Can't Take the Sky from Me

“Stop being difficult!”

If all Konohan children were like this, this country was doomed. Resisting she could understand, but daring to show her his tongue? In Water, that was practically asking for it to be ripped off! Minami huffed, letting her blood fall and soak into the dirt. Judging by the feel of his chakra, he probably had enough to keep this little charade going long enough to be rescued. Think, Minami, think…

“Ha!” The teenager jumped off the cart, internally patting herself on her back. Whenever she was naughty as a tadpole, Minami’s teachers would put a cute little rag over her face and pour water on it! As spiteful as the kids from her land were, the experience never failed to get them quiet and obedient. She’d just do the same here — flush the baby rat out his hidey-hole!

“Water Style: River Spirit!” Minami watched a too smug face as water burst from her hands, pressurized just enough to force themselves into Yukirama’s wooden home, chakra keeping it from leaking back out as it rose higher and higher. 

How long can normal kids hold their breaths again?

Yukirama didn’t know what this lady was trying to do, but he did know that she was definitely not trying to play around. Water sloshed into the wagon, flooded his protective cage. And despite the training he’d been receiving since he was three, it scared him nonetheless. He’d never been in any real danger before, had never felt self-preservation kick in as it did now.

His uncle liked to use water techniques too, but Yukirama had never quite managed control over the unruly element. 

At least he did know that wood could float. He clung to the cage, detached it from the sides of the wagon. The water pushed it up, but soaked him nonetheless, reaching up to his waist and progressing quickly.

Panic was beginning to set in.

“Stop it! I wanna go home!” he yelled, voice breaking with desperation as he clung to the wood. He couldn’t undo the cage, but the water just kept coming.

“There’s always war brewing somewhere.” Madara turned to Yukirama. “We’ll circle around it. I doubt we’ll go that far north anyway.”

As it were, his current plan was to discreetly cut through Fire Country. It was closer to Konoha than he was comfortable with but they hadn’t had trouble in the last seven years. He doubted it would crop up now of all times. Maybe the war was even good – people’s attention would be on the northern front, not on the west where they would be moving. The chance of increased patrols didn’t faze Madara either.

“We need to get moving soon. Are you ready?”

“How far are we circling?” Of course Yukirama was ready. He was always ready to move on, knowing that any attachments he made were nothing more than temporary. They lived life according to Madara’s whims. It had been that way for seven years.

Yukirama palmed a peach. He’d miss these once they left. 

“To Konoha?”

“Careful out there!” The grocer called as the door closed behind him.

Elsewhere, in the small room that they shared above the one traveler’s inn in the town, Madara frowned as he picked at his hair. It was a steely grey color, faintly reflecting the sunlight.

Grey hairs. He was getting old, then. Forty-eight years old… not a lot of shinobi could claim to have greying hair. Madara wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Not proud, no – but not disturbed either. What would Hashirama say if he saw these hairs? It’d been seven years since he last saw Hashirama. Did he wake up to grey hairs too? Were there new wrinkles around his eyes, around his smiling mouth? Madara couldn’t say he wasn’t curious. He couldn’t say he wanted to know either. The thought made Madara frown and he ripped the strand out.

When Yukirama’s chakra drew closer, Madara banished his melancholy thoughts. Even if he was no longer affiliated with the village, he was still shinobi and shinobi endured. For seven years, he’d endured this separation. He’d endure another year and another year beyond that and so forth. He had to.

“Is that man still chatting up a storm every time you show your face?” he remarked as he dropped the hair. “We should be getting everything for free since our ears are already paying for it.”

He already charges us less because he likes me,” Yuki pointed out as he joined his father in their room. Not, of course, without checking his surrounding, whether anyone had followed or watched him. It had become part of his daily routine, roughly seven years ago, when all of this began with a night’s sleep interrupted and a flight from an enemy unseen.

Yukirama once believed it was temporary. Now, he knew better. 

He wasn’t a child anymore, and he didn’t believe Madara’s tales without reproach. He’d grown tall, already looking to overtake Madara in height. His hair was still dyed, but it didn’t disguise much of his face. He knew every time he saw himself, remembered exactly whom he resembled.

The sweet, persistent ache of missing his other father was a constant companion.

Minami’s hand retracted faster than an arrow, her instincts (for once) moving her body just in time. She gawked at the sudden sprouts, using the moment he busied himself with talk to observe it, doubting the impossibility her eyes declared to be the truth —

But the Land of Water had its fair share of strangeness too, herself included. Minami brought her thumb to her mouth, using an overly sharp canine to cut a line into the meat. “Hey, do ya have the Sharingan as well? Half-breeds aren’t usually worth much, but…”

Blood spinning round her fingers, the kunoichi used her hand as a pseudo sword, slashing the vines in half and making another grab for Yukirama.

“Two kekkei genkais would make ya a very special boy!”

This lady was decisively creepy, and it just got worse when she started waving her blood around. Yuki curled up tight, the wood reforming to make a cage, decisively tangling through the wheels of the wagon, bringing it to a halt.

Yuki squeezed himself into the back of his self-made cage.

“I wanna go home!” he declared, with no uncertainty. His ‘to-san and papa were surely going to notice he was missing, soon.

Madara’s will wavered. He spent so much of his time wondering what Hashirama was thinking – he couldn’t help but feel hungry at that glimpse. Dangerous, it was dangerous, he knew this damn well. But still. Still. He’d never loved anyone else in the way he loved Hashirama. He never would again.

Madara forced himself to look at Yukirama. He focused on his sweet face and tried to pull his thoughts away from a man who just wouldn’t leave.

“There’s a village close by. We can eat there.” Grabbing Yukirama’s hand, Madara began to pull him in that direction. As they left, the bushy little trees of Yukirama’s Mokuton began to smoke before they burned, leaving no trace of them behind.

-

Slowly, Madara continued to pull Yukirama further and further away from Fire Country until he was sure they couldn’t be found anymore. He exchanged their clothes so they were both in grey yukata, bearing no clan symbols, and quietly trained Yukirama in not just the Mokuton, but also in Uchiha clan techniques, in kenjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and more, honing his son into a blade that would never break.

The world was a harsh place. Yukirama had to be ready for that. The only thing that Madara was reluctant to make him do was kill. You couldn’t go back from that. Once you ended someone’s life, that was that. It became easier after one, after two, after three, until you lost count for good. No matter how deep his paranoia grew, Madara couldn’t force Yukirama to do it.

He just wanted to spare his son. That was all he ever wanted. So he’d train him, he’d sharpen him, but the day the time came to kill – that would be Yukirama’s own choice.

“There’s a war coming,” commented the grocer as he handed Yukirama the bag of peaches. This year’s harvest was good and the peaches were soft and fragrant. “I heard it from one of them shinobi teams. It’s brewing up north. You and your old man was gonna be heading that way, right? Should be careful.”

“Shinobi always talk about war. Don’t worry, we can handle ourselves.” Yukirama took another whiff of the peaches. Definitely ripe and sweet, the perfect dessert for tonight. No matter how this conversation he’d planned out went, at least the food would be good.

And maybe, just maybe, it’d help convince his father that it had been long enough. 

Yukirama could barely remember the village he’d once called home. It was a murky set of memories, punctuated only by one, bright face, and that belonged to Senju Hashirama, a man he missed so dearly that he’d spent more than one night crying himself to sleep about it.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, he was finally going to tell Madara what he was going to do. 

He paid and thanked the grocer as he left the store, briefly scanning his surroundings but finding no shinobi. Even if there were some lingering about, they’d hardly know him by sight. He looked just like any other civilian they’d ever encountered.

“He’ll… manage.” Madara didn’t want to talk about that. He couldn’t afford to think too long about Hashirama in the aftermath. He would wonder about too much, need to know too much, and he couldn’t trust his own curiosity leading them back into the trap of Konoha. But Yukirama didn’t know that, did he? He believed Hashirama was faultless. He saw nothing wrong in his father, didn’t believe he could do anything to hurt him. Madara couldn’t break that illusion. Not now.

Later. Like all things, later. For now, Yukirama had enough on his plate. Maybe when he was older and more mature, Madara would let him know about what was happening.

“He’s tough, you know. The strongest there is. No matter what happens, he’ll get through it. So don’t worry, ‘to-san will be just fine until we…” Madara faltered, “-until we go back.”

“That’s what ‘to-san says about you too when he goes away.” Yukirama could accept this displacement as temporary. Really, it was no different than when Hashirama had to go to other lands to speak with other Kages; just that Yuki wasn’t about to meet other children and talk about boring things like peace and war.

Yukirama looked back at Madara, flowers still in his hair, face dusted with pollen, smile still on his lips.

Madara stepped back when the trees suddenly burst out of the ground. He watched in quiet astonishment as they continued to grow, these flowering trees with their misshapen branches still carrying the smell of smoke, and when it was done, he slowly touched the trunk of one. The chakra inside was that of Yukirama’s. It was painfully similar to Hashirama’s chakra, down to the way it made his skin buzz from contact.

Yukirama wasn’t just Madara’s son. He was Hashirama’s boy too, down to the marrow.

“…good,” he finally said. “Very good. I’m proud of you.”

Hashirama had been older when he got his Mokuton. Did this mean that Yukirama would eventually outstrip him?

Pollen floated down and settled onto his hair and skin. Madara blinked some out of his eyes, his nose twinging. “And those trees… too much Katon chakra?” The corners of his mouth twitched up. “That’ll be my fault. Your ‘to-san spent his childhood growing things. I spent mine burning them.”

“‘to-san said he knows how to fix that. It was supposed to be what I learn next...but now I have to wait until we go home.” Yukirama was definitely out of chakra, his young body not nearly as adept at controlling the flow and output at such an age.

He was beaming though, definitely proud to have earned Madara’s praise too. If he could impress both of his fathers, he was doing better than anyone could ever give him credit for. What did it matter if he couldn’t solve some logic problems his uncle set for him? What did it matter that he had a hard time making any friends? It didn’t.

“Show me everything you have.”

Madara was tempted to snatch Yukirama up and keep going – but they were a good distance away from Konoha now, and he couldn’t feel anyone coming up on them. He watched him hop around, innocent as anything.

His heart squeezed. My son.

“Papa always wants to see what you can do.” He plucked another flower from the bush and tucked it into Yukirama’s hair. The soft pollen dusted his brown hair and made him smell sweet. Ripe.

“No, papa wanted to see a little bush,” Yuki reminded, but he wasn’t going to be any more obstinate than that. Even if his papa deserved it for making him wake up in the middle of the night, just to go on this strange, long walk.

“Stand back!” Yuki instructed enthusiastically as he returned to his bush, grabbing one of the branches with both hands. While making a specific plant and growing it was still difficult for Yuki, there were other things he had understood much faster, and those, he was eager to show to Madara.

Chakra raced along the bush and into the ground, chasing the roots of the trees all around them. Every single tree lining this small clearing erupted into red blossoms and sweet-smelling pollen. Additional trees shot out of the ground, some with only two or three branches, bearing one, fat flower, but they grew to the size of the grown specimens around them.

Only three of the twenty-odd trees also blossomed into fire, something that Yuki had tried to avoid. He waved his hands frantically, and the blossoms suffocated the flames.

Madara watched Yukirama get down to making his bush. With a flicker of red, his Sharingan spun into existence. He watched Yukirama’s chakra wobble uncertainly for a few seconds before it finally found the right shape and stream to pull the growth upwards. It was a miniature version of what Hashirama did, untried and flimsy, like a knobbly colt mimicking a stallion. Even so, it looked right. It was right.

Madara plucked a flower from the bush and put it in Yukirama’s hair. “Good job,” he said. “You’re doing better than I thought.”

Teaching Yukirama the Mokuton would be hard – harder still since Madara didn’t have it. But he had years of knowledge of fighting the Mokuton, thousands of memories of it locked into his brain, and all the patience in the world. One way or another, Yukirama would master the forest inside him.

“Practice that. Grow one bush every day. I want you to reach a point where you can grow a bush without even thinking about it.”

“I can grow more than a bush, papa,” Yukirama pointed out, perfectly content now to stay on the ground and follow Madara on foot. The initial shock of leaving home had worn off; he was simply enjoying the new, unfamiliar surroundings and the time spent with Madara.

The flower stayed in his hair, even as he circled around them and examined the footprints Madara had left, measuring out the distance covered in one step. It was more than a step for the child, so he made a little hop out of it instead.

“Do you want to see?”

“Oh? And can these pollen flowers do anything?” Hashirama’s blooms had been vicious, capable of delivering debilitating poisons or tranquilizers that paralyzed whoever breathed them in. Alongside other, less combat-oriented effects. “How about you make one right now?”

Not for the first time, Madara wished he’d been present for Hashirama developing his Mokuton. He’d heard things from him, of course, mostly little stories about one accident or another, but he didn’t know anything solid about the Mokuton. He couldn’t meaningfully measure Yukirama’s progress, not without comparing him to Hashirama – and that was patently unfair.

“One little bush with… oh, some red flowers. And pollen that gives me some energy. You’re getting too heavy for your poor papa.”

Pollen that did things? Yukirama wasn’t sure if he was capable of such things, but he was willing to try, for Madara. His papa never really got to see any of the Mokuton training, since it was Hashirama’s area of expertise.

He patted Madara to let him down, shaking out his little legs, trying to rid them of the pins and needles that had plagued him for the past hours.

“A little bush,” Yukirama pulled his hair back, tying it together in a messy knot before he brought his hands together to concentrate.

The earth before him didn’t do anything for a long moment, remaining still and unmoving to the point of Yuki’s embarrassment.

“A. Little. Bush.” he repeated, clamping his hands together more tightly and finally, the ground began to shift, pushed aside by green shots, eager to do Yuki’s bidding. The bush grew to Madara’s midriff before it began to bloom, red and pink and some orange petals. 

Now he was confused. There was no way an adopted Uchiha had the sharingan. Yukirama had to be playing a trick on him, he made it sound as if he was a total outsider coming in. Yet, he has the sharingan, the very thing Shiori has yet to achieve. The fireball jutsu was one thing but to have their ocular jutsu was another.

        ❝ You— you… have the sharingan. ❞

Shiori didn’t know what to believe.

         ❝ No outsider has that except for the Uchiha. There’s no reason to lie, y’ know. ❞

Yukirama shrugged. He didn’t have to explain himself to this boy, but if he wanted to make friends, he probably needed to make him understand. Otherwise, the Uchiha children just had more reason to keep their distance.

“Sorry.”

Madara softened his grip but he didn’t slow down. They were deep into Bird Country now, the woody forests of Fire Country gradually being replaced by softer, leafier greens covered in spongey moss that steamed from the humidity. They’d find a village here soon and spend a day or two resupplying and gathering information. Madara still didn’t really… have a lot to go on. 

The initial flight from Konoha had consumed his waking hours, filled with possibilities of evading manhunts and looming battles, and now he was floundering in the unexpected tranquility. But that was good, that meant he could recuperate without pressure. That was what he told himself whenever his thoughts threatened to clench up over why they weren’t being chased.

“I’ll be training you from now on,” Madara said, pushing a branch out of his way. “I trust the academy’s taught you the basics but you need to know a lot more than that. And your Mokuton, how is it going? ‘To-san was showing you some of his techniques, right?”

“Yeah,” Yukirama ducked under the branch, though it was more than a couple of inches above his head. He could easily have walked now, but Madara kept him in his arm. It was a little bit boring, mostly because he wasn’t getting a chance to look at anything.

“I can grow a bush.” he declared, deflating across Madara’s shoulder to hang his arms and head over it, doing an excellent impression of a small sack of flour.

Huh. Yuki. That was an all-too-popular name in the land of Water, and hearing an Uchiha — a boy of the clan of fire — possess it was mildly amusing. Something cheesy like Netsu was far more common here. The boy must have an unusual mother to be given something so strange.

Well, Minami thought, folding the bag into a thin strip, at least we have a name to threaten with.

“Hey!” She slapped his hand back down, although gently enough to avoid leaving a mark. “Don’t fucking move!”

They didn’t have time for this. Minami reached over towards Yuki’s mouth, cloth gag in hand and determined to make him quiet.

That stinking piece of cloth was definitely not going into his mouth. Yukirama was already putting up with this whole kidnapping nonsense, but he was drawing a line here and now.

“No.” he spoke as firmly as possible, but it was probably not his defiance that would stop the woman in her tracks, but the quick growth out of the planks of the wagon, which formed a couple of wooden vines to form a thin barrier between her and Yukirama.

Did it? Minami was so used to the scent she hadn’t even noticed and — what the hell was she thinking? It didn’t matter. The whole cart could stink like a drowned corpse for all she cared!

Blue man..? Just my fucking luck I end up grabbing a crazy one.

Unwilling to take a practical toddler’s words as a threat, Minami ignored his babblings and brought them both to a standstill. She patted the ox, made her way to the back of the cart, took off the cover, and, finally, removed Yukirama’s ‘blindfold’. If he wanted to be gagged so bad, fine, because she wasn’t going to let him fail the mission!

“Great job, tadpole. Yer’ve lost yer talking rights.” 

“My name’s not tadpole, it’s Yuki.”

For a brief second, Yukirama blinked against the light and took a deep breath of unfiltered air. Much, much better. He didn’t recognize this road, but the trees still looked familiar.

“Yer someone people would pay a looot of money to get back, tadpole.” 

That was her theory behind stealing the boy, at least. Minami was told to grab an Uchiha that was young and healthy and, most importantly, male — the epitome of a specimen Konoha would be desperate to keep in their hands and their hands only…

But, ultimately, Minami was just as clueless as her chatty sack of potatoes back there.

Lord Second hadn’t seen fit to give her the reasons behind the order, and even though her curiosity burned like red iron in her chest, she hadn’t dared to ask. After he was kind enough to make her a member of his new division… Kind enough to trust her with this mission… Doubting Gengetsu would be no better than spitting in his face. 

“Now take fucking nap or something!” Unless the kid had baby teeth to spare, kicking a few holes into his mouth would be an ugly way to shut him up — and one that she was growing fonder of.

“You gotta bad mouth, lady,” Yukirama wasn’t deterred at all. The more noise he made, the more likely someone would notice. He didn’t doubt that his parents would soon find him missing.

“And this bag smells like fish!”

He hoped this kidnapping wouldn’t take too long, he had a practice session with his papa soon, and Madara was always mad if he turned up too late. He was sweet most of the time, but not when it came to rigorous training.

Brown gentle eyes were gazing at the boy that had undoubtedly performed the mokuton with curiosity in them due to actually having never met anyone who could do this. In his era no one besides him could perform the mokuton. It had been impossible for anyone else. So to see this boy having made wood grow from the ground and made a wall, so like his own, was amazing to him.

Suddenly hearing the youth speak, Hashirama blinked and smiled brightly. It wasn’t a surprise that this youth recognized him. Pretty much anyone who was close enough to see him was already pointing and gasping at the sight of him. He wasn’t in his glory like this, far from it, but at least people could see who he was. 

“Yes, I am. I am not looking my best right now, but I am.” The answer came very calmly with a laugh following, despite the current situation on their hands. But for now, the wooden wall before them was protecting them, giving them time to focus on each other. There was something strange about this youth, almost something familiar.

“Did you perform the mokuton?” The curiosity that had lingered on his tongue made itself known as brown hues, looking almost entirely black now, due to the reanimation jutsu, gazed up every now and again to keep an eye on what was going on around them. 

“Yeah,” Yukirama should probably remember how to conduct himself more courteously, and not simply stare at the Shodaime, but today had been full of catastrophes and heartbreak, so he was going to forego any sort of appropriate manners.

Neji was already breathing much more evenly, and without the stakes piercing him, the wounds no longer looked so fatal. That didn’t make Yuki relinquish his hold on him though.

“Is he gonna live?” he asked, concern bullying awe aside. Only if Neji’s survival was guaranteed could he clear enough space in his mind to process that Senju Hashirama was right here, the other half of his genes, the true master of the mokuton and a thousand other jutsu.