#so (in this au) the body of tobirama senju was never found | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kyuremking · 3 years

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Senju clan genealogy tree of the main branch

I finally managed to finish the Senju family tree as well as adding a bit of information to each character.

The family tree is called senjumaki! au

Here is the legend if you are interested look below the cut. This post is longer than some of my fanfics. There are also memes at the end.

Senjumaki Family

Butsuma Senju: Leader of the Senju clan during the era of the warring clans. Husband of Seiren Higuchi and father of Hashirama, Tobirama, Itama and Kawarama Senju. Died in a confrontation with the Uchiha clan.

Seiren Higuchi: Leader of the Senju clan through her marriage to Butsuma Senju. Wife of Butsuma Senju mother of Hashirama, Tobirama, Itama and Kawarama Senju. Died during an attack on the Senju compound by the Hagoromo clan that occurred shortly after Kawarama's birth.

Belonging to the Higurachi clan, a clan known for the fact that its members tended to be born with a strong connection to either the Yin or Yang element, or both. In addition, as they grew older, the clan members's faces would develop markings, usually red in colour, although the markings could also appear on other parts of the body. (Only her son Tobirama demonstrated these markings, as Itama and Kawarama died young. Although perhaps some of her grandchildren may develop the markings). Nowadays the Higuchi clan is considered extinct.

This connection with the Yin or Yang elements would be inherited by her children as can be seen in the great Yang connection that Hashirama had to the point of having an automatic healing. Or her son Tobirama who thanks to the Yin element was able to create oceans in the desert.

Hashirama Senju: Leader of the Senju clan at the end of the era of the warring clans and during the beginning of the era of the hidden villages. He married Mito Uzumaki and fathered Sukuna Senju, Himiko Senju, Makoto Senju, Masato Senju and Tomoe Uzumaki. Died due to his own regeneration which caused him to suffer from severe cancer.

Achieved peace with the Uchiha clan. Co-founded Konoha and became Shodaime Hokage. He was the only man born with the wood element.

Tobirama Senju: Younger brother of Hashirama Senju helped his brother lead the Senju clan and fight against the Uchiha clan. He created jutsu such as the shadow clones, the Hiraishin or the Edo Tensei (the latter was created with the help of Mito Uzumaki).

After the founding of Konoha he was in charge of creating the structure of the village and when his brother began to weaken he took the position of Nidaime Hokage. He never married but is known to have had a lover.

He died from wounds inflicted by the Gold and Silver brothers during their fight but not before killing them. His body was recovered thanks to a summoning seal he had on it.

Itama Senju: Brother of Hashirama, Tobirama and Kawarama Senju. Died at the age of 10-11 killed by the Uchiha clan.

Kawarama Senju: Brother of Hashirama, Tobirama and Itama Senju. Died at the age of 7 killed by the Hagoromo clan.

Senju-Uzumaki Alliance

Shortly before his death Butsuma Senju managed to convince Ashina Uzumaki to marry his granddaughter Mito Uzumaki to his eldest son Hashirama Senju.

The marriage took place before the founding of Konoha and it is known that on their way to the Senju compound the Uzumaki entourage was attacked on several occasions by different clans.

The Uzumaki entourage arrived at the Senju compound with a total of 274 heads from members of different clans. 26 heads of the Uchiha clan, 11 heads of the Izuno clan, 5 heads of the Shimura clan and 234 heads of Hagoromo clan members. As well as 19 heads of cats belonging to the Izumo clan.

So far even after the founding of Konoha and the First Shinobi World War, none of the heads have been returned to their clan of origin and many of those heads have been turned into masks.

As well as 56 children who were members of those clans, the Uchiha, Izumo and Shimura children were returned after the wedding when the clans paid a ransom, but the Hagoromo clan children stayed with the Uzumaki and Senju clan, as their clan became extinct after that massacre. (A couple of Uchiha children were killed by a drunken Senju, that Senju was quickly killed).

After the wedding about 50 Uzumaki stayed with Mito as their leader. Thanks to the alliance the Senju clan received the help of the Uzumaki Fūinjutsu, plus the Uzumaki who stayed with Mito pledged to protect the Senju clan compound. The Senju clan's compound was never invaded again.

After the founding of Konoha some Uzumaki returned to Uzushio and some came from Uzushio to Konoha. This group of Uzumaki was called the Uzumaki clan of Konoha and they chose Mito as their clan leader. These Uzumaki married and had children and grandchildren and the clan continues to grow.

Each of the children of the marriage between Hashirama and Mito could be described as the perfect and terrifying combination of Senju and Uzumaki.

Mito Uzumaki: Granddaughter of Ashina Uzumaki, wife of Hashirama Senju and mother of Sukuna Senju, Himiko Senju, Makoto Senju, Masato Senju and Tomoe Uzumaki. Mito is considered a co-founder of Konoha with her husband and Madara.

Mito is about 10 years older than Hashirama. As a wedding gift to the Senju clan, Mito gave the extinction of the Hagoromo clan.

Mito helped Tobirama create the Edo Tensei. She is currently retired from her position as leader of the Uzumaki clan of Konoha and her daughter Tomoe is now the leader. During Madara and Hashirama's battle in the Valley of the End she became the first ever Jinchūriki by imprisoning the Kyuubi within herself.

However, Mito continues her work as a priestess at the temple that the Uzumaki created in Konoha and in the past has put Kakuzu on the run.

Sukuna Senju: Son of Hashirama Senju and Mito Uzumaki. Husband of Yoriko Hōki and father of Tsunade and Nawaki Senju.

Sukuna was born shortly before the founding of Konoha and many Uchiha thank Madara for this alliance as if Sukuna had become leader of the Senju clan with the Senju and Uchiha clans at odds it is possible that the Uchiha clan would have become extinct.

While the Uzumaki clan was already known in the past, due to their isolationist tendencies they were usually forgotten by the mainland clans, however thanks to the massacre of the Hagoromo clan and the founding of Konoha the Uzumaki clan became much more recognised and showed what they were capable of when they were not busy studying and creating Fūinjutsu.

However, the one who showed why the Uzumaki clan should be feared and spread fear throughout the Elemental Nations during the First Shinobi World War was Sukuna Senju. Thanks to him, anyone with red hair and a Konoha headband became the immediate root of fear for anyone who saw them.

Sukuna killed the Jinchūriki of the Rokubi, the second Raikage after the murder of his uncle Tobirama and tore off the limbs of the Jinchūriki of the Yonbi. In addition to killing hundreds of shinobi during the war he was responsible for the first and last alliance between the Nidaime Mizukage and the Nidaime Tsuchikage made in their lifetime during the First Shinobi World War, yet Sukuna managed to defeat and humiliate both Kages only losing an arm in the process (although he later regenerated the arm with the help of his brother Masato Senju). He is currently working as the leader of the Senju clan, likes to train his sons and enjoys causing trouble for Hiruzen.

Himiko Senju: Daughter of Hashirama Senju and Mito Uzumaki. Wife of Takayuki Sakai, Chiaki Senju and Eiji Senju, and mother of Masahiko Senju, Tomiko Senju, Nakano Senju and Yasu Senju.

Himiko Senju is a woman who believes in polygamy and has married two men and a woman and had four children with them. One thing that should be made clear is that she is the one in charge of the relationship.

Together with her brother Sukuna, Himiko decimated the shinobi armies of the other nations. One of her greatest achievements was during an attack on Kirigakure, while her brother killed the Jinchūriki of the Rokubi, Himiko confronted the Jinchūriki of the Sanbi and using her Fūinjutsu skills broke the seal of the Sanbi and released it in the middle of the village causing destruction and chaos, in addition to that she killed four of the mist swordsmen and almost destroyed Samehada but the sword escaped by going underwater. Himiko also killed the first Mizukage in this attack.

Tomoe Uzumaki: Daughter of Hashirama Senju and Mito Uzumaki. Wife of Hokusai Uzumaki and mother of Honoka Uzumaki and Takato Uzumaki.

While most of her family prefers to use a sword as a weapon with her brother Makoto being the exception, Tomoe prefers to use a pair of Sai along with her Adamantine chains.

During the war Tomoe was assigned to a group of teams whose job was to make lightning attacks on all nations that were against Konoha however after the death of her uncle Tobirama, Tomoe became the bane of Kaminari no Kuni as after her brother Sukuna killed the Nidaime Raikage the village had a period of brief chaos during which the Jinchūriki of the Nibi and Hachibi defected from Kumogakure.

To their misfortune they encountered Tomoe who using her Adamantine chains, her Fūinjutsu and the puppet knowledge her brother Masato stole from Sunagakure turned the two Jinchūriki into puppets which she used to destroy Kaminari no Kuni for months Tomoe caused destruction across the country until the Jinchūriki of the Hachibi almost died from the stress of using so much beast chakra and blew him up destroying several major ports of Kaminari no Kuni. After that she planted a bomb on the Jinchūriki of the Nibi and sent him to the palace of the Daimyō of Kaminari no Kuni, the Jinchūriki was killed before he reached the palace but he killed hundreds of shinobi and Kumogakure lost the Nibi.

After the war she became the leader of the Uzumaki clan in Konoha.

With this only Sunagakure (which had not used its Jinchūriki) and Takigakure (which was allied with Konoha) retained their bijuu. Of course Konoha had the Kyuubi but that was only known to a few people in Konoha.

Makoto Senju: Son of Hashirama Senju and Mito Uzumaki, and twin brother of Masato Senju. He is engaged to Mochizuke Takeda.

Makoto became a founding member of the 12 shinobi guardians and during the war remained at the Daimyō's side most of the time.

One of the rare occasions that he broke away from the Daimyō's side was when Tsuchi No Kuni sent a diplomatic entourage but it turned out to be a trap as they planned to use the Gobi Jinchūriki to free the Bijuu to assassinate the Daimyō of Hi no Kuni. However Makoto managed to stop the Jinchūriki and decided to seal the Jinchūriki in a sake bottle which he managed to get to the Daimyō of Tsuchi No Kuni. When the Daimyō of Tsuchi No Kuni opened the bottle the Gobi Jinchūriki came out with his seal altered so that the Gobi was the one in control.

The Gobi took control of the Jinchūriki's body and transformed into its full form destroying the palace and killing the Daimyō of Tsuchi no Kuni and most of his family. After several days of running loose in the country a seal Makoto had placed on the Jinchūriki was activated. This seal caused the death of the Jinchūriki, the Gobi and all the chakra they had to be used as a super bomb that destroyed everything for miles around.

After the war he left his post and decided to return to Konoha however the Daimyō engaged him to one of his daughters and appointed her as the Daimyō's representative in Konoha.

Masato Senju: Son of Hashirama Senju and Mito Uzumaki, and twin brother of Makoto Senju.

Masato can be considered the quietest of Hashirama and Mito's sons. Before joining the Anbu, he decimated the Sunagakure Puppeteer team, cut off Chiyo's arm, murdered the husbands of Ebizō and Chiyo as well as assassinated the Shodaime Kazekage Reto starting the tradition of all Kazekage being killed.

When he joined the Anbu he undertook many shadow missions to ensure Konoha won the war, one of his missions was to help his brother Makoto send a bottle of sake with the Gobi Jinchūriki inside to the Daimyō of Tsuchi no Kuni.

After the war he was appointed Anbu commander, and although he is a bit annoyed by the desk job he actually enjoys being able to spend more time with his nephews and nieces. He doesn't seem to be interested in having a relationship with anyone.

Senjumaki Husbands/Wives

Yoriko Hōki: Member of the Hōki clan, wife of Sukuna Senju and mother of Tsunade and Nawaki Senju.

The Hōki clan is a clan specialising in information gathering and medical ninjutsu. (In the Naruto story the Hōki clan moved from Konoha to Sunagakure but here due to the marriage between Sukuna and Yoriko the clan never left. The clan appears in the Gaara Hiden novel).

Yoriko is a kunoichi who specializes in intelligence gathering and along with her clan provided information to Konoha to win the war.

Takayuki Sakai: Husband of Himiko Senju and father of Masahiko Senju with Himiko.

Takayuki is not a shinobi but a merchant. He works mostly in the sake trade and was involved in the assassination of the Daimyō of Tsuchi no Kuni.

Chiaki Senju: Eiji Senju's twin sister and Himiko Senju's wife.

Chiaki is a kunoichi who specializes in ninjutsu and is a master of Raiton. She is currently the sensei of a team of Genin.

Eiji Senju: Chiaki Senju's twin brother and Himiko Senju's second husband.

Eiji belongs to the Senju clan guard which means he rarely leaves the village and spends most of his time patrolling the Senju compound or with his children.

Hokusai Uzumaki: Husband of Tomoe Uzumaki and father of Honoka and Takato Uzumaki.

He is a civilian craftsman, not a ninja.

Hokusai belongs to a different branch of the Uzumaki clan which has a strong Yin chakra, the branch Hokusai belongs to specializes in creating masks (which are made from human or animal skulls).

Using his Yin chakra Hokusai can create entities made of chakra that he can attach to masks and once these masks are finished the entities can be summoned when you put on the mask however it is not recommended to wear the masks unless you are an Uzumaki as these masks consume a lot of chakra quickly.

Mochizuke Takeda: Daughter of the Daimyō of Hi no Kuni through the second concubine. After her mother's death in childbirth she was adopted by the Daimyō's official wife as her mother was her cousin. She is engaged to Makoto Senju.

Mochizuke was trained by the samurai who protect her father so she is a master swordswoman and was chosen to represent her father in Konoha. She is not sure if she likes being engaged to Makoto.

Hashimito's Grandchildren

I'm still not sure exactly when this is set, but it takes place after the First Shinobi World War and I'm not clear on the ages of the grandchildren.

But they would be something like this: Tsunade>Masahiko>Honoka>Tomiko>Nakano>Nawaki>Takato>Yasu.

Tsunade Senju: Daughter of Sukuna Senju and Yoriko Hōki, and sister of Nawaki Senju.

Tsunade was born before the First Shinobi World War and knew her grandfather Hashirama.

Because the ages are still unclear it is not known if she is already a Jōnin. She is not yet a Sannin as the Second Shinobi World War has not yet happened.

Someday she will be the leader of the Senju clan.

Nawaki Senju: Son of Sukuna Senju and Yoriko Hōki, and brother of Tsunade Senju.

Nawaki was born during the First World War Shinobi and never knew his grandfather Hashirama.

Possibly a gennin.

He likes to tease his cousin Takato.

Masahiko Senju: Son of Himiko Senju and Takayuki Sakai.

He is one year younger than Tsunade, he was born before the First shinobi World War and knew his grandfather Hashirama.

As with Tsunade, because their ages are still unclear, it is not known if he is already a Jōnin.

He has a strong affiliation with Yang chakra.

Tomiko Senju: Daughter of Himiko Senju and Eiji Senju.

She was born before the First Shinobi World War but never met her grandfather Hashirama.

As with Tsunade due to unclear ages it is not yet known if she is already a Jōnin.

She seems to be thinking of becoming one of the 12 guardians of the Daimyō.

Nakano Senju: Daughter of Himiko Senju and Eiji Senju.

She was born at the beginning of the First Shinobi World War and is older than Nawaki.

As with Tsunade due to unclear ages it is not yet known if she is already chunnin.

Yasu Senju: Son of Himiko Senju and Eiji Senju. He is the youngest of Hashirama and Mito's grandchildren by now.

He was born after the First Shinobi World War. He is still a baby.

Honoka Uzumaki: Daughter of Tomoe Uzumaki and Hokusai Uzumaki.

She was born before the First Shinobi World War and as with Tsunade because the ages are still unclear it is not known if she is already a Jōnin.

It is possible that she works in Konoha's research and development department. Honoka has a great interest in experimentation and the creation of new jutsu or Fūinjutsu. She has a special interest in Edo Tensei.

She will one day be the leader of the Uzumaki clan of Konoha.

Takato Uzumaki: Son of Tomoe Uzumaki and Hokusai Uzumaki.

He was born during the First Shinobi World War and is the second youngest grandson of Hashirama and Mito.

He is about to become a gennin.

Takato is a Fūinjutsu obsessive and would prefer to devote himself solely to Fūinjutsu and not be a shinobi.

For Takato(and all his cousins) the most terrifying and powerful person in existence is his grandmother Mito.

The memes!

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phoenixyfriend · 4 years

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More "de-aged Taka and T7 end up in the Warring Clans Era as Founders' wards" AU

“That’s a thing?” you ask. The answer is yes.

Uh. Kind of. Deaging Team Seven for the sake of tossing them back in time for a Founder to adopt is pretty common, but I’m trash for Taka so this AU started with me brainstorming the asshole team.

I am falling more and more in love with the idea of Tobirama ending up with custody of Team Taka somehow. He’s a science dad, but like. Marginally more ethical than Orochimaru.

Everyone around them is like "This is a terrible idea and it's all going to end horribly" and he's just like "Ah, these are now my children."

I've read so many "Team Seven time-travels and is de-aged, get adopted by the Founders" or "a Founder time-travels forward and adopts Naruto, subsequently picking up the others" and they're good but I now want the same plot with an even more dysfunctional collection of... eldritch mishaps? The AO3 feel of "I want this fic I just read, again, but a step to the left so it feels fresh and new"

I'm considering the tent of tranquility idea (courtesy of @sloaners) and I've come to the decision that Tobirama's... probably going to end up with Several Holes in it, and burns, and cuts, because Karin and Suigetsu never stop fighting, and if they're fighting, they're not paying attention to how soon Juugo's going to lose his grip on control.

"Hm. Tobirama?" "Anija." "Where did you get children?" "They showed up." "One of them looks like an Uchiha." "He does." "Two of them are trying to kill each other." "That's normal." "Are the Uchiha going to accuse us of stealing a clan child?" "Probably." "...Tobirama, did you steal these children?" "No."

(It's not kidnapping if they show up and break into your house first.)

(Also none of them are particularly pressed to ditch the Senju and find their clans. Maybe eventually. Not now.)

They’re assholes but Karin is, even at Supposedly Age Three, babbling at Tobirama about proper lab protocol and chemical reactions and isn’t that just the most adorable thing?

Very few people find Karin as adorable as Tobirama does, because Karin knows more ways to kill a person than most adult shinobi, because most adult shinobi don’t know about things like flesh-eating diseases and specialty poisons from the other side of the continent that can only be refined via chemical processes that won’t exist for another three decades.

Juugo is a sweetheart. Best child. Then he loses his mind but it’s okay, Sasuke is there. Do the Senju trust the clearly-Uchiha child to control the much larger five-year-old? No. But they don’t have any better ideas right now, so.

Tobirama: Hm, we should do something about that. Karin: Here’s a list of ideas and things that have already been tried. Tobirama: Thank you, small child. Where did you get this? Karin: ... Tobirama: Fair enough, let’s see what we can do.

Suigetsu is a little terror because not only is he a Massive Jerk but he also has better control over water than most adults. Mostly because he is water. It’s very hard to find him when he’s avoiding chores.

Karin clings to Mito sometimes because Family! and then Hashirama tries to tease Tobirama about being upset that one of his students/children has ditched him. Hashirama ends up moping in a corner because Tobirama snaps at him, unsurprisingly.

IDK if we have like any canon for Touka beyond skill with genjutsu, but going off of the fanon that she used a naginata, I’m going to say that Suigetsu keeps trying to challenge her to Blade Fights and she’s just like Neat, A Tiny Murder Machine.

Sasuke is very quiet for the most part and Dramatically Broods On Rooftops And In Trees and Hashirama is just like YES YOU REMIND ME OF MY BROTHER AND ALSO MY BEST FRIEND and Sasuke hides.

Sasuke does not need another Naruto, thank you.

Sasuke ends up hanging out with Mito, I think? Like yeah, sure, she’s an Uzumaki, but she’s chill and refined and calm and she has really good tea in stock. Sure he has to learn fuuinjutsu to have an excuse to hang out with her, but that’s fine. It’s interesting. Karin does it too, sometimes.

tbh that probably leaves Hashirama to hang out with Juugo? Juugo isn’t great at Excite but he is great at nature so I feel like Hashirama would be stars-in-eyes about Juugo talking to birds the way Hashirama talks to trees, and Hashirama just gets him a chicken coop like HERE. FRIENDS.

But back to the suspected child theft.

Hashirama is like “That is... clearly an Uchiha. They are going to find out, Tobirama! Someone is going to figure out we have--” “Sasuke, show him your other eye. Yeah, the one you cover.” “...” “Okay, go back to playing.” “...Tobirama.” “Yeah?” “That was a Rinnegan.” “You know those rumors that the only way to get a Rinnegan is to mix the Uchiha and Senju bloodlines?” “It’s true?” “No idea, Sasuke won’t tell me anything about his parents other than their names, and he’s three, but even the chance of it being true means we have an arguable claim.” “...that’s not going to be enough to convince the Uchiha.” “The theory is but one weapon of many in the upcoming battle of wits.” “Tobirama--” “Now if you’ll excuse me, Anija, I need to go make sure Suigetsu doesn’t flood the training grounds again.”

tbh I can’t remember who made the original comment in canon about the Rinnegan being achieved via Senju/Uchiha babies but it’s funny to use here so I’ll pretend it’s a common rumor that nobody actually believes

MEANWHILE WITH THE UCHIHA Madara found and took custody of Team Seven and company, mostly because they’re like... jounin-level despite being less than three feet tall.

It involves a lot of Madara going "I want My New Children to love me!" and being sorely disappointed by half of them. Poor fucker got stuck with Naruto, Sakura, Sai, Kakashi, Yamato, and Obito.

(KakaYamaObito are deaged by the time-travel to 10-13ish. The kids are deaged to 3-4. Everyone has memories to just after the fourth war or so.)

Karin sensed T7 and tagalong pretty much the second they popped out of Kamui, and told Sasuke, but he correctly guessed that Naruto would hunt him down eventually, and said they should enjoy the peace and quiet while they had it.

Sai pulls emotionless creepy smiles in an attempt to freak out Madara but since Madara's whole thing initially was "less children in war," he's... mostly just sad. Izuna wants to know who made his brother cry.

Madara makes a vaguely misogynistic comment that's typical for the period and Sakura just. Breaks his tibia.

Naruto is genuinely trying to treat Madara with the kind of respect a caretaker that Attempts To Care And Do Good By Them deserves, because Naruto is a good egg, but he's... three again. Which means he's a Hellion.

The literal toddlers (Naruto and Sakura are three-ish, Sai is four-ish) are, in fact, toddlers, so nobody really expects them to be able to do anything. Nobody bothers to test them beyond the basics of like. Can walk? Can talk? Can maybe hold knife? Like don’t get me wrong, they’re very competent toddlers, but their hands can barely wrap around a kunai. Their bodies are tiny. Their bones only just stopped being soft!

That said, the “tweens” (re: adults who got deaged but Less) have to get tested for their skills. Kakashi downplays himself to what he imagines a semi-competent eleven-year-old to be capable of. He thinks of, like, Neji maybe? Good, but not suspiciously good.

Obito enters an intangible state and refuses to participate. He has a Mangekyo. His body is half-Zetsu. Stop bothering him. He doesn’t want to do anything. They assign him babysitting duty for Team Seven since he can obviously defend pretty well, and Kakashi vouches for his abilities as a fighter.

Yamato decides to try to be just a little worse than Kakashi but at one point he panics and does Mokuton on instinct and now the entire Uchiha compound is screeching because did they just steal a Main Family Senju kid by accident?

Yamato: Should I tell them I was a science experiment? Kakashi: No.

Pranks galore! None of the other time-travelers even try to stop Naruto, except maybe Yamato.

Obito at the Uchiha compound is mostly "I don't want to participate" and then just uses Kamui to be intangible until people leave him alone. If it's not another time-traveler or Madara, he's not interested. He doesn't even care that much about Sai or Yamato, actually, so if it's not an original T7 member, he doesn't care, and if it's Madara, he's just here to make things Difficult.

The Kyuubi wanders up to the Uchiha compound one day and everyone's preparing for a battle, even Madara isn't confident that he can-- [BANG] "KURAMA!" [delighted squealing]

Naruto now has a pet. The entire clan is terrified. Kurama pokes his nose at Naruto's stomach and disappears into the memory of a seal.

Madara, frantically writing a letter to Hashirama "What do I do if my toddler is possessed?!?"

Hashirama: You have a toddler?!?!?! OMG you should organize playdates with Tobirama's kids! Madara: I'M GOING TO QUESTION THAT LATER, PLEASE HELP WITH THE POSSESSION THING

Kurama hunts down Naruto, and the Jinchuuriki situation is very much in the realm of "Dis Mine" Also a bit of "If I'm in the brat, there's at least one Mangekyo user in hearing distance who can and will risk his life to prevent brainwashing. (Kakashi. It’s Kakashi.)

Naruto: Kurama's one of my best friends! Every time traveler: Yeah, that tracks. Madara: [teakettle screeching]

Per @firebirdeternal: I'm just loving the visual of Giant Nightmare Terror Kurama kneeling down and pressing his nose to Naruto's Smol Chubby Toddler self and closing his eyes while Naruto pets him and giggles and every single battle-ready Uchiha is just. "wat"

Everybody else: Cool so Madara adopted a witch Uchiha Elders: We need to be careful of this horrible creature The younger generation of Uchiha: Okay that was weirdly serene and adorable and frankly the brat is really likeable when he's not being adhd as hell I think this is actually pretty dope.

Madara really wants to be a Good Dad but he has no idea how he ended up being "a dad" in the first place. He just! He cares a lot about this random assortment of kids! Some of them are from prominent clans and there should be search parties for the Senju kid with the Mokuton, or the Hatake brat, or the Uzumaki that doesn't look Uzumaki but definitely feels Uzumaki.... and SURE the only Uchiha of the bunch is a stranger who hates him for no reason Madara can come up with, but! He wants to be a good authority figure!

At least the Uzumaki appreciates that he's trying.

Seriously, though, there are clan kids and nobody’s looking for them, what’s up with that?

Kakashi still has a prize copy of Icha Icha and nobody in the Uchiha compound does a thorough check of his reading material until like three months in.

He is blamed for Naruto developing the Oiroke, because where ELSE would a toddler get such ideas? (Yamato and Obito both tell him he brought this on himself.)

Naruto waits until a Big Important Meeting lets out, something about tithes or a merchant contract, and just pulls a Harem no Jutsu in front of the entire group of Elders And Main Family. First he does a Mass Shadow Clone, which makes everyone turn on Sharingan because Fancy New Techniques to steal! Sure, they were late on the shadow clones, but the kid is clearly gearing up for something! The something is Oiroke.

Anime Nosebleeds everywhere. Most of the elders were hit. Izuna was hit. Madara is not bleeding from the nose, but he is very upset about having semi-accidentally sharingan-memorized his weird adoptee’s Sexy Older Female Alter Ego. There is yelling.

Naruto’s like “Oh, I missed some!” and decides to try again with Reverse Harem no Jutsu because there are old ladies among the Elders, and maybe some straight women representing a guild, and maybe some gay guys he missed! Madara is still not bleeding. (He’s very demi and tbh Naruto only would have succeeded if he’d tried to use Hashirama’s face. Naruto does not know this. He just figures Madara is ace like Sasuke and that no variant is going to work.)

Izuna gets another nosebleed and is just like “Well, this is not how I planned on coming out as bi, but--” “Izuna, I literally do not care about you being bi as long as one of us has an heir at some point, I’m more upset about the fact that my child has been corrupted!”

Back in the Senju compound, there is... a lot of screaming, honestly, but every time Karin and Suigetsu start trying to kill each other again, Tobirama just shrugs and tells them not to break anything.

Very easy-going caretaker, really. He's got some very deadly toddlers in hand, but they're still just toddlers.

Sasuke: Yeah, I might want to go see my clan at some point. Suigetsu: Yeah, I might want to go see my clan at some point. Karin, clinging to Mito: Yeah, I want to go see my clan at some point. Juugo: Please never, ever take me to my clan. Ever. Please. I'll stay with Sasuke, thank you.

Naruto breaks out of the Uchiha compound the first time he enters Sage Mode, several months in (it took a while to get the privacy) because he feels Sasuke and lbr if Naruto knows where Sasuke is, nothing will stop him.

The Uchiha clansmen cannot catch the errant toddler. They fail to inform Madara until Naruto is already in Senju territory because nobody wanted to admit the toddler outmaneuvered them.

Naruto wasn’t sure how to get into the Senju Compound safely so he just goes full Kyuubi, bounds over the wall screaming SASUKEEEEE at the top of his lungs, and then shrinks back down to Tiny Brat size so he could hug his Bestest Friend Ever and cling like a limpet while Sasuke just sighs and stares at the wall.

Sakura ran after him.

Sai painted a bird and Yamato dragged Kakashi onto it to chase Naruto, because Kakashi is at a point of zen regarding Naruto's bullshit and fully trusts the kid to not die.

Obito refuses to look up from whatever he's doing and asks people why they think he cares.

“We told you to look after the toddlers!” “Why would you do that? Seems like poor planning on your part.”

Disappears when nobody's looking. Waits until the Ruckus at the Senju compound (where T7 has crashed in to tackle-hug Sasuke and Madara followed in and proceeded to get shouty, and nobody's dead or battling because they're too confused and also it's a comedy) has started to calm down, and then teleports in and demonstrates Mokuton just to make Madara's life harder when the Senju Elders start demanding answers.

His energy is very "I am here to make Madara's life harder" and Madara still doesn't know what he did wrong.

Madara: That brat has a Sharingan! Tobirama: Well THAT one has Mokuton! Obito: Yamato has it too. [angry teakettle noises]

Madara's first response to seeing Sasuke is to turn to Izuna and point aggressively at the toddler while making a tea-kettle noise "He looks just like you!" "He's four, he barely looks like anything!"

Naruto, tugging at Madara's hakama: You need to make a village with Hashirama so I can see Sasuke more often, cuz I don't wanna ditch you guys, but I gotta see Sasuke! He's my best friend! Madara, who is aware that he could fight this child but really doesn't want to, and also knows that a tantrum thrown by Naruto or Sasuke is capable of leveling mountains: Right, yes, we'll get right on that.

tbh Madara wants the village anyway but "The bijuu-whisperer said he wants it to happen" is a great way to push things forward.

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cafeinthemoon · 4 years

Text

Tobirama with a s/o who’s a surgeon (Modern!AU)

This request was made by @mirkoishot (thank you!!) and I decided to do it as an one shot. Since I’ll be doing other request that involves the Founders with a s/o who’s exhausted from work, I’m going to keep this one short and simple, and besides I’ve been missing my Tobirama x reader works, so here it is!

Fandom: Naruto | Tobirama Senju

Word count: 1123

Warnings: Stress, mental exhaustion, burnout, mentions of surgery

Symbols: ✔ | 1️⃣ | 💜 | 💛 | ▶

72 hours.

If it depended solely on your psychological impression of time, you would never knew that you’ve been in that hospital for such an amount of time. You would never believe the clock if you’d spend a moment looking at it.

This information was given to you by Tobirama, when you opened your eyes that morning, now in your own house, lying on your bed, and found him sitting beside you. His tone was as practical, devoid of affectation as always, but that wrinkle formed on his forehead when he frowned left no doubts about how deep was his preoccupation. This was Tobirama Senju: the depths of his thoughts and emotions were only glimpsed through the subtlest traits.

Yes. Despite what you promised to him the last time it happened, you weren’t able to keep your word: you overworked yourself again and had to be taken out of the hospital.

You didn’t try to speak while you were in bed, both because you were exhausted and because you had nothing to say that could justify yourself. Still, you were convinced that it wasn’t that wrong. You led your team as one of the most experienced surgeons at the Village’s Hospital, and many things – many lives – depended on you. With your hands, your eyes and your concentration you’ve recovered countless people’s health and saved other hundreds from death. You assured them and their families of their happiness. Every minute you’ve spent inside the surgery room was well paid with the bright of gratitude in their eyes, even more than with money. You had enough of these latter, but your passion relied on the first one.

Of course Tobirama understood it since you two met. He knew better than anyone how your work was an undetachable part of you: he had the same kind of connection with his own career, so much that sometimes he didn’t know when to stop. Fortunately for him, you were there to bring things back to normal; now it was his time to do the same for you.

When you tried to sit on the bed, you found out you weren’t able to do it without help: your arms seemed to have lost all their strength, and your hands started to hurt as soon as you applied pressure on them upon the mattress. Your heart jumped inside your chest; that was serious. You felt his hand surrounding your body and lifting you until you were comfortable, then grabbing an extra pillow that was placed behind your back. You fell on it immediately after he released you.

You sighed a thousand times before you could speak your first word.

- Is the kid... alright?

He knew what you meant. Your latest mission consisted in a complex operation on a young child. You were coming from an almost non stop sequence of less complicated operations when you were informed about the child’s situation; you didn’t need to think twice to understand that the family needed your help. You just asked your colleagues where was the patient’s room and went there to inform the parents that you would be leading the operation. You just stopped to change your uniform and gloves, and to send a message to Tobirama telling him about the surgery. He wasn’t a doctor, but he was aware that this type of operation used to take time and that you weren’t going back home for a while.

For countless hours, your only sight was your hands holding the instruments in front of you and the light above the child unconscious over the operating table. Your only thought was to save them, to give them back to their parents, healthy and ready to live their life as well. When everything was finally over, you couldn’t believe it. Now the kid had to rest and you were going to keep an eye on them while they recover…

It was your team that caught you before you fell on the room’s floor, exhausted. This was the last thing you remembered before waking up at home, with Tobirama by your side, as worried about you as you were about the child.

He was expecting your question and had no problem in answering you. He knew enough of you to understand that you wouldn’t rest until you knew what happened after your collapse.

- The child is alright. Of course they will need to stay in the hospital for a while until their full recovery, but the operation was a success – and with a change in his tone that made it softer, so subtle that only the closest people to him would recognize – You and your team saved them.

Your eyes started to burn and a tear rolled from the outer corner of your eye. You closed them and felt Tobirama’s fingers wiping that first tear and the others that came after it. You sighed, trying to contain a sob and failing right after; you raised your hands with the remaining forces in them and put them upon Tobirama’s. It was when you noticed how they were shaking.

- I couldn’t keep my word – you whispered – I’m sorry.

He held your hands between his, his fingertips massaging your knuckles both as if he wanted to soothe your pain and examine their state.

- You know how important it is to us that we keep our promises. Don’t you, y/n? – he questioned you.

He was right this time, since he has been doing it for a long time now: it’s been a year since you had to go and save him from his work.

You nodded to show you agreed with him. He approached your hands from his lips and kissed them, shaking and hurting at his touch.

- Many lives depend on the good state of these hands, and look at them now – he lowered his eyes to your hands – This is the reason why we need to keep our word.

You knew that, but you didn’t need to speak out to show it. You had enough experience to understand that the slightest harm on your hands could change your career – or even finish it. Maybe forever. And what would be your life without it?

Tobirama, as the man of actions he was, didn’t let you deliberate. His hands gave yours a soft squeeze as to regain your attention. You looked at him; there was no impatience in his eyes.

- You’ve been taking care of others for all this time, y/n. It is time for you to be taken care of.

You nodded, new tears rolling from your eyes as he helped you leave the bed and led you to the bathroom, from where came a warm steam of a recently prepared bath.

#naruto fanfiction #naruto oneshot #tobirama #tobirama x reader #tobirama senju #naruto au #surgeon au #au modern

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yhwhsdaughter · 4 years

Text

Tobirama w/ delinquent darling (AU)

𝕋𝕠𝕓𝕚𝕣𝕒𝕞𝕒 𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣

note: gender neutral reader, slight nsfw but nothing too spicy 🔥

Ruler follower and enforcer Tobirama Senju was the Vice President of the student council. He had a no nonsense kind of attitude and disliked anyone that posed a threat to the school’s reputation—individuals like (Name).

You were smart. Apparently too smart for classes, since you were always skipping. It was behavior like that which bothered the VP. The two of you would argue often about this.

He eventually caught you leaving the class on a ‘bathroom break’ and when confronted about it, you merely tilted your head to the side, hair framing your face perfectly.

Tobirama knew that expression, the one that meant trouble.

Even so, he could not predict what you would say next. “Tenju-sama you must really like my ass.”

He almost spluttered. “What?”

“You never get off of it.”

That vulgar language threw the white haired male off, giving you the chance to get away. “Stop running!” Well, that’s how you ended with detention but it was kind of worth it, making Tobi mad.

Tobirama found himself complaining/scolding his brother Hashirama (the prez) about you. “Shouldn’t you do something?”

His older brother had a more laidback personality. “I suppose I should.”

Hashirama then proposed to offer you the position of treasurer. Their first one had changed schools mid semester and no one bothered to apply. “Why the hell would you want them in the student council?!”

The eldest shrugged nonchalantly, “Having (Name) busy will keep them from skipping. They’ll have to step up as a role model for other students.”

Tobirama wasn’t convinced but made it a point to bring it up the next time he saw you. “Oh came to give me detention again? Seriously, it’s like you’re obsessed with me.”

“Don’t be an idiot. I came to offer you something.”

When he was done talking, you looked uninterested yet there was a mischievous glint in your eyes. “No thanks.” Tobirama was about to fire back when you continued, “I’m turning you down because I’ll be running for President next year. Your brother is stepping down, yeah? If I’m President, I will have the authority to get you off my ass.”

Ohhhhhh. That irked Tobirama. He was running for President. In terms of responsibility, skills, and intelligence there was no one better than him for the position and that was just facts (ok king 😭).

He won.

The only thorn in his side—you—were made Vice President since you were the runner up and people considere you adequate for it. Obviously this upset Tobi, who frowned.

You finally decided to confront him about his sour attitude in regards to you. When it came to others, he was still strict but the tiniest bit gentle. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Whenever I turn around, I see you skipping. You have the brain to help others and help bring this school higher in education, but instead you tarnish it with your actions.”

First of all, ouch.

Second of all— you faltered, “I’m.. surprised you pay that much attention to me.” Thinking on that for a moment, a certain look came on your face. “Hm~”

Tobirama was not here to play games. “What is it?” He saw no issue with what he’d said.

“I think I’ve got it wrong this entire time.”

Okay now he was completely lost, what were you on about. His confusion must have been clear because you closed in on him, looking at him softer. “It’s okay Tobi, you can admit it.”

“Admit what”

Your tongue clicked. For someone so intelligent he was sure slow. “That you like me.” It was the conclusion you’d come to. With Tobirama it was hard to tell.

“Why would I—”

At this time, you had already invaded his personal space. “Oh? Am i wrong?” This was your only chance to see Tobirama in this position.

Pushing him against the wall, you gently pried his legs open with your knee, an action that caused him to throw you back. Unfortunately for him, both your legs got tangled together. The two of you fell—he was quick to put a hand at the back of your head to prevent you from hitting it too hard.

The distance had been shortened, bodies pressed together. Tobirama took a second to admire you this closely, before pushing your head with his hand, towards him.

When you two parted, there was a smug expression on your face.

Leaves changed, signaling the beginning of a new school year. Many things had changed, but others stayed the same.

You were taking a nap on the rooftop, enjoying the warmth of the sun when a shadow blocked it. Without opening your eyes, you knew who it was. “You skipped the meeting, again.”

A smile formed on your mouth. “Why listen to you scold me in public when you can do it privately?” At this, you opened one eye.

Tobirama towered over you, not amused, “You’re still a delinquent.”

With a sigh, you stood up from your comfortable spot and handed him a stack of papers. “Look, I was good and finished all the paperwork. Don’t I deserve a reward?”

You puckered your lips childishly. Tobi gave you a face but leaned down to plant one of your lips anyways.

He would never admit it because you’d let it go to your head, but he deeply enjoyed moments like this.

“Let’s go get lunch, I’m hungry.”

#naruto #tobirama #tobirama senju #tobirama x reader #tobirama x you #hokage #enemies to lovers

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scenariosofkonoha · 4 years

Text

For the Country| Tobirama- Arranged Marriage AU

Part 7/15

Part 1| ... | Part 8

Masterlist

Word Count: 2.3k

Chapter Summary: Kagami and Tobirama go to the market and Kagami takes about y/n’s role in the Uchiha clan. Tobirama goes on to talk to y/n about taking Kagami for his team, but this is met with hesitation. Things get spicy after this chapter lol jk i forgot i added a fluff chapter in between this one and the spicy one

***

“Why are you so insistent on finding an orange?” Tobirama inquired as he looked down to the child who was pacing along his side, a child who was truthfully leading the way down the market trail.

“Because,” Kagami started as he tightened his grip on the basket that was already filled with various vegetables. “It’s for y/n. For training me with my eyes. She really likes them but they’re hard to find around here, you know?” he replied as he lifted his chin above the produce to better see his elder.

“But why are you giving her a gift for training you? Most students don’t.”

Kagami gave a small frown, confusion overcoming his expression. “‘Cause she didn’t have to?” He offered, uncertainty weighing down his voice. “You know she’s got a lot going on with you and the hospital and the village and the clan and everything else,” he listed off the various dealings she seemed to have a hand in. “She didn’t have to train me, but she is, so the least I can do is buy her an orange.”

Tobirama nodded. For as ornery as Kagami could be, there were times like this where he seemed much more mature than he should be. Putting his hands in his pockets as they continued down the street, Tobirama continued to ask his questions. “And how’s that going? Training?”

It was then that any uncertainty Kagami had been harboring vanished. With a squinty eyed smile, the young Uchiha gleamed. “Really good. She’s always been a good teacher, and her Sharingan’s strong- Madara trained her after all. Besides just being my sister, there was a reason I wanted her to train me.”

“What?” Tobirama frowned, confusion flooding in. She had never mentioned anything of her Sharingan, or her training. Up until recently, he had only seen it activated a handful of times, all of which occurred during a mission before their marriage. The only uptick in instances of its appearance was due to her training of Kagami. Narrowing his eyes, Tobirama prodded at the comment. “She never mentioned that she was trained by Madara?”

Kagami stitched his eyebrows together. “What do you mean?” he asked before offering clarifying information. “She was always Madara’s favorite when she was growing up. He trained her and our older brother, but he always said she was the most likely to survive. When she got older, she kinda shifted away from him, because he’s just… you know…?” Kagami failed to find the right word, but looked to Tobirama like he knew. “But she’s just not like that, and she ended up acting like a mediator for a lot of stuff.” Kagami shrugged as he admitted to information he thought his sister had already given.

Tobirama was silent for a moment as he tried to process the information that had just been given to him. From what he had gathered over the nearly two years that all this had started, she always made her relationship with the clan leader seem as if it were nothing more than that: a superior and a subordinate. The fact that Madara and her used to be closer wasn’t fitting within the structure Tobirama had built within his head.

Immediately reading into this silence, Kagami quickly threw in an additional tidbit to help placate his words. “Now they just kinda fight at meetings.” he added, turning his body to help project his words. “Uncle’s super strict and likes things the old way, but she tries to be flexible with us and the village, and it’s messy. She always stands up for the younger members at the meeting and how things are moving in the future. Most elders in the clan won’t listen to us, but they listen to her…” Kagami offered another truth that he probably shouldn’t have shared.

Diverting his gaze from the Senju, Kagami’s voice was quieter. “She’s done a lot for us… I’m sure you and the rest of the village would hate us even more than you already do if she hadn’t done the things she has…”

The sharpness left Tobirama’s face for a moment as he saw the child speak more as an adult. There was almost a sense of guilt pooling within him as he came to know that even Kagami knew of his distrust. But more than the guilt of that, there was the alarming amount of sense that came into the many facets of his wife. That was why she was always so insistent on going to clan meetings. Even if she did not legally carry their name anymore, she went to fight and argue with the elders of her clan for within her generation and the following. From the sounds of it too, if she hadn’t been there, things would probably have been much different, but to what extent, Tobirama probably would never know.

Knowing he should probably offer some support to the child, particularly because he mentioned him specifically, Tobirama tried. “Kagami…”

But his attempt was stopped by the very piece of fruit that started all of this. Acting as if nothing had just happened, Kagami diverted the conversation as he crossed over the street to the vendor. “Look! I found one!” Kagami perked up with a small laugh, ignoring any sense of pity that Tobirama would have given him.

Must have been a sibling trait…

***

Gingerly placing a blanket over the pile of sleeping souls, the Uchiha was helpless to the smile that was across her demeanor.

“How hard do you train someone so that they fall asleep on the floor?” Tobirama questioned, something that was almost resembling a joke, but there was a real inquiry in it.

Stepping away from Kagami and the two cats that were cuddled alongside him, she looked over to her husband. “Oh, nothing he can’t handle.” she offered as she walked into the kitchen, joining Tobirama. “Besides, sleeping like a rock has always just been one of his quirks.” she admitted, her smile still present.

Tobirama nodded as they both sat down at the small table and poured tea.

Cupping the drink in her hands and pulling it in, she gave a shrug as she mused. “I’ve questioned if it’s just a trait of being a child of a village. You don’t need to be on constant alert, so you get to sleep without worry.”

“He was born before the village formation though?”

“True, but kids his age don’t remember any of it.” she corrected. “And I’m glad he can hardly remember a time before the village...” she admitted, her voice softer this time. “He’s so kind and unburdened by the past that he can actually see a future…” she spoke, more to herself than to him, but the words were still there for him to hear.

Sitting in the darkened room, Tobirama was halted by her comment, a heaviness weighing it down. There was that same despair he had seen earlier in the day, a despair that Tobirama had never really felt.

Biting down on her lip, she looked down to her cup before matching Tobirama’s gaze. Inhaling as if the words hurt her, she tried not to show the weakness within her. “I know when you think of our family, your mind goes directly to Madara and Izuna, but…” she trailed, her eyes quickly darting to the mass of blankets in the room next to theirs before continuing. “There are ones like Kagami, and please don’t let them limit him…” she spoke, her voice close to a beg.

Setting his cup down, Tobirama exhaled, not sure how the next moments were going to go. “I wanted to talk to you about that. About Kagami.” he replied, constantly analyzing her behavior to try and predict her reactions.

A small frown came upon her face as she filled with concern. “Yes?”

Tobirama had thought of this for a while, but particularly in the month that Kagami had lived with them, time where Tobirama had been able to see Kagami train and succeed. Tobirama knew what he wanted, he just needed permission. “Hashirama is insisting I have a team that I train from genin on up. ” he started, his voice strong as he were voicing a proposal to the village.

“I’m listening, but I don’t like where this is going.”

This was about how Tobirama expected this to start out. “Y/n. I want him as a student. I think he’s capable and he listens and he has potential.” Tobirama admitted, offering compliments that normally wouldn’t be given. “Potential that’s unique, and can be cultivated for what this village will need.”

Shaking her head, she denied any of it. “No, Tobirama. He’s still a child.” she was firm. “And he’s got at least another year in the Academy before he can even attempt the genin examination.”

“But he doesn’t need it; he could pass that test right now.” Tobirama refuted. “He’s already ahead of all his peers and most of the year above him. And with you training him with the Sharingan, that puts him even further ahead of the others in the Academy. It would be a disservice to him to keep him in there.” he continued his counter. “You would be limiting him.”

Placing her cup down and folding her hands on the table, she continued her defense. “He’s a child, and we don’t need child soldiers anymore…” she insisted. “Stop trying to take away his childhood.”

Tobirama sighed. “Those aren’t my intentions, but I’m being realistic. We’re going to be in a war probably within the next 5 to 10 years with how tensions are rising with the other villages. That gives us time to train the young ones now, so they don’t have to go out as child soldiers like we did.” he said, his voice harsher than it had been previously as told the reality of the future.

She placed a hand over her mouth to hide her expression as she looked away from him. He had a point, but it was still not something she wanted to come to terms with. It wasn’t the fact that they would be in another war; it was the fact that in the next one, Kagami would have to fight in it. Shaking her head again, she chose to not make eye contact. “No, Tobirama. I’m.. I’m not having this conversation.”

“Why not?” he prodded. “Do you want him to die because he couldn’t reach his potential?”

“Of course not!” she snapped back. “Why would you ask such a thing?” she gritted her teeth.

Though he was unforgiving in his advancements. “That’s what’s going to happen.” he retorted. “I’ve already thought this through, y/n. You’re right, he’s balanced and unaffected by the Uchiha hatred- just as you are. If he can train under someone outside of your clan, strengthen skills he wouldn’t be able to if were to be trained within the clan in addition to you training him with the Sharingan, he’ll be prepared to go out in the field when the time comes.”

She was frustrated by the sound logic. Letting her head fall forward onto her hand, she shrugged. “I can’t. No.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t, okay?” she repeated.

Narrowing his eyes, Tobirama knew better than to believe she was declining this just because she could. “I know you have a reason. Why?”

She fell silent.

“Y/n-”

“Because the other three had died by Senju hands, and now you're expecting me to willingly give up Kagami to you all!” she nearly hissed as she threw a hand out. “I just can’t give this approval without it feeling like I'm delivering him a death sentence.” she confessed, her eyes glossy now, constantly fighting back tears. Last thing she wanted was to cry in front of him, but this was one of her weak points.

Tobirama just listened for a moment. Even though their union had been working, the distrust was still there, and it was strikingly evident in that moment. She hid hers better than he did, but in that moment, she couldn’t deny it. “Y/n.” he tried to regain control of the conversation.

“What do you want?” she breathed out, trying to compose herself.

“I don’t want him to get hurt either,” he said. “I can protect him until he can fully protect himself.”

Straightening up at this comment, she looked at him almost bewildered. Never did she think she would hear these words from him, and as she sat there, hearing these truths, she was finding it difficult to process.

“I get that he’s the baby. He’s the one you can still protect, but you won’t be able to forever, so might as well make it so he can protect himself early on.” he stated harshly, trying to make her see past her sentimental inhibitions. “I can get this order sent out tomorrow, and it will be done, but I want your permission on all this.”

She shook her head. “Even if I say, ‘yes,’ the clan won’t approve it….”

He looked unphased. “If it’s a village order, they’re not in any position to refute it.” He delivered the truth. “I don’t care what your clan has to say. I’m asking for your permission.”

“Why mine?” she asked, almost scoffing at it. “I’m not the leader.”

“But you’re the one who cares.” he snapped. “Madara’s not going to protect him. He tossed you into the marriage without a second thought. Do you think he’s really going to protect Kagami?” Tobirama was curt, continuously delivering the blows.

She closed her eyes as a sigh escaped her. He was right, and that left her cornered.

“I’ll ensure his safety...”

Gritting her teeth, she nodded. “I’ll approve it….” she nearly whispered. “And I’ll defend it in the clan,” she affirmed, her voice increasing as she met Tobirama’s gaze.

“Thank-”

“But you have to swear, on your life, that you will protect him.” she gave the ultimatum.

“I will.”

#omg that one line from kagami killed my heart.#let me know your thoughts #kagami #kagami uchiha #tobirama #tobirama senju #tobirama fic #tobirama senju fic #naruto #naruto fic

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amyrallis · 4 years

Text

So I Waged War Against The Skies -The Old Gods Are No More-

Written for my amazing anija, @sleepysenseis (love you uwu) because they are great and they're perfect and so is their art and anija knows exactly how to enable me, dammit. Enabled™ smol otouto me and here is the MASTERPIECE:

--------

“No.” Tobirama breathed, his body a mess from all the times he had been stabbed straight through, the pain barely registering. He sometimes thought it was a good thing he had never finished with the Edo Tensei. This was one of those times.

Madara hummed next to him, his now a greenish white hair drifting in the breeze as he surveyed the broken battlefield in front of him. “No? They already lost. There’s no point in denying it, Tobirama. It’s not like you.” The purple eyed man turned around, a madness that made Tobirama lose his breath settled deep in his eyes.

Tobirama knew Madara was right. The battlefield had gone painfully silent, the symbol of hope that Naruto was having fallen somewhere in the chaos and left them stumbling blindly in the dark. He closed his eyes as another pang went through him. To attack this man so openly without any plan was nothing short of foolish, something that Tobirama had known for a long time but Naruto had somehow missed.

Sasuke laid on the ground close to them, his blood a pool of red around him as the wind blew over the battlefield –more like massacre, Tobirama couldn’t help but think, a pang of sorrow rushing through his veins- lifting the dust and leaving the painful picture clear for all to see. They had lost and Madara had won.

It was ironic. The way a defeated air hung around the place, the one driving force one side had, lost in grief, ıt reminded him all too clearly of another battlefield. One where Madara had laid on his back and said, me or the village Hashirama. One which Madara had said those things, his sharingan spinning an entirely new shape in his grief and looked straight at Tobirama while doing so.

His breath had hitched lightly, his eyes turning to avoid the cursed red of the sharingan –cursed by gods, cursed for daring to love so very deeply, in a way that no mortal, no god had ever dared to and cursed for caring so much, enough to give everything for fleeting lives. Tobirama knew the feeling very well, in the blood that ran through his veins, in the way that his eyes were the same shade of red as the curse of gods, the beat of his heart as he held pieces of his younger brother in his arms… really, he should’ve known in the beginning- and felt something in him burn. Izuna may have had been an enemy but he was also human. They were at war and Tobirama had his own family to keep safe. He didn’t have to regret protecting his family.

Even if it was at the cost of another’s, for that was how life had dared to work, always so cruel against those who took the chance and thrived in it.

He already had too many of those very same family’s blood on his hands because Hashirama was brilliant, a sea of hope in the midst of a thunderstorm, burning bright and beautiful and Tobirama could only hope to rest in his shores for some time, before he had to get up and stop the storm from breaching that sacred place, because even though Hashirama was impossible and brilliant and everything, he was only one men. And men were good at one thing above all. Falling.

Tobirama had to stop that, he had to interfere and help his Anija against the fate that was so very determined to stop him and if the cost was his own conscious, nights spent awake, feeling like his very soul would never feel together again and sitting up once more because he could never hope to be enough but that never meant he couldn’t try his best, that was his own problem.

Anija tended to overlook lives, tiny and insignificant as they were to him, for his eyes were burned and blinded by the future he was always marching towards but Tobirama was there to ground him and carry the burdens that grounding would normally lay on Hashirama. He had chosen Izuna for a reason.

Izuna was close to his power, so very close in chakra, maybe even in strength but Tobirama was an inventor and a seal master, he wasn’t known as the greatest suiton master ever seen for nothing.

Izuna, just, didn’t match up. But Tobirama made it so, allowing the illusion of him being equal to power because if he didn’t, he would have to reach behind him and go full force, after revealing his entire power and skill set, there’d be no stopping for him, he’d be pushed to do it and not even Hashirama could try for his peace when so much of the Uchiha had been slaughtered by his own heir, no one would trust them.

İf the cost came with the Senju that Tobirama hadn’t been fast enough to protect while engaging Izuna, the ones he would’ve been able to had he already gotten rid of the other younger brother, then those were his own demons, hidden behind to be revealed at night, after everyone was asleep and the graveyard in his mind had been awakened once more.

His eyes snapped open as Madara’s hand clasped his chin, forcing his eyes to meet the Rinnegan and the shorter man leaned down slightly with an intense look in his eyes. “What have they done to you? I’m sure you could make the Edo Tensei work so much better than this. All they did was bring back you at your last second. Truly pitiful like they are. I'm not surprised at all that they had to bring you back to fight me and still managed to mess it up.” Tobirama glared up at him, unable to retort because the Uchiha was right but also unwilling to let the slight against his village go while stubbornly denying the back handed compliment.

“As pitiful as your plan, I suppose? Or are you truly that gone in the head Uchiha? Your plan has so many loopholes in it that Anija could stick his head in it.”

Madara’s eyes twisted with fury even as he slowly caressed Tobirama’s cheek, a wondering look replacing the fury in the next second and making Tobirama question if it had even happened.

“That’s why you’re the one who plans things, Tobirama.” Madara murmured, a slight smile pulling at his lips as he leaned down even more. Tobirama struggled in his kneeling position, the callousness burning at him even as he hid the discomfort from the way Madara looked at him.

Madara chuckled, his hand coming up to keep Tobirama in place and circled him. “You were always so beautiful when you got angry.” Madara stopped behind him, his fingers sinking into Tobirama’s hair and yanked his head back. Tobirama looked at him, his neck bent at an odd angle as pieces of paper floated in the air. “What are you talking about?” he said, trying to ignore the pressing feeling in his mind.

Madara always acted strange when Tobirama was around, Hashirama had said once. His eyes would focus on Tobirama and all his words would be for him, like he was literally unable to forget that the albino was there and that he existed, even for one moment. His chakra would seek Tobirama out during the day and his questions would be pointed to Tobirama, something that made Hashirama wonder a lot. Tobirama had tried to ignore his Anija’s foolishness, instead thinking that it was Madara assessing the highest likely threat to himself, because it was so obvious that Hashirama wouldn’t hurt him, the bumbling buffoon.

Hashirama wouldn't hurt him? Like he hadn't killed Madara? Tobirama couldn’t help but question. Just like Madara hadn’t sometimes sought Tobirama out, his chakra exhausted and on the verge of something that Tobirama had never known what? Instead, his mind had been focused on trying to stop what had felt inevitable to him, always, always dangling just over their future and overwhelming. Because even if Madara hadn’t been so beloved by Anija, and hadn’t that always burned so deeply inside him, Tobirama respected the man. For his strength, maybe, for his ability to look past the Senju elders, always trying to manipulate everything, certainly, for his kindness with children , always.

Tobirama was a man of practicality, he liked solutions and ideas, he liked his science and he liked building things –sometimes, in the midst of the night when everyone was asleep, he dared to think he’d have made a good teacher, a good adventurer, maybe even a good man. In another life. Good for life, maybe or maybe good for humans, perhaps even good as humans had decreed it, he didn’t know. He supposed he’d get used to not doing so. It was one of the first things he had resigned to never knowing, but certainly not the last (the last had been the question, will it ever truly end?)- he always liked kids and helping them. There’d been a certain joy to be found in imparting knowledge to others and knowing that, at least in that way, they’d be safer. Madara had always been that way, something that Tobirama had known to respect in humans.

Madara was also complicated. Sometimes, they’d tear each other’s throats out and sometimes, it’d be silence in a winter midnight, something that could almost be called amiable between them as the snow rested on their faces and hair. Once, Madara had approached during that time, his hand slowly extending to brush against Tobirama’s cheek and he had muttered, snow is a good look on you, Tobirama. There had been the potential of so many things in that second, and perhaps they had taken that potential and used it, in another life.

Madara had left the other day, gone for a whole week before he returned, one last time, on the back of the Kyuubi and so very desperate. They had come across each other when Madara had waited for Tobirama in his room and there had been an unspoken question before his gaze had sharpened. Tobirama had looked into the sharingan for the last time and into Madara’s eyes, the first. –the first time he had looked into the sharingan since he had when he was five and there was blood in the air and Anija was gone, gone, gone, missing and the very air was screaming with him and the world had cracked open, the fury of gods falling upon it with his loss, his desperation-

-a bargain was made that day-

“You, Tobirama, I’m always talking about you.” Tobirama’s breath got stuck in his chest, his mind on the cusp of something, a realization so dangerous, too much to even contemplate. Madara gazed towards the skyline, the mural of his victory laid out before him and a self deprecating smile painted on his face. “Always.”

Tobirama didn’t want to hear it. Tobirama didn’t want to hear anything, he was dead and he was gone, he had done everything he could for this World and he had deserved his happiness, his end, his rest. If Madara wanted him so badly, he could join Tobirama –and Hashirama and everyone he had loved and lost because why was he trying to drag them back up to the very place that had destroyed them, why was he so damn selfish?- in the Pure Lands, saving everyone the pain and exhaustion. Why did he have to be so stubborn, so damn blind? If he loved them, then he could’ve come to them, because his time was over but Madara was always chasing the fleeting wasn’t he? And there was the problem, Tobirama thought bitterly, the man who loved him –he had felt that for a long time, but he would save the breakdown till later- was an Uchiha, the very epitome of loving the fleeting and cursing the ethereal, the endless.

Those eyes weren’t given for naught.

Amaterasu, seeing their pain and loss, had blessed the sad, fallen mortals with the chance to always remember their loved ones and in doing so, had also cursed them. There was a reason that Gods didn’t walk the earth anymore, didn’t interfere with their affairs.

-Gods could fall too-

“Look at me. All the sights of the world, laid out at my feet and I can only look at you.” Madara turned his gaze back down to Tobirama, his hair swaying in the wind as he did so.

Tobirama stopped the imitation of breathing, all his senses focused on Madara. Why was he saying these things? Why now? The war was over, he had won, so why was he still playing this game? Tobirama had seen the way Madara had looked at him as he clashed with Naruto, the other Kage, always, a part of his attention was on Tobirama, he could feel it like the gaze of someone on his back, the feeling of a breath on his nape, with his everything.

For once during the battle, his chakra had reached out, coaxing and playful and tried to intertwine with Tobirama whose eyes had widened, his attention turning to the Bijuu he was next to. He had departed right after, the idea of pressing the advantage forming in his head. Madara was somehow calm towards Tobirama, something that could’ve been used for their advantage and if Tobirama could give the others an advantage to press forward by making Madara focus on him, then he would. Madara had always been a creature of passion, someone who could easily focus elsewhere if one knew how to play him. It hadn’t worked.

The bright golden of Minato and Anija echoed in his senses as the silence continued, Madara having leant down and sat next to him. His arm raised, grabbing Tobirama’s hair once more and using it to angle his face to stare at Madara. Tobirama's eyes narrowed.

“Close your eyes, if it irks you so.” Madara gave a surprised laugh, the sound escaping with a strange timbre like he honestly hadn’t expected Tobirama to respond that way –and wasn’t that stupid, Madara always knew Tobirama had a sharp tongue, and was logically wary of it. Perhaps he had foolishly thought being in Madara’s hold would stop him from lashing with it, an idea fit for clueless people because Tobirama wasn’t one to bow to pressure.- and he threw his head back for a second before leaning down and crushing their lips together.

Tobirama froze stiff, his entire being wanting to continue to reject the very idea of the situation yet his mind so very aware as Madara pressed impossibly closer, his eyes wide open and running over Tobirama‘s face reverently, the edge of something insane burning in them.

Madara slowly drew back, a satisfied smile on his face as he gave Tobirama a smug look. “I prefer to continue looking. You’re quite the sight, after all.”

Tobirama looked back, something sharp in his gaze. He had never wanted any of this. He was tired of his life always being one battle, one challenge after another and just when he thought he was done, he had closure…

“I’d rather not to be looked at actually, especially by a madman who can’t even plan.” He bit back, his words trying and failing to mask his unease. Madara smiled and leant down, leaning his head against Tobirama’s shoulder and raising his lips to his ear.

“Always with the insults, To-bi-ra. Don’t worry, I’ll have enough time to look my fill. Right after I’m done with them.” Madara muttered, his body tensing once more. Tobirama lightly flinched at the touch of his horn against his neck, his instincts overwhelming him as he tried to ignore the words, to leave this world and go back to his tranquil existence of before. “Then we can be together, like we’ve always wanted.”

The chakra receiver through his head warmed lightly as Madara moved his hand over it and melted over his body, binding Tobirama more thoroughly than anything else ever could. The edges of panic peeked from his mind as they did, Tobirama having to fight an uphill battle to push them back

Madara was gone with the blast of a wind, his outrageous claims not seeming so stupid. Tobirama knew, there was no way they’d be able to win and Madara was just gloating his victory over them. Naruto was gone, truly honestly dead in the way that Tobirama could sense his chakra pooling out of his body, leaving an empty husk and he didn’t want to think anymore.

He didn’t want to think about what Madara was implying, didn’t want to think about how he wasn’t able to get free as long as Orochimaru didn’t set him -and he wouldn’t if he was trapped in an endless dream, Tobirama was well and truly stuck in a way he’d never been, had always avoided, even without the seals that had locked over his form and bound him to the mortal plane- he didn’t want to think about losing once more –because no matter what was said, Konoha had been a loss. One that Tobirama had tried his best to salvage but perhaps, perhaps some things weren't meant to be saved.- about all the people who laid dead for a system that had been made to kill them in the first place, the system that Tobirama himself had failed in creating properly and thus, left them to their fates, sent them to their deaths.

Instead, he closed his eyes and let go, his mind soaring through nebulae and galaxies, starlight and black holes with a pale moon lighting the way home.

#uchiha madara #senju tobirama #madatobi #YEET HOPE YOU LİKE #ANİJA İT'S ALL YOUR FAULT #UNREPENTANT ™#from discord lmao #anija tag

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raendown · 4 years

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Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 3235 Soulmate au: The one where any tattoo that you get shows up on your soulmate and vice versa

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Chapter 218

It had been dozens of generations since the Uchiha clan discovered the secret of their most powerful weapon hidden in the love they so fiercely protected, just as many since the discovery that their greatest strength was also their greatest weakness, the curse that could bring low any warrior from the weakest to the most battle hardened. They were not so self centered to believe that other clans did not love their important people fiercely but there had always been a certain extra level of passion in an Uchiha’s emotions that just didn’t seem to exist for anyone not of their blood. Were they born of any other clan the sheer weight of their love would have been labeled oppressive. For an Uchiha it was nothing less than expected, necessary in a way. Without the crushing weight of love to hold them against the earth an Uchiha was cursed to spiral in to madness with only their bloody sharingan to light the way forward. It was not a future any of them looked forward to.

Some escaped the curse, of course. It wasn’t an inevitability for anyone who chose the life of a civilian or followed a path that did not lead to the battlefields. Madara found himself envious of those people sometimes. The artisans who spent their worries on sourcing materials and feeding orphans had a hard life in their own way but a much more peaceful one. He was willing to bet very few of them had ever come awake at night with their eyes spinning red and their mind filled with horrors that would never - could never - be forgotten. He wished sometimes that he could have such an uncomplicated life.

He wished sometimes that he had never fallen in love.

What should have been the center of his happiness, the anchor that weighed his sanity against the storm of a shinobi’s life, walked ahead of him with confident strides and eyes that looked forward, unaware of the power they held. Sometimes Madara wondered if Tobirama knew about his feelings. To anyone else in his own clan he was sure what he felt was as clear as day. Even if Izuna hadn’t said anything yet he’d felt his brother’s gaze on him when the fire in his veins overflowed in public, something he tried so hard to muffle and failed more often than not. He supposed in a way it could be considered an advantage in this case, the fact that his people seemed to love just a little differently than the rest of the world. If Tobirama knew he surely would have said something. The fact that he didn’t was probably the closest thing to mercy he was likely to get.

Because Tobirama, cold and distant and so very perfect for the man that Madara had shaped himself in to, was not the soulmate he was meant for. The proof of it was right there on his face in three thin lines red like blood. Red like passion. Red like the sharingan he still didn’t seem to trust very much. Madara was only too aware that if they were indeed meant to be soulmates he would have woken up with those same tattoos the day after Tobirama received his own. But he hadn’t. His skin was clean and bare of any marks except for the scars of battles he couldn’t count. Whether that was because his true soulmate was waiting on him to guide them in with ink of his choosing or simply because they did not exist he didn’t know. Didn’t care. It had been a handful of years now since he stopped caring whether they might still be alive out there somewhere.

It was hard to imagine what his soulmate could ever offer that might turn his eyes away from the man walking in front of him now. Harder still to imagine the monumental force it would take to peel the layers of emotions away from his heart until he stopped loving Tobirama. He was, after all, an Uchiha. Not a people known for giving up on love very easily. As a whole they tended to prefer death, not something he was very eager to run towards when the village he’d dreamed of as a child was less than a decade off the ground. He was aware that this love was likely to be the thing that drove him in to his grave and yet as he watched Tobirama stop to soften the blow of a child crashing headlong in to his legs Madara couldn’t bring himself to care about that either.

“Having second thoughts, Uchiha?”

“What?” Madara snapped back to reality to see that the child was leaving, scampering back to her mother with a smile made of crooked teeth, leaving Tobirama to look back at him with one eyebrow raised expectantly. “You wish, Senju. I’m going to grind you in to the dirt!”

“I’m shaking in my boots.” Words spoken with absolutely no inflection. Tobirama blinked once and then turned to continue walking towards the training grounds mostly frequented by him and his brother. It took a special kind of terrain to contain two such powerhouses without the effects of their training spilling over to bother the surrounding populace. Madara would know. He had chosen his own favorite training ground for just the same reason.

Possibly it hadn’t been one of his best ideas to suggest Tobirama spar with him instead after walking in on Hashirama apologizing for having to cancel the time they’d set aside for training together. Madara watched the mesmerizing walk of a shinobi built for speed and decided he didn’t care whether this was smart or not. Their skill levels were close enough and well balanced enough to make for an interesting fight so whether or not he made a fool of himself it promised to at least be an interesting afternoon. If his heart just happened to get broken along the way, well, it had been breaking every day since he first recognized these hopeless feelings for what they were.

One thing he had not taken in to account was the stretching. Sparring was one thing, the rush of adrenaline and the rapid movements as opponents danced around each other, together and apart again over and over. The necessary step of stretching out their muscles was quite another. Without the high of mock battle Madara was forced to turn his body away just to stop his eyes from being too obvious with the way he couldn’t seem to tear them away. He wanted those elegant fingers to trace his skin, wanted those steely arms to cage him in like he was something precious, something to be treasured like he treasured the smallest glimpses of things he would never call his own. Facing somewhere other than the chest he wanted so badly to press his ear against just to hear the heart beneath it was much easier. Instead of making the usual show of himself Madara watched the clouds scudding across the blue sky above them, leaning deeper in to his stretches to let the burn clear his thoughts. Only when he was sure none of his emotions were showing on his face did he finally turn around and demand they get on with it.

“Someone seems eager to injure his own pride,” Tobirama noted with a hint of a devastating smirk. Madara scowled.

“You think a lot of your skills. Shall we dance, Senju, so we can put them to the test?”

“Let’s,” was all the warning Tobirama gave him before the two of them exploded in to motion at the same time.

It felt good to focus on the flow and pull of his own body undulating across the field, dodging and weaving through Tobirama’s attacks, breathing fire hot enough to evaporate the water used against him. Nothing would ever be as good as battle for clearing the mind of any other unwanted thoughts. After barely a couple of minutes Madara was relaxed enough to let slip a feral grin, truly enjoying himself enough to forget his romantic woes for just a little while.

Unfortunately it really was only a little while. With the sheer power they both had Madara thought the two of them could have locked themselves in to a stalemate for a good long while but it seemed as though the difference in their skill sets was just enough to give one or the other the upper hand fairly quickly each round, the victor declared depending on who spotted an opening first. Barely more than an hour had passed before they were half a dozen rounds in and both of them were drenched with sweat from giving it their best effort. Madara chose to delude himself that Tobirama was working as hard to impress him as he was to impress the younger man. A harmless delusion, at least compared to the other ones he entertained when he was alone and free to dream of the impossible.

Or so he thought. This apparently harmless delusion is exactly what cost him the spar, distracting him with a sensation of triumph and a need to overextend himself in an attempt to look good. Like a feral animal Tobirama seemed almost able to smell when his opponent was weak. In a flash he had Madara pinned on his back with a blade at his throat and for one interminable moment in time the wild glint of his eyes was the only thing that existed. The entire rest of the world faded away, narrowed down the same look Madara had been drowning in since his cursed heart first latched on to someone he knew he couldn’t have.

He didn’t realize he was staring until Tobirama frowned and pulled away to stand up. Then he silently berated himself. So much effort put in every day to keep his feelings private, knowing they would not be returned, and now he’d given up all his secrets for nothing but a pair of pretty eyes. Tobirama was a smart man, after all. It would certainly be too much to ask that he not draw the right conclusions from whatever foolish expression Madara had just been wearing.

“I…” Jaw hanging open for the space of two heartbeats, Tobirama closed it again with a helplessly bemused expression. It was obvious he wasn’t sure what to say. There wasn’t really much to be said.

“Don’t,” Madara warned him. “Just...don’t.”

Covered in sweat, breathing like a civilian after running a mile, he was painfully aware of the incredibly unattractive picture he made. Not exactly an image to swoon over, let alone fall in love with. As if he’d ever had a chance of Tobirama falling in love with him. Something dangerous pulsed behind his eyes and Madara turned away before either of them could discuss what his sharingan was trying to do, ignoring the tempting voice that called for him to come back and talk about this like adults. Instead he coiled his legs and launched himself towards the trees without actually paying attention to where he was heading. Anywhere was better than here.

Literally anything in the world was a better use of his time than having his heart broken by a rejection he could have seen coming with both eyes closed.

Avoiding Tobirama was both simple and complicated. Not many of their duties overlapped, their talents leading them to work in different departments. Unfortunately they did sit on a number of the same councils and committees and it was quite the challenge attending each of his duties without getting caught by a man who could move so much faster than he could. It took twisting and planning and every dirty trick that Madara had up his sleeve but he managed it, somehow, for several weeks. He couldn’t imagine what Tobirama could possibly still want to say after so much time had passed but he was very sure he didn’t want to hear it. All he wanted was to enjoy these last few years of sanity before the inevitable curse of his clan at last began to shred the barrier between his heart and good sense.

Obviously he couldn’t run forever, though, not from someone as determined as Tobirama. Madara wondered why he still found that such an attractive trait even as he watched the other man bear down on him in the records room where several heavy layers of seals prevented him from using a body flicker to escape.

“We need to talk.”

“No, we really don’t,” he snapped back in the hopes that his natural grumpiness would cover the dread choking his voice.

“Don’t look at me like that, Uchiha. Are you or are you not the same idiot who faced the Raikage and his personal guard all by yourself with no backup? Quit looking so...so…”

Madara scowled. “So?”

“Afraid of me,” Tobirama finished his sentence with the slightest note of hesitation, like he knew exactly how badly Madara would despise hearing those words. And indeed they did bring a scowl to his face. He’d never been afraid of anything in his life except for losing his precious people. This wasn’t fear. This was nothing more than a healthy predilection for not landing himself in painful situations.

“I’m not afraid of you! Go away!”

Rather than scurrying off for the hills - because of course he wouldn’t, Tobirama had always taken a lot more than one quick snap to run off - he bullied in closer until he had Madara hemmed in to a corner, boxed in on all sides with nowhere to look but forwards.

“Clearly we’re not going to be able to talk about this calmly but I don’t know why I expected any more of you. You’re as ruled by your emotions as my brother is. To make this as painless as possible how about you just shut up and let me lay out the facts, yes?” Raising one hand, Tobirama began to tick off his fingers as he continued. “You have some sort of feelings for me and yet you chose not to speak to me about them. I wondered why until I realized it probably had something to do with either your heritage as an Uchiha or your status as unbonded. As someone outside of your clan those answers were not available to me. However, the second option was one I was more than capable of testing for myself. If you would just-”

Madara tried to balk when pale fingers reached for his arm but Tobirama pinned him with a look so venomous he could do nothing but stand absolutely still while his sleeve was pulled up to reveal his forearm, a particularly boring part of the human body in his own opinion, something he was utterly baffled by the need to see until he looked down and noticed something new for the first time.

“That wasn’t there this morning,” he breathed. As he spoke his eyes remained fixed on the small shape exactly halfway between wrist and elbow. The stylized leaf of Konohagakure was something he’d helped to design but he certainly hadn’t expected it to show up on his skin without warning. A soul tattoo. If he hadn’t put it there himself then the only possible explanation was that his soulmate had branded themselves with a tattoo at last, echoing itself on to Madara’s skin through the bond they shared. Suddenly it felt very difficult to swallow. Breathing, too, felt nearly impossible as he watched Tobirama hike up one of his own sleeves and turn his arm.

“It appears my suspicions were correct,” he heard the man say in a strangely gentle voice. “We are soulmates.”

“How?”

Startled, Tobirama blinked at him several times before venturing, “What do you mean how?”

He looked even more startled when Madara began to flail like he always did when his emotions got the better of him.

“I mean how! This doesn’t make sense! It has to be some kind of coincidence, someone else saw your tattoo and got the same one. Something! How the hell can we be soulmates if this ink shows up but the ink all over your face doesn’t show up on mine!?”

“What? Oh. Oh! I see.” Confusion blossomed in to understanding only to fade away in to something soft, something very much like the expression Tobirama reserved only for the rare moments he chose to show his fondness for the few people he was close to. Having such a look directed his way made the poor heart in Madara’s chest leap in several different directions at once. Or at least that was what it felt like.

Feeling almost left behind, he demanded, “You see what?” Then he gasped when Tobirama reached up to touch one of his cheeks.

“The marks on my face are not tattoos. They’re seals, much like the one Mito wears on her forehead, meant to store chakra in case of some emergency.” He traced the line of Madara’s jaw and leaned impossibly closer until they were breathing the same air. “Is that why you refused to speak to me? You wanted this. But you thought- ah. My own reticence comes back to bite me yet again. I’m sorry for the confusion.”

“You should be,” was all Madara could think to say. Forming any thoughts at all felt incredibly difficult at the moment.

“And how shall I make it up to you, hm?”

It would have been impossible to name all the many emotions running through Madara’s veins at that moment. Years of watching and yearning in silence, years spent waiting for the inevitable madness so many Uchiha had fallen victim to, years of cursing his heart for treading this path towards his own doom. All of it had been for nothing. The man he loved was his soulmate after all - and more than that, Tobirama had not rejected him, seemed willing to entertain the notion even. Relief and happiness and consternation and anger and joy and confusion and desperation all wound together in a tight knot he feared would never come untangled again. Words failed him. And so he turned to action.

Tobirama, by some whim of mercy, did not laugh at him for having to stand on his toes in order to crush their mouths together. In fact he seemed more eager to reciprocate than anything else and Madara wondered if turning his eyes away so often had left him blind to things that could have been his a long time ago. He resolved not to ask. Whatever the answer was he was sure it would make him ashamed of his own dramatics.

Several minutes had passed by the time his heels touched the ground again, though his hands remained where he hadn’t even noticed them twisting in to the other’s shirt. Madara closed his eyes and simply breathed for a moment. He still wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t a dream.

“Uchiha don’t love by halves,” he murmured in warning. “If we do this then we do it for real.”

“I know.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Shut up and kiss me again.”

With a bone deep shudder Madara did. He fell in to Tobirama the way he’d never thought he would and when his soulmate caught him as easily as breathing he thought oh.

So this is what it feels like to be loved.

#rae writes #soulmate collection #madatobi #madara #tobirama #fanfiction

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anoceaninthesun · 4 years

Text

Needs Improvement

Thanks largely to a brilliant suggestion by @shineejeya the Home Improvement AU continues with this ficlet (mini-series ??). This time the renovating teams tackle their toughest assignment yet. If only it was all about the house and not the feisty, beautiful client.

Summary: When Yamanaka Ino meddles in her best friend’s love life quest to DIY renovate her new fixer-upper, Haruno Sakura finds herself caught up in a home improvement competition between four handsome, creative questionably qualified renovators.

(Home Improvement AU, Modern AU, Slice-of-Life AU)

Pairings: FoundersxSaku (IzuSaku, TobiSaku, MadaSaku, HashiSaku), ShikaIno, other background pairs

Rating: T

Genre(s): Romance, Comedy, General

Warnings: none really—except maybe swearing, atrocious flirting skills and the Founders being renovating crackheads (not literally, but almost)

Pt. 1, Pt.2

Sakura had her doubts about Ino’s intentions from the moment she showed up dressed so...expensively. The season’s latest denim cut off jacket, glittering top, a perfectly pleated skirt she’d seen in an upscale boutique they went to together, and boots easily worth someone’s paycheck. Granted, her friend had been a fashionista and trendsetter since they were kids.

But, when Ino called the night before claiming it had been too long since they’d hung out and she wanted to do a quiet, girl’s-day-in, she’d agreed. So maybe the pinkette had brought whatever was coming onto herself. She hadn’t thought much of it when the blonde said she’d swing by.

It wasn’t really done, boxes barely unpacked and some rooms still without fresh coats of paint, but it was slowly coming along. Buying her first home at only twenty-two was a big deal, all the years of frugal spending and careful saving, of building credit and working hard culminating in such a huge achievement.

She was so proud of herself, and determined to turn the house into the home of her dreams, one weekend at a time. “Do you want a soda or water?” she called from the kitchen.

She could see Ino on her couch with her thumbs flying over her phone screen, not paying any attention to the movie playing. “Smoothie.” she responded, absently.

“That’s not even one of the choices I just offered!” Sakura huffed.

“Don’t be an ungracious hostess, Sakura.” Ino laughed.

The doorbell chimed, and Sakura went to the fridge and fished out two bottles of water. She raised a suspicious brow when Ino ran to get it before she could so much as ask. Sakura knew she wasn’t expecting anyone else over, but her friends sometimes popped up when they knew she was free (which was sadly less than ever as of late).

Taking the water and setting the two bottles down on the coffee table, Sakura wandered into the mudroom, peering out the window. She took a startled step back, blinking at the cars parked in her driveway and on the other side of the street. Was that...a camera crew? “What the hell?” she whispered. “Ino!” She stomped to the front door, only to find her friend bouncing around, happy sounds leaving her mouth as four incredibly attractive men stepped into her home. And yes, a flood of people with cameras coming in too.

“Hi!” Ino waved with both hands. “Thank you so much for choosing this house! I can’t believe you’re here,” she tucked a loose lock of hair behind one ear and then moved forward to shake the first man’s hand.

Sakura caught herself doing a double take. He looked so much like her childhood friend Sasuke it wasn’t even funny. More like Sasuke than his own older brother did, and she had always thought that their resemblance was pretty strong.

The only real noticeable differences she could spot was his longer hair (hair which stuck up messily the same way Sasuke’s tended to) hanging down his back when he turned.

His lips also looked fuller, and she and Naruto had always reluctantly agreed Sasuke had lips to die for. Their eyes met from over Ino’s shoulder and Sakura felt her heart seize up for half a beat, averting her eyes. He smiled politely, stepping back from Ino so she could continue conversing with the strange group of people.

“So this is the house?” A white-haired man rumbled, his sharp, red eyes drinking in every detail. His unyielding facial expression made it hard to determine whatever thoughts were running to his head. Until his head bobbed once, evidently satisfied. “It’s got good bones.”

Good bones. Sakura had thought the same thing when she’d seen it, and that’s what had prompted her to put a considerable amount of her savings into buying it. That, and maybe a tiny splash of idealism. The location, the rooms, the cute (if not somewhat overgrown) backyard...

“You’re Yamanaka Ino, right? The friend who wrote in?” The next man who spoke brought her right out of her idyllic visions. He was huge, with a beautifully bronzed skin tone, a voice that exuded warmth, and a flannel shirt stretched over a broad chest. He shook Ino’s hand, her whole arm bouncing with his strength, “Is the home owner around?”

“Sure is! She’s right,” Ino half turned and her eyes immediately found Sakura, who had been frozen there the entire time. “Right there!”

Just like that, any illusion of invisibility she had was ripped away, and Sakura stood exposed. The cameras were zooming in, taking in her wide eyes, ghostly pallor and everyday clothes.

“Haruno Sakura?” The man approaching her had a voice that felt like it punched the wind from her lungs, knocking her sideways. He shifted some of his long hair aside and smirked slightly, catching her reaction. She took the hand he offered and shook it, because she wasn’t really sure what else she could do. “I assume you know why we’re here?”

“Bad assumption,” she croaked. “This wasn’t what...I don’t know why...have I seen you somewhere before?”

The role reversal was abrupt. His cocky grin melted into a thin line as his brow arched and he retracted his hand. “You...You haven’t seen the show?”

“No.” Sakura responded, almost challengingly.

The Sasuke-Look-Alike approached with a softer expression, but it did nothing for her nerves. He was just as overwhelming up close as the man she shook hands with.

“We were contacted to renovate a home, your home. As part of a new episode of our show, From House to Home. I’m Uchiha Izuna, and that’s my charming brother—”

“Madara.” Madara introduced himself with pride, as if he had the title of royalty attached to his name. They really were Sasuke’s relatives! Ones she’d never met, and she thought she had met a good deal of his extended family.

Apparently not wanting to be left out, the man with the large presence and abundance of energy came over, his eyes merry even before the genuine grin pulled his mouth up. “I’m Senju Hashirama, and I’m excited to work with you. We’ll get your dream home complete in no time.” Tugging the solemn man to his side and placing an arm around his shoulders, he waited.

“Senju Tobirama.” he said, his tone no more ‘excited’ than his face.

Sakura blinked once, wondering why a brain that could memorize the names for all the bones in a human body with ease had so much difficulty processing this. “Nice to meet you all.” she said slowly. Her eyes darted back to the camera crew still filming. She worried her face was going to look clammy on film. Would they edit out the awkward parts at least?

“So, Ino-san’s told us a little bit, but it’d be great if we could go over what you’re looking for.” Izuna urged.

Figuring it was too late to turn back (although she owed Ino one hell of a scolding for blindsiding her), Sakura nodded. “I’ll show you around.”

______________________________________________________________

Ino flitted around like a dragonfly that couldn’t decide where to land. Sakura did her best not to break into a sweat over the pack of handsome men following her around from room to room. She had plenty of male friends.

Attractive male friends, even. But there was a hot flame at the back of her neck from the gazes tracking her that just wasn’t there when she was around her boys. The crush she’d once had on Sasuke for that awkward period when they were younger, notwithstanding.

“A more open kitchen?” Hashirama repeated. He pulled out a tablet and began fumbling with it, biting his lip briefly. Sighing loudly, Tobirama yanked it from his hand, pointedly turning it so it was no longer upside down, and began tapping.

Sakura smiled slightly. Though they were apparently something like celebrities in the world of home improvement, they gave off a very difference impression in real life. On the other hand, exactly how competent were these men?

“It’d be nice if she could have a bigger island bar. You know, for get togethers with our friends.” Ino put in, standing at one corner of the room.

For all the helpful advice she had, the renovators probably thought Ino lived with her.

“We’ve definitely done some very fun island bars before.” The older Senju said. “Remember the project with the tropical fish tank built in?” He nudged at his brother, who grimaced.

“Your ideas are somehow always even bigger than the clients.” Tobirama grumbled.

Madara wondered over to her humble stove area, examining it. Then her second-hand fridge and microwave. “These appliances are outdated. Anything new we put in would clash.” Sakura took offense to his disdainful expression. It wasn’t easy to afford a house on her budget and spring for brand new kitchenware and appliances.

“It works fine.” Sakura explained, teeth grinding. Who did this man, who probably drove around in a car the same price as the down payment on her house, think he was? To demonstrate, she brushed by his taller frame and turned on one of the eyelets of the stove. A flame sputtered to life. “Plus,” she added, putting on her syrupiest voice, “I know seasoned renovators like yourselves can work around any minor inconveniences the house has.” Madara stared at it, then her, saying nothing else.

Sakura happened to catch the shrewd carmine eyes of Tobirama, noticing how they were lit with mild amusement.

“Without a doubt!” Hashirama agreed, “So Madara, you’ll take responsibility for the kitchen area?”

Crossing his arms, the older Uchiha made a noise reminiscent of reluctant agreeance. Sakura had been friends with Sasuke for a long enough period to decode most vague noises and gestures in an Uchiha’s standard repertoire.

That was without a doubt, “challenge accepted.” ______________________________________________________________

So far, the job ahead didn’t make him feel as miserable as Tobirama had been expecting. Despite the strange newness of the situation, Haruno Sakura didn’t seem like an unreasonable client. They were currently surveying her unfenced backyard, no one more eager to talk about plans for it than Hashirama. “The great thing about how unstructured this space is right now, is that you could do almost anything with it and not worry about taking anything out first. A fence is a definite, but how do you feel about a greenstone garden?”

Sakura contemplated, a slow smile curling her lips as her best friend barely contained a squeal. “Well, I did say whenever I got my own place I’d try my hand at something like that.”

Happy that she was on board, she and Hashirama began to talk shop, with Ino interjecting, apparently a gardening fanatic herself. Tobirama let them chat, busy watching Madara scope out the yard, presumably to see how he’d implement his own project. When he wasn’t doing that, he was boring holes into the side of the client’s head. She had to feel it.

It was starting to agitate him a little, and he wasn’t even the focus of the man’s gaze. Ever since the little display of sass in the kitchen – something Tobirama thoroughly appreciated since quite a few clients were too busy fawning to put Madara in his place–it was hard to tell if the older of the Uchiha brothers wanted to one up them or impress Sakura. More than likely both.

“I don’t think I’d want to splurge on anything like a pool,” Sakura was shaking her head. “But it’d be nice to have something entertaining...”

“A firepit.” Izuna said instantly. “We can do one right off the patio if you want.” He took out his own tablet and showed her a three dimensional construct of what it would look like.

Sakura leaned in, her face approving. “Oh!” Without even seeming to realize it, she gently tugged it from his hands and tapped. “Are these the different designs? I really like this one.”

The camera shifted to show what her choice had been. Though Tobirama found the Uchiha’s penchant for firepits entirely unoriginal from a design perspective, the one Sakura liked would unfortunately be very nice surrounded by Hashirama’s horticultural touches.

Izuna was certainly proud of himself for suggesting it, much less openly smug than his brother. But...too pleased nonetheless. In fact, he had been stealing interested looks at Sakura nearly as often as Madara.

As they moved back into the house, Hashirama and the women in front, the younger Senju traded a very loaded look with the dark-haired brothers.That probably wasn’t going to make the final cut. The show liked to capitalize on a “friendly” if not overly-competitive rivalry, but the venomous sneers they gifted each other were far past it.

They were all supposed to be alright with a collaboration for the sake of Sakura’s dream reno. He just had the niggling suspicion that wasn’t the only thing on their minds. Deny all they wanted, the Uchiha Team tended to shine best when the client was young, female and single. Sakura was at least two out of three things thus far.

At the very least, she wasn’t acting besotted. That was a welcome change. She also seemed financially conscious, which was something else Tobirama appreciated after so long doing budgeting on these projects. A lot of clients didn’t truly understand how that portion of project management worked.

Though, with how surprised she was by the whole affair, he wondered if she even knew an anonymous source had put up a very generous amount to cover the renovation.

Sakura could have two identical houses and triple the square footage if she really wanted it. And it wasn’t beneath Madara to use that knowledge and some sex appeal to coerce someone in the pinkette’s position to let him take control of a project like this one.

Tobirama wasn’t about to let the opposing team break ahead. The time would come shortly for him to speak with Sakura, and when they had that meeting of the minds, he would convince her that an economical reno was the way to go.

______________________________________________________________

It took a lot longer than anticipated but here’s part two. The beginning of the SakuraxFounders interactions! I usually do slow burn, but at the same time this isn’t going to be super long, so romance may happen quicker than usual. I think this is looking more and more like it may become a mini-series (a handful of these little chapters probably), which I have never done on tumblr. Fingers crossed I figure it out. If you’re looking for more FounderxSakura fun from me, and there’s a chance you haven’t seen my oversaturated advertisement for it, you can check out: A Stitch in Time.

#sakura haruno #foundersxsakura #konoha founders #needs improvement #madara uchiha #izuna uchiha #hashirama senju #tobirama senju #ino yamanaka #sakura is already done #tobirama’s getting there #madara should maybe keep his shirt on #sakura might splash bacon grease his way if he crosses her #hashirama never sticks to the budget #madasaku #tobisaku #izusaku #hashisaku

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vnyu73 · 4 years

Text

still breathing

written for @madatobiweek 2020!!

Madatobi Week 3 Prompts: Generation Swap AU OR Fairy tale AU || Enemies/Rivals to lovers OR Mutual Pining

Read on Ao3

———

Madara rushes into Tobirama’s bedroom, the shoji door nearly breaking from the force of him slamming it open.

His frantic eyes immediately land right on the pale, unmoving figure on the futon. The figure on the bed did not stir from their slumber, the chest beneath the covers moving rhythmically without any irregularities. Pale lids cover preciously sharp red eyes. Pale arms lay beside him. The position is so unlike his usual curled-in-sleep self.

His breath is stuck in his throat, threatening to choke him. His hand tightens on the doorway. He doesn’t register the crack under the force of his fingers.

Tobirama looks like he’s just sleeping but he looks dangerously still. If he hadn’t been visibly breathing, he’d look dead. Dead like his brothers—young, too damn young, faces covered with white cloth, still, lifeless; so unlike the lively flames they had been—, his parents—cold hands in his as they breathe their last—, and his fallen clansmen. Warm hands cold. Unreachable. Static.

So very, very unlike the ever-moving man with multiple lines of thought on anything and everything under the sun and then some simultaneously going through his mind whom he loves so much it aches.

It takes all he can muster to not collapse right there by the doorway at the sight. The lead weight in his heart threatens to ground him where he stands.

He doesn’t blink, half-afraid that he would open his eyes to his beloved with an unmoving chest. His life stolen by his own carelessness.

(“We found him collapsed in his lab. He’s in a coma.” Hashirama’s voice is uncharacteristically grave as if, with Tobirama’s absence, he had to be the serious one for once. His brown hand feels like a weight heavier than the giant tree the Senju had once thrown at him.

Madara has to remember to breathe, air moving in and out of his body in quiet, shuddering gasps as the reality of it all set in.

A dainty hand touches the back of his hand to offer assurance, and he turns to look. Mito’s brown eyes burn into his, rife with determination. “I’ve been looking through his notes. I’m close to the answer, I know it. I will find out how to fix this, Madara. I will never let my brother sleep forever.”

Hashirama gently pats his cheek. “You can visit him in the meantime. We’ll bring you whatever news we have immediately.”

Madara has never moved faster in his life.)

His footsteps are deathly loud in the silence. He can’t hear Tobirama’s breathing in the midst of it. He collapses beside the futon, armor and unwashed hair and all.

The familiarity of it all threatens to crush him. Countless memories of sitting beside deathbeds of his loved ones run though his mind once more. Breathless gasps leaving final words, the light leaving once-lively eyes, still chests, white cloth over dead-pale faces, slack hands in his.

He takes Tobirama’s hand in his. It’s warm, a meager comfort from the chill that has taken root in his chest ever since Hashirama told him of the news. It’s a comfort nonetheless. His nose stings.

Dark eyes take in every feature of the man laying in the futon. The white hair, the sweeping white lashes, the curve of the smart mouth, the slope of his nose, the strength in his jaw, the firm chest still rising in falling.

Maybe if he looked hard enough, he would never forget a detail. But this isn’t how he wants to remember his love.

The image he wants to have engraved into his soul is whenever this man laughs, whenever he has the ever-bright glint of discovery and fascination in his eyes, whenever he eviscerates people with so few words, whenever this reserved man softens in his presence, whenever he turns to look and sees this man’s love for him naked on his face.

Not like this.

He buries his face in the palm of the pale hand he holds, his breath stutters from the weight in his chest. Tears gather and streak down his cheeks in warm, salty streams. He shuts his eyes tight as he starts to sob.

He breathes in the scent of Tobirama, ozone and sea and oak melded into a scent of comfort and familiarity. He grounds himself in the warmth of the hand in his. He’s not dead. He’s not dead. He’s not dead. He still breathes. His chakra still thrums. He’s still warm.

Madara’s tears lessen and he has enough strength in him to look at the gorgeous face below him. He blinks the tears gathered in his eyes to see Tobirama’s asleep face clearer.

The stillness of his beloved threatens to break him and he can’t help but kiss that marked cheek and mouth, his own mouth wet with his tears. When the mouth beneath his doesn’t move to reciprocate, his tears flood his eyes once more.

He buries his head into Tobirama’s neck, mouth opening in a soundless cry. His sobs ring throughout the room. His chest feels heavy and hollow at the same time.

Unseen by shut dark eyes buried in a pale neck, precious red eyes flutter open.

“Madara?”

Tobirama—

He nearly breaks his back with speed of which he straightened up.

Awake red eyes framed by white lashes look at him curiously like he hadn’t been almost death-like in the coma he just woke from. He’s awake. He’s alive. A flood of words want to flow out through his throat but the sheer number of them threaten to suffocate him where he sits.

“Madara, what’s wrong? You look like you’re on my deathbed. You- you’re crying.” A pale, warm, alive hand reaches up to wipe his tears. It suddenly stills after one wipe. “Ah.” He remembers.

Madara finally finds his voice, choking out, “You fucking idiot, I was gone for a week to find you in a coma.” He’s holding too tightly—he feels light but exhausted with the sudden relief from the weight on what felt like his soul—on the hand in his to wipe his no doubt wet and disgusting face.

There is hesitation in Tobirama’s face as it seems the gravity Madara had put on the situation is clear to him. A hand paler than Madara’s held his cheeks. “I was… studying a coma-inducing poison from Yuki no Kuni that Umeko—” A cousin of his, Madara remembers. “—found. I accidentally mixed it in with a volatile compound in a moment of carelessness—I admit that I had missed sleep. I am… very sorry to have distressed you.”

Before he could explode at the audacity of this man to scare him so much with the result of his recklessness with his own safety, he is rudely interrupted.

“MADARA! MADARA, MITO FIGURED IT OU—” Hashirama lumbers though the still-open door only to stop, stock-still at the sight he finds. He reanimates not a second later. “OTOUTO!!”

Both of them wheeze from the force and weight of such a tall and bulky man landing right on them. Madara’s armor doesn’t help matters, digging into all the uncomfortable places. They squawk at the large man to “Get off!!” but wood must have grown in his ears because he decidedly does not get off.

Madara manages—miracle of miracles—to extricate himself from the older Senju’s embrace with much effort and bears witness to another episode of brotherly Senju squabbling, Tobirama smushing Hashirama’s face away as the taller one tries to gather the squirming younger into his arms.

His eyes crinkle at the sides, chest light. This is the kind of image he wants to keep in his soul forever.

———

...does this even resemble sleeping beauty enough to count as a fairy tale au...

before you ask: izuna is alive, just away on a mission, and yes, tobirama lost sleep because madara was away 😎👉👉

#madatobiweek2020 #madatobi #uchiha madara #senju tobirama #yeehaw another angsty one #but seriously does this even count as a sleeping beauty au #vin.doc

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asotin · 4 years

Text

Five Stages

This was an early draft of Seven Steps that didn’t quite work, but I got attached to it. It’s still messier than I’d like, but I think this is as good as I’m going to get it. So here’s 3.7k of an AU where Tobirama died instead of Izuna, which comes with its own problems

Hashirama has never forgiven Izuna.

Madara watches them together, and while Hashirama is never less than polite, there's a distance between them even strangers from other clans can see.

There's a distance between Hashirama and Madara as well. It’s new in the scale of the time they've known each other, but it's older than the shrine in Hashirama’s house.

They don't talk about the shrine.

Other than the practicalities of growing their village, they hardly talk at all. The growing silence is making Madara nervous.

He needs to know what this means, and if Hashirama won't say anything on his own, Madara will make him.

They’re up on the cliff where they first imagined Konoha, away from the rest of the village. When he wasn't in his office or at home, Madara knew Hashirama would be here.

Bracing himself, Madara asks, “You’re thinking about Tobirama, aren't you?”

Sitting beside him, their legs hanging over the edge like when they were children, Hashirama nods.

“Izuna bore him no ill will,” Madara continues when Hashirama says nothing. “Your brother died because our clans were at war and Izuna was stronger.”

It's true, and it isn't.

Madara’s brother knew what Hashirama seems not to understand- Tobirama loved him.

After years of deadlock, all it took for Izuna to get the upper hand was a feint toward Hashirama.

From the way Hashirama has been acting, he doesn't know that, and if Tobirama decided not to tell him, Madara has no reason to speak up.

“I know he didn't,” Hashirama says. “People die during war. That's why I worked so hard to end it.”

Madara tilts his head, studying Hashirama. “Then you also know you keep Izuna at a distance, don't you? The rest of the village can see it, and they avoid him.”

“And the rest of the village understands why,” Hashirama points out. There's an edge to his voice that appeared when Tobirama died. It's a legacy of sorts- Tobirama died, but his standoffishness took root in his brother. “He was my only remaining brother, Madara. Would you have welcomed Tobirama if he'd killed Izuna?”

“No, but you're a better man than I am,” Madara says. He won't pretend to be benevolent. They both know better.

“I'm not.”

“Aren't you? Izuna lives. You won't welcome him, but you won't hate him either.” He shrugs. “You won't even send him out on missions where he'd be in danger. As your brother must have told you, we’re prone to self-destruction. If you set him on the path, Izuna would get himself killed.

“Yet you don't. You won't accept him, and you won't make use of him. Make up your mind.”

Hashirama draws a long breath in. “What purpose does this serve, Madara? We've made peace. Our families are flourishing in the village we built. Why are you trying to make me fight with you?”

“You're too quiet,” Madara says simply.

He could elaborate. He could list the signs he’s seen of Hashirama losing his confidence. He could tell Hashirama that even other Senjus are beginning to worry. He could look Hashirama in the eye and tell him that no one can understand why he's mourning so hard for a brother he didn't love.

He never feared Hashirama on the battlefield, but he doesn't want to show his guts to this man who won't show his own.

Madara has tried to have this conversation before, but Hashirama has always dodged it.

Out here, they don't avoid each other.

Hashirama sighs. “I miss Tobirama.”

“And?”

Hashirama frowns at him. “And? That's all. Tobirama was here, and now he isn't. So I miss him.”

“It can't be that simple.”

You didn't actually love him.

“Why not?” Leaning forward, Hashirama looks out over their village. “You only knew Tobirama as an enemy, so I don't blame you for having no love for him. He was stubborn and too smart for his own good. He saw the world as it is, not as it could be. He didn't know how to make peace, and I don't think he wanted to. But he was still a good man.”

Madara shakes his head. “I'm not questioning that you loved him.”

“Aren't you? You're a poor liar, Madara.” Without waiting for Madara to answer, Hashirama sighs. “You don't understand why his death bothers me.”

“We’ve both buried far younger brothers. What is it about this one that's so special?”

“You're still trying to provoke me into a fight.” Hashirama closes his eyes. “I understand now. Thank you, Madara, but I can't be angered out of this.”

The longer Madara looks at him, the worse the prickles of fear grow. “You'll stay like this, then?”

“Not forever.”

Unsettled, Madara says, “I've never heard you talk like this.”

“You've never heard me talk about Tobirama.”

“Can you blame me? You're the hokage. My clan’s position-”

“Is secure!” Hashirama snaps, eyes snapping open. His voice is loud enough for the words to echo, and his forehead is furrowed in anger when he turns to glare at Madara. “I've encouraged the other clans to extend their welcome to the Uchihas. Already, there are friendships forming between your clan and the others, mine included.

“In what way, short of embracing Izuna, have I not shown our village that I want your clan here, Madara? Tell me so I can address it.”

Madara considers the question.

“There aren't any,” he admits slowly.

“Then let me have this.” Hashirama rubs his face. “I just need time to stop feeling like I’m holding Tobirama's body.”

Madara remembers the way dread crept up his chest when Hashirama noticed Izuna standing over his brother.

Tobirama had caught Izuna’s fireball squarely, but he hadn't died immediately. Izuna had been intending to drive his sword through Tobirama in an act of mercy.

Madara had called him away before he could, unwilling to risk Hashirama misunderstanding, and Izuna had run to him before Hashirama reached Tobirama.

Being touched must have been excruciating, but Tobirama had only let out a single, agonized whine as Hashirama gathered him up, ignoring the way his own body was being burned by Tobirama’s nearly molten armor. His skin had cycled between burning and healing.

Tobirama’s head had lolled unnaturally against Hashirama’s shoulder, his breath rattling. Hashirama had begun to walk away, only to pause when Tobirama said something, his voice too low to reach Madara or any other Uchiha. Whatever it was, Hashirama’s eyes had gone wide before he took another step.

Madara had felt the same sense of foreboding the rest of his clan must have as Hashirama carried Tobirama away.

As one, the rest of the Senjus had retreated silently.

They'd met on the same battlefield the next morning, and if Madara hadn't known Hashirama, he would have thought the look on Hashirama’s face was simple exhaustion.

Hashirama hadn't called for a truce like he had in the past. He'd sprinted forward alone, his clan hanging back as his hands formed a series of seals Madara hadn't seen before, and in the space of a second, a massive wall of roots had erupted from the ground, throwing nearly every Uchiha into the air and wrapping around them before dragging them back to the earth. Madara had been the only one who'd escaped it. He'd braced himself for Hashirama’s next move, but he'd had no way of preparing for what Hashirama had actually done.

Tobirama must have taught his brother something new before he died because as Hashirama ran toward Madara, a second Hashirama had materialized behind Madara and forced him to the ground.

It hadn't been a clone; clones have no substance. Madara’s Sharingan can see through them easily.

Pinned to the ground, legs bound by roots and hands pinned by this second Hashirama, Madara had found himself at the mercy of a stranger.

“Yield,” the original Hashirama had said when he arrived. He'd looked down at Madara over his double’s shoulder, features pinched. “Please, Madara. Don't make me lose you, too.”

As Madara lay on the ground, immobilized, he’d known one thing with absolute clarity.

If he refused, Hashirama would kill him.

In the present, Hashirama rubs his forehead. “I’m sorry, Madara, but I'd like to be on my own now.”

The look on his face is eerily similar to that day, so Madara nods and leaves.

Madara crouches in the brush near Hashirama and waits.

Hashirama has a habit of talking to himself aloud; eavesdropping on him when he thinks he's alone is the easiest way to figure out what he's thinking.

It doesn't take long.

“Well, Tobirama,” Hashirama says, squinting up at the clouds, “the impossible dream wasn't so impossible.

“I found the scrolls you told me about, and I think I picked the right people to make your plans real. The Academy I wanted to build is almost ready to open, and the children have already begun to adjust to their new playmates. The adults will take time, but even Madara is optimistic.”

Madara fights a snort. Optimistic is overly generous.

That's Hashirama, though, isn't it? Always seeing the best outcome. Tobirama must know to account for that.

“But you should know,” Hashirama says, tone darkening, “I had to destroy some of what you left. I know you made them as a last resort, but, Tobirama, some of what you created was evil.” He shakes his head. “I'm glad you died before I saw them, because I would've had to ask you if you'd tested them and you would've told me that you had.

“You always did take after Father.” Tilting his head back, Hashirama sighs. “Was it my fault? Was I so consumed with making peace with Madara, I didn't notice how far you’d gone? Or were you always going to go this far?

“Konoha may be safer without you. Do you know how much that hurts? To be relieved my own brother is dead? You were the only one left, Tobirama. You were the only one who became an adult, and I can't even mourn you properly.”

Hashirama hits the ground next to his hip with a fist. “And you had the audacity to tell me as you died that you wanted me to make the life with Madara that I wanted. How long did you know? Could you really only tell me to be happy with him because you were dying?”

Recognizing an opportunity when he sees it, Madara gets to his feet and emerges from his hiding spot. “No, he said it years ago.”

Hashirama looks over sharply. “Madara? Didn't you leave?”

“Obviously not. You should pay more attention,” Madara chastises as he returns to Hashirama's side. He sits down heavily. “As I said before, I have no ill will toward your brother, so it costs me nothing to tell you he said nearly the same thing to me.”

“When did you and Tobirama see each other when I wasn't nearby?” Hashirama asks. His brow is furrowed again, but without anger to make it threatening, he only looks confused.

Madara chuckles; the memory is a favorite of his. “It must have been a decade ago. I was feeling nostalgic, so I went back to the river. Your brother was there, washing up. I didn't recognize him at first.”

“You didn't recognize Tobirama?” Hashirama asks, suspicion heavy in his voice. “Even without the ruff, he wasn't difficult to identify.”

He gestures at his face and waves his hand above his head.

“I couldn't see his face, Hashirama.”

“Oh of course.” Hashirama nods. “He would have been washing it.”

Madara lays his hand on Hashirama’s shoulder. Hashirama’s brain is trying so hard not to accept the obvious. “I came up behind him, Hashirama. That part of him didn't match his face.”

“Madara!”

“He didn't notice me at first either, oddly. He must have been too absorbed in what he was doing around front-”

“Madara!” Hashirama hisses.

“He was cleaning that stupid mantle while he bathed,” Madara tells him, having a good time now that Hashirama isn't so distant. “I saw his back, nothing more. Don't be disgusting.”

“Could you please get to the point?” Hashirama asks, pained.

“The point, Hashirama, is that Tobirama was naked in a river, I caught him by surprise, and he wasn't stupid enough to try to fight me unarmed and undressed. So he glared at me pissily. He’d already squeaked when he spotted me, unfortunately, and there's no coming back from that.”

Madara had spent years poking fun at Izuna about not being able to beat a sensor type who got so caught up washing his clothes that Madara could have killed him.

The joke isn't funny anymore, but for a time, Madara had finally had a rejoinder for being unable to outwit Hashirama.

“I don't know why I didn't try to kill him,” Madara continues. “Regardless, I didn't, and he told me that if you and I made peace, I should remember how happy you and I had been together. If there was a way to make you happy like that again, I better take it. He was quite emphatic about that.”

A high, miserable sound bursts out of Hashirama.

Madara lifts a hand and squeezes his shoulder. “Izuna told me once that he wishes he hadn't told our father about you. He was trying to protect our clan, but who knows? Maybe if he'd spoken to me first, you and I could have made peace in our own way.”

“You think Tobirama felt the same way.”

“I didn't know your brother, but it seems likely.”

Hashirama leans into Madara, safe from the knowledge of how much Tobirama loved him. “Is it terrible to wish he'd lived because he'd do paperwork for me?”

Madara snorts. “I've heard your cousins express a similar wish. It was Tobirama who kept your work in order when our clans were at war, wasn't it?”

“He was so organized,” Hashirama says wistfully. “He was a pain in the ass, but he was a good second in command. Everything I came up with, he improved. Our clan became more dangerous simply by becoming more effective.”

“This is the most pathetic thing I've ever heard, Hashirama, and I heard you ask me out.”

Hashirama slumps over with a whine, leaning into Madara heavily. “It wasn't that bad!”

Madara huffs. “It was mortifying. I almost said no just to preserve my own dignity.”

Hashirama whines again, leaning into him harder, and Madara shakes his head.

“You could argue that the hokage making a fool of himself to ask me if I'd like to get dinner wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me, and you did pick a nice place.”

Madara moves his arm so he can rest his hand on Hashirama’s waist.

“And you made a fool of yourself after dinner,” Hashirama says smugly. The tables turned, he perks up. “Having to be escorted home, how embarrassing.”

“Shut up!” Madara hisses. “I'd been drinking.”

“Perhaps because you were nervous about being on a date with me?”

“Don't think you're too old for me to throw you in the river.”

“But you're so small, Madara. Are you certain you could lift me? I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

Temples throbbing, Madara gives Hashirama a pointed shove, and Hashirama yelps in surprise as he tips over.

“I could have fallen off the edge!” he complains from the ground.

“If you couldn’t recover from a little nudge, you'd deserve whatever happened.”

Eyes narrowing, Hashirama asks, “Is that so?”

Madara nods. “Of course.”

“I see.”

Madara sees the counterattack coming, so when Hashirama flies at him, Madara is ready for it.

They wrestle on the edge of the cliff like they did years ago. Madara resists the urge to cheat and pick Hashirama up- he's so big, no one tries to lift him, so he doesn't know how to get free.

Madara has a suspicion that isn't the real reason Hashirama’s eyes go wide when Madara manhandles him, but that's a theory for another time.

He pins Hashirama in the end anyway.

“What's with that face?” he asks, poking Hashirama’s cheek.

Hashirama’s expression shifts from distant to rueful. “I was just remembering that the other kage think I’m incompetent.”

Madara hums. He went to the kage summit with Hashirama; he saw everything Hashirama did. “A mistake on their part.”

“A potentially lethal one for our people. If Tobirama were alive, they wouldn't think they could take advantage of us.”

He's probably right.

Sitting up, Madara puts his hands on his hips. “I'm smart, you know, and I’m not hamstrung by liking people. That's why people think you aren't smart. You're too friendly.”

“That does seem to be the problem. Unfortunately, you get this look that says you're thinking about doing something reckless, and everyone knows you're impulsive,” Hashirama adds pointedly.

Madara lifts his chin. “I’m not that bad.”

“Yes, you are. I know you.”

He does and he doesn't. Hashirama doesn't see darkness, only places where light could be. He refuses to accept that there are places that have to be kept in the dark.

Tobirama understood that. He, like Madara, lived in the world where men like Hashirama can't go. He saw the necessity of violence and didn't try to reason with it.

Madara can only guess at the contents of the scrolls Hashirama inherited. Perhaps they were indeed unconscionable, but perhaps they were practical plans for surviving the inevitable threats that will come to them. He doubts Hashirama will ever tell him.

“You know me well enough, I suppose,” Madara allows.

He’ll do the things in the dark that Hashirama can't.

Hashirama reaches for him, and Madara lets himself be tugged down until he's lying on top of Hashirama. He doesn't like the position; it leaves him vulnerable.

The weight of Hashirama’s arms resting on his back has slowly begun to feel more like a shield than a restraint.

“Tobirama kept a list of all our dead,” Hashirama says slowly, his chin brushing the top of Madara’s head. “Not just that they'd died but how they'd died and where they were buried. Our father used to tell him it was pointless. I thought he was keeping a tally of lives to get revenge for. We both told him to stop, but from the stack of scrolls I found, he never did.” He takes a slow, deep breath in. “Looking back, I think it was just his way of accounting for them. He wasn't good at showing love, but he did feel it.”

“You want to continue what he started,” Madara surmises, “and you want Tobirama to be the first name.”

“That’s right. Although, I was thinking of doing something public and less detailed. This is everyone’s village. I want our names to be recorded beside each other as comrades.”

Madara thinks it over. A public record of all the ninjas who died for their village feels right, and to mix their clans would build camaraderie.

“Individual clans would still keep track of their dead?” he asks.

“Of course.”

“And the recording of names- how would it be done?”

“By when they died. If we don't have a precise order, we’ll go by name.”

Nodding to himself, Madara accepts that Hashirama’s idea for the memorial is a good one.

The problem is Tobirama.

The Senju name is all over the village. Giving Tobirama, who died before Konoha was more than a wish, such a place of honor would further tilt the scales toward Hashirama's clan, but denying Hashirama a way of acknowledging his brother will only upset him, which Madara has no interest in doing.

“Dedicate the memorial to him,” Madara suggests after a long moment. “This wasn't his home, but the tradition came from him.”

Hashirama hums thoughtfully. “Instead of inscribing his name on it first, you mean.”

Madara nods. “Let the honor of being recorded first go to someone who belonged to Konoha. If it's a Senju, so be it, but it shouldn't be your brother.”

Hashirama squeezes Madara hard.

“This is a new world,” he says, voice rough, “but none of the brothers I wanted it for got to see it.”

Madara thinks back to the brothers he and Izuna don't talk about. None of them will see Konoha either. They aren't even water to nurture Konoha’s growing roots. They're just dead, buried without ceremony or a name on their hasty graves.

“That's the cost of surviving,” Madara reminds Hashirama. “Even in this village, we’ll have to carry our dead as we move ahead.”

“I should live for them as well as myself, you mean?”

Madara scoffs. “Don't be absurd. Are you going to make every choice according to your dead brothers’ desires? What will you do when those desires conflict?” He lays his head on Hashirama's chest. He doesn't know what his other brothers would have wanted; they died too young to live on in anything more than name. “You carry them by remembering them.”

How does Hashirama remember his brother? What love does he have for Tobirama that's so small he let Izuna live?

“Then I’ll make sure Konoha flourishes,” Hashirama says, his voice low and determined. “So long as someone who calls Konoha home survives, Tobirama will, too.” He squeezes Madara too hard for comfort. “We’ll all live on in each other.”

Madara lets Hashirama keep this dream. Leaving things to others has never been in Madara’s nature; the future is too important to be delegated so flippantly.

“Did you know that when you disagree with me, your nose wrinkles?”

Hashirama sounds tired, so Madara only nods. They can argue later.

It's the middle of the afternoon. The hokage shouldn't be out of his village’s sight for long, but Madara is going to keep Hashirama here for a while. No one else can stop Hashirama, and for the moment, that's what he's going to be.

“Let's go drinking tonight,” Hashirama suggests. “As war buddies.”

Madara hums his agreement. They'll remember the dead, rib each other for strategic fumbles, ramble about the future, then stumble home together. They'll crawl into their shared futon and fall asleep together, and when they wake up in the morning, Hashirama healthy and Madara hung over, they'll continue living.

They'll carry all they have and more because a good shinobi endures.

#aptxt #naruto #hashimada #notaficbutmaybe #long post

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louiserandom · 4 years

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Choose Your Own Adventure - MadaTobi Soulmate AU Arc I

Heart’s Desire (Ice and Fire)

Rated: E

Summary: A touch is all it takes, to find one’s soulmate, to initiate an exchange of chakra natures and powers that would later intermingle and make both of them stronger. Madara craves this—or at least thinks he does, until he awakens one morning sans Sharingan, his chakra alien and freezing, and watches an angry Senju Tobirama crash into his room, glaring murder at Madara with what used to be his exclusive Mangekyō pattern.

Or, Soulmate Idiots in Love and you get to choose how these fools get to the love part

Read it on AO3 or under the cut :3

(just in case, all the survey comment replies will be on AO3)

Chapter 1

Madara went to bed in a begrudgingly pleasant mood following the ostentatious celebrations Hashirama had organized to mark the first anniversary of Konoha’s founding.

He wakes up feeling parched, freezing, muscles aching all over, like he’s been hit fist-first by a Susanoo or several.

And perfect eyesight.

Madara blinks.

No. No, that can’t be right.

There’s no familiar prickling pressure of the Sharingan’s chakra behind his eyes, so it should be impossible for him to see the world in such perfect clarity.

Except, he does. Madara looks at his hands, now trembling from the unrelenting cold. Fever, some kind of psychedelic poison, perhaps. He shuts his eyes for a few moments and reopens them, slowly. Every irksome scar on his palm, every little wrinkle on his blanket, almost every strand of wild bedhead hair is visible to Madara in a way nothing has been since his Mangekyo had awakened at sixteen.

He tries to activate it and fails. And that’s when it finally hits him.

Soulmate. He sighs with no small measure of relief. Right. No need to panic.

Just a harmless exchange of powers which would easily lead to Madara’s Chosen since they’d end up, presumably, with his dōjutsu and a very distinctive fire nature chakra. Another shiver runs through him. Oh, how he misses his chakra now.

Regardless, once he’s next to his soulmate, he should feel better. Presumably, they’re still in the confines of the village, the longer delay in the bond’s manifestation is an inconvenience of adult soulmate bonding that Madara will have to deal with.

The icepick jolts of pain in his muscles aren’t easy to ignore, but Madara stands all the same, rushing to the bathroom to make himself presentable, mentally running through the list of people he’d touched last evening. Unfortunately, a lot. Mostly handshakes, because he’ll never be quite as comfortable with casual touches as Izuna and Hashirama are, and it already takes a lot of his willpower to drop the gloves and expose the mess that is his fire-charred skin.

But this is what he’s been waiting for, dreaming about since the times he was a starry-eyed child first hearing about the concept of partners made perfect for each other, chosen by fate. There was no harm in a platonic soulmate, of course, but Madara has secretly been craving his bond to be a romantic one. If only to feel, to taste, to have the chance to cherish the intimate closeness everyone around him seems to enjoy, with or without a soulmate, while Madara struggles, miserably at that, to connect with anyone on a deeper level than a shallow fling. He’d never admit that this is the reason he’s suddenly become less averse to handshakes and touchy-feely attitudes, but there’s no point lying to himself, at least.

“Fuck.” The ache trickling through his veins gets so strong he has to pause mid-dressing and close his eyes to come down the force of it. What is…

“Godsdammit, Uchiha,” an unfortunately familiar voice bellows from within his house, for some inexplicable reason, “where are you?”

The world is spinning somewhat uncomfortably as Madara’s eyes fly open and he stumbles out of the bathroom to face the intruder—none other Senju Tobirama crashing into his room, glaring murder at Madara with what used to be his exclusive Mangekyō pattern.

“Senju?”

1) Maybe, Madara supposes, there is a tiny, infinitesimal advantage to self-deception.

“No,” he whispers, a shudder running through him from what he knows isn’t the nagging cold this time, “you can’t be my soulmate.”

2) Madara stares. Perhaps rudely, but he allows himself the indulgence as his brain scrambles to find a half-coherent answer to what the fuck is going on. “You’re my soulmate?”

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p.s. a sketch for this chapter based on a comment that cracked me up XD

Chapter 2

Madara stares. Perhaps rudely, but he allows himself the indulgence as his brain scrambles to find a half-coherent answer to what the fuck is going on. “You’re my soulmate?”

“Evidently, Uchiha, the gods have a strange sense of humor.” Tobirama narrows his eyes. “Now, care to explain why I’m suddenly near-blind?”

Ah, Madara’s brain supplies eloquently, right.

“It’s the,” Madara stutters, because how does one explain that one of the most powerful and useful dōjutsu in existence also leads to blindness? “It’s the effect of the Sharingan. It affects eyesight.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?” Tobirama takes a step forward. Madara realizes, acutely, that he can feel the waves of anger radiating from the man. “Are you a complete idiot?”

Madara crosses his arms. “It’s none of your business, Senju, what I do and don’t do,” he says, barely managing to refrain from shouting.

“It is, apparently, because we’re bonded now,” Tobirama says, voice dangerously low, “I can barely see anything without this accursed thing,” he points to easily the most revered dōjutsu in existence, “your pathetic excuse for a sensing ability doesn’t compensate for it in the slightest and this migraine won't go away.”

“Well, deactivate it, genius,” Madara says, remembering his own suffering through the ache this morning that’s still wracking through his body. “And my sensing abilities—”

“Are bullshit,” Tobirama cuts him off, “and how would I know how to turn this thing off?”

“Oh.” Again, a show of eloquence. The fact honestly throws Madara off, because he can’t imagine having the Sharingan and not being able to intrinsically control it. “Just—just relax!”

“I can’t, Uchiha,” Tobirama growls, “because any time I focus on these godsdamned eyes, the pain only grows worse. I’m haunted by visions I can’t seem to stop—or unsee—and you want me to fucking relax?”

That is a fair point. He looks beyond distraught, just as agitated and disheveled as Madara—only that’s a look Madara’s never seen on him. Tobirama’s eyes gleam with a more potent red now and the deadly pattern engrained on them makes him look more threatening than usual, his hair is sticking at odd angles and so are his hastily thrown on clothes, his shirt barely tied, sandals askew, his attire showing so much skin when it’s usually barely visible.

Also, Hashirama had warned Madara that being near Tobirama is ‘unsafe’ when he starts to swear. Regardless, Madara only crosses his arms tighter and huffs; he will not be intimidated.

“Yes,” he says, “I want you to calm down and act rationally like you claim you always do. Every second you use the Mangekyo, you’re only making it worse.”

“Worse?” Another thing Madara has never seen the Senju express: panic. He takes a step back just as Madara takes one forward, raising his arms in a pacifying gesture. Panic and a Mangekyo with an unpredictable special ability never mixed well. “What do you mean—why wasn’t it a problem for Tōka when she and Izuna exchanged powers?”

“Because his is different,” Madara says. “He uses it less.”

“Why would you abuse it to this level then?” Tobirama’s new eyes were starting to bleed around the edges. Oh, perfect. "Do you have no sense of self-preservation?

“Senju, you need to calm down." Madara takes another tentative step towards him. "And if you have trouble remembering, just a year ago we were at war. I needed to.”

“You’re almost blind,” Tobirama says, as if Madara didn’t hear him the first time.

“Why would you care? Those are my eyes and I will ultimately deal with the consequences,” Madara growls.

“Because the consequence is you going blind, you idiot!” Tobirama explodes, even as he gasps and takes a few staggering steps back. He must have noticed the blood clouding his vision. And to top that, Madara feels familiar erratic energy gathering in the room. “What is…"

How does Izuna always calm him down from his rages?

“Listen, Senju,” Madara tries, approaching him slowly, “I get it, you’re upset, blindness, that’s—that’s bad. But we’ll talk about it,” he promises, “I’ll explain everything, and I’ll help, but you have to calm the fuck down.”

“How?” Tobirama is breathing heavily, Sharingan flitting wildly, unfocused.

“Choose any object in the room and focus on it, or, or on me.” Madara winces. He really doesn’t have Izuna’s talent for this. “And just—Senju, you’re not listening.”

“I can’t, Madara.” More shocking than Tobirama’s use of his first name is the intense surge of Tobirama’s chakra rippling through the room. Surprisingly, that suddenly makes Madara’s pain die down to a low buzz. “Everything’s—”

“Red and blurry and painful, I know,” Madara tries to ground him. “Kneading chakra into it isn’t how you deal with it.”

“The visions—”

“Aren’t real,” Madara lies, knowing that Tobirama is probably seeing figments of his memories, most likely not the pleasant kind.

“Madara, I can’t do this!” Tobirama shouts, all but huddled against the corner now. He’s hyperventilating, desperately trying to wipe away the blood only flowing harder from his sockets, and it’s all Madara can do to hope he doesn’t attempt to claw them out. “It’s getting—it’s—I…”

Madara watches him in a bit of a stupor. This isn’t like their usual shouting matches or heated arguments during yet another meeting where their interests clash. Tobirama is never vulnerable. He shouldn’t be.

This isn’t right.

Part of Madara wants to touch him, knead their bonded chakra together and comfort him, while the other urges him to run away, to use the Hiraishin Tobirama so favors and escape this strange, unfamiliar mess.

Madara finds he has no idea what to do, and the intimate knowledge of just how dangerous his Mangekyō can be keeps him frozen in place.

Madara swears under his breath and, throwing caution and his own mounting panic to the wind, closes the distance between himself Tobirama, all but wrestling his trembling frame into a hug.

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Chapter 3

Tobirama tenses up at once, his breath hitching, but doesn’t do much else to break the hold. Madara doesn’t die instantly, which is good, all things considered. The world doesn’t distort and disappear and there’s no hint of his Sharingan’s ability spontaneously acting up.

“What—” Tobirama finds his voice.

“You’re okay, Senju. Just breathe.”

Tobirama shifts against him, muscles twitching in a half-hearted attempt to break free, but Madara doesn’t allow him, only drawing him closer and wrapping him tighter in his arms.

“You’re okay,” Madara says with as much conviction as he can muster. “Don’t mind those visions and try to ignore the pain. You’re going to be okay.” And that’s more of a truthful statement, because the way Tobirama keeps shaking as he tries and fails to catch his breath is more than a little unnerving.

He’s not supposed to be like this.

“You’re going to be okay,” he repeats, trying to calm the both of them, really, and to his surprise, it seems to be working, if just a little.

Tobirama doesn’t quite relax, but stays silent and doesn’t move, forcefully leveling out his breath as he squeezes his eyes shut and buries his head in the mess that is Madara’s unkempt hair. It’s a bit awkward, and Madara has no idea what to do with his hands, placing them stiffly on Tobirama’s shoulders. That makes their position more awkward and Madara settles for his lower back, trying for soothing motions that just end up being stilted pats of sorts. That has him giving up entirely and ending up completely still, staring at a single point in the wall and willing his mind stop repeating its incessant, panicked mantra of fuck.

A few still moments pass before Tobirama says, “Chakra.”

Madara blinks. “Chakra? What about it?”

To Madara’s steadily increasing surprise, Tobirama leans more into his embrace, willingly, and finally manages to take a deeper breath.

“Feels good,” he says simply, and it finally hits Madara that… something has changed.

Tobirama’s—well, Madara’s chakra now embedded in his coils—has spread out significantly, filling up the space around them like thick, almost tangible steam, feeling hot, familiar and comforting. So much so that, apparently, the last remnants of the ache bothering Madara since he’d woken up are gone.

Which is strange, considering how the pain spiked up after he had presumably sensed Tobirama approaching. Soulbonds do have the ability to calm and even heal soulmates in certain cases, but Madara had always assumed that soulmates had to have an accepted bond for that particular part of it to work.

Or at least be fond of one another. Not hate each other’s guts like he and Tobirama do.

Fuck.

It’s all a gigantic, confusing mess.

Madara closes his eyes, mimicking the pattern of Tobirama’s breathing. Just for the hell of it, he pushes out the alien chakra from his coils in a tentative attempt to further comfort Tobirama, and the effect is immediate. Both of them feel the intermingling of the energies—ice cold and molten hot. Usually clashing when they lose control during their fights, now merging instead into a force that makes Madara’s skin prickle in a surprisingly pleasant way. And judging by the feel of Tobirama finally relaxing into his hold, it seems to affect him similarly as well.

“Senju, do your sensing abilities cause you chronic pain unless you’re overwhelmed by a particularly strong chakra signature?”

Madara doesn’t know what compelled him to ruin an otherwise blessedly peaceful moment, but he does want to find out if Tobirama is being hypocritical when chastising him for keeping self-destructive secrets.

Tobirama draws away, staring at Madara in confusion, Sharingan still blazing, almost blending in with the inflamed blood vessels as thin trails of blood keep trickling from them.

“No?” he says. “Why, are you in pain?”

“Fuck. No. Shut up,” Madara says, mentally kicking himself, “never mind.”

He doesn’t break eye contact and moves his hands to grip Tobirama’s shoulders, still kneading chakra into the space around him to ground them both.

“Now, Senju, like I said. You need to focus on something—anything in the room. Can you do that for me?”

Tobirama nods, keeping his gaze where it is, dead set on Madara’s eyes.

“Me. Okay. Right.” Madara’s face grows a little hot, probably due to the rising temperature of the room from Tobirama slamming his stolen chakra around like an untrained amateur. “Focus on the little things you can see. It can be anything, any details. You can say them out loud if you want.”

Tobirama gives another nod. Takes a deep breath. Runs his eyes slowly over Madara’s face. He looks so strange like this, his expression lacking the usual frown, lips trembling slightly, hair in disarray, eyes bloodshot and full of fear. Madara would pity him, were he a better man.

(Maybe he is a better man.)

“I can see every little strand of your hair,” Tobirama says suddenly, with a hint of awe, “and every tangle. It’s half over your face, like it always, but… there’s more of it sticking everywhere.” He tilts his head to the side. “You look a little stupid.”

Madara bites his lip to hold back his retort and motions for Tobirama to continue.

“Eyelashes,” Tobirama says next. “They’re wet. Waterdrops and…” He frowns, gaze growing a little distant. “There’s so much—so many particles on them?”

“No, no, no, no.” Madara shakes him slightly by the shoulders. “Don’t go that deep, ignore the particles. Keep your attention on the droplets, on the bigger picture,” he stumbles through the words quickly, hoping he isn’t too late and won’t have to deal with the impending chakra depletion his eyes’ ability entails.

Tobirama seems to refocus, but still asks, “Why not? Does every Sharingan allow you to focus on the atomic level?”

Madara shakes his head.

“Only mine as far as I’m aware, and that’s a power you do not want to test out, believe me,” he says in lieu of a proper explanation. That mess can come later. “Go on.”

Tobirama scowls, clearly unsatisfied, but complies.

“Right. Droplets. Your whole face is wet, actually.” He frames Madara’s face with his hand, hovering, barely touching. “Your cheeks, your lips. I didn’t notice before that your cheeks were so… not chubby. Fuller, I guess?”

Madara wonders if drowning in Hashirama’s tears is a price he’s willing to pay to commit a very satisfying murder. It’s tempting.

“And there’s,” Tobirama lifts his fingers to brush against the side of Madara’s face, suddenly grinning, “toothpaste.”

Madara swats his hand away and hastily brushes it off.

“Calm enough now?” he snaps, rubbing at his other cheek for good measure.

“I think so,” Tobirama answers, blinking. “It’s still not gone, though.”

“You have to refocus on your eyes now,” Madara says, “but don’t channel chakra. Just feel how the Sharingan influences your eyesight, your perception, simply be aware of it. And then—let go.”

A few heartbeats later, the black dissipates from Tobirama’s eyes, leaving him with his usual dim red irises. They both heave sighs of relief.

“Finally!” Tobirama shoves past Madara and starts pacing around the room, wiping away the dried blood clinging to his eyelids.

“Yeah, finally,” Madara grumbles. “And what do you mean my cheeks are chubby?”

“That’s what you want to focus on?” Tobirama says, turning to glare at him. “Not the fact that you’re steadily going blind and haven’t told anyone about it? Does Hashirama know? Does Izuna?”

“Yes, no, no and yes,” Madara says, rolling his eyes.

“Not funny, Uchiha.”

“Not trying to be, Senju.” Madara pinches the bridge of his nose. Unfortunately, now that they’re apart again, the low buzz of the ache in his joints has returned and is getting worse by the second. “It’s how the Mangekyō works. I didn’t make the rules.”

“Walk me through it,” Tobirama demands. “What exactly does this form of the Sharingan do and why is there no way to fix it?”

“There is,” Madara says. “The Mangekyō gradually destroys all the living cells in your eyes unless you get an eye transplant of another pair of Mangekyō, preferably a sibling’s.” He shifts his gaze from Tobirama’s horror-stricken face to an empty wall which suddenly looks so very mesmerizing. “Which is obviously something I refuse to do, and Izuna doesn’t want to, either.”

A few more beats of silence pass.

“And Izuna’s is better, you said.”

“Yes.” Madara chances a glance at him. Tobirama is frowning, eyes narrowed in his usual ‘thinking and analyzing’ expression Madara is used to seeing on their joint meetings. “I forbade him to use it unless absolutely necessary.”

“Hm. So that’s why he never used it when we fought.”

“Correct.”

“Pity.”

Madara almost chokes. “W-what?”

Tobirama shrugs. “I’ve always wanted to try going up against it. Anija always had so much fun with you, I felt like I was missing out a little.” It’s such a ridiculous admission, and Madara can’t seem to do anything but splutter harder. “I didn’t know it was causing you so much pain, though. That changes things.”

“Well—well, that doesn’t matter!” Madara throws up his hands. “Gods, Senju—people are terrified of this dōjutsu, you know!”

Tobirama hums, noncommittal, and Madara comes to the conclusion that Hashirama isn’t the only reckless idiot among the Senju after all. Before he can say anything else, though, Tobirama’s face lights up with the slightly manic expression he gets when he comes up with a new idea.

“You’ve tried transplanting both pairs of the Sharingan, of course?” he asks. “Just exchanging the eyes, I mean. What happened then?” He looks at Madara expectantly, only managing half a minute of silence. “Well? Madara?”

He still receives no answer.

“Please tell me,” Tobirama says slowly, voice pained, “that look means that my question is redundant, and you’ve obviously tried that before. Right?”

Madara doesn’t, in fact, know for sure if the Uchiha have attempted anything of the like.

But never let it be said he isn’t ready to defend his clan’s honor.

“Of course!” he says, flailing a little before forcing his arms to cross over his chest, a bit defensively. “Or, well, I think so. I’m sure,” he corrects himself, “I’m sure someone has done that and it evidently didn’t work, because then…” Madara thinks about the blind Uchiha he knows and had helped take care of, when he could. The hollow eyes of too many of his clanmates, haunted by tragedy and death. “Then decades of problems wouldn’t exist,” he finishes lamely.

Centuries, more like. Gods does Madara hope he’s right.

“Let’s hope so, Uchiha,” Tobirama growls, “or I’m going to have to assume everyone in your clan lacks basic logical thinking skills, not just you.”

“Keep your mouth shut about my clan, Senju!”

“How can I, when I’ve got this damnable keepsake from you?” Tobirama says, gesturing to his eyes, which, thankfully, don’t switch over to the Sharingan despite his very apparent ire.

Madara takes a deep, calming breath.

“I get that it isn’t exactly pleasant, Senju,” he says in the most level tone he can muster. “Your abilities seem to cause me pain too, if to a lesser degree,” he can’t help but complain. “But the fact is—we’re soulmates. You’ll have to deal with my eyesight for… a while, until both of us learn to control and give our powers back to each other. Then the Sharingan will be solely my concern once again. All right?”

Tobirama stares at him like he’s said something stupid. Again.

“No, Madara. The fact is that we’re soulmates, and from what I’ve gathered about a concept I care little about, we’re going to have to support one another.”

It’s so strange for Madara to hear someone say they care little about the concept of soulmates, one that’s so sacred to his clan. It’s baffling. Though fate has chosen one who seems to be the complete opposite of what Madara wants and needs, the fact itself has him wondering about the possibility of—something.

“Which means,” Tobirama goes on, “I will not leave this alone, whether you like it or not.”

Tobirama tone is both a promise and a threat, and Madara finds he has no idea what to think about it, how to feel. He wants to tell Tobirama off for butting into his personal affairs, but knows, of course, that Tobirama is right. There’s no ‘his’ affairs anymore—just ‘theirs,’ per the gods fickle, incomprehensible whims.

And of course, there’s one thing he has to know.

“Just because we’re bound by fate, Tobirama?” he asks, abandoning his carefully conscious use of Tobirama’s last name when they converse. “You won’t leave this alone just because you have to?”

That stops Tobirama short. His eyes never quite left Madara as they talked, but now he focuses on him fully, just like he had when his Sharingan had been activated.

“I need to think,” Tobirama says quietly, something shifting in his face, rending it cold and emotionless—Madara’s least favorite expression on him. He takes a few steps back towards the window. “I’ll find you later. Or you find me. Later,” he repeats firmly.

Madara feels rage starting to boil inside him.

“Now wait just one minute!”

Tobirama doesn’t pause and promptly leaps out of the window, flickering away, leaving Madara alone in an empty room with a brain buzzing with questions and a body prickling with renewed bouts of pain.

“What a fucking bastard,” he swears, “fucking impossible. Why couldn’t you be bonded to an asshole just like you are?!”

He knows screaming at empty space is a little weird and most likely very useless. No matter. There’s no one around but him to witness it anyway.

Only he turns out to be wrong about that, because apparently, their argument was loud enough to wake Izuna in his house across the street.

“Technically, nii-san, you’re kind of an asshole, too,” Izuna says with a yawn, shuffling into Madara’s room wrapped up in a blanket, eyes still sleep-heavy. “Hashirama and I are obviously the better brothers in our respective duos.” He grins, dodging the bedside table Madara throws at his head. “I think fate has chosen well.”

He doesn’t dodge the barrage of pillows, letting them land smack center onto his grinning face.

“Get the fuck out,” Madara growls, and Izuna moves to do just that. Madara scowls. “Wait.”

Izuna stops in his tracks, turning back to Madara with, shit-eating grin still in place. Madara sighs and comes over to him to wrap him into a particularly bone-crushing hug, ignoring the wheezing protests that follow.

“Channel your chakra, would you?” Madara asks. “Please?”

Izuna is a bit confused by the request but does as he’s told, thankfully silent this time, pushing Madara away for something more akin to a hug and not a suffocation attempt. The gentle crackle of his hearth-like signature soothes Madara’s nerves once more, numbing the pain to an extent, though not even close to the way Tobirama’s closeness had helped.

He will have to make do with this for now.

“You’re now my temporary personal painkiller,” Madara announces, “and I will not be accepting any complaints about this arrangement.”

“No idea what that’s supposed to mean, but I can’t wait to hear the whole account of your lovers spat, nii-san,” Izuna deadpans.

“Shut up, Izuna.”

“You’ll want me to give you advice, though,” Izuna says, tone teasing. “After all, I’m the one with the experience of being soulbound to a Senju.”

“Whatever. Shut up. Let me think.”

Izuna doesn’t in fact, let Madara think, because he is an incorrigible little shit and an utter menace.

“You know,” he says, “make-up sex is just the best way to—”

He gets cut off when Madara breaks away to grab one of the scattered pillows and starts attacking Izuna with it, unmindful of the feathers flying everywhere.

Izuna only laughs, arms himself in kind and gives as good as he gets.

The Uchiha are confusing, Tobirama decides as he finishes perusing what seems to be the thousandth text out of the documents he’s borrowed from the atrocious Uchiha Libraries. Plural because the clan has thousands upon tens of thousands of archived records. Atrocious because most of them are either redundant, incomplete (as if the record-keepers only wrote their accounts when inspiration struck and were prone to abandoning them half-way) or completely nonfactual, useless opinion pieces that Tobirama can’t base any of his theories on.

And gods, does he have a lot of theories in need of testing.

He takes a pain reliever as the Sharingan-induced migraine acts up again; he’d been careful not to activate it throughout the day, but the headache still lingered, making it a challenge to stay focused. Tobirama manages to, though, just barely, and there’s at least a little progress to show for it.

He’d left Madara early morning, obtained his free ticket into the Libraries almost immediately and has spent the whole day researching a dōjutsu that proved to be all the more incomprehensible with every piece of ‘research’ Tobirama got through. After hours of historical accounts (and thrice damned opinion pieces), Tobirama did stumble upon one instance of the Mangekyō having been exchanged between two Uchiha. The experiment failed, with both subjects ending up dead, was declared unholy and was never attempted again.

The sheer audacity of that made Tobirama’s eye twitch. Honestly, where would he have been if he had stopped at his first unsuccessful Edo Tensei attempt?

(Probably lacking in his brother’s occasional tearful, very annoying admonishments about desecrating the dead, but that isn’t the point.)

The attempt was done centuries ago, back when most of the shinobi clans were nothing more than nomad tribes wandering the then empty, nationless continents, trying to figure out how to use the Sage of Six Paths’ gift of chakra properly. With no established iryō jutsu practice at that time, of course the switch had a high chance of failing. For some reason, the Uchiha didn’t seem to take into account that an overwhelming majority of the simple eye transplants from the younger Uchiha brothers to their elders were unsuccessful, too. It really was an inexcusable abuse of the scientific principle to assume the worst after one godsdamned test.

It’s downright confusing, bordering on stupid, really. And even then, Tobirama can think of a dozen other ways to solve the Mangekyō problem without resorting to transplants and possible mutilation, most of them simple schemes of directed chakra manipulation and perhaps a little tinkering with DNA. But to do that—

Ah. He’s forgotten.

“Hikaku?” Tobirama says to the depths of his enormous lab. The size is suddenly an inconvenience, because he can’t really see anything that’s further than two feet away clearly—and sensing through Madara’s chakra is nothing but an exercise in futility.

“Right here.” Hikaku appears before him with a shunshin, holding a book on the latest discoveries in relativity—something Tobirama could be researching right now if he weren’t stuck with Madara’s problem.

Tobirama takes a deep breath, taking another pill for good measure to help him deal with the persistent headache. Not Madara’s. Theirs. He promised—they’re soulmates and that obliges him to have his partner’s back, no matter their evidently mutual dislike.

(Tobirama refuses to think about Madara’s question now, isn’t ready to contemplate impossible possibilities and delve through his complicated net of feelings for the person who annoys—and intrigues—him most. That can come later, because he’s otherwise preoccupied and definitely not running away.)

“You there, Tobirama?” Hikaku asks with an understanding smile, waving a hand in front of Tobirama’s face.

“Yes. Sorry. And—sorry I made you wait this long. I shouldn’t have invited and ignored you like that.” Tobirama sighs. “I got distracted again.”

“Don’t worry,” Hikaku says, inching a glass of water to Tobirama, always the one making sure Tobirama hydrates, his mother hen tendencies second only to Hashirama. “We only got here an hour ago. You know I adore your lab and I think Kagami’s busy with some of the chemicals you’ve labeled kid-friendly over there.”

As if in answer, the hiss of a chemical reaction and a triumphant whoop sounded from somewhere in the distance, making both of them smile.

“Right,” Tobirama says, “well, I’m ready now for the inspection. May I?” He stands, raising his hands. Hikaku gives an affirmative, and Tobirama pushes chakra into his palms, now glowing a faint green. “Activate your Sharingan, please.��

Hikaku does, without question, and Tobirama nears his hands towards his eyes, registering the feel, structure and movement of the distinct chakra, cataloguing the way cells behave more actively, how every one of them feels amplified by the Sharingan’s power.

“Now your Mangekyō.”

A swirly pattern replaces the tomoe, and the very essence of the chakra generated by the Sharingan seems to change. Tobirama frowns, making note of every little shifts, how the momentum of the chakra seems to increase exponentially, carrying with it potential for an enormous burst of power. The cells seem to be otherwise fine, expectantly.

“You have the Eternal Mangekyō, right?” Tobirama asks, tentative, remembering what Hikaku told him this morning.

“Yeah,” Hikaku says, averting his gaze. “Not a pretty story, but one I can tell if you’d like.”

Tobirama shakes his head. “No need. I have an idea of what must have happened and it’s not too relevant to my search for another solution.”

He pushes more chakra through one of his palms, gaining greater clarity, and reaches for ink and paper with the other to scribble down his findings.

“It’d be easier if you used your new Sharingan, you know,” Hikaku says, making Tobirama splutter, of all things, much like a certain Uchiha when caught by surprise. “You’d remember all you need in perfect detail.”

Tobirama stares.

“Hikaku,” he chokes out, “how did you—”

“We’re friends, Tobirama,” Hikaku says, rolling his eyes, “and I’m afraid I’m the more emotionally perceptive of the both of us.”

“Am I really that obvious?” Tobirama asks, frowning.

“Yep.” Hikaku grins. “It also helps that you radiate Madara’s very potent chakra like crazy. Seriously, I’m not even a sensor.” Tobirama scowls, shoving him away. “It’s good you’re not out and about or you’d be giving every sensory ninja in the village a massive migraine.”

“Ugh.” Tobirama groans, sinking back down into his chair. “Don’t remind me that I have his chakra to deal with now. I feel hot all the time. Are all the Uchiha this hot?”

“Depends on what definition of hot you’re using.”

“Hikaku!”

“Relax, Tobirama,” Hikaku says through laughter, hopping onto the table. “It’s a normal soulbond experience, it’s never painless. You’ll get a hang of it, eventually. And I’m sure our esteemed and very composed Clan Head isn’t faring much better.”

“No,” Tobirama says, crossing his arms. “He isn’t.”

Hikaku gives him an appraising look.

“Listen,” Hikaku starts, “I know you both… find it difficult… to communicate normally,” he awkwardly circumvents the word hate, “but it really isn’t healthy to be apart from your soulmate like this.”

“I know, Hikaku.” Tobirama buries his face in his hands. “I’ll talk to him, I promise.”

“And you’ll tell me about it.”

“I’d rather not.” Tobirama opens one eye to look at Hikaku through the space between his fingers. “It’ll probably end in disaster.”

“Tell me all the juicy details then,” Hikaku demands cheerfully. “Come on. You can’t bribe the Chief Record Keeper for an illegal pass into my clan’s secret archives and not provide something in return.”

“A month babysitting your son isn’t enough for you?” Tobirama says, tone sour even though they both know he’ll enjoy every minute of spare time spent with his first ever student.

“It is,” Hikaku agrees, “or, would be under any normal circumstances. As it stands, you owe me a bigger reward for making me break Clan Law.”

“Your Clan Law and its stupid restrictions are the reason you have this stupid problem with your Mangekyō Sharingan in the first place,” Tobirama mutters. “And I’m going to fix it.”

“For your soulmate,” Hikaku says with a pretensiously dreamy sigh.

“Not for him.” Tobirama sinks into his chair further. “Not just for him. So Kagami doesn’t have to deal with similar pain in the future, nor any other Uchiha child.”

And it’s true of course; Tobirama would be just as deep in research if he’d found out about this issue without the added hassle of being Madara's soulmate. Hikaku knows this, of course, because he’s just as much of a dear friend as Izuna is to Tobirama, if not more.

Inevitably, that train of thought leads him to question why he and Madara seem to be so completely at odds when the Uchiha’s general wariness of Tobirama (and vice versa) have all but disappeared. Perhaps they can become friends, if nothing else, if and when they figure out how to talk without losing their cool every single time. He’d wondered about that before, what it would feel like for Madara to smile at him with genuine care instead of the usual derision. It’s honestly a pity they aren’t platonic soulmates. Although—

Tobirama imagines the prospect of being trapped in Madara’s body for an indefinite amount of time and thinks, No. No, it’s good that we aren’t.

“By the way,” Hikaku says, thankfully distracting Tobirama from his thoughts again, “Kagami, come here for a bit?”

“Yes, Dad!” Kagami leaps towards them, light on his feet but still almost knocking down a vial with a moderately pesky virus that Tobirama makes a note to properly seal later. “Tobirama-sensei!” Kagami instantly focuses on him, eyes gleaming as he surveys all the notes Tobirama has piled up. “What were you working on all this time? Did you make any progress? Is it a new awesome jutsu? Will you teach it to me?”

“No, Kagami, it isn’t anything flashy this time,” Tobirama says, ruffling his student’s hair with a smile. “You’d probably find it boring. But we’ll work on your Grand Fireball Jutsu tomorrow, I promise.” Tobirama suddenly realizes he’ll have to spend tomorrow’s training session without his—well, Madara’s—chakra. What a pain.

“Awesome!” Kagami jumps up and down with his usual bouncy excitement. “I’m getting so great at fire jutsu—you’ll see tomorrow. I’ve got so many new tricks I can show you!”

“I hope you’re making as much progress in chakra theory, Kagami,” Tobirama chuckles as Kagami’s expression switches to one of horror. “Don’t forget your little test tomorrow.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. And so as not to keep you from studying,” Tobirama says, “before you leave, may I take a look at your Sharingan, Kagami? With a diagnostic iryō jutsu?”

Kagami gives him a curious look, glancing at Hikaku, then back at Tobirama again.

“Sure thing, sensei.”

As expected, Kagami’s Sharingan isn’t much different than Hikaku’s basic version, but much weaker in energy compared to it, despite all three of his tomoe being fully developed.

That’s an interesting detail compared to all the other data Tobirama has gathered. Hikaku had explained to him earlier that day that Kagami’s Sharingan awakened after a particularly traumatizing experience—his mother’s death—and was one of the strongest in the clan among children. If anything, that motivated Tobirama to work more, faster, better to find an adequate cure for the Mangekyō’s degenerative effect. Hopefully, Kagami won’t have to suffer enough to acquire it, but none of them know what the future holds, and Tobirama wants to squander the potential for tragedy before it manifests.

It's not long after that before Hikaku makes Tobirama swear on the periodic table of elements (“Because you lack any whatsoever respect for the gods, you heathen") to get proper sleep after they leave and continue his work tomorrow. And really, with the amount of chaos he's had to suffer through today, Tobirama is yearning to do just that.

If only…

Tobirama gets back to his empty, sterile home, barely lived in because he spends most of his time in the office, at Hashirama’s place, with his students or in his lab. He tries, unsuccessfully, to get himself to fall asleep. Sedatives have long since lost their effect on him and his body seems to have stopped registering painkillers, because despite all the pills in his system, the migraine and the dizziness that comes with it return full force just as he’s trying to will himself to sleep.

He can’t.

His thoughts unerringly stray to Madara again.

It’s annoying.

And now that Tobirama has no research or people around to distract him, he feels treacherous feelings of guilt encroaching as his mind supplies him with memories of their whole conversation.

There was something different in Madara’s tone, in his expression as he asked Tobirama the question that caught him completely unawares.

Just because we’re bound by fate, Tobirama?

No, Tobirama thinks, I would have helped anyway.

You won’t leave this alone just because you have to?

It wasn’t the hidden implications of the question that bothered him most. Not even the complete change in Madara’s demeanor as he asked it—a change to a softer, almost vulnerable side Tobirama had never seen before. It was the epiphany Tobirama had in that very moment, realizing that he was, for some reason, genuinely concerned about Madara’s wellbeing. This despite their long-standing status quo of mutual hostility and Tobirama’s self-proclaimed lack of care about the inherently irrational (and therefore irritating) idea of soulmates.

It’s unnerving.

He turns to bury himself in the pillows on his couch, closing his eyes, desperately begging for his mind to just stop. Stop analyzing, stop wondering and making dozens of possible predictions for the future, stop dissecting every one of his actions and feelings and impulses and just—rest.

Well.

Another impossibility, it seems.

And since rest is out of the question, he reasons he can safely break one promise he’d made to Hikaku and make good on the other. Stopping himself just before he reaches for the Hiraishin marker in the Uchiha district, Tobirama leaps through the window and sets out towards Madara’s house for a much-needed conversation.

Preparing himself for a long, sleepless night, Tobirama shifts onto his back and turns to stare out the wide window at the stars glimmering around the full moon. It’s much too soon to deal with this enormous mess, Tobirama decides, making up his mind to let Madara seek him out himself.

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Chapter 4

It's grating, being unable to properly sense his surroundings with his chakra all over the place, but Tobirama deals with it as best as he can, for the first time in his life relying solely on his sense of sight as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop. At least this simple chakra manipulation is manageable, though he does almost slip a few times—another novel experience—which leaves him all the more yearning for his former impeccable chakra control.

And eyesight.

He finds Madara in a similar state of sleeplessness, pacing next to the koi pond in the little garden adjacent to his house. Madara stops in his tracks and turns to look in the direction of Tobirama’s approach just before Tobirama jumps down to face him.

Madara looks downright exhausted, disheveled and cold, what with his slight trembling. He’s probably still in pain, Tobirama realizes with a tinge of irrational guilt—which immediately disappears when Madara flicks his hand and the water from the koi pond rises to form a giant wave that descends upon Tobirama, knocking him onto the ground and soaking him to the bone.

“What,” Tobirama growls, body and voice shaking as he blinks the wetness away, “the fuck do you think you’re doing, Uchiha?”

Even with his blurry vision, Tobirama can make out the bastard’s smirk—a crooked, self-satisfied thing. Madara clumsily redirects half of the water back into the pond and crosses his arms.

“Giving my soulmate a proper greeting, of course,” he drawls as Tobirama stands, trying his best to shake off the water that feels wrong, wet and annoying, not soothing and playfully mingling with his chakra like it usually would. “Most fitting for your dashing farewell, I’d say.”

To his credit, Tobirama doesn’t move to burn Madara to a crisp in answer for his glaring stupidity. Yet.

It’s tempting, though.

But there are safer ways to retaliate, he decides.

“Is this a bad time to mention,” Tobirama says, “that my chakra is exceptionally attuned to water?”

Madara rolls his eyes.

“I know you think others inferior to you in intelligence, Senju, and me most of all,” Tobirama nods as Madara says this, just to rile him up further, “but I am not going to fall for your idiotic taunts.”

“Oh, I’m not trying to taunt you, Madara, just to warn you,” Tobirama says, mock-concerned, “that if you go on using my chakra this carelessly, you might just accidentally end up manipulating the water inside a human body.”

It’s viscerally pleasing, seeing Madara’s smirk dissipate, replaced by a horrified scowl.

“WHAT?”

The way Madara shrieks will never stop being amusing, and it seems the absence of his explosive fiery chakra does little to quell his usual temper. He recoils from the pond, looks at his hands like he's considering cutting them off, looks at Tobirama with a look of such disgust that—well, isn’t exactly pleasant but still entertaining.

“Like blood?” Madara asks, voice strained.

“Blood is known to be partially made of water, Uchiha—”

“You idiot!” Madara shouts, starting to pace again, burrowing his hands in his sleeves. “That is not fucking funny!”

“It isn’t,” Tobirama agrees, “I’ve caused enough of people’s insides to accidentally rupture as a child that I find it far from a laughing matter.” He doesn’t mention that those accidents only ever amounted to two events and both victims were enemies; the rest were deliberate targets of Tobirama’s honed, precise chakra control.

“You mean—” Madara’s eyes grow wide with ever-growing terror. “You mean I could have—I spent the whole day with Izuna, you prick! Couldn’t you have warned me that I’m now a godsdamned spontaneous murder weapon?”

To be fair, you always have been, Tobirama wants to say, but that nagging spike of guilt raises its ugly head again, and he begrudgingly decides to go the pacifistic way. That’s what he came here for, after all—a conversation, not a fight.

“Kind of. But it would only happen if you’re truly angry, far more than you are now, or if you’re on the verge of death, as a defense mechanism,” Tobirama explains. “I’m just messing with you, Uchiha. Calm down.”

“Calm down when you’re around, you infuriating asshole?” The remaining water in the pond ripples in reaction to his anger and he takes another step back, eyeing it warily. “What the hell did you come here for anyway?”

“To talk.”

“Go to hell.” With the way Madara is glaring at him, Tobirama prepares himself for another splash of water, but the assault never comes. “I won’t speak with you on your terms.”

“What if I offer an apology?”

Madara raises an eyebrow. “Really? You? An apology. If I weren’t in such a foul mood that would warrant a laugh, Senju, good one.”

Tobirama counts from five to one before answering, finding it suddenly a convenience how his skin runs hot, how chakra crackles and burns around him, enough so that he’s almost dry and comforted, rather than annoyed by its warmth. Anija would approve, he thinks bitterly

“I’m sorry. My leaving you like that was neither polite nor called for. But I truly needed to think about…” He gestures vaguely in Madara’s direction. “All this.”

Madara is staring at him like he’s grown another head, and it’s somehow even more unnerving than his death glare.

“You—actually—” Madara shakes his head, blinking rapidly. “Huh.”

He crosses his arms again, and as often as Tobirama has seen that gesture on him, he finds himself suddenly curious why Madara likes it so much. Arms tightly locked and shoulders raised defensively, he looks somewhat like a petulant child. His posture is stiffer than usual, though, and Tobirama makes an effort to quell his chakra lashing out as much as possible to avoid causing unnecessary pain.

“Did a lot of thinking then, Senju?” Madara asks with a much more level tone, which is, Tobirama supposes, the only acknowledgement of his apology he’s going to get.

“No, actually.” Tobirama averts his gaze, biting his lip. “I got side-tracked. I spent the whole day researching your godsdamned dōjutsu.”

Madara frowns, confused.

“Why in the world would you be doing that?”

“I told you,” Tobirama says, “I’m not leaving this alone. There has to be another way to stop the Mangekyō from deteriorating your eyesight, and I’m going to find it.”

“Oh, so you think it’s going to be easy,” Madara asks, voice leaking skepticism, “fixing a centuries-old curse?”

“It’s not going to be that hard, considering that over all those centuries your good-for-nothing clan only had the idea to transplant two pairs of Mangekyō once, then gave up on that idea and didn’t even try any alternatives just blinding people left and right.” Tobirama is still avoiding Madara’s gaze, focusing on one the sakura trees in the garden. “I mean, good clan,” he amends, “you’re okay, I guess.”

“Drop the insolence, Senju,” Madara growls, narrowing his eyes. “And how would you even know that? That isn’t in any of the public libraries, did you—did you break into our archives?”

Ah, Tobirama belatedly realizes his mistake.

“I did,” he tries, although Hashirama’s been telling him since his earliest childhood that he’s a hopelessly terrible liar. He chances a glance at Madara, who’s fuming, making wavelets surge through the pond again.

“Hikaku,” Madara says, and Tobirama curses Hashirama for being right, as always. “That bastard. Should have known.” He sighs. “He was a good Uchiha. I’ll miss him.”

“The killing intent isn’t appreciated, Madara, and for the love of the gods, stop your theatrics.”

“When you stop your meddling.”

“I’m not going to stand by when innocent people are suffering because someone refuses to act and fix this!” Tobirama snaps, turning back to Madara and realizing his world is suddenly in perfect clarity again. “Dammit.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and blanks his mind, easing himself back into a calmer mindset. It doesn’t feel as painful as the Mangekyō did, so he deduces he only activated the base version of the Sharingan this time. Thankfully.

“I won’t let innocent people suffer,” Tobirama repeats, “let innocent children suffer, when I’m in a position to do something about it. I’m not doing this because you’re my soulmate. I’m going to help, whether you like it or not, just because I can. Because I want to.”

Tobirama reopens his eyes only to see Madara standing close—far too close—and reaching out with his hands as if to hug him, but Tobirama flinches and takes a nervous step back, strangely comforted by the world becoming blurred once more.

“Don’t,” he says, “I’m fine.”

Madara is staring at him again, shock painted on his face, eyes searching Tobirama’s expression for—something, and Tobirama struggles not to squirm at the scrutiny.

“Uchiha?” The man in question only blinks in reply. “Hello?”

“You’re insane,” Madara finally says with a slightly dazed smile, “you’re actually insane.”

“The insane one is you,” Tobirama snarls, “because if I had the idiotic notion of keeping my progressing blindness a secret, I would at least be actively doing something to fix it.” It’s Madara’s turn to avoid his eyes, it seems. “Is this how you feel every day? The migraines even without the Mangekyō activated? The pain, the random flashes in your eyes?”

“Yeah,” Madara mutters, “what of it?”

“You don’t just keep these things from people, Madara,” Tobirama raises his voice, losing the last of his tenuous grip on his patience, “especially from my brother who may well be able to reverse the damage, at least temporarily!”

“Why do you care so fucking much about that, Tobirama?”

The sound of his name slipping from Madara’s lips is a bit of a shock.

“I just told you, Madara.”

“No. I get wanting to help my clan, I’d get it even if you wanted to fix the Mangekyō just for the hell of it, like your raising the dead thing or whatever other fuckery you’re up to.” Madara scowls, probably remembering what Hashirama has dubbed the Graveyard Fiasco. “But keeping this a secret is—was my problem. I may have acted… unwisely, but why do you care?”

Tobirama shrugs. “We’re soulmates.”

“And you told me you don’t give a shit about the concept.”

“Care little about,” Tobirama corrects him, “which doesn’t erase the fact that soulmates exist, and I feel a responsibility to…” he trails off. It’s physically painful, being unable to express himself when he usually has no problem with eloquence.

“To help someone you hate?” Madara finishes for him. “You don’t exactly seem happy you’re stuck with me now.”

“Neither do you, judging by all your screaming,” Tobirama parries. “And that’s not the point.”

“What is, then?”

“I’m worried, and not just because of the bond,” Tobirama says, recalling the question they’d left off before, “but because even if we don’t get along, you’re still—” He gestures helplessly.

My brother’s best friend. My close friend’s brother. An admirable shinobi. The cornerstone of our village.

What comes out instead is, “I’m not as emotionless as you paint me out to be, Madara. That’s all.”

A strange look passes through Madara’s eyes.

“No,” he says, “you’re not.”

Annoyingly, he falls into silence once more, tilting his head to the side and watching Tobirama with an appraising look that makes shivers run down his spine for no particular reason. It’s a far cry from what he thought this conversation would turn out to be—a barely salvageable screaming match, an extremely tenuous quasi-truce, perhaps. A physical fight.

(What Tobirama wouldn’t give right now to be able to let out his frustration through kicks and punches. And preferably a Water Dragon Jutsu or several, but he supposes he’ll have to get used to working with fireballs from now on. A tragedy, really.)

“Well?” Tobirama asks after the few seconds of his shortened patience reserves run out. “Are you going to say anything else?”

Madara blinks, then smiles.

Tobirama feels like his heart skips a beat from the shock of it—seeing an actual smile on Madara’s face. Not a smirk or the murderous grins he so favors. A smile. It’s almost unsettling.

“Fine, Senju. Tobirama,” Madara draws out the syllables of his name, as if slowly tasting how it feels to say it. “That’s a satisfactory answer. But don’t think for one second I’m letting you attempt this on your own.”

A finger jabs Tobirama’s chest, making him go almost cross-eyed as he stares at it. Madara’s chakra spikes immediately, sending a wave of soothing pleasure throughout Tobirama’s body; Madara seems to feel the same, quickly drawing his hand away as he continues.

“You’re researching something that directly concerns me—and my clan. Again, despite whatever you may think, I have studied chakra theory and iryō jutsu. I may simply need a little brushing up,” Madara adds, quieter.

“Fair enough. I’m not averse to working together, and I’ll make an effort to put our differences aside if you are." Tobirama offers a tentative smile of his own. "And I’m told I’m a good teacher.”

Does Madara blush at that? Tobirama blinks. No, must be a trick of the light—or lack thereof in the dim moonlight.

“Yeah, yeah. Just make an effort to curb your insult for once," Madara grumbles.

Tobirama chuckles. The hypocrite.

“If you curb it with the drama," he says, "perhaps I'll make an effort."

“You of all people should know that Izuna is the more dramatic one out of us two. And you grew up with Hashirama, for gods’ sakes.”

“True, but Anija isn’t as loud,” Tobirama says, grinning wider. It’s a nice change, this light-hearted feel of their exchange. Comforting. “And Izuna swears he learned everything from you.”

“He’s lying."

“He does seem more persuading, Madara."

“You believe your precious friend more than you do your new soulmate, Tobirama?” Madara scoffs. “Fate disapproves.”

“Fate can go fuck itself.” That makes Madara chuckle. Tobirama doesn’t understand why that feels like some sort of victory, but it does. “And Izuna doesn’t greet me with a scowl every morning I show up at the Tower, at least.”

Madara sobers up, suddenly serious, and there’s that odd, contemplative look again, boring through Tobirama’s own eyes as if trying to find an answer to a question Madara has yet to voice.

“Tell me this, Tobirama,” he says, “you haven’t rejected our bond. We've reached some… semblance of an agreement. I wonder—what exactly would you like to get out of this bond, at this stage, at least?”

The question catches Tobirama by surprise, so much so that he feels the urge to run away once more. It’s stupid, he knows, and another irritating tendency of the day, since he’s prided himself in seldom—if ever—fleeing from uncomfortable situations.

“If you even think about leaving again, I will master that Water Dragon tehcnique of yours and drown you,” Madara threatens.

Tobirama rolls his eyes and promises nothing.

It��s frustrating, because he is somewhat sure of what he would like from this—whatever he and Madara have or will have. Something like his closeness with Izuna or Hikaku, perhaps. No outright aggression and no need to insult each other at every opportunity. Someone he can confide in and ask for advice. Someone who will listen to him and not mock Tobirama for his many oddities and obsessive ideas, like so many others have before.

He knows, though, that the sheer nature of the bond will never let it end there. The hint of something more hangs over his head even now like a sword waiting to strike. That’s what makes Tobirama yearn for escape, because he’s so painfully unsure of what to even think about the implication.

“Just friendship. For now,” Tobirama says, ignoring how his heart starts drumming faster against his ribcage.

“I don’t know, Madara. So I can’t give you an honest answer—yet,” Tobirama says, knowing, though, that it’ll be the cause of many restless nights to come. “What about you? What do you want to gain from this?”

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Chapter 5

“Such crude wording,” Madara chastises, a playful glint in his eyes. “I want to gain nothing, Tobirama, except what you’re willing to give me. Don’t mistake my annoyance at this constant fucking pain as displeasure at meeting my soulmate. Soulbonds are revered in my clan. Sacred. And I would gladly forge one with you—a bond that would make us both stronger together than when we are apart.”

Madara pauses, looking as if he’s about to say something else possibly even more outlandish, but instead there’s that soft, genuine smile again, which looks so alien on Madara’s face Tobirama feels like he’s been caught in a particularly unrealistic genjutsu.

“But only if you would wish to gift me such a bond, Tobirama.” Just like the smile, Madara’s tone has turned soft, unthreatening, almost tentative, and Tobirama feels—

Confused.

He knows the stories, of course, has read and heard enough about the Uchiha’s dedication to the ideal of soulbonds and love in general. Even today he’s seen more of the clan scholars’ philosophical treatises about how emotional attachment affects the Sharingan’s development instead of actual observation of the process itself.

Madara hasn’t exactly hinted at love or anything romantic per se, but the insinuation of it is evident. And, quite frankly, terrifying. It’s annoying that by evading Madara’s initial question, Tobirama still ends up feeling unsettled by Madara’s answer. It feels as if he’s exposing himself to something terrible, making himself vulnerable by merely thinking about the notion of opening himself up to the man he’s never even been on good terms with.

The reasons stem far back to his childhood, of course, when his only friends had been Anija and Tōka, while the rest of the clan had seen Tobirama as nothing but an asset, a dangerous and unpredictable one at that.

Then came Mito, almost unnoticeably turning from formidable sister-in-law Tobirama cautiously respected to a trusted partner in seal-developing sprees (or crime, Hashirama would argue) and random journeys together into the wild to study near-mythical creatures and underresearched phenomena. And that closeness had taken a good decade to cement—nearly half of Tobirama’s life.

It was smoother with Izuna, who’d shifted gears so quickly after peace was established that it felt as if Tobirama suddenly had another overly loud, clingy Anija stuck to him almost almost every hour of the day. More or less effortless with Hikaku, who’d approached Tobirama with nothing but kindness despite the years of war behind them. It seems safer, in the village they’ve built from childhood dreams, to extend his trust to others.

But Madara is different.

The problem with him is nothing like the fear he had of Mito monopolizing his brother’s love and attention when she and Hashirama had discovered their bond. Not his rivalry with Izuna, which resembled Madara and Hashirama’s almost playful standstill battles with each passing year of the war. It’s an inexplicable, irrational dislike he and Madara have for each other that makes them fight almost at every turn. Their poor excuses for conversations are never boring, Tobirama supposes, but amusement at Madara’s angry shrieking is far from a basis for friendship, much less something more.

Even so, steadfast determination burns in Madara’s eyes, the fire that hasn’t quite left him even though Tobirama’s chakra now runs through his coils. Seeing him open up like this, offering a truce, the possibility of something better—Tobirama can’t help but feel at least slightly curious.

“I’m willing to try,” Tobirama says, not bothering to apologize for his lengthy silence, “and see where this leads us.”

“Good.” Madara’s grin widens. “And, of course, another perk I’ve always wanted from a soulbond is a stable sex life, but we’ll see how that goes, yes?”

Tobirama clenches his fists. Runs through a few mental scenarios of strangling Madara with his mess of black hair and only then reminds himself of the ubiquitous taboo against the murder of one’s soulmate.

“Out of the two of you, Uchiha, your brother also clearly has the better sense of humor,” he manages a more or less polite reply.

Madara scoffs. “Bullshit. You’re talking about the idiot who still hasn’t outgrown potty humor.”

“Yes.” Tobirama glares. “I am.”

Annoyingly, it only makes Madara laugh more. Even more maddening is how pleasing it feels to see Madara enjoying himself, how it makes Tobirama want to smile, in turn. He keeps his face neutral, though, even as it becomes harder to curtail his amusement.

“Tell me this then, Tobirama,” Madara says as he calms down, “since you haven’t answered my previous question. You said you care little about soulmates. Why?”

Tobirama contemplates weaseling how way out of that one as well, but for fairness’ sake, he opts to tell the truth.

“I’ve always struggled to build connections with people,” he admits. “I only have a handful of friends and most of them are my family, anyway. People don’t usually connect to what I say or what I do.” Echoes of freak, ghost, demon, probably bondless surface somewhere in the back of his mind. Tobirama ignores them. “And the idea of soulmates always seemed strange to me. Two people chosen by the gods to be together for life? Perfect lovers, perfect friends—it all seems like badly written fairy tale. One that I never thought I’d be a part of.”

“You’ve befriended at least two people from my clan easily enough,” Madara points out.

“I know. Things change. It’s…” Tobirama sighs. “Not as hard as it used to be. But I will need some space. And lots of time.”

“You can have those if your promise not to break spacetime again,” Madara says wryly, “like with the Monster Portal Debacle last month.”

“I closed it and all of the yōkai that came out of it were killed,” Tobirama says, sick of the unceasing complaints—and of people invoking his brother’s tasteless monikers for his lab incidents.

“Ridiculous man," Madara says, the sheer hypocrisy of his statement going right over his head, as always. “But to quell your worries, as I’ve said, I won’t push you into anything you’re uncomfortable with. No need to be intimidated.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Uchiha,” Tobirama snaps to hide the relief flooding through him at the words. “I’m not intimidated by you.”

“Oh?” Madara raises an eyebrow, giving Tobirama a skeptical onceover. “I’d say you are.”

“Am not.”

“Don’t lie to me. Soulmates are supposed to be honest with each other,” Madara says in a sickly-sweet tone.

“Well, if we are being honest, you weren’t all that intimidating when you had this thing,” Tobirama points to his eyes, “either. Now you’re just a puff of smoke compared to that Majestic Destroyer Flame you’re so partial to.”

Tobirama can’t help the grin as Madara, predictably, growls a heartfelt curse and tries to soak Tobirama again. Following the motion of his hand, the koi water ripples, rises slightly, then sinks back to the ground as Madara gives up, staring at the pond like it’s offended him on a personal level.

“Not angry enough, Uchiha,” Tobirama teases, squinting to check on the poor koi fish, thankfully still living.

“Oh, it’s funny when I’m angry is it,” Madara hisses.

“Extremely.”

“Fuck you, Senju,” Madara glowers. Tobirama could swear his spiky hair actually bristles in irritation, just like a cat's. “And we should really start getting a hang of our powers.”

“Are you only saying this so you can learn my Water Dragon Jutsu and attempt to terrorize me with it?” Tobirama asks, feigning suspicion.

“There’ll be no attempting about it. I will have my revenge for every single insult.”

Tobirama huffs out a laugh. “We’ll see who has the upper hand, Uchiha. I suggest we meet tomorrow then. After my training session with my students.”

Madara nods. “Fine.” He’s picked up Kagami from his lessons often enough, whenever Hikaku was too busy with village and clan bureaucracy, to have memorized Tobirama’s training schedule.

At that thought, Tobirama realizes there’s one thing he unambiguously likes about his new soulmate—Madara’s begrudging love for children.

That’s one thing in common, at least.

Madara shivers and crosses his arms—again—and Tobirama suddenly realizes, now that he’s looking at Madara more closely, what’s been throwing him off about the gesture today. Madara doesn’t just seem uncomfortable; there are miniscule twitches in his muscles, the near-constant grimace marring his face, as well as rigidity and tension that speak of pain rather than cold or embarrassment.

“Tell me,” Tobirama says, finally approaching Madara of his own accord. “How much does it hurt?”

Madara flinches as Tobirama touches his shoulder, then immediately relaxes under the touch, letting out a deep breath.

“It’s fine. It’s manageable. I’ve had the whole day to meditate on it and it’s crazy. Like every fucking living thing flinging its chakra at my senses tenfold, and it hurts,” Madara complains, slightly leaning into Tobirama’s touch.

“It’s only ever been overwhelming for me, maybe a bit dizzying,” Tobirama says, frowning. “It’s probably the added burden of a chakra affinity completely opposite yours.”

Tobirama reminds himself, forcefully, of the inherent irrationality of fear and, before he can think better of it, wraps his arms around Madara’s shoulders, returning his favor from this morning. Madara sags against him after a moment of shocked stillness, letting out a drawn-out sigh of relief as he uncrosses his arms and returns the hug, tentative, gentle, as if expecting Tobirama to withdraw at any moment.

And there’s the guilt again. Tobirama can barely remember the last time he’d felt it nag him so many times in the span of a single day.

“What’s changed?” he prompts, breathing in the soft, slightly sweet scent of Madara's hair.

Madara lifts his head and stares at him for the few moments it takes for him to figure it out.

“Oh. I don’t know,” Madara says, dropping his forehead on Tobirama’s shoulder once more. “All I feel is your chakra when we touch. Well, mine. It’s familiar. Helps me focus and ignore all the others, to an extent. But I can’t focus on one signature at a distance.”

“Hm. Neither can I.” Tobirama remembers something. “Did you spend all day hugging Izuna then?”

“Carried him piggyback style.”

“Can’t imagine he was happy about that.”

“I didn’t give him much of a choice,” Madara says, smirk evident in his tone. “He escaped my clutches just an hour ago to go whining to Tōka.”

Tobirama snorts. What a world it would be if he could embed such moments for blackmail in an image without resorting to drawing from memory. Perhaps using a lens that could gather light and concentrate it… but that’s an experiment for later.

His current experiment is to determine which one of them gives in first and ends the embrace, which is steadily getting more awkward with each moment they stay like this. There’s not much Tobirama can do, and he’s not about to throw Madara back into the pit of chronic pain just because he feels uncomfortable—and even that is questionable, at best. He, too, finds himself focusing on the raging ocean where there was a sizzling fire before, and Tobirama would be lying if he said it didn’t feel good.

(A little too good, if he were being completely honest, but it’s probably the stupid bond affecting his perception.)

Madara pulls away first after a few long minutes, taking a step back but not quite letting go of Tobirama’s shoulders, touch light and lingering. He mutters his thanks but otherwise stays silent, contemplating Tobirama with an almost imploring gaze.

Tobirama reaches to gently pry Madara’s hands off his shoulders.

“I’d better get going.” Before this gets any stranger, Tobirama finishes in his mind. “I’ll figure out a way to fix this for you. I promise. It’s just a matter of refining chakra control, but I have an idea for a seal as a short-term solution,” he says with what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

He is, of course, compelled to offer to help but he hates how vulnerable it makes him feel. Madara still hasn’t uttered a word, though, and seems intent on continuing to suffer in solitude. That’s something Tobirama will not—cannot—allow. “Should I… May I stay?” Tobirama flinches at his crooked phrasing. “To help with the pain?”

“Sleep with me,” Madara blurts out and immediately slaps his palms over his mouth, shaking his head and mumbling what Tobirama supposes is a much-needed clarification. He realizes the inherent stupidity of that action soon enough, drops his hands and shouts, “That’s not what I meant, godsdammit!”

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Chapter 6

“May I—” Tobirama starts.

It takes every ounce of Tobirama’s self-restraint to keep himself from smiling and instead give Madara his most unimpressed stare.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Madara shrieks, all but vibrating with fury. “Shut up!”

“I have yet to say anything,” Tobirama says, “while you’re the one waking up your neighbors.” And Izuna, probably, Tobirama supposes, dreading the moment he’ll have to endure his friend’s reaction to this mess.

“You’re talking now,” Madara growls, then manages to take one full breath and hopefully gather his thoughts before speaking, for once.

“What I meant—” Madara tries to clarify, at the same moment Tobirama decides he might as well get another laugh out of this, and says, “You want a stable sex life, yes, and we’ve established that it’s a little too soon for that, have we not?”

“Godsdamn you, Senju!”

This time, Madara is definitely pissed off enough to disturb the koi again and launch hurl another stream of water Tobirama’s way. This time, though, Tobirama shifts to dodge it easily enough.

The water trickles back into the pond as Madara glares murder at him, and Tobirama doesn’t bother to hide his grin.

“I couldn’t resist.” Really, it’s immensely satisfying to watch Madara make a fool of himself, soulmate or not. But because Tobirama doesn’t consider himself a complete lost cause when it comes to politeness, he says, “I’m sorry. What did you mean to say?”

“See if I tell you now, dumbass.”

Tobirama doesn’t avoid the unnecessarily hard punch to his arm, chuckling as Madara huffs and stalks off towards his house, shoulders stiff and head held high.

Tobirama waits.

He’s seen enough of such petulance from Hashirama to know what’s going to happen next. He’s fairly sure he can even time it.

Predictably, Madara stops in his tracks before he barrages through the front door. He slowly turns back to Tobirama, frown and pout in place, looking much like a disappointed child.

“You’re not leaving?”

“Not without giving my soulmate a proper goodbye, of course,” Tobirama teases, echoing Madara’s words from before, and—well. Madara definitely blushes this time. That’s an intriguing point to keep in mind.

“You are so fucking infuriating, Senju,” Madara snarls. “Idiot.” He runs a hand through his hair, releasing another put-upon sigh before gritting out his poor excuse for a response. “I meant that you could…” Madara runs a hand through the hair shrouding his face, managing to only make it messier. “If you want—like, fuck… you know.”

He makes a quick, incomprehensible gesture with his hands and falls silent.

What a disaster.

“I don’t, in fact, know,” Tobirama prods.

He takes the few steps towards where Madara is shuffling on his porch and still blushing furiously, staring intently at the ground. Tobirama does actually have an idea of what Madara is getting at, but he’d like to hear it from the man himself.

After all, if Madara is supposed to be his soulmate, he’d better get a grip of his eloquence at some point, because Tobirama is not willing to spend the rest of his life stuck with a literal child.

“If you,” Madara continues, fidgeting with his hands now, “wanted to—stay and help with—because the pain and I—and you feel okay when we—touch—hugging. Ugh. Whatever.”

“What you mean to ask,” Tobirama finally takes pity on him, “is whether I’ll stay for… a sleepover? So I can help with the pain you’re feeling?”

Madara’s whole body droops in a perfect imitation of Hashirama’s ‘depressive’ episodes. “Yes.”

He’s bent his head so far down all Tobirama sees in front of him is the spiky black mess that is his hair. It looks coarse and tangled, but Tobirama remembers how soft it felt, a part of him wishing he could touch it again.

Tobirama shakes his head at the strange thought. Another side effect of the bond, probably.

“I’d like that,” Tobirama says, softening his smile as Madara’s eyes snap to his.

“You would?” he asks in a high-pitched voice. “I mean. Okay. Oh. Right. I mean of course you would.” Madara flinches. “I didn’t mean to say that last part either. Shut up.”

“Do you have no filter whatsoever,” Tobirama asks, incredulous, “between what you think and what comes out of your mouth?”

“Shut. Up.”

Tobirama huffs out a laugh and raises his hands in surrender.

Without another word (but with enough jumbled grumbling under his breath about ‘stupid Senjus’ to make himself resemble a cranky elder) Madara grabs Tobirama by the collar and hauls him into his house, waving his hand at the space in lieu of a welcome.

It’s a much more lived in home compared to Tobirama’s, hints of a clumsy presence all over the place. What Tobirama can see of the kitchen from here is an ungodly mess, and he glimpses a grand fireplace in the living room he’d have loved to curl up to, normally, if not for the sweltering heat of his current chakra. The walls are covered with paintings of Izuna and people who are probably the rest of Madara’s family, of landscapes familiar to Tobirama only from his brief and rare forays onto the Uchiha’s former territory. He wonders if the paintings are Madara’s own, and a love for art is another thing they share in common.

Tobirama would ask now, if the silence they’d found themselves in wasn’t beyond awkward.

“So.” Madara fidgets again, staring at Tobirama expectantly. “Get ready for bed?”

Tobirama shrugs. “That is what you invited me for.”

Madara gives him an annoyed look for some reason; Tobirama supposes he’ll have to get used to those. He has a fleeting urge to mention that he’d wanted to propose the same arrangement for the night, to make Madara more at ease—but the admission feels too vulnerable, frightening even, and so he stays silent, watching Madara flit about bringing him extra clothes and a toothbrush.

Another amusing tendency of Madara’s is his pushy attitude when he’s nervous; he practically shoves Tobirama into the bathroom, ordering him to get ready. Tobirama reins in his teasing this time but can’t help but groan as he unfolds the sleeping yukata Madara’s offered him, the all too familiar uchiwa sown onto its back.

“Don’t you have any clothes without this accursed thing?” he asks, wondering if it’s really worth changing from his rumpled attire.

“Nope,” Madara answers cheerfully. “Deal with it, Senju.”

Tobirama makes a note to ask Mito, when she comes back from her travels, how to deal with a soulmate who’s a constant pain in the ass.

Large amounts of ice-cold water do nothing to quell the scorching fire in his coils, so Tobirama gives up soon enough. Stalling is another thing he isn’t used to but catches himself doing quite a lot of it in hopes of derailing the moment he has to get into bed next to—Madara.

Madara Uchiha.

His soulmate.

It still seems like something out of a lurid dream, if not a nightmare.

They find themselves lying down shoulder to shoulder, staring silently at the ceiling, neither of them willing to break the awkward silence or fall asleep.

Tobirama sighs.

“I have an idea for a seal that can help you deal with the pain while you’re learning to control my chakra.” He intended to say something completely different, like comment on the fact that they’ve ended up lying on top of the covers even though Madara obviously feels cold, but his own nervousness gets the better of him. “A matrix that’s a bit challenging, but if I use the same principles used for chakra masking, only to tune it down to a more comfortable—”

“Senju.”

“Hm?”

Tobirama glances to the side to see Madara frowning at him, seeming genuinely concerned.

“I’ve been in pain all day, but you, too, look like death warmed over,” he says, moving to lie on his side and curling his hand over Tobirama’s forearm. “Think about it tomorrow.”

“But—”

“Tomorrow.”

Tobirama rolls his eyes but relents, allowing himself to relax as much as he can, still lying on his back as Madara curls next to him. He casts his usual jutsu to adjust his dreams for the night, then carefully, slowly channels some of his chakra outward, hopefully enough to keep Madara warm, and judging by his contented sigh, it does the job.

It’s a testament to how exhausted Tobirama feels that sleep overtakes him almost instantly after he closes his eyes, the soft, pleasant thrum of their intertwining chakra a comforting, grounding force.

He doesn’t know if he imagines the soft ‘Thank you’ whispered so quietly he can barely hear it, but regardless, he falls asleep with a smile on his face.

End of Arc I: Truce

Arc II on tumblr

#madatobi #choose your own adventure #madara uchiha #tobirama senju #soulmate au #lou writes

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