Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Light snow fall drifts in eddies, coaxed by the frigid mid-winter wind. Moonlight shines sparingly through small breaks in the dark cloud cover, dappling the forest in an eerie white glow. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance, and tiny footsteps scamper for shelter across the forest floor. Nestled amongst the trees, a compound sits- high stone walls topped with white, and deadly lines of icicles hanging from the sloped eaves of buildings.

Lookout towers are adorned with the flicker of firelight and dark silhouettes of people shift about as they try to fight off the winter chill. Lanterns flare warmly on the streets below, lining dirt paths hidden under several inches of snow that's been trodden down by footsteps from the liveliness of day. A large house sits at the center of the compound, its doors carved with intricate trees and vines, and the closed windows brightly lit with a comforting glow. A slam echoes from within and a scattering of snow slips off the roof and lands on the ground with a soft, barely perceptible thump.

The night air is split by a high-pitched wail. 

The figures on watch stiffen in alarm, and twist towards the Clan Head’s residence. Its front entryway bursts open in a violent motion- jarring against the still serenity of the winter night- and a tall man with dark hair stomps out into the cold wind, his face twisted in anger and arms folded around a small, cloth bundle.

“No!” 

A screech echoes out of the house from behind him, voice tinged in manic desperation. Hobbling into sight, a woman clutches desperately at the ornate door to hold herself upright as blood trickles down the insides of her trembling thighs and drips onto the polished floor below. Her hair is matted with sweat and her face is pale. A thin grey yukata sticks to her stomach, still swollen from pregnancy.

“You can’t take my baby, Butsuma!” Her dark eyes are wide and wild, pupils blown in animal terror.

The man before her stops, whirling around with his teeth bared in a hideous snarl. In that moment, Senju Butsuma looks every inch the cruel warmonger that he is.

“This thing,” he hisses, gesturing with his chin down at the small form he carries, “is no baby of ours. It’s a curse, a blight from the Gods upon our clan. Doing away with it is the only thing that will prevent our certain ruin!”

Butsuma twists away again, face turned towards the eastern gates and ears falling deaf to the noise of his wife struggling to follow him only to fall to her knees in the freezing snow. A midwife rushes out the door after her, slipping an arm around the Lady’s fallen form and trying to support her back onto her feet.

“If you take him, I’ll never forgive you!” She screams after him, tears flowing freely down her cheeks and fingertips frost-bitten red where they claw into the soft ice in desperation.

Her husband looks over his shoulder one last time, eyes cold and unfeeling.

“So be it. I will risk your hatred, I will not risk the Gods.” 

He channels chakra into the soles of his feet and sprints away, moving silently over the snow drifts. As his figure disappears past the compound walls and into the pitch dark of the forest, the woman sinks to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut, chest heaving with gasping breaths as she sobs. Two shinobi flicker into view next to her, shooing the nurse out of their way and heaving the Clan Head’s wife into the air. She lays limp in the space between them, her eyes shut and face twisted in the direction her baby was taken as she cries. 

A tiny figure watches from just inside the entryway of the large estate behind them, his small fingers curled anxiously around the doorframe.

He’s too young to quite understand what is happening, but his chest aches as he watches his mother- a warrior, a feared shinobi, and yet so weakly human then- be ferried back into her bedroom and set upon a fresh futon. The air still smells of blood and sweat, remnants of the childbirth that had taken place less than an hour before. Something that should have been cause for celebration now tainted immeasurably. As the door shuts behind her and the shinobi leave, only the midwife remains to sit with her Lady in her grief. 

The small boy tentatively creeps towards the sealed room and sinks down to huddle next to it, arms wrapped around his knees and short bangs hiding his eyes as he listens to his mother wail.

The house doesn’t fall silent until the cold glow of the winter sunrise spears through the windows, casting weak shadows over the child who hasn’t moved in his vigil. He will not move for longer still- not until his Father comes through the front engawa, shoulders dusted with snowfall and cheeks red from travel, his hands hanging empty at his sides. The boy is too young to know why everything is wrong, and he is scared to ask. He won’t understand what took place that night until he is much older- but he will never forget the way his Mother cried the same name over and over again until her voice failed her.

He thinks he was supposed to gain a brother that night. He wonders the next morning, if that is who his Mother was calling out for. His Father refuses to speak of it- only glares all the more fiercely and frighteningly, so the boy learns not to ask. It is only the first of many lessons.

The house sits cold and still for many years, a living mausoleum for the people who still reside in its halls.

He never hears his Mother speak again.

The mountains are quiet in the dead of winter, animals deep in their burrows to escape the frozen air, and the forest floor blanketed in a carpet of soft white that muffles even the largest noises. Snow crunches softly underneath large paws, wind ruffling through dense fur and over sensitive white ears. Nagi climbs steadily down a steep incline, her claws catching on ice covered rocks and the long rosetted tail stretching behind her moving in rhythmic figure eights to steady her balance. Rose-gold eyes scan the dense forest that stretches out in front of her. She opens her mouth and draws in a breath of crisp air, letting the bright, cold scents of the forest hang heavy on her tongue.

Pine, wet earth, frost. Her breath comes out in a soft chuff. No suitable prey nearby. That would be too easy. 

Nagi swings her large head to glance over her shoulder at the slope she just descended. Her den is well hidden, and she can feel the safe-warm-sleepy chakra of her cubs nestled in the center of it. If she must venture farther away for food, she can rest assured that her kits are protected.

Sunlight and shadows dance on her pelt as she leaps into the tree line, the dappling of grey that patterns her white fur camouflaging her securely against the snow and rocks of the mountainous terrain she calls her territory. Nagi spreads her chakra out in a steady pulse, searching for the bright life energy of any large prey while she moves. The trees around her are steady-green-growth and she can feel mice burrowed several feet below her paw pads, riding out the winter in the warmth of their dens. They aren’t of any concern to her- creatures that small wouldn’t be more than a mouthful for her cubs, much less a large cat of her stature. 

It’s no hard task to slip through the forest in silence, dodging underbrush and leaping over fallen logs and detritus as she goes. The water of a nearby stream lies frozen, and she can hear the ambient creaking of the ice where it lays underneath the snowfall. As far as winters go, this is one of the more mild. ‘Certainly more peaceful than the last,’ Nagi thinks bitterly, remembering the harsh howling winds and buffeting blizzards that had accompanied her kitting. 

It had been hard- even for a summon animal such as herself- to find food for her and her three cubs that season. Newborn much too late in the year, it was a constant battle to keep herself healthy enough that her milk would not run dry. She had had to supplement with her chakra, and even then she had not been able to stop her youngest from fading away.

Determination drives her now, even though her remaining cubs have grown large and healthy.

Suddenly, Nagi scrambles to a stop with a scattering flurry of powder white, claws digging sharply into the sodden bark of the fallen tree she alights on. There is… something. An odd pulse, just at the edge of her senses. Nagi cocks her head to the side, ears tilted in a westward direction as she focuses her chakra more intensely on the sensation that is starkly out of place among the wilds of her home. Her mind whirls in confusion.

It feels… human. But small, much smaller than it should have been. Her territory is not a stranger to passing shinobi, and she’s plenty familiar with the signatures that they give off- even those of the weak and dying. This is new, and underdeveloped in a way that makes the fur along her spine raise in stark alarm. It can’t be, could it?

But… It's the only explanation. 

She curses in her mother tongue and shoves chakra into the pads of her feet, planting herself squarely on the soft wood beneath her before leaping forward at a dead sprint. Birds startle in the trees nearby, and a pair of rabbits squeak in alarm as she lunges past them. The small prey noises barely break through Nagi’s focus, the only gesture of acknowledgment a subtle flick of one round ear. Even a large stag would not have given her pause. 

If she’s right, there’s no time for hunting.

Her sides heave in great breaths as she runs. She is an ambush predator- body not built for the long endurance hunts like the ones wolves participate in. But Nagi can feel that signature slowly fading, and she senses no others near it. She is working on borrowed time.

Her paws slide carelessly over patches of ice as she careens out into a clearing, eyes squinting against the wind that swirls into her face, no longer blocked by the dense cover of trees. Nagi whips her head around frantically. The clearing looks undisturbed; branches and the tips of dead bushes poking out of the otherwise pristine snow cover. But she can feel it here, somewhere close, if she could just find- 

There.

A tiny. unassuming bundle of white cloth- almost invisible against the winter backdrop of the snow topped outcropping it rests on. Nagi charges forward in a sharp burst of coiled muscles, anxiety licking at the back of her neck and her mind swirling with memories of a small cub- too small and still and cold, so cold why couldn’t Nagi make her warm again-

She scrambles to a stop and dips her large head down to nose at the pitiful heap of blankets. A tiny, tiny face enters her view; too-pale skin adorned with an even paler tuft of hair, mouth frighteningly blue. The baby- a baby- is cold to the touch when she rests her nose against its small cheek- but there, just barely. A shallow puff of breath against her fur.

Nagi almost falls to the ground in relief, but she has no time for that. The child lives, but it won’t for much longer if it stays here. She swiftly but oh-so carefully clamps her jaw on the thin wrap that the cub is swaddled in. Something in her growls and rages at the pathetic covering, a sure death sentence in the deep cold where the jaws of winter hold no mercy for the innocent. As she gently lifts it, she circulates chakra into her mouth, breathing out controlled warm air onto the child. 

Until she gets it safely back to her den, this will have to do. She can only hope that it’s enough.

Without a second to waste, Nagi swings her massive form around and sprints back the way she came. Her chakra cushions the pads of her paws, landing lightly on the snow and propelling her forward as hard as she dares. She moves her head in time with the shift of her muscles, all her attention focused on keeping the precious cargo she holds from swaying about too harshly. 

The trip back through the forest is a blur. 

With her senses spread wide as she runs, she scans her woods for anything that could be a potential danger. It takes much longer than she wants (not fast enough, need to hurry, need to be quicker) before she breaks the treeline and leaps up the cliffside of the mountain that holds her den. Her paws scrabble gracelessly on the rocks as she jumps, desperation and fear tainting her normally smooth motions- but she steadfastly ignores the stinging pain of small cuts opening on thick skin.

The cub’s chakra signature is getting weaker. She needs to get it to shelter, to warmth, or it will die. Not again, not another one that she fails to save. As Nagi scrambles up over the next ledge, she churrs in pure relief. From here, it's only a short run to the carefully concealed cave that she calls home. 

A sheer cliff face rises up before her, the steep inclines and pointed edges dusted with white powder are bright against the dark grey slate of the mountain. Small, spindly trees jut out from the rock, their roots digging into cracks and hanging over open air in places where earth has crumbled away. The plant life that still lives through the winter is a splash of dull, dark green; hardy enough to survive the tumultuous weather and temperatures that come with living this high up.

Nagi quickly picks her way towards where the slope upward begins, heading towards a massive, long-dead tree that leans up against a corner of the cliff face like a giant sword laid to rest. The brittle branches creep like odd veins across the rock, old birds nests adorning them in a parody of crowns. At the very base of the trunk, its root system is still partially embedded in the earth where tangled gnarls of wood creep both down and up towards the clouded sky. 

She weaves between the gaps of the branches, dry wood scratching over her thick coat as she goes. There’s a small opening beneath the trunk from where it sits propped up against the mountain and Nagi ducks low underneath it, careful to not let the cub’s wrappings drag along the cold earth. At the other side, she straightens. Before her lies a narrow path between rock and wood, too skinny for most large predators to bother trying to force their way through.

Her sides touch chilled stone as she walks, paws nimbly avoiding dips in the earth and old roots with an ease that speaks to years of practice. As she nears what looks like a dead end where the mountain pushes out against the trunk of the pine, Nagi makes a sharp left into an almost imperceptible split in the rock. With a careful maneuvering of her broad shoulders, she emerges into a cave.

The wide space is scraped clean of debris other than a small pile of bones in the corner. At the far end, there are two openings, one wider and leading towards a sprawling cavern that houses an underground river, the other smaller, raised a few feet above the floor of the main cave. Nagi heads towards this path with no hesitation. A strong push of her hind legs and she easily alights on the smooth stone pathway of a winding tunnel.

Her paws make no noise as she pads quickly along the twists and turns, unheeded by the darkness ahead of her. Moments later, she emerges into a small space. Seals flare to life on the walls as Nagi pulses her chakra into them, a gentle yellow glow washing over the cozy hollow. There are pelts of animal fur piled up on the ground, traded for at the nearby village to ward off the cold of the hard earth of the cave floor. In the center of the furs, two pairs of ears perk up. Two small, fuzzy white bodies worm their way out of much darker browns and blacks and tumble forward to greet her.

The larger of them trips over his own too-big paws, his sibling following at a much more sedate pace, mouth open to smell the air and eyes cautiously trained on the bundle clutched in Nagi’s teeth. She pushes past them briskly, chuffing in appeasement when her youngest chirps in annoyance at being ignored. Carefully, she sets the human cub down in the center of the fur pile and nudges the blankets away from its tiny body with her nose.

The cub wears no clothing, and Nagi absently notes that it’s a boy. His skin is deathly white and he is too still for her comfort even as his chest rises and falls with shallow breaths. She barely raises her head to glance at her own children who are watching in befuddled silence from beside her.

“Shin, Toshiaki,” She calls. “Come over here and lay by him- as close as you can get. He is dangerously cold, we need to raise his body temperature.”

Toshiaki rushes forward without question, ever eager to help with whatever his mother asks of him and for once raising his paws high enough to keep himself from tripping. He shuffles around to curl in against the cub’s right side. Shin pauses before moving closer hesitantly, dropping his head to sniff at the damp blanket.

“Should we move him off of this?” He asks, “He doesn’t have fur. Won’t this just make him colder?”

Nagi mentally curses herself for being too panicked to think clearly, and drags a swift lick across her eldest’s forehead in thanks.

“Yes, you’re right. I’ll brace him still, slide the blanket out from under him slowly.”

Her eyes narrow darkly at the chill she can feel seep into her paw pads when she touches bare skin. Shin grips the edge of the cloth in his teeth and starts walking backwards, tugging the thin fold of fabric with him as he goes. The cub stirs slightly against her hold, nose just barely scrunching in the first movement that Nagi has seen from him since she first found him. It’s a relief, but not a sign that he’s out of the woods yet.

Shin slips around her to curl against the cub on the side not already occupied by his littermate. With no time to waste, Nagi wraps her much larger form around her two kits and the human infant. His chakra is still too faded from being exposed to the elements for however long he was, and as Nagi lowers her head to rasp her tongue as gently as she can against his tiny body, she can only think to be grateful that she found him when she did.

“Mama?” Toshiaki questions, “Why did you bring back a human?” 

Nagi pauses in bathing the cub to stare at her youngest. Without prompting, Shin picks up where she left off- tongue passing in clumsy strokes over the tiny clenched hands that are slowly starting to pink up with blood flow.

“He was alone,” She responds. “He would have died had I not found him.”

Toshiaki cocks his head to the side, round face scrunched in confusion.

“Why would he be out there, then? Did he get lost?”

What a succinct reminder that her cubs are so painfully young, still almost innocent to the cruelty of the world.

“He is a newborn, Toshi. Human newborns can’t even roll over on their own. He was left there on purpose- though whether by strangers who wished him harm, or his own people… that, I am unsure of.”

Both of her cubs look up to her at that, faces stricken with horror. Nagi knows they must be thinking of their own sibling, lost to them just as spring was starting to melt through the cold frost. Her heart clenches with aching sadness each time she is reminded that one of their earliest memories is that of loss and grief. Shin- who is much less comfortable with words than his brother- returns to licking warmth back into the small cub with a fierce determination, the angry flick of his tail the only outward sign of his emotions. Toshiaki has no such reserves, and burrows his nose under the baby to shove him further into Shin’s flank before swiveling his head up to stare directly into Nagi’s eyes.

“You mean someone wanted him to die?” He cries in a high tone of anguish. “How could they, Mama?! He’s so small- he couldn’t even try to defend himself!”

“Humans can be cruel, little one” She soothes. “I withdrew from them for just this reason, many years before I had you. Even our own fellow summons are not without cruelty. I may not understand their motives, but it’s unfortunately not uncommon for younglings to be cast out for things that are not their fault- whether it be parentage, disabilities, or features that differ from the norm. Animals of all sorts can be fickle in their standards, though that doesn’t make it right.”

Toshiaki’s ears pin back and he dips his face down to scrub the scent glands in his cheek over the cub’s forehead. To Nagi’s delight, the baby’s face scrunches up when one of Toshiaki’s whiskers tickles his nose and he lets out a tiny whine of protest. Shin freezes where he is licking over the cub’s shoulder. Both siblings' eyes are wide in wonder as they stare down at the little human, watching the clumsy flex of muscles as small limbs shift around restlessly.

Pale, chubby fingers clench into fists that are only together big enough to compare to the size of Nagi’s nose, and the little face- finally with a healthy glow of color dusting round cheeks- wrinkles up as the cub lets out a soft, gurgling cry. Nagi feels a rough purr rumble through her chest, and she shoves her nose into his soft baby hair, rasping her tongue over the bridge of his nose even as he whines at the treatment. She looks up at her cubs, eyes squinting shut in joy. 

“If the Gods will it, he’ll live.”

Shin shifts in his spot, looking up at Nagi with a kind of hopeful happiness shining in his eyes.

“Are we… are we keeping him, Mama?” He asks quietly. Toshiaki’s head shoots up and he looks between his sibling and his mother, gaze wide and eager.

“We found him, that means he’s ours now.” She answers. Her purr kicks up double time as her cubs chirp in delight, their chakra shining bright with joy-warmth-relief. Toshiaki is practically vibrating in his skin, paws kneading into the furs on either side of his new sibling.

“What are you gonna name him, Mama?”

Nagi tilts her head in thought, her eyes sweeping around the warm cave and catching on the discarded blanket. Her dark gaze narrows slightly- the fabric that she previously thought was plain white has a spot of color on it. On a corner that must have been tucked around her cub and hidden before she freed him from it, there are human characters stitched into the cloth in a deep blue. They’re too small for her to read properly from this far away, but she can see a wave motif that has been carefully embroidered underneath them by a steady hand.

“If I’m right, he may already have a name.” She gestures with her chin towards the discarded bundle. “Shin, if you would?”

Her oldest gets up obediently and grabs the blanket in his jaws. It drags between his legs as he meanders back over, threatening to trip him despite how comically high he’s holding his head up in an attempt to prevent such a thing. Toshiaki scrunches his muzzle from where he sits to Nagi, small white adolescent fangs on display.

“You mean from the people who left him? Why would we want to keep a name from them?”

Nagi hums placidly, shifting around the cloth with her nose from where Shin dropped it in the space between her forelegs. She feels her cub curl back against her and his new brother as she finally upends the embroidered corner. The handiwork is steady, thorough- and though it’s been a long time since she was immersed in human society, she can tell that the thread used is of high quality.

“Look here,” She tells her cubs, carefully nudging the stitch work with the curve of a claw. “This was the work of many hours, done by hand. The thread smells faintly of blood from the embroiderer pricking their fingers as they stitched. The wave underneath is not a clan marking- it’s likely personal. We may not know how he came to be abandoned- but it is easy to tell that someone gave him this name and wove it into this blanket because they loved him. 

“That may not have lasted, but it matters that he was cared for even the slightest before he found his way to us. Though he will never be without love while he is part of our family, I think it would be good for him to have one bright spot to focus on in the horrible circumstances that brought him here.”

Her cubs listen with rapt attention as she speaks, and stay silent in contemplation for a moment after she falls quiet. Shin’s gaze wanders between his newest brother and the blue stitching on the only possession that the baby has from the place he was born.

“What does it say?” He asks finally, eyes flicking back up to meet Nagi’s.

She settles further into the soft pelts beneath her body, looking down at her smallest cub as a gentle purr rumbles to life in her chest.

“Shin, Toshiaki. Meet your new sibling,”

A small mouth opens in a quiet yawn, and two little hands stretch out to either side of his body to grip onto plush white and grey dappled fur- a soft contrast where it stands out against pale pink skin. White lashes flutter as paper thin eyelids squeeze and then open for the first time. Bright red eyes stare up at the comforting forms of three snow leopards.

“Tobirama.”

Chapter Text

Warm spring sunlight reflects off the calm surface of a large lake lined with tall reeds and brown cattails. Frogs croak merrily in the bushes and a heron wades slowly into the water, beak poised to strike at any fish unlucky enough to pass beneath its shadow. Copses of trees rustle in a merry song conducted by gentle afternoon breezes, and bright white clouds drift overhead against a clear blue sky.

The forest is quiet, slow, and lazy- all but for a figure leaping through the treetops at a speed too quick for the untrained eye. His long dark hair trails behind him, thick tresses whipping around the handle of the gunbai that lays across his back. Deep red armor and shinobi blacks stand out starkly against the rich browns and greens of the trees. Leaves rustle quietly as the shinobi lands in a heavy crouch on the branch of a large oak tree that juts out over the aquamarine water. 

With a sigh, Uchiha Madara unsheathes his gunbai and sets it to lean against the thick trunk beside him. He drops down to sit, one leg crossed under his thigh and the other dangling freely into open air. A gust of wind ruffles his hair and he grumbles as a piece of his fringe flies directly into shadowed eyes, his already cross expression furrowing in deeper annoyance.

“Damn hair ties for not being able to hold this mess,” He curses, roughly shoving his fingers up through the length of thick black to push it off his face, heedless of the way his motions catch in snarls and further tangle up what can best be described as the mane that’s attached to his head. If it weren’t a traditional sign of strength for the Uchiha, he would consider lopping the whole mess off. Sadly, his elders are rigid in their practices and for some reason think that their clan head having a fire hazard attached to his skull is incredibly important. Not that he would ever let his hair be set ablaze. 

Madara is better than that.

As long as no one asks Izuna’s opinion on the matter.

The wilderness around him is the type of calm that would make lesser shinobi nervous- a stillness that serves best to hide pursuers and scouts in the cover of false tranquility. But while Madara may be paranoid, he’s not called a calamity for nothing- his massive reserves of chakra are often spoken of for their more destructive uses, but his talent as a sensor is plenty feared in its own right. It’s as easy as breathing to stretch his chakra miles wide, a raging forest fire creeping through the underbrush and licking over the small signatures of the animals that populate the forest. Nothing human.

Madara is practiced enough to never truly let his guard down on missions- hell, he barely unwinds even inside the sturdy walls of the clan compound- but it’s been several days since his departure from the Capital and the travel has caught up to him enough to make him weary, if not outright tired. His back pulls with the dull ache of stiff muscles as he turns to lean on the weapon behind him, and he scowls in irritation. He’s only 21, and yet some days Madara feels of an age to match his wrinkled, cantankerous elders. The cost of war, probably- but he doesn’t like to dwell on that. 

The familiar weight of his travel pack is still shrugged over the heft of one shoulder, the leather straps catching slightly on the plating of his armor as Madara tugs it forward into his lap. Kunai and shuriken fill the outer pockets for quick access, and a large storage scroll is tied securely to the front bulk of the bag. He ignores all this to dig in the large center pouch, hands carelessly shoving aside rolls of bandages, extra clothes, and an almost empty water skin before gripping a bundle wrapped in rough cloth and tugging it out from its spot buried beneath the rest of his supplies.

Opening it reveals the depressing sight of two bars of dry rations, squashed and crumbling from spending the better part of the day lodged beneath the expensive bottle of specialty sake he had purchased (on pain of death) at Izuna’s request. ‘Not that the condition of these things matters much’, Madara thinks in annoyance, biting into what is functionally only slightly better than a brick of dried mud. And that’s just because of the vitamin content- the taste is basically identical. 

Still, needs must. After all, he’s almost a full day’s travel from the Uchiha compound; and while he is plenty capable of slowing down to hunt, Madara would rather just suffer the taste of convenience in order to get home quicker. The fresh provisions from his stay with the Daimyo had only lasted him so long, but if shit food is all he has to endure on this trip, that's fine in Madara’s book. Well, shit food and mind numbing political meetings- but at least those had a purpose and are now several leagues behind him.

When his Father had fallen to sickness during the last summer, Madara had finally been appointed Clan Head in the days soon after. Not to say he had wanted that- because he very much had not- but his desires had eventually been buried under obligation as Uchiha Tajima grew paler and weaker by the hour, pulled to heel by the strange illness that had taken root in his chest. The Daimyo has summoned Madara twice since then; first to measure whether he would be a worthy- and loyal- clan leader, and this time to gauge if Madara thirsted for war the same way his Father had, the way the Council of Elders still did. The old fools.

Not that the Daimyo had much to worry about there; Madara had wanted peace since he was 10- too young to be experiencing the horrors of the world, but old enough to understand them from where he stood before his youngest brother’s funeral pyre, the smell of burning flesh searing away the last of what little innocence he still clung to. His hands may have already been drenched in the blood of those more than twice his size, but Madara hadn’t yet come to terms with how cruel the world could be until Saburo, little more than a toddler, lay cold and dead at his feet- eyes black holes of viscera where bloodline hunters had carved them out. Madara should have been there, would have been, had this thrice damned war not forced him to the frontlines under his father’s orders. A dutiful soldier he had been molded into, but that day Madara was nothing more than a failure of an older brother.

After that, he had clung almost frantically to Izuna. His last remaining brother made a show of pushing back against the overbearing attention in the daytime- cursing Madara for hovering during training and refusing to let him go anywhere outside the compound alone- but when night fell, it was always Izuna who crawled into Madara’s futon, curling up in his older brother’s arms as they both shook with tears. During those long months, Madara had sworn to himself that he would bring peace or die trying. Anything to spare Izuna from the same bloody fate that had befallen Saburo. But a ten year old’s opinions aren’t exactly valued at a war table, and it would be three years before Madara met someone who shared his dream.

His name was Hashirama- and there on the banks of the Naka River where they happened upon one another, Madara made his first friend. Their meetings were few and far between (war time did not lend itself in favor of social visits) but when the children could sneak away, they would sit on the soft grass for hours and imagine what things could be like if the world was different. Peace took shape in the form of loud arguments and chicken scratch drawings in the dirt; dreams of a village, a place for all the clans to live together. A place without war, without the threat of famine, where children were raised to be something other than fodder for battle before they even lost their baby teeth.

The bond that he and Hashirama shared was a simple thing. It had to be, for people like them. Madara didn’t know what clan Hashirama hailed from, and the other boy was similarly in the dark. The only things that tied them together were grief and loss, shaped into something like hope. 

“You aren’t the only one who’s had to mourn brothers for the sake of this war.”

That idiotic bowl cut was a good distraction from how Madara’s friend was more than just the silly fool he acted as.

But it hadn’t lasted- it couldn’t have, not in the simple, easy bubble of companionship that the boys had grown so accustomed to. Too accustomed. Careless.

It was Izuna who found them. Endlessly suspicious and equally as protective as Madara himself, it was really more of a shock that his younger brother hadn’t tracked them down sooner. That was the day that truly set change in motion- because amidst the furious threats that Izuna slung at Hashirama from where he planted himself in front of Madara, bristling and spitting like an angry cat, there was one accusation, one word that couldn’t be ignored.

Senju.

The bubble was firmly popped, and they were forced to face a dreadful reality. Two friends, two clans. Opposite sides of the same wars. They should have met on the battlefield, should have fought and bled and died without the slightest hesitation, firmly believing nothing but the worst of the nameless boy standing across from them. But now… 

The only bright spot in an otherwise ugly situation was that Izuna had come alone. His love for Madara had made him hesitate when he considered running to Tajima, and he had chosen to confront his brother himself. It didn’t fix things- not by far- but it gave Madara time. To explain things to Izuna, and to think.

He held no love for the Senju. Dreams of peace did nothing to dull the horror of watching his clansmen fall, crushed beneath the heavy blow of doton and buried above ground with soil in their lungs and eyes glassily fixed on the clear sky above them. But that was the price of war, and if Madara hated any who harmed his family, he would become trapped in the very cycle of violence that he sought to avoid. His choice had been made a long time ago- now the only thing that had changed was the possibility of an olive branch, tentative and hopeful.

If he could befriend one of his clan’s greatest enemies, there had to be a chance. Somehow.

But it was years before that chance came. Madara and Hashirama met- both on and off the battlefield; sticks and drawings in the sand exchanged for great fireballs and the twisting branches of the mokuton, rambling dreams crumbling away to quiet determination as the two grew and fought and bled and watched peace stay ever out of their reach. Izuna called him foolish, an stubborn idealist who needed to face reality before his daydreaming got him killed. But time wore on and Izuna’s shoulders sagged under the weight of responsibility- a thirteen year old running solo assassination missions, groomed to take over the intelligence squad while his voice still cracked with youth.

He was too stubborn to admit it, but Madara knew. It was obvious in the exhaustion lurking in dark eyes, and the way Izuna still snuck into Madara’s room trembling. How he never once breathed a word about Hashirama to Tajima, despite his many vocal protests. He was tired just like Madara was. 

Just like Hashirama.

Madara knew that Izuna still followed him to the banks of the Naka, ever vigilant even if Hashirama had never harmed Madara off the battlefield. He clung to the shadows instead of joining them, but Izuna never bothered to hide that he had been listening when he slung scathing words about their plans back in Madara’s face days later. Madara didn’t blame him for it. He knew that venom was hiding plenty underneath.

In the end, it wasn’t even Madara who cracked Izuna’s spiteful veneer. It was Hashirama, curled in the river shallows under the massive boughs of a weeping willow that hadn’t been there just days before, face ugly red and agonized. He could no longer hide his tears under ugly bangs, instead shoulder length hair stuck wetly to his damp cheeks as he looked for all the world like he was contemplating drowning himself in the very river he sat in.

“Itama is dead.” Hashirama had croaked, brown eyes dull and empty in a way Madara had never seen before. He quietly sat beside his friend and ignored the way the cold water swirled over his calves and soaked through his pant legs. “I… I didn’t know until it was too late. The trees can’t tell me everything. There wasn’t much left of him to recognize, by the time I finally found him.”

The willow groaned overhead, new branches creaking to life and roots twisting out of the soft earth by their feet.

“There was so much blood. The nasturtium under his body was soaked with it. I’m almost… grateful that he was so badly burned.” His voice skittered into a high, manic laugh. “My last sight of my brother’s face, and he was too distorted to recognize- but I’ll never know the true extent of what they did to him. Should I count myself lucky?”

Madara had swallowed thickly, bile rising at the back of his throat as he watched Hashirama clutch shaking fingers into tangled chestnut hair. He hadn’t spoken. After all, what good were words in the face of unthinkable violence?

Hashirama’s gaze was raised to the trailing green of the leaves above them, wide and unseeing as he breathed wetly around his grief. “You know. At least they had the decency to leave his eyes intact. Though I’m sure that was more them thinking about their own eyes than it was mercy. Child killers don’t have mercy.”

Even years passed, Madara still remembers the way the breath punched out of his lungs and left him unsteady.

“...you don’t mean…”

The Senju heir’s eyes were hard steel, petrified wood- unbendable as they stared down Madara’s own.

“I killed them all, Mads. And I’m not sorry. I wrapped vines and thorns around their throats and choked the life out of their lungs, I grew branches into their limbs and felt them struggle and scream around the rough bark as it scraped beneath their skin. They deserved it, for what they did. And I would do it again.”

The Naka burbled quietly.

“I may want peace, but child killers have no place in our dream. Not even those who hail from your clan.” 

Madara had shifted to press his shoulder against the other teen’s, mind too scattered to speak but still desperate to offer the comfort his friend needed. Rage and grief and shame had warred equally inside him. Anger at his clan and his father for refusing to listen to him. Disgust that he had ever spoken to people who could carry out such acts, who would torture and burn a boy even younger than Izuna. 

Hatred, at himself, for failing once again to protect a brother.

If he had tried harder, pushed more against his father’s child killing squads, then maybe, maybe Hashirama wouldn’t have lost his last sibling. 

They had both been so absorbed in their own thoughts that neither noticed the hesitant footsteps of another presence until it sat down by Madara’s side.

“You did the right thing.”

Izuna’s voice had been quiet and tremulous. Hesitant of rejection, but face set firmly in a determined stare.

“They deserved all that and more. Don’t apologize for being human in a way that they weren’t.”

The cycle of violence had renewed itself again, but in doing so it brought the last brother into their fragile and oh-so small circle. Three boys not yet men, bound and determined against the hatred that had plagued their families for decades before their births. Against the anger of their clansmen, the long held spite of their elders, and their own fathers refusing to even entertain a world without fighting; an insurmountable task stretched before them. Plans and strategies and desperate words were nothing in the face of history.

And then Senju Butsuma died.

Cut down on the very battlefield that he refused to abandon, throat weeping red over Tajima’s tanto. Hashirama, only months into his 17th year, shed no tears at the river that week. Izuna’s blunt question after whether or not Hashirama mourned his father at all had been answered with a tight smile and,

“I said child killers had no place in our dream, didn’t I?”

The Uchiha had fallen silent as Hashirama looked down at the scrolls of their plans and treaty drafts that lay spread on the dirt between them.

“I’m to be named Clan Head in the morning,” He continued. “We’ll be one step closer. Just your father and the elders to push back- the clan members will follow, even if reluctantly. But they’re all as tired as the rest of us.”

“And if our father refuses to listen?” Madara asked.

“Then we wait.”

He hadn’t needed to elaborate what they would be waiting for. Death was an inevitability in their lives, and if one death could bring about something good… It was easy math to do.

Much like Butsuma, Tajima was set in his ways, stubborn in the manner of people who are so used to tragedy they fear the possibility of something kinder. Four years was a long time, and even longer still when no one listened to what Madara had to say. Izuna’s support came in silence, his younger brother working to gather information as their clan focused on Madara’s more vocal obstinance. Their one victory came when Tajima agreed to disband the child killing squads.

As for the rest, the illness did it for them. Whatever hopes Madara had held of his father seeing reason had long since dulled to resigned acceptance. His dreams of peace would come at the cost of the man who raised him, and Madara would be made to take up a mantle he had never wanted. Sacrifices in the name of something greater.

And now, four years passed Hashirama’s ascension to Clan Head, Madara finally matched him in position. A decade of effort and hope and pain, and finally there was light at the other end of the tunnel. Because the Daimyo had grown tired of the fighting too. The reasons differed greatly from their own- rich, powerful people who sat on gilded pedestals would never understand the dirt and blood of war- but an order from the court that their clans were duty bound to follow was worth more than Madara and Hashirama’s speeches of peace.

Politics and worthless pomp and circumstance meant nothing now that Madara was finally, finally coming back with the very thing he had longed for for so long. Orders for a ceasefire. He charged home as soon as he could, grin feral as he pictured the indignant shock on the wrinkled old faces of his elders when they read over what amounted to a politely worded demand for the very things they had been refusing him all these years. If he got really lucky, Elder Takehiko might work himself into such a frenzy about it that his fragile heart would just give right on up. 

That would solve a good chunk of his problems.

But for now, Madara will sit in the warm branches of this oak tree, eat his shitty rations, and maybe catch a quick nap to supplement the fact that he had run straight through the night. Then, he’ll make for home. Bird calls ring out from the trees surrounding his perch and Madara tilts his head, listening absently for any that sound unnatural or mimicked. His paranoia serves him well most days, but right now the only thing that he hears is the organic noise of nature.

He stuffs the ration pack- now just a cloth wrapped around loose crumbs- into his kit again, and drops his head back against his gunbai with a thump and a weary sigh. His armor is stiff and unyielding around his torso, and the bark under his ass is rough and uncomfortable. It’s the most at ease he’s been since the compound vanished from sight behind him weeks ago. Madara stares up at the branches above him, eyes lazily watching the shift of light as it plays along the gently waving leaves that block out the blue of the sky. 

Warm breeze ghosts across the lake, sending a shiver down his spine as it further cools the drying sweat of travel that clings to his skin. With a huff, Madara leans his cheek to rest on his shoulder, face turned towards the calm water and against the wind. Rest on missions is hard to come by when your senses are constantly keyed up searching for potential threats, but Madara knows well enough that he should sleep when he can. Short naps keep shinobi from making deadly mistakes, and a nice tree above a picturesque lake is as good a spot as any.

Lazy ripples spread below him as leaves and bugs alight on the water, cattails and lily pads drifting aimlessly in peaceful motions. It’s a far more relaxing place than his rooms at the capital. Lavish they may have been, but Madara barely slept, instead spreading his chakra through the echoing palace halls as his senses strained for any possible assassins stupid enough to try him. There’s no assassins here, no attendants roaming the halls and servants bustling about at all hours of the night- just birds and deer and the warm growth of the forest.

A haze is encroaching on his tired mind, and Madara’s eyes droop with exhaustion as he twists and shuffles to try to get comfortable on the solid oak he’s splayed over. His gaze drags absently over the towering firs and the wide crowns of beech trees that surround him. There’s a robin’s nest settled in the crook of a branch, and a red squirrel darting over the bark a stone’s throw away. And a pair of red eyes shining out at him from among the pine needles.

He stares for a moment, suspended in that in-between state before sleep stakes its claim over consciousness. His brain works sluggishly as the eyes narrow and tilt in a way that suggests their owner has tilted their head in a similar manner. And then all of Madara’s training kicks back into him at once, lungs filling with a sharp inhale as black pupils blow wide and adrenaline floods his system.

Madara braces his hands underneath him and shoves upwards, seamlessly twisting the leg that was tucked under him into a crouched position balancing on the balls of his foot. In the split second that that motion takes- while he’s still pulling up his other leg from where it dangles below him- his balance slips. Madara, in a move that he will heartily curse himself for later, freezes and looks down. A rookie mistake.

The moss that he’s braced on sloughs off the tree under the weight of his frantic motions and Madara goes with it, a startled yelp bursting from his mouth as his arms pinwheel through open air. His last thought before he hits the water is, ‘if that mistake doesn’t get me killed, Izuna can never find out about this’. With a tremendous splash, he’s submerged in the cold depths of the lake. Gravity and the weight of his armor push him down several feet into the water where thick silt and trailing weeds cloud his vision.

Righteous embarrassment strikes him still momentarily, and Madara finds himself locked in an indignant staring contest with a trout that was too stupid to be startled away from the commotion. His thoughts are caught somewhere between, ‘maybe I should just drown myself’, and ‘I need to kill whoever that was so they can’t tell anyone about this’, before he flails himself upright and shoves back towards the sky above him.

He’s trained well enough (though that last display certainly didn’t show it) that he regulates his breathing as soon as he surfaces despite his body’s first instinct to draw in air in a deep gasp. Madara shoves chakra into his palms and boosts up onto the lake, holding himself steady on top of the rippling water until the rest of his body is crouched in the same stance he had been trying to assume only moments before. With eyes swirling into the red and black pinwheel of the sharingan, he snaps his head up to search the treetops for the owner of those strange eyes, pointedly ignoring the sodden weight of his hair as it drips around him and clings to his cheeks.

A soft noise echoes down from above him, several feet closer to his original perch than where he had first spotted the potential threat. Madara’s gaze shoots straight towards the source, mouth opening and chakra pooling at the back of his throat as he draws his hands together to form the hand signs for a katon and-

He freezes.

Oh. 

There’s a person crouched in the trees above him.

Madara can feel his sharingan spin faster, and the world seems to slow in comparison.

It’s a young man, clear blue yukata splayed open around muscled thighs from where he’s huddled among the leaves staring down at Madara. Shaggy, short white hair drifts in lazy waves against porcelain pale skin, and the red marks that slash across his sharp cheekbones are punctuated by the impossibility of soft, fuzzy white and gray furred ears that adorn the sides of his face. A long fingered hand is splayed over the lower half of an angular face, mostly covering a pink mouth that’s just barely open and tilted up in a tiny smile, the small point of a fang poking out from under the quirk of the top left-side lip. His pupils- framed by white lashes that match his hair- are the same shade as the marks, as Madara’s still active sharingan that he’s staring down without hesitation.

He’s stunning. And the quiet noise that Madara can still hear him making is punctuated by the subtle movements of his shoulders. He’s laughing. He’s laughing at Madara.

Madara can still feel his mouth dropped open, chakra long since sputtering into nothing in the wake of the quiet awe that he’s sure is painfully visible on his face. He… doesn’t think he’s ever embarrassed himself as bad as he just had. He’s also pretty sure that this strange man isn’t going to attack him. However, there’s one outstanding fact that he’s incredibly certain of.

Madara is absolutely, undoubtedly in love.

And he is also dripping lake water like a bedraggled house cat while pathetically gaping at the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

Damn.

He raises his hands to squeeze what feels like half of the lake out of his hair, only to jerk into stillness when the other man tenses and goes silent. Madara feels abruptly like he should apologize, but he doesn’t quite know what for. The figure above him shifts on the balls of his feet and the two rosetted tails (tails?! Madara is obviously losing his mind) that he had somehow not noticed before stiffen into wary curls. Madara’s sharingan flicks down to catch on the minute movement of muscles bunching in powerful calves, the tightening of strong legs the way someone looks right before they-

“Wait!” He yells.

Completely disregarding his call, the white haired man springs out of his tree fast as an arrow. If his eyes hadn’t been active, Madara almost doubts he would have caught the movement. Just seen a blur of white, blue and black over his head-

…black?

Madara’s head snaps to where his pack still sits in the oak tree so quickly he can hear his neck pop. His kit is in the same place he left it (fell away from it) but it’s upended across the stretch of wood- kunai, shuriken, the cloth his rations were in- it’s all been dumped out. His spare pair of pants flutter from where they lay draped off the branch, and the white strips of his leg wraps are tangled up in a clump of leaves. And there’s- where…? 

Oh. That’s what it was. 

Madara whirls back around in the direction that the stranger who just stole his shirt went. His mind is stalling out in a way that reminds him depressingly of the dazed face that Hashirama makes whenever Izuna starts talking about his unnecessarily complex spy network of cat summons. He feels completely wrongfooted and out of his depth, and he wants so badly to chase after that streak of white and find out why in the world he just had his laundry stolen, of all things.

But… 

The missive from the Daimyo is stuck between his pack and a knot in the wood that it rests on, thankfully not victim to the same treatment as Madara’s spare turtleneck. Izuna and Hashirama will be waiting for him to return, anxious for updates about the one thing that can finally free them all. Progress can’t wait, even as Madara’s whole world rearranges itself around fuzzy ears and geranium red irises. He can’t stay.

“Damn, damn, damn!” He hisses under his breath, leaping off the lake surface and landing in a crouch by all his belongings, haphazardly stuffing them without rhyme or reason back into his pack. He has a day’s travel until he reaches home, and then who knows how long he’ll be tied up in the compound by bureaucracy and idiocy. Madara swings his gunbai into the holster on his back, movements sharp and efficient from years of practice. He casts one last, long look behind him, and then pushes off out of the tree, chakra propelling him south-west at top speed.

Madara would come back, and when he did he would track down the man that had settled at the Core of him and ask for his name.