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Izuna couldn’t believe this was his life.
Was he in some sort of parallel dimension? Was he dead and in hell?
There had to be some explanation, because there was no way he was actually witnessing his brother kissing the Goddess-forsaken White Demon.
He breathed a quick ’kai’, hoping it was a genjutsu even though he knew it couldn’t be.
Izuna had been tracking news of strange occurrences on the border between Fire and Iron for nearly a week now. Normally, they wouldn’t be concerned since it was so far from Uchiha lands, but quite a few of the reported occurrences sounded a bit too much like the sharingan to ignore. Any possible tales of eye-thieves were taken extremely seriously. However, stories of rogue sharingan users could be easily used as bait, which is why Izuna was out here in the middle of nowhere as the second strongest in the clan and one of the best at information gathering.
Talking with locals and following leads had left Izuna frustratedly tracking these potential eye-thieves through the rocky cliff sides of Iron. The most recent story he heard from a weaver’s apprentice featured two men asking strange questions and talking about seals and chakra. The young apprentice was adamant that one of the men had red eyes, but she couldn’t see more of his features under his cloak.
His ponytail snagged on a scraggly branch from one of the sad, barren trees dotting the cliffs, but before Izuna could start cursing his luck, he heard movement from ahead. He pulled his chakra in even tighter, checking that his genjutsu was still active on himself, and silently crept forward.
“What’s taking so long?” He heard a voice from ahead say gruffly. There was something familiar about the tone.
“Don’t rush me, the lines have to be exact or the timing will be off. It was already a hassle finding enough sealing ink and I don’t have enough to start over.” A second voice said in a monotone.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want the timing to be off. It’s not like the timing’s already off! I still can’t believe you threw us back in time! I want a divorce!”
Time travel?
“If you were going to divorce me you would have done it twenty years ago. And I told you not to disturb my research.”
“Oh ho ho, don’t you pin this back on me! What would you have done if Tsunade and her little toddler gang had stumbled onto that circle? Or that feral little cousin of yours?”
“Sakumo is not feral. His behaviors are developmentally normal for a Hatake child.”
How are the Hatake involved in this? Izuna thought incredulously as he listened to the two voices bicker. Even though the Hatake were allied to the Senju clan, they rarely involved themselves in external affairs. Izuna’s not one to trust other clans easily, but he knows the Hatake’s reputation: they react to kidnappers and bloodline thieves with a vicious sort of justice. Or was the first voice telling the truth. Could they really have traveled through time? If they were Uchiha from the future, why didn’t they just come to the clan compound for help? He tried to creep closer and get a visual on who was speaking.
Crouched half behind a boulder and a gnarled tree stump, Izuna looked out into a rocky clearing where a man with long black hair, streaked with grey, was standing over another figure painting something on the ground.
“Oh? Is that what you were like as a child?” The man standing said gleefully. “Did you just go around biting everyone?”
“Irrelevant.”
“I didn’t realize it was hereditary. I guess that explains why you’re so bitey when we-“
“Shut up!” The man stopped painting and stood in a flustered huff.
Izuna froze as the first man started cackling. He would recognize that crazy laugh that sounded like a madman achieving world domination anywhere.
A disguise? A genjutsu? But his sharingan wasn’t showing any kind of henge. And he’s never met anyone that could replicate his brother’s devilish laughter, even from within the Uchiha clan.
Madara grabbed the other man by the wrist and pulled him close. The other’s cloak fell, exposing white hair and a grumpy, tattooed face.
Senju Tobirama?
Was Izuna concussed? A concussion might actually be preferable to whatever this was.
He watched, dumbfounded as Madara grinned and pulled Tobirama into a quick kiss (WHAT!?) chuckling when Tobirama bit his lower lip with a pout. Izuna tried to reboot his brain as Madara turned, no longer facing away and-
That wasn’t his brother.
Or, it wasn’t the brother he knew. This Madara was… older. He looked like their father, except Tajima never had those smile lines. The wrinkles around his mouth and eyes deepened with the grin he shot Tobirama. Even the Senju was older. Hair as white as usual, but his face was thinner with lines around his eyes and between his brows.
They both looked to be in their fifties. Old, by shinobi standards when death was so common.
Izuna felt his throat tighten.
Losing Madara was always a fear. He was one of the strongest shinobi of their time, but no one was infallible. Seeing an image of his brother happy and going grey with age was all he ever prayed for.
The older Tobirama finished the circle while Izuna was distracted and motioned for Madara to join him in the middle. His brother grabbed the Senju’s hand and placed a gentle kiss on his palm, and Izuna watched as the man he called a demon softened. Red eyes, still sharp in their age, filled with more warmth than the young Uchiha thought possible.
“Fill the matrix with chakra?” Tobirama asked, slotting their fingers together in a loose hold.
“Yes, dear,” Madara replied as he closed his eyes and channeled chakra, the seal under them lighting up in a blue glow.
Just before they disappeared in a flash of light, the older Tobirama met Izuna’s eyes for the briefest of moments, bringing a finger up to his lips with a small smile.
And then they were gone.
Izuna waited for a few moments before walking into the clearing. The complex sealing circle was still on the ground with footsteps in the dirt around it. He memorized the circle before destroying it with a small doton.
Well, he was pretty sure that wasn’t a hallucination. But whether it was a real part of their future he couldn’t be sure. But… the older Madara had been happy. That had been clear to see, even if he was happy with the White Demon. Although, maybe that moniker was less true than he thought after witnessing the Senju interact with Madara.
Izuna wasn’t sure what to think, but he did know one thing: he would do anything for his brother. He didn’t trust the Senju, but if this encounter showed anything real, maybe peace wasn’t so far fetched.
He sighed and got ready to head back to the Uchiha compound. He would have a lot of work to do convincing the elder’s to agree to peace.
And maybe a marriage as well.