Chapter Text
Tobirama looks over Anija's room.
Bereft of the man who gave it personality, it is barren and bleak. Tatami, a futon, the table in the corner, they could belong to anyone and Tobirama feels the sudden urge to destroy it.
To take a blade to the room and leave it as devastated as he feels.
He quells the impulse, pushing it away. Such a thing would achieve nothing, not for him and not for the clan. Or, perhaps he should say, for the family.
The Senju are few now, most of them having taken Anija's instructions to treat the village as family to heart. They've spread out, married into other clans, until only he and Anija's children remain. There's always Mito of course, but she is a princess of the Uzumaki and always will be. Forever set apart from the rest of them, a migratory sea bird in the forest.
Tomorrow, after the funeral, someone else will take this room. He doesn't know who, nor does he care.
He only knows that it won't be him.
The finest room in the house would only rip open wounds in his heart that are still sluggishly bleeding and Mito must feel the same for she has already taken her things and left.
Only the last of Anija's belongings still remains and Tobirama approaches the box on the table warily. It's foolish, he already knows the contents, but it feels malignant somehow.
Poisoned with memory.
He, a man who has always chosen to live in the present, to live in the bitter truth of reality, has never touched Anija's box of dreams and memories. But he knows them all, from Itama's feather and Kawarama's hair to Madara's leaf and rock.
If he opened that box, would the leaf still be green? Held in a moment of timelessness by the mokuton? Or would it be as brown and lifeless as his brother's eyes?
Tobirama doesn't know, but it feels important that he does.
He raises the lid.
The leaf is brown.
He lifts it out, cradling it between his palms, and feels it crackle against his skin like the last leaf of autumn. Tobirama curls over it, broken by the pain and loss of hope as he knew he would be.
His tears fall like rain but their salt will never nourish this, the last symbol of his brother's hopes.
"Anija. I miss you."