as sorrow that day.
(The one who took Madara is his responsibility)
At some point Itachi had figured out who Tobirama is. Perhaps while they were together, perhaps one of the times Tobirama didn’t show because he knew they were being followed. It doesn’t matter. Tobirama knows, and Itachi knows, and their village is still there and they’re both still alive. Tobirama is the Senju head now, and all that stands between them and peace is Uchiha Tajima.
(Itachi had known his responsibility, though he’d never needed to act on it. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn’t)
It won’t be easy to satisfy the Senju’s need for revenge and Tajima’s push at perceived weakness, but there’s an end date now. One more heart that has to stop beating before they can call a truce. Tobirama does not pity Itachi his loss, nor does he pity himself. Hashirama and Sasuke have too much to gain for pity.
(Itachi never had to make that decision)
They meet again, and Itachi wonders how long it will take. Tobirama says that it will happen soon enough. Neither of them speak for the rest of the time they’re at the river. It is here, and the question Itachi did not ask, that he starts to trust Itachi. Starts to trust a friend.
(Tobirama might)
Tajima dies, and there is only relief.
(Will there be relief when Madara’s captor dies, or will there only be more blood?)
Their village is beautiful. No more children die.
(Tobirama hesitates, and another child joins the rest. An orphan from Rain. Nobody who will be missed)
There’s blood on Tobirama’s hands nevertheless.
(This will never change)
He teaches children. Grows them in the course of two years from wide eyed innocents who don’t know if they can believe in peace to staunch defenders of their village, ready to fight and die to protect the young and the innocent. The will of fire burns like an inferno, and even when war comes to their doors and far too many shinobi fall, the mandatory age limit holds.
(Peace is a good thing. Hashirama loved the idea of peace, loved the implementation of peace. Loved the wild and crazy dreams he could bask in while Tobirama dealt with the things closer to home)
Even when death comes for him only two years after the founding, alone and unexpected, a mystery left behind for Konoha, Tobirama is content. He’s not made up for the blood on his hands, can never make up for the blood, but their village is good, Hashirama is alive, and there are five children who will carry Tobirama’s legacy with them to the next generation, and then the generation beyond that. No child will die on Konoha’s battlefield ever again.
(Tobirama has always been the more pragmatic one)
There are only four children who will carry Tobirama’s legacy.
(If he is dead then he is dead. What then does it mean that he’s still here?)
Maybe only two. Maybe just one. But not Danzō, who sacrifices children for a protection Konoha was never meant to have. Not Homura or Koharu who turn blind eyes to the matter. Maybe not even Hiruzen, who approves the conditioning and creation of the group in the first place, though he knows so much better. Kagami is the only one Tobirama can say with absolute certainty keeps his will alive, and he dies betrayed at the hands of his teammate. It is not until his child, not a direct decedent, but closer than the other Uchiha, is similarly attacked that Danzō is violently acted against, stripped of ranks and nearly of his life too. He flees from the village, pursued by hunters of all skills, but it’s as if there is someone unknown supporting him, and he goes unfound.
(If this is only a continuation of what will happen, than Madara will just be another one of the children Tobirama has killed. His captor will get his eyes, and they’ll be no more use for him)
Of course, Tobirama knows none of this. He died, or maybe he didn’t. Something happened, and even his analytical, genius mind can’t understand what it was, what he now is. He can only feel them dying. So many children. At first only those from before the founding, but then more and more are added, alive and yet dead at the same time.
(What is, after all, an Uchiha to themselves without their prized dōjutsu? There’s already the blood of too many Uchiha on Tobirama’s hands)
He’s killing the children.
(Will Madara’s blood even be noticeable?)
One child he doesn’t kill. Three of them, but one stands out. An Uchiha, a boy like Itachi was, yet filled with a wild flame instead of Itachi’s calm hearth. The three of them tell him it’s not his fault—it is—they say he needn’t carry the guilt anymore—he has to, or they will be forgotten—and they are ever so earnest doing it—they think it’s the truth. Maybe this Uchiha Madara will be the one to stop the deaths. Maybe, if Tobirama could make him see, make him understand, he could change things. He draws Tobirama in like a moth beating itself to death against lights in the summer, but he too is quickly gone.
(It will be indistinguishable)
Another child Tobirama has killed.
(It will not be there)
More blood on his hands.
(Madara’s blood will not be on Tobirama’s hands)
Forgotten children.
(He will not die)