On some level, Tobirama was vaguely aware that he had never been built for peace. His entire existence (a not-so-puny two and half decades, given the current times) had been solely dedicated to honing his craft, fine-tuning his reflexes, sharpening his mind, turning his body into the perfect and deadly weapon his father had envisioned. One could have argued predation was embedded in his very cells, the sensor abilities he had inherited from his mother meant he had actually never been awarded the bliss of ignorance, constantly plagued by the ill-intended chakra signatures that littered his ever-expending range. An innate drive to win.
His childhood, or lack thereof, had been a heart-wrenching and gruesome lesson in persistence. Second heir to the Senju clan head, the odds had been stacked against him. Hashirama, Tobirama, Itama, Kawarama. Canon-fodder Butsuma had produced with the explicit purpose of joining the battlefield as soon as they became of age. Boys acquaintted with the bite of steel and the taste of blood before they'd lost all their baby teeth. Trembling bodies sent too soon to the frontlines. Frail corpses returned home in too tiny caskets. Against all expectations - a premature birth, a fragile composition - Tobirama's continued survival had seemed to defy the laws of nature.
This surprising turn of events tasted like ash in his mouth. He'd never thought he'd make it past his teenage years, not after his younger brothers had-
And yet. Hashirama's and Madara's childhood dream had started to take root into reality. A lifelong promise between what should have been two sworn enemies. The seeds of hope in the shape of a near-mortally wounded Izuna at Tobirama's hand. A hardly-obtained bargaining chip he had immediately handed to his Anija, almost at the cost of his very life. Rekindled trust between brothers. Friendship blooming anew.
First, there had been a truce. Then, a more substantial cease-fire.
For all the hours he had spent painstakingly hammering out the terms himself, wrestling common sense out of the war-mongering geezers that made up a significant portion of the Senju council, Tobirama had not quite realised what this would entail. What he'd almost single-handedly brought into existence, owing to Hashirama's utter uselessness at bureaucracy, and just because it was expected of him. The conditions of a peace treaty he could rationally wrap his head around - had proofread countless times before it was sent off to the Uchiha clan, even - but that he still couldn't believe in wholeheartedly, because the damn situation felt so foreign, going against every instinct that was screaming at him not to let his guard down and to wait for the next opening and the opportunity for a deadly strike...that never came.
Tormented by the ghosts of his past, Tobirama couldn't fathom a world free of conflict, liberated from the bloody cycle of revenge both clans had been trapped in for generations. Peace was hazy concept at best, a fool's longing, a death wish. And delusion was Hashirama's jurisdiction. But regardless of Tobirama's inner turmoil, the agreements had been signed and were holding up, nevermind what the disgruntled elders on both sides had to say about the sudden cessation of hostility. There were talks of unity, a village built on neutral grounds, where both clans would concord and heal old wounds. The start of something unprecedented, a still fragile but budding sentiment that Tobirama could only categorize as 'unknown', that made him grow more uneasy as the weeks went by.
One the lesser expected effects of the end of the war - all he had known since the age of four - was touch starvation. The sudden lack of Uchiha punches and blades trying to get past his guard was acute. And frankly quite unnerving.
