cerulean and silver
Today, I saw God. I know, I know. You probably think I’m high on the thrill of violence and maybe I’ve swallowed a pint too many of my own blood, but I tell you now--it’s the truth.
Fighting the Uzumakis is never easy, crafty fuckers that they are, but today we managed to keep them at bay over the southern border. Ryujin was on fire, you should have seen him! He fought little Ashina Uzumaki and lived to tell the tale, and he got piss drunk on mead and painkillers. Sure, his fingers are never coming back, they’re sealed inside the Reaper’s gut, but that’s one hell of a story he’s got there now.
I have a theory about war. I think that all of us who are out here tell ourselves stories about why we’re here, what’s the meaning of all this pain. Some go the practical way, and tell themselves that they’re here because someone has to be. Some go the spiritual way, and say they’re here as destiny’s playthings. They tell themselves they’re here to defend their land, their family, their parents or their brothers or their children or their fucking dogs, or even that great holy entity: The Clan. We all tell ourselves stories, because it’s easier than trying to wrap our heads around the fact that this is just the way the chips fell. There’s no greater good, no bigger picture. Maybe we believe it at first or we try to convince ourselves later, but after the first trap seals shut and you’re just standing there looking at someone’s guts painting the landscape, all thoughts of honour or fairness just fade away. Turns out there’s nothing glorious about death, and that’s a story we all stopped telling ourselves long ago.
So, today I saw God. I cracked open the skull of some poor bastard’s little boy, but not before the brat could activate one of those exploding seals they have and stick it on me.
It was just a second, the moment between when I saw it and I knew it was going to blow me to pieces, and the moment father ripped off the armour plate and threw it at some other unsuspecting fool. In that moment, I knew: if I die out here, I’ll die for nothing.
All my life --the things I’ve learned, the friends I’ve made, the people I love… All of it for nothing. I’ve been fighting this war all my life, but I’d never realised that before. God poked me on the forehead and spirited away.
We’re all realising that, in some way. Slowly but surely, the fights get shorter and our numbers are smaller and smaller with each one. The enemy fairs better, but they’re tired too of this lifetime we’ve had, even if they’ll never show such a weakness. We’re going through the motions and we all know we are, but I know we won’t stop until we’ve totalled each other into nothing but chunks of meat and ash or the island sinks back to the bottom of the ocean.We don’t know how.
There’s blood under my fingernails, but I’m too tired to get it all out.
Tobirama marks the place in the journal and closes his eyes. The thrum of water underneath and all around him usually feels like a safety blanket, but the sea tonight is spiteful and rumbling with a storm, hurtling their boat like a toy in her translucent hands. Hashirama is curled in uneasy sleep in his hammock as it rocks violently from side to side, and Torou sits cross legged on the floorboards of their shared cabin, sharpening his blades as if unaware of the turmoil around him.
Above deck, the crew laugh and share jokes as they work, as easy in the storm as the shinobi would be in a fight, Tobirama muses. He runs his finger down the spine of the leather-bound book and reaches for the bottle he and Torou have been passing back and fort for a while. He hasn’t been able to move on from this entry in the journal, to the point that he’s read and re-read every word so many times he’s got it memorized. It’s dated about sixty years ago, a year or two before the ultimate decimation of the Namikaze clan from a sizable party to a handful of enslaved children to be used as tokens of goodwill by the Uzumakis. Those last few lines ricochet around Tobirama’s skull, brutal and honest as only war can be. Before he even began experimenting with the fabric of space-time, Hisai Namikaze understood the nature of the world well enough to predict his own future accurately: his Clan fought until they could no longer fight, until they were surrounded by pieces of themselves and gasping gurgling breaths, because they knew nothing else.
Hikari-sensei never told him, but his father did, so he knows of the seal that keeps her chakra bound and gagged. He knows that she came to the Land of Fire as his mother’s dowry, a woman of nearly thirty years and infinite knowledge: a weapon, to be kept cased and ready to be used, should the need arise. They’ve never spoken of her place within the Clan, but they all understand it: there’s some things not even the Clan Head can change, no matter how loudly Hashirama argues with the elders and the family Heads.
There’s peace in Land of Whirlpools simply because there is only one clan left with enough manpower to rule them all. Tobirama wonders if this is truly the only way conflict can come to an end.
Unbidden, and as they do quite often these days, his thoughts turn to Uchiha Madara, the child.
Contrary to popular belief, Tobirama has not always been a grown man. He never had Tōka’s brash character, or Hashirama’s bubbling energy, and his logical mind never allowed him to court as foolish a wish as his brother’s, but as a child Tobirama wished for things. He wished he wouldn’t have to do missions that left him cold and empty inside, wished to sleep for a full day and resting his weary bones, wished to skip his grueling lessons, and wished to keep the family he still had left. He never once tried to fool himself into believing he could achieve even one of those wishes.
Madara, though. Madara dreamed.
He dreamed awake. He dreamed outloud. He dreamed in extravagant rants of glory and utopia, then chided himself for being a fool and laughed. He dreamed in small bursts of frustration, then in cold moments of fury. He dreamed in words, in movement, in action, and he dreamed with a single-minded focus that hurtled him forward and upwards through the chain of command, to his father’s side and beyond. He dreamed through death and blood and doubt, then slept and continued dreaming.
Tobirama always thought that a dream of peace was his brother’s idea, but he now knows enough to see that Madara’s dissatisfaction with the world had come from early childhood, his ideals at least roughly developed by the time he met Hashirama by the river and willingly and knowingly committed treason.
This, too--for a long time Tobirama entertained the idea that perhaps Madara as a child possessed the same kind of aloof disregard for rules Hashirama did, thus not truly realizing the weight of his actions when disclosing secrets to another ninja. But he now knows that was not the case: Madara’s position was high enough that he did not have the luxury to even for a second forget the rules. He knew them perfectly, knew them enough to dance around them.
She doesn’t deserve to die. She’s Izuna’s age, he’d said defiantly. The stunt he pulled by not assassinating the Daimyo's daughter, gambling everything on a genjutsu he couldn’t know would hold--that alone would have earned him a swift execution, yet Tobirama suspects it wasn’t the first time. Nor the the last.
A swig of dry spirits sets his throat ablaze, the boat lurching forward just in time to send his brain spinning. He shakes his head to clear it. Torou raises an inquiring eyebrow, but tobirama merely shakes his head and hands the bottle over, lying back on his hammock. Hashirama moans pitifully.
So, peace was Madara’s dream as well. Only it wasn’t something as abstract as peace, but something more akin to less meaningless death.
In that moment, I knew: if I die out here, I’ll die for nothing.
Hisai’s words ring true to him in the sense that he’s thought of them dozens of times, and he wonders if all the children of war have twin realizations. He’s been fighting for his clan’s survival all his life, only perhaps that is simply the story he tells himself: the longer the battle drags itself forward, the less of his clan there is left. The paradox is all-engulfing and everlasting. He sees them die around him everyday, and for what? How many of the people he grew up with are there left? How many will continue to survive? The Uchihas fare no better. Their numbers dwindle, but their will is set ablaze and their determination burns. They’ll follow their leader into their death, their commitment to their clan unwavering and true, but they’re tired. They’re all tired.
Madara’s childhood was consumed by his passion, laser-like focus dead set on changing the way things were--a noble dream, and one he’d been willing to die for.
But then why? Why won’t Madara take his brother’s hand, why won’t he sign the peace treaties Hashirama’s been offering for so long? It’s like every time he manages to shed some light on the mystery that the man is, another piece of the puzzle succumbs into pitch black darkness.
Tobirama remembers a time when he himself believed that if only adults would make a commitment and stand by it, then conflict would end and they would have peace. He’d been a logical child, but a child nonetheless: such an agreement meant trust, and trust--
--inscrutable crimson eyes shining from above, tomoe swirling lazily inside. Blood splattering with every step, air carrying a faint metallic tang and the smell of singed hair and cooking meat. A lifetime of torture in a second, a life of suffering in a blink, fields planted with corpses and ashes soaked in blood--
Trust is not an option.
The trouble with time is that it often makes us forget ourselves, old man Hisai told him, face painted with grief.
Indeed, Tobirama thinks, and resigns himself to another sleepless night.
There’s a dark blue haori and loose pants neatly folded under a rock, which is helpfully labeled “For You” in bright red followed by a childish doodle of a rabbit with enormous front teeth. Tobirama glares at it for a good ten minutes before giving up and picking up the clothes. They’re moldy, slightly damp and smell from being exposed to the elements too long, but the pants are a good fit. He stares at the Uchiha crest on the back of the haori, scoffs, and shrugs it on inside out before sitting on the ground to wait.
Madara doesn’t show up for about an hour, but Tobirama can feel him meandering the forest without much hurry. The boy’s chakra is like a beacon, or a target, spiking up and down as he finds things that interest him or breaks into short pointless bursts of speed, as if racing himself somewhere. He seems to gravitate slowly but surely towards Tobirama, his thoughts obviously all over the place and yet not in his surroundings, because when he finally makes it to the clearing and raises his eyes, he does a double take before his face lights up in surprise.
“You’re real! You’re real!” Madara squeaks, running towards him excitedly. He trips on a fallen branch on his way and faceplants on the forest floor, sending dead leaves flying. Tobirama winces, but the boy picks himself up like nothing happened. “You’re really real!”
He topples to his knees in front of him, beaming expectantly. He’s the youngest Tobirama’s ever seen him yet.
“I am really real,” he confirms. Madara’s grin widens more, if that’s even possible.
“I knew you were real,” he says, nodding enthusiastically, “Hikaku said maybe I imagined you and you were a halusion--”
“Hallucination?” Tobirama raises an eyebrow, momentarily ignoring the alarming notion that Uchiha Hikaku might know about him.
“Yes, that’s what I said! Well, not what I said. What he said. He said you were a hallucianon--”
“Hallucination.”
“--that. But I told him you weren’t! I said you were real and you’re real! You’re really real!” he finishes, sitting back on the fallen leaves with a grin. He cocks his head to the side and makes a face, “You smell funny,”
Tobirama scowls, “It’s the clothes, not me. Did you know I was coming?
“You said you were coming back,” the boy bristles, raising an accusing finger at Tobirama’s face, “But you said you’d come back soon! That was months and months ago, Tobirama!”
“I don’t control it,” Tobirama shrugs, “I just come and go. How many times have met?”
“We met once,” Madara crosses his arms and grumbles under his breath, something about rude time travelers. His hair sticks out in all directions, a leaf perched proudly on a tuft like a flag on top of his head.
Tobirama picks it out and shows it to the boy, “You’ve been rolling around the bushes?”
Madara flushes bright red and shakes his hair out like a dog, sending leaves and twigs flying everywhere.
“No,” he drawls out, but visibly perks up. Fishing inside his pocket, he proudly presents Tobirama with his treasure: six small, white pebbles, “I’m looking for little rocks. I’m teaching Yohei how to play Fivestones, so I need to find some that fit in his hand,”
“And this required you to dive into a puddle?” Tobirama smirks, pointing at the mud splattered all over the boy’s dark clothes. Madara sticks out his tongue, and Tobirama snorts, then asks, “Who’s Yohei?”
“He’s my little brother,” Madara says, “He’s a little boring to play with, but Hikaku went off on a mission so now it’s just me and Yohei. He can’t play outside yet so I tried to teach him how to play conkers but he got mad because he could never hit the chestnut and he started crying really hard, and then I wasn’t looking and he ate a bit of the thread, and that was bad. But then he pooped it out, so it was ok,”
“How old are you?”
“I’m seven,” says Madara, puffing up his chest with a grin.
“And your brother?”
“Oh, he’s two,” Yohei is clearly a favorite topic, which means that Izuna isn’t yet born. This is disturbing in many different ways, “He can’t talk really well yet, so Hikaku says he doesn’t count. Do you have any little brothers?”
Tobirama pushes down a surge of emotion with practised ease, “I did,”
“Oh,” Madara’s face cracks with an understanding of loss far beyond his years, and he scrambles to his feet to throw an arm around Tobirama’s neck. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Yohei, too,” he says.
Izuna isn’t yet born then. Tobirama doesn’t look at him, lest he see the truth on his face. That his baby brother, the centre of his world, will be dead before he even reaches adolescence.
“D’you wanna play Fivestones with me?”
The change of topics is as abrupt as the boy himself, “I--don’t know how to play,”
“That’s great! I can practise teaching you!” Madara grins, reaching back into his pocket for his stones as he looks around for an a appropriate patch of dirt to play. Tobirama follows obligingly, listening as the boy babbles, “Hikaku taught me how to play, but he’s not a very good teacher so he started stammering and messed up the rules. Then he got mad because I beat him. Our last game was a tie, so we have to have a tie breaker when he gets back--” suddenly he stops, turning around with an uncertain frown on his face, “Hikaku and I are still friends in the future, right?”
Tobirama doesn’t answer, wondering if he should. Tōka’s words about messing up their lives by interfering with the past swirl into his thoughts, making him pause. Would it truly make a difference to disclose such unimportant information? Would it change Madara’s behaviour? Could he sway the boy’s actions by doing it? How different would the future be, if Uchiha Hikaku weren’t Madara’s second lieutenant?
Madara clearly takes his silence to be a negative. “Oh, no. We’re not, are we?” His face crumples and his eyes well with tears, his lower lip wobbling as he clutches his stones to his chest. Tobirama stares in horror.
“No,” he says, but it’s the wrong thing to say. Tears spill down the boy’s cheeks and, “No, no! I didn’t mean that! Oh, no, please don’t cry,”
But Madara doesn’t hear him, “I don’t want to play anymore!” he wails, throwing his stones away. Being a genius level shinobi, and specialized in the use of ninja tools like all the Uchiha, the stones leave his hand as deadly weapons. One of them catches Tobirama in the shin.
“Fuck,” he hisses, faintly panicking because crying children are not something he thinks he’s equipped to handle. He falls to his knees, hand hovering over the boy’s shoulder for a few seconds before awkwardly settling down, “Look, I promise you are still friends”
Puffy coal eyes regard him guardedly, “You’re not lying?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Tobirama lies. Madara sniffles, wiping at his face, but he doesn’t step away from the hand on his shoulder, seemingly drawing comfort from it.
“I lost my stones,” he says forlornly.
“You threw your stones,” at me, he doesn’t say, because Madara still looks the picture of misery despite the reassurances.
They look for the stones in silence, Tobirama making a show of searching while simply picking up any small stone he finds. When he presents them to Madara, the boy frowns, picking one up, “Is this my stone?”
“It is. I’d recognize it anywhere,”
Madara nods, satisfied. There’s tracks of tears and mud on his face, and his hair looks like a bird’s nest. The child is an absolute mess, playing alone in the forest with a time-traveling stranger. Tobirama is starting to see where the strange child he’s met so many times came from.
“You can never tell anyone about me,” he blurts out suddenly.
Madara looks up from where he’s seated on the ground again, “Why not?”
“Because,” he deadpans, “It’s the rules,”
“There’s rules to time travel?” Madara frowns, sounding more skeptical than any seven year old has any business sounding, but then his eyes widen and his mouth form an “o” of surprise. “Is that why you can’t have clothes?”
“...Yes,” Tobirama says, sensing that this is a necessary concession, “That’s why,”
Madara nods like this is the most logical thing in the world.
They play Fivestones for an hour, although it’s mainly Madara explaining the rules and Tobirama pretending not to understand just to annoy him. The boy is very close to either chucking a stone at his head or turning into a rage tomato, but then Tobirama returns to the present. Only instead of landing in his cabin, he lands next to the boat. In the water.
He’s beginning to loathe all kinds of travel.
Upon their return, Tōka takes one look at them, says, “ Finally ,” dumps a handful of scrolls on Tobirama’s arms and goes hunting. She isn’t seen for a week.
“We were this close to a massacre,” Hikari-sensei comments cheerfully as she pours them mint tea, holding her thumb and index finger at a distance that implies they’d been very close indeed.
“There’s still food in the vaults, and nothing’s on fire,” Tobirama points out, frowning at some papers and not understanding anything he reads, “Sure, the forest animals shall suffer her wrath, but at least when she gets back we’ll have smoked venison. That’s always a plus,”
“Oh, gods,” Hashirama says, sounding disgusted. The bits of his face visible through his fingers are tinged green with nausea, “Don’t say that,”
“What,” he raises an eyebrow, giving up on trying to read “Smoked venison?”
"Didn't you have enough of me throwing up all over you this week?"
"No vomit on my floors, please. I cleaned this morning,” Hikari chides, sliding mint tea in front of Tobirama and a foul smelling concoction in front of his brother. Medicine, no doubt. Hashirama chokes and gags.
“This is our house, Hikari sensei,” Tobirama reminds her, “And you never clean,”
“I can’t deny that, boy, but still. I’m a sympathetic vomiter, so unless you want to see a chain reaction that’ll scar you for life, no throwing up on my floors, please,”
“I don’t think I can even do it anymore,” Hashirama says, staring morosely at his cup. “I haven’t eaten anything solid since Land of Whirlpools,”
“Ah, yes. The sea will do that to you, love,” Hikari pats him on the shoulder, urging him to drink, “But it’s a fine bonding exercise. I didn’t know your mother when we got on the boat that brought us here, but by the time we reached land we were best friends,”
“Anija and I are closer than ever,” Tobirama mutters, sipping his tea and mentally barring the memories away from his conscious mind.
“If you survived that, your bond is unbreakable,” she nods, patting him sympathetically on the shoulder, “Speaking of brotherly love, how fairs the old man? Still a hermit?”
“He sends you all his love and preserved peppers,” Hashirama says, rubbing his temples. His eyes are sunken from the dehydration, but at least the deathly pallor he’d sported earlier is gone. “And a set of skinning knives,”
“Did he embarrass you unnecessarily?”
Tobirama averts his eyes, “...yes,”
“He choked on air,” Hashirama chirps, never one to miss an opportunity to twist the knife.
“That’s my brother,” Hikari whoops, smiling contentedly. “And was he helpful?”
“I don’t know yet,” Tobirama says, thinking back on the journals. There’s some promising content, investigation notes and snippets of theory copied verbatim from tomes he thought lost to time, all amongst war letters and journal entries, but still… “Too soon to tell,”
Hashirama’s face twists into a worried visage, but Hikari shrugs.
“Better than nothing,” she says, closing the topic. It doesn’t sound like a platitude when she says it, but more like a logical statement: that’s all you got, but worrying unnecessarily is as useless as trying to hold air within your hands. Don’t fret, boy. You’re already grey, on top of that you’ll go bald, and I’ll have to euthanize you to spare the world your ugly mug.
“Yes,” Tobirama chuckles, “You’re right,”
He feels someone approaching, then. There’s Torou’s tightly controlled, steel cold and sharp chakra, at ease and yet ready to strike at all times, and a rattled, nervous one at his side. Somewhere out on the street, approaching the house, opening the door and bustling inside, a bundle of fretting energy lined with an edge of--
“Why is Ichirou-san afraid of coming into our house?” he asks, puzzled. The man was easily rattled and high strung by nature, but always with an undercurrent of iron befitting a man of his stature.
“Oh, that,” Hikari cackles, “Tōka threw her shoe at him when he corrected her grammar,”
Hashirama frowns, “That’s not so bad,”
“She set it on fire first,”
Tobirama is about to roll his eyes at the obvious fabrication, but then the man in question rushes to greet them, sporting a conspicuous lack of eyebrows. Hikari snickers like a schoolgirl, and Torou smirks almost imperceptibly as he takes his usual spot standing guard by the door.
“It’s good to have you back,” Hashirama’s secretary tells them both, a look of genuine relief washing over his face, “I trust you had a pleasant trip,”
“It sucked,” Hashirama booms, his eyes blank, but he’s smiling. The secretary’s eye twitches with violence.
Hikari claps her hands together loudly.
“Well, your brain-to-mouth filter is shot. Time for a strategic retreat,” she says, grabbing Hashirama by the arm and hauling him towards his study.
“But I’m alright!”
She scoffs, “For a corpse,”
“Sleep would do you well, anija. I’ll deal with any pressing matters,” Tobirama agrees, crossing his arms.
“I’m just a little dehydrated,” Hashirama grumbles, wobbling dangerously as he walks, “Some water and I’ll be ok,”
Tobirama raises an eyebrow, “Then you can do all the paperwork--”
“--I feel dreadful, really. Why, I’m about to keel over. Feel my temperature, Hikari-sensei,”
“Boy,” Hikari says to him suspiciously, “you’d tell me if you were going to throw up on me, right?”
Hashirama gives her a wan smile. “You shoulda thought of that before you made me drink that crap.”
They go down the hallway and their voices fade. Tobirama sighs.
“Any new developments?” he asks, massaging his temples, “How are the crops coming along? And the situation with the Nara clan?”
“It’s all-all going well,” Ichirou-san stammers in his characteristic mumble, “However, there’s something--”
“The Naras didn’t show at the meeting point again?” he growls, narrowing his eyes. Lazy fuckers always pulled the same stunt.
“N-no. The young man they appointed was on time, and though he complained copiously about the early hour the negotiations went as expected,”
“Then what is it?”
“Well--it is hard to explain,”
“What is it,” usually, Tobirama has limited patience for the man’s particular temperament, but the trip took it’s toll on him and he’s not feeling precisely tolerant.
The man gulps at the glare he receives, but looks away and starts to speak, “The surveillance parties sent out to scout the Uchiha compound--”
Tobirama sits up straight, blinking away sleep and tiredness. By the door, he feels Torou tense,“They’ve been captured? Maimed? Killed?”
They didn’t send parties large enough to engage, at Hashirama’s request, and Tobirama is cursing himself right now. The men sent were prepared for a scouting mission, if they were attacked--
“N-no, sir,”
Tobirama breathes a sigh of relief. Torou’s energy uncoils a little bit.
“What then?”
“Have they done that thing again where they made everyone dance until they fainted?” Torou pipes in.
There’s a collective shudder at the memory.
“No, sir. Thank the gods, not that.” Ichirou says, scratching his head in bewilderment, “They brought something, though. I--well, I think you should see it,” the man reaches into his bag and pulls out a square wooden box, plain and dark but for the confectioner’s logo on top of the lid. He slides it to Tobirama on the table with a shrug, “We’ve scanned for poisons, genjutsu, hidden seals, traps...Nothing.”
Tobirama knows. He’s not listening anymore. He opens the box to find, lined in neat rows, a dozen green-tea cakes shaped like leaves and sprinkled with sugar. There’s nothing written, nothing that can be seen, and yet the message feels like a punch in the gut nonetheless.
Tobirama’s glaring at the pastries, but is actually glaring at life in general, when he travels and lands face down on a patch of soft grass. He growls darkly, hating everything.
He’s surprised to find that he’s once again smack in the middle of the Uchiha compound, but there’s no one for miles around. The lines of high and mighty oaks he saw the few times he was here are gone, sad stumps left in their place like maimed limbs protruding from the dry earth. The koi pond at the centre of the compound is empty and dry, the bones of bamboo water fountains left pouring air into nothing.
There’s a few neat rows of houses, all abandoned without sign of resistance and ransacked by opportunists, the windows smashed and doors forced open. There’s no sign of fighting, no blood on the floors, no burns on the walls, no discarded weapons, no remnants of chakra, no molten rock and splinters. In one of the houses, a bed is still made, a stuffed bear made of rags left neglected on top of the covers. It’s like the child simply did not return one day. Tobirama curls into a corner, naked and shivering, and tries not to think about how Madara may be dead, how Hashirama might be dead, how Tōka might be dead, how he might be dead. The day fades into night, the hours crawl by him. Time slips away, and he’s reminded of how everyone fades from his life like boats receding into the horizon, how no one is permanent, not even himself.
The whole place is empty of anything, and for a sensor like him it’s like a black hole, swallowing universes whole. He returns to the present to find not a second has gone by.The tea-cakes lined in the box seem mock him with the bright memory of a wild child.
Your favorites.
Tobirama feels unbearably old.
Someone hovers over his bed.
“Awaken, Senju,” a voice like the rumble of thunder speaks, “I have a need of you,”
Tobirama startles awake and into a nightmare, for the ghost of Uchiha Madara is standing next to his bed.
He’s with his back against the wall and falling into a fighting stance even before his mind can finish processing the fact that even though he can see Madara, he can’t feel him. He would think he’s dreaming, if it weren’t for the fact that he can feel his brother sleeping in the room down the hall, a nightmare making him toss and turn, and he can sense Tōka in the kitchen, sleepless and numb, nursing a glass of spirits. Across the street, the sentry’s head bobs once and he startles awake, shifting his weight from one foot to the other to keep his mind busy and awake until his shift finally ends.
Madara looks at him scan his surroundings, and doesn’t say a word. Somehow, he’s hiding himself from Tobirama’s senses. Without his massive chakra about himself, he’s as insubstantial to Tobirama as a spirit or a fae, his intentions as murky as the sea after a storm. He knows he’s caught, that he’s been caught since he opened his eyes and fixed them directly into Madara’s Sharingan: a fool’s mistake, and one that’s costed him everything.
“Are you here to kill me?”
To his credit, his voice is calm despite the fact that his heart is hammering against his ribcage. All he can see of Madara beyond his dark silhouette are his eyes, which are very red and very amused. It’s the same look a cat might give a mouse in it’s paws; dinner and a game, all in one.
“Not today.” he says simply, like he’s bestowing a gift.
Tobirama’s eyes narrow. “A social visit, then? I believe you’ve got the wrong room,”
“Being deliberately obtuse does not suit you,” says Madara chidingly,“You got my message. I reckon you know exactly why I’m here”
Tobirama lights the lamp on the bedside table, bathing the room in a soft golden hue. Was the lamp there before he woke up, or is this all part of a genjutsu? He doesn’t know. His memory is hazy, although whether that’s because he just woke up or he’s caught in a genjutsu, he has no way to tell. He can feel Madara’s Sharingan follow his movements, tomoe swirling lazily inside like something out of a crazed delusion, until he dares meet those eyes again.
The moment is surreal. The golden light does Madara no favour, his face a study of stark light and shadows, darkness pooling around his sunken eyes and there where his hair falls over his forehead. His face is impassive and his posture is relaxed. It takes Tobirama a moment to realize that what’s strange about his appearance, other than the fact that he’s in Tobirama’s bedroom, is that he’s not wearing his armour. Without the outer layer of bulky red metal and clad in a simple black tunic and pants, the man looks leaner, almost ---small. Definitely not any less imposing, but slighter, and all the more dangerous for it. Tobirama is struck by how off-putting it is to see that mass of unruly black hair devoid of at least one twig or leaf caught somewhere.
Madara’s expression is patient. He’s been waiting for this conversation, Tobirama realizes. Been waiting for a long time. But why? By all means, if Madara ever meant to approach him about this, he could have done it any time in the past decade, but he never did. He waited until now. Did he realise that Tobirama’s been traveling backwards because of his age? Was he aware of the date?
In a moment of clarity, the memory hits him.
“You clutched your chest,” he says, realization coloring his words, “The first time I traveled, you clutched your chest,”
“It burned,” is the response he receives, clipped and short. “Afterwards, Izuna told me you used a new jutsu. It was easy to put two and two together,”
It suddenly crashes around Tobirama’s head that this man and the child he lost at conkers with just this morning are the same person. Up to this point, it’s been easy to put out of his mind the fact that he’s been actually traveling through time, but now the thought is impossible to avoid.
For some reason, Tobirama feels violated, like something else’s been taken from him. It’s not just that he’s being yanked back and forth through someone else’s life, it’s not just that he’s been forced to face the death of his family over and over during the past few months, it’s also that Madara’s know him since he was a little boy. That fateful day on the river, Madara had known him for at least five years prior. Somehow, illogical as it is, he feels betrayed by his own enemy.
Here’s a man who knows more about his life and future than he himself does. The thought is jarring, and it sets his blood ablaze.
“You’ve known me since you were seven years old,” he says, packed with accusation. There’s still a part of him that harbours hope that the other will deny everything and laugh. That way, this will all just have been a bad dream or a cruel genjutsu.
But Madara doesn’t deny it.
“Six,” he corrects, then quiets again.
“How…?” Tobirama starts, but trails off, not knowing how to finish. How did this happen? How do I make it stop?
He settles for, “Why?”
Madara huffs, somehow rolling his eyes with his whole body. The gesture is so familiar by now that Tobirama has to resist the urge to chuck a shoe at him.
“I don’t know why. You tell me how,” is the answer he gets, an edge of frustration to the words, “All I know is that a time traveling naked Senju’s been stalking me half my life,”
Half his life? Tobirama feels the blood drain from his face, “How many times?”
“Dozens,”
“Does it ever stop?”
Madara shrugs again.
“You usually looked like this,” he says, not looking at him, “But then again, your family ages well,”
The omission is easy to grasp in that Madara said usually, not always. Tobirama shuts his eyes and breathes in slowly through his nose, reigning in his temper. He has to open his eyes fast though, because he can’t feel Madara there, right where he can see him, and it’s tattering his nerves. He feels like he’s hallucinating, or facing a ghost. There’s a void where Madara’s monstrous chakra should be, and that is not right. It reminds him too much of the empty Uchiha compound, and oaks chopped near the root.
“What for?” he asks, nails digging into his palms. Gods, his stomach hurts.
Madara blinks very slowly. Tobirama sees a flash of a red-nosed boy in the snow, and grits his teeth.
“What do you mean?”
“What was the point?” Tobirama growls.
Madara scowls, arms crossing over his chest, “You tell me,”
“I don’t know!” he’s aware he’s pacing and quite probably shouting, but he also knows that trapped inside Madara’s genjutsu nobody can hear him so he doesn’t care, “Why would I come back to you? Why always you? What’s the fucking point?”
He’s been faced with the gut-wrenching choice to murder his enemy during the man’s infancy, thus sparing himself and others countless losses; he’s been forced to accept the fate of his deceased loved ones over and over again; he’s been shown a painfully impossible future, and an excruciatingly unbearable past; he’s been brought to his knees by an empty room and the certainty that life is fickle.
I have a theory about war, Hisai wrote. I think that all of us who are out here tell ourselves stories about why we’re here, what’s the meaning of all this pain.
He needs a story to tell himself, but he’s never been good enough at dreaming to concoct a tale that will make his chest stop burning at the helplessness he feels, at the injustice of it all.
“It’s only with your heart that you can see rightly, ” says Madara, eyes faraway.
“You already told me that,” snaps Tobirama. “What does it mean? ”
Madara’s eyes narrow to slits, “You told me that. Made me repeat it three times, made sure I’d remember it. You said that there were things you had to figure out by yourself,”
Tobirama huffs out a helpless laugh and lets his arms fall limply to his sides, “That’s not helpful,”
“It’s not my job to help you, Senju,” Madara snaps at him, vitriol lacing each word. Whereas his original approach had been open and borderline friendly, which is a notion Tobirama won’t touch for now, he’s currently as distant as Tobirama’s ever seen him. Arms crossed over his chest and scowl firmly in place, he’s the enemy Tobirama’s used to see, with shadow and light dancing across his face in a play of smoke on mirrors.
“ Tobirama ,” he hears himself say, caught in the play of emotions that drag themselves across the Uchiha’s face even underneath the cold veneer.
Madara frowns, momentarily thrown, “What?”
“You--” he swallows, then lets the words out, “You call me Tobirama,”
Always, since the very beginning.
Madara blinks, then looks at him consideringly. His bangs cast a shadow across his face that looks like a scar, splitting his face in two: known and unknown, past and present. He raises his hand slowly, hypnotically, and as if by art of magic a wickedly sharp blade appears between his deft fingers.
It’s in this moment that Tobirama realizes Madara’s eyes are black, not red, and this is no genjutsu, but the real world.
He’s standing against the wall of his room, breathing hard and absolutely disoriented. He blinks unfocused eyes to keep Madara in his field of vision, he feels himself losing consciousness. His chakra control is shot and his body is trembling, weakened beyond belief, and it’s a struggle just to stay upright. Damn that cursed Sharingan.
He gathers just enough control to send out a chakra wave so powerful it must wake the neighbours, but he doesn’t care: all he cares is that, down the hallway, Hashirama startles awake.
Madara scoffs disdainfully, eyes alight with misgivings.
“Hn. Not you ,” he says, and lets fly. Tobirama’s eyes widen, but he can’t move. He cannot move.
The blade buries itself deep into the wall less than half an inch from his temple. A few strands of silvery white hair flutter to the floor. His heart pounds with fright. Shit. Shit .
Madara smiles thinly, “Don’t look so upset. You know I never miss my mark,”
Iridescent black flames line his silhouette for an instant, like an inferno opening to swallow him whole, and then burn his frame away. Hashirama slams the door open just in time to see the last of the shadow fire consume itself into thin air.
“What happened?” he asks, watching Tobirama slide to the floor and away from the blade.
He rubs at the side of his head with trembling fingers, and a small clump of hair comes away just as Tōka comes running into the room, looking frazzled and ready to fight despite being in her nightclothes. He knows that her keen eyes can capture everything, from the sweat that’s making his clothes cling to his body to the glittering remains of foreign fire chakra in the air, and he can feel the second her eyes fall on the blade embedded on the wall.
He swallows twice, then tries to speak, “I--”
“--Tobirama,” she says, alarm gripping at her tone.
Hashirama grips the blade and pulls it from the wall, his large hand engulfing the hilt. It’s a small curved thing, an ornate piece of metal polished to a high shine and sharper than wind, and when his brother dangles it questioningly in front of his face his heart nearly stutters to a stop.
Engraved into Madara’s blade is the curiously unique symbol of Hiraishin , and curling into the entrails of the metal like vines of fading cerulean and silver are old tendrils of Tobirama’s chakra, curled together with Madara’s own in a tight, intricate pattern.
Fire and water bound together, like two destinies intertwined.