Chapter Text
No matter Hashirama’s assertions to the contrary, Tobirama is hardly unfamiliar with identifying gaps in his knowledge. After all, the mark of any good route of inquiry is to first identify such a gap and then seek to rectify it. While he believes there to be more than a little merit in corroborating suspect findings, he personally finds far more satisfaction in pushing boundaries rather than reinforcing old ones.
In present circumstances, he is more than aware that he’s stepping in complete shadows, blind. Normally that knowledge would be an advantage to his motivation. When Uchiha Madara is involved, however, Tobirama cannot help but feel that the shadows hold a den of particularly cantankerous vipers.
It does not help that Madara is the one to approach him—at the privacy of Tobirama’s own home--outside of work, no less.
He watches the Uchiha on his doorstep warily. The potential reward must be high if Madara is willing to risk conceding proverbial high ground to Tobirama to begin with.
Madara arches a brow expectantly, “Common courtesy dictates you invite me inside.” Tobirama folds his arms and doesn’t move an inch. The veneer of Madara’s careful patience shows the first crack in narrowed black eyes. “I have business to discuss with you,” he tries again, “A private matter.”
Tobirama cannot sense outright deception, but such a fine detail is almost impossible to detect in a trained shinobi, no matter his sensory prowess. What he can sense is the tight coil of conflict and anger, but that much is already visible in his defensive posture. So it’s to be an argument over some other suggestion Tobirama has brought forth, without Hashirama to pull them apart.
Tobirama steps back but keeps his awareness on Madara. He hardly suspects an outright physical attack—not without the forewarning of an argument on both sides—but old paranoia dies hard. Peace is not something that is natural to Tobirama as it is to Hashirama, who already wears it like a well-love coat. Izuna calls him a paranoid bastard; Tobirama is quick to point out that Izuna has yet to wander the relative safety of the village without at least one weapon and a backup hidden on his person.
The fact that they speak at all about anything other than coordinating Research and Development’s new involvement with the spy rings perhaps undercuts their arguments against one another.
(A year into peace, Tobirama still does not know what to make of finding an equal in curiosity—if perhaps in a different medium—in a man he has so long considered an enemy. A man he very nearly killed.)
If Madara desires the guise of proper decorum, Tobirama supposes he will give the Uchiha little room to complain on that front. The motions of making tea are familiar and give him time to assess the situation before they inevitably rile each other into another fight.
Madara waits, but it isn’t patiently. For such a temperamental man, he can be unexpectedly still and careful when it suits him. This is not that. Dark eyes search over everything from the stacks of reference materials for Tobirama’s latest project to the trinkets on the shelves. His foot taps occasionally but silently. His shoulders are squared, and his arms are crossed in a defensive posture. Clearly he’s stopped at home between returning to the village from his mission and arriving at Tobirama’s door: the familiar armor has been put away, and the shallow cut on his cheek has clearly been cleaned.
Tobirama frowns at the cut. It follows the curve of Madara’s left cheek. Thin. No more than a graze. What catches Tobirama’s attention is that it sits less than two centimeters below his left eye.
Madara takes notice of Tobirama’s gaze and turns his head as though he’s looking at something else to put the cut out of view.
Suspicious. Tobirama has seen him sacrifice a deeper wound to the arm to prevent something similar before. Uchiha are notoriously protective of their prized doujutsu, and their infamous clan head is often more of an extreme case rather than an exception. He can’t imagine a few foreign samurai causing even that little bit of damage.
Tobirama couches his curiosity in favor of serving tea. He will ask Izuna later, he decides. A weakness in either Hashirama or Madara, given their optimistic but still tenuous standing with Fire Country’s lords, is not something they can afford. Not when there are other clans who are still hesitant to join the village while any such doubt remains that peace will last.
Madara finally takes a seat when prompted but only takes a cursory sip of the tea. Tobirama sees it for the stalling tactic it is. Yet another piece that feels entirely out of place. Madara is a force of nature: he does not hesitate when his sights are set.
“Your urgent business?” Tobirama prompts. He will not allow himself to become unsettled by this change of pace.
Madara sets down the tea and purposefully meets Tobirama’s eyes. Tobirama, for his part, can never quite tell if it’s intended to be a threat or if that's his own paranoia from a lifetime of facing off against the sharingan. He suspects both in Madara’s case.
What he does not suspect is the carefully bland “I’m going blind.”
…what?
“What?”
There is a shameful fifteen seconds in which Tobirama is forces himself to regain his composure from the unadulterated shock. His eyes dip to the shallow cut. Madara’s grim frown confirms Tobirama’s assumptions about it. He clears his throat. “Izuna and my brother are overseeing mission dispatches; if this will affect your mission status, they should be informed,” he regroups, “This information hardly concerns me.”
Ah. There’s the scowl. “You,” he grits out irritably, “are infuriatingly obtuse sometimes. Has it not occurred to you that Izuna already knows?”
It has. Particularly since that would explain the tail end of the argument he’d overheard prior to Madara’s leaving regarding Izuna using his influence over dispatch to assign Madara mundane diplomatic missions hardly suiting his skill sets. He has noticed the tendency of the Mangekyo to at least damage the anatomy of the eye: bursting vessels and bleeding like viscous tears. Bleeding from the eyes is hardly what Tobirama would consider a marker of good health, not the least of which because of the potential damage from repeated stress.
It's also a rare Uchiha that Tobirama considers even remotely close to a standard archetype of model sanity.
Interesting but ultimately irrelevant at the moment. Tobirama raises a brow, “Your clan has somehow overlooked the need for healers specializing in your most prized bloodline?” He doubts that. Very much so. Therefore, something is at play here, and Tobirama is not entirely fond of making decisions based on incomplete information. The best way to pry information from a steely Madara is to make him angry... which typically has the unfortunate side effect of making Tobirama angry in turn.
“Of course we have healers,” Madara snaps, “You would know as much if you bothered to listen to any of the reasons I listed regarding your inane scheme to isolate—” He trails off irritably, visibly gathers the tatters of his frayed temper in the face of Tobirama’s lack of impression, and settles himself into an admittedly impressive display of casual authority. He’s regrouping—looking for a new tactic. “Uchiha medics are exceptional,” he says, purposefully looking over and dismissing Tobirama, who barely resists pointing out that Izuna would be dead if not for Tobirama’s prowess with chakra control superseding those same healers. “However, in regards to the sharingan, they’re blinded by ritual and tradition.”
He frowns to cover up a wince. Tobirama agrees: poor choice of verbs, given the topic.
“So it’s use of a fully evolved sharingan that's causing your vision to deteriorate,” Tobirama deduces, “An issue I assume isn’t unique to you.”
Madara bristles like an angry cat. Tobirama shamelessly enjoys wresting the upper hand back, which only seems to incite him further. “Before the thought enters your head, I will not allow you to use this information to undermine my clan for your petty grudge.”
Tobirama tilts his head. He remembers Itama once likened him to a curious cat over the gesture. Kawarama had immediately corrected him: ‘Only if that cat’s about to smack something.’ “The Uchiha I hold a grudge against are those who would undo the efforts of my brother and this village—intentionally or otherwise,” he counters irritably, “Namely you and your elders.”
That raises Madara’s hackles completely, “Hypocrite. Half of your efforts would’ve put my clan at a disadvantage and in isolation.”
Tobirama disagrees. There is delicate balance between appeasing the elders of both clans and a slow integration away from single-minded loyalty to a clan over the village as a whole. Perhaps that isn’t ideal, but he prefers that to… incidents that could easily destabilize everything they’ve worked for. Regardless. “You didn’t come here to argue politics,” he points out, refusing to raise to the bait this time. He’s already intrigued by the information presented to him. What he’s already inferred from Madara’s clipped statements is more than enough deterrent. “Your healers have a solution then?” he surmises, “One that doesn’t satisfy you.”
Madara’s posture goes subtly rigid. There’s shadows in his eyes—the brief flickers of rage and desperation Tobirama remembers from that night by the river with bloody hands, alight with healing chakra, pressed against Izuna’s side and the wound he’d made with those very same hands.
(He’d understood the options the moment he’d looked at Hashirama’s face, the desperation behind his pleas to agree, and the forming hate and madness laying in wait in Madara's whole being: Tobirama could save Izuna, or the their elder brothers would fight to the bloody death there, at the river where they’d once dreamt of peace. Tobirama had feared the latter had the potential to break something so very precious in Hashirama no matter the outcome of the battle.
He would not allow that.)
“I will not steal Izuna’s eyes,” Madara seethes as though isn’t his first time saying those very words.
Tobirama’s mind is silent for seconds before the information processes. He frowns because that makes no sense on a technical level as a solution given his understanding of chakra and anatomy. Uchiha ocular anatomy is doubtlessly unique and heavily tied to emotion if he had to guess. He wonders if it’s the extreme emotion involved with such a traumatic reality rather than the physicality of switching eyes because, honestly, only the Uchiha seem capable of such a drastic, morbid solution to a problem uniquely their own; however…
Oh. Apparently he’s been thinking too long. Madara appears all but ready to storm back outside.
“You understand,” Tobirama states bluntly, long past the point of treading carefully with this particular man, “that I would need to physically examine your eyes—possibly Izuna’s—as well your clan’s records regarding prior procedures?”
Madara’s eyes narrow dangerously. That is undoubtedly a threat. “You can have mine only. What you need from clan records, you may ask me.”
Tobirama isn’t a stranger to spite—particularly spite directed at Madara. He isn’t Hashirama. A significant portion of him wants to exile Madara from his home and return to establishing a reasonable budget for the village before they’re forced to dip further into clan funds and therefore risk antagonizing clan elders again. He frowns as he recalls his own thoughts earlier about perceived weaknesses in Hashirama and Madara. In Madara, particularly, given that he, with his impressive doujutsu, is the only one currently acceptable to the Hyuuga in negotiation, much to the Uchiha’s continued (and very vocal) frustration.
(When he'd asked Izuna why he wasn't acceptable, Izuna had curled his nose, mentioned stiffing a Hyuuga clan head, and something involving a kidnapping, copious amounts of alcohol, and a small forest fire. Tobirama had not asked for an elaboration.)
“Fine,” he finally agrees, moving to take a seat less than a foot from Madara. He lifts a hand, condensing his chakra down to the pale glow of medical ninjutsu. Madara watches him as though he’s a viper. Interesting. Apparently that feeling is mutual. “Close your eyes,” he instructs blandly, “I need understand what I’m to fix.”
The signs of tension and mistrust are easy to read: the balled up fists, narrowed eyes, and squared shoulders. Apparently, Tobirama realizes, he expected to be turned away. Interesting that he even tried. Slowly, ever so slowly, Madara obeys.
The moment Tobirama begins the cursory scan, Madara’s jaw clenches. Tobirama does not fault him this. In this position, he could sever Madara's optic nerve and chakra flow in an instant. It isn’t the actions of a trusting man; this is desperation. He plans to use himself as a lab rat, Tobirama realizes with sudden, starling clarity. If Madara’s eyesight is deteriorating, he assumes Izuna's isn’t all that far behind. If Tobirama can fix it without blinding Izuna in the process, he will apply it his younger brother.
It’s the sort of reckless thing in an otherwise suspicious man Tobirama would have done—did, with the ultimately failed plan for the Edo Tensei—for Itama and Kawarama. He would do no less for Hashirama. That is… not unexpected at all really. There are few who take familial bonds as seriously as the Uchiha.
“Uchiha tradition dictates you take Izuna’s eyes,” he prompts, partially surprising even himself, “Why?”
Madara’s scowl is impressive, even with his eyes shut. The tension doesn’t leave him—it merely redirects. As he talks, Tobirama pays it half a mind. Something to think about when his senses aren’t mostly focused at the strange, and admittedly fascinating, variation of the Uchiha ocular structure and pathways. Madara is correct about the damage at least. Even if Tobirama can’t pinpoint precisely the cause, the chakra pathways themselves are… burned out, he would almost say, if such a thing could exist. Scarred, perhaps is the better word. He’s never quite understood how physically painful activating the advanced form of the sharingan must actually be.
“Activate your sharingan,” he instructs when Madara is finished talking.
He feels it the instant Madara does. Chakra floods under his fingers like sparks across his senses. By all rights, it should clash with Tobirama's, given their respective elemental strengths. It does, to a point, when he inspects it, but perhaps that’s the most interesting part. The contrast it creates is... interesting.
He focuses on the pathways now opened by the sharingan. There’s disruption in the flow up chakra further up the pathway. Slight inflammation on the optic nerve itself, following the same pathway. Interesting, and likely contributing to the vision loss, but he can't find the cause in one sitting.
Tobirama eases the worst of the inflammation and heals the cut on a whim. Judging by the particularly deep breath sighed out against his arm, he’s suspecting he’s just cut down on what has been moderate headache. He ebbs his own chakra so that he can put distance—the table, in fact—back between them. Interesting. That still doesn’t explain how implanting a new set of eyes would fix anything. Given that Madara is convinced it’s worked in the past, Tobirama will need to identify the problem by that particularly extreme solution before they move forward to a potential new one.
Madara also said that he had reason to believe the procedure didn’t always work, after all.
“Well?” Madara prompts, opening his eyes to pin Tobirama with a look.
The sharingan’s basic form is still active. Tobirama cannot help but see the challenge in it: one made in turn for allowing a Senju, who is not Hashirama, so close to his prized weapon. Tobirama accepts, if only because his death now would be worth the warning it would provide Hashirama about the village’s co-founder.
Also, perhaps, because—as Touka often puts it—he is something of a ‘stubborn bastard’ when he wants to be.
(And, more than that, some small part of him has downgraded Madara from ‘potential destroyer of loved ones’ to ‘particularly infuriating colleague’ not long after watching Izuna drink him under the table for the third time in a row.)
The tomoe spin lazily in a sea of red. They’re beautify, objectively; true works of art in both form and function. Discomfort still settles like static on Tobirama’s long-honed survival instinct for looking at them straight on. Since the founding of the village, he’s felt little like this.
“I’ve found symptoms of damage, but I will need time to think on the cause—much less a solution,” he reports, “You’ll have to be patient, Uchiha.”
Madara frowns, but it’s not the outright scowl and posturing from before when Tobirama went out his way to imply an insult. This look is… considering. Cautious, but less so than before. He wonders if he imagines the tomoe spinning just a fraction of a second faster for a moment before those fearsome eyes are engulfed in their usual black. “Believe me, Senju,” he replies, “I’m patient when I need to be.”
He leaves without saying much else, insulting or otherwise.
Tobirama considers the exchange for a time before his curiosity gets the better of him.
Surely he has a few texts on ocular anatomy and chakra pathways laying around somewhere. At the very least, he can note what he’s seen and work from there.
Tobirama’s responsibilities keep him busy for the better part of two weeks. He, Mito, and Izuna—each previously in charge of the financial dealings of their respective clans—pour over the approximated income from village-sanctioned missions over the previous year and attempt to calculate a reasonable budget for each of the budding departments within the village. Hashirama, who childishly persists he’s allergic to numbers that aren’t set in neat columns, mostly leaves them to it. He drags Madara, who is hardly complaining about avoiding being locked in a room with Tobirama and Mito, along with him as a convenient excuse.
If Izuna is aware that his brother has approached Tobirama, he says nothing about it. Which means that Izuna is clearly unaware of the circumstances because that is exactly the sort of thing about which he would have something to say. Izuna is… not nearly as subtle as Tobirama once thought, he’s realized. At least, not when he isn’t actively trying to be.
At night, when he’s finished filing through the paperwork he sneaks home past Touka, he digs through anatomy notes and texts he’s collected over the years. Uchiha chakra networks appear to be so heavily specialized that little of it applies, but he refuses to go into such a delicate study without as much knowledge as he can amass.
When he comes by little in the way of progress, he finds his opportunity in the form of an administrative building empty other than himself and Madara. With Izuna off on a check-in with an old contact and Hashirama and Mito greeting the latest round of Daimyo emissaries, Tobirama is left to finish the most immediate of Hashirama’s paperwork while Madara is presumably picking up Izuna’s work.
“Does your sight deteriorate with each use of the mangekyo?” he asks somewhere between rejecting a request for frankly outlandish funding for a relatively simple—if ultimately pointless—development project and moving on to the stack of missives and requests Hashirama hadn’t gotten around to sorting into ‘accepted’ and ‘rejected’ piles.
There’s a clunk Tobirama only identifies as a brush hitting the desk when he looks up. Madara frowns disapprovingly, but that odd look is back in his eyes, “Are you always this abrupt?”
Tobirama stares, unimpressed, before pulling aside the first of the pages to sign by proxy for his brother.
“Of course you are,” Madara mutters as though personally offended by the lack of response. The shift of his brush picks up soon after. “If it does, I can't tell the difference without repeated uses.”
“Then I would like to examine your eyes when you activate it,” Tobirama says. He picks up the first of the next wave of requests and proceeds to make new stacks for those he estimates his brother will wish to accept or reject. He feels Madara’s gaze on him but sternly ignores it in favor of his work.
“Fine,” Madara decides, “But you’ll come to my home this time.”
Ultimately Tobirama agrees, if only to avoid the inevitable questions if Hashirama gets word the Uchiha patriarch has been in his home repeatedly. He suspects that’s at least part of the reason Madara makes his declaration anyway.
Perhaps he has more sense than Tobirama gives him credit for after all. In regards to Hashirama, at least.
Tobirama takes a detour when he leaves the administrative building to collect his notes and materials with which to write new ones.
Madara does not wait, not that Tobirama particularly expects him to, which leaves the Senju alone among the whispers and stares of the Uchiha when he sets foot among their homes. Tobirama ignores them easily enough and rather delights in the idea that Madara will have to explain this to the elders clustered around to watch.
…Perhaps he enjoys it a bit too much, as he doesn’t notice the child until there’s a sudden impact against his legs and a soft thud in front of him.
The Uchiha, previously content to whisper and stare, suddenly go tense. Tobirama ignores them to find the source of the impact—a young boy—shaking his head and looking up at the pale-haired Senju. The boy blinks three times with wide, dark eyes, and suddenly flushes red with embarrassment. He scrambles up to his feet, dusts himself off, and smiles shyly while he rubs at the back of a head full of wild, dark curls. “Sorry!” he exclaims with a few awkward, half-aborted hand motions, “I uh… You’re him, right? The Senju that’s too fast for the sharingan?”
Tobirama… does not actually know what to make of this child.
Fear, he understands. Senju children this boy’s age—old enough to have been on the cusp of entering the battlefield a year ago—flee the very sight of Madara and Izuna. He’s hardly a stranger to Uchiha children reacting the same to him. Only Hashirama and his natural cheer and general air of levity seems immune.
This child knows one of his most dangerous techniques—the one that nearly ended Izuna’s life—but hasn’t run the other way yet.
Intriguing.
“Hiraishin is a temporal and spatial displacement,” Tobirama corrects.
He senses more than hears the collective, mostly proverbial sighs of relief from the Uchiha spectators. The boy’s eyes widen—not with fear but enthusiasm. “Wait, so you actually teleport?”
Tobirama nods, more than a little surprised that a child of no more than twelve is following what would have Hashirama tuning out already, “More or less.”
The boy grins and grabs Tobirama’s sleeve. The Uchiha immediately go back on the defensive. Tobirama… is mildly concerned for this enthusiastic boy’s self-preservation instinct. Not that a non-hostile child has anything to fear from Tobirama, Uchiha or otherwise, but the boy should hardly be aware of that given the rumors about him. “Could you teach me?”
Tobirama considers him a moment, once again ignoring the spiking tensions of those around them. (If the boy notices, he gives no indication, which leads Tobirama to suspect he’s accustomed to this level of scrutiny.) He can sense a substantial amount of chakra for a child his age. Not uncommon among Uchiha.
The idea of taking on students has always been quite appealing. Now, with the village… he supposes he could do just that.
“Is it not polite to first introduce yourself to a prospective teacher?” he asks with a raised brow.
The boy flushes red again. He reminds Tobirama of Kawarama when Tobirama would tease him in much the same way, which aches in a place that has dulled with time but will never truly heal. The boy gathers himself and bows low to Tobirama, “I’m Uchiha Kagami.”
Tobirama returns the gesture, which seems to send the Uchiha into another round of shock and wary confusion, “Senju Tobirama.”
Kagami smiles wide and pleased. It immediately turns sheepish, “So um... Would you teach me?”
“Sealing is difficult art to master,” Tobirama warns, “There are other skills you must learn first.” There’s no way to know if any student will take to it until long after work has begun.
Kagami nods seriously, “I’m a hard worker. I promise.”
“Very well,” Tobirama replies, “Lead me to your clan head’s home, and I’ll take it up with him.”
Kagami shudders for a moment before he swallows and collects himself. Tobirama files that information away to contemplate later. “Okay,” Kagami agrees, coaxing Tobirama to follow with the grip still on his sleeve, “But Madara-sama is going to yell.”
Madara doesn’t yell, but he does eye Kagami suspiciously the instant he opens the door. “If you broke into the Senju compound this time…”
Kagami frowns deeply. If he’s intimidated by Madara, he doesn’t show it. “No, Madara-sama.”
Madara’s disapproving frown deepens enough that Kagami takes a step back and shifts to the left, just shy of hiding partially behind Tobirama. Now that Tobirama knows what to look for, he can almost see the way Madara’s eyes are not entirely focused. He’s noticed that a lot over the past two weeks. He suspects the damage is worse than he plays it off as.
“That’s what you said about the Sarutobi compound,” Madara says dryly.
Whatever notions Kagami had of hiding are gone. He flushes an embarrassed red and meets his clan head’s stare head on. “I told Izuna-sama I was visiting a friend,” he argues, then deflates a bit sheepishly, “Hiruzen just… kind of forgot to tell his family I was invited.”
Madara sighs as though that’s one headache dodged and glances at Tobirama. Tobirama, for his part, recognizes the look immediately: the one Madara sometimes directs at Hashirama or Izuna when he’s looking for confirmation. He’s just… never been on the receiving end of it save for the few times when Hashirama’s antics reached an extreme.
Tobirama places a hand on Kagami’s shoulder to calm him. It works apparently, even if it does cause Madara’s suspicion to shift right back to Tobirama. “Kagami led me here,” he explains, “He’s caused no trouble—quite the opposite.”
Kagami beams proudly. Madara snorts and all but rolls his eyes, but the tension has notably slacked in his form in favor of a similar brand of cautious curiosity to that night two weeks ago. It’s… odd, being under that scrutiny without the open hostility on either side. Odd, but not entirely unpleasant. If nothing else, it puts Tobirama more at ease that perhaps Madara is not quite as inflexibly stubborn as he once thought.
“Naturally you would be the one to say so,” Madara finally says. Tobirama frowns, otherwise non-pulsed, and refuses to merit that comment with an answer. Soon enough, Madara drops his gaze back to Kagami, “Don’t you have errands to run?”
Kagami looks between the two of them and then wisely nods and backs off the porch. He holds up a hand to wave cheerfully with a smile and a “See you around, sensei!” before he’s off down the road.
That, apparently, is enough to merit the strangled cry of “’Sensei?!’”
Tobirama will not deny the small, satisfied smirk it merits.