#madamina

Chapter 141: Madara/Minato

“Explain it to me again,” Tobirama murmured from where he was walking just a little too close to Minato’s heels.  It would have been annoying if the man’s enthusiasm for learning weren’t so stupidly adorable.

“It’s a time-space splinter.” Minato smiled. “I exist here in your era but I also exist in the era I was born in. My theory is that when I fell through the crack – for lack of a better word – I split time in two and created an alternate reality. A new timeline, if you will. The other timeline is still intact and continuing on just as things were meant to but this one, us right now, my presence here will change this timeline.” He peeked over his shoulder to see Tobirama hanging on his every word much like Kakashi used to listen to him when he was describing a new jutsu.  

“Fascinating,” the other man rumbled.

Minato stopped for a moment to look around a take his bearings. He wasn’t quite as good a sensor as his companion but he was fair at it, enough to know that there were several bodies to the east and one to the north, the flickering flame of a man close to death.

“If you do not mind me asking more questions, what led you to believe that the timelines are separate? How can you be sure that your original world is still intact? How do you know your presence here has changed things?”

“You ask better questions than my students used to. At least you’re not asking about the maximum number of heads you can sever in under a minute.” Minato laughed until he saw the confusion in Tobirama’s eyes and cleared his throat before pressing on. “It’s hard to explain but I can feel my alternate self; I know that he exists and I will know when he dies. As for changes…I lost my red string when I was eight years old and I found the other end of it. Yet when I found myself in this time there it was again tied to my left pinkie and I felt a strange disconnection with the memory of my wife.”

Silence fell, for which he was grateful. Minato still wasn’t sure how he felt about the situation with Kushina. Since the day he met her he had loved her with his entire being. Now he found himself nearly 100 years in the past but the memory of her held no particular feeling of warmth, no draw. After so many years together he thought he should at least think of her fondly and the fact that he didn’t was the source of a strange kind of guilt.

The string around his pinkie was the reason the two of them were out in the forest right now, wandering in whichever direction his Fate Line saw fit to lead him. Although he considered himself a man of Konoha, Minato had sworn no allegiance to Hashirama in particular. He felt no guilt in leaving the village on his own terms to seek out his own agendas. Tobirama had followed because the man had more questions than he knew what to do with – a regular state for him, it seemed – and he could be back at the village in an instant if he needed to be.

A hundred yards further of quiet ambling passed before Tobirama hummed in thought.

“I don’t suppose–?”

“You are not doing experiments on my Fate Line.”

“But–!”

“No.” Minato shook his head firmly and allowed his companion the dignity of not watching him pout like a child denied his favorite toy.

A tug on the little finger of his left hand distracted him, pausing his steps as he lifted his head to look east. He couldn’t sense any chakra coming from that direction but that wasn’t too disconcerting; most high level shinobi were fairly skilled at concealing their presence. Knowing that he was close, Minato stepped a little more carefully and turned his feet to where he was being led.

It still took a while before they actually got anywhere. His red string danced through the morning dew in several bushes, wound circles around a number of trees, looped around a sunny clearing and then plunged in to the mouth of a dark cave that seemed to spring up as if from nowhere. One moment Minato was tripping on a root and then the next he thought the sun had spontaneously disappeared. He blinking around at the sudden darkness, looking over at Tobirama to see the same reaction, then tugged curiously at his Fate Line. Almost immediately he felt a responding tug as though whoever was on the other end of it was trying to call him forward. He was very happy to answer that call.

The cave went deep underground, so deep they had to stop for a few moments for Tobirama to light a candle so they could see where they were going. Something about this darkened tunnel tugged at him in the way his alternate self did. Was this place destined to be important to him no matter what timeline he lived in? It was a strange concept but he entertained himself as he walked by turning over the possibilities of it in his mind.

When the two of them finally stumbled out of the hallway in to a midsized cavern, Minato was first distracted by the sharp breath his companion sucked in and then startled by the war cry as Tobirama rushed passed him. Only then did he notice the other figure they had just discovered.

Long tangles of ink black hair and eyes that burned with the familiar tomoe of a Sharingan, obviously this was an Uchiha they had discovered. Minato rather carefully set aside the fact that he immediately found this man to be incredibly attractive. He set his focus on the fact that he also seemed oddly familiar and that clearly Tobirama knew him, judging by the fact that both of them were howling and swinging fists at each other like offended cats.

Minato wondered if either of them even remembered they had various weaponry strapped to their backs.

“I take it you’ve met before,” he murmured unnecessarily.

“You abandoned your own dreams, Madara!” Tobirama snarled, throwing another punch. “You broke my brother’s heart!”

Madara – and that explained why he felt so familiar, although he still looked different from the hand-drawn portraits in the Academy’s history books – almost choked himself trying to snort contemptuously and tilt his head back for a laugh at the same time.

“I told that idiot I was leaving before I did. Not my fault if he wants to mope about it. Go scurry back to lick your brother’s boots, Senju. I’ve been perfectly peaceful since I left and that’s mainly because I don’t have to look at you every day!” He sneered dismissively in a manner which riveted Minato to the spot, doubly so when the man turned to spot him where he was still hovering in the entrance.

“Who else is here with you?” Tobirama demanded before Madara could say anything.

“No one.”

“Impossible. There must be someone else here. Minato is a good man; I refuse to believe he could be matched to someone as dour as you.”

His words gave the other man pause. “Matched?” He looked down at the string tied around his finger in a neat little bow and, for the first time since he had entered the cavern, Minato look down at his own.

The string was pulled taught, running unerringly from his hand to Madara’s. Having lived the beginning of one life already and found his soulmate in that world, Minato knew exactly what that meant, knew exactly what one was meant to do in this situation. He was held back by the distrusting look on the other man’s face – and by the shock that his soulmate in this timeline was none other than Uchiha Madara himself.

Clearly he wasn’t the only one immobilized by shock but Madara, at least, managed to recover quickly.

“My intended,” the man breathed, entirely forgetting the one who had just been attacking him in favor of stumbling across the uneven floor in the direction his Fate Line was leading him. The brilliant red string grew shorter and shorter the closer they got until they were standing toe to toe. Minato offered a smile.

“Ah, hello. My name is Minato. It’s nice to meet you. Shall we?” He held up his left hand, chuckling lightly when Madara only tilted his head in confusion. “Like this!”

He would have been smugly amused by the gasp Madara let out – to make a legendary titan such as him gasp should have had his chest puffed out with pride – but his attention was taken up entirely by the way their fingers slid together so perfectly, a tingling sensation rushing up his arm as the red string connecting them sank back in to their skin. There would always remain a circle of red where it had rested, warm to the touch whenever they were near.

Perhaps it was the chaos of the era they lived in but it was clear that neither Madara nor Tobirama had ever witnessed a pair of soulmates touch for the first time. They were both staring at where the Fate Line had disappeared like they expected it to pop back in to existence, maybe gain sentience and shout surprise!

Minato tightened his grip when he realized that Madara had no intentions of letting him go anytime soon. His smile was just a tad apprehensive as he asked, “You mentioned something about leaving the village?”

“Hmph.” Madara didn’t seem to appreciate having the moment ruined. “Would you want to work every day with the man who killed your brother?”

“No, I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“Staying was not an option, though I tried for Hashirama’s sake.” He shrugged, still careful not to dislodge their hands, and Minato relaxed ever so slightly.

“That makes you a good friend.”

Tobirama snorted but they paid him no mind as he ever so casually began to sidle towards the entrance. It was probably all anyone could ask of them that they hadn’t tried too seriously to kill each other on sight. Both of them cared dearly for the Shodaime Hokage in their own ways and, despite their hatred for each other, they were well aware that either of their deaths would cause the other man great pain. In that light, it probably was the best course of action that Madara leave the village.

“Give your brother my regards when you return,” Minato called just before his friend disappeared in to the passageway. Tobirama halted in his tracks and spun back around with his jaw hanging loose.

“You won’t be coming?” he demanded.

Keeping his gaze locked with Madara’s, Minato shook his head. “I already devoted one life to that village. I’ll come if you need me but…I think my place is here. For now it’s my soulmate that needs me the most.”