SYMBOLISM!

Tobirama wakes up gasping, clutching his pillow desperately to his chest. He pants, can't think through the blazing pain, feeling every nerve in his ribcage scream their terror, aware of his heart throbbing against lung, muscle, bone. It is reviving piece by piece, brain roaring up the synapses, lungs inflating after a long stillness, heart thump thump thumping blood back to chilled veins and arteries; it is dying in equal measure, the synapses misfiring, the lungs stuttering in what once was their natural rhythm, heart stopping in irregular intervals of long (too long, too long) pauses before it beats hummingbird quick again. He can't take much more of this hellish limbo, straddling the line of life and death.

Then, something snaps into place.

Everything is calm.

He shudders through an imaginary aftershock and slowly loosens his hold around his pillow. He palms his sternum and though his hand instinctively flinches at pressing on a tender spot, the associated pain does not flare up. Aside from his tremors, he seems in perfect health.

He gets out of bed and crosses the room to the bathroom. If he harbored any delusional denials about what he remembers, the mirror reveals the truth tattooed upon his upper chest.

An encircled star cradled in nine waving tails, no bigger than the length of his sternum and as wide as it.

Tobirama presses on the star with the tip of his finger and focuses his sensory perception on it. Within the lines is the echo of the Kyuubi's will, corrosive chakra faint and tempered by an purple flame of hope gentling the spikes and neutralizing the corrosion. All that was left of a boy he saw and thought would succumb to the Curse of Hatred yet proved him wrong. He digs his nail in hard enough to cut yet the darkened flesh doesn't part.

A deep breath in, fingers in such a grip around the sink counter the knuckles are white, then a slow breath out, fingers unlatching one by one.

From what he saw of his bedroom and the bathroom now, he wasn't shot far enough back to prevent the event calculated to be the best turning point to erase the Fourth Shinobi War from existence. But it's not quite the worst case scenario with a hit list longer than even an international bingo book, if his memory about his room and personal effects layout is correct.

 He splashes on his face and dries off with a hand towel, feeling less frantic if not better for it. Walking back into the bedroom has him at the wall calendar and the coded shorthand marking the tiny squares.

The First Shinobi World War is in full swing as his calendar is packed with reminders about meetings, inspections, and a trip to Kumogakure the next day. That gives him pause, a nagging sense of importance, a warning, about the trip, but it's been too long since he lived this the first time around and he can't quite remember. In the pursuit of securing Kumogakure as an ally in the war, he made many such trips and can only recall the second one where he and the Nidaime Raikage were ambushed by the Gold and Silver Brothers. It's well past that trip, going by the date of the calendar, so what other trips would be important?

He analyzes the calendar once more than shakes his head and turns away to get dressed for the day, certain it will come to him later as he mentally notes to pack extra supplies as a precaution.

But it does not as he pushes it further and further into the back of his mind, focusing on village preparations in the Hokage office, strategies in the war room, and redrafting his proposal for the Konoha Police Force. Meeting the younger Hiruzen and the rest of his former students takes all of his attention, and the nagging thought is forgotten entirely; seeing Danzō, knowing what he will do in the future, alone takes all of his restraint not to grill the boy about any hidden prejudices and misconstrued concepts of people then and there. But there will be time for it later, for him to fix what he can in-between hunting trips for a certain dead to the world Uchiha. Hiruzen the Elder gave him a rundown on the major conflicts and turning points in the three world wars that started and ended them so he could delay or, more hopefully, prevent them.

The next day he sets off with the Escort Unit to Kumogakure and back, reaching halfway home before a subtle chakra signature in front of the Unit has him pulling everyone to a stop, realizing too late why he had that warning.

The Kinkaku Force Ambush.

The day he died to a man with Kyuubi strength and the Treasured Tools of the Sage of Six Paths.

“What’s wrong, Sensei?” Hiruzen whispers, breaking cover to creep closer to his position, the others following behind him.

The semi-circle they make as they crouch in front of him floods a startling rush of deja vu in his mind, the last time he saw them in his first life superimposing over them in the present. Tobirama takes a breath, slow and measured, and releases the instinctive fear kicked up by the realization in the exhale. He must keep a clearer mind than he did in his first life; perhaps that is why he fell to Kinkaku's blade before, the sudden ambush having him on the back foot trying to defend himself and his comrades, succeeding only with a personal sacrifice.

“I sense hostiles ahead of us. It may be an ambush so we must tread lightly.” 

“Can we avoid them, Hokage-sama?” Danzō asks.

To his comrades’ surprise, Tobirama shakes his head. “Their position is spread wide like a net in the front and I suspect there are more behind us to box us in if we try to return to Kumogakure for help. Right now, we are in a trap with no immediate way out.”

They take the news grimly, each of them calculating various scenarios and actions possible for them to escape. Homura has an increasingly frantic glint in his eyes as he thinks, Koharu narrows her eyes in rising anger, and Torifu rests a hand over the pouch with the Akimichi Three Colored Pills inside. Hiruzen, Danzō, and Kagami are more turned toward each other, muttering plans under breaths, and Danzō uses a kunai to mark their and the enemy's positions in the dirt to illustrate their ideas. The other three scoot closer to them after they notice this, and slip in their own ideas and thoughts, working together for the solution to their predicament.

Tobirama watches them for a moment, pride warming his heart, then aids the discussion with his memory of the first ambush.

But in the end, Kinkaku activates his Kyuubi chakra cloak and decimates their plan to ribbons. Tobirama manages to haul Kagami away from his attack, locking sword with claws when he tries another swing, and orders his students to run off without him. Hiruzen protests, but Homura and Danzō bodily drag him into a run with them as Koharu and Torifu cover Kagami's retreat from Tobirama's side.

Only two enemy shinobi follow after them once they leave the battlefield. The rest either fall by Tobirama’s sword or become collateral damage from Kinkaku's attacks. Kinkaku himself falls to his blade, impaled through the heart, but he dies with a vicious grin on his face, watching Tobirama try and fail to stem the outpouring of blood from his torn throat.

His vision fades, consciousness slipping away—

He jerks awake in his bed, gasping with a trembling hand on his throat.

He's… alive again?

….

Kagami, following Tobirama’s gaze to see what caught his attention, makes a face when his clansman lays his half-closed fan over his lips. “Really, in public, Hoshiko?”

The fan jerks closed and rests on his left cheek as Hoshiko turns to fix a gimlet eye on him. Kagami mimes holding a fan on his right cheek with a cheeky grin. Hoshiko’s fan slides to rest on his left ear as he glares harder. Kagami maturely sticks out his tongue at his cousin.

“You are such a brat,” Hoshiko huffs, rolling his eyes while fighting a smile.

“I’m not the one flirting with Rōga-san in public,” Kagami sing-songs.

Hoshiko blushes faster than he can hide his face behind his fan as Rōga chokes on a senbei. Rōga’s ninken partner jumps to his feet and barks, placing his front paws on Rōga’s hip, but he waves him off. They follow after Hoshiko as he beats a flustered retreat outside the shop, a strangled shout of “You were flirting with me?!” echoing from the street.

Kagami giggles his head off. Uchiha An, proprietress of Uchiha Senbei, levels a disapproving eye upon the genin, causing him to squeak and half hide behind Tobirama from her stern gaze.

Unperturbed, Tobirama asks Kagami, “Do the Uchiha have a sign language involving hand fans?”

“Yeah, it’s an old tradition from when we attended the Daimyo’s court more often.” Kagami makes a disgusted face as he steps out of hiding. “It’s mostly used for flirting nowadays.”

How fascinating, and with a history of being quite the discreet communication tool. It could be useful in his Anbu project, but for now the primary goal is to understand an entirely new language.

“Can it be taught to people outside of your clan?”

Kagami fumbles his hold on a senbei, cracking it down the middle. “Sensei, you want to learn about boring old fans?”

“I find it fascinating that people can convey an entire conversation in the gestures of their hand fan, as you just did with Hoshiko-san.”

“That’s because Hoshiko was flirting in public, Sensei! He was asking Rōga-san to kiss him right in front of my senbei!” Tobirama assumes he means the gesture before he interrupted them was the kiss question and mentally notes to never use it.

“Enough, Kagami,” An admonishes, coming around the counter with fresh baked senbei to give him. “You shouldn’t tease your cousin about his crushes or he’ll pay you back twice over when you have yours.” With Kagami busy grumbling into a senbei between bites, An turns to Tobirama. “If you wish to learn the Uchiwa Code there’s a class held by the koi pond in the heart of the Uchiha District. I’m afraid you may have some trouble being taught, tensions because of the feud lingering I’m sure, but just ask Hoshiko if you’re turned away.”

“Thank you for your help, An-san,” Tobirama says, nodding his head in gratitude.

The next day, Tobirama goes to the koi pond after work. Without Kagami or another person by his side, the Uchiha keep their distance and their eyes on his movements, but are otherwise content to ignore him.

The path as described to him by An leads him to the main clan house then a little ways off to the side, the pond self-contained but within the garden of the property. By the koi pond is a gazebo, red painted wood vibrant against the scenery, and where a chabudai has been set up inside. Sitting sprawled on a zabutan at the table is a youth with red tattoos on his face, engrossed in a book.

“Hello, Hoshiko-kun, correct?” Tobirama greets—and catches the book before it hits his face and watches in concern as the teen nearly slams his head against a pillar in his startled scramble to back away. “My apologies for startling you.”

The teen calms down, a hand over his heart. “No, I should have been paying attention. I’m sorry for throwing—” Here he seems to recognize who disturbed him, face blushing as he tries to hide it behind his hands. “Oh no, you’re Kagami’s sensei, I saw you in the shop yesterday…”

“If it’s any consolation, I only have one criticism of your exit.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I would have used shunshin to get out of there.”

Tobirama keeps his face deadpan as Hoshiko stares at him wide-eyed then breaks into laughter, waving him to a seat next to him. Tobirama gives him a smile and offers him his book back once he’s seated.

Catching the title as it exchanges hands, Tobirama asks, “Are you studying Senju medical texts?”

“Yeah. I mean, I already read through everything Elder Healer Amiha would let me borrow from the clan library and the new public library has a more thorough medical section so I figured…”

He’s interrupted by the arrival of four older people, one carrying a tea service tray as the three others have bento boxes and another tray. There’s a noticeable pause in their steps when they see him, but the man strides forward after a quick glance around the gazebo, the rest falling in line behind him. Tobirama and Hoshiko get up from their seats to help where they can, though Tobirama is gently guided back to his by an elderly woman with a sharp hair stick in her hair bun and sharper eyes. Once the tea and snack trays have been laid out and everyone in their seats, the first man turns to him, holding his hand fan open in his left hand.

“Hello, I’m Akamatsu, Hoshiko’s grandfather. What brings you here today, Senju-san?”

If that’s the same Uchiha Akamatsu from his grandfather’s tales, then it is best to tread lightly. “Honored to meet you, Akamatsu-san. An-san from Uchiha Senbei said I could learn the Uchiwa Code here?”

“You could, but to be taught, what is your reason for learning it?”

“I have a project in mind for the village’s security that I believe the code could be used as the shorthand language for, if not then the basis for it.”

Akamatsu hums, flicking his fan in a quick wave at Hoshiko. He responds in kind with his fan, twirls it in a little circle in Tobirama’s direction, passes it to his left hand, and opens it wide. A middle-aged kunoichi flicks hers closed toward her forehead with a small jerk to the right and is rebutted by Hoshiko resting the fan on his right cheek. Then follows a discussion in a rapidfire shorthand version of the code language, and Tobirama watches their expressions instead to keep track of the conversation. Akamatsu is unflappable throughout it all, but the others scowl and narrow their eyes at Hoshiko, who scowls right back, mouth twitching at the corner like he wants to vocally argue in addition to his hand fan.

Hoshiko thrusts his hand toward Tobirama and lets the fan drop from his grip, the clatter of it on the chabudai startling the others into stillness.

A glint of interest alights in Akamatsu’s eyes and he leans forward, watching Tobirama. Hoshiko and the women do as well, their fans closed and carried in the right hand. Hoshiko nods his head toward the fan when he sees Tobirama’s attention on him.

He reaches for the fan and, when no one stops him, picks it up. Then, at a calculated guess, rests it on his right cheek.

Hoshiko beams happily, the women sighing as they set their fans on the table, and Akamatsu laughs as he sets his down.

An inro with matching netsuke of exquisite craftsmanship. It depicts a lone koi, pure white with ruby red spots, in a tranquil koi pond. The netsuke is of a dragon, pure white jade with ruby inlay for the red eyes and stripes on its body, coiled around a genuine pearl, soft milk white glistening iridescent. Even the ojime bead is pearl and the cord is braided silk. Defining lines in the pattern on the inro made with maki-e sparkle silver, the thin keshifun lines outlining the intricate details whitish and dull from years of handling contrasting the bright and flashy blue marufun of the pond water. Near the top of the container is a torii gate in gold radan, a beacon to which the little koi is facing from the lip of the pond, heedless of the enamel trees separating pond and gate.

“Oh, that bastard,” he hisses through his teeth, feeling a headache coming on.

It’s been three months since the village was named. Three months after that meeting with Hashirama on the mountain where he and Tobirama came face to face for the first time outside of the initial negotiations. Three months since Hashirama got it into his head to try to get his best friend and little brother to be less antagonistic toward each other.

It’s wonderful to know he wasn’t the one to break first under Hashirama’s well-meaning meddling, and so quickly at that. But irritating now that a peace offering has been given he has to reciprocate in kind or face Hashirama’s suffocating disappointment.

Madara scowls down at the inro, rubbing his sternum. Thinking of Hashirama disappointed reminds him too much of that final battle before his downward spiral, the look on Hashirama’s face when Madara reached for the smoke bombs instead of ignoring the furiously beating heart next to his, the demands to not trust him from Izu—

Madara sets his ink brush down with an aggravated sigh and gulps down his tea, reheated almost to boiling with a liberal application of chakra. Thinking of him just reminds him how cold and empty his chest has become, accustomed to two fire-natured hearts beating within, and how his lone heart freezes over from the absence of his brother's. To distract himself from it, he picks up the inro, turning it this and that way in the light.

It’s pretty, he’ll give Tobirama that. Something that fits his style more than Madara’s, but it’s an acceptable gift. He’s been meaning to get one to hold his identity and clan seals anyway so this is fortunate timing.

Halfway to the enemy, the Uchiha at the front sharply veers south, gaining distance from the other four and going directly into Tobirama’s path. He climbs higher in the trees and lies in wait. The signature has diminished in scale, and lowering rapidly as it gets closer, but in the end, it doesn’t matter how much they try to hide their chakra considering how unsubtle they've been so far.

Flickering light as bright as a fire, a young Uchiha wreathed in the cyan blue flames of Susanoo, Madara and Izuna’s signature Mangekyō technique, bursts out of the treeline. Only a partial ribcage of three ribs remains, the bottom set halfway to fading as he watches. And Tobirama only watches him, stilling his hands from completing a suiton jutsu.

What stays his hand is not the dwindling feel of the Uchiha’s chakra or his concerningly young appearance; it’s the young child on his back, presence hidden by the Susanoo wrapped around wielder and child alike.

This recontextualizes everything he thought the situation was.

Instead of an ill-advised attack on Senju lands, it’s a teenager and a child far away from the Uchiha lands. But how do the four Hagoromo factor into this equation? They are still allied to the Uchiha so why isn’t the teen sticking close to them?

… Unless—

Four shinobi come into view, armor undeniably adorned with the Hagoromo kamon and weapons drawn. The older Uchiha has the child get off and behind him, drawing a kunai and shifting into a defensive stance. Tobirama notices his left hand doesn’t leave the front of the bulky sling across his chest and slips down to a lower branch for a closer look.

“Tired, kid? Ready to come back quietly?”

“Go fuck yourself,” the teenager hisses. He and the child step back when the clear leader of the squad steps forward, the Susanoo flickering like dying flames around them. “I said fuck off!”

The man taunts them, but Tobirama doesn’t quite register the words, his focus narrowed down to the sling. When the teen moved, it squirmed in response—flashing dark wispy hair on a tiny head before the teen’s hand could reposition to hide it. The clues snap together to form an incomplete picture of the situation as he realizes he’s seen slings like this before, on the chests and backs of mothers.

There are three Uchiha children on this battlefield: a teenager, a child, and a baby. And only two possible reasons for them to be so far from the Uchiha Clan Compound and rebutting the help of an ally would be either child hunters or—

Bloodline thieves.

Tobirama narrows his eyes and quietly unsheathes his sword.

When the leader jumps forward with his katana in motion to cut down the teenager, a flash of another sword flares in front of him and his body is kicked back to the remaining three adults. Tobirama lands between the children and the men, their leader’s head falling at his feet. For a tense moment, there is only the shuffling of feet as the thieves regroup around the corpse in their midst and the stifled panting of the teenager as he edges closer to chakra exhaustion.

“We have no quarrel, Senju,” one of the men says, possibly the second-in-command. “We’re just here for the kids.”

“How unfortunate you are that I have a quarrel with you.”

His hands clasp into the tiger seal and cast Kokuangyo no Jutsu, wrapping the thieves’ perception in complete darkness. They crowd together back-to-back with weapons drawn and on high alert, but it’s a simple matter of slipping past their blinded guard to slit their throats. Tobirama flicks blood off his katana and sheathes it as he turns to the children.

The oldest has collapsed to his knees, Susanoo gone but his sharingan still active. Without the fire of the Susanoo obscuring his chakra, the teen’s chakra has the feel of cool water, a placid lake nearly drained: a suiton Uchiha, exceptionally rare in birth and never seen on the battlefield. The child is pressed close to his side and clutching onto his arm, his own single tomoe sharingan spinning wildly.

A young child with an active sharingan, a suiton teenager with the Mangekyō, and a baby. All rare and valuable in their own right, and surely would have been heavily guarded in their clan compound.

More clues found, the picture gains more clarity and Tobirama does not like what it’s turning out to be.

Tobirama keeps his hands open, apart, and in front of him as he steps closer. “I do not wish you harm.”

Halfway to them, the teen pushes himself up to stand, detaches the child from his arm, and raises the kunai.

“I won’t be fooled, Senju.”

He uses shunshin to close the distance, kunai aimed for Tobirama’s throat. Tobirama steps aside and grabs his wrist in one hand and the scruff of his neck with the other. The teen sags in his grip, kunai dropping from lax fingers, and Tobirama waits a moment to check if he’s truly unconscious before gently turning and lowering him to lie on his back on the ground. He turns to the child and finds he had used the distraction to hide behind a tree, giving away his location by peeking around it.

The child flinches and scuffles back behind the tree upon noticing Tobirama’s gaze.

Tobirama sighs. At least the boy's sharingan is deactivated and is no longer an unnecessary drain on his chakra. “Please come out. I promise I only wish to help you and your clansmen.”

There is no reply nor does the boy come out of hiding, so Tobirama turns to assess the most vulnerable of the group. Keeping the bright gunpowder spark of the boy’s chakra signature at the forefront of his sensory perception, Tobirama pulls the sling open enough to maneuver the baby out of it. Wide dark eyes blink up at him and the baby fusses in his hold until he settles her in his arms properly, remaining surprisingly quiet with only brief unhappy little noises until she settles down with a happy coo. Ash still clings to her pink kimono shirt and red hakama pants, but aside from a scratch on her cheek, she’s in good health. Tobirama brushes his finger across the injury using iryō ninjutsu to heal it, and is rewarded with a tiny fist clutching his finger with all of her strength.

Noticing the spark of gunpowder move, Tobirama keeps his gaze on the baby and only looks up at the child when he stands on the other side of his clansman, fidgeting with the edge of his high-collar black shirt. He removes his finger from the baby's grip with care and lays his palm on the teenager's shoulder, hand glowing with iryō diagnostic chakra.

“What is your name?” Tobirama asks.

“... Kagami.” Dark eyes flicker from the ground to Tobirama’s own then return to the ground. “Are you really gonna help us?”

Tobirama switches from the diagnostic to transferring chakra into the teen to fill his critically low reserves. “I will help you return home, yes.”

Kagami scuffs his foot into the dirt. Tobirama adjusts the baby in his arm when she whines. Kagami sits down, watching Tobirama’s hand, but glances at the baby.

“Would you like to hold her, Kagami-kun?”

Kagami nods, but hesitates in holding out his hands. “... I forgot how Hoshiko told me to hold babies.”

“I will teach you. Here.”

Tobirama uses both hands to transfer the baby over and gently corrects Kagami’s hold, nudging his arms into properly supporting her head and body. When Tobirama smiles at him, Kagami shyly ducks his head down. It's a quiet, peaceful moment as Tobirama returns his attention to the teen and runs a hovering hand glowing with diagnostic chakra from his sternum to his abdomen then sweeps up to his head and eyes.

“Is he gonna be alright, Senju-san?” Kagami asks.

How to answer that? Tobirama switches back to transferring chakra to the teen and ponders how to explain the full depth of exactly why Hoshiko needs more than just battlefield first aid to a perhaps six-year-old child.

The deeper inspection of Hoshiko’s body revealed problems fixable by the ninjutsu, such as the bruised ribs, chakra exhaustion, and scattered cuts and bruises, but something concerning happened to his head and nervous system. There’s strain in the eyes, but his nerves are firing more pain signals than warranted, like aftershocks shooting to signal tremendous pain coming from no discernable point of origin. He wouldn’t be surprised to hear Hoshiko was hit by a raiton jutsu to the spine with the way his body is acting.

“With time and rest, Kagami-kun,” is the only answer he can come up with. That said, Tobirama slides one arm under the teen’s shoulders and the other under his knees, lifting him up. “Follow closely, there’s a supply outpost nearby we can rest in.”

Madara knocks on the doorframe. “You called?”

“Madara.” Hashirama’s face brightens into a blossoming smile—then it slips back into a serious line and his expression darkens again.

Oh shit, Madara thinks. This may actually be serious.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you so late, but there’s been an incident that could put the whole village at risk and you’re the only one I can trust with this mission.”

Coming to the desk, Madara is handed the report to skim through. It doesn’t answer any of his questions and, in fact, doesn’t seem quite as serious as Hashirama is treating it. It’s an impressive feat and a sign to better security in the village, but he fails to connect why the misson would be given to him alone. Madara raises an eyebrow at him, giving the paper back.

“I fail to see why the theft of your brother’s fur collar is as serious a threat to the village’s security as you're implying.”

Hashirama shakes his head. “It’s his fur pelt that was taken. We would be meeting under different circumstances if they got the collar as well. You see, my otouto—well, actually—Tobirama—” He sighs out in almost a growl, eyes closed and head bowed as he rubs his forehead.

Madara looks on in raising concern. Hashirama has always seemed to have the words for any occasion so to witness him struggle to explain whatever is going on trickles dread into his heart. As little as he personally knows Tobirama, he’s heard many stories of the man’s genius in and out of the battlefield; it’s within the realm of possibility that the fur collar has a storage seal stuffed with village and state secrets. However, Hashirama’s insistence on it being a whole pelt instead of just the collar could only mean a larger surface for the seal and thus more secrets hidden inside it—clan secrets, even.

In a way, Madara turns out to be right about there being a clan secret related to the fur pelt.

“I’m entrusting a vital Senju—no, Tobirama’s secret to you, Madara,” Hashirama says, standing up and walking to the window with his hands folded neatly into his kimono sleeves. “If this knowledge becomes widespread, others may think unfairly of him.

Madara goes to his side and gently chides, “You know public opinion is already low for the White Demon of the Senju.”

Hashirama slumps forward, face a mask of misery as an aura of gloom darkens his corner of the room. “Please don’t remind me. I’ve tried everything I could think of to help him improve his reputation and it either doesn’t work or he refuses to do what I suggest.”

Yeah, that sounds about right to Madara. There’s just something about Tobirama that grates against the senses, an instinctive weariness against a predator in the hindbrain that no matter of goodwill acts can completely diminish. Shinobi clock him as a threat even when he’s doing something as mundane as filling out paperwork and Madara can only imagine what civilians think of him. During the last battle between the Senju and Uchiha before the peace treaty, that instinct kept Madara locked on him despite needing his whole attention to fight Hashirama, and his split priorities awarded him in noticing and intercepting a mortal bow to Izuna.

The gloom clears with his sigh as Hashirama straightens his posture. He looks as though he’s bracing himself for rejection when he turns to Madara.

“Tobirama was born sickly. There was nothing we could do to save him from dying not a fortnight after his birth—” Hashirama steels his gaze, a haunted look sealing over his face “—but where other mortal men would fail, Senju Butsuma found a way.”

Disbelief mounting, Madara listens as Hashirama explains how his father encountered a pack of okuri-ōkami while traveling from the latest failed medical avenue and, recalling the doctor’s words of his son needing divine intervention to live, felled all but a young pup which he captured and brought home. Butsuma consulted an outcast Uzumaki sealmaster on using the pup to strengthen Tobirama’s ailing body and weakening spirit, and followed her instructions to the letter. Butsuma, perhaps even the sealmaster too, believed it was a life exchange, the yang sacrifice giving the remainder of its lifetime to the yin recipient. There would be a few side effects, maybe some wolf instincts or mannerisms, but the end result would be a healthy baby.

What actually happened was the merger of human and yōkai into a soul that is the culmination of both, according to Hashirama.

“Before the sealing ritual, Butsuma skinned the pup to have a way to control the side effects so his son would not become wild. Tobirama cannot resist any command made on the pelt. Such a leash on his very soul would have dire consequences for not only him but the people around him so he cut a piece off and keeps it on hand to stay in control no matter what.” Hashirama frowned, a storm briefly waged in his eyes, but shook himself out of it.

“Hashirama, don’t get me wrong, but this is too… Out there to be believed,” Madara says. Weird feeling directly to the hindbrain aside, Tobirama has proven to be a man of order and law, no supposed side effects of having a wild mountain wolf spirit surfacing to his knowledge. Although, his overprotection of the fur collar does make sense in this context now, as only Hashirama has touched it in all of the time Madara has known of the brothers.

“I know it’s hard to believe; even my dear Mito only has a theoretical formula to seal chakra and yōkai energy into a living person… How about you come see him?”

Madara tilts his head. “Where?”

“The one place he thought could contain him should the worst happen: deep in the evacuation tunnels of the Hokage Rock.”

Traveling ever deeper into the in-construction underground tunnels of the Hokage Rock, a sound trembles the very air as they walk closer to Tobirama’s location. At first, Madara could not quite recognize what it is, distorted by distance and the echoing quality of the tunnels. Then, it reaches a high note.

The bestial growling of a cornered animal.

A thought (a realization) lodges into his brain: the meld of infant human soul and okuri-ōkami pup produced a healthy human shinobi of tremendous speed and strength, but what if the yōkai half could give more than that? Enhanced senses, claws, fangs—the whole of the yōkai’s body? Could that be why Hashirama believes seeing Tobirama will make Madara believe his tale?

Hashirama said his brother was not entirely lost to the thieves’ commands. If he had been so, would Madara dance against the man attacking the village—or would he dance with the okuri-ōkami?

(He stifles the creeping thought of freeing Tobirama in his frenzied state just to see, just to know what it would be like to dance with him so utterly unrestrained; Tobirama wouldn’t be free of mind in their dance, souring the anticipation.)

The growling nearly deafening now, they turn a corner to a dead end and Madara has his answer.

Thick columns of wood twist and subdue a lithe but large form to the ground, separate thinner columns pinning paws and muzzle to earth, and yet thicker blocks of wood set against the neck, the shoulders, the hips. Parallel thick bars frame the head, giving off a gridlock pattern around a body easily matching, if not besting the size of a horse. Already the wood is straining and buckling against its captive as white fur glints in the lantern light, bristling in agitation, thicker around one lupine wrist from the fur collar. Madara only takes in the whole picture in glances, too arrested by the eyes.

Blood-red rubies set in vulpine eyes gleam, an inner fire to dance along with the lantern’s flame within them.

(The sharingan is said to be a divine gift from Amaterasu-Ōmikami herself so natural red eyes are a blessing, a mark of godly favor from their divine patroness. The Uchiha kept such reverence private to prevent it being used against them. Tajima, upon seeing the eyes of Senju Butsuma’s second son for the first time, declared them a flout against Uchiha sensibilities, nothing more than a demonic way to demoralize them, and kept Tobirama off the list of known Blessed of Amaterasu-Ōmikami.

Quietly and still yet hidden in his subconscious, Madara realizes how much he finds Tobirama’s eyes—)

Beautiful.

“Madara?”

Madara snaps out of his daze to take in Hashirama’s furrowed brow and the snarling down to a murmur. Noticing the faint red glow illuminating Hashirama’s face, Madara jolts and deactivates the sharingan.

“Okay, I believe you now.”