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“Senju-sama.” The young Uchiha bowed, a pained grimace on his face. “I come on behest of Clan Head Madara to request on behalf of the Uchiha Clan, your aid in the medical treatment of our fellow clansmen due to grievous injuries by way of a skirmish with the Kaguya Clan earlier this day.”
Tobirama took a sip of his steaming, freshly brewed cup of tea, face blank as he considered the formal request.
On the one hand, this looked to be a good opportunity to show the sincerity of the Senju Clan in their pursuit of peace between the Senju and the Uchiha clans.
On the other hand, if Tobirama refused, for any reason legitimate or inconsequential, the Uchiha would receive ample validation to accuse the Senju of a lack of commitment to the current ceasefire declared between the two clans, and perhaps even use it as an edge to barter with should they begin peace negotiations.
So in short, Tobirama did not actually have a choice in this, despite the pretty words no doubt hashed out by the Uchiha's finest diplomats. If he refused this, he would essentially be taking a spiked mace to the ceasefire agreement itself.
Tobirama hummed.
This however, did not mean that they were not in dire need of his help.
Tobirama studied the youth. Hands clasped tightly as he awaited Tobirama’s reply. He did not show signs of worry, merely discomfort, which implied it was either not urgent, or that he had no one in particular to lose that he cared for dearly.
“Very well.” He replied, “I shall provide my assistance at request of the Uchiha Clan.” He bowed his head in ceremony, placing his empty cup before himself on a narrow tray next to the pot of tea, taking great care not to damage the wares.
It was quite lovely, the small delicate tea set he’d been granted for the duration of his stay here in the Uchiha compound. Tobirama liked to run his fingers over the smooth graceful edges and the flowing little curves.
He would be disappointed if they were to be replaced.
He stood, nodding at the young Uchiha to lead the way, following closely behind.
While he found that the Uchiha were uncomfortable with his close presence near their person, too close to fight off properly with a blade should he attack, he found that they were a little more uncomfortable if he was not close by his Uchiha escorts. No doubt they felt safer that someone was there to step between them should he attempt anything, a fact Tobirama found endlessly amusing as most of his escorts so far were people he had fought with at least once in the past and allowed to escape with their lives. Perhaps they were under the mistaken assumption that he had not killed them because he could not.
Tobirama took the rare opportunity provided to him to stretch his legs, stiff from lack of use. Though his guesthouse here in the Uchiha compound was not exactly lacking in spaces to do light exercise or take a short stroll should he want it, it was not nearly enough for a Shinobi of his caliber, especially a Shinobi built for speed like Tobirama.
The guesthouse was near the edge of the compound, a safeguard to protect the clan from whoever should reside there, built towards safety of the people rather than containment and defence.
Tobirama could respect that, even if he disagreed.
The walk from the borders of the compound to the centre where the infirmary was placed, (this he approved of) took a few minutes which Tobirama was glad for and took as opportunity to prepare himself for the inevitable headache that was sure to follow in the wake of the large concentration of Uchiha chakra signatures up ahead.
Not only were Uchiha generally loud and temperamental, but their chakra burned brightly, bordering on searing when they washed up against his delicate senses. And while most of them where too Shinobi to outwardly show their emotions on the battlefield, that said nothing to the heightened display of emotions that coloured their chakra and leaked into their surroundings during battle.
Perhaps a side effect of the sharingan, Tobirama mused.
He could sense people watching his procession through the compound from either sides, suspicion and anxiety permeating the air. He was not wearing any chakra suppression cuffs, despite the Uchiha no doubt wanting nothing more then to fit him with his own personalized pair made just for his meek, humble self. But that would merely give the Senju an incentive to claim the Uchiha insincere in their part of the ceasefire, should they attempt to do so. Izuna himself was currently housed in the Senju compound after all, similar to his own disposition here in the Uchiha compound, the Uchiha could not afford to act out of turn.
Should anything happen to the ceasefire, both Izuna and himself would be put at risk.
The infirmary loomed up ahead. His stomach jittered with nerves but he refused to give the Uchiha the satisfaction of seeing him squaring his shoulders in anxious anticipation so he settled for clenching his fists discretely inside the sleeves of his haori instead.
The Uchiha stopped to hold the door open for him, only to step aside quickly as a boy of maybe nine or ten rushed out with an empty pail in his hands, running off in the direction of what Tobirama had deduced was a water well, both of them stopping to look after him.
Tobirama waited, hoping the man would go first, but after a moment of neither moving he stepped forward and took the lead, ducking under the doorframe (he had learned the hard way Uchiha doorways were a little smaller than Senju ones after knocking his head repeatedly on every doorframe in his guesthouse for an entire week) and stepping as high as he subtly could over the door step. This was very much not the place to be tripping over doorsteps, he could not afford to show any hint of weakness with an entire building of Uchiha waiting and watching his every move.
Inside the infirmary was warm, a fire crackling somewhere to his right. People were milling around everywhere; Tobirama doubted all of them were healers. He felt the tiny chakra signatures of a few small children dotted around the room, only one of them showing signs of illness.
He already knew most of the chakra signatures in the room from the battlefield, over half of them sporting some sort of injury from their recent skirmish with the Kaguya. Though he noticed with interest that the remaining few that were uninjured were helping out with the treatment of their fellow clansmen instead of leaving for their own homes.
Another cultural difference; the Senju wouldn’t dream of hovering around the infirmary after a battle, they would only be in the way.
So either the general Uchiha masses were a lot more proficient in first aid then the Senju, which all signs pointed to this being very unlikely, or they needed all the help they could get.
He added another tally mark in his head to the growing list of evidence that pointed towards the Uchiha healers having access to only the basics of healing.
Uchiha Madara turned his head at Tobirama’s entry into the infirmary, he secured the bandage he was wrapping around an older man’s shoulder tightly and tied it off, standing to make his way towards him.
Around him people began to take note of his arrival and small sparks of anxiety and distrust spread around the room. Tobirama felt eyes boring into the side of his head from every direction.
Madara waved at an older woman as he approached. Tobirama followed her with his chakra as she nodded to her aid who took over pressing a cloth to what looked to be a particularly deep stab wound. Ambling around the cot she paused to wash away the blood on her hands and turned to make her way towards Tobirama as well.
“I thank you for coming.” Madara nodded his head in greeting. “This is Uchiha Kikiyo, head healer of the Uchiha Clan.”
Tobirama inclined his head in acknowledgment, looking at where he assumed was over her shoulder, and judging by the sudden spark of seething anger in Madara’s chakra, he was right.
It was a risky gamble to take with the ceasefire on the line, but Tobirama could not make himself reveal such a significant weakness on his part to what had so recently been, and may yet be again a potential enemy. Even at the cost of the Uchiha’s offence he could not make himself correct their assumption of what would look like a blatant show of mistrust and hate.
“If you could direct me to your most urgent patient, I would like to get started immediately.” He murmured.
Her chakra showed no offence at his perceived rude behavior, and Tobirama could not help himself but respect her for it as she turned and led him towards the patient with the stab wound, Madara following close at their heels.
Tobirama stopped before the cot, waving his hand over the man in a brief diagnostic jutsu. Madara stiffened at his side, leaning over to watch with an edge of rigid suspicion. Tobirama ignored him, hovering his hands over the trembling fingers of the young girl who was applying pressure to the wound, her chakra fearful and bordering on hysterical, and he began the healing jutsu.
The air around him was charged, the Uchihas’ chakra high on alert and tense as they watched. He felt the beginnings of a headache forming.
…..
Twenty minutes past he straightened from where he’d been bent over the man, back protesting at the sudden movement. Madara had left a few minutes ago when he’d seen the man regaining some of his colour and had wandered off to go help tend to other patients, chakra only barely appeased.
Tobirama could still feel him watching from across the room.
“Next?” he turned towards the aged healer, tone curt and devoid of all feeling, the insides of his head long ago scraped clean from any and all emotions at the raging fury of a headache that was bordering on migraine level of pain.
Kikiyo-san finished checking over the patient before nodding over at the girl with the trembling hands to clean and bandage what remained of the injury.
“This way.” Kikiyo-san turned and led the way towards another cot where a middle aged woman was groaning in pain. Tobirama let his senses roll over her following the intense wave of wrong radiating from the chakra paths just above her left elbow, the bottom half of her arm completely void of all chakra. She would most likely need to have an amputation.
He cast a diagnostic jutsu and quickly confirmed what he’d thought. A bad break just above her elbow, there would be no saving the rest of her arm. She was bordering on the edges of going into shock, which explained why they hadn’t gone ahead with the amputation and simply cauterized the open stump instead of waiting on him. Chances are she wouldn’t have survived.
He paused, thoughts racing while his hand hovered over the woman’s arm. He wouldn’t be able to do the amputation without exposing himself, someone else would have to do the cutting while he did the healing.
He glanced at the woman when she didn’t react to his presence and realized with a frown that she was probably too delirious to even know what was going on around her.
“Bring a belt to stem the blood flow.” He called over his shoulder at one of the Uchiha hovering near the woman’s cot.
The Uchiha scowled, temper flaring at Tobirama’s dismissive tone before stomping off angrily at Kikiyo-san's sharp glare.
“You do the cutting.” Tobirama told her, “I’ll do the healing.”
Kikiyo-san studied him for a moment. “If this is a matter of the ceasefire…” she probed.
“It is not.” Tobirama said curtly.
“Ah.”
Unfortunately his Uchiha audience felt very differently about his reply and took it to mean that this was some kind of slight against the Uchiha, their chakra flaring in indignation.
Tobirama was not sure how refusing to remove an Uchiha’s arm was offensive.
Kikiyo-san went to grab a knife and Tobirama sat down to wait for the other Uchiha to return with a belt.
He had enough chakra left to heal the woman completely, but after this his reserves would be dwindling down to low. He would have to limit his sensing to his immediate vicinity if he wanted to continue as he was.
Kikiyo-san appeared with the Uchiha in tow and he got to work.
…..
An hour later he stepped back, finished. His headache had turned into a migraine halfway through and it was taking every little drop of willpower he had left not to cringe at even the slightest of sounds. His head was spinning and he was bordering on nauseous. He made his way to a chair in the corner of the room, only his utmost keeping himself from sagging in exhaustion at every step.
He had made a mistake. He hadn’t accounted for his headache when he’d evaluated how much chakra he would have left after healing the woman. The migraine had sapped his remaining energy like a sponge, his head so sensitive even the slightest use of chakra resounding like a gong inside his skull.
He would have to wait it out he realized with a burning feeling of dread.
…..
Peace with the Senju may have been Madara’s dream since he was young, (the current ceasefire with their lifelong enemies a result of his own hard work in fact, in convincing his clan that they could live side by side with the Senju without killing each other), but even he could not possibly see himself living in tandem with the Senju White Demon.
Senju Tobirama was cold, cruel and unfeeling. The only emotions he ever showed in the presence of the Uchiha was arrogant contempt and a deep blinding distrust, refusing to so much as look them in the face much less the eyes even after two months of staying in the Uchiha compound.
Madara had nurtured a tentative spark of hope that Senju Tobirama was not at all as bad as he seemed when Tobirama had knelt down on that battlefield and healed Izuna’s wound after he had dealt that fatal blow. But it had died within the month at that same blatant disrespect Tobirama showed to any and every Uchiha he had come across with his arrival in the Uchiha compound. Children, elderly, civilians and warriors alike, possessing the sharingan or not, all of them were treated with the same cold gaze past their shoulders.
There was no peace for a man like Senju Tobirama.
….
He was pleasantly surprised when Senju Tobirama had actually showed up upon his request for help on behalf of the Uchiha Clan. He’d sent it on a whim with the thought that even if he refused to help they would at least have a way to strong arm the Senju should they prove difficult to handle during the peace talks in the future.
His surprise was immediately followed by suspicion when he realized Tobirama would never agree to helping out the Uchiha unless he gained something out of it. And Madara very much doubted that peace was what Tobirama would get out of it.
He had nearly lost his temper then and there when Tobirama had refused to look at even Kikiyo-sama, an Uchiha healer sworn to never harm or kill.
He followed behind them watching Tobirama's every move closely, waiting for even a tiniest hint of foul play.
He left feeling wrong footed when his cousin lying on the cot had regained his colour under the careful ministrations of the Senju Demon.
…..
Madara narrowed his eyes at Tobirama’s blunt arrogant demeanor towards Kikiyo-sama when he finished with his first patient. Kikiyo-sama had been his healer since he was a baby, her enduring patience and kind, if strict manner had endeared her to him long ago and he could not tolerate even the slightest of insults towards her person.
He watched as Tobirama followed her over to Urie-san, wincing when his eyes fell upon her bloody, mangled arm. She would need an amputation.
He frowned at Tobirama’s refusal to do the amputation himself, his temper flaring once more at his blatant refusal to give the Uchiha healer the acknowledgment and respect she deserved by looking her in the face.
(He turned away when Kikiyo-sama cut Urie-san's hand, that was a memory he did not wish to keep.)
He kept his eyes on Tobirama as he stood crouched over Urie-san’s bloody stump, green chakra flowing from his hands for an entire hour.
(He found himself wishing that Tobirama was not so against this peace and the Uchiha’s presence in it, because standing there, face deep in concentration as he spent his life force to heal an Uchiha wound, Madara could not help but find him beautiful.)
….
He watched as Tobirama shuffled over to the chair in the corner of the room with a touch of worry on his face. But it disappeared soon enough when Tobirama did not move to help a single other patient for the duration of his stay, the sun sinking lower in the sky. He just sat there staring coldly at nothing.
Perhaps Hashirama had forced his hand in this as well, Madara thought with a sneer, and Tobirama having done his bare minimum, retired his help.
Madara looked away, teeth clenched, only for his eyes to land on the tiny form of a little boy sitting at his mother’s bedside.
Kagami-kun had been there all day, Madara realized with a flash of guilt. A wave of shame washed over him at his thoughtless neglect of the little boy.
Kagami didn’t have anyone, his father had died when he was a little baby and his mother, Uchiha Shikami had gone blind from mangekyo overuse not long after. She had grown increasingly ill over the past few years and spent most of her time in the infirmary, with no one to take care of her at home.
He frowned when he noticed where Kagami was staring at, eyes widening in alarm when the little boy got up, moving from his place for the first time since he had arrived there at midday.
Kagami crept towards Senju Tobirama in slow careful moments, eyes never leaving the pale man, a strange look on his face.
Madara watched stiffly, eyes narrowed as Kagami came to a stop in front of Tobirama.
Tobirama glanced in the little boy’s direction but did not move. Madara’s lip curled in anger.
The room was tense, everyone waiting with bated breath to see what would happen.
Kagami stood there staring at Tobirama’s blank face for a full minute before he mustered up the courage to speak.
“Are you like my Kaa-san?” Kagami asked. “She can’t see either.”
The room went deathly silent.
Tobirama turned his head slowly, looking down near Kagami’s face with eyes not blank, Madara realized with a jolt, but unfocused.
Not cold, not unfeeling, but unfocused.
Madara’s insides turned to ice the longer the silence stretched, his heart hammering in his chest.
Then a soft gentle smile curved across Tobirama’s lips taking Madara’s breath away. “You’re a clever one aren’t you?”
Tobirama reached out, hand hovering in the air before it landed on Kagami’s inky black curls, ruffling them fondly and that’s when it hit home hard.
“You’re not being rude, you’re blind.” Madara gasped, mind reeling.
Tobirama wasn’t refusing to meet their eyes, he couldn’t. He wasn’t looking down on them, he couldn’t see them.
Deep inside that little flame of hope began burning once again.
(Maybe perhaps Tobirama wasn’t so bad after all.)