Chapter Text
The first time Madara had seen the Senju heir's face in anything other than a scowl was the fateful day he fell into one of his death traps.
Death traps as Madara chose to call it, and 'Sealing practice' as Tobirama insisted.
He had been on a journey through the wide wastelands of the Country of Fire that the two powerful clans of Uchiha and Senju called their home, along many other smaller clans, on his way to speak to the Daimyo about winter preparations. The route he had chosen for his travels was only through neutral territory, so he shouldn't encounter any enemy faces in the week he would be on foot.
How wrong he had been.
Madara only remembered grumbling to himself about the sharp icy winds as he tightened his coat around himself, absent-mindedly fiddling with the linen bag on his shoulder, when he took one wrong step with his right foot.
Immediately, before the Uchiha could do so much as react, a blue light flashed from underneath the earth, unveiling an intricate network of seals placed just where he had stepped, and he was frozen in place. Literally frozen. A shield of water built up with rapid speed around the thrashing man, sealing him in completely.
A barrier of ice between Madara and the outside world, all thrown into motion by a seal hidden underground?
As if all that hadn't been enough, another lighting bolt of iridescent sapphire blinded him, and a second seal revealed itself, woven into the first one.
This was bad. Very bad.
Madara didn't need to use his Sharingan to analyze what was happening to him, he could feel the cold water rising past his calves, filling the capsule with unsettling speed. Worriedly, Madara cast a katon blast at the thick ice. It didn't budge as much as he would've liked, just a small molten indent into the surface of it. Still, with one more, bigger blow, it should-
Water swallowed him whole, and the air was punched out of his lungs with the pressure it applied now that the icy prison was filled up to the brim. Shit. What in the hell was this?
He couldn't even use another fire jutsu now, every possible space to move was closed off completely. He felt his insides convulsing, an unnerving pressure pumping in his ears as his circulation slowed noticeably.
What should he do?
He couldn't reach out to his scythe, could not do so much as activate his eyes with how much pain he was now in, daring to crush in his head. His suspicion was that the water kept pouring out of the seal unnoticeably, leading to an eventual burst of the capsule - and with that Madara's body as well.
He was going to die here.
He was really going to die.
His eyes screamed with hurt, and he tried screwing them shut in a futile attempt at soothing the burn, but found he couldn't even move his lids.
Just when he thought his lungs must have shriveled in, a face appeared before his. Obscured and twisted through the sturdy blue ice, but still so uncanny.
Wild grey hair and three red gnashes across a stern expression, all of it formed a name in his head he had always despised, and that sentiment didn't change now. Senju Tobirama.
And the man looked shocked.
Without any hesitation, the freezing prison broke, water sloshing out in a powerful wave at the disappearance. Madara fell to the ground as his legs gave out, coughing and sputtering in an attempt to finally suck in some precious air. His abused lungs protested his deep inhale, and tears sprung to his eyes as for a horrible moment he thought he would suffocate after all, but then the knot in his chest loosened.
Madara could breathe again.
He was weak and still in shock at what had just occured, the dirt bore into his wet skin, staining the coat Izuna had gifted him, but he was alive. Madara was alive.
He could feel his limbs, sore but movable, and he could feel his pounding heart, lifting his chest with each inhale. He could feel his face, cold wind hitting it right on, and the dripping mane of dark hair that laid strewn around his body protectively. He closed his eyes in relief, trying to calm his rabbiting pulse.
He was okay.
Another man's presence inched closer to him, crouching down to the floor until a comfortingly warm hand found its way onto his knee.
He jerked at the touch. In all his desperate relief at being alive, he had forgotten about the Senju's presence. If he could, Madara would have jumped on his feet and slaughtered the bastard right where he kneeled, but he still couldn't find any strength in his cooled down body. So he did the only thing he was able to and opened his eyes furiously, staring the cold Senju bastard down with his Mangekyou.
"Demon", he snarled. Before he could call on Amaterasu though, he took in the other man's expression.
He looked weirdly out of element.
A mix of relief, guilt and worry stained his slender eyes, brows furrowed yet somehow pulled upwards.
"Are you alright, Uchiha?" his deep bass of a voice asked, concern audible in the tremble that ran through the question.
Was he alright, was he al-fucking right?
"What the hell Senju, of course I'm not alright! You tried to kill me!"
"I sincerely apologize, although I have to object to your second statement. I did not, in fact, try to kill you."
Madara stared at the Senju in disbelief, Sharingan long forgotten. This was the single most confusing conversation he had ever had.
"What do you want to call it, then? Forced suicide?"
"Neither of that," Tobirama countered while looking so punchably smug. "I merely tested a seal I've been working on for a while now. I set it up just minutes ago and left to get some more ink. When I arrived at my lab, my senses told me that someone had stepped into that freshly planted seal, so I immediately returned."
"Oh fuck you" Madara spat, in just the mood to tear the white-haired demon's face off, "Do you always speak like you have a broom shoved up your ass?"
The Senju only blinked mockingly at the insult, letting it fly over his head like it was never even spoken.
"Anyway, I freed you early enough. So we can now both go along our ways." What had happened to the shaky concern the other had displayed just a minute ago?
"Oh no, Senju, I won't let you off the hook so easily! You planted a death trap in the middle of neutral land, and you almost got the Uchiha clan head killed. You won't be going anywhere. This means war!"
The man in the blue armor looked unimpressed.
"Let me off the hook? I'm very sorry, Uchiha-san, but I am unable to see where your hook would be, considering that you are plastered onto the muddy ground and don't even have the strength to get up. I can simply walk away."
The Senju -Tobirama- straightened up, getting back onto his feet. He now towered over Madara like a beast on a hunt, staring down easy prey. His red eyes bore into Madara's angry grimace, showing no emotion now.
"I couldn't have planted the seal in my home town, you will surely understand that. I wish it upon no kid of my clan to accidentally step into a seal of this calibre. If you will excuse me now, I will see you on the battlefield, expectantly. I wish you a good day, Uchiha-san, and I will be returning home now to renew the seal elsewhere. I can only hope my journey there won't be too uncomfortable, taking into consideration the broom inside my ass."
And with that, he was gone.
As Madara's mind tried to keep up with the other man's witty remark and the mysterious vanishing of the Senju at once (when had he perfected that jutsu so much? Had he gone from simple speed boosting to actual teleportation?), he couldn't stop another, wildly inappropriate thought to slip in with the jumble.
Why had hearing Tobirama say the word 'ass' so pronouncedly seared itself irrecoverably into his brain?
And why the hell had it sounded so right?