Work Text:
Before Uzumaki Mito came to the Senju, she heard a lot about Senju Tobirama. Tobirama was the only surviving sibling of Senju Hashirama, to whom Mito was betrothed at a young age, so Mito had a natural curiosity. She asked about him a lot once she'd exhausted her questions on the topic of Hashirama and the Senju clan in general and married life.
"Strange," people would mutter to themselves, sometimes scornful and sometimes simply puzzled. Powerful, too, apparently, but not in a way people always appreciated. Some of those people thought he was seeking power in the wrong way, and others just thought he was rude. Or cold. Some people would say he had no heart, which was sad but also terrible and meant he couldn't be trusted.
Included in the marriage contract for Mito was a stipulation that an Uzushio seal master teach some basic principles to Senju Tobirama. When that seal master returned from doing as promised, Mito bothered him and bothered him for information, and he said, "You don't have to worry, Mito-hime, that one won't live long enough to see you marry into the clan. His father's intent on drowning him."
Even at that age, Mito understood that intent on drowning him was a metaphor. The Senju were practically landlocked and already she'd heard that Tobirama was a rare Fire Country water jutsu expert, so it couldn't have been a literal drowning. The seal master meant that Senju Butsuma was shoving Tobirama into too-deep water, never warning him of riptides, never teaching him how to swim or hold his breath.
How sad, she thought, and for a time she worried about it — but then more and more people spoke only of Tobirama's skill and icy demeanor, his talent for killing and his lack of charisma.
She forgot the seal master's prediction.
By the time she married Hashirama, she could only see what others saw: a block of ice carved into the shape of a knife.
The wedding ceremony, when it came, was very typically Senju: just a short speech by one of the clan elders and three sips of sake each for herself and Hashirama, no mention of gods and not even a glance at the spirits on their way to the reception. There, the alcohol had been stingy and speeches only slightly less so, with no hint of joy to them and even a lack of the good-natured, but vulgar ribbing Mito had been warned to expect.
Even worse, the guests were well-armed, none of them more so than Tobirama, who stood at the edges of the reception just as he had at the ceremony, fading into the background in full armor. For the whole night, probably until well after Mito and Hashirama left, Tobirama disdained even the bare pretense of a party, ignoring the speeches and the drink and the food to stare blankly at the far wall, his face chiseled from stone.
"Tobirama will help you get settled in!" said Hashirama the morning after, when they had settled in for breakfast and Tobirama had come to join them just as the food was being served, as if he had timed his arrival to spend as little time with them as possible.
Tobirama was the last person Mito would have expected to settle anyone in — he was looking just as unfeeling and unimpressed that morning as he had the night before — but as if looking to clear Mito's confusion, Tobirama said, "You'll need to be shown the defenses."
Those seven quiet, measured, absolutely neutral words were the first Tobirama had ever spoken to her, because he had offered no well-wishes for her and Hashirama's nuptials nor even come to greet her during the week between her arrival and the wedding.
"I look forward to it," said Mito, politely and directly to Tobirama, because although she doubted that she would be able to win Senju Tobirama over with common courtesy, she was nonetheless willing to try.
As if to rebuke her for her cautious optimism, Tobirama said nothing, already looking away from her towards the back of the house, seeming to focus less on anything in particular and more on the act of ignoring her.
Mito had known there would be no honeymoon period, because the Senju clan collectively very much gave off the impression that they had never even heard of such a frivolous thing. Privately, she was relieved to be moving straight into the logistics and practicalities of joining the Senju rather than the even more delicate process of getting to know her husband. Neither of those two facts could at all keep her from feeling a little strange at the prospect of spending the entire first day of her new marriage being shown around the clan by Senju Tobirama rather than, say, Hashirama. Or literally anyone else.
But it wasn't as if she could refuse and she did need to know her way around the clan (and, fine, specifically its defenses), so there was no use in complaining about it. Once breakfast was cleared, she said her goodbyes to her husband and obediently followed after her brother-in-law, resolving to pay at least as much attention to him as to the things he was pointing out to her.
In consideration of the risk that the Uzumaki in general or Mito in particular might get cold feet at the last minute and refuse the match — a small risk, but no one had ever accused the Senju of being incautious — Mito hadn't been given a tour of the Senju clan grounds before the marriage. Instead, she had seen only a small slice of the main complex and the road from there to the edges of their territory.
Even now that the marriage had happened, it wasn't as if Tobirama set out to show her every inch of the Senju's territory. Instead, he pulled out a map that gave only the broadest indications of landmarks like hills and roads and creeks. He pointed out the Naka river, which ran down the center of the paper. At the bottom there was a township that straddled both sides of the river and, owing to its bridge, served as a major trade route. The Naka wound its way up its river valley in lazy curves, and the Senju made their home on the right-hand side of the river, right where the flat farmland of the valley turned into less-fertile foothills.
"The few farms we have are mostly here," Tobirama told her, his fingers tracing the edge of what he had previously pointed out as farmland tilled by the farmers of the valley. "The Uchiha find it more difficult to burn or poison our food supply when we mingle with tax paying peasants."
"Where do the Uchiha live?"
Tobirama dragged his finger over to the other side of the river in reply, circling an area roughly mirroring the Senju's location on the other side of the Naka.
The map indicated mirrored roads leading up the valley on either side of the river. Mito had taken one of them directly to the Senju from the town downriver, so likely the other led to the Uchiha. From some points on the road it had been easy to see all the way down to the water, which was in the full power of its spring season and had been thundering past so quickly and deeply that one would need chakra to cross it.
"Do you fight on or across the river?" Mito asked, recalling that someone had once said Tobirama was skilled at water jutsu in a manner one wouldn't expect in the middle of the Land of Fire.
"No. Here." He gestured at the top of the map, where what seemed to be hundreds of little streams from the foothills and the mountains beyond fed into the Naka.
Even with an inexactly rendered map, it didn't look very much like the sort of place Mito would want to face an enemy.
Tobirama went on to discuss the general layout of the clan, with its farms to the southwest and training grounds to the north and west. Most of the buildings recently had spread southeast, along the road, but the main family's house sat on the edge of the training grounds with few other houses north of it.
Hashirama was probably the strongest ninja on the continent, but that wasn't the only reason for the house to be positioned as it was. When they were done reviewing the map, Tobirama took Mito to the main house's cellar — a space beneath the house, which would be a useless endeavor on Uzushio — to show her the main house's seals.
In Uzushio, seals meant to protect large areas would be anchored to large boulders and often worked into the construction of a building. The main house held an anchor stone taller than Mito, crafted over generations. Mito had never seen an anchor stone less than four feet wide and four feet tall. Even in dim light, they would glisten with power along the seal lines.
In the cellar of the Senju main house, there was no one great anchor stone. There were only river rocks stacked and piled haphazardly against the northeastern walls of the cellar, all of them seemingly inert and all of them identical to the stones used to make the main house's foundations and cellar. If Mito hadn't been told that they were coming to look at seals, she would never have given them a second glance except maybe to worry that the cellar wall was compromised.
She picked her way over to them carefully until she could hesitate over the nearest ramshackle spur of stone, none of them much larger than two handwidths. If she looked at the lightest colored ones, she could see some dark squiggles that might have been seals, but not any kind of seal she had ever seen before. No swirls, whorls, or spirals. No directional symbols or invocations. Just smudges and dots and lines.
"I don't understand." She glanced back at Tobirama.
The Senju were too competent and unforgiving to keep anything that didn't work, which only made the fact that Mito couldn't tell that it worked even worse.
Tobirama was mostly ignoring her again, looking into the depths of the cellar instead of watching her. "You might later," he said and then, after a few more moments of looking at nothing, turned back to the stairs, leaving and obviously expecting her to follow.
Mito would have liked to stay and have the anchors explained to her, until she could be sure the house wouldn't explode under her feet. But if it hadn't done so yet, it was unlikely to do so in the near future so long as no one (say, newly arrived Uzushio brides) attempted complex seals in or near the building, and Tobirama didn't seem inclined to slow down and explain his seal work.
Next, Tobirama took her to a large and centrally located building which turned out to be the Senju's central administrative building. There, the clan accountants were distant but respectful as they arranged Mito's access to the household budget. None of them mentioned whether she could set up a personal account, because the Senju didn't seem to think she would have come with money of her own.
Mito didn't feel inclined to divulge how much she'd brought with her from Uzushio. That could come later if it seemed necessary.
From the administrative building they took a few short steps down the street into a tailor's shop. Well, into the shop for Mito; Tobirama chose to wait outside. The tailor who took her measurements was just as brisk as the accountants, but at least honest — "Sad to say it, but we don't spend our money on cloth like this," she said about Mito's clothes, with honest disappointment — and then it was back to the house for a detailed tour of everything above the basement that Mito hadn't yet had a chance to see.
The house was big, but not ostentatious. Hashirama lived there, of course, and so did Tobirama. That wasn't an unusual set up, considering that Tobirama was still unmarried. He had probably been waiting for Hashirama to marry first, although considering how long ago negotiations for Mito's hand begun, she really couldn't imagine that Tobirama didn't have someone waiting in the wings to become Mito's sister-in-law.
"Do you have a date set for your bride to arrive?" Mito asked politely as they made their way from the tour of what would be the children's rooms some day towards the kitchens for introductions to various members of staff.
"No," Tobirama said shortly. And then after a pause he added, "Land could be cleared quickly."
Mito didn't understand. "What do you mean?"
Tobirama glanced at her, the quick look nearly pinning her in place with its intensity. "Anija can build a house in an afternoon so long as the land is prepared beforehand."
He didn't seem happy to have to explain himself, so Mito didn't ask for clarification again. Her best guess at his meaning would have to do. She struggled for a smile, politely curving her lips up in a manner she knows isn't going to come off as genuine. "It sounds impressive."
There was no reply from Tobirama before they reached the kitchen, which might have been for the best.
Mito had been looking forward to the introductions, thinking she might find some friendship among the household, but all of them seemed reluctant to engage. They were perfectly polite, but even though she'd married in the day before...Mito wasn't a Senju and Tobirama didn't seem to feel it was necessary to smooth her way with a good introduction.
Following this was lunch, during which Tobirama disappeared for more than an hour with no explanation. "I'll be back," he had said and then walked off into the house as lunch was served.
So Mito ate alone, trying not to feel slighted. She had known that joining the Senju wouldn't be smooth sailing, but Mito wasn't afraid of a challenge. Even if, as seemed likely, Tobirama thought that the marriage was a mistake...the only way to be rid of her now was to kill her. Mito would be prudent about such a risk, but not truly concerned. The Senju and the Uzumaki had a long and cordial history, and it would be a shocking waste of money to kill a bride like Mito, which was the kind of detail that Senju Tobirama didn't seem passionate enough to gloss over.
It didn't matter if Senju Tobirama liked her or not, because she had already married Hashirama and now they would both simply need to live with it.
Tobirama reappeared soon after the dishes from lunch had been cleared away. He was carrying a half-dozen scrolls under one arm and a box under the other. "Follow me," he commanded, and when Mito rose to her feet he proceeded briskly through the house until they arrived in an empty office. It smelled freshly cleaned, as though it had been scrubbed that morning and then left to dry until the afternoon.
In addition to bare shelves, there was a writing desk in the office, where Tobirama first put down the scrolls and then the box. The box was lacquered, gold and blue and silver, with waves and a mother-of-pearl crane inlay on the top. It was beautiful...and also surely useful, because it was definitely a writing box. Mito had brought her own with her, a small writing box that was part of her cosmetic box, but it wasn't so fine as this.
"These are the instructions for the main house seals," Tobirama said of the first two scrolls. From the set of his mouth, Mito knew he meant the instructions he'd written in case of his own death, which was yet another example of Senju practicality. The next scroll was a condensed Senju clan roster, provided to help her make sense of the terrible rush of introductions. The last two were blank. "For note-taking," according to Tobirama.
"Thank you," Mito murmured, taking a seat at the writing desk. She hadn't thought Tobirama had taken her request for more information about the seals seriously, but this was clearly proof otherwise.
"I have other matters to attend to," Tobirama said then, interrupting her thoughts. "Inform the staff if you need anything."
...or perhaps he had other duties to attend to and was beginning to chafe at wasting nearly an entire day on her.
"I will," Mito said. "Thank you for the loan of your writing box. I'll return it in good condition."
Tobirama frowned at her. "It's yours," he told her flatly and then he left.
Mito stared down at the writing box. It was without a doubt a gift from Hashirama, then. Probably something he had meant to give her later, privately. Hopefully he wouldn't be too disappointed that Tobirama got there first. Everything inside was high-quality. It wasn't really the kind of writing set Mito would usually take notes with, but it would make writing back to Uzushio a genuine pleasure.
For the rest of the afternoon, Mito read the scrolls provided and did indeed take notes on the seal instructions — because they were, disappointingly, only instructions about how to use them rather than any kind of information about how they were created or the underlying principles. It had probably been a little foolish to expect that someone who had only just met her and didn't much like her would share their sealing theory, but...
A hobby shared was a hobby enriched. Mito had wanted to bond with her brother-in-law.
Late in the afternoon, Hashirama came to find her. He hovered in the doorway, almost shy; theirs was a new thing, and Hashirama was cautious.
Mito welcomed him with a smile that came easily. "It feels it's been a long time since breakfast."
The look he gave her was sheepish. "Today I had to catch up on everything I put off before the wedding. I...hope you and Tobirama had a good time?"
"Yes," Mito lied. A white lie, polite and necessary. She had not particularly enjoyed the experience, but she would repeat it if she must.
"Wonderful." A smile broke out over Hashirama's face, as if he could imagine nothing better than his wife and his brother getting along. "I don't want to interrupt you," he tacked on, "but if you want dinner..?"
Mito set aside the scroll she'd been taking notes on gratefully, more than ready for a break.
At dinner it was just herself and Hashirama. They discussed her day and his — "It was boring, and not nearly as nice as showing you around would have been," Hashirama promised her, but when pressed he'd spoken to her in detail about the state of the clan and the work he typically did in a day — and also about Tobirama's seals in the cellar.
"Oh yes," Hashirama said about those, laughing a little. "I don't understand it, but they do work. He started making them after that Uzushio seal master came to visit us! To be honest, everyone thought for years that it was failed experiments being stored down there, or wishful thinking, at least until we saw the barrier in action. Even now he hasn't stopped adding to them, though!" He blinked at her. "But...you should know this, right? It's an Uzumaki barrier style?"
Mito stared at Hashirama in astonishment, hardly knowing where to begin with that. Eventually she felt she had to settle on, "No...that isn't how the Uzumaki do our barrier seals."
Hashirama beamed with pride. "That sounds like him," he confessed, just a step short of bragging.
From the contents of the instructional scrolls Mito had read earlier that day, Tobirama deserved to be bragged about. There was no reason to doubt the contents of the scroll, but it had made Mito raise her eyebrows in disbelief more than once. The stories Hashirama told of its use in warding off raids, confusing infiltrators, and even monitoring the borders were even more amazing — because of course no ninja clan worth its salt would write down everything about their defenses.
Tobirama had in fact been right to say that she might understand it. Even if he would be willing to sit down and walk her through it...some seals are just too complex to explain.
When the plates were cleared away and the evening stretched out before them, Mito finally thought to say, "Thank you for the writing box."
Hashirama didn't seem to understand what she was talking about for a moment, and then his face cleared. "Oh," he said. "No, you misunderstood! That's Tobirama's wedding gift."
"We received all of our gifts yesterday," Mito said. They had been underwhelming, for the most part, but they had definitely been given.
Hashirama shook his head. "Tobirama was on duty, so he couldn't give it then. But I'm glad you like it!"
"On duty," Mito repeated.
"It was impossible for us to be sure the date of the wedding had been kept secret," said Hashirama apologetically. "Sorry — we didn't want to make you nervous. I was pretty sure the Uchiha wouldn't."
Wouldn't attack, he means. Because the Senju were at war. And Tobirama had been... ah. The staring actually made sense.
Senju Tobirama was a sensor.
"I'll have to thank him later," Mito said, looking down at the hems of her sleeves, already trying to fit together the right words to sound gracious and sincere at the same time.
"Tomorrow, probably," Hashirama offered. "He'll work late in the administrative building."
But Mito didn't see him the next day, nor the day after. Hashirama said not to worry about it, but he'd also said that Tobirama hadn't been sent out on any assignment.
"He's probably working in his office," Hashirama told her, "on some project. I wouldn't worry about it."
Hashirama certainly knew his own brother's habits better than Mito could, but on the other hand the writing box, beautifully decorated, sat at Mito's elbow all day. Reminding her of the thanks she needed to give.
Just stopping in to thank him couldn't possibly take up too much of his time, Mito reasoned. So on the fourth day she left the house for the administrative building directly after breakfast.
The big, multi-story building had more people in it than Mito expected, and all of them seemed busy, but it wasn't too much work to get one of them to give her solid directions to Tobirama's office. The directions took her up two flights of stairs and down a narrow hallway.
Mito knocked on the door she was told would be Tobirama's, and indeed Tobirama's clear and cold voice immediately bid her to enter. He didn't seem at all surprised to see that it was her opening the door — but then, he was a sensor. He'd probably known she was coming to see him since she'd stepped into the building at the very least.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Mito said, after waiting for a moment. Of course Tobirama wouldn't speak first; he seemed to suffer from a constant shortage of words.
"It's fine." Tobirama gestured at the chair in front of his desk; an invitation.
Mito took the chair. "I came to thank you for the writing set." She paused. "I didn't realize it was a gift at first, or I'd have thanked you when you gave it to me."
"It was nothing," claimed Tobirama, looking down at his paperwork as if to keep working.
Three days ago, Mito would have thought he was either deliberately snubbing her or genuinely too busy to bother with this. But studying him closer than she would have before...was he embarrassed?
"It's my favorite wedding gift," Mito said, both truthfully and experimentally.
"That...is good to hear," Tobirama muttered. And yes. Yes, he was flustered.
Maybe talking to him wasn't so hard after all.
"Since you're here, I did have a question," Tobirama said, maybe a little eager to move away from having nice things said about him in his own office. He asked, "I know you want time with Hashirama, but if I were to come for dinner once a week...?"
Mito had taken every lesson on decorum the Uzumaki had had to offer, but she still found herself simply staring at Tobirama in answer to this question.
Even more mystifying, Tobirama felt the need to bargain himself down: "It could be lunch," he suggested after a moment of being simply stared at.
"You live there," was the obvious thing that Mito still felt needed to be pointed out.
"I've mitigated that to the extent that I can," Toibirama promised. "But clearing the land for a house will take time."
Very suddenly, Mito noticed several things she hadn't before: the set of dishes by the door, the mission pack sitting under the window, the cot tucked away almost-but-not-quite behind the desk, the piles and piles of paperwork. He's always working, was what Hashirama had told her. An excuse, she'd thought, a hyperbole. But maybe not. Hashirama had not been surprised that Tobirama wasn't coming home.
Mito smoothed her hands over her kusode. "I was trying to make conversation, not chase you out of the house." Now was clearly time for honesty between clan members. "Don't clear any land. You should come home." She paused. "Hashirama misses you."
That might not be true; Mito didn't yet know her husband well enough to accurately judge his moods. But he'd spoken more about Tobirama than almost any other subject, despite — or perhaps because of — Tobirama's absence. He clearly wanted her and Tobirama to get along.
Mito would like that too.
Tobirama hesitated. "I...have work to do." He glanced at the scrolls piled on his desk as if to give her an example.
"Bring them with you," Mito suggested.
Tobirama didn't look comfortable with that idea at all.
Patiently, Mito said, "There's no point in doing things like you intend to drown in them. And what did I marry in for if not to take some of your work? Bring it home and teach me to do some of it."
"I could," Tobirama said slowly.
Mito pressed forward, sensing victory at her fingertips: "I want you to. It will fill my day."
She recognized the very moment Tobirama gave in by the slump of his shoulders, followed by putting his brush down.
"If you insist," he said quietly, almost sounding annoyed, but Mito thought — having listened carefully — that she might have heard a note of relief in his capitulation.
"I do insist," Mito told him cheerfully, and helped to pack up the scrolls on his desk. She didn't expect that Tobirama would be any less of an easily-misunderstood puzzle in the future, nor would he suddenly gain any of the social niceties he was so clearly lacking, but Mito found now that she didn't mind that so much.
Meeting Senju Tobirama was much better than simply hearing about him, and Mito would take full advantage of the opportunity to decipher her brother-in-law until she could understand him as easily as Hashirama seemed to. That, after all, was what family was for.