Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was maddening.

Tobirama jolted awake to the rush of his heart pounding, to light, to a breath tearing at his throat, too much, too fast.

The world pressed against him with names he couldn’t catch, faces he almost knew but lost before they formed. His own name almost slipped away like water through his hands before heaving for air.

Panic tore at him, but worse than panic was the ache, an emptiness so sharp it felt like grief. Something was missing, someone- Tobirama couldn’t say who, couldn’t even hold the outline, but the absence throbbed in him like a wound.

Every attempt to remember broke apart, every thought cracked open and scattered, leaving him raw, helpless, aching for a story, a face, a warmth he could not recall.

Dense fog-like rain fell on him, as he laid against the side of a thick wooden branch, his cheek plastered against the sticky lichen and moss.

Sickening humidity and chilling air somehow co-existed and wrung Tobirama out, tiny beads of sweat gathering with raindrops, and rolling down his neck.

Eventually, he could no longer lift his head, and was left gazing up through one eye at the darkening tree crowns, small specks of the leaden night sky peeking above.

In the hushed surroundings, the presence of a person boomed like a distant thunder. It blared out strong as it moved along the nearby trees. Tobirama touched the ground cautiously, the sensation of a familiar aura stirring up anxious memories.

If the faint chakra he could feel within his chest was enough to move him, how marvelous and big this person must be. Surely it must be the chakra and sound of the world’s heart. The strong big, perfect world. A world Tobirama wasn’t to be a part of.

The fine rain fell continuously without making a sound. Lying there on the damp floor of the forest, he had the illusion that he was slowly falling, lower and lower into the ground. Before long there would be a snap and he would be severed from this world.

Ripped clothing, a long narrow gash along the side of his ribs, or there should have been. Faint chakra stitches throbbed lowly under his skin covered by a fresh, silvery pink scar.

He wasn’t injured, he assessed, at least not anymore. Apart from a deep, sore ache in his chest and an excruciating headache.

His mind felt broken and shattered. Dying feeling.

Tobirama was used to situations of severe stressful scale. He gets migraines, violent stabbing behind his eyes, annoying, persistent, but manageable.

Sometimes, his chest aches like one bloody laceration, his breathing cuts off and his vision darkens in the midst of warm sunlight.
It becomes particularly dreadful when he gets struck while carrying on his duty, under missions or on the battlefield, something that looms over his head whenever he’s around his fellow clan members.

But this was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

Tobirama couldn’t remember what had happened or why he was here, lying alone and defenseless in the forest, getting drenched in the rain.

We can’t remember everything, Tobirama thought, only the parts that are truly important. But there wasn’t a single thing he wanted to remember. The soft rain kept falling. An empty shell of himself rose slowly up into the grey sky. He closed his eyes, waiting.

A sense reminded him of his brothers, wondered where Hashirama and Itama were right now, what they were doing. Why weren’t they here. The thought lingered for just a moment, then vanished like rising steam when Tobirama tried to remember what he himself had been doing prior to finding himself in this situation.

The answer was just within his grasp, yet beyond reach, as something invisible, yet immensely strong clouded his mind when he tried to pick at the pieces.

The sound and chakra of another person approaching seemed to be getting louder. He opened his eyes to see a man’s blurry face peering down at him. A few beats. How long had he been there? It certainly didn’t feel like the overwhelming pressure just moments ago.

The man squatted down and looked at Tobirama, resting his chin on his knees. A strand of wet dark hair hung over his forehead.

The roaring sensation seemed louder than ever, as if echoing under his very being. Tobirama narrowed his eyes, forcing the view into focus, trying to make sense of the blur.

Izuna, he realized dreadfully, was crouched in front of him with a wicked grin, sword in hand. He was tapping his pointer finger lazily against it, almost etching his bloodlust into the passive movement.

Desperate attempts to scramble through his mind, searching for an explanation for how he had gotten himself to this point. Why couldn’t he remember? His breathing shuddered briefly.

He carefully tilted his head and glanced up, avoiding his eyes. Izunas chakra rolled off of him in suffocating, scorching waves, fiery and brutal.

“There you are-“ He strung out the last syllable and shifted his posture slightly. “We were wondering if you’d actually managed to slip away” His sharingan radiated a sharp crimson light as he narrowed his eyes in fury.

There was prolonged silence, thick with tension as Izuna seemed to wait for a jab in return. When none came, he merely clicked his teeth. “Someone had a go at you, huh…” Izuna assessed while taking in the state of the man beneath him. He looked away for a moment, then turned back with determination, as if making up his mind.

They gazed intently at each other like this for a moment. Izuna unsheathed his sword in one swift motion and the steel made a faint click.

“Shall we, then?” he mused in a composed voice, with the subtlest bit of malice leaking through despite his best efforts.

Tobirama desperately tried to conjure any strength, any sense of fear to defend himself. Get up and flee, fight, scream, but nothing came. There was a void where he usually stood proud and powerful. Now, all he could do was lay and watch his impending demise, his body too sluggish, with soaked clothes and armor weighing impossibly heavy.

Trying to fight the invisible force holding him down only made his headache rage and send out shocks of sharp pain.

There were others now. He tried to focus on the silhouettes and count. Dewy raindrops adorned six Uchiha members clad in dark cloaks, mostly high ranking shinobi that Tobirama narrowly recognized from countless battles. Just his luck. Izuna reached out for Tobirama who was tense and cold, his touch scorching in comparison.

He lifted a brow in surprise, “Did you bump your head or something? The hell is wrong with-“ he interrupted himself with a disgruntled sound. Something seemed to be puzzling him.

The cogs were turning in Izunas head, before he stood up and turned his back to Tobirama.

“We’ll be taking him back with us” he ordered the unit. “As a prisoner of war, for now.” The authority in his command and demeanor was unmistakable.

The five other Uchiha were surrounding them. Their faces didn’t break, but their bodies betrayed them. Shoulders stiffened, jaws tightened. One dragged a hand down his face as though wiping away the thought, another crossed his arms too tightly, calloused fingers digging into his damp sleeves.

They didn’t voice their disapproval, none dared, but the quiet pulse of reluctance throbbed in the air all the same.

Gazing weary while discerning Izuna’s intent, Tobirama tried to muster even a sound, a word of protest at the turn of events. Nothing came, his voice raw and only air escaping as his wet lips parted. A stab of pain came and went at the attempt of speech, like shards dragging across the ground, gnarly sounds raking in his head.

How curious, Tobirama wondered, an insoluble or perhaps paralyzing technique must have been placed on him, rendering him unable to fight or think clearly.

The rain turned worse, no longer a gentle mist, and heavy drops whipped against the ground. When one of them touched his tongue, he knew his mouth was gaping and the ache at the side of his jaw told him it was open wide and strained back, mimicking a rictus of death.

Izuna had roughly and unceremoniously smacked the hilt of his sword against Tobirama’s temple, emitting a loud crack and plummeting his consciousness into darkness.

He felt a line of liquid carve its path down his cheek, uncertain if it belonged to the storm or to him. His entire body went slack and the sinking feeling of falling into the ground finally engulfed him whole.

Izuna lingered over him for a moment, weapon still in hand, the rain sliding down his face in crooked rivulets.

A thin smile pulled at his mouth, though his eyes stayed flat and joyless. He gave a short, dismissive flick of his wrist toward the prone body. “Haul him up,” he said, voice low and unhurried, as though they had all the time in the world.

“We’ll be heading back immediately. There should be time before Madara returns and voices his shitty objections, surely.”

Two lanky Uchiha shinobi leaned down and each grabbed Tobirama under the shoulders. His head bobbed slightly at being maneuvered around as they hurriedly bound his wrists behind his back, and raised his unconscious body in a strained position.

A slack and bare expression now adorning his bloody face as his head leaned forward, with tufts of sodden white fur sticking to the pale skin of his neck. His arms were hooked under their grip, shoulders pulled taut and aching, his head sagging forward with every jolt from his awkwardly tall frame.

Dead weight, Tobirama was nothing more than that now.

His sandals dragged and scraped against the ground, catching on stones, leaving uneven gouges in the dirt. Every few steps his heels struck hard, thudding like dropped wood, but still the Uchiha hauled him on. His body swung between them, limp with shallow breaths.

Izuna took in the scene with wide eyes and a slight tug on his lips. He sheathed his sword before turning his back and taking the leading position in the front.

Heavy rain kept coming down as water drummed against the forest’s roof, a ceaseless knocking on leaf and limb as they passed through forest.

The gloomy dawn was rising as the unit passed Uchiha watchtowers on their way, their figures outlined faintly against the paling sky.

Hushed voices drifted from passing patrols, cut short when eyes lingered too long on the burden they carried.

Gazes met for a heartbeat, then broke away just as quickly, leaving only the shuffle of boots and the scrape of dragged heels.

They pressed on, crossing beneath the looming frames of the towers until the compound gates opened before them; rows of barracks and wooden houses crouched low against the earth, canvas shelters sagging with water, and guards brooding over the perimeter like silent sentinels.

Fires smoldered in shallow pits, sending thin gray ribbons of smoke curling upward towards tall banners adorning the uchiwa fan. The men stationed there stood rigid at their posts, their armor streaked wet.

Discipline held the place together like iron nails, but the air itself felt heavy with fire-ladden chakra.

The unit halted before a structure heavier than the rest, its bulk pressed into the earth by thick timber pillars and a brick foundation that sank into a cellar block below. Torches guttered in iron brackets, their flames struggling against the damp, casting restless shadows across the guarded facade.

Unspoken words still lingered as they descended on heavy masonry stairs.

With a grunt, the handlers let Tobirama fall; striking with a heavy thud, his limbs folding awkwardly beneath him, the side of his face meeting the tiles in a dull, wet sound. He did not stir.

The two men who had carried him stepped back in unison quickly, flexing their fingers as though to shake off the weight, then straightened, posture rigid, expressionless. They regarded the motionless figure on the floor with the cold detachment of men discarding refuse.

Izuna’s eyes sliding past the unconscious figure, already disinterested as though he were no more than another thing they’d dragged home from the mud.

“He’ll be detained in these cells for the time being,” Izuna said finally, his tone measured, the kind of calm that discouraged question. His eyes swept the room. “Summon Hikaku. I don’t care if he’s in one of his meetings”

One of the guards hesitated before speaking. “Sir, what should we do until then?” He gestured down toward Tobirama, uncertain. “When he wakes up, I mean.”

Izuna drew in a slow breath through his nose, exhaling as if the question itself tested his patience.

“Call for the seal masters,” he said. “I want him properly restrained, no surprises.” His gaze lingered on the unconscious man, a faint, unreadable curve touching his mouth. “And notify me the moment he wakes.” He turned, cloak shifting with the movement. “If he does.”

The sound of his boots receded down the corridor, the rhythm swallowed quickly by the low hiss of rain against the eaves. Inside, the chamber remained heavy with smoke and silence, the torches burning low as the captured man lay unmoving, the faint shimmer of water on the floor reflecting the dull orange light.

Calm and collected. Able to subdue the two Uchiha brothers and make them reason. Uchiha Hikaku had honed many such qualities over the years, patience, restraint, precision. They had been the pillars of his ascent from a mere scholar to an advisor whose words could temper even the most reckless command.

But this morning, that calm was nowhere to be found.

His footsteps echoed down the wooden corridor, quick and sharp against the polished boards. The air was damp with the scent of cedar and rain drifting in from the open lattice, the dawning wind threading through the trees below. Lanterns flickered along the eaves, their light glancing off the rails as he passed servants hurriedly.

He reached the main chamber without waiting for permission, sliding the doors wide.

“Izuna,” The word landed flat, restrained but heavy.

The man in question looked up from where he sat, expression unreadable, the calm of someone who had already anticipated the outrage at the turn of events, yet wasn’t particularly apologetic about it.

Hikaku stepped forward, managing his best to hide the cracks of temperament breaking through the veneer of his usual discipline.

Cutting straight to the matter at hand. “You decided to capture Senju Tobirama? Really? After the treaty proposal, after the council’s warnings of your recklessness?” His voice tightened. “Do you intend on having the entire Senju army outside our gates by noon, because this is certainly the way to go about it,”

Then, with an edge he did not bother to hide “Or are you simply testing to see how far you can push before someone snaps?”
The silence that followed was long, thick with tension. The sound of rain against the eaves seemed to fill the space between them, the storm outside waiting to see which of them would break first.

Izuna looked up finally, unbothered, as though the statement deserved no recognition. Hikaku tried to ease his posture, hands folded behind his back to steady himself.

Izuna exhaled through his nose, the faintest trace of annoyance breaking the stillness. “You can spare me the lectures,” he said, voice calm but edged. “Certainly Madara will handle that part for you, he never misses an opportunity to friendly remind me of my strategic deficiencies.” His fingers tapped once against the low table, a soft, deliberate sound.

Hikaku exhaled and relaxed his posture. “What happened?”

“My unit found him incapacitated. An opportunity like that doesn’t just present itself,” His eyelids were low as he peered out into the room, gaze locked on Hikaku.

“All my men were practically panting with bloodlust, just itching to kill him,” He let out a huff completely devoid of any hostility, in fact he seemed almost joyful. “Took quite some restraint, you know.”

Hikaku’s jaw tightened. “Right,” he said, voice sharpening, “And still you decided to bring him back here alive, effectively dragging us all in to an executioner position that we now have to navigate.” The words cracked through the air like a blade drawn too fast.

Izuna rose slowly from where he sat, every movement deliberate, unhurried. “Killing him would be satisfying, morale boosting even- either that,” he said, tone almost conversational, “Or we use this to our advantage.” His lip curled faintly, a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“A prisoner. Senju Tobirama, no less. It could shift the board.” He paced a few steps toward the open veranda, the rain-streaked trees visible beyond. “You’re thinking of the risk; I’m thinking of the leverage.”

Hikaku’s expression didn’t change, but his shoulders stiffened. “Leverage?” The word came out quiet, heavy. “You’re talking about the acting leader of Senju, not a pawn on a board. You think they will negotiate with you over one of their own? All the while Hashirama is away?“ He held a hand up in disbelief.

Izuna turned halfway, his face shadowed against the pale morning light. “It’s exactly because of Hashirama’s absence that we can make a move.”

Hikaku met his gaze, the caution in his eyes tempered by something closer to exasperation. The discussion wasn’t headed anywhere so Hikaku drew a taut breath and skirted towards a conclusion.

“I suggest you think beyond the next move. You’ve captured more than an enemy- you’ve captured the thread that’s currently holding the Senju clan together. Pull too hard, and the whole thing unravels.”

For a moment, the only sound was the steady drip of rain from the eaves. Izuna looked away first, back toward the misted treeline. Hikaku could tell by the quiet that followed that his words had landed, but not enough to change the outcome.

Hikaku was the first to break the silence. “We should leave it for now,” he said at last, his tone measured, not asking but deciding. “Madara will have the final word when he returns from the west front tomorrow.”

Izuna’s jaw shifted, the smallest flicker of irritation, or unease, crossing his face. He looked away, as if the very mention of his elder brother’s name had dulled the edge of his defiance.

Hikaku took a slow breath, folding his hands behind his back once more. “Until then,” he continued, quieter now, “no impulsive decisions. I trust I make myself clear.” The words were polite, but the steel beneath them left little room for argument.

Izuna gave a faint nod, more reflex than assent. The brief shadow that passed over his expression betrayed what he wouldn’t admit aloud.

Hikaku inclined his head slightly, the gesture formal but final, and turned to leave. His footsteps carried down the corridor, calm and precise, fading into the hush beyond the chamber.

Behind him, Izuna remained motionless, the rain whispering against the open lattice.

The air felt heavier now, as though even the compound itself understood that there would be consequences.

Chapter Text

Memory did not return gently, it struck like cold water. Tobirama gasped, hand flying to his temple as a flash of his own voice echoed through his skull.

He could feel drowsiness thicken his voice. “What’s the matter?”

“Tōuka and one of the elders have sent for you. Says you’re to go to the medical ward quickly.” A man answered, voice filled with urgency.

“What’s happened, then?” He asked, and distinctly felt his heart miss a beat.

“There’s a young kunoichi, been brought from our reconnaissance base-,”

The dream passed as abrupt as it had come like steam drifting. The first thing he felt was the ache once again. A deep, pulsing soreness that seemed to live in his bones, radiating outward until it filled the room.

Then came the warmth, a thin draft sneaking through the slats above the floorboards, stirring the faint smell of coal and dust.

He stirred, eyes opening slowly at the sound of metal, a dull clink that froze him where he lay. His wrists were bound together in front of him, a short length of shiny silvery chain linking them to a ring set deep into the back wall.

Faint blue veins of light pulsed along its surface, fading in and out like breath. He could feel it, that constant, quiet drain beneath his skin, the tug where his chakra should have been.

He shifted again, groaning as pain flared sharp through his face. The motion made the world tilt, blurred outlines coming into focus: a low ceiling, stone walls washed pale by muted light, and the wooden lattice of a cell enclosing him in delicate geometry.

Then the situation at hand struck.

Rain against armor and the mossy forest floor. A voice that split the air. The glint of a blade too close. Izuna’s glowing eyes staring him down.

He half-rose before the chain snapped taut, jerking him back with a metallic rasp. The sound echoed through the small room, then died into stillness.

He sank against the mat, breathing deeply.

The fragments of memory bled away as quickly as they’d come, leaving only the throbbing pain in his temple from where he’d been struck, and that steady drain from the chain at his wrists, soft, constant, like something alive.

The cell was larger than he’d expected. Although bare save for the mat, a sort of low tray with water, and a single lantern guttering in the corner. The bars threw thin shadows across his skin, striping him. There was intricate ink writing on the wooden beams, most likely seals.

Beyond the walls, he thought he heard voices, distant, cautious, but they faded before he could listen for meaning.

He pressed his palms together, crossing fingers in a sign, the metal biting faintly into his skin. The blue light flickered once, almost mocking the helplessness.

All his armor, shoes, weapons, tools, all items of use had been stripped away and taken. For the time being, he realized that even if he wanted to fight, it would make no difference.

He drew in a long, careful breath and let it out slowly.

A faint tremor in his arms betrayed the fatigue that had settled deep in him, a weight heavier than the bindings.

Finally, Tobirama let his back find the wall, not in comfort, but simply because his body demanded rest. The wood was surprisingly warm against his shoulders, grounding him, though the air still hummed faintly with the residue of the seal at his wrists.

Then came another distraction, smaller but insistent: Hunger.

It gnawed at him low in his stomach, dull and steady, a reminder of how long it had been since he last ate, hours, maybe even days. Time was a rather loose construct at this point in time.

Apart from the dull exasperation beneath his ribs, what unsettled him most was the confusion. He wasn’t sure what he had done, or even what he was supposed to have done. He had been captured, bound, stripped of everything that made him who he was, but the not knowing gnawed deeper.

He would likely be killed soon; that much was clear. Executed, quietly, although not the way these things were usually handled.

Hashirama and Itama would never know what became of him, his clan would mourn without an answer, and he would vanish into whatever story the Uchiha chose to tell.

That part he could somehow accept. But none of it made sense.

If Izuna had wanted him dead, he could have finished it in the forest. A single cut, clean and final, and the matter would’ve ended there. Izuna would probably savor every moment of it, even. Why go through the trouble of dragging him here? Alive, restrained, suppressed? Why the cells, the guards, the formalities?

He stared down at the chain, there was purpose in this, he realized. A reason behind the restraint, behind the silence.

And that thought, more than the threat of death itself, made his stomach turn.

He leaned his head back against the wall, jaw tight.

That was when he heard the soft, deliberate rhythm of footsteps approaching from beyond the walls. Not hurried, not uncertain. The kind of stride that carried purpose.

Wood creaked faintly beneath each step, growing louder, clearer.

Tobirama straightened instinctively, the motion tugging at his wrists. His pulse picked up, but he forced his breathing steady.

The door opened with a clean rasp. Lantern light spilled into the cell, painting the bars gold for a moment before settling back into dimness.

Izuna stepped inside, every detail of his composure deliberate: the slow fold of his hands behind his back, the unhurried sweep of his gaze across the cell.

“Look at you, finally lucid,” he said, voice low but even. It wasn’t triumph, nor sympathy.

“All adorned and shiny in chains. It suits you, actually.” Izuna couldn’t help the condescending tone slipping through at the end.

Tobirama didn’t answer. He just sat, shoulders squared against the wall, wrists resting heavily in his lap, the chain between them slack but inescapable. His breathing was shallow, uneven from the pain digging in his temple, but his eyes stayed fixed on some distant point past Izuna.

Izuna studied him for a moment, head tilted slightly, as though inspecting. “Care to explain what the fuck you were doing back there in the forest?” he asked. “Eight of my best men, slain before you tried to run away,”

Still nothing, but Tobirama’s expression turned puzzled. Only the faint creak of the floorboards as Tobirama shifted his weight and sat forward, kneeling, a small movement, barely there, but deliberate enough to carry meaning.

Izuna’s lip curved, not into a frown, but something close to it. “So, my reinforcements and I chased after you, and what did we find?”

He took a few steps closer, the soft rustle of his robes the only sound in the room.

“You. Completely defeated and defenseless with nothing to answer for your pathetic state, hm?” He crouched slightly, eyes narrowing. Fury was wafting off of him.

Tobirama’s gaze lifted then, slow and steady, the faintest glint behind it, exhausted, but unyielding. “That doesn’t make any sense,”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not-” Speech seemed difficult all of a sudden, like words twisting in on themselves. “I don’t have any reason to believe you,”

“Why would I lie about my subordinates dying?” It came out more bitter than he intended. “Besides, you were literally there when we cut down your delegates before that.”

Tobirama struggled to form the vowels. The gnarly noise was back. “What do you mean my delegation?”

“Have you like lost your mind or something?” Disbelief was clouding Izuna’s voice. “Your two little Senju friends and that split-haired brother of yours, when we encountered you at the river clearing.” His lip twitched.

“That’s impossible,” Tobirama couldn’t remember such an event taking place, but the mere idea of it froze him in place, chilling the blood pounding in his head. “Itama can’t- he can’t fight anymore, there’s no way my- No way Hashirama would have let him patrol with me.”

“Hashirama has been doing fuck all, away from the land of Fire for months, stop playing oblivious,” Izuna snapped at him.

Tobirama froze. The words hit something deep and hollow inside him, an absence rather than a wound.

For a moment, everything in the room seemed to fall away. The flicker of the lantern, the faint hiss of the storm outside, even Izuna’s steady breathing. There was only the ringing in his skull and the quiet, creeping terror that came with not knowing what to believe.

He searched his memory, clawed at it, but it gave him nothing solid, only fragments that slipped through his grasp the harder he tried to hold them. He knew he had assumed a secondary, inactive position for a long time; administrative and political work within the Senju clan, buried in scrolls, ink and parchment night and day. He hadn’t been active in combat since- A stab of pain interrupted again- He hadn’t had any reason to have been out, fighting.

The uncertainty was worse than pain; it made his chest tighten until he could barely breathe.

If Izuna was lying, it was a cruel one but not unbecoming of him, detailed, confident, and too close to truth. But if he wasn’t, then Tobirama’s mind was no longer his own to trust.

He lowered his gaze, the motion small but sharp enough to draw Izuna’s attention. His throat felt dry, the next words barely more than a whisper.

“I don’t...” he hesitated, each syllable heavy, reluctant, almost foreign.

Izuna’s expression shifted, not pity, not satisfaction, but something cold. He leaned closer, studying Tobirama the way one might study a weapon too damaged to use but too valuable to discard. His sharingan flared to life quickly.

“Enough,” he murmured, “I’ll just see for myself,” and abruptly seized hold of his collar and pulled him forward until he collided with the floor and flipped him backwards onto the straw mat. Izuna sauntered over, looking morbidly curious with a glint in his crimson eyes.

Tobirama bit his lip to refrain from making any noise at the offense and drew his chained arms up in front of him.

Izuna knelt over him, knees on either side of his torso and stared down at him and then, lightly pressing his hand around Tobirama’s jaw, leaned forward, leering.

Tobirama wished he could sink into the ground again and suffocate there. Considered yelling, thrashing. He wished he could have just a chance to use a jutsu, a chance to fight him off.
Tobirama defiantly tucked his chin down against his shoulder with a cringe, and attempted to face away from him as much as he could.

Izuna’s left hand pressed into the straw mat by his head. “Look at me,” he commanded, the grip around his jaw hardening.

Tobirama’s chin untucked itself as he was forced to turn to face upwards. Eyes shut tightly and scrunching his brows, he refused.

“Stop it. Just let go.” Izuna continued relentlessly. A few seconds passed like this, strained. “You’re only making this harder for yourself. Look,” He shifted his weight for a second and lifted his left hand up and promptly backhanded the man beneath him with a hard crack.

That elicited a reaction. Tobirama hissed at the sting against his already bruised face. The vice around his jaw made speech impossible, but he stuttered incoherent protests regardless. He could tell by Izuna’s breath hitching and dragging that he was getting impatient.

Nails digging into the skin of his cheek made Tobirama shove his arms at the figure blindly with a startled cry through his teeth. 

A minute passed.

Tobirama’s arms trembled slightly from the effort, the chain clinking weakly against the floor. The fight drained out of him in shallow, uneven breaths. The ache in his jaw throbbed with every heartbeat, and still Izuna’s grip held, implacable.

For a long moment, Tobirama resisted out of instinct alone, then the weight of it all pressed down, exhaustion overtaking defiance. His eyes flicked open, unfocused at first, then steadied reluctantly on the face above him.

Burning red eyes only inches away from his. His pupils were contracted, and the black looked like an endless void.

With his chakra stored away, he had no ability to protect his mind or break out. Before he could react, or even process it, Izuna’s eyes locked into his, and slammed his way into Tobirama’s psyche. The pressure almost made him lose consciousness.

The genjutsu was like falling into a hollow world, nothingness, hurling straight into his memories. Izuna carved through the frail technique that Tobirama tried to create with the shreds of chakra he could force past the seals. He felt prodding at blocked memories. It was like having a deft needle rummaging through his head with precision and unrelenting force, being dissected alive.

Izuna cut deeper among his memories and then sifted through them slowly with the empty void, expanding endlessly.

His early childhood years sheltered from battle, a memory of his parents and of holding his younger brothers.

Izuna didn’t seem too concerned with any of it, and moved on.

Winter a few years ago or so, when the memories clouded and turned muddy, izuna’s interest perked up.

He examined the first memories of warfare. Mangled bodies. Untreatable injuries. Itama bleeding out in front of him. Going toe-to-toe in battles with Izuna himself.

The closer he got to the present, the more memories were blocked apart from mundane nights of reading and studying dry texts until he grew tired. Merely inconspicuous meetings with elders and different advisors, Hashirama present occasionally, only muted voices.

Izuna tried cutting his way through the barriers with sheer force over and over. None of them would give away to his onslaught of attacks, except for a brief, passing memory of his father yelling something at him followed by a lousy punch. The fact that it surfaced seemed odd, like a weird thing to hold onto.

Tobirama was breaking down from the mind-numbing pain, and somehow the pressure continued to increase until he honestly thought he was dying. He realized his body was writhing in pain like a snared animal, as he desperately attempted to escape the genjustu.

Cries and screams of pain filled the cell and dragged out for what felt like an eternity.

Finally, Izuna withdrew from his mind and released the illusion with a light tap of chakra. He loosened his grip and got up, simply looking down at the state of his doing.

Tobirama faintly recognized that he had been the source of the screaming. Now, only tiny gasps and hiccups of pain pushed past torn vocal cords. Broken sounds caught in his throat, each breath hitching and stuttering as agony clenched through his entire being.

Izuna grimaced. “Well this is a surprise,”

The air between them seemed to still. Whatever victory Izuna might have expected didn’t come; there was no submission in the look Tobirama gave him, only a quiet, exhausted hatred. He hadn’t broken him completely.

“You’ve been stripped of everything, your armor, your blade, your strength. You have nothing left that I didn’t allow you to keep. And yet,” he paused deep in thought, “You’re hiding something.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than any blow. Izuna’s expression shifted, something flickering in his eyes, irritation, or maybe recognition- before he finally took a step and drew back with a huff, the tension between them still pulsing in the air like heat from a dying flame.

“I’ll let you be for the time being,” Izuna said at last, straightening his sleeves with the calm precision of someone already finished with the matter. “Can’t have you lose your mind any more than it already is.” His tone carried a finality that left no room for reply.

He turned towards the door.

“Wait.”

The word came out raw, dragged through shallow breaths. Izuna almost didn’t hear it. He paused, half-turned, glancing back over his shoulder at the man lying limp on the straw mat.

“What?” His voice carried a faint, mocking lilt. “Haven’t had your fill yet?”

Tobirama swallowed hard, forcing the air into his lungs. “No-” He faltered, gathering the strength to speak clearly. “I need- food.”

For a second, Izuna only looked at him, as though the request were too absurd to process after what had just happened.

Then a dry, humorless laugh escaped him. “Food.” He turned fully then, the faintest grin cutting through the pale light. “There might be some scraps left by the end of the night, the guards will probably see to it.” He left without another glance, the door sliding shut behind him with a dull wooden thud.

Tobirama remained where he was, the silence closing in around him once more. He stared up at the ceiling until his vision blurred, eyes burning from the effort of staying open. His body trembled in waves. Pain, hunger, exhaustion, all blurring into the same hollow feeling. Slowly, the haze began to pull him under again, the world fading to a dim, aching blur.

The storm had settled by the time Izuna left the cell, but the air inside the compound was still heavy with the aftermath. Thick and metallic, like steam off cooling iron.

His steps fell hard against the wooden corridor, each one sharp enough to echo down the hall. Servants scattered instinctively at the sound, pressing to the sides and bowing low until he passed. Lanterns flickered across his face as he walked, lines of warm light and shadow cutting over his expression, over the faint tension twitching at the corner of his jaw. The mask of composure held, but barely.

He reached the sliding doors of Hikaku’s study and didn’t bother to knock. The panels rattled against the frame as he shoved them open.

Hikaku looked up from a table cluttered with scrolls and maps, his expression tightening just slightly, not surprised, but already wary.

Izuna stopped just inside the doorway, his posture taut, his tone clipped. “We need to talk. I just happened to stumble upon something interesting.”

He didn’t sit. Didn’t even wait for permission. “The Senju’s awake,” Izuna said, his voice low, deliberate. “But he remembers nothing. Not what’s he’s been up to, nothing of what happened yesterday. It’s as if someone made a clean cut through his mind and carved the last year out of it.”

He paused, pacing a short step, one hand dragging through his hair. “His memory isn’t just gone- it’s been sealed away. Locked behind something deliberate, something crafted. I tried to find the seam, any opening, anything that could tell me how it was done, but there’s nothing. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing.”

He looked to Hikaku then, eyes cold but burning beneath the surface. “A man like that doesn’t just forget a war or any meaningful event, even I will give him that. Someone made sure he would.”

For a long moment, Hikaku said nothing. The only sound in the room was the slow, irregular tapping of leftover raindrops falling off leaves against the veranda. His gaze had lowered to the papers on his cluttered desk, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

Hikaku drew in a quiet breath through his nose and straightened, eyes sharp now, calculating. He hummed for a second.

For a long moment, Hikaku didn’t speak. The candlelight flickered faintly across his face, catching the faint tightening around his eyes. When he did respond, it wasn’t alarm that colored his voice, it was doubt.

“Forgive me,” he began slowly, “but that’s a rather serious claim to make. You’re certain it’s not simple shock or exhaustion? Whatever you saw was truly the result of fūinjutsu?”

Izuna’s jaw flexed, his composure thinning by a hair. “I know the difference. This isn’t confusion. The gaps are too clean, snippets throughout years missing, wiped away as if they’d never existed. I looked in his mind and he didn’t even know of Senju Butsuma’s death or that his brother left for his little honeymoon or whatever the fuck he’s up to in Uzushio-“

Hikaku inclined his head slightly, a gesture halfway between acknowledgment and caution. “First of all, it’s a diplomatic mission if I remember correctly. Secondly, I don’t doubt what you witnessed,” he said. “But still, the idea of a sealed memory, especially one that extensive- You understand why I must ask.”

Hikaku chose his next words carefully. “Such things are rare, even among skilled individuals capable of them.”

Izuna’s eyes narrowed. “You think I imagined it?”

Hikaku replied gently, “Fatigue can make any of us see what we most fear, or what we most need to see.” He paused, letting the words settle, then added in a quieter tone, “If your judgment is correct, however, then this isn’t merely unfortunate. It’s deliberate. And whoever sealed his mind must have had reason to believe he’d end up here. Either that or die, certainly.”

Izuna fell silent, the faint tension in his shoulders betraying his irritation. He stepped around the table, folding his arms. “If he’s forgotten everything, then someone wanted him useful, yet emptied and hidden away. Whatever the reason, it means someone knew he wouldn’t die back there.”

Izuna’s jaw tightened and he paused for a moment. “You think this was planned?”

“I think,” Hikaku said, “that a mind doesn’t erase itself. Someone got to him first. And regardless, if that someone was his ally or foe…” He trailed off, his voice dropping into something almost grim.

“Then it’s possible we’ve entered the later stage of a strategy that was set in motion long before we became aware of it.”

The silence that followed was long, heavy with thought rather than hostility.

Izuna’s irritation lingered in the air, but even he seemed to recognize the line between anger and recklessness. “So, what do you suggest now?”

Hikaku took a moment before answering. “We wait. You’re rushing, regardless if you want to admit it. Madara will return in just a few hours. He’s the one among us most qualified to determine what this means, and what should be done with the prisoner.”

Izuna’s posture shifted, his confidence dimming for the first time. He looked away, toward the rain-dark lattice, his voice lower when he spoke again. “You think he’ll see reason?”

“Certainly,” Hikaku said softly, “whether we want him to or not.”

The two men exchanged a brief look, an unspoken understanding passing between them. Whatever came next would depend entirely on how others interpreted the situation. And that, they both knew, could change everything.

Chapter Text

Returning by the lower path through the cedar woods, Madara followed the trail as it bent and climbed through the dense green.

The air was heavy with the scent of sap and rain-soaked bark, cicadas droning somewhere unseen.

Mist and the remnants of yesterday’s storm clung to the hollows between the trees, veiling the path ahead in faint, shifting silver. When the forest finally broke open, the compound’s outer grounds unfurled before him, slate roofs pressed low beneath the dull, clouded light of afternoon.

The sky itself seemed weighted, its pale gray stretching over the encampment like a lid, flattening color and shadow alike.

He slowed as the perimeter came into view, the guard towers standing silent and slick with moisture, the outer palisade darkened where the rain had dried unevenly on the wood. The soil underfoot was soft, the trail stamped with the tracks of patrol boots and grooves.

The path wound deeper toward the heart of the compound, where stone replaced mud and timber, and the smell of smoke and cedar grew stronger. It was orderly, yes- disciplined, but something in the silence struck him as off. The rhythm of the place had changed, carrying a weight that hadn’t been there when he left. Patrols moved with precision, but their eyes were sharp, their conversations muted.

The gates parted before him without a word. The guards bowed deeply, their movements precise but strained, a stiffness that did not escape his notice.

Madara inclined his head in return, his expression unchanged.

Crossing the courtyard, he saw nothing outwardly wrong, the banners still hung from the towers, the barracks aligned in their familiar shapes, the forge smoke curling faintly into the clear air, yet something in the rhythm of the place was off. The quiet lingered too long between sounds.

Attendants hurried to meet him before he’d reached the inner hall, bowing deeply before closing in with practiced precision. They spoke little, their hands deft and careful as they helped him unfasten the lacquered red plates of armor that clung faintly with dust and the dull scent of iron.

The buckles came loose one by one, the pieces of it laid down in solemn order on sheets, each faintly marked and nicked with small scratches, darkened by various colors, as though the field had not yet let go of him.

None of them asked questions. They didn’t need to. The quiet between them and lowered gazes was answer enough.

Madara stood motionless through it all, gaze fixed somewhere distant as the attendants worked. When the last clasp was undone, one of them offered a cloth, and he wiped his hands slowly, the movements deliberate, methodical, the kind of composure that comes after taking lives, not before it.

He exhaled once, low, controlled. “Summon the council for this evening,” he said to a nearby servant, who startled at being addressed. The words came without thought, but edged with finality.

The attendants bowed immediately, hurrying out into the corridor.

Madara continued on, calm but alert, each step carrying him deeper into the waiting quiet.

A servant passing through the walkway froze mid-step when she saw him, lowering herself hastily into a bow. “At ease,” Madara said, his voice even, the low timbre of command practiced into habit. She murmured her acknowledgment but did not look up until he had passed.

The deeper he went, the heavier the feeling became, a tautness in the air, a silence that hummed at the edge of hearing. Feet struck the polished boards of the inner hall with measured rhythm, echoing faintly ahead of him.

By the time he reached the central corridor, he stilled beneath the lanterns, gaze sweeping the stillness before him.

The shoji door behind him slid open before he could take another step.

Izuna stood in the doorway, posture laid back but eyes shadowed with unease. “Welcome back,” he said, his tone measured but carrying the faint edge of someone rehearsing steadiness.

Madara either didn’t pick up on it or pretended not to. He didn’t turn right away. Set the folded cloth aside, his reflection glancing faintly in the polished wood of the floor.

“I wasn’t aware I’d been missed,” Madara said evenly. His voice was soft, but it carried the weight of command even when he didn’t particularly intend to. Only then did he glance up, his gaze cutting toward Izuna like a blade unsheathed just enough to remind its edge was still sharp.

Izuna caught it immediately, the tone, the look, the barely concealed irritation. He tilted his head, lips curling faintly, amusement laced with provocation. “So I take it the meeting with the commissioner didn’t go well,” he said, tone deceptively light. “If I’d known you’d be in such a mood, I might’ve told you not to bother coming back.”

The jab hung between them, the kind of insolence only a younger brother could get away with. For a moment, the air remained taut, the silence edged. Then, finally, the tension cracked just slightly.

For the first time since returning, Madara’s expression eased. The faintest trace of a smirk ghosted across his mouth, fleeting, unwilling, and was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

Izuna only shrugged, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “How did it go, then? Can’t imagine the Hagoromo were pleased to be confronted by their self-inflicted shortcomings, no less by you.” Izuna said.

Madara’s sigh came slow and deep, the sound of someone already feeling the weight of the hours ahead.

“They weren’t,” he said simply. “They haven’t upheld their end of the agreement and broke terms, but it needs to be written in a report before I say anything further,” He rubbed a thumb over the bridge of his nose, as if already dreading the task. “I’ll have to draft the full account before nightfall to avoid conjecture- The council and the elders can’t stand speculation.”

Izuna leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, watching him. “Amazing,” he said dryly. “Can’t wait for that. Nothing like paperwork and hour long debriefings to lift everyone’s spirits.”

Madara shot him a sidelong glance, unimpressed.

Izuna pushed off the frame and fell into step beside him as Madara turned toward the corridor. The two walked in silence for a few paces, their footsteps dull against the polished boards, the faint sound of nightingales chirping before sunset seeping through the open lattice.

Izuna shrugged, unbothered. “I suppose I’ll be caught up soon enough anyway,” he added, tone lighter but with something else stirring under it, a kind of restless anticipation.

Madara hummed in vague agreement, gaze forward. “You will,” he said simply.

“Well,” Izuna said finally, straightening a little, “there’s at least one reason not to be in such a sour mood. We might actually have something to celebrate.”

The corridor stretched long and empty ahead of them, paper walls glowing faintly in the muted light. Madara’s expression didn’t change, but his steps grew heavier, deliberate.

Izuna opened his mouth as if to say more, then paused, his gaze flicking briefly to the floor before finding his brother again. There was hesitation there, uncharacteristic, but also a spark of something close to excitement.

His arms dropped to his sides as he exhaled slowly. “Before you bury yourself in briefings and reports…” he began, quieter now, “there’s something you need to know.”

Madara slowed his pace slightly but didn’t stop. “Go on.”

“It’s urgent,” Izuna said, his voice steadier now, though the faint edge of unease remained. “You’ll want to hear it before the council does, or anyone for that matter. Hikaku’s the only other one who knows the details, apart from a few guards who won’t let a word slip.”

Madara said nothing, only nodded once, the slight tilt of his head signaling for Izuna to continue as he led the way down the corridor.

The hall turned sharply, opening into the wing reserved for him, the air cooler here, quieter.

They stopped before the broad cedar doors of Madara’s study. Izuna waited as his brother slid them open, the faint scrape of wood echoing in the stillness.

Inside, the room was sparsely lit, but orderly- Candles along the walls had been freshly replaced; their wicks short, flames steady and new, the faint scent of melted wax still lingering. A single lantern burning low on the desk, its flame trembling against the shiny surface.

The scent of ink and old paper hung in the air, mixing faintly with the iron trace of armor stacked near the wall.

Madara crossed to the low desk and sat behind it, resting both hands on the edge. His gaze flicked once toward Izuna, a look that carried command without words.

Izuna closed the doors behind them, the sound dull but final. For a moment, he only stood there, eyes adjusting to the dimness. 

Whatever composure he’d kept in the hallway seemed to settle now into focus.

“Well? Do tell this supposedly great news,” Madara said, voice low but steady. “Start from the beginning.”

Izuna drew in a breath, the faintest tremor slipping through before he spoke despite his best efforts. “We took a prisoner last night,” he said. “Senju Tobirama. Alive, in our custody.” The words landed heavy, cutting clean through the silence that followed.

Madara didn’t move, but the air between them seemed to contract. The flicker of the lantern shivered across his face, catching the sharp line of his jaw as his expression hardened.

Madara didn’t answer. He only stared, not at Izuna, but through him, as if the words hadn’t yet found a place to land. The silence stretched, dense and absolute. Even the flame of the candle beside them seemed to still, its light no longer dancing against shadows from the lacquered desk.

Izuna shifted, uneasy under the weight of it. “You’re looking at me like I said I brought home a wraith” he said finally, the dry edge in his voice not quite masking the uncertainty beneath.

Still nothing. Madara’s expression gave away little, no anger, no disbelief, just a sharp, fixed focus that felt almost unnatural.

He blinked once, slow, as if reorienting himself to the room, to the sound of his own breathing.

When he did speak, his voice was lower, quieter than before. “Pardon?” he said. It wasn’t a question so much as a demand, a need to hear the words again, if only to make sense of them.

Izuna exhaled through his nose, steadying himself. “My unit encountered him during a routine patrol,” he began, careful to keep his tone measured. “Neutral territory, or what’s supposed to pass for it these days. He wasn’t alone. Three subordinates- there might have been more close by. Weaklings. Barely put up a fight. They fell quick, no challenge worth mentioning.”

He glanced at Madara, but he hadn’t moved. His silence pressed at the edges of the room like a second presence.

“We engaged him immediately,” Izuna continued. “Standard protocol and all that. He held his own for a while- longer than expected, considering he was outnumbered, but then he ran. We gave chase through the forest.”

He paused, as if replaying the scene in his head, then shook it off. “A few hours later, we found him again. Completely incapacitated. No visible wound that should’ve put him down like that, but he was out cold.”

Madara’s expression didn’t change. The flicker of the candle caught in his eyes, but he said nothing.

Izuna shifted his weight, the quiet stretching between them until it started to grate. “You’re seriously creeping me out…“

He continued. “He’s been in the cells since last night,” he said finally. “Bound, sealed, guarded. He’s not going anywhere.”

Still no reply.

The silence was almost unbearable now- not angry, not disbelieving, but measured, calculating. Izuna could tell Madara was thinking; assessing, sorting, drawing connections he couldn’t yet see. It was the kind of silence Izuna had learned long ago not to interrupt.

The corners of Izuna’s mouth tightened. “You should be proud of me for not giving in, honestly,” he said finally, a faint, humorless huff slipping through. “I was going to end it there. Would’ve liked nothing more than to see him gone for good, save us all the trouble.”

He folded his arms, the motion sharp, restless. “But something was just wrong. He wasn’t fighting anymore, not like himself. Whoever took him down before we got there didn’t just beat him; they hollowed him out.“

Madara’s gaze lifted, slow and steady. Izuna went on before the silence could crush his nerve.

“His memories are gone,” he said. “Completely wiped. Not confused, not dazed, but sealed. Everything in him past a certain point is just... blurred. Whoever did it left him alive, but gutted of everything that makes him dangerous. And then they left him there like a carcass.”

He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “So yeah,” he muttered, quieter now, “I was going to kill him. But I didn’t.”

The candle hissed faintly in the pause that followed. Madara’s voice broke the silence at last, but carrying a note of disbelief that didn’t quite mask the tension beneath. “I see…”

He dragged a hand across his mouth for a moment. “You absolute fool.” The words left Madara’s mouth low and deliberate, but each syllable hit like a blow. His composure didn’t falter, yet there was a sharpness behind it, quiet fury.

“How did you verify this?” he asked, each word measured. “That he’s lost his memory?”

Izuna straightened instinctively, almost relieved to hear him speak, even if the tone was less than ideal. “I put him under a genjutsu and dug through his head,” he said simply. “He couldn’t even remember why he was out there. Kept insisting he didn’t know what I was talking about, couldn’t recall his own men, his brother, his unit,”

Izuna tapped his forehead mockingly with a thumb. “Only thing I found was of him being home this whole time. Buried in excruciatingly boring books, barely any notions of battlefields or missions. Like the last year never happened.”

He looked, watching for a reaction. “I’ve never seen such extensive manipulation of a mind. At first, I thought he was under a genjutsu, that had gone wrong or something, or that he had brain damage,” he scuffed at the thought. “But I felt the seal, it’s too complicated for me to dissolve or poke at, and I highly doubt we have anyone who’d be able to either.”

Madara leaned back slightly, arms crossing. For a moment there was something like relief in the way his shoulders eased; then the relief hardened into scrutiny. “And you’re sure you didn’t cause it with your technique? Mind you, I’ve seen you do extensive damage during simple interrogations.”

That earned him a sharp look.

“Oh come on- I questioned him through genjutsu, I didn’t purposely, like, torture him,” Izuna replied, his voice clipped and slightly guilty.

Madara’s eyes pinched, cold and precise. “Good. Because if you’re wrong -if this is damage you caused without meaning to- then we are facing a political catastrophe. You would have maimed the Senju heir. Do you understand what that would do to potential negotiations? To the council?” His tone was flat, but the danger behind it made the room feel suddenly narrower.

Izuna’s mouth twisted into something halfway between a grin and a sneer. “Spare me the lecture on caution. You’re an even bigger opportunist than I, and we both know the potential here. A living Senju in our hands, that’s leverage. They’ll be forced to bargain. They won’t have a choice.”

“No.” Madara’s single word fell like iron. He pushed himself to his feet, palms flat on the desk as if bracing for the next sentence.

“Don’t be so certain. If you parade him as a captive, if word leaks that he was taken alive and then returned, never mind the amnesia, you’ll create a martyr, someone their people can rally around long before you extract a single concession.”

Izuna’s answer snapped out before he could temper it. “So what? We give him back with a flowery heartfelt apology? Hand him to them because we’re afraid of what consequences this could bring?” He laughed, brittle. “What do you suggest, then? That we sow our own weakness like seed?”

Madara’s face was calm. “We have two options for now,” he said slowly, each syllable pointed. “One: remove the variable permanently now and kill him, while the Senju are vulnerable and before this becomes a symbol. It’s decisive and quick. Two: conceal what has happened as completely as possible. Lock down the chain of custody, silence those who saw him enter, and buy us time to craft the narrative- To manage the council, the elders, and the Senju’s reaction until we can turn the situation to our advantage without inflaming them.”

Izuna’s jaw worked. For a long moment he didn’t speak, as if measuring which of the two choices would split him worse. Then the questions tumbled out, sharp and impatient. “And why would we ever do that? To bury this and pretend nothing happened? Do you know what that would require, how many mouths to shut, how many hands to bind? We’d have to rewrite the story of his capture, fabricate witnesses, then sit on it until the Senju either forget or are too weakened to care. That’s an operation in itself; logistics and risks. One whisper and it all collapses.”

He jabbed a finger toward the doorway as if stabbing at the idea. “Why would we accept that, to what advantage? When there’s a third option where we simply use him now? If we’re honest, if we bargain, the payoff is immediate.”

Madara listened without interruption, the lines at his temples deepening. When Izuna finished, he folded his hands and said quietly, “Because of the larger question at hand: Why someone went to such lengths to strip his memory clean. What’s buried in there isn’t trivial. It’s information. Knowledge someone thought too dangerous to leave in his possession- or more importantly, ours.”

He looked up, eyes narrowing slightly. “If we can recover that, if we can find what was sealed away, it could be worth more than any negotiation you could force at the table.” Madara was starting to pace slightly around the room.

“That alone makes option two plausible, not because it’s easy, but because the Senju’s immediate value is fleeting; what he knows, or what he once knew, could reshape everything.”

He leaned forward, voice low but edged with an urgency that made the air in the study feel thinner. “Someone didn’t just beat him and leave as you said. They deliberately left him alive. That suggests motive. That suggests value.”

Izuna barked a short laugh that had no humor in it. “So now we’re not only to be watchful opportunists,” he snapped, “but babysitters of an invalid with a secret? You make it sound noble.”

“It’s not nobility,” Madara shot back, tone hardening. “It’s strategy. And it’s the difference between earning a concession and igniting more wars.”

Something in Madara’s demeanor shifted then, irritation flaring under the fatigue. He straightened, the motion quick, almost dismissive. “You should have run this by me before you acted,” he said. The reprimand was simple, precise, carrying the double weight of command and betrayed expectation.

Izuna bristled instantly, the old fire flaring. “How could I? How could I possibly have known this would happen?” His voice rose, incredulous. “I did not plan this, no one planned for this.” He let the words hang, raw with frustration.

Madara’s gaze didn’t soften. “Possibly. Or possibly someone planned for you to find him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, aniki.”

The silence after that line was the kind that stacked itself like a weight. Both men felt, in different ways, the implications unspooling.

“You understand what either path costs us,” Madara finished quietly. “Choose your certainty carefully.”

Izuna looked at him, for once stripped of his attitude, measuring the truth in his brother’s face. “If we hide it,” he said slowly, “we’ll need precautions. Hikaku will have to be convinced. The seal masters will be bound to oath. We’ll need to make sure not one scrap of information slips to the Senjus.”

Madara’s gaze did not waver. “Then start doing it,” he said. “Secure the cells. Tighten the guard detail. I will draft my report, and we will decide, with the council and with discretion, how far we are willing to go.”

They both knew the room for maneuver was small, and the margin for error smaller still. Outside, it felt like the world held its breath.

Madara’s eyes drifted toward the far wall, his focus already elsewhere. “If we could identify the seal’s structure,” he murmured, almost to himself, “perhaps it can be undone. Whatever technique was used, it’s deliberate, precise, not the work of a soldier. It would have required preparation, expertise… and intent.”

He pressed his fingertips against his chin, thinking aloud. “If we can trace the chakra residue or the nature of the barrier, perhaps Hikaku could map it, determine whether it’s a mental lock, a spiritual one, or something more complex. If it’s an external seal, we can reverse and release it. If it’s internal…” He exhaled through his nose, the thought unfinished.

Izuna scoffed quietly, shaking his head. “You’re talking as if this is some puzzle you can pry open with enough patience. If a seal like that was placed by whoever gutted his mind, you won’t ‘map’ it- you’ll just destroy what’s left of him trying. You’d be dissecting a man’s head for scraps of memory that might not even exist anymore.”

Madara gave no sign of irritation, only glanced at him, calm, unreadable. “You think small, brother,” he said evenly. “We can’t afford to ignore something like this.“

Izuna laughed once, dryly. “You’re chasing shadows again.”

“Perhaps,” Madara admitted. “But shadows are still cast by something.”

For a moment, neither spoke. The candle burned low, its light trembling against the table. Then Madara cleared his throat, a shift back into command.

“Enough for tonight,” he said. “I have a report to finish, and you have a prisoner to watch over. Double the guard rotation, restrict entry to the cells. Only Hikaku and I are to be informed of any changes in his condition.”

Izuna hesitated, then gave a short nod, half reluctant, half relieved. “Understood.”

“Good.” Madara’s voice softened just slightly. “Go get some rest. You’ve done enough damage for one day.”

Izuna’s smirk returned faintly at that, but he didn’t answer.

The door slid shut behind him, leaving Madara alone with the silence.

For a long time, he didn’t move. The evening pressed against the shoji, thick and humming with the drone of insects and birdsong outside. His pen hovered over the parchment, the first line of the report written and already crossed out.

He tried again, slower this time, but the words blurred before they found order. The ink ran where his hand lingered too long. He leaned back, closing his eyes briefly. The image of the Senju, unconscious and oblivious, lingered behind his eyelids like a riddle.

And for the first time in months, Madara couldn’t make himself write a single coherent line.

Chapter Text

The pain had mostly subsided, leaving behind only a dull throb that pulsed with every heartbeat, more anxiety than agony now.

A faint ache sat behind Tobirama’s temple, and his left eye was swollen, the skin around it tender and hot to the touch.

He could feel where the hilt had struck him, the bruise forming deep beneath the surface. The nail-scratches across his cheek burned when he moved, a sting that refused to be ignored.

He had regained most of his muscle strength, though his body still lagged behind his mind, slow, heavy, reluctant. Every movement felt like wading through water, his limbs sluggish, as though they required conscious effort to obey.

Time had unraveled strangely since he’d been put under the sharingan; he wasn’t sure how long he’d been drifting in and out of sleep, consciousness fraying at the edges of vivid, senseless dreams and Izuna’s words.

Some of them had felt real enough to hurt. Others dissolved the moment Tobirama opened his eyes, leaving only their unease behind.

At some point, a tray of food must have arrived, and the lantern had been changed. He couldn’t remember hearing the door, only the faint scrape of wood on the floor.

Hunger no longer gnawed at him, which must mean he’d eaten something, maybe. The details blurred together: hands, chain, bowl, nothing distinct. It was as though his mind had been filing away fragments and losing them immediately after.

Tobirama rolled onto his side, the straw mat beneath him coarse and itchy, its rough edges pressing against the thin fabric of his shirt. A few stiff bristles caught at the scar along his rib, sending a sharp twinge through him.

The movement made the chain at his wrists clink faintly; a quiet, metallic reminder of where he was. When he lifted his hand to his face, he found his cheek damp. A bit of drool. He stared at his palm, a flicker of indignation crossing his thoughts.

Embarrassing and unlike him.

He exhaled slowly, the air in the cell thick, warm and still.

The cell was dim, but not dark. A thin seam of light pressed through a narrow, barred window high in the wall leading to the ground above the cellar, dust hanging in its path, drifting in its light.

He’d already counted the wooden bars separating him from the hallway and a neighboring vacant cell twice, twenty-three on horizontal, twenty-one vertical, each with their own cracks and uneven edges. There was nothing else to occupy him. The faint scrape of guards outside had long since faded, replaced by silence thick enough to feel alive.

He listened for anything; footsteps, a door, voices. There was nothing.

Even his own breathing sounded too loud for him. The smell of ash still clung to the air, heavy and unchanging. He was starting to think it originated from the chakra suppressing seals in the cuffs, or maybe the wards on the cell.

He tried shifting positions, leaning against the wall, stretching out again, folding his knees up beneath him, all pointless. The mat scratched at his skin and the floor radiated a steady warmth that pressed up through his clothes.

He thought briefly of standing, of pacing the space just for movement’s sake, the chain should be long enough to allow for it, but even that felt pointless.

His body wasn’t interested in effort.

He couldn’t tell whether it was the genjutsu that had drained him or simply the weight of being left alone with nothing but his thoughts, and those, too, were beginning to run out.

He lay back again, exhaling slowly. The light from above had shifted only slightly since he’d last opened his eyes, evening, maybe night, he couldn’t tell.

His sense of time was a dull smear. He closed his eyes, anticipating for something to happen, for someone to come. When nothing did, boredom settled in like a slow fever, creeping through his limbs, softening what little tension remained.

He opened his eyes again, staring up at the ceiling until his gaze wandered to the barred window near the top of the wall. It was narrow, barely wide enough for a hand, the metal dark with age, but not rusted. He traced its outline with his eyes, studying it as if by looking long enough he might find a flaw.

If he could reach it, maybe he could test the bars. But the chain at his wrists was too short to be jumping, and even if he could, he’d never climb that high. His thoughts shifted to the chain itself, heavy, but shiny, attached to a ring sunk into the back wall.

He flexed his wrists slightly, feeling the solid pull of resistance. The metal was cold and unyielding, its weight more psychological than physical. Even if he broke it, which he couldn’t, what then?

He could almost picture it: Pulling free, running barefoot through the corridors, the echo of his steps giving him away before he’d crossed ten paces.

There would be guards at every corner, bows strung, blades drawn. He’d never make it out of the compound, maybe not even out of the building. He sat up in a restless manner.

And if by some absurd chance he did, where would he go in the heart of Uchiha territory? The forest was vast, but the patrol routes would cut off every path within minutes.

The thought was exhausting.

He exhaled slowly and let his head fall back against the wall, the chain rattling once before going still. It wasn’t fear that stopped him; it was reason.

The futility of it all.

The recognition that escape wasn’t a matter of strength or courage, but of timing, and timing wasn’t on his side. Not yet.

His eyes drifted shut again. The cell hummed with silence, the same steady pulse of nothingness. The most dangerous part of captivity wasn’t pain or fear. It was the waiting; the slow surrender to the idea that there was nothing left to be done until his captors decided otherwise.

Within minutes, the exhaustion folded over him again- not true sleep, but the kind that drags down. His last coherent thought was that he couldn’t have been here for more than a day.

Itama stood tall in the doorway, the late light spilling gently over his features and catching on a pale scar that ran from beneath his right ear across to his collarbone. It glinted faintly, a sharp line against the softness of youth he’d long since outgrown.

His arms were crossed, his posture steady, though his expression betrayed only worry, all the boyishness in him pared down to concern.

“You’ve been at this for hours,” Itama said. His tone wasn’t harsh, but it carried the firmness of someone who had said the same words too many times before. “You’ll wear yourself down to nothing if you don’t stop.”

Tobirama barely even glanced up from the open pages before him. The lamplight trembled over sheets of notes and scrolls scattered across the desk, patterns, diagrams, traces of something unfinished.

When he lifted a hand to wave Itama off, the motion was half-hearted, automatic. “I’m fine,” he muttered.

“You’ve been acting strange ever since we found that body back in spring,” Itama went on, stepping closer.

His voice had risen slightly, the calm slipping. “I’ve noticed it. You barely sleep. You don’t eat unless I remind you. You either just sit here buried in this… whatever this is, or you’re out, somewhere.” He said with a vague hand gesture.

Tobirama turned then, a shadow crossing his face. “It’s a big deal, Itama,” he said, much sharper than he meant to. “A feudal lord’s retainer was murdered. Idling around won’t-”

-•-

The words broke apart mid-breath. The light in the room dimmed, flickered, and the memory collapsed in on itself.

Tobirama tried to blink himself awake. He lay still, slowly staring up at the dark ceiling of his cell, trying to catch hold of what he’d just seen before it slipped away. He replayed it again and again.

It hadn’t been a dream, not truly. It was a memory, vivid enough to feel lived rather than imagined. The way the light had fallen, the sound of Itama’s voice, the faint scrape of a chair on the wooden floor of his study, all of it too precise to be mere invention.

In the middle of it, the part that made him wince the most: His own tone. The impatience. The way he’d turned on his brother as if his worry was an annoyance.

He couldn’t remember why he’d been so short with him, what had driven him to snap. It left a sour taste in his mouth. He would have given anything to tell Itama he hadn’t meant it, that the frustration had never been directed at him.

And yet, the rest of it was gone. Context and cause, the days before and after were missing. He tried to fix the moment in his mind, to place when it had happened. Summer, most likely. But which?

He turned the fragments over in his mind and despite the discomfort, or perhaps because of it, something in him stirred, a quiet fascination.

It meant something inside him still worked, that everything wasn’t gone.

The ache of guilt lingered, but it was joined now by a kind of reverence. That moment had been his, once. It belonged to him, not to whoever had tampered with his mind.

And beyond that, there was the content itself- The body.

The mention of a nobleman’s murder. That detail shone among the haze, seemed too important to dismiss as coincidence. Who had the he been? Why had it mattered to him and Itama? Was this the same case he had been studying, the same thread that led him to where he was now?

He felt his pulse quicken, not from anxiety this time but from intrigue. The curiosity that had once defined him was resurfacing, dragging reason back into place.

If his memories were sealed away, then this, this dream, was a breach. A small crack in the wall someone had built inside his mind.

He wondered, then, if he could force more to return. If he could think his way through the gaps, follow the faint trail of what remained. But the thought exhausted him before it inspired him. His mind felt both fragile and restless, as though one wrong step might cause it to cave in again.

He rubbed his face with the back of his hand, staring blankly toward the door. The faint metallic tang of ash lingered in the air, grounding him in the present. The past, no matter how much it beckoned, stayed just out of reach.

The faint echo of footsteps pulled Tobirama out of his thoughts. Soft, deliberate, coming closer down the corridor.

He froze, every muscle tightening. The rhythm was measured, unhurried, but carried weight in each step. Not the idle shuffle of a guard. Someone of rank.

Instinctively, his stomach twisted; he braced for Izuna’s voice, already imagining that drawl, that mocking ease. But the silence held.

Then the shadow appeared in the narrow slit of light cast beneath the door to the hallway, motion steady. When the latch finally shifted and the door slid open, it wasn’t Izuna who filled the frame.

Madara stood there, unmoving. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. His eyes swept the cell once, pausing on the cuffs, on the straw mat, on Tobirama himself. The air seemed to tighten under the weight of his gaze, and Tobirama felt an almost physical pressure settle in the space between them.

This wasn’t Izuna’s casual cruelty- it was something colder, quieter, and infinitely more dangerous.

Tobirama’s pulse quickened. Every part of him screamed to move when Madara walked closer. The body, though sluggish and bruised, remembered the old rhythm of defense before the mind could intervene.

In a single fluid motion, he rose up in a powerful step, and planted his weight on one foot, twisted his hips, and drove the other leg upward in a sharp, snapping arc- an incredibly strong kick aimed squarely for the man’s head.

The chain at his wrists clinked sharply with the movement, a flash of metal catching the dim light as he pivoted through the strike.

It would have been perfect — fast, clean, decisive — had Madara been anyone else.

Without so much as flinching, Madara stepped into the motion rather than away from it. His forearm swiftly parried, and his other hand came up, fingers closing around Tobirama’s ankle with unerring precision.

The contact was almost gentle, but unyielding, his grip an anchor that halted the kick in its tracks.

Tobirama’s momentum faltered; balance fled him instantly. With a minimal shift of weight, Madara guided the captured limb aside, redirecting it harmlessly away from his body. The movement was effortless and practiced, more like redirecting a kid throwing a fit, rather than blocking an attack.

Tobirama stumbled, catching himself awkwardly on one knee as Madara released him. The sound of the chain settling echoed faintly in the cell. Madara regarded him in silence, expression unreadable, save for the faint crease of amusement that flickered- not in mockery, but something closer to curiosity.

He took a step closer, the soft scrape of his sandals the only sound in the small cell.

“Fast,” he said at last, voice low and even. “But your footing’s off. You overcommitted on the turn. That kind of imbalance would get you killed, had this been an actual fight of course.” He paused, considering.

“Still, I’ll admit- it’s reassuring to see there’s some fire left in you.”

“What the hell do you want from me?” Tobirama snarled up at him, breath ragged. The sound cracked harshly in the confined space, echoing off the walls.

Madara tilted his head slightly, as though studying a strange creature that had barked at him.

“Now, now,” he murmured. “I’d prefer you keep your voice more leveled when you speak to me. It helps the conversation stay productive.” His tone was patient, but carried the unmistakable weight of authority.

“I’m not really here to hurt you, per say. I only came to take a closer look.” He crouched then, slow and deliberate, until his eyes were level with Tobirama’s. “So let’s try to be civilized.” He rested his hands on his knees.

Tobirama’s hands curled into fists where they rested on the floor. “You and your brother have looked plenty,” he said through clenched teeth. “So unless you want me to give the kick another go, get away from me-” His voice rose, cracking slightly at the end, raw from disuse and fury alike.

Madara didn’t so much as blink at the perceived threat. “I suppose Izuna was a bit rough with you,” he said after a beat, almost gently. “Excuse him.”

His hand lifted, two fingers reaching toward the dark bruise swelling around Tobirama’s eye. “He gets excitable. Like a child with a new toy, and if he doesn’t restrain himself, he tends to break it.”

Tobirama flinched and leaped backwards instinctively with a push of his heels, pressing his spine hard against the wall. The chain rattled once as he moved. “Don’t touch me.”

Madara’s hand hovered in the air for a heartbeat longer, then dropped back to his side. “As you wish,” he said simply, his tone unchanged.

Madara straightened again, his eyes drifting briefly to the restraints at Tobirama’s wrists before returning to his face. “As uncouth as your welcoming was,” he said evenly, “you should be grateful it was Izuna who found you. Anyone else would’ve taken the opportunity to deal with you, and leave you to rot.” He rose slowly.

Tobirama gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Grateful? For being dragged here alive?” He met Madara’s gaze squarely. “I’m not mistaking restraint for mercy. You didn’t spare me, you’re repurposing me. Being alive just means I’m useful to you for the time being.”

His jaw tightened, the words tasting like ash. “So, excuse me if gratitude isn’t my strongest suit right now.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of Madara’s mouth, brief and unreadable. “So vicious,” he murmured, almost indulgently.

“It’s unlike you. You’ve always been the measured one, haven’t you?” He took a lazy step closer, his tone calm but edged with quiet threat.

“Now, this is going to be complicated, maybe even unpleasant. And I assure you, I don’t enjoy wasting anyone’s time.” He paused, tilting his head slightly back. “However, we can make it easy. You’ll cooperate, and I’ll show you I can actually be quite reasonable.”

Tobirama’s lips twitched, somewhere between a wince and a smirk. “Reasonable,” he echoed. “Coming from a man swayed by petty emotions. Perhaps your new diplomatic approach? Less grandiose, bloody fights, more talking?”

Madara didn’t dignify that with an answer. His face smoothed back into composure so perfect it bordered on unsettling. “First,” he said, as though nothing had been spoken, “I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Tobirama said nothing. The silence between them stretched taut.

“Why were you patrolling in neutral territory?” Madara continued. “Does the Senju really have so few soldiers left that they send their best to sort minor affairs across abandoned borders?”

Still no response. Tobirama’s stare was steady, his expression unreadable but for the faint tension in his jaw.

Madara exhaled softly through his nose, not in irritation, but mild disappointment, unimpressed by a predictable answer.

“All right,” he said, voice softening to something almost patient. “One more chance. Do you know why your memory is sealed?”

Tobirama blinked once, slow and deliberate. “That’s a stupid question,” he said. “If I knew, it wouldn’t be sealed, now would it?”

Madara’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and for the first time, his composure cracked, not in anger, but in intrigue.

The faintest glint of genuine curiosity sparked beneath the calm. “Fair point,” he said quietly. “Then perhaps we’ll have to find out together.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust my brother’s account of what happened,” Madara said, voice even, “but I suppose it’ll be for the best to verify it myself.”

He took a single step forward — quiet, unhurried — the faint creak against the boards cutting through the silence. His hand lifted, fingers poised, reaching toward Tobirama.

Tobirama reacted instantly. His body moved before his mind could stop it, all instinct and defiance. He drew one knee up and lashed out with it, a sharp kick aimed squarely at Madara’s midsection. The chain rattled as the sudden movement tore through the still air. “I told you get away from me!-“

Madara moved fluidly, shifting his weight aside with unthinking grace. His hand shot down, catching Tobirama’s ankle mid-motion, the impact stopping dead against his palm.

The sound was small, a dull thud of contact, but it carried finality.

Tobirama twisted, trying to wrench free, but Madara’s grip only tightened, his other hand braced lightly against the inside of Tobirama’s knee, holding him there as though pinning a restless animal.

For a breath, they stayed like that- Tobirama half-sitting, half-struggling against the wall, one leg caught in Madara’s hold. The tension coiled thickly between them, the chain clinking with every jerking motion.

“And I told you to be civilized,” Madara murmured softly. “Try not to tense up.”

He released Tobirama’s ankle, letting the leg drop heavily back onto the straw mat. The moment Tobirama’s weight shifted, Madara closed the distance again, swift, precise, and seized a handful of his hair, grip rough and unyielding. Tobirama gritted his teeth, a sharp hiss escaping as Madara’s hand forced his head upward, tilting his chin until their eyes met.

The cell’s faint light caught in Madara’s dark irises, sharp and reflective, a calm fury under the surface. “There,” he said. “Senju filth.”

Tobirama’s breath came short and harsh, the pulse in his throat almost visible. His hands jerked up on instinct, fingers locking around Madara’s wrist. He dug his nails hard into the strip of exposed skin between glove and sleeve, dragging shallow crescents there, not enough to wound, but enough to leave marks. It didn’t slow Madara, in the slightest.

The cuffs bit into Tobirama’s wrists as he strained against them. Madara didn’t so much as glance down. His attention stayed fixed, his body angled just close enough for the air between them to feel stifling. His composure had an almost inhuman steadiness to it, no visible effort, no tension.

Just the deliberate patience of someone who had done this before. Madara closed his eyes for a heartbeat.

When he opened them again, the air shifted, pressure thickening, and then that familiar crimson red against red. His gaze locked onto Tobirama’s.

There was no warning, no word, no flare of chakra. The world simply tilted.

It hit not as pain at first, but as a scrape- a delicate, stinging burn that spread beneath Tobirama’s skin, threading through his skull like a hairline fracture.

The sensation deepened slowly, a crawling heat, sharp as a cat’s claw across tender flesh. His breath hitched as his vision folded inward, not blinding, but swallowing, like being pulled through a slit in the air itself.

It was so unlike Izuna’s brutal force and his crushing, suffocating pressure piercing through the mind, this was more methodical. Precise. Madara’s presence moved through him not as an invader, but as a scalpel, slipping between thoughts with deliberate restraint.

It was intimate in a way that made Tobirama’s stomach twist. He could feel the man’s focus shifting, bypassing blocks, testing resistance without breaking it.

Memories flickered- flashes of color, sound, movement, but Madara didn’t linger. He skimmed past the sealed portions of Tobirama’s mind, not even attempting to pry them open.

His ghosted around them, acknowledging the barrier without pressing. Until one image caught his attention.

Light spilling through a doorway. A young man standing there, scar catching the glow. Itama.

Madara’s awareness hovered, pausing on the memory’s shape. He could almost hear the echo of their voices, the steadiness in the boy’s tone, the exhaustion in Tobirama’s reply.

A domestic moment, painfully ordinary. But even here, in this quiet fragment, he could sense the instability beneath it, the ripple of something larger buried deep within.

Tobirama felt him moving on.

The forest next, cold thick air, rain in the soil, the sharp tang of iron and blood. He saw through Tobirama’s eyes, the panic, the retreat, the blur of movement before the collapse. Missing context.

Then, Izuna in the very same cell. His brother, standing over himself, eyes bright with cruel delight. The deliberate fracturing of a mind. A dissection done for pleasure as much as for purpose.

In the cell, Tobirama’s fingers, still hooked around Madara’s wrist, twitched once before slipping loose. His arms fell limp, body going slack against the wall. The color drained from his face, breath shallow, eyes unfocused, somewhere between waking and gone.

Madara saw it then. The seal.

It wasn’t a mark on the surface of memory, nor something impressed into the mind like a curse. It was deeper, woven through him, tied into the very fabric of his being.

A structure that pulsed faintly in the space between spirit and thought, shimmering like ink suspended in water. Three points of black light connected by angular lines formed a rough triangle, its edges sharp, unfinished, and alive.

Between them, spiraling symbols bent and folded over themselves, fragments of characters that refused to stay still, warping, rearranging, almost breathing.

Where the lines met, the seal pulsed — not outward, but inward, consuming light instead of casting it.

It wasn’t meant to block or protect. It was meant to bury. A seal built from the inside out, not to be broken by force, but to make intrusion impossible.

Madara’s breath slowed. He could feel its presence humming faintly under his touch, not on the skin, but through it, resonating in the core of Tobirama’s consciousness.

His instincts warned him even before his logic caught up: This wasn’t a barrier he could undo. It was self-contained, self-repairing.

The moment he tried to pry further, it resisted, tightening like a knot drawn in muscle and blood.

Then came the backlash of trying to pick at it.

The world crafted carefully under the sharingan flickered.

Tobirama’s head jerked in a last ditch effort of resistance; his mouth opened in a gasp that never found air. A thin trickle of blood slipped from his nose, red against the pale of his skin.

His body tensed, tremor running down his spine as the seal pushed back, not with violence, but with sheer rejection, like the soul recoiling from touch.

Madara broke contact instantly, severing the genjutsu with a sharp breath through his teeth. His eyes opened again, chakra stabilizing, the cell rushing back around him, the dim light from the lantern, the heavy silence.

Madara released his grip around hair, dark eyes watching the man’s head loll forward. A faint purple mark circled his wrist where Tobirama’s nails had been, no blood, only pressure.

Tobirama sagged to his side against the wall, chest rising in shallow jerks, blood still beading faintly at his lower lip, aligned perfectly along his tattoo, going down his chin.

Madara stared at him, jaw set. The weight of what he’d seen and what he hadn’t pressed cold in his chest.

That seal wasn’t just a lock. It was an erasure waiting to happen. If anyone were to push too far, it would devour what little remained of the man entirely.

He reached out again, the gesture slow this time. His palm came to rest lightly atop Tobirama’s head. The touch was neither cruel nor kind, more like grounding a flame before it caught.

Tobirama felt it through the haze, the pressure, the warmth, the faint trace of chakra still lingering in the air.

The hand wasn’t heavy, but it carried something final. He let his eyes drift halfway open, enough to glimpse Madara’s face above him, impassive, calculating, unreadable.

“-s, hurts…” he mumbled, each syllable a small, pained rasp.

Madara’s voice was patient to the point of cruelty. “I suggested you not to tense up,” he said, as if repeating a fact that should be obvious. “Is it really that difficult for you to set that pride of yours aside for a little while?” It wasn’t really a question.

Tobirama’s lips trembled. Exhaustion had hollowed his voice; the anger that surfaced sounded thin and raw. “You’ve had a look,” he said, voice barely louder than a groan. “I swear-”

“Swear what?” Madara interrupted, deceptively mild. He leaned in a fraction, a lock of dark hair falling over his eye, the movement almost gentling the room. “That you’ll struggle harder? That you’ll force my hand and hope to get yourself killed in the process?” He exhaled softly.

Tobirama’s protest died in his throat. He tried for venom; only a thin sound escaped. “Then do it,” he rasped, shockingly steady. “If you’re as reasonable as you say- show a bit of mercy, finish it. Just kill me.”

Madara regarded him in silence, expression unreadable. Then, at last, he spoke. “No.” The single word landed softly, but with the kind of weight that ended arguments.

“There won’t be any more of this. Not through genjutsu.” He drew in a measured breath, adjusting the cuff of one sleeve. “It would shatter what remains of your mind long before it gives us anything worthwhile.”

He took a step back, gaze steady, deliberate. “You’re remembering. That means the seal isn’t perfect. Which also means something inside you can still be reached, eventually. But not by brute force, and certainly not by your stubborn attempts to provoke us into trying.”

He paused, his tone cooling further. “It wouldn’t be very reasonable, would it? To destroy what might become our single greatest advantage.”

His eyes lingered on Tobirama’s face, searching, weighing. “If we lose that, you die for nothing, truly a wasted opportunity, nothing more.”

Tobirama blinked once, twice. The words reducing him to a bargaining chip didn’t sting, not in the way they should have, they just sank, heavy and cold, somewhere beneath the exhaustion. He thought he was babbling, feeling his consciousness fade.

“You’re waging a lot on… Theoretical- potential, knowledge,” His jaw clenched, but his body refused to follow. The cell tilted faintly, a slow lurch that made him wonder if he’d ever regain his balance.

Madara exhaled quietly and straightened. His expression softened only slightly, not pity, not even sympathy, but something resembling restraint. He turned to leave, then hesitated at the threshold, one hand on the wooden frame.

“Rest while you can,” he said finally, voice even. “You’ll need it.”

It was almost kind, the way one might speak to a dog before putting it down.

The door slid shut behind him with a sound softer than breath. Tobirama laid there for a long time after, pulse thudding weakly in his ears, the faint shimmer of the chain still catching the light each time he twitched.

He let his eyes fall shut, exhaustion dragging at him like undertow. The cell swayed gently sideways in his blurred vision.

And then, just before the dark pulled him under, he noticed it, the dull ache in his temple was gone. The swelling around his eye, the deep pulse of the bruise that had throbbed with every heartbeat since the forest, had vanished. The skin there felt warm, faintly tingling with chakra.

“Bastard.” A hollow sound escaped him, something between a sigh and a broken exhale, and his body finally gave in.

The last thing he heard was his own faint breathing, before the weight of sleep dragged him under, deep and dreamless.

Chapter Text

By dawn, the world seemed newly made.

Down a sloping wooded path, two figures appeared through the lifting mist.

The forest still dripped with the leftovers of the night’s condensation and dewy air, each branch trembling faintly beneath the weight of water.

Ferns sprawled thick along the path, their leaves beaded in silver droplets that caught the early sun.

Moss crawled up every rock and trunk, and where the thick canopies broke, beams of coral and gold poured through, warm and sharp against the damp green.

The air shimmered faintly with haze, and the forest seemed to breathe in rhythm with the dawn, insects beginning their slow chorus, water sliding down from the branches in quiet rivulets, the scent of wet bark rising with the heat.

A small brook ran parallel to the trail, its muted gurgle weaving between their footsteps, as though carrying their return to the sleeping valley below.

Hashirama brushed aside a low branch as they walked, glancing back with adoration to make sure Mito followed close behind.

The gesture was light, easy, the kind of instinct that didn’t require thought.

His hair, still damp from fog, clung to his shoulders in long brown strands, and when the sun struck it, it caught like bronze.

The air was cool, sweet with the scent of sap and soil, and it filled his lungs like something he’d been starving for.

His steps carried a spring of unrestrained joy, the kind that came not from triumph, but from relief, from being home again.

Every so often, he would share a story as they walked, small fragments of his life folded into the landscape around them. He spoke of the pine trees that never lost their sharp scent even in winter, of the area where he and his brothers grew up, of the Nakano river that turned golden at dusk when the sun hit it just right.

His voice carried easily through the cool air, rich with fondness, each tale colored by laughter and the easy rhythm of someone returning to a place stitched through with memory.

Mito trailed half a step behind, taking everything in.

The forest here seemed alive in a way she hadn’t expected; every rustle and hum, every glimmer of light.

Her hands brushed absently along branches, fingertips grazing the moisture that clung to the orange leaves. She smiled, quietly, though she didn’t yet have the words for what she felt.

There was a hum beneath it all, not sound, but presence, the sense that the trees themselves had witnessed generations before her and still stood in silent welcome. 

She felt both out of place and deeply seen, her heart fluttering with the excitement of crossing into a life that would soon become her own.

Ahead, the path widened, the trees parting to reveal the Senju compound nestled against the hillside, wooden roofs still dark from rain, smoke rising in thin threads from the morning fires.

Hashirama slowed, as if struck by the sight anew. The great wooden gates stood open, flanked by banners heavy with dew.

Somewhere, finches called from the high ridge, long, low trills that seemed to echo through the valley.

He laughed under his breath, a soft, helpless sound. “Looks even better than when I left,” he murmured. His voice carried a warmth that reached further than his words.

Mito came to stand beside him, a little breathless from the climb, eyes wide at the sheer scale of it all, the quiet order, the symmetry, the way the roofs caught the rising light.

Her excitement showed in subtle ways: The faint rise of her shoulders, the nervous twist of her fingers at the hem of her sleeve. The early light caught on scarlet waves that framed her cheeks, and for a moment Mito seemed almost gilded by the sunrise itself.

Hashirama glanced at her, and his grin broadened, pure and bright. “No need to waver,” he said gently. “You’ll fit right in. They’ll love you, all of them.”

Her laugh was soft and certain. “It’s not that,” she said, though maybe it secretly was, a little.

“It’s just different, bigger. The Land of Fire spans wider than I ever imagined.”

“That’s a good thing,” Hashirama replied, stepping forward again. “Means there’s room for us both and even more.”

They passed under an outer gate as the first guards emerged to begin their morning rounds.

A few stopped mid-step at the sight, blinking as if uncertain whether what they saw was real. Then came the murmurs: Lord Hashirama and his betrothed bride have returned. The message spread through the compound like ripples across still water.

As they crossed the courtyard, servants began to stir, their morning routines interrupted by the sight. Calls of greeting rose in scattered bursts; someone hurried to tell leadership, another to prepare tea.

Hashirama paused just inside the courtyard, taking in the familiar sight of the barracks, the tiled roofs, the pale Senju banners still heavy with rain.

A thin mist clung to the flagstones, breaking beneath the warmth of his steps. From the gardens, steam rose from the ponds in curling trails, catching the gold of the new sun. A crane lifted from the far wall, its white wings startlingly bright against the still-damp sky. Hashirama took it all in.

Plenty of his clansmen came to welcome him back. Hashirama waved them off with good-natured ease, smiling as though the world held still. The distance from his home and family, the months away in foreign land, all of it seemed to slide from him like water off stone.

He looked further, behind the flock, eyes scanning the walkways and steps leading further into the compound, searching for his brothers, expectantly.

It was instinct more than thought, the kind of habit that came from years of reunion after short absences, knowing that somewhere, just out of sight, there would be familiar faces waiting to pull him into laughter and old arguments.

But the steps remained empty. Only the rainwater ran down from eaves in thin rivulets, pooling quietly between the flagstones.

Hashirama blinked once, the faintest crease forming at his brow before it eased again. A quiet, knowing smile tugged at his mouth, the kind reserved for an absence easily forgiven.

Mito followed a pace behind amidst the curious stares, her steps soft on the wet pavement. The crowd parted slightly to let her pass, some bowing their heads in quiet acknowledgment.

She returned each gesture with shy precision, her fingers still curled in the folds of her sleeves.

The faintest reflection of the rising sun shimmered across the puddles beneath her, each one breaking into ripples as she walked.

The air smelled faintly of pine smoke and warm rice, the kind of simple scent that made the place feel instantly alive.

A brazier somewhere nearby crackled to life, its faint heat drifting with the smoke. The distant clang of wooden practice swords rang from the training yard, rhythmic and steady, and a flock of small birds startled from the roof, scattering into the light.

Hashirama turned slightly, catching Mito’s eye as she looked up toward the banners swaying. Her face was calm, but full of quiet wonder, the kind that only comes once, the first breath of belonging in a new place.

And for a moment, just a moment, their lives were right. The courtyard glowed with morning, the storm long forgotten, and the world held its breath as if reluctant to move forward.

A flicker of movement across the courtyard caught Hashirama’s attention, a familiar figure standing by the overhang of one of the larger homes, half-shadowed by the rising light. Tōuka.

Even before she even waved, he recognized the way she stood, feet braced firmly apart, posture sharp, the easy readiness of a shinobi who never really put down her guard.

Her long dark hair was tied back into a sleek plait that gleamed against her tanned skin, and the muscles in her arms flexed with unconscious strength as she raised a hand in greeting.

There was a grin on her face, wide, toothy, and somehow both fierce and affectionate all at once.

She motioned for them to follow, waving them toward the broad, bustling house behind her, one of the largest in the compound, apart from the council hall itself. 

The air around it was alive with sound: servants darting between open doorways, the faint clatter of porcelain, the low hum of relatives’ voices and laughter as the day began.

The scent of roasted barley tea and steam drifted through the open lattice, mingling with the morning mist.

As Hashirama and Mito stepped inside, the atmosphere wrapped around them like a living thing, warm and chaotic, the sort of home that suddenly pulsed with life from floor to ceiling.

The entrance opened into a wide common room, its wooden floors polished to a soft gleam. Tatami mats were laid in neat squares, and a low table stretched near the hearth where the morning’s fire still smoldered, glowing faintly beneath a pot.

Tōuka crossed the floor in a few long strides, and before Hashirama could say a word, she caught him in a bear-like embrace.

“You’re really back,” she said, laughing into his shoulder, her voice rough with relief. “Thought you might had come to like the waves and oceans too much.”

Hashirama wheezed out a laugh, his ribs protesting. “You’re going to break me in half-”

Tōuka released him only to clap a firm hand on his back, it wasn’t clear if it was affection or a leftover reflex from combat.

Then she turned her grin toward Mito, eyes bright with curiosity and warmth.

“So you’re the one,” she said, tone playful, but kind. “Hashirama’s been endlessly writing letters about you.”

Before Mito could respond politely, Tōuka pulled her into a hug that was meant to be welcoming, but landed somewhere closer to a grapple.

Mito let out a startled laugh, muffled against Tōuka’s shoulder.

But as the laughter faded, and the bustle resumed, something quieter passed between her and Hashirama, a small, unspoken look.

Beneath the joy of reunion, there was something heavier there, something she wasn’t saying.

She knew of the absences, empty rooms, two familiar presences missing from the morning noise.

Soon enough, there would be time to talk about that, once Mito had been properly welcomed and the smiles had faded.

Outside the entrance of the Uchiha main hall, the air still hummed faintly from the night’s meeting, a low, restless murmur of departing voices, the shuffle of robes, the scrape of sandals against stone.

The hall itself loomed behind them: A vast wooden structure of blackened beams and lacquered pillars, banners and fans drawn aside to let in the morning light.

Madara stood just beyond the threshold, half in shadow. The faint light from the lanterns above caught along the curve of his jaw, making the dark beneath his eyes seem deeper still.

His expression was composed, but the stillness of it had weight of having been awake for too long.

The elders drifted past in clusters, murmuring among themselves, bowing in polite sequence as they went. Izuna was quickly claimed by his subordinates, pulled away by the flurry of hands and voices demanding attention.

Hikaku, however, lingered.

He approached quietly, the tap of his shoe breaking the rhythm of the crowd. “Lord Madara,” he said in greeting, inclining his head with the faintest trace of formality.

When Madara met his eyes, Hikaku continued, his tone low but firm. “A moment, if I may.”

Madara’s answer came without hesitation. “Of course. No need for such formality,”

They walked side by side down one of the outer corridors, narrow, lined with latticed windows that opened onto the inner courtyard.

The early morning air was cooler there, still heavy. Distant chirping pressed softly against the silence between them.

When they reached the far end, where the corridor bent out of sight, Hikaku finally spoke.

“You can fool the rest of them,” he said, his voice measured, hands folded neatly in his sleeves. “The elders, the generals, even Izuna if you wish. But I’ve known you long enough to recognize when you’re withholding something.”

Madara’s gaze drifted toward the courtyard, where a single droplet of dew fell from the eaves and darkened the wood below. “And you’d be correct,” he confirmed.

Hikaku’s jaw tightened just slightly, though his expression remained polite.

“Then tell me,” he said, tone precise, “why you didn’t mention the actual outcome of your interaction with the Hagoromo informant.”

Madara turned his head then, meeting Hikaku’s eyes with that unnervingly calm composure of his. “Because it wasn’t relevant.”

“Not relevant,” Hikaku repeated, every syllable deliberate. “You met directly with one of their agents, informed them that the Uchiha are dissolving all ties and contracts with their clan, and the report you presented to the council conveniently misrepresented their response. Forgive me, but that sounds very relevant.”

Madara exhaled slowly, looking away again. His voice, when it came, was low and not defensive, simply tired. “He was compromised. The information would’ve been worse than useless, it would have misled the entire council.”

“I suppose the news of our decision hasn’t reached their leaders yet then,” Hikaku said quietly. “What happened to him?”

Madara didn’t answer immediately. His fingers brushed against the wooden rail beside him, once, twice, pretending to be testing the grain for splinters. “He’s dead.”

Hikaku’s posture shifted.

“By whose hand?”

Madara’s reply came without hesitation, stripped of pretense. “Mine, obviously.”

The silence that followed was long enough for the cicadas’ song to rise, a restless chorus filling the empty corridor between them.

“Foolish of me to give you the benefit of doubt,” Hikaku chastised at last, his voice disappointed, the words drawn out. “And I assume the elders don’t need to see that you killed an ally in the report either.”

“They don’t,” Madara said simply.

Hikaku studied him for a long moment, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat at his temple, the hand that hadn’t left the railing.

When he spoke again, it was quieter. “You’ve overexerted yourself, haven’t you?”

Madara’s mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile. “Keen eyes.”

Hikaku regarded him for another moment before speaking again, his tone even quieter now, though the words carried weight.

“Madara… you can bury what happened in that report. You can justify silencing the Hagoromo however you wish. But this matter with the Senju prisoner-“

He hesitated, choosing the words with care.

“It can’t stay hidden. Not from the council. Not from the clan. There might already be rumors circling through the lower ranks.”

A flicker passed through his eyes, something between irritation and calculation.

”Then, you’ll see to it that they stay mere rumors.”

Madara’s gaze sharpened. He let the words fall slowly, each one deliberate. “If the clan were ever to learn we are holding a Senju alive within our walls, it wouldn’t be whispers and politicking. It would be a demand for blood, for answers, for restitution. They would not wait for council niceties. The Senju would be galvanized; their commanders would mass at our borders. We would be forced into a position we cannot win through diplomacy.”

He paused, letting the consequence settle.

“And then,” he continued, voice low, “we would be left with the choice Izuna so plainly wants: Make him bait, trade him for concessions, if the Senju want him back, or watch the border burn, while we argue ethics. That is not strategy. That is surrender.”

Hikaku’s lips pressed into a thin line, but he inclined his head nonetheless. “As you wish. But no deception lasts forever.”

“Fortunately,” Madara replied, straightening from the railing, “I never intended it to.”

Hikaku let out a quiet breath through his nose, reluctant admiration. “Then perhaps rest before you start rewriting the next report,” he murmured. “You’ll need a clear head if you mean to keep fooling everyone else.”

Madara gave a soft huff of amusement, almost a laugh, but without joy. “You sound disapproving. I don’t fool them, Hikaku. I just give them the version of the truth they can live with.”

“Not disapproval, it’s observation,” Hikaku corrected, bowing his head faintly. “If I meant to disapprove, I’d have done it in front of the council.”

That earned him the faintest trace of real amusement, gone almost as soon as it appeared.

“Disapprove of what?”

They had just begun to move when a shadow fell across the corridor: Izuna, shoulders squared from duty and bearing the impatient air of a man who’d been buried in a dozen errands and finished them all.

He strode up to them with the easy arrogance of someone who expected answers to be waiting for him.

“What are you two whispering about now?” he demanded, stopping a pace away.

His gaze flicked between them, quick and sharp. “Something’s wrong?”

Hikaku’s jaw tightened; he inclined his head toward Izuna, but made no attempt to hide the gravity of the conversation.

“You’re late to the meeting,” he said smoothly. “We were just-”

Izuna cut him off with a short laugh and a shrug. “Save the formalities. I’ve finished my rounds. I was looking for the two of you. Anything I shouldn’t know? Or are you planning without me?”

His eyes landed on Madara and lingered, hungry for the sort of drama Izuna liked to stir.

Madara met the look with nothing but cold frankness. “We were discussing your  precious Senju prisoner,” he mocked. The words were a flat dismissal and a statement at the same time.

“Keep your distance.”

Izuna blinked, amusement turning to curiosity. “The Senju prisoner? Thought that was Hikaku’s and my little headache.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Why the secrecy? Don’t tell me you’ve found something good.”

“Izuna.” Madara’s voice cut through the banter, sharp and final. He stepped forward so that his frame blocked Izuna’s light.

“No more of this.” He set his jaw, every inch the commander now.

“You will not place another genjutsu on him. No force, no interrogation under illusions. Not by you, not by anyone.”

Izuna’s grin faltered. “What, now you’re soft? After how loud you wanted him dealt with-”

“This isn’t about softness.” Madara’s reply was quiet but absolute.

“Every probe we make risks shattering what remains. He’s already taken damage others would have died from long ago; further intrusion will not force memory back, it will destroy it. We will lose everything we might yet gain, and possibly the man with it.”

Izuna’s mouth went thin. “Again, why go through all this trouble, we could just use-“

“No unveiling yet,” Hikaku interrupted, voice tight. “Negotiations for his release later,” He looked at Izuna with a levelness that carried more weight than anger. “That’s final.”

Izuna’s stare flicked between them, irritation sharpening. “So what then? We wrap him in cotton and wait for miracles?”

“No.” Madara’s hand rose, a small gesture, but it cut through Izuna’s words. The air in the corridor shifted; even the ambiance outside seemed to fall quiet for a beat.

“I’ll be overseeing his imprisonment from now on,” Madara said, tone calm but edged with something final. “And the recovery, or whatever passes for it. You’ve done enough.”

Izuna blinked, a humorless laugh slipping out before he caught himself. “You’re joking,” he said, incredulous. “You think I can’t handle a single captive?”

Madara didn’t flinch. “I think you’ve handled him too much.” His words were low, deliberate. “You have a habit of mistaking control for results. I don’t intend to waste what’s left of his mind cleaning up your enthusiasm.”

The jab landed; Izuna’s mouth tightened. “You think you can do better?”

“I know I can do quieter,” Madara replied. “And quiet is what we need. There’s no need to sulk over this.” He stepped past Izuna, the motion slow, measured.

“Consider it a favor, little brother, I’ll relieve you of the headache of watching over him. You can focus on our soldiers and skirmishes instead of half-dead prisoners.”

Hikaku stood a few paces back, eyes flicking between them, the faintest trace of weariness pulling at his features. “It’s a wise decision,” he said at last, voice even.

Madara gave a short nod. “I’ll handle the subject personally, and make sure he stays alive long enough to matter, unless I’ll be needing your assistance, of course.”

Izuna snorted but the edge had left the sound; he knew when he’d been overruled.

“Fine. But I’m not promising to be all compliant about it.” He shot one last look at Madara, a measurement, a challenge, then turned on his heel. “And I still want updates. I’ll be pissed if he croaks without my blade through his neck-“ he muttered at last in irritation.

Hikaku stepped forward and caught Izuna’s sleeve briefly as he passed. “Keep your voice down,” he said softly. “And tell no one unless absolutely necessary. Not a whisper of this mess.”

Izuna rolled his eyes but nodded once, curt. “Understood.”

When the corridor had swallowed his footsteps, Madara let his shoulders fall the tiniest degree, the exhaustion on his face suddenly more visible.

“Make sure the wards on the cell are maintained,” he said to Hikaku, quieter now. “And see that the entire wing is locked, no visitors or other prisoners, no unnecessary eyes, for all people know- The old cells are empty.”

Hikaku inclined his head. “I will. He will be contained, and the circle will be small.”

The two men stood there a moment longer, the wind whispering against the screens, before they turned and walked back toward the inner hall in silence.

Chapter Text

The day had worn gently into afternoon, the golden light slanting through the paper screens and glinting off lacquered floors.

The air hummed with laughter and low conversation, the sounds of a household alive again, of servants bustling between rooms, of Mito’s gentle laughter mingling with voices that hadn’t heard joy in months.

But through it all, Tōuka caught Hashirama’s eye. A small, silent nod was all it took.

They stepped out together, weaving between guests, down a side corridor where the noise thinned into stillness.

The change was immediate, from warmth and chatter to the muted hush of paper walls and the faint echo of their own footsteps.

The further they went, the more the air cooled. Dust motes drifted lazily in the narrow shafts of light filtering through half-shuttered screens.

The hall turned, opening into a secluded wing of the compound seldom used anymore.

Tōuka slid open a door at the end, and the faint smell of old parchment and ink spilled out.

Inside waited a large study, quiet, ordered, almost reverent in its emptiness.

Drawers lined the walls in even rows, their polished surfaces reflecting the weak daylight.

A great desk sat beneath the window, cleared of papers, its grain smooth and untouched, as though its owner had only just stood up and never returned.

Hashirama paused on the threshold, his usual brightness dimming a fraction as he stepped inside.

The sound of distant laughter from the courtyard reached them faintly, blurred, distant, belonging to another world entirely.

Tōuka lingered by the door for a moment, glancing back down the hall to be sure no one had followed.

Then she slid it closed with a quiet click, sealing them into the calm, heavy air of the study.

For a while, neither spoke. Hashirama’s hand brushed over the desk’s surface, and Tōuka watched him with something unreadable in her eyes.

Tōuka was the first to break the silence. Her arms were crossed loosely, weight leaned against one of the drawer cabinets, but her voice carried a kind of careful purpose.

“I wanted to give you a heads-up,” she said after a moment, her tone low but steady.

“Before you step back in, before everyone starts piling duties on you again.”

Hashirama looked up from where he’d been tracing the edge of the desk with his thumb.

The faint smile that had lingered from the festivities had all but faded now. “A heads-up?” he echoed lightly, though his voice carried a note of caution.

She nodded. “About coming back here, and resuming your role.”

He straightened a little at that, shoulders squaring as if by instinct. “Right,” he said. “I suppose the elders won’t waste any time.”

“They won’t,” Tōuka said. “And I imagine half the council’s already waiting to drop a mountain of reports on your desk by tomorrow morning.” She gave a small, humorless laugh and looked around the room. “Figured it’d be better if you heard it from someone who’s not trying to flatter you first.”

Hashirama’s gaze drifted across the study again, the bare desk, the faint scent of oil and dust, the ghost of order that still clung to the room.

Hashirama gave a small nod, lips pressing together as he stepped further into the room. “That’s fair,” he said after a pause. “Because I’ve got a few questions of my own.”

Tōuka arched a brow, half amused, half wary. “Of course you do.”

“How was the wake?” he asked finally. The question hung there a moment too long, soft but deliberate. “For him. For Butsuma.”

The air in his fathers old study seemed to change with the name.

Tōuka’s arms loosened, her expression flickering, not grief, exactly, but something caught between memory and fatigue.

“It was…” she started, then stopped. “It was formal, fit for a warrior, even if his death wasn’t. The way he would’ve wanted it.”

Hashirama let out a quiet breath through his nose, a sound that might’ve been a laugh if there had been any humor left in it. “Of course it was.”

She gave a small nod, looking down at her hands. “Tobirama handled it. The rites, the ceremonies, the aftermath. Every detail. Didn’t let a single thing fall through.”

That caught his attention. “Tobirama?” Hashirama asked, surprised.

“Yes.” Tōuka’s gaze lifted to him, steady now.

“He carried the whole thing with more grace than anyone expected, including me. Stood up there, spoke like a man twice his age. You’d have thought he actually admired the bastard.” There was no venom in her tone, only a quiet, bitter respect.

Hashirama mouth twitched, half into a grim smile. “He always knows how to keep up appearances.”

“Appearances, yeah,” Tōuka murmured. “But that day, I think it was more than that. He didn’t do it for your father. He did it for everyone else, for the clan, for you, for Itama.”

Hashirama was quiet for a long time. He moved to the window, looking out at the garden beyond the paper screens.

The afternoon light pooled soft and gold across the floorboards.

“He shouldn’t have had to do that,” he said finally.

“No,” Tōuka agreed. “But he did. Because someone had to.”

She studied him then, the slope of his shoulders, the way his fingers flexed unconsciously against the sill.

The cheerful brightness that usually defined him had dulled, the shadow of responsibility already settling over it.

He didn’t turn to face her when he said, “I should’ve been there.”

Tōuka’s voice softened, a note of gentleness breaking through her usual steel. “You were where you needed to be. He knew that. So did Tobirama.”

The quiet that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, just heavy, like a truth both of them had long known and never quite said aloud.

Finally, Hashirama turned back to her, the ghost of a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “You always know how to make me feel worse and better at the same time.”

“That’s what family’s for,” Tōuka agreed dryly, crossing her arms again, though the edge of fondness glinted in her eyes.

For a brief moment, the two simply stood there, kin in the same heavy silence, bound by duty, regret, and a shared understanding that leadership was never something freely inherited. It was carried, often reluctantly, and always at a cost.

Hashirama leaned back against the edge of the desk, arms folding loosely across his chest. “And how’s he handled it?” he asked after a moment. “Tobirama, I mean. He never said much in his letters, just that everything was under control.”

Tōuka’s gaze flicked toward the window, where the light had turned faintly amber against the paper screens. “He handled it amicably,” she said. “Better than anyone expected, honestly. He kept the council steady, kept the borders quiet. Even the elders stopped breathing down his neck after the first month.”

Hashirama’s brows lifted, a small, proud smile tugging at his mouth. “That sounds like him. Always keeping it together when the rest of us are losing our heads. I was ready to drop everything at a heartbeat if he’d needed it.”

Tōuka didn’t respond right away. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her arms crossing tighter, not defensively, just hesitantly. Hashirama caught it immediately, that flicker of something behind her calm.

He straightened. “What?”

She waved a hand vaguely, trying to brush it aside. “Nothing. Just-” she exhaled softly through her nose. “He did well, Hashirama. Really well. Graceful, diplomatic, even… softer than before, in a way. He might not understand people the way you and I do, but he’s been trying hard.”

Hashirama’s smile widened, proud and unguarded. “Of course he did. I knew he would. I could trust him with it. Knew he’d handle things until I came back.”

“Yeah.” Tōuka’s voice was quieter now.

Hashirama laughed lightly, shaking his head. “He’s probably buried under paperwork right now, or off pretending to be busy just so he can avoid the social gatherings.” He pushed off the desk, straightening with a touch of playfulness in his tone.

“I’ll hunt him down after dinner. He must’ve been too tied up to come say hi this morning.”

Tōuka’s eyes flicked up sharply then, her mouth parting as if to speak, then she hesitated.

Hashirama caught it immediately. “What?”

Her voice was careful, too careful. “There’s something you should know.”

The silence that followed was long enough for a faint gust outside to stir the paper screen.

“Tobirama’s been missing for two days,” Tōuka confessed finally. “He went out on an errand near the river pass and hasn’t come back.” She looked at him quickly, before he could interrupt. “It might be nothing. You know how he is, disappearing for long periods of time without a word, and then resurfacing.”

She paused for a moment. “Besides, we’ve had storms, communication’s been spotty. Patrol routes sometimes get delayed-”

But the words trailed off, and the look in her eyes betrayed what she wasn’t saying.

Hashirama stood completely still, his easy expression shuttering, the familiar warmth in his eyes cooling into something taut and unreadable.

“Two days,” he repeated, voice low. “What errand?”

“He never told me. Or anyone else. I think we should check the mission logs”

Tōuka hesitated, just long enough for Hashirama to sense that the silence held more than she’d let on.

He turned towards her, voice dropping low, controlled. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

She nodded once, the movement sharp but reluctant. “It would have been one thing if he was simply isolating himself, but Itama disappeared too, hours later” she said. “And two of my delegates, who were assigned to accompany Tobirama. They were supposed to report back from the eastern border outpost at dawn two days ago. Nothing. No message. No carrier hawk or summons. Not a trace.”

Hashirama’s expression hardened, the faint warmth from earlier gone entirely. “So four people. Missing in the same sector.”

“No,” he said firmly. “No, this isn’t weather or a pure coincidence. Not when it’s Tobirama and not when it’s Itama. There’s no way, that’s-”

He began pacing the length of the study, his feet whispering against the wood. “You said two of your men went with him, veterans?”

“Competent, the twins, Nawara and Sabimaru” Tōuka corrected, her arms folding again. “Not green recruits.”

“Then they’d have known how to signal if anything went wrong.” Hashirama stopped at the far end of the room, staring at the paper screen as though he could see through it. “Which means something’s keeping them from doing so. Either they can’t…” he exhaled through his teeth, “…or they’re being prevented from it.”

Tōuka watched him quietly, the familiar leader reemerging before her eyes.

Finally, Hashirama spoke again, his tone quieter now, but resolute. “Tobirama might’ve had things under control. He always does. But this…” He shook his head. “This feels entirely wrong.”

The weight of it settled between them, quiet, heavy, and final in the still air of the study.

Outside, the sound of laughter still drifted faintly through the compound, distant, unaware.

Tōuka stayed quiet for a long moment after Hashirama’s last words. Then, instead of replying to the matter of the missing delegation, she mused, “You noticed, didn’t you? The compound.”

Hashirama blinked, caught off guard. “What about it?”

She gave a small tilt of her head toward the courtyard beyond the window. “All our infrastructure and defense looks better. Stronger. New walls, new armory, roofs, new grain stores, and we can afford to keep the youngest ones off the battlefields. You saw it.”

Hashirama nodded slowly. “Of course I did. I’m proud of the progress. The clan looks the best it has in years. Our troops looked well-equipped, the crops are stable, no shortages, and so many little faces laughing and running around.”

He paused, frowning slightly. “But I’ve been wondering where the money came from. Before I left, our treasurers were one bad harvest away from selling land and valuables.”

Tōuka’s gaze didn’t meet his right away. She stepped closer to the desk, running her palm absently over its smooth edge. “You really should know, even if he never would want you to.”

Hashirama’s eyes narrowed. “Yes?”

Her sigh was long, steady, but she didn’t soften it. “Tobirama made it happen. All of it.”

He blinked once, slowly. “By doing what?”

Tōuka hesitated, then stated it plainly. “By taking the jobs no one else would touch with a ten-foot pole with shit at the end.”

There was a silence that carried weight.

She continued, voice low and even, though her eyes stayed fixed on the desk.

“Assassinations. Sabotage missions. Contracts that most clans would pretend not to see. He took every commission that promised coin, no matter how bloody or thankless. Espionage too, the kind that buys safety for everyone else, but only at the cost of one man’s conscience.”

Hashirama stared at her, stunned into stillness. The lines of his expression hardened, not in anger yet, but in disbelief. “You’re telling me my brother got blood on his hands for the clan to survive?”

Tōuka finally looked up at him. “To take us from merely surviving to thriving,” she corrected. “Into a clan that could feed its people, pay its soldiers, repair its walls. He did what had to be done, when no one else would. He kept your father’s warmongering from swallowing us whole.”

Hashirama’s mouth opened, then shut again. He turned away, pacing a few steps toward the window, his voice rising with restrained outrage. “And everyone just went along with this? Let him shoulder that alone?”

“You think anyone could’ve stopped him? You think Itama didn’t try?” Tōuka’s tone sharpened briefly. “He knew what it would cost. But more importantly, he also knew you would never have approved of it; that’s why he didn’t write about it in those letters you keep.”

Hashirama turned back to her, eyes searching hers for a long moment. “You’re saying he chose that? Knowing what it would make him?”

Tōuka’s answer was quiet, heavy with something like respect. “He did. Because someone had to keep us standing.”

Hashirama’s jaw flexed, the weight of her words settling over him like a slow, suffocating realization.

He leaned his hands on the desk, knuckles white against the wood.

“For the greater good, for a future and for peace” Tōuka emphasized, echoing his unspoken thought. “That’s what he told me, anyway.”

Hashirama’s voice came low, tight. “The greater good,” he repeated.

Tōuka’s voice softened again, though the words themselves didn’t. “You weren’t here, Hashirama,” she explained. “And while you were gone, it wasn’t peace we were living through, it was survival.”

Hashirama straightened, still leaning on the desk, eyes narrowing.

“There were constant threats,” Tōuka went on, her tone low but unwavering. “Every month, another border skirmish. Ambushes on our convoys. The Uchiha testing our strength. Even the Hagoromo started pressing further west. Everyone wanted a piece of us because they thought we were an easy target, or to put it frankly- too weakened without you here to hold the line.”

She pushed off from the cabinet and crossed the room slowly, the heel of her boot making a soft sound against the wood.

“Tobirama saw it happening. He didn’t wait for the council to debate it for weeks like they always do, he acted. Took contracts, that bought us time and coin, built up defenses, paid soldiers on time. Every decision he made was another breath for this clan and a peaceful future. With no complaints even once.”

Hashirama’s throat tightened. “And no one stopped him.”

“There was nothing to stop,” Tōuka replied, shaking her head. “He was keeping us alive. You should’ve seen the state we were in after your father died. It wasn’t just grief, it was fear. The kind that eats through people like rust. But Tobirama held them together. Not through speeches, not through his bloodline, but through sheer will and leadership.”

She paused by the window, looking out at the compound, children playing, the newly repaired fences, the neat rows of barracks roofs, the glint of armor as soldiers crossed the courtyard below. “He made all this work. Even when the money came from places he hated to touch. He took on the burden, all so the rest of us didn’t have to.”

Hashirama’s expression hardened, a mix of guilt and disbelief. “He shouldn’t have had to.”

“No,” Tōuka said, turning back to face him. “But he did. Because you weren’t here. And because someone had to for the clans future, and to make sure there was still something left for you and Mito to come back to.”

Hashirama didn’t move at first. He stood there, shoulders squared, head slightly bowed, the weight of every word Tōuka had spoken pressing against him like a tide.

“I’m not saying this to get a rise out of you or to make you feel guilty. You couldn’t have known.”

With the slow precision of a man who’d made up his mind, he straightened. “There’s no time,” he said steadily. Then his voice hardened further. “We need to hurry,”

Tōuka blinked, caught off guard by the shift.

“The council, the commissioners, the reports, they can all wait,” Hashirama rose, his tone gathering force and volume. “From this moment on, the Senju dedicate every available scout, every messenger, every tracker we have to finding our family.”

Tōuka opened her mouth to speak, but he didn’t let her.

“I don’t care how busy the borders, or whatever- are, or what negotiations the elders are tangled in,” Hashirama continued, already pacing toward the door. “I want eyes in every valley, clearing, every creek and corner here by nightfall. Anyone who’s seen movement, anyone who’s heard rumors, I want them questioned.”

He turned back toward her, eyes burning now with the kind of fire she hadn’t seen in him since before he left. “If Tobirama’s out there, we find him. If they’re hurt, we bring them home. And if-” He stopped, exhaling through his teeth, the unfinished thought hanging in the space between them like a blade half-drawn.

Tōuka studied him for a long moment, her usual composure softened by something that almost resembled pride. “You don’t waste time,” she said, trying for lightness and failing.

“Time’s what we’ve already lost,” Hashirama replied flatly. “And we’re done losing. Not on my watch.”

She nodded once and motioned to start walking. “I’ll start assembling the trackers.”

“And Tōuka-“ Hashirama started, but he never finished his sentence.

“It’s going to be okay.” Tōuka understood without needing him to explain.

He gave a single nod, gaze drifting toward the window, the distant sight of the compound below, alive and orderly, the quiet proof of his brother’s sacrifice.

“I burdened my own flesh and blood with holding this place together, I burdened him with my dream and ambition,” Hashirama murmured. “We will find them.”

Then Hashirama turned toward the door, already in motion.

“I’ll speak to Mito,” he said. “She deserves to know the truth, all of it. She’s sharp, much sharper than most of the council combined. She’ll see what this means, and she’ll help me keep the clan steady while we look for him.”

Tōuka tilted her head, arms still crossed, her expression unreadable. “You’re bringing her into this?”

“I trust her, of course I do,” Hashirama replied simply. “And I trust her judgment. She’ll give me- no, give us the clarity we need. If there’s anyone who can see through the smoke and keep us from stumbling into panic, it’s her.”

For a heartbeat, Tōuka just watched him. Then, finally, she nodded. “You really love her, don’t you…” she admitted under her breath. “She’s clever. You’ll need that, especially if the council starts bitching and moaning before we have anything to tell them.”

He straightened, resolve hardening into purpose. The sunlight from the shoji screens painted a band of gold across his face, sharpening the set of his jaw.

“Start gathering your best people, you’ll be the first to go,” he said. “I’ll talk to Mito before nightfall. We can’t afford hesitation now, not when they might still be out there.”

Tōuka gave one final nod. “Understood.”

As they stepped out into the corridor, the faint noise of the compound returned, the sound of footsteps, distant chatter, the hum of a clan.

Hashirama paused once, glancing back into the empty study, the stillness within untouched by the new storm brewing outside.

Small, light footsteps sounded outside the cell, hesitant, almost skipping between steps.

Tobirama’s head lifted from where he’d been leaning against the wall.

The sound was soft enough to remind him of something else entirely, the way he and his brothers used to creep through the halls at night as kids, trying not to wake any grownups, suppressing laughter in the dark.

The cell door slid open with a clumsy scrape, stopping halfway before being pushed fully aside.

A child stood there, a boy, perhaps five, maybe six at most. Dark hair fell in untidy waves, though it had clearly been parted neatly earlier. His features were unmistakably Uchiha, sharp, fine-boned, and far too serious for his age. He wasn’t dressed like a servant. His little kimono was trimmed, sleeves tied back carefully. A child from one of the higher branches, perhaps. Someone’s son who’d wandered too far or been sent on a small errand to learn some discipline.

The boy carried a tray with both hands, the contents trembling with every step. A bowl of broth, a small heap of rice, a cup of water. He set it down gingerly near the threshold, just within the prisoners reach, glanced at Tobirama, and looked away as if the sight of him was something he shouldn’t be seeing.

He turned to go, but hesitated.

Tobirama could feel the stare before the boy spoke, a weight of small, nervous curiosity.

“...Will it hurt?” the boy asked suddenly, his voice shy and unsure, barely above a whisper.

Tobirama blinked. “What?”

The boy’s brow furrowed, like he was trying to remember something. “Izuna-nii said you’d- he said he was going to-” He frowned harder, scrunching his nose. “I forgot. But it sounded like it’d really hurt.”

Tobirama stared for a beat, then exhaled through his nose, the faintest edge of amusement caught somewhere in it. “Did he now.”

The boy nodded solemnly.

“Well,” Tobirama said dryly, “he’s a bit full of himself, isn’t he?”

The child tilted his head, clearly trying to decide whether that was agreement or blasphemy, even if he didn’t have the words for it, then just smiled faintly, a small, sweet, confused smile, and hurried off, sliding the door shut behind him with both hands.

The cell fell quiet again.

Tobirama looked at the tray. The food steamed faintly, smelling better than anything he’d had in days.

He wasn’t hungry. Or maybe he was, the ache in his stomach was there, persistent, dull. But the thought of eating felt absurd unlike days prior.

Too human, too ordinary, the irony of him having begged for this days ago wasn’t lost on him.

He leaned his head back against the wall and let out a slow breath. He thought idly, almost amused by the idea of starving.

Surely that’d make someone’s life easier.

The quiet settled back in, the kind that seemed to press against his ears until he could hear only his heartbeat and the faint drip of water in the distance.

The faint patch of daylight that stretched across the floor had shifted and dulled, taking the last of the fall warmth with it.

Tobirama hadn’t moved much for hours, sitting in deep meditation.

The bowl of rice and broth sat untouched near the wall, the surface of the broth cooled to a dull film. He’d tried not to look at it. To not think about anything at all.

Then, without warning, the quiet was broken by the smooth slide of the door.

Madara entered, unhurried, the kind of calm that made Tobirama’s pulse immediately spike. He didn’t bother to announce himself.

He simply stood there for a moment, surveying the scene like a man assessing the aftermath of some minor disaster.

Tobirama’s spine straightened automatically. His gaze stayed fixed on Madara, wary, calculating.

“Still in one piece,” Madara remarked finally, voice flat, but not unkind, just observational.

His eyes flicked once toward the tray on the floor. “I see you’ve chosen hunger as your next form of defiance.”

Tobirama didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes, resuming, but taut as a bowstring.

Madara’s mouth curved faintly, the barest ghost of a smirk. “You’re in for an uneventful journey if you think that’s going to accomplish anything.” He stepped further into the cell, stopping a few feet away.

The words weren’t cruel; if anything, they were weary, the tone of someone too experienced to be surprised by stubbornness.

Tobirama’s jaw tightened. “Maybe I just don’t want whatever’s in that,” he said, voice hoarse from disuse.

Madara’s eyes tracked him, steady and assessing. “If we wanted you dead,” he said mildly, “we wouldn’t go through the trouble of feeding you.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He looked, now.

“It’s supposed to make you think.” Madara crouched slightly, resting an elbow on one knee. “You’re not here for comfort or because we enjoy your company, believe it or not. You’re here because you’re useful. Which means keeping you alive, and somewhat functional, is in everyone’s best interest.”

Tobirama’s lip twitched, halfway between a grimace and a laugh. “You make captivity sound almost civil.”

“I’ve been told I’m good with words,” Madara replied, without a trace of irony. His gaze flicked again toward the untouched tray, then back to Tobirama. “Eat. You’ll need your strength.”

“For what?” Tobirama shot back.

“For not dying,” Madara said simply. “For now.”

He stood then, brushing nonexistent dust from his sleeve, the motion clean, precise.

“If you plan to make a point,” he added, “make one worth something. Hunger’s a poor weapon. It only ever turns against its wielder.“

He wasn’t sure if it was defiance that kept him from touching the meal.

Tobirama realized, dimly, that the quiet between them wasn’t final, it was waiting.

Something in Madara’s stillness always felt deliberate, like he could stretch silence until it broke on his terms.

Tobirama exhaled, a low sound from deep in his chest. “How are you planning to explain this to Hashirama?”

That got a flicker, not quite a reaction, but a subtle shift of attention. Madara’s head tilted, eyes narrowing slightly.

“You remembered something?”

“I know now that he’s been away for some time, I can’t remember why though, but he was going to come back any moment. I think it was important.”

Madara huffed once. “Explain what, then?”

Tobirama’s tone sharpened, something brittle creeping into it. “Don’t play dumb. You know damn well what. Aniija’ will be furious when he-“

For a second, the corner of Madara’s lip curled, but it wasn’t amusement. It was something colder, almost pitying. He interrupted.

“Who says I’ll be the one explaining anything?” he said evenly. “Much less to Hashirama.”

The words landed like a stone dropped into deep water, slowly, with the kind of weight that kept sinking long after they’d hit.

Tobirama stared at him, confusion flashing first, then dawning horror.

Madara didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

The air in the cell seemed to thin all at once.

The ache behind Tobirama’s eyes flared sharp; his breath caught, then quickened without rhythm. His pulse hammered in his throat.

No one knows.

The thought clawed its way through him like something alive.

He’d assumed, naively, instinctively, that the Senju would have known, that the Uchiha would have sent a demand, a ransom of some sort, that Hashirama or Itama or someone was already mobilizing or planning on negotiating his release.

That this silence was strategy. That rescue was just a matter of time.

But now, with Madara’s indifference laid bare before him, the truth slid in cold and merciless.

No one knows he is here.

His vision swam, breath coming in shallow, uneven bursts. He tried to steady it, to hide the rising panic, but it came anyway, clawing up his chest, stifling a tremor through his hands in such a familiar way it almost felt like routine.

No one’s coming.

The phrase repeated, looping through his head like a curse. No one’s coming. Not his brother, not the clan, not anyone.

He pressed his palms to his temples, trying to breathe, to focus on anything, the sound of the chain, the faint drip of water, the hum of air through the crack beneath the door.

But everything felt distant, muffled, as if the world was folding in around him.

Madara’s expression didn’t change, though his eyes lingered, detached, analytical.

When he finally spoke, it was observant.

“You’re trembling.”

Tobirama couldn’t look at him, couldn’t deny. He forced a breath through his teeth, but it shuddered on the way out, just enough to betray his panic under the quiet surface.

“Then, I suggest,” Madara continued, his tone still maddeningly even, “That you eat something, or perhaps just breathe- before you collapse. I’d rather not have to explain that either.”

He turned, sliding the door open again, and then, like the slow closing of a wound, he was gone.

Tobirama stayed there, doubled over slightly, staring down at the untouched food.

It didn’t matter anymore whether he starved or not, might as well get comfortable and suck it up. The fear had already begun to devour him first, so there was no point in withering away like this.

I think there once was a time when I was terrified and scared of dying, though it all seems so far away now.