*~MelodicMadness

Truth be told, they don't know long it's been before they realize. The Senju tend to go on the defensive when it's harvest season, and that usually extends into a quiet winter, at least for as long as Hashirama has been clan head. The lack of aggressive border patrols doesn't raise anyone's alarm.

No, the first word they get at something being wrong comes from a civilian woman, of all places. The kind that show up occasionally to beg the nearest shinobi clan for some charity.

Her village has been all but held hostage by bandits, she tells them, and she'd gone to the Senju who were closer, only --

Only no one had been there.

It seems like an obvious trap at first, and if not that, then perhaps the woman had just come across some abandoned place and mistaken it for the Senju village; Shinobi aren't so easy to find without a guide, after all, and the Senju especially keep themselves secreted away in the woods like animals.

Eventually they'd told her they'd look into it, just as soon as they'd figured out what had happened with the Senju.

Madara insisted on leading the scouting group himself, and he stopped in his tracks as soon as he stepped onto the other side of the river. Looked up and down the tree line with wild eyes, sharingan briefly spinning into a Mangekyo that set the rest of the squad on edge.

"There's…It's nothing. And that means something's wrong." Was all he explained before demanding they move onward.

Izuna didn't understand what he meant until they were much deeper into the forest. There is nothing wrong, no hairs on the back of his neck rising, no feeling of being watched -- and there always is, this deep in Senju territory. Related to the Mokuton, he thinks, so it was no wonder that Madara had noticed first.

So -- something happened to their clan head, Izuna reasons. Perhaps the Senju closed their compound in mourning and redirected the woman elsewhere. It's a reasonable enough explanation, but Madara won't settle until he knows for certain, so he stands by his brother's side and follows him deeper into the woods.

It wasn't as though he was wrong. Something had happened to Hashirama, and the rest of his clan with him.

The gates to the compound are closed, but there are no patrols on the walls, and no traps set on the perimeter to slow their approach. Izuna can't help the sick anxiety twisting up his throat. This has to be bait, something to lure them into a false sense of security and their eventual deaths. Nothing else makes sense.

But a glimpse over the wall show no signs of life inside. No people moving around, no laundry drying on the line, not even any noren fluttering in the wind -- for some reason they've all been taken down, leaving the compound dead and motionless.

The dread only mounts as they make their way over the wall and deeper inside. The houses are empty, stripped down to the floor mats. A few traps have been left behind, but not the dangerous ones Izuna had imagined. Just small scale things, meant to keep intruders out of the abandoned buildings. Easily disarmed, but that only adds to the unease.

They will go back and do a thorough search later, but the only clue, from out of every empty room, every cleared out cellar, every spot of turned dirt where it looked as though even some trees were taken, is in the main square. A circle of soot, smudged and stained deep into the stone. The remains of a seal that was used over and over again, already dissolved and unreadable.

The Senju must have used it. Or it must have done something to them. But what, no one has any idea. ---

The Uchiha never do quite manage to celebrate the disappearance of their enemy. Some do, and some are so clearly relived that the threat is gone, but as winter goes on the feeling that settles across the clan is one of dread. It is one part fear, not knowing what's happened to them, and one part worry about the future. Their entire lives and the lives of their ancestors are filled with memories of their war with the Senju. If they're gone, if it's over, what comes next?

Madara doesn't believe it is. Cannot accept that they are just -- gone. He gets more involved with their spy network than he ever has before hunting for a hint, and writes the daimyo informing him of the Senju's disappearance, hoping that he will get some answer when the thinly veiled request for dominion over those lands is inevitably rejected.

If your words and the rumors I have heard are true, the reply says, Then I see no reason not to accept the claim your clan has held on those lands.

Convenient, that he only acknowledges it now.

Izuna, for his part, settles on an anger that ebbs and flows between scalding rage and petty annoyance. How dare the Senju avoid the revenge that the Uchiha, that Izuna is owed.

He never lets himself slack off in training during the winter, and despite the circumstances this year is no exception. The Senju are tricky. If that mark was a seal, then Tobirama is no doubt responsible. They'll be back, probably at the most inopportune moment, but he'll be ready. ---

It hadn't been so bad, over the winter. There were normally less fights then, anyways, and they'd gotten by whole seasons without skirmishes before. But in the thaw of spring, somehow the anxiety only coils tighter.

Normally this was when they started finding Senju summons tracking their movements. When they'd inevitably get called into opposing sides under for some noble's border dispute and reignite conflict all over again.

Not this year. Somehow, the trees are quieter even on their side of the river. He shivers, when he realizes, but Izuna refuses to think about just how much of what he'd been used to had been the result of Hashirama's bloodline.

There are more missions than normal, true, but it hardly helps things. Their goal was the defeat the Senju, and denied that --

Some want to start picking new fights already, with old Senju allies. Izuna can't say he disagrees, though he knows it's unwise to do without good reason. Anyone who might have been easy to pick off has already scattered banded together with someone else.

Madara has started drinking more often. Izuna doesn't comment. He knows his brother is far from the only one.

(He's reviewed his memories, over and over, he tells Izuna, but the last time he'd seen them nothing had seemed different. It had been on a battlefield, and Hashirama had shouted for peace, had asked what he needed to do to convince him, and Madara had refused to answer, like always. If that had been an ultimatum, shouldn't there have been more?)

(Izuna has looked over his memories, too, but the only difference in Tobirama that day had been darker bags than usual under his eyes.)

Izuna can't stand the mood around the compound; half of his clan mates are acting more like their lover has died than their enemy. He takes those extra missions, and he goes. And keeps going, for days, for weeks,sometimes only staying home for hours at a time because as long as he's on a mission, he doesn't have to think about it. ---

It's a coastal town in Hot Water country, and Izuna spots a face that he attacks on instinct -- no care for the fact that they're in a public market -- his heart is busy singing not dead, not gone even as he lunges for the throat of the one who made him think it with a kunai.

It's a sloppy move, admittedly. One that Tobirama catches with an unimpressed glare.

"Must you?" He asks.

"Yes!" Izuna cries, dancing back from a returning blow that -- does not come. His breath is coming in heaves, though the fight is hardly started. He's too exited, and that means he'll get sloppy, but Tobirama isn't even in his armor right now, he's dressed down looking all the world like he's grocery shopping, so it might be even.

"You were fucking gone." Izuna accuses, "Don't think I'm about to let you get away without payback for all the lives you've taken."

Tobirama glances at the crowd that's started to form around them -- stupid move, but they haven't started pulling out flashy shinobi moves yet so they probably just think they're about to see a street fight.

"Figures." Tobirama mumbles. "It's been months already. Haven't you started to see the benefits of peace?"

Izuna sneers, draws his sword and lunges, but for some infuriating reason Tobirama is focused only on dodging, not fighting back. He seems -- disappointed, almost, which only makes it worse. How is he supposed to explain that he hasn't, that without the enemies they've all been born and raised to kill, his clan has started to stagnate into something hopeless and pathetic.

Tobirama catches sword against a sleeved kunai with a clang and holds it there.

"Consider that we've had to give up our vendettas against you, too, in doing this." He says, "Just… Move on. It'll be better for everyone."

An odd look passes over his face, one Izuna will replay in his memory over and over and still not understand.

"Goodbye, Izuna."

A crack of thunder breaks through the sunny afternoon air, and Tobirama Senju is gone, like the rest of his clan, without a trace.