Work Text:
Dust of Snow
Tobirama is fast. Out of the many things he isn’t…fast - that is his confidence. Yet, by the time he gets there, some of the healers are already turning away in tears.
On autopilot, he drops to his knees next to Izuna, running a diagnostic jutsu through his hands, even though he can already feel it.
Madara has no chakra. None. Where there usually is a wildfire lighting up his senses, Tobirama can’t even feel the hint of a spark.
While the sheer amount of chakra Madara and his own brother possess makes it unlikely for them to ever reach the point of exhaustion, it has happened. Tobirama remembers a blasted mission in Suna where Madara had been forced to breathe so much fire to cover their retreat that he had turned the sand into glass. Tobirama had discovered a whole new kind of fear when he had asked for confirmation of the path they were running on that night only to have the Uchiha stumbling by his side hiss “I can't see”.
Who could have guessed the day would ever come where a Sharingan not working would bring dread and not murderous glee? Still, exhausted for exhausted, Madara had still been functioning then. He isn’t now.
In the dust, laying half on Izuna, the Uchiha looks dead. He almost feels it too, with his chakra gone: Tobirama would believe it if not for the way he keeps fleebly attempting to squirm away from his brother’s hold.
Izuna shushes him. “It’s me. Brother, it’s me. Please, hold on - still, now.”
“No" Madara says, clearly putting in the effort to be clear “Tobirama.”
It takes Tobirama a few seconds and Madara being awkwardly shuffled into his arms to understand why Madara wants him. The Uchiha is burning. Not in a ‘I am hot and will spit fire’ kind of burning. That's an everyday norm. No, this is a burning that makes Tobirama sure he will get first degree burns just from touching him.
Uh. Not good.
“Cold” Madara all but pleads again, curling deeper into his chest. Tobirama cannot run his chakra through his body fast enough.
He summons water, as cold as he can manage, and drenches Madara with it. The man doesn't even flinch. Colder then.
The temperature drops. Tobirama can feel the strain of the jutsu right below his ribs, tugging at his chakra. Humidity condenses into frost; the water from the river comes summoned at his command, freezing around them. The sky darkens, clouds forming overhead. Snow. Madara gasps, fingers grasping at Tobirama’s fur.
He should be freezing. He should be frozen. Instead, the ice melts. The snow evaporates before it can touch him. And whatever stubbornness it is that Madara is clinging to keeps waning right underneath Tobirama’s hands.
“Why is he like this?” - Tobirama barks, watching Izuna jump at his side. The man’s teeth are chattering. Tobirama is not sure how Madara is still burning.
“He pushed me out of the way of a senbon trap and then…Dragon Fire. It’s a forbidden jutsu, you just… well you summon fire from the chakra point in your belly before you spit it.”
“And it's forbidden because?”
“It floors you. If you get the release wrong while one of the characters points is open, the fire won't stop until it has drained you. Sometimes it doesn't even release, it turns inwards and it just burns your chakra supply from the inside out.”
Madara's breath is soft - a flighty, fidgety thing that threatens to die with every exhale. Tobirama can feel it against his chest, feel the stubborn quiver of it as the Uchiha curls even tighter against him. It’s the only reason he hears him speak.
“Look?”
Madara's mind is something that catches people by surprise. Tobirama himself sometimes still makes the mistake of underestimating his intellect. He follows the instruction now: he looks down and then he looks in . Not with his eyes but with his chakra and he sees .
It's poison. The chakra destroying poison they have been battling with no luck for the past few months - a concoction created by the Mist that has proven slowly, mercilessly deadly. A poison created to attack the chakra directly and thus impossible to treat with healing jutsus. If it had been Izuna who had been hit - or indeed anyone else - they would have been dead.
Except that Madara is alive. Madara is a genius. Madara is aflame .
Madara is burning, the forbidden jutsu setting his very chakra aflame and the poison by extension. It’s clever - if he burns through his poisoned chakra quickly enough, if he destroys the tainted supply, chakra and poison in a swift go, then he can generate new, clean chakra and survive.
“It’s poison” - Tobirama whispers - “it’s the poison.”
Izuna stills. In Tobirama’s arms Madara is still half conscious – his black eyes open at times to look for his brother as if to make sure he truly did manage to save him but Tobirama can feel him slipping. He doesn't know if it's a good thing.
“Then there’s…is there nothing to…?”
There is - Tobirama thinks - there is something to do. Something that can be done. Something that Madara has done. Something he wants Tobirama to do.
He bends down, curling around the Uchiha - his enemy, his bane, his monster and yet…a mind so beautiful, a heart so heavy. Peace, he thinks. Trust. They are close, so close, they might as well be sharing breath.
“I risk damaging your Sharingan.”
Madara blinks and looks at him - eyes dark, impossibly dark.
“Please” he begs.
“Tell me when.”
Madara nods. Tobirama feels the shift, Madara’s mind slipping, turning, his very being twisting inwards. Dragon Fire. Madara's chest is glowing. With each ragged breath the man draws in, his lungs and throat seem to light up from the inside with a golden-red light. Like an oversized firefly – Tobirama thinks with fascination. He burns, the God of Flames and Fire, fragile like a butterfly pinned by Tobirama’s hands. Human and yet…yet…
The poison gives way. The chakra burns. Madara’s heart slows down. Tobirama follows the flow, the power - sees the poison, the last of it, go at the same time as the last of Madara’s chakra goes. The last breath of Madara Uchiha.
“Please” he begs.
What else can Tobirama do? His own chakra has always had a strong affinity for water - imperfect, unfinished, his father would say - so he summons it now. A frost that is internal and not external. He runs it - desperation more than logic - straight through into Madara’s veins. Into his body, into his blood, into his cells.
In the whole of the 24 years of his life, Tobirama cannot remember ever having the issue of not enough chakra. It seems there is a first for everything.
Running his chakra through Madara's body is like throwing rocks into a well without ever hearing the splash of water. When people say insane amounts of chakra, they always think Hashirama. Being a close second apparently doesn't count – until that close second is chakra depleted and you are trying to replenish it. Until you are trying to stop it.
This is not going to work.
Tobirama’s chakra is foreign. Freezing. Inactive. It swallows the flames of Dragon Fire, stemming the flow of the jutsu. Tobirama can feel it shudder, stumble - it cannot get a hold of Tobirama’s own chakra, not when he’s refined it to only show his water affinity. But no new chakra seems to be coming.
He’s too open - Tobirama thinks - too close to Madara, to his firefly heart, to the tether of his life. It slips through his fingers like water. Tobirama wonders if taking his eyes out would help. Less of a strain.
Then he feels it: the first, unassisted beat of Madara’s heart. The second. The third. Madara breathes.
His fingers reach up, shaking, to touch Tobirama’s pale, unblemished cheeks - his stores of chakra expended in the effort.
Tobirama curls in against him and weeps. Life - he thinks. Peace. As raw and unpredictable as war.