Chapter Text
Tobirama heads back to his dorm from his evening class. He needs to drop of his things and get ready to meet with Madara. A date at 9pm is likely late by normal standards, but with their hectic schedules it was the best they could manage. Abnormal date times aside, the months, almost a full year now, since they started dating have been absolutely wonderful.
Madara and Tobirama are different majors, business and pre-law respectively, but there is enough overlap between them that they had several classes together the beginning of Tobirama’s second year and Madara’s third. United by a mutual distaste for an arrogant professor they simply fell into dating. Now Madara’s graduation is coming soon, and Tobirama will be finishing out his last year and then going to law school, after he moves into the workforce. All that change will probably have its rough points, but he knows they’ll pull through fine. They’ve found a lot more in common than just hating that professor since they started dating.
Arriving at his room, he tosses his things onto his bed and checks himself quickly in the bathroom mirror. Once he’s sure he looks good, and not like he just spent an hour and a half having his brain numbed by his statistics class, he heads back out. Madara is waiting for him at their favorite coffee shop. Tobirama’s always had what Hashirama calls ‘a dangerous coffee addiction’, but he’s not sure how he would’ve made it through any college without it. Luckily, he doesn’t just drink a lot of coffee, he genuinely enjoys coffee. Madara is the only person he’s met who seems to like it even more than him, and they enjoy going on upscale coffee dates.
Tobirama steps into the café with only a couple minutes to spare. He spots Madara at their usual table, and notices that he already has their coffee orders. Efficiency is very attractive. Madara’s is part of his charm, even if he’s horribly blunt because of it. He doesn’t mind that; he’d be a hypocrite if he did.
“How was class?” Madara asks, setting down his drink as Tobirama slides into the seat across from him.
“The same as usual,” he groans out, and takes a deep drink from his cup. Ah, coffee, what would he do without you? He feels better already. “How were yours?”
“Fine,” Madara replies, but his face says otherwise. Tobirama levels him dry look, still sipping his coffee.
“It’s nothing important,” he says in response, his nose crinkling in disgust. “I could just swear I smelt something bad all over campus,” he clarifies, and returns to his drink.
That’s a bit odd, but not that much of a surprise. Madara has always had a very sensitive sense of smell. Scents Tobirama doesn’t notice at all have bothered him several times before. Someone probably carried something weird around campus with them and he picked up on the traces of it all day.
“I’m sure the smell will be dissipated by your first class tomorrow,” Tobirama says. Madara doesn’t seem reassured though. He’s frowning crossly at his coffee. Really, what’s he so worried about from a smell? He’s never so angry about the other scents he’s complains about.
As they get caffeine into their systems the date picks up, and Madara’s oddly strong reaction to the smell is forgotten. There’s really nothing like a good cup of coffee or two in the company of someone you care about. Tobirama is finishing his second cup as eleven passes.
“We ought to be heading back to the dorms,” he reluctantly says. He pushes himself up from the table, and reaches his hand out. Madara grasps it and stands up as well.
“I suppose we should be in our rooms by midnight. Even though there’s no curfew, that RA is always blowing their top,” he agrees.
They head back slowly, enjoying walking the normally busy streets without anyone else around. The night air is cool, but Tobirama’s hand is warm where it rests in Madara’s. As they near the edge of campus he notices Madara becoming twitchy. Looking over his shoulder and staring at the shadows, as if he feels someone is watching them. It’s unsettling, and Tobirama would dismiss it as paranoia from the dark, however, though they’ve walked home late before he can’t remember Madara ever acting like this.
He forces his gaze away from a dark area and looks at Tobirama nervously. “Please, go ahead without me tonight,” he says suddenly.
“Are you sure? Back to my own room?” he asks. Normally they’d go back to Madara’s dorm for a while before Tobirama heads back to his, since Madara doesn’t have a roommate.
“Yes, sorry. I, uh, remembered I need to take care of something,” Madara replies, staring back towards the same pitch-black spot.
“Okay. I’ll see you later,” Tobirama says. He leans over to kiss Madara’s cheek, and pulls away. He can already hear Madara heading in the direction he was looking as he continues towards his dorm, and makes the split-second decision to turn back. Normally he’d trust him, but Madara’s been acting strange and he’s getting worried. What if he’s gotten himself into trouble? He has to check on him.
Tobirama approaches slowly, keeping his footsteps as light as he can, and ducks around a corner near where Madara headed. He can make out his dim figure nearing a second person, but he’s too far to tell who it is. He moves in closer as Madara appears to argue with the other person about something. Peering out from a closer corner, a street light near the two of them gives him just enough light to see. The other person is a man with straight dark hair, long and tied near the end, and startlingly light eyes that have no apparent pupils. He’s close enough now that he can make out some of what’s being said.
“Do you really think you can walk around Uchiha land, Hyuuga?” Madara says, practically growling at the other man, Hyuuga, Tobirama supposes. He hopes Madara isn’t planning to brawl in the streets.
“I really think this won’t be Uchiha land much longer,” Hyuuga replies. His voice is deep, with a nauseatingly arrogant quality, and on second thought he wouldn’t blame Madara if he punched him a time or two. They do begin fighting then, but it’s not at all in the manner Tobirama had just imagined.
Hyuuga’s eyes change quickly from nearly all white, to nearly all black, and his back erupts with red. Four, large, reaching, tendrils spread out from him, and he pushes himself up on two of them. The other two tentacles point down at Madara and stab towards him from their vantage point.
Tobirama gasps to himself, and makes an aborted lunge forward, before pulling himself more firmly behind the corner as Madara’s back erupts also. Deep purple spreads out behind him like feathers. The mockery of a single wing behind him. Madara jumps back, letting the tendrils slam into the concrete where he was just standing. Dust and shards of stone billow into the air.
Madara’s wing seems to crystalize, glittering like amethyst in the dim street light. He pierces through the settling dust, shooting shards of his wing back towards Hyuuga. A rain of beautiful and deadly projectiles. Some of the shards imbed into the tentacles as they pull back, others dig into the already wrecked concrete.
As the two red tendrils rear back, resembling sharp clawed fingers, ready to continue their assault, Madara throws himself forward at the ones holding Hyuuga up. Faster and nimbler than the red forms, and the man they are attached to, he knocks them out from under his attacker with little resistance. Grappling one and pinning it down he drives a storm of amethyst shards directly into one area of it.
He retreats back as the other tendrils approach him, but doesn’t let go of the one he had held down. Weakened by the shards it snaps apart, spraying red everywhere. Hyuuga lets out an enraged screech, and throws himself forward, running with all three of his remaining tentacles up. He attacks Madara in a barrage of berserker style thrust. The clawed ends of the tendrils sending more concrete dust into the air, so much so that Tobirama can barely make out what’s going on now.
Hyuuga’s renewed furry turns out to be for naught. He lands one strong piercing hit, but overall Madara is too fast for him. Hyuuga collapses as his tentacles retreat into him, purple shards rooted in almost every inch of him. He’s fighting to remain conscious.
Madara is panting, tired from expelling so many shards, and clutching at his wounded side where the other’s one good hit landed. He trudges closer to Hyuuga and spits on him.
“When you can get your sorry ass up, go tell your clan to stay out, or this will look like a children’s quarrel,” he hisses. Hyuuga does seem to fall unconscious then.
Tobirama had remained frozen for the duration of the fight, completely unprepared to witness what must be a territory dispute between ghouls, but now everything is crashing down on him. Madara was just in a ghoul territory dispute. Madara is a ghoul. He’s dated him for nearly a year, and never noticed anything. Has he ever seen Madara eat? They’ve certainly never gone for dinner together. He never thought that was strange before. Their thing is coffee, not dinner, but now he thinks perhaps not even having dinner once should have been a red flag.
Madara is hurt. He’s still clutching his side, heading in the direction of his dorm slowly. Tobirama needs to help him, didn’t he come check on him to help? But, god, a ghoul, all this time. Suddenly, he falls forward, his large mane of dark hair sprawling around him as his wing disappears. Tobirama sucks in a deep breath and steadies himself as well as he can. Madara is his boyfriend, and he needs his help right now. It isn’t practical to worry about that now. He’ll carry him back to his dorm, make sure he’s okay, and then… he’ll have to confront him about it. Later.
This can’t be much harder to figure out than their post-graduation schedules, and he was sure they could do that.