Chapter Text
The mission had left Tobirama feeling achy and drained, but he was used to pushing his own limits, used to looking his exhaustion in the face and saying not yet. He ran and focused on the steady beat of his footsteps, losing himself a little in the rhythm just to force himself to keep going. It was easier to ignore the pain that way: there was a gash at his side, a strained muscle in his left leg, a fresh burn along his shoulder blade, none of which he could heal with his current low-chakra reserves.
It would be fine. He was close to the Senju border, close to familiar forests and the relative safety of well-guarded homeland. He might even be allowed to rest, soon, if Hashirama had managed to stay on top of his own duties and if the clan elders could be held off for a few hours and if there was no one dying in the healing halls. He stretched his senses out to double check, but, no, there was no one following behind him, no one lying ahead in wait.
He could feel the green-bright-chilled-spring beacon of Hashirama’s chakra in the Senju compound right beside the much fainter, but no less familiar, ping of dark-earth-rosemary of Touka’s. Then, stretching out to feel into the Uchiha lands, nothing but patrols circling the far side of the border—nowhere near Tobirama, thankfully—and at the Uchiha compound…
Starburst-warmth-cedar-smoke. Madara.
Tobirama permitted himself only a minute to bask in the feel of it. He felt guilty enough taking even brief pleasure in an enemy’s chakra, no matter how much Hashi had extoled Madara’s virtues. And it wasn’t that Tobirama didn’t think it all true, because no one truly evil or dishonorable or cruel had chakra that felt so nice, that could warm him so thoroughly he felt like he was melting off his bones.
(Tobirama would know. He had felt many chakra signatures in his lifetime and could recall the most unpleasant ones. The wet-swamp-sludge of the bloodline thief he’d caught stealing two children barely old enough to walk. The scraping-iron-tar of the man who’d torn through nearly a whole town before Tobirama had stopped him. The rotted-sweet-sticky of the woman who’d very nearly succeeded in poisoning him. The acid-pinprick-scald of the man who’d killed Itama—that one was burned into his memory most, in part because Tobirama hadn’t managed to kill him. Yet.)
No, Tobirama felt guilty about lingering on Madara’s chakra because even if the Uchiha was a good man—and Tobirama thought he must be, even if he couldn’t claim to know him how Hashirama did—he was still an enemy. Still someone the Senju would have to face on the field. Still someone who might very well fall in battle one day, even if he was one of the two strongest shinobi in Fire Country, maybe in any of the elemental nations.
It was hard enough already to go into battle with the Uchiha and feel the heat of Madara’s chakra only a few yards away—always focused on Hashirama, always—and be reminded again and again how pointless it was to wrap himself up in it, to find comfort in the safe warmth of it, so much so that Tobirama had developed a preference for cedar firewood because it reminded him of the loveliest chakra he’d ever known, and—
Even if Hashirama found some way to make his peace happen, and even if Madara was a part of it, he would never be Tobirama’s anything. At best…at best, Tobirama would be lucky to continue to feel Madara’s chakra and be grateful not to have to fight him or anyone Madara loved.
Too attached, a sharp voice in his mind reprimanded, and Tobirama never could figure out if that was his own logic or an echo of his father’s training. Either way, it was right. Tobirama had no right to want—
(It didn’t matter that he’d been enamored with in awe of that chakra since he first felt Hashirama meeting it by the river when they were children. It didn’t matter that he’d sought it out for years, even if no one else knew.)
He forcefully turned his focus away from the tempting chakra, something which was aided by an awareness of three unfamiliar chakra signatures following a fourth smaller chakra signature into Senju lands.
Intruders, he acknowledged, mouth pinched half with displeasure and half with exhaustion, but the nearest Senju patrol was up a few miles to the north, and even if it looked like a group was in pursuit of someone and had probably lost track of the land boundaries, it wouldn’t do to let them think they could trespass without consequences. Especially when they were coming in from the Uchiha side, though…
Only the small chakra imprint was fire-natured: ember-spark-sun-dapple.
An Uchiha leading outsiders to the Senju to attack? he wondered even as he raced forward, changing direction just slightly so as to intercept them. It would hardly be the first time someone had tried to drag a third party into the Senju-Uchiha conflict, though that had been more common in Butsuma’s days as clan head, a tactic the older generations had tried.
He hoped, at least, that it would be a quick fight. The mission really had taken more out of him than he’d expected, and while he would do anything to protect his home, he was self-aware enough to know that he didn’t have the chakra or the energy for a drawn out conflict at this point.
Almost there.
It was strange; the ember-spark chakra had been in the lead, though not by much, but now they were slowing down and quickly, not anywhere near the Senju compound. The other three signatures hadn’t faltered at all; they were gaining, gaining—
Tobirama landed on a tree branch as silent as the ghost he was sometimes called, peering down at where the shinobi should be coming through in just…another…second.
Ember-spark burst through the underbrush first, panting and trembling with fatigue, dark-hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, the sharingan spinning red in panicked eyes, and Tobirama’s hand stilled where he had been ready to throw a kunai—the whole world stilled for a half-breath, and suddenly it was the least important thing in the world that ember-spark was an Uchiha, that they were trespassing.
Because it was a child.
A small—no older than seven or eight—terrified, very much hurt child. There was a slice against the boy’s cheek, mere inches from his eye, and the blood had dripped in a smear that did not look entirely unlike Tobirama’s own face markings. He was limping, too, and fatigued, and the other chakra signatures were still closing in, and no, just…no. There was no way this was an infiltration, no way this Uchiha child was leading enemies to the Senju stronghold.
He was being hunted.
(There was a moment in every fight where the entire field fell into focus for him. Some people got heated in the midst of a fight, but Tobirama had had battle-calm beaten into his skin from the moment he was old enough to hold a blade. Even when he was angry, even when he was at his most vicious, his senses remained calm. His blood remained steady. And sitting up in his tree branch, he had never felt steadier.)
The clumsy crunch of leaves signaled the arrival of the Uchiha child’s pursuers, and the boy’s head snapped around, desperately searching for a place to hide, though not fast enough.
“Nowhere left to run, little rabbit?” a cold, taunting voice called, and a man stepped out from behind a tree, the kunai in his hands tipped with the red of the boy’s blood.
“And on enemy land, too.” The two others came out from behind the first, spreading out into a formation designed to trap. The slighter of the two huffed a sharp laugh. “No one is going to save you here.”
“Just what he deserves, the little fucker,” the third one snarled, his own face bloodied from where the boy had obviously gotten a solid hit in earlier. “I’m gonna carve those eyes out of you and then some. If you’re real lucky, we’ll send the spare pieces back to your clan.”
It was easy to put together the situation in a fragment of a second. Young Uchiha, probably out on a simple courier mission or with a group—supposed to be safer. Purposefully driven into enemy territory where backup would be unlikely. Pursuers mistakenly think the Senju will either not notice or else ignore it.
If it had been anyone other than Tobirama—if it had been the usual border patrol—perhaps the Uchiha boy would not have lived. There were still many within the clan whose hatred ran deep, who would see this terrified boy and only think of him as an Uchiha, a potential threat that could be taken out easily now while he was young and fragile.
Despite the sharingan and other obvious Uchiha features, however, Tobirama could only see a child too young to be treated like prey, too young and too precious to someone to die out here, hunted and alone.
(He could imagine, almost, that this was Itama or Kawarama. He could imagine that, this time, he would not be too late.)
The three enemy nin were not particularly weak, and they were not mission-fatigued like Tobirama was, but they thought they were alone, thought they were safe, thought no one was coming to interrupt their hunt. He had the element of surprise, and really, for a shinobi of Tobirama’s skill and abilities, that was more than enough.
He ripped the blood out of two of them with little more than a flick of his fingers and a light pull of his chakra—that was a vicious technique, and a bloody one, but it required finesse more than power, and was ideal for when his reserves were low—and had launched out of his perch, seeming to fall out of the sky like a vengeful spirit, his blade already drawn and slashing through the last nin’s throat before the first two had even fallen to the ground.
In the aftermath, the forest was quiet but for the ragged breathing of the small boy behind him.
Tobirama sheathed his blade before turning to the boy—no need to frighten him further, if possible—and asked in his calmest, gentlest tone, “Are you injured?”
It took a moment for him to answer between the shaking and the little, gasping breaths as he tried to calm down, but eventually the boy shook his head. Tobirama only raised a brow, and the child ducked his head a little.
“My…my leg is…”
In the dimness of the moonlight through the trees, it was hard to see very clearly, but now that Tobirama was closer, he could make out the dark, wet circle on the boy’s thigh, little droplets of blood pattering onto the leafy ground. Fuck. That was…not good, to say the least.
But there was no question about healing it. Tobirama was sure he had enough chakra for that, even if it would mean he’d really be scraping the bottom of his reserves, enough that it would slow down his usual running pace.
“I’m going to come closer,” he told the boy. “I won’t hurt you. I’m going to heal your leg as much as I can. Alright?”
The boy nodded easily enough—too easily, perhaps, and without even the wariness that a shinobi should have had towards a potential enemy, especially an Uchiha dealing with a Senju. Tobirama could only hope it wasn’t that the boy’s trust was easily given, and rather that he’d realized if Tobirama had wanted him dead, he’d have done it already.
The wound was both better and worse up close. For one, it wasn’t nearly as deep as Tobirama had thought, and it hadn’t nicked anything critical: no arteries, no prominent veins, no tendons or bones or anything else that might have led to permanent damage. But it was a nasty thing, jagged as though it had been purposefully carved into, not at all a clean slice. Then there was the question of whether or not poison was involved.
“What name should I call you?” Tobirama asked as he knelt before the boy. “It doesn’t have to be your real one.”
“I…I’m Kagami,” the child said. “And you’re the—”
“I’m Tobirama.” Right now, he had no desire to be seen as the White Demon, the Senju Ghost, some creature of nightmares, some monster.
(He never really wanted that reputation, though it had served to keep his clan safe. Better they were feared and avoided than attacked at every opportunity. If it was the rumors of Tobirama’s coldness, his bloodthirsty viciousness and unearthly danger, his merciless attacks that kept would-be assailants away, then so be it.)
(Even though it hurt, sometimes, to be thought of as barely human. Even though there were people in his clan who believed in the rumors, who looked at him with mistrust and disgust and fear.)
(Even though for all that his brother still loved him, even Hashirama sometimes forgot about Tobirama’s very real heart, forgot that before Tobirama had become Butsuma’s blade he had been a child too, forgot that part of the reason he’d had to become closed off was because he felt everything so very deeply.)
“This is very important, Kagami. After you were cut, did you start to feel any different? If there was poison, you might be feeling slower, dizzy, overly warm. You might have trouble speaking or have trouble understanding what I’m saying.”
He looked the boy over as he spoke but was relieved to find no real indicator of abnormal symptoms. The boy had just run for his life through the forest—of course he was going to be sweating and tired and breathing hard—but now that his sharingan had faded back into black, it was clear that his pupils looked fairly normal, with no discoloration of the sclera. His breathing was starting to level out. The area around the cut on his cheek was clean, and there were no signs of puss forming on either wound. That was good.
Kagami shook his head. “I don’t think so, Tobirama-san. I only feel—”
He had cut himself off, but Tobirama could guess. “It’s okay to be scared, you know. You were in a bad situation, but you did a good job of keeping yourself together.” When the boy didn’t look particularly convinced, he continued, “Even grown shinobi get scared sometimes.”
Kagami’s brow furrowed. “They do?”
Tobirama hummed, and continued talking as he carefully rinsed Kagami’s wound, and began to heal, hoping to distract him from the discomfort. “Of course. Every now and then, you come across someone stronger than you, or perhaps you’re outnumbered, or you get caught when you weren’t expecting it. It’s natural to be scared, but the important thing is how you handle your fear.”
“How do you handle your fear?”
Tobirama smiled faintly. “You practice. You learn to keep moving, keep fighting. It helps to have something to fight for, a reason to keep going even when you think you’ve reached the end of your limits. I—” he paused, hesitating, but Kagami was watching with rapt attention, and Tobirama found that he could not help but indulge the boy “—think of my loved ones, and how there is nothing I want more than to come home to them, to hold them again and keep them safe.”
Kagami nodded solemnly, quiet for a moment, and then, “When I was running, I…I kept thinking that I didn’t want Madara-shishou to have to find my body.”
Oh, Tobirama thought, a sharp stabbing in his chest. He could remember far too clearly the feeling of Kawarama’s chakra flickering out of existence, far out of Tobirama’s reach, his remains only gathered later and barely recognizable. He could remember racing towards Itama—could practically taste the fear, the panic—but still too late, his brother dead but his body not yet cold.
No one deserved to die that young, and no one deserved to find their loved ones like that.
“You did very well,” Tobirama praised again, then carefully ruffled Kagami’s hair, amused when the boy pushed up into the touch like a cat.
There was a sharp, bright flare of chakra from deep in the Uchiha lands—Madara’s warmth turned raging and angry in a second. Ah, he must have gotten a report that the boy is missing. It took less than a moment for the chakra signature to start moving at a breakneck pace, a minute more to sense that Madara was crossing Uchiha land in record time. Time to go, then.
“And now, if you are well enough, it is time to return you home,” Tobirama said. “Your shishou is looking for you.”
Kagami’s eyes grew excited for a moment before he seemed to remember that he was on Senju land. “Oh no, I’ve got to—”
“I’ll get you to the border,” Tobirama promised. The boy’s leg was as healed as it was going to get right now, but it would likely still pain him for the next day or two. “It will be faster if I carry you.”
Luckily, Kagami had no issue with that, and Tobirama was able to hoist the boy onto his back easily enough before dashing off towards the Uchiha border. Madara was fresh and fueled by panic and anger, and so he was moving much faster than Tobirama was capable of right now, given his own injuries, fatigue, and his passenger. But if he was lucky—if he was careful—then there would be no confrontation.
Each step was difficult, but purpose drove him onward. Get Kagami home. Get him safe. Get him home. Get him safe.
The line of trees broke, finally, signaling the field that made up this portion of the Senju-Uchiha border. It had once been forest, too, but years of fighting had killed most of the growth here, so much so that even the grass was hard pressed to grow and only the most indestructible of weeds had taken up residence.
Tobirama would get Kagami close, and then try to put some distance between himself and Madara before the man showed up—
Too late, a part of his brain whispered, noticing the proximity of Madara’s chakra just moments before the man burst through the tree line on the opposite side of the field. Despite the dim light, his sharingan red eyes were practically glowing and, unfortunately, pinned directly on Tobirama. Madara’s chakra roiled.
It was beautiful even when it was rife with anger, and Tobirama had the absurd thought that at least if he was going to die, he could die surrounded in comfort.
“Madara-shishou!” Kagami called out happily, leaning up as high as he could get on Tobirama’s back and waving his hands. “I’m alright!”
He wasn’t sure if the child honestly had no idea of the murderous tension between Madara and Tobirama, or if he was ignoring it, or if his cheery call was meant to disrupt it, but whatever Kagami’s intent, Madara’s chakra shifted from outright killing intent to just wariness.
Slowly, carefully, Tobirama lowered Kagami to the ground, hyper-aware of Madara’s watchful gaze. Madara could probably cross the field in a matter of seconds, and while Tobirama was normally confident that he could outrun the man—he had always been fast, so much faster than practically anyone else—today he was far too tired for it. There was no need to provoke Madara by being incautious.
“Go on,” Tobirama encouraged gently. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
Kagami chewed on his lip for a moment, hesitating, before he darted out to wrap his arms around Tobirama in a quick hug. And then he was off, scurrying across the field as fast as he could with a slight limp, leaving Tobirama to just stand there and blink for a minute. By the time he’d fully come back to himself—stupid, don’t lose focus—Kagami was in front of Madara and the elder Uchiha was looking him over while Kagami chattered excitedly, too far away for Tobirama to hear.
Madara looked up, meeting Tobirama’s eyes across the field—stupid, don’t look him in the eyes, no matter how pretty—and seemed to assess him. Then he nodded his head, and Tobirama returned the gesture before stepping back into the forest, making sure not to turn his back, just in case.
Before he could fully disappear into the cover of the woods, however, Kagami—who was now atop Madara’s shoulders—called out, “THANKS TOBIRAMA-SENSEI!”
It wasn’t very shinobi like. Kagami seemed like he really needed a few refresher lessons on subtlety. And safety. And not trusting your enemy so easily. And—
He was too young, Tobirama couldn’t help but think, even if he knew it was standard practice amongst the clans. Sometimes, even if it was hard for him to imagine the peace that Hashirama talked about, he wanted that village so badly, wanted to know that with the clans banded together, they wouldn’t have to send children out quite so young.
(Still, his mind lingered on Madara’s respectful nod at the end, Kagami’s easy happiness, being called Tobirama-sensei. He smiled the whole way home.)