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Tobirama wakes to familiar walls and unfamiliar pain. Not a physical pain despite the thick bandages he can feel wrapped around his chest but a pain in his heart, in his mind, a pervasive thought that refuses to back down until he faces it head on with more horror than if he were facing death itself.
He had tried to kill himself.
In the heat of battle with his sensing abilities at their sharpest there was no mistaking that chakra signature. Perhaps another might find the idea of recognizing themselves strange or ludicrous but Tobirama is a man who pushes the boundaries of reality; his solid clones aren’t complete yet but he’s experimented with them enough to know the sensation of feeling himself standing across the room. The man who put a sword through his chest and whispered such horrific words in his ear, that was definitely himself.
He hears his brother’s voice but does not respond. Cannot respond. Darkness is all he sees behind the shuttered lids of his eyes and it’s all he wants to see. He wishes both that Hashirama will leave and that he will come closer, embrace him, whisper reassurances as he used to when they were children terrified of shadows in the night. To depend on others has always been something he strives against and it shames him now to wish for the comforts he outgrew so many years ago.
Dust clogs the air or maybe that is just his lungs suffocating themselves as he tries to breathe slowly enough that his brother will be fooled in to believing him still asleep. It won’t work forever. He will need to wake eventually before the medics declare him lost to the long sleep. Not, he thinks, that it would be such a terrible thing. If the gods have any sense they would take the life from his body and give it to any one of the other wounded here in the medic hall, good people who deserve to live far more than him. Alas, here he continues to lay with an ache is his chest unrelated entirely to the wound he knows will already have been sealed over before his return to the waking world. Others here will never wake no matter how he prays to take their place and it isn’t fair. This world is never fair.
He remembers nothing of the battle after the sword, that familiar sword he chose for himself as his very first weapon, pulling away from his chest and shredding not only his innards but the very foundations upon which he stands as a person. Who is he if not the shadow to his brother’s light? What is he if not the force that drives their people forward when his brother falters with misplaced kindness?
A monster, he thinks. Or something close to, something worse, the shape in the darkness that worries a monster with the doom it heralds. There is no other possible explanation for the events that unfolded in steel and agony – but oh how he wishes for a better explanation. How it burns in his veins to know that this world he loves so much would rather be rid of him. The life of a shinobi has never been kind nor glamorous but it is his life and perhaps the actions he takes are harsh but they are the best he has for the people under his care. For the clan, for his brother, for the children who play in the garden beneath his window as he wakes in the mornings. All things he would die to preserve, though this is hardly the manner of death he always envisioned.
In what way, he wonders, was he not good enough? Someday he will take a path, perhaps has already started his way down it, that will lead him to the point of no return and he will-. How did his other self put it? Break the world. He will break the world.
Senju Tobirama, the man who breaks the world.
The monster.
The madness.
The man who kills himself.
His fists clench under the sheet, praying, praying for his brother to leave, but the gods have never been kind to those who earn no favor. And why should they be kind to one who escaped his rightful fate? He should be dead. With each thunderous rush of blood past his ears he feels the death inside him, a weakness just waiting to spill out across the floor, and still he lays here. Tobirama isn’t sure if he fears it or yearns for it. Isn’t sure there’s such a large difference between the two options.
Soft murmuring fills his ears and fingers comb through his hair, pulling at knots as though to mock him with how long he has lain unmoving in the dark. His hair only knots when unwashed. Before he can make any melodramatic comparisons between unwashed bodies and the state of his soul someone calls for Hashirama's attention from across the room and he leaves with a gentle kiss to the forehead and promises to return. Even if he weren’t concealing his own state of wakefulness Tobirama would not have confessed how such words affected him, how they drive under his skin and batter at a heart already torn to pieces, small wounds made with good intentions.
The darkness of the healing hall is cool and the shame inside of him burns. It’s hard to resist the urge to curl up in to a ball and hold his stomach tight as it turns over and over until he fears he may sick up on the bed. Every second is an hour and every hour is a lifetime of agony spent trapped inside his own mind as unwanted thoughts chase themselves in circles again and again, dizzying, terrifying.
He had tried to kill himself. No matter how many times he analyzes the thought or how many angles he tries to look from there is no escaping the reality of it. At some point in the future he will come to the conclusion that the best thing for the world is to be rid of him. Not only that but to keep Izuna in place of him and he only ever comes to a true conclusion after lots of thought. He can recite the words his other self said to him verbatim, knows that until it was erased there existed a timeline in which his blow landed as he had planned. A world without Izuna. Triumph, he thinks, should not taste like bitter ashes. Should not taste like defeat. In his mind he has always seen Izuna’s death as a path towards the safety of his own people and to have that belief shredded so thoroughly shakes him down to the core of his being, makes him question more about himself than he’s ever had the desire to examine.
There are so many things to question in himself, so much darkness that he has always found ways to justify. He is far from the first to question the actions he takes. Many even among his own clan find cause for concern and alarm in the methods he uses to protect his precious people yet always has he scorned them. Cowardly, he called them. Now he turns his gaze inward to see that it is he himself who has been the coward unable to see the possible future for the way he fixates on the now.
Stupidity has never been an affliction he thought himself to suffer from but there it is.
When Hashirama returns he cannot say how much time has passed, only that the room is still dark and the hand that presses the hair back from his forehead too warm. He wonders if his brother has been sleeping. It is just like him to push the world away in favor of sitting with the undead. Soft words fill the air around him and Tobirama finds that he cannot take it anymore, cannot bear more words he does not deserve, and though it pains him to do so he opens his eyes to let the world in. Hashirama's gasp of joy cuts him deeply in places he has no name for.
“Thank the kami!” he cries. “I thought I’d lost you!”
His brother gathers him close and Tobirama hides his grimace in the older man’s shoulder, caught halfway between the habitual urge to snark that losing him was clearly the point and the extra layer of guilt that piles itself over him like a stifling blanket. When he fails to answer Hashirama pulls away to cup his face between two hands so gentle he wants to strike them away.
“Are you alright? Tobi? Please answer me!”
“My wound will heal,” he says because it’s the closest to the truth that he can offer.
It’s enough for Hashirama. “You’ve been asleep for days. The healers were beginning to worry that you might never wake up.” A soft smile, a softer touch between the greasy strands of his hair. “But I know you’re strong and I knew you would fight to stay here with me.”
Tobirama forces something like a smile so that he will not cry. It feels more like a grimace.
“What’s happened since the battle?”
As he’d known it would be, the distraction is enough to put stars in Hashirama's eyes in a way he has never accomplished on his own. That his big brother loves him has never been a question but then too he has never questioned what the choice would be between himself and ephemeral dreams. He is not, has never been, can never be more important than the idea of peace. Nothing else will ever put quite the same sparkle in those deep brown eyes, Hashirama's entire face lighting up as he launches in to a long-winded speech about how calm everything has been since that day. From the way he speaks it is obvious no overtures have been officially accepted quite yet but Tobirama can read between the lines well enough.
Change is in the wind now and it’s just another blow to his ego to know that his presence will not be required. What need have the changing tides for a pool of stagnant, poisoned water? It’s all he is, perhaps all he’s ever been, so perhaps he owes that other self a debt for stopping him before he can bring the world to ruin once again. He may not understand how or why but is that truly so important? What is most important is that he knows now that he will someday be the cause of so much misery – unless he removes that cause, of course.
Eventually the distraction runs dry and Hashirama will not be persuaded from fetching one of the healers to check him over. For all the Mokuton repairing him at an almost alarming rate the man has so little talent for healing when it comes to others, a fact he bemoans on each of the rare occasions Tobirama is the one laid low after a battle. Rather than ask why the man wastes the beats of his too big heart on someone who doesn’t deserve it Tobirama sits still and reluctantly allows a medic to check him over. Every touch against his skin is revulsion and every innocent question a battery against his mental state but in the end his calm behavior is rewarded with permission to leave the hall.
He tells neither his brother nor the healer that such freedoms are more of a curse than a reward. The problems he has or hasn’t yet created for the world are his own to solve or prevent as the case may be and Hashirama, whether he can forgive such sins or not, will never agree to the radical solutions Tobirama can already feel forming in his mind. It simply isn’t in his nature to allow the last of his brothers to remove himself from the equation. Tobirama knows what it is to do what is necessary. One of the many ways they differ.
Outside the hall the sun is much brighter than he feels it has any right to be. How can the day shine so brightly with so much darkness swirling inside of him? Clansmen pass him by and Tobirama draws as far in to himself as he can without also drawing attention, wary of touch lest he poison any others with the stain of his presence.
Why, he wants to cry at the heavens, why could his other self not have been more specific? Such vagueness preys on his mind, leaves his imagination to run out of control crafting the most dire of scenarios he came come up with – and the things he can come up with would break the minds of those not inured to the horrors of a shinobi’s life. Hashirama drags him through the bright sunlight in the safety of their clan compound and in his mind Tobirama is a monster soon to destroy all he sees before him in ways that will haunt generations to come with the terror of his memory. If they survive at all. Without knowing how he breaks the world he cannot know how much of the world will not survive his touch unless he is stopped.
His brother is a fool for saving him and Tobirama closes his eyes, wondering how there is still room in his chest to love this man with every sharp, agonizing breath.
“You still look pretty tired,” Hashirama notes. “Would you like to just rest at home? You can say hello to people tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”
Tobirama tries to imagine who his brother thinks is waiting on a hello from him and then stops the train of thought before it can get very far. He is not so twisted by recent events to think his entire clan hates him, though he’s come to believe that they would be much safer if they did.
“I would prefer to be alone, yes.”
“Aw, don’t say it like that. Don’t worry Tobi. I would never leave you alone!”
Looking away to hide the way his face pinches, Tobirama does not answer. Cannot make himself ask his brother to leave even if he know it’s best. For all the strength in him he is a weak man in the places where it counts and if ever there were a reason for him to destroy the world it is the shining example of goodness standing before him. In Hashirama's name he perseveres; it would be the most bittersweet of ironies if it were in Hashirama's name he destroyed everything they have ever loved.
The home they share is warm and welcoming and Tobirama sees the familiar rooms as a gilded cage. He doesn’t mention it. Hashirama guides him to the kitchen table and flutters around until he declares himself comfortable before darting away to make a spot of lunch, chattering all the while. Words tumble over each other with bull-headed cheer, filling the room with inanities, and Tobirama doesn’t even realize he isn’t listening until gentle fingers close around his own and he comes back to himself to find his eyes closed. Head on the table. Hands clutched over his ears as his body shakes. It’s been years since he experienced a panic attack, has almost forgotten the way the world around him turns white.
“You’re not okay,” Hashirama surmises and he cannot meet his brother’s eyes. “It’s alright not to be okay.”
“I’m fine. Stop fussing.”
“Otouto.”
With one simple word Hashirama drags from him a ragged gasp. He so rarely hears that title, a word neither of them like to utter for the way it reminds them of empty bedrooms and too small graves. The hand on his own lifts away to pull his head against a firm chest where he shuts his eyes tight to block out what he can of the world.
“You are not him,” his brother tells him firmly. Naively.
“Am I not? He was me. Three years in the future or three decades I will still be me. What…what did I…” Breathing around the words is difficult, cutting them off and leaving him with nothing but half formed syllables to choke on.
The chest he presses in to heaves with a deep breath. “We both know that I’m just not as smart as you so I can’t pretend to understand why you do half the things you do even now, let alone in the future, but I do know that you always have the best interests of others at heart. That being said…can we be sure it was really you from the future and not some kind of jutsu we’ve never seen before? I just can’t imagine why you would ever–”
“It was me!” Tobirama pushes himself away and stumbles out of his chair, yearning for the comfort of the arms he rejects and yet at the same time unable to accept it. “I know the sensation of my own chakra. That was me. And I know why he did it but…”
“But?”
“When do I become a monster?” he asks, finally meeting the other’s eyes to accept the horror that stares back at him.
“What!?”
“Or…am I already a monster? Was I born only to bring ruin? He said I broke the world, that I ruined the dreams you’ve spent years chasing, that it was better for me to die than Izuna. He said I – he – was a plague!” Fingers sink in to his hair and he knows they are his own but doesn’t remember lifting his arms, can only feel the stinging tug on thin strands. “Without more context how can I know if the actions I have taken haven’t already been detrimental? How can I know that my survival hasn’t doomed you again despite any future attempts to rectify the situation? Kami watch over us all; I’m a situation to be dealt with. I can’t breathe. I can’t–”
There is a childish urge inside him to crumple down on to the floor and draw his knees to his chest and whether or not he would have given in to such an urge will remain a mystery, Hashirama leaping across the kitchen to draw him in again, strong arms holding so tight he suspects his brother is trying to squeeze the very sadness out of him.
“You are not a plague. Or a monster. Or even a situation. You are my brother and a good man.” Hashirama speaks with a seriousness so few have ever heard from him. His hold is firm but the kiss he presses against one pale temple is oh so gentle.
“I was going to kill Izuna,” Tobirama confesses in a broken whisper. “There was an opening. I knew you wouldn’t want me to but I was going to take it anyway. And he said – the other me – he said that – well he implied more than anything else. Would you hate me if I did it?” Caught in a spiral, even he can barely make sense of his own words but the panic in his chest will not let him rest until he has answers. All his life he’s needed answers. This is hardly the time that will be different.
Worse than a denouncement are the eternal moments in which Hashirama's silence ticks by like damnation, dark and darker thoughts filling him up, spiraling, until at last that barrel of a chest heaves with another sigh.
“Oh Tobi. I could never hate you. You’re right, I would never want you to kill Izuna. I might even be upset if you did. But you forget that as much as we both disagree with each other’s world views we also both understand each other. If Izuna fell to your blade I would know that it was because you have only ever seen him as an obstacle to the safety of our clan. Hating you just isn’t in me.”
With his eyes closed and every muscle in his body tensed to defend himself Tobirama feels ridiculous to stand there and almost wish his brother will shout or get angry or tell him that he is a disappointment. His entire being is prepped and ready for a fight he feels that he deserves and as much as he should be expecting them he finds that he just isn’t prepared to deal with the love and acceptance his brother is so well known for, this easy approval of the wrongs he’s confessed to – but for what purpose? Is he hoping that the man will denounce him? Perhaps cast him aside and make the inevitable much less painful because no matter what Hashirama says he cannot deny the truth that came clawing back through time to remove him from the picture.
He has no response for Hashirama's words and so he says nothing lest he sound like a whining child determined the get their way. Please oh please kill me brother so that I do not have to do it myself. A fresh wave of disgust for himself rolls through his veins and he squeezes his eyes more tightly shut.
“But. What hasn’t happened is not important. And what hasn’t even had a chance to happen yet is no reason to panic either. Tobi, Otouto, do you remember once when you tried to explain to me the idea of how our actions affect the many possible futures ahead of us?”
“I…yes…” His brows furrow because he does remember that but he is honestly surprised to know that Hashirama does too.
“You told me that every action has a reaction. Or, well, I think that’s how you put it. And I didn’t get it for a while so you told me that the future exists as a question that we answer with our actions.”
A smile, jagged and reluctant, but it feels like a spring breeze across his face. “You still didn’t get that.”
“No, true, I didn’t. You’re just so smart!” Hashirama rewards his smile with gentle fingers brushing the hair from his eyes, a kiss of benediction to the top of his head. “My point is, the way I understand what you were trying to tell me is that every single thing we do changes the possible future. So maybe – maybe – that past you did something so terrible that it changed everything. But isn’t it possible that when he came back and tried to kill himself he changed the potential future? Maybe you’re not on that path anymore because of what he did. You can’t know that you’re going to ‘break the world’ or anything!”
“What if it’s a time loop?” He hates that he has to ask and yet he would not be himself if he didn’t. And Hashirama would not be himself if he did not groan dramatically in response.
“Please let me be the smart one with a good point for two seconds! I don’t even know what a time loop is but I don’t care. All I know is that you really can’t be on the same path as that older you because if he thought killing his younger self wouldn’t work then he wouldn’t do it but it didn’t work and now you have warning that you shouldn’t kill Izuna. So you just don’t! There. Now everything is different!” For a man professing not to be intelligent Hashirama somehow manages to make a good point.
It would be a little unsettling if not for the way Tobirama clings to this new theory like a lifeline.
“You think that’s enough?”
“Definitely.” His brother cups his face and brings their foreheads together, forcing him to stare at a smile that spells out forgiveness and love he so desperately wishes he knew how to accept. “It has to be because I won’t lose you. And I especially won’t lose you to something as silly as yourself.”
Hashirama nods as though to accept his final point as the highest logic, to drive the nail home and end this conversation, and Tobirama lets him because he can’t bring himself to give voice to the other dozen or so arguments chasing circles around themselves in his head. Believing in Hashirama has been the driving forces that pushes him forward his entire life. Falling back on it now is no less than a relief.
It doesn’t fix all of his problems. He’s too stubborn of a pragmatist for that and always has been. But it’s enough to see him through to the end of the day and starting the next is enough to see him through to the end of that one as well. Day by day Tobirama rises from his bed and girds his sanity against the swirling blackness he tries so hard not to show to his brother, not to sweep anyone else under the tide of his own emotions as they swirl and shred like a typhoon inside his own mind. Hiding his pain is an old game, though, and despite how he prays for nothing more than an end it is easier than he wishes it were to place one foot in front of the other and pretend that he is healing.
Then, of course, there is the paperwork. Where he feels as though he may have failed at all else in the world there will always be paperwork to pull him in and give him solace. His brother attends meetings with the Uchiha to discuss the possibility of peace and though Tobirama cannot bring himself to go, to look Izuna in the eye with all the weight of death between them, in this he can offer his aid. After every meeting the delegations return with pages upon pages of notes and Tobirama spends his nights writing draft upon draft of peace treaties and law proposals and mockup blueprints. From his brush spills a village made of ink and promises that Hashirama carries to the meetings only to being back more notes for him to incorporate. It’s just the sort of busywork that he needs, just the sort that he knows he is good at in a way no others in his clan are.
Almost before he realizes it has been several months and his brother comes home with an enthusiastic announcement that peace has at least been solidified. Their oldest enemies have agreed to lay down their weapons for good – and Tobirama watches the celebration around him with stones in his chest. Happy news for most and yet to him it feels like the end.
What is the use of him if not to be his brother’s shadow, the dreamer and the realist, the man who forges ahead and the ghost that comes behind to make world comply with the fantasies his brother throws back to him. All of his energies have been turned towards making peace and now peace is made. And he cannot think of what place there is left for him to fill. For years he has been the one at Hashirama's side and now Madara will fill that space as they build their village, their dreams, together. He has been the one to protect his brother and now there will be dozens of people to do that, almost unnecessary now that the only man to rival his strength is no longer an enemy.
He is pointless. Useless. So much extra weight to carry, an obligation to be shuffled around and kept out of the way.
Knowing that his brother will call him dramatic – and that he will have a point in doing so – stops him from sharing his worries. Now in the hour Hashirama has finally achieved everything he’s ever dreamed of is hardly the time to bring him back down to reality with the earthly worries of someone who nearly ruined it all. The rest of their clan celebrates for three days without rest. Tobirama locks himself in his room to keep writing, keep planning. It is all he knows how to do.
As the peace talks shift in to finalizing plans for constructing the village that has been a decade in coming Tobirama continues to avoid the conferences much as he begins avoiding his sibling all together. For a few short months he succeeds in pushing the darkness back with productivity, drowns himself in paper and ink as he creates more blueprints, street plans, public waste disposal systems, anything he can possibly think of. Time passes him by relatively unnoticed yet at the same time every second drags like agony. When sleep refuses to visit him at night he crawls from his futon and reaches for another scroll, filling his mind with whatever idea occurs first. And when word comes back from those who bring him their meeting notes that the Uchiha have passed on reluctant compliments for his productivity Tobirama buries himself in his room for days, reemerging with dark circles under his eyes and an entire notebook filled with drafted laws. Better to think of legal matters than to wonder how much effort such compliments must have cost the Uchiha brothers.
Has Hashirama told them the reason for what occurred on the battlefield? Has he told them that if not for the interference of a broken future Izuna would have met his end there on the point of Tobirama’s blade? There’s no way for him to know unless he attends one of these meetings but he simply cannot. Merely the idea of looking Izuna in the eye and knowing that with one simple strike he could have shattered the world around them makes him shudder. To think of meeting Madara's eyes and knowing what he nearly took from the man is unbearable. Only a monster would seek to take from another man his last remaining brother after spending so many years mourning small graves and the bodies that fill them.
That it took until his efforts were foiled so spectacularly for him to see the true reason behind his brother’s desire for peace says more for the idea that he is a monster than any other argument he could have made on his own. It should hurt that he is his own worst enemy but honestly Tobirama isn’t surprised.
More than a year has passed before he cannot avoid the world any longer. All the paperwork in the world and as many missions as he can run in between to keep away from home do nothing to change the steady progression of time. Long before he is ready to face the idea of it Hashirama bulls in to the sanctuary of his room and announces with blinding happiness that construction of the village has begun. As one of the surveyors who volunteered to scout optimal locations and write up predictions for what possible effects their plans might have on the surrounding environments Tobirama really has no reason to be as startled as he is with how fast things are moving along.
Somehow he is still a little shaken.
After hearing the news he sequesters himself in his room to sit upon his bed and gaze around at all the possessions that describe a lifetime of fighting to remain a proud Senju. These four walls have seen every high and every low, have held him through the bad times and borne witness to secret smiles in the wake of happy successes. Here is where he has put down roots to hold him against the changing tides of the world outside. In this room he is a Senju.
If he leaves this place they will ask him to fight for a village instead. To fight for lives that only a year ago he sought to snuff out. And it is strangely not the idea of allying with past enemies that leaves him reeling but the idea that he himself is an enemy made in to an ally. It is the idea that he will walk the same streets as a man who would have died by his sword if not for that same sword piercing his own chest instead. And it is the idea that for all the work he has put in to peace it may drown him before he truly understands it.
He goes to Hashirama that night and tries to pretend that he is not terrified of demons that exist nowhere but in his head – and only because he created them.
“Are you happy?” he asks because that is the thing that matters most. The smile he gets is a blinding one.
“I’m so happy, Tobi. I hardly know what to do with myself! Can you believe it’s finally real?”
“No,” he whispers. “I can’t believe it’s all real.”
“Did I ever tell you why we dreamed of this village in the first place?”
That catches his attention. He lifts his head and dares to meet the other man’s eye with a touch of confusion in his own. “Because you wanted to protect the children. You wanted a place where people could be safe and no child would ever have to worry about experiencing the terrors of a childhood such as our own.”
“Yes,” Hashirama admits. “That was some of the motivation. But it’s not why we originally dreamed such impossible dreams.”
“Oh. Why then?”
He does not expect the gentle touch of Hashirama's fingers tracing the lines tattooed upon his cheeks, the softness in his brother’s eyes. He certainly does not expect to be pulled in to a hug so careful he might almost think himself glass at risk of shattering. A joke, that. It’s not his body that is fragile but his mind and one cannot hug one’s mind.
“For you, Otouto. I dreamed of a place where I could keep my last little brother safe from harm. When you were born I became a big brother for the first time. I just…I can’t imagine a world where I’m not anymore.”
Tobirama gasps for air that suddenly feels scarce around him, unable to breathe past the flash of pain those words elicit. How selfish he has been. How utterly blind to the feelings of those around him. Never has he been so convinced of his own atrocity and yet so utterly unable to seek a way to rid the world of the plague that is him. How can he call himself a loving brother after so casually dismissing the impact his loss might have on the man before him? Of all the things to overlook it feels almost like a doom that he should forget this one.
When he fails to respond Hashirama strokes the lines of his face again and waits patiently for him to come back out of his own mind where he only realizes he has disappeared after his brother’s form materializes before his eyes once more. The apology on his face never makes it to his lips.
“I know that I have not always been the best brother that I could have,” Hashirama tells him, “but you have always been precious to me whether I remembered to tell you so or not and you have always had a very important place in my dreams. None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for you. You…you’ve been very sad lately. And I know you think I haven’t noticed but you’ve been pulling away and keeping to yourself a lot. Whatever you’re planning…just remember that I love you, okay?” The smile on his face touches his eyes but it is a sad one and it steals the oxygen from the air all over again.
“No plans,” is all Tobirama can choke out, a bald faced lie but filled with good intentions.
“Don’t pretend I’m stupid,” Hashirama chides him gently. “You’re always planning something up in that big brain of yours. Sometimes I think maybe your thoughts run too fast for even you to keep up with.”
Tobirama wants to recoil from such an unexpected truth but instead he stands firm. Or he tries to until Hashirama reaches down to entwine their hands, looking down at him with a gaze so full of trust and love and all the things he has spent the last year convincing himself do not exist for him anymore. I am drowning in the dark, he thinks, desperate for the man to hear yet unable to say it out loud, because you are my light and I can’t stop pushing you away. Instead he opens his mouth to say the only thing he can bring himself to.
“You are a better brother than I could ask for. I’m lucky to have you.” Softer words than he’s ever offered before, they’re enough to spill tears over the other man’s cheeks and earn him another squeeze of both hands.
“I don’t think you’re in a great position to decide what you deserve. But I…thank you. It’s good to hear you say that for once.”
“Be nice,” Tobirama murmurs.
“Oh I’m always nice.”
It’s the combination of calmly spoken words and a smile that is all teeth but no humor that breaks him, bringing a smile to his own face. The sensation of curling his lips up instead of down feels like a revelation, feelings like the first crack in a mold before the casing falls away to reveal his fragile insides. Gaze falling to the hands clasped between them, Tobirama pushes away the image of polished silver jutting from his own chest and forces his eyes to see the warm brown of his brother’s skin, ever the perfect contrast to himself.
Hashirama flips personalities as he is wont to do and squeals with joy, telling him how adorable he is with a smile on his face, telling him that he should smile more often so the rest of the world can share how cute he is. It’s all nonsense and Tobirama does not feel the least bit guilty for tuning him out at that point.
Such a simple conversation comes to exist in his mind as a sort of turning point when he realizes that he himself may wish the world rid of his plague and believe that to be best yet there is one last barrier that prevents him from pulling the proverbial trigger. As long as Hashirama loves him there is no force on earth, not even his own mind, that can convince him to hurt such a good man so deeply. And the difficulty of Hashirama's kind of love is that it is enduring, far-reaching, and all-encompassing. Not a man prepared to stop loving his last surviving brother any time soon.
A terrible inconvenience to his plans of slipping quietly in to the shadows.
Without the comfort of whatever inevitable end he cannot in good conscience reach for before his time Tobirama spends the next several days feeling untethered as though some important goal has been taken from him. Until the option had been entirely disproved he hadn’t realized just how much of his energy has been connected to the idea that after he can finally see his brother’s dream realized he will go to his own rest, his purpose fulfilled. Death is such an ugly word and suicide an even uglier concept but now that he faces himself head on there is no room for anything but to admit that this has been his plan all along whether he consciously acknowledged it or not. As if he needs another reason to have difficulty meeting his brother’s eyes.
Their conversation appears to have changed Hashirama as well, however, as another week rolls by and he asks for the first time in a year if Tobirama will accompany him to meet with the Uchiha delegation for the very first inspection of their building site. He agrees with the vague hope that rivalry runs too deep to be forgiven.
His hopes are dashed, of course. Upon first sight of him since their last meeting on a battlefield both Izuna and Madara look at him with identical yet indefinable expressions that would make him feel self-conscious if not for how little he cares for either his appearance or his health. Madara dismisses him in short order, though it’s hard to miss the way he double takes like he can’t believe his own eyes, but Izuna’s gaze remains steady and the weight of it is harder to bear than Tobirama predicted. Dark where he is used to seeing spinning red, they bore in to him until he turns his own away yet if his faculties have not completely abandoned him then he is sure he sees not a hint of malice. Peculiar. How novel to look in to the hand of death and see no weapon raised.
Breath and sense flee to leave him a terrified husk of a man when Izuna dares to approach him head on, the mass of his familiar chakra calm as though there are not decades and lifetimes of hatred between them. For one single moment he loses himself in indecision over whether he should strike first to defend himself or simply let whatever blow is coming fall upon him as he deserves. It comes as a slim hand and a hip cocked, an eyebrow raised and thin lips twisting in to a smirk.
“We were starting to think you’d buried yourself under an avalanche of paperwork or something,” Izuna tells him. No malice. No hatred. A light of something that might be humor shines in a single puff of empathetic laughter. “Actually, my guess was that your brother wrapped you up in pillows and locked you away somewhere. Kami knows aniki would probably do something like that if I was the one that, you know, stabbed myself.”
“I am sure he was tempted to.” The words scrape against his throat, forced out by a heavy tongue.
“So what made you finally stick your neck out, huh? Are you finally not scared of the big bad Uchiha?” Izuna’s grin widens and Tobirama can feel something spark inside of him. Something he does not have a moment to inspect right now.
Determined not to retort or cause any sort of disturbance with this man, the vital element to a happy future, he subsides and swallows the instinctual response. “You might say that.”
He turns away but not before he sees the utter shock painting itself across his old rival’s face. Certainly the man hadn’t expected him to agree. Whether his intentions were to tease or to incite violence Tobirama does not know but he cannot take the chance and so he finds his way back to Hashirama's side where he is safer even if it does put him squarely within Madara's reach. At least were he to die by Madara's hand there would be none who could blame him for eliminating such a persistent threat.
“There you are! Are you ready?” Hashirama beams at him, one hand already closing around his wrist to make a shackle more effective than any iron. “They’re not really starting on any of the building yet, just clearing the land and measuring out the plots, but I thought you would like to see the results of all the work you’ve done!”
“It really was you, huh? I kind of thought it had to be your head behind all this stuff.” Izuna cocks his head in a way that from anyone else Tobirama might take as recognition. It’s possible he needs to get his eyes checked again.
“Was that not the motivation behind your comment about me being buried under paperwork?”
“Oh, no, that was just a guess. Ours spies told us years ago that you were the one doing all the paperwork for your clan.” Now Izuna shrugs but Tobirama’s shudder is less for how much he knows and more for how casually he reveals that knowledge.
How much trust exists between their clans that his antisocial ways have caused him to miss? Enough so that apparently someone who should fear him feels comfortable sharing the fruits of their spy networks so easily. And enough so that Hashirama does not look in the least bit surprised, a sign that this is not the first time they’ve discussed how much information either clan has discovered about the other. How curious to stand among the titans of two ancient enemies and feel nothing but calm from all sides, boredom even.
“So?” Hashirama's grip squeezes his wrist and pulls his attention away to the hand sweeping the landscape before them. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?”
He looks down from the cliff he’s been led to the top of and out across the widening expanse of stumps where there used to be thick forest, the tall stacks of logs that will later be used to fill in the gaps where Hashirama's mokuton isn’t used. Several teams have already set to work stripping bark and sawing the trees down in to boards so they can be left out to cure in the sun. Other teams work at the other end of the space using doton jutsu to rid the earth of endless tree stumps left behind and smooth the earth behind themselves in preparation of the streets and buildings to come. And still more teams follow behind those driving posts in to the ground with knotted ropes strung between to measure plots of land, all according to blueprints he drew up himself in the solitude of his own room. Somehow even then he failed to imagine the reality of so many people working together. He imagines it now and feels awe.
“I think you’re building something that will change the world,” he decides eventually, regretting his choice of words a moment later when he is too slow to dodge Hashirama's tearful hug. He does not say that he still thinks he cannot imagine a place of his own here, does not say that he still thinks he is not meant for peace the way his brother is, those are thoughts better kept to himself.
“You really mean that?” Hashirama sobs in to his shoulder. Both of the Uchiha brothers snicker at the way he shifts uncomfortably.
“Sure. Now get off of me.”
He wants more than anything for Hashirama to ignore him but instead he gets exactly what he asked for. Hashirama pulls away with sincere apologies that he will forget the moment he becomes overwhelmed with emotions once more.
Madara catches his attention, distracting him with a conversation that sounds as though they are picking up where they left off some other time, and Tobirama is glad to at least be away from the center of attention. It’s much easier to consider his thoughts on this new venture without so many eyes watching to see what his reactions will be. The conclusion he comes to isn’t much different from the ones he’s managed to construct on his own away from here, though he does have to admit that such conclusions would probably have come easier and faster were he not so cowardly as to hide away for so long. Before him is the beginning of an impressive venture fit to inspire even the most lost souls to find a way back to the paths they are meant to travel.
And Tobirama finds the path he is meant to travel now as he looks away from where the village will someday rise up from the ground and finds his gaze landing on the reason it took him so long to come here. Izuna is not looking back at him. He stands to one side and ignores their brothers as he too stares out at all they have wrought, the four of them together, an unwitting and still divided team. On his face he wears contentment like an old friend in a way one such as him should be incapable of yet it fits him, surprisingly.
Tobirama stands and watches and feels the swell of purpose in his chest. Feels the perpetual darkness of his mind coalesce and crack and part just enough for a single ray of hope to shine through, a direction, a resolve. Watching Izuna he realizes he has found a place for himself in this village. It may not be where his brother will expect or even approve of but it his rightful place, where he deserves to be, the best solution he has come up with for ensuring the survival of a future which does not involve allowing his own demise. For that Hashirama should be happy.
He too feels something that might be a shadowy reminder of happiness as he realizes that he’s found the answer. When Hashirama asks he will agree to visit the village more. To assist with the building more. Even to attend whatever meetings are asked of him. Anything that will bring him in contact with the reason he was left alive on this earth: Izuna. Or more precisely, to protect Izuna. From this day forward he will be the shadow just behind, the wolf waiting with teeth bared to strike down any threat against the one he nearly died in place of. He may not have any personal love for the man but he loves his brother, would give anything to keep the future intact, and for that he needs Izuna to be safe. So he will keep Izuna safe even if he must lower himself to little better than a guard dog to do it. A dog nearly put down for forgetting his place, he will not shirk away from it now.
When his brother turns back to ask him if he wants to see more of the work from closer up he hums as though contemplating the request. Madara collects Izuna with an arm around his shoulders, already leading him away, and Tobirama watches them leaving from the corner of his eye.
“Give me a few moments,” he barters. “I’ll follow after.”
“Do you need me to show you where the path is back down?” Hashirama asks, already leaning his weight back on one foot to leave. Tobirama turns but his smile is a bitter, determined thing for the shape of Izuna’s retreating form.
“No. I can find my own way.”