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"It's a trap," Tobirama says immediately after he's finished reading the latest message from Madara out loud to his brother. Tobirama sets the letter aside on Hashirama's desk — knowing Hashirama will want to read it himself, and probably moon over it like a lovestruck civilian girl — and crosses his arms over his chest.
"You always say that."
"If you would do us both the favor of thinking it once in awhile, I wouldn't have to say it so often," Tobirama says testily.
Hashirama picks up Madara's letter, running a thumb over the uchiwa pressed into the wax that had once kept the scroll from unrolling. "We need to trust the Uchiha if we want to move forward."
"It's uncertain ground," Tobirama points out. "Moving too fast—"
"You want us to stand still!" Hashirama snaps.
Tobirama falls silent.
"I'm tired of this argument," Hashirama goes on. "The Uchiha did not spur the Daimyō to take an unscheduled vacation. The Daimyō does as he pleases. How will we deal with the problem in front of us, Tobirama?"
Suggesting that they should simply cancel their plans and rescheduled is obviously off the table — not just because of Hashirama's likely reaction, but also because getting an audience with the Daimyō of the Land of Fire was hard enough even with the support of the Uchiha, and snubbing the man by cancelling the meeting is absolutely out of the question.
No matter how suspicious (or outrageous) Tobirama finds being beckoned to meet with the Daimyō at a luxury civilian resort instead of in the capital as planned, they're not likely to get a second chance to pitch the idea of the village to the Daimyō and they definitely can't afford to send Madara alone.
But.
There is one argument Tobirama might win.
Even though he really doesn't want to.
"You should stay here," Tobirama says and, when Hashirama opens his mouth to disagree, barrels on relentlessly: "That mountain range is too far away to have both you and Madara go. If we come under attack, it would take you too long to get back — and how long would you be gone? The Daimyō may keep you waiting. Even if we can now trust the Uchiha, we definitely cannot trust any of our other neighbors. I must be the one to go." It goes without saying that sending Hashirama and Izuna instead would be a disaster from which they would likely never recover.
Hashirama closes his mouth, thinks for a minute, and then gives Tobirama a sunny expression. "Maybe you and Madara will become friends!" he says.
Tobirama and Madara do not become friends.
They travel northwest together with an absolute minimal amount of discussion. Madara travels with his clan mon proudly displayed and his chakra completely unmasked. It's like running next to a forest fire, and it's absolutely migraine-inducing, but Tobirama says nothing. Madara is probably doing it on purpose, possibly in an attempt to get some kind of rise out of Tobirama, but Tobirama has faced much worse deliberate provocation from his own clanmates.
And at least it's not Izuna. Tobirama doesn't like or trust Madara, but unlike Izuna it's merely a possibility that Madara will try to kill or betray him. With Izuna, it would be a certainty.
The luxury civilian resort is tucked into a mountain range, the foothills of which they reach early on the second day. The climb is steep and long and, ultimately, ill-timed. Fat, wet snowflakes begin to fall, and the wind starts to blow, and soon both the snow precipitating from above and the snow already on the ground is flinging itself sideways, trying to push snow and trees and ninja off the side of the mountain with it. Under good conditions chakra would allow them to travel through the mountain range almost as the crow flies, arriving at the resort in just under 36 hours.
As things are, Tobirama instead finds himself traveling at a glacial pace at Madara's side, both of them keeping their heads down as much to discourage conversation as to keep the wind from driving snow directly into their eyes. They walk on and on and on. Until the snow is knee-deep. Until the sun has started to sink behind the hills. Until Tobirama knows that they must stop, and says so.
Madara does stop, but then he just turns his back to the wind and looks at Tobirama expectantly.
"This storm is only going to get worse," Tobirama says flatly. They can already only barely see a dozen yards ahead of them. "I don't have my brother's stamina. We need to use the light and energy we have left to find shelter."
Tobirama can tell from the way that Madara's chakra thrashes and twists that he doesn't like hearing that, but Tobirama doesn't care. He refuses to die of exposure. He stares at Madara, unflinching, until Madara inclines his head in agreement.
They go back the way they came. Tobirama has been through here before, and even in the midst of the blizzard he navigates unerringly to a cave big enough to shelter both of them. He layered it with seals to keep animals out last he was here, knowing that it would make a good bolthole should he ever need it.
Tobirama has always believed in planning ahead.
"You can't be serious," Madara says. He must have thought that Tobirama was leading him to some kind of civilian settlement — as if anyone but rich daimyō would bother building anything up here.
"Fine," says Tobirama. "Freeze to death." He enters the cave without another word or look directed at Madara.
The cave is cold, but it's clean and sheltered. Tobirama takes his pack off. First he spreads his sleep roll out over the floor, then he stretches out on it. Outside, Madara wavers for a few moments and then follows, apparently having realized that there's no other choice.
"Use this to block the entrance," Tobirama directs, pushing his pack in Madara's direction. If he were alone he'd seal the entrance with a low level jutsu, but he's not willing to put that much of an obstacle between himself and freedom when Uchiha Madara is in here with him.
Madara follows directions, blocking the entrance as best he can. It's dark once the packs are in place, with just a little light leaking through the edges. Tobirama feels more than sees Madara stretching out next to him. The snow outside howls, and Tobirama allows himself to start shivering: what had previously been a hypothetical desire to conserve chakra is now, after a long walk through the snow to this cave, a dire need.
They've never been so close for so long, and they quickly get closer, Madara pulling his heavy quilted coat over the both of them because Uchiha don't travel with sleep rolls. The coat is almost as good as a second sleep roll would be, except that it means they have to crowd closer together than they would otherwise. They lay stiff as boards next to each other. When Madara breathes in and out it disturbs the coat laying over them, and laying this close to Madara means being completely blanketed in his thick, uncontrolled chakra.
Tobirama takes a moment to appreciate that he has so little chakra his heart rate can't tick up in reaction to their proximity. It's better not to show fear; a frightened ninja is an unpredictable threat and Tobirama is in no position to defend himself adequately if Madara decides to preemptively neutralize him.
The night is long. Tobirama stays awake through it all, and Madara probably does too — but they don't talk. There isn't, after all, anything to talk about. In the morning, things don't look much better. When they dig their way out of the cave, it's snowing in fat, heavy flakes. There are even darker clouds on the horizon, indicating another storm. Tobirama is still shivering.
"If we don't leave now, we'll miss the meeting," Madara says.
There's no accusation in his voice, no blame, but Tobirama knows what he means: If you were stronger, we wouldn't have had to stop and this wouldn't be a problem. It's not hard to read between the lines.
"You'll have to go without me." Tobirama is still too tired to move at the pace they would need to move at to arrive before the storm comes in. He should have sent Madara on alone the day before.
Madara frowns. Opens his mouth, potentially to argue.
"We cannot miss this meeting," Tobirama adds, before Madara can speak. "Take your things. Go. I'll follow when I can."
Only one of them needs to attend, and Tobirama does not intend to return to Hashirama and tell him that both he and Madara missed the meeting because Tobirama was unwilling to risk a few days of wilderness survival alone. It's unfortunate that this means Madara will meet the Daimyō alone after all, but Hashirama won't care about that. Probably.
Madara's chakra winds around him like an offended cat, tense and insulted.
"Go," Tobirama says. He does not particularly care whether or not Madara likes him; he only cares that Hashirama's dream comes to fruition.
"Fine," Madara says. He's already got his coat on, so he leaves the cave directly, without a backward glance.
Tobirama seals the entrance with a thin earth wall using what little chakra he can spare, leans his pack back up against it for the barest additional insulation, and crawls back over to his sleep roll. It's still a little warm from himself and Madara sleeping on it, and now that Madara is gone Tobirama can use it as it's intended: for sleeping. It's dangerous to give into his exhaustion when he's also so cold, but Tobirama won't regain any chakra if he doesn't sleep, and he'll need chakra to catch up with Madara or, more likely, make it back to the village.
He's out before Madara's chakra has even passed where they turned back the day before.
To his surprise, Madara is there again when he wakes up, rousing Tobirama and pressing one of the ration bars they both carry into his hands. The bar feels warm to Tobirama's touch — it was probably taken straight out of one of the inside pockets of Madara's jacket — and Tobirama is hungry enough to eat it without suspicion but he can't get it open. Instead, he spends several minutes fumbling with the new wrapping they've started to use after tentatively taking up trade with the Akimichi, and ultimately drops it. His fingers are stiff, his grip uncertain — he'll never get it open even if he can keep it in his hands long enough to try. Fuck.
"Here," says Madara. He opens the ration and presses it into Tobirama's grasp, letting his hands linger until he's sure Tobirama's grabbed onto it. His hands are really, really warm.
Tobirama starts eating so that he doesn't have to thank Madara.
There's some rustling and Madara sets a bundle of fabric down, separates part of it to lay on the ground, and then stretches out next to Tobirama. "The meeting went well," he says.
Tobirama doesn't know how long he's been out, how long it's been since Madara left him behind. He's not even entirely sure why Madara came back for him. It would have been simpler — safer — to let Tobirama fend for himself. He can't have actually wanted a Senju presence on this mission.
"Good," Tobirama says shortly.
Madara unfolds more fabric. Blankets. They're draped across both of them. Tobirama wonders if Madara stole them from the resort the Daimyō is staying at.
"He gave us more land than we even planned to ask for if I'd promise that our fighting would really stop," Madara adds.
Tobirama makes the effort of moving to look at Madara more closely. "He's hoping for economic gain."
"He's hoping for peace."
Tobirama's lips twist. 'Peace' has been the word on Hashirama's lips, too, but even a strong alliance with the Uchiha won't bring peace. Even their increasingly fruitful talk with the Akimichi won't bring that. "There's always going to be someone else to fight."
"It will be different," Madara asserts. Better, Hashirama would have said.
"It will be dangerous," says Tobirama. Someone has to have the pessimism to plan for the worst and Tobirama's certainly not going to trust Izuna with that job.
"Rest so we can travel back tomorrow," Madara orders, and turns to put his back to Tobirama, ending the conversation.
It's probably just as well. Tobirama's even less likely to make headway with Madara than he is with Hashirama.