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Published:
2019-10-16
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2020-03-21
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2/2
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Summary:

"The only emotions Uchiha know are love and loss."
It's not a good thing to tell Tobirama, just shy of twenty-four, three brothers dead, and a village held together with strings. Then again, Madara never really gave a damn if his words upset Tobirama.

Chapter 1: Feel Nobly

Chapter Text

It sounded like bullshit when Madara told him that, but something on Tobirama’s face must have shown his disbelief, because Madara defended his statement.

“Everything I feel, everything I do stems from those two emotions. It’s love for my clan that drives me, that shapes my entire character. And it’s the loss that I’ve felt over my fallen family that pits me against the world.”

“Loss turns to anger. Anger turns to hate, and rage, and cruelty. You can’t possibly try to tell me that the Uchiha can only feel nobly.”

“I don’t hate you, Senju. You are remarkably like Izuna; he was always careful, wary. Never believed the Senju and Uchiha could co-exist. But when I look at you I see him. I feel all the loss that I’ve felt since you killed him.”

Tobirama hated him. He hadn’t any illusions about Senju and emotions, he hated the way Madara wouldn’t look at him. Hated his aloofness as if the village was a dream doomed to fail. Hated his dismissiveness.

Hated this man that convinced his anija to kill himself.

“I promise you, the Uchiha that killed my six year old brother seven times over after he was already dead didn’t feel love or loss in those actions.
Perhaps you don’t hate me, Uchiha. But never try to tell me that you love me.”

Tobirama rose and left, left Madara sitting at the village overlook, tea still steaming.

 

 

Hashirama, for all his sentimentality, hadn’t had many personal belongings. Once, he’d made a little wooden statue of himself hugging a wooden Tobirama. In the early stages of him learning Mokuton, twigs and leaves sprouted here and there across their bodies. The two had laughed at its crude, rough artistry, and Hashirama had been about to unmake it when Tobirama snatched it away from him.

I like it. I’m keeping it.

Tobirama had only been fourteen.

 

He had only been twenty three when he’d buried Hashirama, half his body charred by some furious spirit or god. A trail of tar near him, as if something had crawled away. The village, Hashirama’s child, had been only in its barest stages of its infancy. He’d almost decked Madara out of rage and grief when he’d seen him after the funeral.

You could have gone with him. You could have helped him!

Hashirama had asked his brother to stay behind with the village. Madara was sequestered with his clan that week, not to be found by either of them.

You got what you wanted. He’s dead.

That had been the first time since war that Tobirama had seen Madara’s dead black gaze alight with something. He’d turned away before Madara could see the tears in his own eyes. It was a month before Tobirama saw him again, strangely aloof and secluded even from his own clanmates. It worried him, especially as Madara left the meeting without speaking to a single soul or picking fights with anyone either. He tracked Madara after that, and hours later in the evening, realized with a stab of panic that Madara was making for the road that led out of the village rather than the Uchiha compound.

 

“You think you can leave?”

Madara stilled at the gates. Black cloaks rippled on the wind; Tobirama was still in mourning. Madara always wore black.

“I didn’t expect you to stop me.”

“You made a pact. You asked my brother to kill me or himself to prove he was committed to peace. He did what you asked; he committed his life to peace. You think you can just walk out of here? This place is your fucking legacy.”

Madara scoffed at that. “This place doesn’t want me and I don’t want it. If Hashirama’s ghost is the only thing keeping me here then tell him it’s time to truly pass on.”

“The only thing? Your family is here. Your clan. What happened to ‘It’s my love for my clan that drives me?’”

How Tobirama dared to doubt Madara’s love for his own clan, Madara didn’t know. “I love my clan as much as I ever will, but I can no longer help them.”

“You have to!  God knows what I’ll do with you gone and Hashirama dead and the village in factions. You are the Uchiha. With you gone they’ll split and I can barely handle one clan, let alone an incivil one.”

 

Finally, finally, Madara turned his back on the gate. He hadn’t taken a step away yet, but he finally looked at Tobirama, and there was something of a twitch in his lips. Perhaps it was just that he wasn’t frowning, but Tobirama felt something akin of hope, the barest lightening of the pressure on his chest.

“You’re begging me to stay, Senju.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. I’m ordering you to stay.”

“Are you telling yourself that this is to keep an eye on me?”

Tobirama frowned; this man was asking to be stabbed. “It is to keep an eye on you. And to hold you to your responsibilities.”

Madara retreated from the gate. He threw his pack into Tobirama’s chest as he walked past, and said “Come with me. If you want me to stay, we’ve got work to do.”

 

It was past midnight, and Madara kept the two of them up till dawn broke, but with the new day came a new kind of peace, agreements between the two of them. The drafts and proposals written about their newborn village lay scattered across the floor; neither Senju nor Uchiha clan given power over the other. Communal school for children of all clans. Laws taken from the traditions of each clan were compared.

“This may be the longest I’ve gone without wanting to break your neck.”

“I don’t believe that falls under love or loss, Uchiha.”

Something that was halfway between a laugh and a huff left Madara. “It falls under love of peace and quiet.”

Tobirama sighed and rolled over on the floor to his final paper. “Well, you may need to say goodbye to that feeling. We still need to elect a leader somehow.”

“The Hokage.”

“What?”

“Hashirama called it the Hokage. He asked me to take it on.”

“Well. Hokage it is then. But I think it should be an elected position. I’ve had about goddamn enough of leaders who simply come into power without the wills of the people being taken into consideration.”

“You’re a fool, Senju. People will choose with greed and ambition in their minds. They’ll follow their pride instead of choosing a better future. You’ll having nothing more than the loudest clan head as your new Hokage.”

“So you want it, then? The title?”

He had been right; the urge to punch the white-haired man was back.

“No. The next time I decide to walk out of this village, I don’t want you to have another reason to make me come back.”

“I really, really don’t like you.”

“And you?”

“Absolutely not. Whoever takes that position will likely be… encouraged to marry the Uzumaki heir, and I… won’t.” It was surprisingly reticent for Tobirama. Madara had grown used to knowing the other would say whatever was on his mind in whatever tone he wanted.

“Doesn’t meet your standards, does she?”

“Actually, she’s quite gorgeous, and extremely skilled to boot. Shall I find her picture? Would that make you interested in being Hokage?”

Madara made a sound of disgust. “For an arranged marriage? Don’t make me push you through the window, Senju. Uchiha marry for love.”

Tobirama paused in his sorting of papers, and Madara could feel the disbelief rolling off him in waves. “Really.”

“Unlike the rest of you bloodless corpses, it seems.”

“I’ll show you blood,” Tobirama muttered darkly, but didn’t push the issue.

The nine AM light broke on them leaving the building together; standing safely apart but still far more in sync than any would expect of the two. Tobirama glanced at the Uchiha, started at the fierce glare on the other’s aristocratic face, and then relaxed when he realized it was just due to the bright rays of the sun.

“You can leave me alone now,” Madara grumbled.

“What?”

“I’m far too fucking tired right now to go on a trip out the village. I’m going back to sleep. You don’t have to follow me around or track my every move.”

Tobirama paused. Had Madara known he’d been tracking him earlier? He must, since how else would he have known to stop him at the gate?

“I won’t,” he told Madara guardedly.

“You’re lying,” he replied. “No matter. Waste your chakra as you like.”

An entire night of this. Why had Tobirama stopped him again? “Good day to you, then.”

Tobirama turned on his heel and strode away, ignoring the feeling of leaving a party before it’s ended.

Tobirama paused in his writing, feeling a prickle on the back of his neck. His chakra sprung up automatically, and he began twisting it to sense his surroundings. The prickle grew even worse as he realized there was no one nearby, and everyone in the building was someone meant to be there. In spite of himself, he stood and strode to the window to look out across the sprawling construction sites across the village.

“Odd,” he whispered. There was definitely something wrong, that wasn’t meant to be around, and yet he couldn’t pinpoint a single thing. The uncertainty definitely made it worse. He reached out to the remnants of Hashirama’s trees, Mokuton creations that he had place sensory seals on- he had plans for a full village barrier, but between organizing personnel and sending missives to independent clans, he had let it fall by the wayside- and found two things. The trees, while no longer extensions of Hashirama’s will, were immense and vivid with leftover chakra, and should live for centuries or more. One of them, however, seemed wilted and dying. The second thing that tipped off Tobirama was the startling lack of energy around the tree. His sensory seal was still working- a trick to finesse his range, give him the same clarity he would have if he were standing right there, despite the distance- and yet he couldn’t sense the usual flora and fauna life around the area because there truly wasn’t any. He turned back to his desk.

It was all work he didn’t need to finish till the end of the week, he reasoned, hardly emergencies. He grabbed a blank piece of paper and wrote a note, sealed it, and left it in the first drawer. Years ago, a disturbance outside the Senju compound would have seen him rushing to deal with it immediately, confident that he was more than capable of handling anything that came into his home territory. There was never doubt in his mind that he was the equal or better of anyone else, but now-

Hashirama dead. He had to be careful. For the village.

Dead trees, read the note. Barrier, watch for the void.

And he climbed out of the window and swiftly made his way to the tree.

 

It wasn’t dead yet, he noted, just yellowed and leafbare, as if poisoned. The grass in a circle of a hundred meters was the same, patching the ground. Tobirama wasn’t a florist of any sort, but he could tell that the soil wasn’t parched and the area hadn’t been burnt or shaded over, it was just…dead. In nearby trees, birds warbled cheerfully as they chased each other. They simply couldn’t find food or coverage on this dead tree; and he ruled out some sort of killing curse. Poison, then?

            His sensory seal on the trunk of the tree was untampered with, its white paper stark now against the sepia of dead foliage. He moved it to the very base of the tree, on one of the largest roots, and tried to extend his senses downwards, as if looking for a blockage or contamination. There was nothing.

            It took him a moment to realize it, but as a violent chill crept through him, he realized the nothingness wasn’t passive. His own chakra levels began declining steadily, and dangerously rapidly. There was a well of hunger below the tree that had been slowly eating away at the nature energy, and now it had found him, with his pure, dense chakra force. And it wanted.

            For the first time in his life, Tobirama used Hiraishin to escape.

            He had noticed, of course, that this tree was barely more than fifty meters away from where he had found Hashirama’s body.

 

He landed back in his office, panting from the tax on his already depleted chakra, and somehow was almost relieved to see Madara, petulant and all too arrogant, sitting in his chair.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” Madara snapped, probably to cover up the fact that he had jumped about a foot at Tobirama’s arrival.

“I’m allergic,” Tobirama regained control of his breathing, “to your attitude. And presence.”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” the Uchiha said, unimpressed. “The Yamanaka and Inuzuka accepted our offer, which means the Nara and Akamichi are sure to follow. They’re going to want to know about our governing administration.”

“Everything’s in order,” Tobirama told him, rounding his desk and none too gently ushering Madara out of his seat. “We have a council, chiefs for each department, and a system for the military. I’m waiting until more clans join before we start putting people in the commander, lieutenant, and captain positions so that it isn’t just Senju and Uchiha in positions of militia power. And we still need to find a Hokage.”

“I thought you wanted to vote for Hokage.”

“Yes, but first I want to find people that are worthy of voting for instead of power hungry warmongers stuck in the past.”

Madara frowned, not sure if it was a jab at him. “Any Senju?”

“Those idiots? I wouldn’t trust the eager ones to shine my armor, and the competent ones don’t want to step into politics. The only one I would have wanted as Hokage was Hashirama.” Tobirama handed him a copy of the ranking system and descriptions of members of the Council. “I think I left the Academy and Treasury files in the library.”

“Your love for your clan astounds me.”

“And your love for your clan drives you. And me. Up a wall. Any Uchiha who aren’t too crazy to run a village?”

“Several. Kiyoko. Sari. Hana. Yuuko. Rei. Definitely Hanabi, but she’s got three children now.”

Tobirama paused, and finally looked at him, eyes feeling tired. He was relieved to see Madara’s own gaze a calm charcoal black. “Only women?”

“Do you have an issue with women?” Madara’s eyebrows rose.

“I’m just surprised that you don’t. It’s not common for male clan heads to be so egalitarian.”

“The men in my clan have an unfortunate habit of worshipping Tajima’s memory.” Madara frowned, and Tobirama held a flickering memory of Uchiha Tajima hurling a sword at him as his own father threw a kunai at Izuna. “The women know better.”

Tobirama returned to finding files for Madara. “Are these kunoichi?”

“Half of them are.”

“Of any caliber?”

“Of course. All Uchiha are superior to most other ninja.” He didn’t have to look up to know Madara was pulling a smug look. He sighed.

“I’ll rephrase that. Can any of them pull off a show of force that would successfully intimidate the regimes in the lands of wind and lightning, and impress the clan heads in whirlpool?”

“They’re Uchiha. Kunoichi or not, no one dares to meet our eyes.”

Tobirama refused to answer that, letting his silence dictate exactly how unimpressed he was.

“I can ask them to grow their hair out a little longer,” Madara relented. “Yuuko’s even taller than I am, Sari has a cross-continent reputation, and Rei knows how to act like a complete psycho to get what she wants.”

“If they’re unmarried, powerful, confident, and willing to work for peace, then I’m all for it. Talk to them,” Tobirama ordered.

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll kill you.”

Tobirama glared at him. “I’ll kill myself first, just to deprive you of the honor.”

“Wish you would!” Madara called, walking out of the room.

 

He wouldn’t admit it, but Madara felt more than a little lonely. Izuna had been the bridge between him and his cousins, and with Izuna lost he’d drawn further and further from normal human contact. It was odd to think that his daily arguments with Tobirama, stressing over policies and enemies, were the majority of his social interactions. At this point, he delayed going home longer and longer, knowing that shadows were waiting to creep into his room and that he’d see Izuna with yellow eyes every time he tried to go to sleep.

            His clan had pulled away from him, as a tree shakes off cumbersome fruit in a heavy storm. They had been more than prepared for his death during that final battle between him and the Senju brothers, knowing that with Izuna gone, Tobirama would finally set his sights on their clan head. They had been ready for surrender far longer than he had, and it was only the letter of the law that kept them under his control- knowing that trust gone, knowing his brother gone, and finally Hashirama gone as the last person he trusted to want him around, he couldn’t find it in himself to impose upon the company of others. And so, he woke up in the morning, drank his tea and ate his rice in silence, and then drifted into the village to let Tobirama hound him for the day before returning to his clan compound and allowing the elders and older clansmen to talk around him and occasionally answer questions and invitations to conversation in short and unfollowable answers.

            He hadn’t expected Tobirama to be so invested. He’d always seen the other on the other end of a sharp sword or a sharp tongue, known the helpless battle-rage of looking into cold red eyes and felt the sting of annoyance whenever Tobirama had interrupted him and Hashirama angrily. In spite of that he realized that he felt no dread whenever he realized Tobirama would be hunting him down that day to stamp out a protocol for training ambassadors or raising children. He didn’t like the thought much, Izuna still whispering in his ear and the memory of Tobirama’s rage at Hashirama’s funeral fresh and bright. And yet he let himself be found each time, refused to hide away, refused to curb his answers and words. And Tobirama just kept coming back. Occasionally he threw out the occasional jab and insult, and to his surprise, Tobirama always returned in kind before shoving some plan into his face. He found he couldn’t shout him down either, as he used to do with his more arrogant clansmen; Tobirama’s voice was unusually deep and its rumble carried easily. All in all, Madara realized that he could almost say he liked this man that refused to be driven off, who wasn’t deceiving or dishonest, and yet-

That sword in Izuna’s side. That sword poised over his head. Those furious, fearful words to a brother. Madara was ready to leave his blood to this village, but he didn’t trust that his own wouldn’t be spilled by the man’s hand.

Then Madara caught sight of a terribly familiar face arguing viciously with a well respected Uchiha man.

 

 

“What’s wrong with Senju Touka?”

“What?” Tobirama was for too engrossed in his reading about the entire sum of knowledge about summon beings to be bothered with paying attention to Madara at the moment.

“Why not ask her to be Hokage? She’s very powerful, intelligent, clearly loves the village, and would most likely have the backing of both Senju and Uchiha.”

Tobirama raised his eyes from the reading and narrowed them at Madara. “Why do you know so much about my cousin?”

“Well,” Madara said, and Tobirama noticed his hair was slightly more messy than usual, “I may have just gotten in an argument with her about genjutsu.”

“And why,” Tobirama followed up, “did that lead to you singing her praises?”

“She’s very good at genjutsu.”

“Ah. And that’s why you think the Uchiha would like her.”

“They would,” Madara assured him. “Especially since she hasn’t killed many Uchiha, just left them with night terrors for years. We respect that.”

“You are so very strange.” Tobirama wondered if he could get Madara to start monologuing in order to tune him out and keep reading. “What on earth were you doing talking to Touka anyways?”

“It was about you,” he said. “She seemed to think you were working yourself too hard.”

Tobirama made a noise of dissent.

“That’s what I said,” Madara continued. “You’re clearly not working hard enough if you have time to go training in the middle of work days. But then she said something about how you’d been developing ideas for peace treaties since you were six. She said you and Hashirama would talk about it all the time, and then you would sit down and write theses on the benefits of peace, and then burn them afterwards.”

“So my father wouldn’t find them,” Tobirama said, still focusing on the shark summons which were said to eat another’s chakra. “Writing helped me memorize the points I made.”

“Hashirama never told me about that,” Madara pointed out.

“He probably didn’t want you to know about me. Even if you were friends, he couldn’t let an outsider have too much information about his family.”

“You never told me about it.” And that was Madara’s main complaint, it seemed.

“Why should I?” Tobirama asked him. “Doesn’t that seem so sincere? You know how I killed your brother and was about to execute you? Don’t worry about that now, you should know I’ve been desperate for peace since the first time I saw a cousin die before my eyes.”

“I wondered how you were so vehement about this village when you were all too ready to put a blade between my eyes,” mused Madara. “I was rather hopeful Hashirama would have killed you instead of going for himself.”

“Would you have stopped him if he did?” Tobirama wondered aloud. “I wanted peace. You were a barrier to that; you kept refusing Hashirama’s treaties. You were keeping the rest of the Uchiha from laying down their arms. I would rather have you dead than alive and prolonging the fighting.”

“That wasn’t your ultimate goal,” Madara stated. “It’s not universal peace for you, it’s keeping your family safe.”

“You’re right,” Tobirama agreed casually. “That’s why Hashirama was the better man. He would have sacrificed me, or you, for complete peace if that’s what was demanded, but I would have protected my family first. And above all, Hashirama. Even from you.”

“You didn’t stop him in time, when I asked him to kill himself.”

“I’m grateful that you did. I was in shock.”

“I think you couldn’t disobey him.”

Tobirama finally gave up on the reading. None of the summons seemed applicable anyways; each described as having a unique and vivid chakra. “What are you getting at? I thought you were trying to convince me to make Touka Hokage?”

“I wonder,” Madara said, “If I could ever accept you as Hokage. On one hand, I don’t know if you wouldn’t burn to the ground anything that threatened what you consider to be the village, even if it’s the Uchiha. On the other, perhaps you are so desparately faithful to Hashirama that your devotion to the village would know no bounds.”

“I told you that I don’t intend to be Hokage. I find  being Senju clan head to be enough work by itself, and god help me if I have to marry Uzumaki-sama.”

“That’s another thing,” Madara said, his demeanor returning from choking fire to a simple handheld sparkler. “Touka seems quite taken with redheads.”

“Touka’s stressed, depressed, and terrible at being diplomatic,” Tobirama informed him viciously. “She doesn’t want to be Hokage and we wouldn’t want it either, as much as I love her. Also, stay away from my cousin.”

“You’re in a bad mood, aren’t you?”

“You walked in here, wasted my time, implied you got in a fight with my cousin, proposed to marry my cousin off, insulted me, and questioned my loyalty to the village. Of course I’m in a bad mood, you absolute fuck.”

“Language, Senju,” Madara chided, but his face seemed cruelly pleased. Tobirama recognized elements he hadn’t seen since the warring days, when Madara was pacing in anticipation for Hashirama, who had never quite enjoyed fighting himself, always and only eager to tend to his plants and cultivate little gardens. Luckily for Madara, Tobirama thought angrily, he himself loved the thrill and the art of countering and destroying opponents at every turn that Hashirama never did.

“I’m sorry, did I use words too big for you to understand? Can I get you a dictionary?” On god he wished he could just hit Madara once. Just once.

“How you and Hashirama are related is beyond me. He’d never be petty like this.”

“Don’t you speak about Hashirama.” Tobirama ground out, and he swore he felt his chair crack. “Not to me.”

“Is that fair? You killed my brother. Your brother died, and you’re still holding it against me? What don’t you hate me for?”

Tobirama wasn’t sure if the sound he made could have been classified as a laugh, he damn sure wasn’t amused. “Izuna and I were fighting. He would have killed me too if he could- almost did. Five times. You asked my brother to kill himself and he complied. I only need one thing to hate you for.”

“So you do.”

Tobirama stood, because he didn’t think he could stay still any longer without the chair and desk shattering from his chakra. “So I do.”

“I know that look on your face, Senju,” Madara spread his arms. “Go on, take a shot. Best chance you’ll get.”

“You think I would?”

“I think you want to. If you didn’t need me. If you didn’t need to be so proper and calculated.”

He eyed the deliberate poor stance Madara had put on. “Of course I want to. Come with me.”

“Why?”

“Come with me,” Tobirama growled, and strode out the door. He took the two of them not far to a clearing just outside the tower; it was decorated in foliage with a delicate garden path and landscaping forming a stream waterfalling along the side of the path.

“What is this?” asked Madara.

“My brother’s pet project. Whenever he was skipping out on paperwork, I’d find him here. One time he wouldn’t leave to go to a meeting until I helped him with the waterfall. Do you recognize it?”

Madara was silent, so Tobirama continued. “The Nakano. The place where you two came up with the plan. You were crucial to it and he wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“So this is why you hate me? Because Hashirama wouldn’t do this village without me?”

Tobirama gently moved a few rocks that had fallen out of place, but still wouldn’t look at him. “I’ve already told you why I hate you. This here is why I trust you. Why I don’t take that shot and try to kill you now. Why I stopped you at the gates. My brother trusted you and needed you here for some damn reason, and if I trust anyone I trust my brother.”

“What a terrible reason to trust someone, Senju. Hashirama and I barely knew each other after all those years apart.”

Tobirama gave a wry smile at something in the distance. “But I thought Uchiha only feel nobly. Isn’t love and loss enough reason to trust someone with the lives of thousands?”

Madara shook his head, but the tense, prickling need under his skin to pick a fight had ebbed.

 

 

 “You will not make the Uchiha into fodder for a police force!” Madara slammed the door to his study open, chucking the scroll Tobirama had given him earlier directly at his head.

Tobirama ducked easily. “You told me I wasn’t giving the Uchiha enough power and sway in the village! Now what’s your problem?”

“Influence isn’t the same thing as enforcement, you stuck up Suiton user!”

“What the hell do you want- is that actually what passes for an insult among the Uchiha?”

“How the fuck is the Sharingan making Uchiha better suited to police work? All you’ve done is box us into one job, one label. This isn’t equality, Senju!”

“Then you come up with something that makes you happy, since you’re so goddamn eloquent! And no, the council will not always have an Uchiha on it. I haven’t even given such a thing to the Senju! In fact, you sour excuse for daikon, in case you haven’t noticed, the Senju aren’t granted any sort of presumed positions!”

“That’s because everyone likes the Senju since they technically won the war! If you don’t give my clan their pride back, shit will happen.

“Pride?” Tobirama nearly tore his desk in half, his snarl echoing uglier and deeper than ever before. “Our children aren’t fucking dying, how’s that for pride.”

“Pride in this village is what’ll keep this village together.” Madara, startled by the raw anger he hadn’t seen since Hashirama’s death, made an effort to reign his composure back together. “If my clan feels alienated by this village, then they will hate it. Then they will rebel. Then they will leave. And then? Children will die.”

Tobirama buried face in hands; after a tense moment without breathing, he sighed deeply. “I’m sorry. Will you sit? Is there something that would work?”

Madara did sit, though the lines of tension didn’t leave his body. “I don’t know. They want to feel that this was an option for them, not the only alternative to annihilation. They want to feel like they have power. I know the Senju aren’t being given anything, but there’s still an imbalance.”

“I know, I know. But those are feelings, and I can’t-“ Tobirama broke off. He’d been about to say he couldn’t deal with feelings. He didn’t know how to placate, he could only act. Plan. Make things happen, move along. “What if you take Hokage?”

“I thought you didn’t want it to be a granted position?”

“I don’t. But I’m not saying I would stop you from being elected.”

“Against who? The village hardly loves me. Not even all the Uchiha love me, after I- after they defected.”

“It still wouldn’t be versus me, to be sure.” Tobirama sighed again, dragged a hand down his face. The skin reddened slightly in response, faint enough that Madara’s black eyes barely caught it. “Can we table this for now? I’m done for the day.”

“You? Done before seven?” A derisive grin pulled at the corner of Madara’s mouth.

“Bite me,” Tobirama said, and then, unhurriedly, “Obon dance tonight.” He shuffled his papers into neater stacks. “Would you like to come?”

It was a perfunctory invitation, likely given more out of habit and politeness than anything else, but Madara rolled it around in his mind.

“A Senju one?”

“Yes,” Tobirama said. His eyes narrowed. “In fact, do come. It would be better for you to be seen in social settings more.”

“This is coming from you.”

“It is a great irony that anija has left the two of us to act as icons to this village,” agreed Tobirama. “However cross or crazy we might be, it wouldn’t be wise to let it be our only faces.”

“Faces indeed.” He frowned, noticing Tobirama was already wearing a yukata, while he himself was still in shinobi-black shirt and pants. “I’m not dressed well for it.”

“It’s fine. If you’d like, I think I have a happi somewhere around here.” Tobirama pulled open a drawer, then two. “Here. It’s got a prototype of the leaf design on the back.”

“Fitting,” Madara said, taking it and slipping it on. “Thank you.”

Tobirama paused, watching him unreadably. “You look good.”

“Thank you,” Madara repeated, for lack of a better response and still unsure and a little wary.

They made it to the obon dance with time to spare before the service. Not knowing enough faces there, Madara followed Tobirama into the temple, discomfort assuaged by the fact that he didn’t question it nor throw Madara any confused looks. They stopped at the shrine, where Tobirama dusted off a photo of Hashirama. Madara hesitated before picking up a small statuette. Tobirama was still, but his chakra was unshaken as Madara took a closer look at the little wooden figurine of four brothers. Hashirama and Tobirama were clearly recognizable, but the younger two, Madara had never seen before. He knew, though, had known since days at a river, who they were. He replaced the statuette, and leaned back to watch Tobirama resettle the various object and clean them off. The yukata Tobirama was wearing was blue, he realized, though he hadn’t seen Tobirama outside of black clothing for a while now. A glint of silver looped around the back of his neck, a slender but strong-looking chain. Neither said a word, but instead lit incense before leaving again.

The drummers struck up a familiar rhythm, and as children rushed past him and adults strode, more calmly than their kids but still excited, Madara found himself pulled into the circles. At first he was right behind Tobirama, free from his scrutiny, but as the dances changed so did their positions. Sometimes they were in separate rings; he lost sight of him as they circled the yagura. Once he noticed Tobirama in the very center, obviously dancing quickly and perfectly, but looking as unhurried and at ease as ever. Once Tobirama was behind him for a dance and he spent the entire time with skin prickling.

There had been a few songs that Madara hadn’t known, highlighting the difference in tradition between Senju and Uchiha, but Madara refused to back down from a challenge, and even deeper down, he liked dancing and didn’t want to stop. Most of them had been easy, even without activating sharingan- he didn’t want to give anyone reason to startle- he’d been able to anticipate the movements without making himself look a fool, until a good two hours into the festival when he’d grown complacent. Madara found himself staring into Tobirama’s smirking face as the dancers around him went into a half turn as he stayed facing forwards. Heat crawled under his neck and he knew he was flushing visibly, a semi-furious look on his face for the rest of the dance.

“I’m never doing this again,” he hissed when Tobirama caught up with him after he left the circles.

“You’re fine,” the other dismissed. “Think of it as letting your barriers down.”

“They’re up more than ever,” he assured Tobirama. “Why the hell would Senju do something as stupid as turn during dances? The Uchiha would never be so silly. All of our dances make sense. Go forward.”

“It’s really not that deep,” Tobirama protested. Madara scoffed in return, but noticed that neither of them were making moves to head back to the courtyard. In fact, Tobirama seemed to be walking them both further away.

“Where are we going?”

“You don’t need to sound so suspicious,” he said, sounding slightly annoyed. A pause, and then “It’s too hot there. I’ve shown my face, stuck around, and now I’m out of there. I’m going to the river.”

“What, to swim?”

“Obviously.”

Madara really didn’t want to be alone, after looking at Hashirama’s photograph. Deeper in his conscious, he didn’t want Tobirama to be alone at the edges of the village in the dark. But knowing he had neither invitation nor dismissal, he slowed his steps somewhat. Noticing it, Tobirama turned around.

“You can come with me, if you wish.”

“I think…I would rather not. But if you’d like to settle for the pond at my house, I would be amenable to you coming.” Oof, he hadn’t quite meant to say the words quite like that, but Tobirama hadn’t seemed to catch on.

“Scared of the night?” That teasing smile appeared on Tobirama’s face again. He wondered when exactly they had become so familiar.

“Superstition keeps the Uchiha alive,” he responded, but didn’t take another step forward. Tobirama looked at him, the smile fading to contemplativeness.

“Your house it is,” he agreed, and then walked back towards Madara.

The entire walk across the village from the Senju area to the Uchiha compound, Madara felt uncomfortably aware of his own movements and that of his companion’s. He almost wished he were back with the dancers; precise instructions for the movement of his arms and how fast he should make his steps. Now he wasn’t sure if he should let his hands fall by his sides or hook his thumbs into the waistband of his pants where pockets ought to have been but weren’t. He felt like he was walking too slowly, his usual ambivalent pace somehow insufficient. And should he say something? He had nothing to say, to be honest, and though he often felt at home in comfortable silences, his relationship with the man next to him was far too tumultuous to allow him to assume anything about them could be called comfortable. He almost longed for Hashirama, with his easy babbling and chatter that would wash over Madara even when he didn’t want to respond, and didn’t have to.

Tobirama seemed completely unfazed, though Madara wondered if he was imagining or not the occasional glances he gave Madara out of the corner of his eye. He was a good sensor, but Tobirama was undoubtedly better and he knew it would be impossible to read any mood that Tobirama didn’t want portrayed from the other man’s chakra. Perhaps he too was glad for the silence; whenever this shaky truce of theirs broke it could easily revert back to arguments and fighting, and possibly even worse than it had been before. It surprised Madara to realize he wasn’t looking forward to that; while he loved to fight on the battlefield, feel his body move and push and struggle, fighting with words was always much less attractive to him and left him with a sick, heavy feeling in his chest.

“This way.” He directed the two of them through the gates of the compound, giving a nod to the Uchiha woman sitting and caring for her toolkit at the sentry porch; he was surprised when she and Tobirama nodded at each other too. Perhaps times were changing. Madara’s own house was closest to the village side of the compound. Despite the trust he had promised, he wanted to be the first in line if conflict came to the Uchiha from the Leaf. He led Tobirama to the gate on the side of his yard and opened it to reveal the modest garden, trees, and pond he kept neat. With uncharacteristic informality, Tobirama made a beeline for the water.

He hadn’t quite been prepared for the Senju to just let his yukata fall to the grass, and was even less prepared for what was underneath. Tobirama had always been reserved, if not proper, and he’d never seen him uncovered below the neck. Even his face tattoos, if striking, were small and precise, giving little hint to any sort of passion or freedom. But now he gazed on the round muscles of shoulders and couldn’t draw his own red eyes from the careful curves of lines and lines of red tattoos spreading across Tobirama, delineating shoulder blades and hips and spine and curving around, undoubtedly, to his chest and abdomen. With a heavy tug in his stomach, he noticed they ran down and around his thighs as well.

“It’s warm,” Tobirama murmured to him, frustration roughing his whisper. “I quite literally told you I wanted to go swimming because I felt too hot.”

He was ankle deep in the pond at this point, back still to Madara, and glaring down at the ripples and reflections in the water.

“We’re Uchiha, everything is hot,” Madara growled back. He didn’t trust himself to say much else, but Tobirama huffed and padded further in anyways.

“And don’t you think of cooling it down,” Madara called. “It feeds into my koi pond and if you kill any of them, I will kill you in return.”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Tobirama, waist deep, turned around. “I developed a jutsu that raises the dead.”

Madara’s response to his ridiculous claim never formed, distracted as he was. The effect of the tattoos was doubled by the look of Tobirama’s face, lines and eyes glowing together like a blood painted sacrifice.

“Aren’t you getting in,” he called. “Or do you like to watch?”

“I like to watch,” rumbled Madara, for it was the truth and he couldn’t in all honesty think of another thing to say. It seemed to mollify Tobirama, who, unlike usual, didn’t have a sharp retort and instead lowered his gaze to the water again. His hands started moving to the familiar motions of the earlier bon dance, and Madara saw with small amusement that the water would rise and follow his hands without even a single seal to command it.

After a while, Madara raised his eyes to the stars and watched them until the night grew cold enough to drive them both home.

 

 

“There’s something old coming,” Tobirama said casually. He was tossing a brush from one hand to the other as he stared at the seal laid out on his desk.

“Oh?”

“It’s been circling us for a while. Taking its time.”

Madara knew what he was talking about; hadn’t known that Tobirama knew. He’d heard the whispers at night, though. Seen a glimpse of it in his dreams the night before he meant to leave the village.

“How do you know about it?”

“How do you?” Tobirama countered.

Madara didn’t hesitate, he told himself, that wasn’t what he was doing. But he held Tobirama’s gaze for a few long seconds, making sure not to spark his Sharingan. Didn’t want to spook the Senju. “I thought it was a genjutsu at first. I tried to break it, or get a closer look, but it was…real. And then I figured it was a manifestation of the Mangekyo.”

Tobirama squinted at him. “How did you know it wasn’t?”

“I wasn’t sure. There aren’t great records of what the Mangekyo can and cannot do, since users are in a prime position to get in fights and die; or barring that, go blind. But this thing, it made mistakes. It knew things I didn’t and didn’t know things I did. And it could be threatened.”

“Of course it could,” Tobirama said tiredly. He rubbed his face, a tic Madara felt he shouldn’t recognize so familiarly. “If we’re thinking of the same thing, it’s what killed Hashirama.”

There’s a jolt in Madara’s chest, an ugly painful thing that makes him feel like he’s about to throw up. “How?”

“Threatened,” Tobirama parroted. “Hashirama was talking about it the week beforehand. Asked me to try to find it. He said he felt something passing through his forest-“

“-his forest?” Madara interrupted.

“He grew a ring of trees around the village for an extra layer of protection. That thing about the village hidden in the leaves? He took the metaphor to another level. Anyways, he told me he felt something evil moving through and asked me to help him find it.”

“Because you’re a sensor,” Madara inferred. “Did you?”

“No,” and he sounded stressed here, on edge. “I was looking for something. A stranger. A person. Something with chakra. I didn’t realize-“

Madara remembered the description of Hashirama’s corpse, a perfect half corroded but no wounds otherwise. He remembered the feeling of the old thing, something that whispered right along with his own thoughts, indistinguishable. A partner. Part of himself. His other half.

“I felt him, when he went out,” Tobirama said. “His chakra was burning. It only did that when he was fighting you, back then. I couldn’t feel anyone else around him, but I knew he must have found it, and when I focused on him-“

“-emptiness,” Madara said.

“Yes. It was the same when I went out to find Hashirama. No traces of another chakra. No traces of nature energy. No summons energy. Just emptiness.”

“He tried to kill it,” Madara realized. “He could feel it because he was- with his Mokuton and his Sage chakra- the embodiment of life.”

And what did that make Madara himself, he wondered, he who was diametrically opposed to Hashirama for all his life and nearly seduced by this thing.

“It didn’t work. Whatever he did, this thing has been sticking around. I know how to look for it now, even if I can’t find it all the time. Everything, and I do mean everything, has been touched by life, but this thing is like a heat sink. It doesn’t emit anything.”

“It’s intelligent,” Madara said. “It wanted me to leave the village, it knows a lot- too much- about the Uchiha. It doesn’t like you either. Didn’t want me to like you.”

“Didn’t?” Tobirama glanced up quickly. “When was the last time you saw it? Or heard it.”

“Before I tried to leave. It was good at that. It knew how to tell me my clan didn’t want me, the village didn’t want me. I guess it didn’t expect you to call me back in; we both must have thought you wanted me gone the most.”

Now it was Tobirama’s turn to say nothing, looking at him through pale eyelashes. The brush in his hands lay still and forgotten. “Good of me to have stalked you, then. Do you wish you left?”

“I’m not sure yet, but fuck if I’m going to let some son of a bitch manipulate me. If the piece of shit killed Hashirama, I’m going to do ten times worse to it.”

A wry smile crossed Tobirama’s face. “Whenever Hashirama got into one of his moods, he’d spout nonsense about how if you and he couldn’t achieve peace together, you were destined to kill each other in glorious battle. I would get so mad at him for acting like you mattered so much.”

“Are you saying I don’t matter? You begged me back to the village.”

“I didn’t beg, and you don’t matter. Anija mattered, and our dream for peace mattered. You were just some factor he insisted on including, and I hated that he’d risk his own life for you.”

“A brother indeed,” Madara hummed, considering the younger man. “However, and I don’t give a damn if you don’t like this, but Hashirama and I were definitely destined to fight to the death. On a cosmic level. It was serendipity.”

He dodged the brush that whipped towards his face.

“I think I need a drink after all this,” Tobirama said bitterly. “You want one?”

“Alcohol doesn’t really affect me,” Madara replied. “I’m surprised it does for you, you’ve got the same amount of insane chakra to burn through it.”

“Oh, it doesn’t. Makes it terribly useful in drinking contests. But Hashirama loved being drunk. He broke into our father’s sake at age three and just kept going. It frustrated him so much when he started becoming immune to it that he developed his own moonshine just to up the alcohol content. Took a while, but eventually he found out that if he grew his own fruit trees with the Mokuton, infused it with chakra, and then fermented it he would end up with something strong enough to kill a horse- and get him past tipsy.” Tobirama had reached the pantry and pulled out something obviously preserved in a home brewery. He unscrewed the top of the jar and poured a deep golden liquid into two glasses. “He’d go through them pretty quickly too, so I still have another twenty of these that he made from his last batch, and I rarely drink. I’m a little less interested in being knocked off my feet than he was.”

Madara accepted the glass being handed to him and took a careful sip. “Motherfucker,” he said, impressed. Tobirama made a noise of agreement.

“Chakra fruit, huh? I wonder-“ but then Madara found the aftertaste of the liquor and broke off. “It’s not half bad. I don’t even bother with normal alcohol because it usually just tastes like shit.”

“It’s sweet, isnt’ it? It’s like that with fruit liquor. Usually the sugar’s eaten up in the fermentation process, but I think the chakra might be doubling the alcoholic content without causing all the sugar to be broken down. And aside from that, most liquors age for a while before being consumed but this one is relatively young-“

“Alright, nerd, shut up and drink,” Madara interrupted, ignoring Tobirama’s huff of displeasure. “Dry the cup.”

“Drink it in one breath,” Tobirama muttered. It took one second of swallowing and looking at the bottom of his now empty glass before the alcohol hit Madara like an Akamichi.

“God dammit, Hashirama,” he hissed. “How in God’s name-“

Tobirama was laughing, and Madara tensed up, thinking it was at him, before he noticed the other slumped down on the couch with pink cheeks. “This- is why- I don’t drink-“ he huffed between giggles.

“Another, then,” Madara muttered and poured both their glasses. “If this is the only time I get to see you sloshed I’m making the most of it.”

Tobirama calmed down for a second to stare wide-eyed at him. “You’re taking it pretty well.”

“I am not,” Madara assured him. “I just have a steady sand. I mean hand.”

That set Tobirama off again, and he almost choked sipping on his second drink while laughing.

“Shut up,” Madara told him. “You’re not much better.”

“I’m better than better. I’m the best.”

“Good to see you’re a narcist.”

“A what?”

“Narciscict. Narcissicit. Narcissist.”

“It’s a fact, not an opinion. I am the best.” Tobirama’s forceful tone was marred by the flush still on his cheeks. He set off on another rant about the fermentation process and what suggestions he had made to Hashirama to better the process, which Madara duly ignored in order to finish off his glass gain, albeit more slowly this time. He poured himself a third.

“Wait, stop.”

“What,” Tobirama said. He seemed much less annoyed about being interrupted this time.

“I should teach you Katon. Uchiha always practice Katon drunk.”

“That,” Tobirama told him, “is a fantastic idea. Outside now.”

In their haste to make it to the backyard, Tobirama stepped on Madara’s cloak twice and Madara almost elbowed both of them in the face; he wasn’t sure how, exactly, but it also wasn’t his most pressing concern. The world wasn’t spinning as others had described it would while drunk, but everything was pleasantly fuzzy around the edges, and the lights from the house and in the sky had a beautiful artistic quality to them. Tobirama seemed to be making little flames pop off of his hands; not a great fireball jutsu, but a small juggling amusement that Uchiha children learned when they were still too young to withstand the heat of battle. Madara wondered how he’d learned it.

“Show me Katon,” Tobirama commanded, seemingly over his amusement with the trick.

“Thought you’d’ve seen it enough in battle.”

He frowned. “Bit hard to look at chakra manipulation when it’s aimed straight at me.”

“Fair enough,” Madara grunted, and aimed his most perfect katon at the sky. By most perfect, he had to correct himself, he meant the best he could do at the moment; it was far from its usual round shape and instead exploded into the air above them like a wayward firework.

“Oh fuck yeah,” Tobirama whispered, staring upwards.

“Gonna try again-“ Madara did, and this time it was cleaner, and a surprising bluish green color.

Next to him, Tobirama tried the seals and set off the jutsu, and a strange spout of steam erupted from him.

“Ha. Idiot Suiton user.” Madara grinned as the pure feeling of his fire nature danced across his gloved fingers. They felt so much lighter than usual, and his movements had a sort of fluidity that came not from perfect control but from complete lack thereof. He took Tobirama’s incorrectly positioned arms into his hands and adjusted them into a stronger stance. “Try again. And think fire.”

“Why is yours so nice,” Tobirama complained. He tried again, and this time a large red jet of flame crossed the yard. “So weak.”

“It really is,” Madara said, unimpressed.

“Madara. Look at me.” Tobirama clapped his hands twice, seemingly trying to get his attention. “Alcohol is flammable. Right? Fire is- um. Fire is flam. Flame. Fire jutsus with alcohol would be stronger. Right?”

“Yes. Exactly. So we should get the alcohol and-“

“No, no, no. We are the alcohol. We drank it. So if we drink chakra alcohol and then we make chakra fire-“

“You’re so fucking right, you sunuvabitch.”

It was not, in fact, a fantastic idea.

A few katon and one water dragon later (Tobirama had accidentally set fire to his own clothing and doused it in the most intelligent way he knew how, by trying to drown them both) they stumbled back into the house, collapsing on opposite sides of the low table. Madara eyed the jar of liquor.

“I don’t think I can take any more of that tonight,” he muttered.

“I wouldn’t torture my tongue that way,” Tobirama sighed, then made a few smacking noises with his mouth. “Couldn’t he have made one dry wine?”

“Sweet tooth,” mumbled Madara. Tobirama suddenly twisted, and started struggling to pull off his clothes.

“What are you doing?”

“ ‘S wet,” his voice came out, muffled by the shirt over his head. He finally escaped and flung it off to the side before reclining backwards onto the couch. Madara’s head was suddenly able to focus, but only on the sinuous line made from the angle of Tobirama’s jaw down to the dip of his navel, paralleled by those tattoos that had haunted him for the past month. He knew his sharingan had come out, could see that new clarity and tiny flickers of movement, but couldn’t bring himself to drag his eyes from the steady rise and fall of Tobirama’s chest, or the faint flush that softened itself over his collarbones and up his neck. He followed it up to that face to see Tobirama watching him back with half-lidded red eyes, where he was finally trapped.

It wasn’t as if Tobirama minded Madara’s gaze, but the weight of it settled around him, keeping him in place and making note of every detail of his body. He had forgotten to be wary of the sharingan, when it met him, and didn’t look away. He noticed too that Madara didn’t seem ashamed to be caught looking, and the air between them only became more still.

 

“This is a bad idea, isn’t it,” Madara rumbled.

“Wildly.” He couldn’t make his voice sound of more than a breath.

“Come here,” Madara beckoned, and while Tobirama refused to admit it later, it was with inhuman speed that he got up from his couch and made it to Madara’s.

 

The first thing that woke up Tobirama was the sunlight streaming in. It was pleasant, if a bit hot, and he wasn’t really willing to open his eyes all the way. The second thing, what truly jolted him all the way to wakeful, was the feeling of a loose arm curled around his unclothed waist, and a familiar chakra signature behind him.

“Motherfucker,” he mouthed to the quiet room.