— centrality.

Act for kumamoto

Nightmares

Humanity

Slaughter

Order

Morality

Loyalty

Promise

Betrayal

Epiphany

Apathy

Memories

Loss

Lies

Death

Love

Pawns

Monster

Time

Waiting

Alliance

Natural

Pretence

Impression

Critic

Judgement

Delirious

Instinct

Illusion

Jóhann Jóhannsson -  Fordlândia / Aerial View

When creation is as easy and natural as the pulse of his heart, practice becomes unnecessary. Creation becomes an idle hobby, a pleasure to partake in private. So here he comes to sit by the riverbank, between the patches of sunlight, underneath the warm rays obscured by the shadows of leaves above. Here he comes to think and to breathe and to create.

Thus, a breath; and he exhales chakra into a trembling sprout that buds from his upturned palm.

To say that it is only a thought which brings life to a fresh bud is untrue. It requires a precision with twining or tugging or tamping that makes the difference between lotus or rafflesia, yew or maple. With mokuton, the finest of details must be accounted for, down to the thickness of a flower’s stem or the pattern of a leaf’s veins. One must visualise perfectly even the grains of wood. The texture of petals. Sharpness of thorns. Shape.  Colour.   Odour.    All.

The sprout grows in size.  A leaf unfurls from its side. He wonders: could he create flora that he has not yet seen— that perhaps does not yet exist?

Light footsteps upon soft earth rouse him from his reverie; at once, he stands, enclosing the fluttering of life among his fingers.

Uchiha Madara does not return the pleasantry. He rarely does. “It will be sundown soon.” The clans are eating together tonight, a large supper suggested by the elders in honor of a moon passing since the ground was broken for the first building. Madara scowls thinking about it, knowing all too well that he will be turning his nose up at some of the Senju specialties. Why a forest clan preferred so much food from the river was beyond his comprehension.

So, he waits. He does not respond immediately to the other man's statement, and instead waits for him to adjust.   To take the next step forward. When Madara finally moves, crouching to the forest floor, Hashirama takes that as cue to continue.

"You warn me against being late for our communion, yet sit beside me as if stopping to relax?" he teases, a gentle push against their boundaries. He, too, returns to his seat— beside Madara, now— and gently brings his enclosed hands into the space between them.

Hashirama feels, rather than sees, the flash of sharingan ready to manifest. That particular chakra, he is intimately familiar with. Truth be told, it is something that Hashirama had begun to miss in even these few weeks of peace.

A quiet sense  of the anticipation   of being    suffocated.

Every inch of Madara’s being ready to— fight? to flee?—, energy trembling just beneath the surface of his skin, barely-contained, always threatening to burst. Hashirama looks at him and can't help but wonder; What are you waiting for?

Unasked questions receive unanswered replies  in the bare curiosity that burns alongside the chakra behind his eyes. Madara can be surprisingly easy to read.

(The ease with which he understands him startles Hashirama at times. The idea of knowing Madara, attuning to Madara is one that he has yet to grow accustomed to.)

Smile widening, he parts his palms to reveal the sprout, slowly and cautiously— a projected calmness to show that the mokuton he wields now is no threat.