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Flight of the Valkyrie
“Do you remember…?” Izuna asks, Madara holding his hand gently. “Do you remember when we were young and everything was so clear? We had our whole lives ahead of us, and all our family was within arms reach.”
It’s not like that anymore.
“I remember,” Madara says. “But we grew up, just like we were supposed to.”
“We grew up,” Izuna repeats. He doesn’t point out that they didn’t. His parents didn’t grow old, his siblings didn’t grow old enough. “At least one of us gets to die in our sleep.”
“Don’t say that,” Madara says, and his voice is a harsh whisper. He grasps onto Izuna’s limp hand just a little tighter. He’s not the reason Izuna’s nails are turning lavender and azure. “Don’t say that. Please.”
He doesn’t say that Izuna isn’t going to die, it’s a secret they both know. “I need you to make me a promise,” Izuna says instead.
Madara hesitates, and Izuna hates that he knows why. Madara is not shy about his desire to end the war. Izuna isn’t either, but their methods are ideological opposites. “Tell me,” Madara says instead.
“Not today,” Izuna shakes his head. “Not until you are ready to promise.”
“I am,” Madara insists.
“You aren’t.” Izuna disagrees.
“You come first,” Madara says, brushing his lips against his cheek.
“Our clan comes first, as it should, as it always must,” Izuna insists before a rattling cough takes over his body for a moment. Blood and spittle paint his pale, pale lips a murky brown. “Never throw away our ancestors, our people, our legacy, for just one man, even if it’s me.”
“If it would save you…” Madara whines, bringing Izuna's hand up to cradle it against his chest—
(Like he held the whole of Izuna when they were children)
—before he continues. “I would do anything.”
“Then promise me,” Izuna says, but Madara is already shaking his head.
“Not today,” Madara says.
“Tomorrow then?” Izuna asks, his voice weak and his eyes drifting closed.
“Tomorrow.”
———
Hikaku comes to visit in the dark of night. He’s never really been comfortable talking during the day.
“Tobirama’s a right bastard, but an honourable way to die,” he says. He’s right, and he’s wrong.
“If only he had pierced my heart then,” Izuna laments, “There is no glory to be won from a sickbed.”
“…and hope is a beast that eats the best of us alive.” Hikaku says, there isn’t much more for him to say , everything between them has always been out in the open, where Madara falters, Hikaku will follow through. Izuna should thank him, but his time has passed, the sentiment would be a waste of words now.
“Don’t let Madara be swallowed up whole.”
———
Tobirama is a surprise. Izuna opens his eyes to the sun and all he can see is his rival, perched at the end of his bed.
“Tobirama,” he says, and Tobirama hums and looks away.
“I could make all the pain go away,” he says, and Izuna doesn’t doubt that.
“All for peace?” Izuna asks, “all for something that will never be true? The Uchiha won’t accept that, too much blood has been spilled?”
“Even when it’s your own? You still wouldn’t accept it?”
“I’ll never accept anything from the likes of you!” He screams, grabbing the nearest object, a glass vase painted with peonies that was his mothers—
Madara dodges, “You’re hallucinating Izuna! You’re dreaming! It’s me!”
Oh , right. Tobirama wasn’t there at all, would never be allowed into the compound, never be let in to see him, but he seemed so real…
“Is it the medicine or the infection?” Madara asks somebody, a Uchiha medic most likely, one of the few and far between.
Izuna lays back down, his side is burning hot, persistent as if somebody had set a boiling kettle on his skin and left it there. “Does it matter?” He asks, and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to Madara or the medic. “If it’s not the infection yet, it will be. ”
Bitterness is on his tongue and in his heart.
“Don’t say that,” Madara says, “You have to stay alive, to make me promise.”
“…and will you?” Izuna asks, hopeful for a moment, abandoning frustration for a warmer emotion.
“Tomorrow,” says Madara, and Izuna smiles, he’ll make it another day… Another agonizing day. One more day just clinging to the threads that maybe Madara will avenge him.
———
His mother visits him in dreams, but he already knows she is dead and gone.
“What are the pure lands like?” He asks, but she never answers.
She just hums the song that she used to sing when he and Madara were small, when there were three more brothers yet to come and overwhelm them, before lullabies turned to war ballads.
(Before love turned to sadness, and joyful noise to agonizing silence.)
“I’m coming to find you,” he promises, because he knows he soon will be.
———
Kagami sneaks in like a mouse. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he incriminates himself immediately.
“Then why are you?” Asks Izuna, but he already knows the answer.
“I wanted to see you, but I didn’t know you would be turning purple…” that it’s the last time goes unspoken.
“The Senju wasn’t even kind enough to poison the blade, so soon I will be turning green too,” Izuna wheezes. “I promise, it will be quite disgusting.”
“I know.”
(Kagami’s parents died like this. From lack of medicine and clean water.)
“Still, you came. I don’t have any words of wisdom, little one, kill as many Senju as you can before you die.” Izuna says, his right arm reaching up to brush against the side of Kagami’s face. He doesn’t have the strength for more than that.
“I’m going to be a great ninja,” Kagami says, and Izuna wants to vomit. He can taste the acid in his throat. Wishes that Kagami would be—could be—anything else instead. He wants to be exactly what Izuna is.
Dying, because there is always somebody better, because luck isn’t always on his side.
“The very best ninja,” he agrees instead. Kagami’s dreams are not his to steal.
———
Madara returns on the last day, and Izuna knows it’s the last day, because Madara brings a stool and sits by his cot with a scroll in hand.
“My eyes, for the ledger?” Izuna asks, and Madara nods.
“It’s important to keep track of these things, I have no other living brothers. My eyes will go to Uchiha Madara.”
He waits until the sound of the Madara’s sleeves rustling does not linger by ears. Until the bamboo slats are folded and the ink and brush set aside.
“I think it’s tomorrow now, but you already know what I have to ask. Will you promise me?” Izuna asks, but he knows now that what he asks is really too difficult. His mother cannot tell him what the pure lands are like, and Madara cannot promise him that the clan will fight until every last Senju is gone. Will not.
“I will,” Madara says, and Izuna lets his eyes close, willing that he can remember his brother’s face when he reaches the great beyond. “In a moment.”
All they have is a moment, But Izuna doesn’t want Madara to see, doesn’t want this moment seared into the back of his mind the way Tobirama’s knife is seared into his chest.
“I should like one thing then, one favour, before you do,” Izuna tries to smile, eyes still closed and his heart thudding in his ears. Slower and slower.
“Name it?” Madara asks, desperately clinging to his hand again.
“One peony, from the garden, like a mother's vase…”
They are almost in full bloom now, or they will be soon with the season.
“Of course,” Madara says, getting up to leave, “I’ll only be gone a moment, and then I swear, I’ll promise.”
A moment is all Izuna needs.
———