Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The new world began with a hole in the sky.

Being a small hole, no one had noticed its existence, nor the three bodies that had proceeded to tumble out of it and onto the ground below. And for the Senju and Uchiha clans out on the battlefield that day, they had far more important things to care about.   

Namely, the curious side effect that said hole’s appearance had on the sky over Fire, transforming it Sharingan-red and then a pulsating purple, before the distortion collapsed in on itself and the sky reverted back to a normal, sunny day blue.

In a land of gods, spirits, and giant, roaming chakra beasts, it didn’t take long for the hysterics to begin. Amidst the chaos, two important things happened:

Firstly, Senju Tobirama’s sword paused right before it would have been plunged into Uchiha Izuna’s back, the blade gleaming red under the light of the changed sky. In another story, the red is blood, dripping off the edge as the fatal blow is dealt. In this, Senju Tobirama stays his hand, turning tail to help Senju Hashirama coordinate the Senju’s retreat in the face of the unknown above them.

Secondly, the suddenly lonesome Uchiha Izuna finds himself accosted by an unknown assailant, who physically manhandles him out of the open and into a copse of bushes. By the time he reappears, his hair has been tragically cropped short and he is much later than the rest of the Uchiha in returning to their clan compound.

Upon return, Izuna had seemed… quiet, but a flash of sharingan as proof of identity in a familiar face was enough. In no time at all, the clan’s worry over the brief disappearance of their beloved heir had been replaced by curiosity over what he had been up to. 

Tell us, tell us! The clan children begged, tugging on his mantle.

It wasn't anything exciting, Izuna explained, curt and awkward and oddly formal to the gaggle of Uchiha gathered around him. He'd simply stayed back to make sure no one was left behind in the chaos. Just doing his duty as heir to the Uchiha clan.

How thoughtful! The Uchiha had praised in response, cursing the Senju demon in the same breath for shearing off Izuna’s beautiful long hair. Go rest, they said, ushering him off to his quarters instead of the shrine where Madara and other senior members of the clan had been conducting an emergency ritual.

You did a good job looking out for our men out there, now let us take care of you.

If the teen had looked oddly shell-shocked and was unnervingly silent while the aunties of the clan fed, washed, and clothed him, well, it was probably just fatigue. A quiet night would do him good, and Izuna would be back to his charismatic, affectionate self soon enough. The aunties tucked him in bed, one ruffling his short hair fondly before shutting the door to his room and leaving him to his rest. 

It took a while for anyone to realise that just maybe, it wasn’t Uchiha Izuna that had returned to them that day from the battlefield.

There were many fascinating things about the life of Uchiha Izuna, once-clan heir to the now defunct Uchiha clan.

In life, Izuna was one of the Uchiha’s clan’s strongest shinobi, celebrated and beloved by his fellow clanmates. He was the youngest of the mainline family, a cheerful, cute child who had grown up into a beautiful young man that loved his clan as fiercely as they loved him back. He had awakened the mangekyo sharingan at a young age, was a kenjutsu expert, wielded both fire and lightning chakra with relative ease, and was able to keep up with Senju Tobirama. 

Until he didn’t.

In death, Uchiha Izuna was little more than a footnote in the margins of Konoha’s early history books, a presence that became tinier and tinier until it was completely washed out in the latest editions of how the Senju and Uchiha made friends and founded the nice village known as Konohagakure. 

Among the older, dustier versions one could find in the back of the Konoha central library, Uchiha Izuna’s most prominent act (dying) was noted as a catalyst for both the attainment of the peace treaty that led to Konoha’s foundation, and also the subsequent mental deterioration of Uchiha Madara and the terrible events that followed after. 

All of this would be terribly important to the final, desperate plan Team Seven had in mind, of course. But they weren’t the thing that had drawn Sakura, and then Naruto’s attention to this minor historical figure in the first place. 

There had been another oddity about Izuna that had sent Sakura on an obsessive research binge to learn anything and everything about the man, leading them to settle in the remains of the Uchiha compound’s archives at the end of the world. Namely-

“See, doesn’t he look just like you, Sasuke?” 

They could have passed for twins.

Izuna’s eyes had been a little larger, face just a tiny bit leaner, but for how distant their relation had been—None of the mainline in Uchiha Madara’s generation had borne children, leaving the line of succession passed to a second-cousin that had been Sasuke’s great grandfather—Sasuke could have almost deluded himself into thinking it was a drawing of him , standing by Uchiha Madara, in front of a house he didn’t recognise, and in a formal montsuki he never owned.

Disturbed, he pushed the scroll away, scowling. “It’s weird, but I don’t get what this guy has to do with anything.”

Sakura groaned from where she had been hunched over a stack of scrolls pilfered from the ruins of Uzushio. “That’s because you weren’t listening! You two look alike, have similar powers from what I’ve found out, even. That means that we have a chance.”

A chance to save the world, as Naruto had cheered while they dodged the giant sea-creature living in Uzushio’s waters, though Sasuke had failed to see how. There had been a lot of muttering and technical jargon between the other two over seals and space-time he had ignored in favour of killing the sea-creature without alerting the alien moon goddess hunting them down to their location. 

“Explain. Again.” 

“I got this,” Naruto exclaimed, sitting in the middle of the perfect circle he had carved into the floorboards. Sasuke decided not to being up the fact that it was right over where Sasuke’s uncle and the clan’s former records keeper had been murdered by Itachi on that day .

“So, Sakura and I, right, now that we got the papers from Uzushio and also the hokage tower storeroom, we can make a big seal and send us all the way back to the beginning! And bang, boom, woosh,” Naruto mimed a bunch of explosions for emphasis, ending with his fist in the air, “we save the world, believe it!”

Sasuke stared at the idiot before him. “Explain better.” None of that explained what any of this had to do with his long dead doppelganger Sakura had been so fixated on. Eye twitching, he pushed down the worrying thought that perhaps that crush from when they were genin had never gone away. Just… no. There were other things they all had to focus on right now.

Outside, the wind (or perhaps it was the fucking alien space goddess) howled as a lamppost was ripped out of the ground and sucked into the red vortex of the sky above. 

“How did I lose top student to you?” Sakura muttered, raking a hand through grimy pink hair. “Sasuke-kun, think about it. Uchiha Izuna is the clan heir to Uchiha Madara.” 

“I know my own clan history.” To an extent. Not really, actually, he hadn’t known about Uchiha Izuna. Uchiha Madara and his descent into villainy on the other hand was a well known shame among the clan, even among the children. If you misbehave, Uchiha Madara will come and get you! The clan aunties had threatened. 

It had driven him to sleep in Itachi’s bed for weeks after that particular scolding, until Itachi had managed to convince him that Uchiha Madara was dead and couldn’t hurt him anymore. 

Having been impaled by the monster himself on the battlefield, with his mad grin and the horrifying face of the first hokage growing out of his chest, Sasuke could confidently say that Itachi was a liar.

“Yes, and so you wouldn’t need this civilian to explain to you how the line of succession works?” Sakura continued, slowly, having grown impatient with Sasuke's silence as he was sent down a rabbit hole of flashbacks involving every time Itachi had lied to him.

“If Uchiha Madara… steps down,” She said, glancing at Naruto. “Then Uchiha Izuna as the clan heir will take over as head of the Uchiha Clan.” 

“Uchiha Izuna died.”

“We’ll save him,” Naruto chimed in, shooting him a thumbs up. With his other hand, he hastily rubbed out charcoal markings on the floorboard, smearing soot across the aged cypress floor. “If he’s alive, then Madara doesn’t go crazy!”

“And if Izuna is clan head instead of Madara,” Sakura angled her body away from Naruto, signing to Sasuke a few quick symbols—Crazy target. Dead.—” Then Izuna is the one who signs the treaty with the Senju and founds Konoha.”

“So you’re saying we should travel back in time using the seal Naruto is drawing despite him not being a seal master of any sort, save Izuna, have him somehow replace Madara as clan head, and convince Izuna to stop fighting the Senju and create a village with them.” Their village, which though he had eventually changed his mind on destroying, was ultimately flawed and had failed all of them in various, disturbing ways. “This is insane.”

“It’s our chance. We’ll live. And maybe we can save the world with it.” They all chanced a glance out through the gaps in the boarded up windows. The howling outside was getting louder, growing tremors sending books and scrolls toppling off the shelves and scattered across the floor. 

“Come on Sasuke, what do we have left to lose?” 

They were, as far as they knew, the last ones alive in this scarlet hell. Even the summons had fallen silent, not one responding to their desperate calls. Sasuke chose not to ruminate on it too long, switching to another discrepancy in the plan.

“If Madara never goes crazy because we save his brother, then why do you need Izuna to be clan head? Just strongarm Madara into playing nice and be done with it.” 

“Well, we can never be too sure he isn’t just normally crazy, right?” Green eyes blinked at him in faux innocence. 

Sometime between him leaving them behind and their reunion, the weak fangirl had grown into something vicious, eyes now as sharp as the brain she had all along. It was her plans they had been pursuing while trying to survive this hell, Sakura using everything she learnt as the Hokage's apprentice to navigate a landscape as hostile as Konoha's political underbelly to keep them alive.

Sometimes, Sasuke wondered which of them was the one who was mentored by the snake sage. 

“Don’t you have issues with our Konoha Sasuke-kun? I know I do. You can’t imagine the amount of rotting roots shishou and I unearthed while she had the hat. Why not we fix them before they even have a chance to grow? You’ll be in the perfect position to do so as clan head, Izuna sama.”

“What.”

Madara really would have went to find Izuna the moment he realised he hadn’t came back with them, he swore, but as clan head he had been held up at the shrine, the elders insistent on finding out what the sky over the battlefield changing into unnatural colours and back could possibly mean for their war with the Senju. The rites to call upon the gods had taken hours, only to yield no response. 

But at least Izuna had returned.

By the time he had gotten back home, his brother was asleep, curled up in his futon with the sheets tucked to his nose in a way Madara hadn’t seen since they were kids.

Even with his limited vision, Madara could trace the evidence of dried up tear tracks on Izuna’s cheeks. Face creasing in worry, the elder squatted by Izuna’s side, sweeping stray strands of hair out of his brother’s face. 

In the dim moonlight filtering through the window, Izuna looked a lot younger than usual, his face not as sharp and eyebrows furrowed in the way they did when the younger was having a nightmare. 

“Did the sky spook you that much?” He murmured, frowning as Izuna’s short hair slipped easily through his rough fingers. “Don’t worry, the elders and I will find out what this means for us. I swear nothing will befall you as I live.” 

Izuna was his last living brother. He would like it to stay that way, even if he had to fight the heavens himself.

But for now, Izuna was back home and safe, and that was all he could ask for. Madara got up with a grunt, walking to the door and shutting it as quietly as he could.

“Rest well, brother.”

Sasuke didn’t sleep that night.

The next day, the sound of a thousand chirping birds filled the air as he attempted to impale Madara in the Uchiha aviary. 

Chapter Text

“This plan. While I’m doing all the dirty work, what are you two going to do?”

“Oi, don't say that like you're doing everything, we’re doing work right now, look at my seal!”

“...We are all going back to the past, right?” Sasuke glared at the seal that was becoming increasingly elaborate and bloody the more the other two worked on it. 

There was no other way. Team Seven, broken and missing pieces as it was (and whose fault was it in the first place they had been torn apart in the first place?) had to stick together.

Even if the rest of the team were the most annoying, persistent friends people he had ever known. 

Naruto squinted at him, confused. “Yeah? Of course we are, stupid.”

“Don’t feel like you have to miss us too badly, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura grinned, swinging an arm over his shoulder and trapping him in a headlock. “We love you too much to let you go ever again!”

“And to answer your first question, well, who do you think is taking care of the guy you’re replacing?”

Izuna knew the weird sky had been an omen.

Senju Tobirama had fled like a coward the instant it bled red, leaving him standing there in stunned horror before a pink blur overtook his vision. One painful knock to the head, and now he was waking up bound and blindfolded, an awful headache carving out the insides of his brain.

Fuck. It hurt. 

He whined, curling in on himself as much as his bonds could allow him.

Immediately, a female voice piped up, high and grating. “Oh, you’re awake! That’s good, I was about to forcibly wake you up soon if you slept past noon.” Fingers traced over his skull, unnervingly near his eye sockets. Izuna tensed.

Bloodline thieves? Had the sky been a mass genjutsu to capture his clanmates? 

“Huh, still sore there. Guess I did hit too hard.” A spout of nervous laughter erupted as the woman’s hands settled over his temples. Izuna’s shoulders sagged as the headache faded away, cool relief rushing into his brain. They shot up again just as quickly when he remembered the situation he was in.

Focus, focus. 

“That you did. How nice of you to fix the damage you caused! While you’re at it, why don’t you be a dear and loosen these binds, hm? I don’t bite,” he cooed, straining his bound hands to feel the knots holding them together. They were expertly done. It seemed like this lady had come prepared. 

Then, he jumped as a loud male voice nearly took out his eardrums. “Sorry, we can’t! Not until you hear us out.” Izuna winced as he rubbed his ear against his shoulder. There were two of them? 

“Why should I do that? I’m not very inclined to do anything for you two right now.” All he wanted to do to them was to stick them in the worst genjutsu he could imagine, leaving them to die a slow, horrible death in their nightmares, but he wasn’t going to tell them that. 

“We can explain, really! Just—hold on, I’m done writing the seal. Lemme stick it on…” Izuna hissed as a hand slapped something onto his chest, a rush of odd, unnatural chakra creeping over his skin. 

He blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden influx of light as the blindfold was carefully lifted, Izuna scowling when he realised the seal was blocking him from using any chakra.

“Comfortable? I tried my best, but lemme know if it burns or something.” The man—a teenage boy, really, with blond hair, weird whisker markings that he didn’t recognise from any clan, and awful, horrible chakra that made his instincts scream at him to run, now—babbled, wringing his hands together. “Anyway, hi! Wow, you really, really look like Sasuke, did you know that?”

“Sasuke… Sarutobi?” That annoying kid from the monkey clan? Izuna didn’t like him. He shot the man a charming smile, noting with glee how the other’s cheeks had warmed at the act. How interesting. “I’m offended, I’m much prettier. I’ll also feel much more comfortable if you remove the seal completely. Let’s have a talk, man to man on equal ground, what do you think?”

“Sorry, Izuna-san. I know way too much about you to allow that to happen,” The woman—girl—with shockingly pink hair piped up, and wow, wasn’t that a disturbing statement to hear while you were being held hostage. “Hear us out, then we’ll see about freeing you, okay?”

Izuna pouted, fixing his face into the one look that had always won over the girls and the aunties in his clan whenever he was bothering them with requests. The pink haired girl reeled back with a disturbed look on her face. “I don’t know if I believe you. And really, I’ll behave! Just remove the ropes and you can even keep your little seal on…” 

He trailed off as he looked down to see the fluttering seal. It was pasted to his chest, which was curiously bare with the way his clothes lay open and—

“M-my clothes!” His clan mantle was gone. Izuna stared at what looked like an attempt to half-dress him with clothes stolen from a kabuki theater. There was even a giant purple obijime tying the layers of his lower half and the thin, open shirt on his shoulders together. Did they forget about dressing his top half or something? 

The girl winced. “We had to do it.”

“What’s wrong with my normal clothes?!”

“Well, Sasu—Ow! You didn’t have to hit me Sakura,” What an on-the-nose name for the pinky. The blond rubbed his head, grinning sheepishly at Izuna. “We’re borrowing them for a bit! I know the bastard dresses funny but at least they fit, right? It even has the fan on the back.” 

Who were these people. Izuna tried to figure out why a kidnapper would dress a captive with their clan symbols. For identification? Wearily, he eyed the seal on his bare chest again. The script was familiar in the way that demon Senju sometimes used in their fights ever since he came back from a little trip to Uzushio. 

Uzushio seals, the blond apparently having knowledge of how to use them, and Sakura-san’s pink hair that was close enough to red…

“Okay, what do the Uzumaki want with me?” If this was some ploy of the Senju, he was going straight for the other’s stupid, aggravatingly red eyes the next time they clashed. It wasn’t fair if the bastard was audacious enough to outsource their feud to an ally clan.

The blond’s mouth dropped, blue eyes growing wide. “Hey, how did you know! I’m Uzumaki Naruto—ow! Sakura-chan, stop hitting me.” 

Sakura put a hand over Naruto’s head, a green glow encasing it. The other sighed, removing his hands from where he had been rubbing his head. The same jutsu she used to heal his headache, perhaps? How odd that his kidnapper was apparently a healer. Though, she could be one of those doctors that harvested organs. Fuck.

“I would think,” He spat, all humour gone, “that the Uzumaki as a fellow shinobi clan would have the honour to not engage in bloodline theft.”

“What? No! We would never touch your eyes!” Uzumaki Naruto yelled, apparently horrified by the idea.

“We’re unaffiliated with the Uzumaki clan, Izuna-san. And we aren’t here to steal your eyes, we swear.” Sakura added. At his suspicious glare, she sighed and walked over, squatting down perched on the balls of her feet right in front of his bound form. 

Look,” she said. “There’s something in this land right now, an alien, that would take control of your brother and use him to destroy everything. We could leave you here in the bushes while we track it down and destroy it first, which may take weeks, or you could help us out and make our jobs a lot faster and easier, how ‘bout that?” 

“Aniki? He can hold his own.” And Izuna would take their heads clean off their shoulders before any threat even got in spitting distance of his brother. “And also, what the fuck are you talking about.” 

“The end of the world.” Sakura’s voice turned solemn. “We time travelled from that future to here, in order to stop it.” 

What.

Izuna looked around him. The sky was clear blue, the trees were green with just a tinge of yellow as autumn approached, starlings were swooping over the battlefield in the distance and the only thing out of place were the two idiots crouched before him.

There had been that red and purple sky earlier, but everything looked so normal now. It was hard to believe a single word they said.

Naruto frowned at the skeptical look on Izuna's face. 

“You gotta believe us, it was real bad. But we saved you and we can save your brother, and we can put a stop to it and save the future too, y’know.” Blue eyes met his, blazing with determination. “And we can’t do it alone, we need to do this as a team, would you help us?”

“You guys are crazy.” Izuna managed, voice strained. “Why am I here?”

Suddenly, Sakura leant in real close, nose touching his. “You’re important, Izuna-san. You love your brother and will do anything to protect him. This alien will hurt your brother if we don’t stop it. I know you have the mangekyo. Do you know Amaterasu?” 

Tilting his head back, Izuna desperately tried to reach for his locked up chakra. He didn’t know why they were bringing up his patron goddess, and he didn’t like where this conversation was going. “I believe in her power and benevolence. She’s watched over our clan for centuries. Why?”

“Oh. No. Not the Goddess.” 

“Like, black fire. Burns everything jutsu?” Naruto piped up.

“...Maybe. Again, why ?” That. That was his ability. How did they know this?

“We need to destroy the manifestation of an alien moon goddess’ willpower. That’s the thing that’s gonna cause all the problems.” Sakura shrugged, like that wasn’t one of the most unhinged statements Izuna had ever heard. His efforts to try and dislocate his thumbs got more desperate.  

“Don’t look at me like that! We got to test all avenues, right? And if it doesn’t work you could always trap it in that nightmare genjutsu thing you guys have. By the way, stop trying to escape your bonds. I’m not healing any injuries you get from them.”

He gave up. When he escaped, Izuna was going to find out who had been feeding these insane rogue Uzumaki clan secrets and kill them. For now, though, he was so, so tired. Was this what others felt when he used his information gathering skills to intimidate his marks? 

What to do…

He chewed his lip, watching his captors. It was a really annoying tic that he had picked up from recording the Senju doing it on the battlefield and never managed to get rid of. Meanwhile, his captors were admiring the world around them, behaving as if they had never touched grass in their life. 

“Isn’t this place awesome, Sakura? There’s trees! The sky is so blue here.”

This was turning out to be one of the weirdest and worst days of his life. 

It’s fine, he told himself. Just go with the path of least resistance. Cooperate and indulge the crazy people, get freed of these ropes and maybe he can escape and kill them before they find him again. Madara must be going spare by now with his day-long absence, if his reading of the sun’s position was correct.

“Right, okay. Sure. And if I agree to help you on your… quest, you’ll leave me alone after?” 

The two Uzumaki shared a significant, long look between them. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. For now, though, welcome to Team Seven, Izuna-san!” 

“Yeah! Let’s save the world!” 

“Yay,” Izuna muttered unenthusiastically, internally debating ideas of how to slip away from these psychos as soon as possible. He could genjutsu them, he thought. Stick them in an endless, perfect dream where they’d never want to wake up and bother anyone ever again. He would probably be doing the Uzumaki a favour, even, if this was the kind of black sheep they had running around. 

“Awesome.” Naruto beamed as he jumped up, pointing into the distance, where all Izuna could see was forest and more forest in the neutral zone between Senju and Uchiha land. “First things first, let’s go pick up Kurama!”

“Who?”

Uchiha Madara was a man known for many things. Uchiha clan head, Senju Hashirama’s equal, former Konoha founder, and later, the scourge that set a bijuu on Konoha and sent the elemental nations into an everlasting nightmare.

The sheer infamy of these dubious accomplishments often overshadowed the less scandalous behaviours and abilities of Uchiha Madara, like his love of falconry, his clinginess towards his family, and the fact that he was a rather capable sensor.

Records of Senju Tobirama’s monstrous sensory range often caused people to forget the last one. No one remembers second place, after all. Madara couldn’t differentiate individuals beyond parsing out their chakra nature. 

This detail hadn’t been in The Tale of Uchiha Madara, the Uchiha children’s boogeyman, nor was an ability Sasuke had remembered from the fourth war. He barely had time to react as the larger man whipped around and captured his wrist in a vice-grip, the shock causing chidori to dissipate. In the ensuing silence, the birdsong started up again, this time from the dozens of real, startled birds perched around the building. 

Sharingan red eyes glared at him, upset.

Fuck. Sasuke started channeling chakra to his own eyes, preparing to summon Susano-o now that his plan had been foiled. 

Another hand reached behind him to grab the collar of his stolen mantle, lifting him up and out of the aviary like a scruffed cat.

“I told you, no surprise sparring in the aviary! You’ll scare the birds.” Madara roared, shaking him as Sasuke struggled to escape. The busy street parted before them as Madara continued his lecture, marching them back towards the main house. 

“I don’t care if its a new technique you have to surprise me with, that’s dangerous in an enclosed space on so many levels and gods knows Chiho is already under much stress already with the failure of her last clutch, she doesn’t need more—“

Sasuke had only just managed to wriggle out of the mantle sleeves, face just ducking through the large turtleneck when Madara swung him straight into freezing water.

The shock jerked him straight into flight mode, clawing at the heavy, woolen mantle obscuring his face and thrashing about. Water flooded into his mouth, making him cough and choke when just as quickly, the fabric was snatched away. Rough hands pulled him partly out of the water so that he lay grasping onto the stones lining the pond’s edge, hacking miserably until his voice was hoarse.

“Shit, Izuna, are you okay?”

“Ubwagwah?” Sasuke garbled, eyes flicking wildly everywhere. His foot twitched as something brushed past his ankles, the koi apparently unphased from the disturbance to their calm pond. “W-what the fuck?!”

“Yah, you. You deserved it! For the birds.” Madara shook his mane of hair, helping him out of the pond. A cool breeze blew forth, causing Sasuke to shiver violently in his half-dressed, soaked state. “Gods, you’re cold, come on, you’ll catch a chill like this.”

In the blink of an eye, Sasuke had been swiftly led indoors, dried, redressed, and sitting at the irori with a cup of steaming sencha in his hands. A few steps away, Uchiha Madara, the monster he was supposed to kill, was poking at the coals in the hearth and fretting over whether it was warm enough for Izuna. 

Sasuke sneezed, drawing a guilty look from Madara who started rambling about making his favourite meal tonight. It was in all, bizarrely, very domestic and caring of the man who kickstarted his clan’s fall from grace. 

A long buried memory of Itachi returning home late from a mission with a basket of heirloom tomatoes crossed his mind. 

Sasuke did not like the feeling that was brewing in his stomach. 

Chapter Text

Sasuke stared in stunned silence at the feast before him. 

“Aa, I made a little too much, didn’t I?” Madara chuckled, warm and easygoing, a far cry from the mad cackle that had rang out across the battlefield. Seating himself across Sasuke, he cleared his throat and looked away, embarrassed. “Well, eat up.”

The dishes weren’t particularly elaborate, being mostly simple, homey meals that wouldn’t look out of place in any household other than Uchiha Madara’s. But there was just so much on the table. 

Miso soup, rice, inarizushi, an assortment of pickles, rolled omelette, grilled fish, stir-fried lotus root, steamed vegetables, tomato curry, and thinly-sliced pork and onions on a hotplace. Madara had prepared enough to feed a family of five.

Sasuke didn’t know where to start. 

“Here,” Madara’s gruff voice said. Sasuke watched as the Uchiha’s most infamous member dropped a piece of steaming pork into his rice bowl. “Your favourite. You should eat it before it gets cold.” 

He felt like he was having an out of body experience. Madara piled more and more into his bowl, commenting everytime. 

“I think I did a good job on the omelette this time, it’s not as burnt.”

“Are the vegetables too mushy? I tried steaming them a little longer today so it's easier on the stomach.”

“We should ask Uncle Hotaru for more pickles. These aren’t bad.” 

They never mentioned he could cook in the stories, Sasuke thought hysterically. 

A large hand found its way onto his forehead, Madara looking at him with visible concern. “Izuna, are you well?” 

Sasuse stared back, shocked into silence.

“You haven’t touched any of the food,” Madara continued, the frown on his face and his heavy eyebags ageing him beyond his years. “You’re a bit warm. Try eating just a little to fill your stomach, and then you should retire to bed, alright?” 

Moved into action, Sasuke slapped the hand away, “I—no I’m fine. I can eat. Really.”

He surveyed the dishes laid out on the table, not willing to touch any of the food Madara had given him. Hastily, he picked up a spoon, scooping up a cube of potato from the bowl of curry and shoving it into his mouth. 

Aromatic spices and the bright flavour of vine-ripened tomatoes burst on his tastebuds as he chewed, the sweet-savoury nature of the robust curry and its low heat pairing well with the tender spud. 

It was—

It tasted—

“Is it good?” Madara asked, eagerness rushing the words out of his mouth. “It’s a new recipe I’m trying, Hikaku said it could use more apple but I thought the tomatoes made them sweet enough already.”

His mother used to make curry like this, a family recipe passed down from her grandfather, Uchiha Hikaku. Sasuke would stand on a stool at the counter and help her peel the skin off the tomatoes, wheedling her to add just a couple more than the recipe called for. 

He knew what he was tasting now. Agonising familiarity.

“Izuna? What happened! Is it too spicy?!”

Sasuke sniffled as he reached up to wipe his cheeks.

Ah. He was crying. How strange. 

The funny feeling in his stomach was back. With Madara’s alarmed shouting in the background, Sasuke bent over and retched the bile and that one mouthful of curry back out over the table. 

Naruto put a hand over his belly, distraught. “Do we really have to?” He whispered. 

Sakura winced, shuffling closer to the blond and laying her head on his shoulder. “We went through the notes together, Naruto, you know we have to.” 

“I know, I just…”

It wasn’t easy, tearing a hole through spacetime. A catalyst to poke the hole, and then a truly enormous amount of energy to punch through all the way back to the past. Sasuke’s Rinnegan was sacrificed for the cause, as well as the strength of a hundred Sakura that adorned her forehead. But it wasn’t enough, yin had to be balanced by yang and that meant—

A large muzzle reached down to nose at Naruto’s hair, the kyuubi acting as their emergency roof and shield against the elements when the real one had been blown away. 

“It’s okay, brat. Too many of me in the same place would disturb the balance and we can’t have that.” Kurama rumbled. 

Naruto’s lip wobbled. “I meant it, when I said all of us would be going.”

“And I will be there, waiting for you in the past. Have me help you put an end to this before it all started. Live in a new world that’s not this hellscape.” 

“Would you even recognise him?” Sasuke asked. Naruto’s famous speeches and the power of friendship wasn’t going to work if the old, free kyuubi who had never heard of a jinchuuriki was going to squash Naruto like a bug the moment they crossed paths.

 “You’ve had my chakra flowing within you since birth. Your pathways have been shaped by my power. Traces like that aren’t easily erased. Talk to me, and prove your word as you did all this time.” 

The kyuubi was silent for a moment, head drawing back up to look at something in the distance. “You are out of time. Activate the seal. You better come find me brat, or I’ll be mad that our efforts today have gone to waste, got it?”

The last jinchuuriki wiped his eyes, smiling amidst his tears.

“I will! You better believe it, Kurama.” 

It took a whole day of relying on Naruto’s ‘belly-feeling’, but they found ‘Kurama’.

Izuna screamed as he dodged another blast of energy, the enraged Kyuubi hot on his heels. 

As it turned out, he didn’t even need to come up with a plan to get rid of his kidnappers in the first place. The two Uzumaki had a death wish and were eagerly rushing to fulfil it of their own volition.

Now, if only they hadn’t involved Izuna in it, endangering his life too, this would have been an ideal scenario for removing two more of the world’s idiots off its face. 

While they ran, Naruto was still trying to reason with the kyuubi , as if the giant being made out of giant chakra would be willing to sit down and hear them out about being time travellers with a messiah complex. 

“Kurama! Please listen! You said you would!” Also, the kyuubi’s name was Kurama. Izuna wasn’t even aware giant chakra beings had names. 

Kurama was not happy they knew it. “Who told you that name?” It roared, spitting a giant ball of chakra at them. Somewhere behind him, Izuna heard Sakura screech in indignation, turning to look just in time to see her swat away a giant tail like it was a fly , spewing curses that would make a noble lady pass out.

He tried to focus on running for his life. He could unpack what he saw of the healer’s freakish feat later. 

“You did!” Naruto yelled back. “In the future!”

“Nonsense!” One of the many Naruto clones screamed as it died a sorry death to a giant chakra death ray . Izuna winced, thinking through his options. There weren’t many. Could he genjutsu a bijuu? It was sentient, wasn’t it? 

His sharingan swirled to the mangekyo as he concentrated, attempting to draw his chakra over the massive beast in a thin veil.

His eyebrows knitted together as he pictured what he hoped would be an ideal dream world for a bijuu. Perhaps a nice, wide field like the one they found it in, with plenty of prey that were absolutely not bite-sized, human morsels that looked like Izuna and—

Izuna gasped as a giant paw pinned him to the ground, knocking all of the breath out of his lungs. Pressure bore down all around him as the Kyuubi pressed . 

“Izuna!” He heard someone scream in horror. 

“You dare attempt to control me with your eyes, human?” The Kyuubi snarled, furious eyes glaring down at him. Control ?

What was the beast talking about?

Before Izuna could pursue that thought further, he was greeted with the sight of the Kyuubi's gaping maw, a glowing ball of energy growing larger and larger, aimed right for him.

Izuna was going to die. With his Sharingan, he watched as the ball grew closer and closer, until—

“Kurama, stop!”

A burst of yellow light blinded Izuna, a flood of Naruto’s aberrant, goosebumps-inducing chakra rushing forth as he slammed his eyes shut. 

Every muscle in his body was tensed up, heart racing at a mile a minute but he was alive. The Kyuubi's attack never touched him.

Peeling his eyelids open, Izuna blinked away the dark spots in his vision, craning his neck to see—Naruto?

A yellow glow enveloped the Uzumaki, shaped into a towering replica of the Kyuubi that was the same size as the tailed beast. Both he and the fox stared at the construct, stunned. 

“How did you do that.” The Kyuubi said, leaning forward to sniff at Naruto.

“This chakra… yours, but also, mine. There is no mistake.” What the fuck. Naruto’s horrid chakra was the Kyuubi’s ? What the hell were these Uzumaki? “Who are you, child?”

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto, and we are friends.” Naruto grinned, floating in the construct’s head. “You helped me, in the future.” 

“And yet, I do not know you.” The Kyuubi tilted his head. Just like a normal animal, Izuna thought, out of his mind at what was going on. A normal animal, and occasionally Senju Tobirama when Izuna managed to one up him during their fights. “What do you mean, the future?” 

“We are, Kyuubi-sama,” From the corner of his eye, he spotted Sakura bowing towards the giant fox. “In that world, you and your siblings aided us against a threat to us all, but we were unsuccessful. We came here to fix things.”

The Kyuubi's answering laughter was a grating, horrifying sound that rang in Izuna's ears. “A threat, child? Against us? You jest.”

“I do not. It is Kaguya, the moon goddess. The ten-tails. Kyuubi-sama, we humbly request your help in preventing Kaguya from ever waking up, or her will from leading us down the path of destruction that our old world took.”

Giant tails swished back and forth, agitated. He could hear them slamming into trees, thick trunks cracking and smashed into smithereens under the Kyuubi’s unintentional force. Under its paw, Izuna shot a desperate look at Sakura, tapping the giant paw insistently. She mouthed at him to endure it .  

“Kaguya. The old man talked of her. She slumbers beneath the earth even now. Her will is free?”

“We know it is.” Naruto said, the construct fading into nothingness. Back on solid ground, he took a step forward and held out a hand to the fox. “It’s called Zetsu… and we have to stop it. But I can’t do this without you. You asked me to find you, to get your help so we can do it together!” 

“You failed in your world with his, and you assume my aid will be of use here?” 

“Zetsu hasn’t had the chance to start anything at this time,” Sakura argued back. “That’s why we’re here to stop it before it can even try.”

“Hm.” The fox said. “Nip it before it has a chance to grow strong. It’s a good strategy. How do you plan to kill it? ” 

“Yeah, that’s the part we haven’t worked out yet,” Naruto frowned. “We were just gonna find out where he is and go from there, ya know?”

“What, excuse me?” Izuna choked, “You don’t have a plan or know where your mark is?!”

Sakura shrugged, looking entirely too blasé about this massive hole in their plans. 

"Naruto can track it, and then we were going hold it down while you kill it with fire, that's the plan." 

Izuna craned his head to look at Naruto questioningly. Huh. He hadn’t had the blond pinned as a tracker type from the haphazard way he had led them to the Kyuubi earlier. Or perhaps he was a sensor?

It seemed like he was finding out all sorts of weird skillsets of his kidnappers today. Sakura could heal but also punch back a tail that took out a portion of the forest, while Naruto had the Kyuubi’s chakra, somehow, and was a tracker. In hindsight, the tracking sounded the most normal.

That was, until Naruto opened his mouth and attempted to explain his skill as the 'belly-feeling' he swore he could find the Kyuubi with earlier.

“Well… it feels really bad? Like, hateful and all but in a super weird way in my belly, so if I tap into nine-tails chakra mode I can probably find it, or Kurama can!” 

Nevermind. He was no sensor, but his brother and his rival were, and Izuna was fairly certain that 'belly-feeling' was not a normal type of sensing. Izuna’s head hit the ground with a dull thud, staring blankly up at the Kyuubi who looked very interested in that last statement.

“So you can use that ability of mine… across the land in the house of the sun, hatred does indeed linger within.” 

“See? I thought so too! Er, not the house of the sun thing, I don’t know what that is, but I can definitely track it down so leave it to me!” 

Izuna would rather trust Tobirama . 

“Though… It can possess people and appear out of the ground. We gotta find a way to contain it so it doesn’t escape.” Naruto said, hesitantly. “Pervy sage taught me some stuff, and the notes Sakura and I found explained a bit more, but I don’t know if I can make a seal to trap will yet.” 

Sakura let out a large sigh, throwing out her arms to the heavens. The joints in her shoulders cracked, as she stretched, another awful sound Izuna wished to never hear again. “Yeah, we need someone who knows more about seals.”

“What, like the Senju?”

Three heads turned towards him. 

“Senju as in, Senju Tobirama, you mean?” Sakura asked, a frightening gleam in her eye.

“Yeah, my rival,” Izuna said. “Great sensor. Knows sealing. Keeps pulling out some new bullshit out of his ass whenever we fight. He’s the enemy, but if you had to get a guy…”

It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, much like how Hashirama and Madara’s fights actually being them sparring wouldn’t make sense unless you had the misfortune of knowing their history personally, but Izuna had a reason for recommending his enemy.

See, if Izuna had to suffer in this situation, with these people, and the Kyuubi agreeing with them, he was making the Worst Person He Personally Knew deal with it too, see how he likes being inconvenienced with other people’s bullshit.

‘How interesting.” The Kyuubi said. Finally, the paw lifted. Izuna sucked in a greedy gulp of air, scrambling to get away before he was pinned like an insect once more. “I care not for human affairs, but I frequently see your kind fighting with the other humans in that valley by the river. And now you are vouching for your enemy?”

It grinned at them with all its sharp, oversized teeth on display. “I shall follow for now. This seems like it would prove entertaining. Child with my chakra,” he rumbled to Naruto, “See that your words are no lie. You better make sure this is worth my time. If this is a farce, I’ll eat you.”

Naruto beamed, eyes bright and as blue as the sky above. “Believe it.” 

Chapter Text

On the long, lengthy road towards the Naka, Izuna learnt more new things against his will about his captors, who cheerfully filled the run time with chatter about anything inane subject they could think of. 

Reminiscing about the future, foods they craved, what future music was better or overrated… all interspersed with bizarre expressions and odd references that made their conversation frankly incomprehensible. 

No seriously, what the hell did 'pulling a Hikaku' mean? Did they mean his cousin? Izuna wasn't sure if he should be concerned by its obviously dirty connotations. 

With a few not-so-subtle prods and diversions, Izuna had been able to steer the conversation into an area he had far more interest in, namely, the skillsets Naruto and Sakura boasted. He needed to know what he was dealing with when he finally made a break for it, after all. 

It was how he came to know about a few terrible, no-good, highly concerning things about them that made him wish he never asked in the first place. 

For one, Naruto was born with the Kyuubi’s chakra within him, apparently some weird inheritance/sacrificial act bestowed upon him by his dead parents. He listened, horrified, as Naruto cheerfully labelled himself an actual Human Sacrifice, meant to contain the Kyuubi’s power in the far future. This was something that absolutely nobody should be proud of being. 

The Kyuubi wasn’t feeling too happy about it either, roaring about his refusal to be contained to the heavens above. The vibrations shook the ground they ran on and blew through the trees around them. Izuna was pretty sure you could hear it all the way north to the mountains of Iron. 

On the other hand, Sakura was much more reserved about sharing personal information, but all too happy to wax on about the virtues and vices of people she admired. 

Somewhere out there, there was a lady with monstrous strength and the ability to cure near fatal wounds back to full health. She also apparently drank like a sailor and gambled at a rate that would make Tobimara vomit blood. 

(Izuna had heard the latter ranting over Hashirama’s irresponsible gambling sprees one too many times. In those moments, he wasn’t even sure Tobirama had been all that present for their fights, simply going through the motions while he let out his frustrations loud enough for the entire battlefield to hear. It usually led to an easy, but unsatisfying win for Izuna.)

Speaking of Tobirama, Izuna himself felt nauseous as he realised something the longer Sakura talked. 

Namely, that Sakura was a fangirl.

For Tobirama. 

“I can’t believe we are going to meet him! The niidaime himself!” Sakura squealed. “Like, I know he got brought back a couple of times as a walking corpse especially towards the end, but I didn’t get to talk to him like you and Sas--him did.”

Izuna refused to think about the implications of Tobirama finding a way to return after shuffling off the mortal coil. When he outlived the Senju, he was going to use Amateratsu’s flames on the corpse, for his own peace of mind. 

“He’s pretty funny,” Naruto agreed. “Did you know he knows my dad’s jutsu too?” 

“The hiraishin? Naruto, he invented it.” Flying thunder god? What kind of stupid, pretentious name was that? Sure, the Uchiha had named their greatest sharingan powers after their own gods, but they were powerful! What did the Senju have? 

“Oh yeah, he said something like that. I think my dad does it better though.” 

“Do you think he’s already created it in this time? I wonder if we could get him to talk about his other jutsu inventions too, he’s a genius. There’s that water dragon Zabuza and Kakashi-sensei used, do you remember? I want to ask him whether the choice of a dragon shape was purely for intimidation purposes, or whether it helps make the jutsu easier to visualise taking shape with all those seals.” 

Sakura gasped. “Or maybe it’s for aerodynamics, do you think? The addition of fins to the dragon head could act as a way to stabilise the stream and reduce drag…” 

“He copied from me,” Izuna said grumpily, cutting Sakura off before she could give the Senju even more undeserving credit. “The fire dragon was our jutsu first, the asshole just thought it would be funny to bastardise it and throw it back in my face.” 

“Really? Oh yeah, you probably know alot about him too!” Regretfully. “Then… what about hiraishin?” Naruto asked curiously, both him and Sakura looking at him with barely concealed excitement.

“Don’t know what that is. He needs to work on his naming though, that’s a stupid name.” 

It apparently wasn't the answer his captors had been expecting. Naruto deflated at the non-answer, before perking up again with a new question.

“Rightttt. How about the one that raises the dead as immortal servants?”

“Excuse me?!”

Sakura grabbed Naruto by the collar, delivering a hard hit to his head. “Too soon,” she hissed, before shooting a wide, clearly fake smile at Izuna. 

“Don’t worry about it! Anyway, like I was saying, I just can’t wait to meet him! Not even just his jutsu, the way he planned the sewer system was revolutionary! And his administrative filing too, though for some reason it got phased out during Sandaime-sama’s time for something much more stupid. You have no idea how much backlog I had to dig through just to find anything in the Hokage tower.” 

Izuna couldn’t take this. “So what, the pale bastard was famous in your time?” For sewer systems? Leave it to the Senju to be known for the dumbest thing possible. Couldn’t be Izuna. 

Actually…

“What about me?” 

Sakura stopped in her tracks, head turning first to look at Izuna before the rest of her body followed. Before Izuna could comment on just how creepy that was, she had shot forward into his personal space and was cradling his face in her hands, long, broken nails digging into the soft flesh of his cheeks. 

“Don’t worry,” She said, those green eyes dark with future knowledge, resolve, and a secret, third thing he couldn’t discern. It sent chills down Izuna’s spine when paired with the near reverent tone of her voice as she spoke. “ This world will remember the name of Uchiha Izuna. It’s all in the plan. Don’t you worry at all.”        

With those ominous words of prophecy delivered, Sakura released him from her grasp and resumed her run towards the Naka. Izuna watched as she went, mouth agape. Numbly, he reached up and felt the indents her nails had left in his cheeks, proving that he hadn’t been somehow hallucinating in the last couple movements. 

A paw knocked into Izuna, his shinobi reflexes barely saving him from stumbling face first into the dirt. The Kyuubi growled at him, pawing the ground impatiently. 

“Get out of my path, human. Don’t just stand there.” 

It was enough for Izuna to start racing after the two time travellers, disturbing the sanctity of the old growth forest with his mad dash through the shrubbery and panicked screeching. 

“What does that mean. Sakura stop running why did you say it that way. Sakura!!”        

Feeling something crawl onto you was not an ideal way to wake up. The moment something touched his leg and started moving up , Sasuke instinctively started kicking, scrambling for the kunai under his pillow that distressingly wasn’t there. 

“Ow!”

Where was he—

Backed up against the wall, Sasuke instinctively activated his sharingan, scanning Izuna’s room for the source of the sound. 

Nothing seemed out of place, from Izuna’s collection of interesting… art prints Sasuke refused to acknowledge, to the impressive sword rack and surprisingly adorable glass figurines sitting on the windowsill. That was, until his gaze fell onto the futon he had vacated and the child within it. 

“That hurt,” the child said, rubbing his forehead and pouting. 

Sasuke stared back, sharingan fading back to black. “What are you doing in my bed.” 

“Baa-chan said to wake you up,” the child helpfully pointed at the window. “‘cause sunrise.”

As far as Sasuke could tell, it was still pitch black outside.  

“Sure thing. Who are you?” 

He didn’t remember the mainline of Madara’s generation bearing kids. Who was this child. 

“Wha?” The kid cocked his head to the side, confused. A couple of stray curls tumbled over his forehead, sending a wave of deja-vu washing over Sasuke. “Nii-san, are you okay?”

“I—yeah.” Fuck. Sasuke was not going to lose his cover to a strange child. “I was just kidding.”

The child frowned. “‘Baa-chan said you weren’t feeling well. I’m Ka-ga-mi,” he said, exaggerating the syllables. “Kagami!”

Kagami.

Oh gods, wasn’t this Shisui’s grandfather ?

He recognised the kid now. From the curly hair, to the wide, dark eyes, and the shape of those pouting lips. All features of his older brother’s best friend who always came by and made time to play around with Sasuke as a child.

He slid down the wall to the floor, watching as the tiny version of Shisui’s grandfather crawled up and plopped himself right over Sasuke’s chest, blinking up at him through long eyelashes.

“‘Wanna see something that will make you feel better?”

“I… sure.”

“Kay. Activate your sharingan!”

“What? Why.”

“Activate itttt.” The child said, pushing his face closer to Sasuke’s.

Sasuke activated his Sharingan.

Kagami started making silly faces. They weren’t very good. Sasuke watched, baffled, as the kid puffed up his cheeks and crossed his eyes, wiggling his fingers at the side of his face.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm a pufferfish!” Kagami cycled through a couple more faces, from a very cute tiger, to a silly monkey, and a generous interpretation of a chicken.

Sasuke had a very vague memory of Shisui doing the exact same thing to him as a child, complete with animal noises and an exasperated Itachi watching by the sidelines. He couldn’t believe the silliness was genetic. 

“Who-who taught you this?”

“Mada-sama!” Sasuke choked as the answer hit him like a sack of bricks. No way. “What?”

Kagami stopped with the silly faces, wiggling around to sprawl out on Sasuke and tilting his head up to look at the older boy. “Yeah! When my sharingan came in durin’ the funeral. I puked then too. Mada-sama said I needed to fill it with good memories so I don’t only remember the sad ones, and so that the bad memories aren’t all bad! He looked really silly .” 

He giggled, kicking his feet lightly. “Do you feel better now nii-san? I practiced a lot so my pufferfish is way better than Mada-sama’s and now you’ll have a good memory forever even though you’re sick and feeling gross.”

“I…”

“Kagami! Is Izuna-sama up yet?” The door slammed open before he could respond to that revelation, revealing a tiny old woman with severe wrinkles and liver spots lining her face. Pale eyes webbed with cataracts glared in their general direction, with a single spindly finger aimed straight at Sasuke’s face. 

“Slacking off brat? Just because you’re unwell doesn’t mean you get to lounge in bed all day, no matter what that oaf of your brother says. Hurry up and wash yourself,” she barked, “you better be done and seated at the table before I finish making breakfast. Kagami, with me.” 

“‘Kay, ‘baa-chan.”

“Wait, where’s Madara?” Sasuke croaked.

“You think he has time to wait around after you? Madara-sama’s busy with clan duties, especially with his brother out of commission!” The old lady scolded. “Now get up and go!”

Kagami waved as he climbed out of Izuna’s futon, slipping away after ‘baa-chan’. The door slammed shut again, trembling in its wooden frame, and Sasuke was left alone.

Slowly, Sasuke peeled himself off the floor, his body robotically moving itself towards the bathroom with the granny’s orders ringing around in his hollow mind.

By the time he had stumbled out still clad in his sleepwear to the living area, the table had been set, three sets of awfully herbal smelling soup, rice, and cutlery neatly laid out. Sasuke made a minor face as he sat where he had threw up last night, beside Kagami who scrunched his face up adorably and leant closer to Sasuke.

“I know the soup is yucky, but ‘baa-chan says nii-san’s gotta drink it,” he whispered. 

“What was that?” ‘baa-chan’ snapped, making her grand entrance from the kitchen carrying a platter of steamed fish. Kagami jumped up to take it from her and set it in the middle of the table, while the old lady felt her way around to sit across from both boys. Her finger shot out to point unerringly between’s Sasuke’s eyes.

“Don’t think you can sweet talk your way out of drinking it, it’s good for you. I always said the way you two boys played was too rough, but did you and your brother listen? No!” She ranted, “And now one of you is sick. That bowl better be drained to the bottom, Izuna-sama, do not test me .”

“And why do I have to drink it?” Kagami whined, shrinking back as that finger swung around to point at him instead. 

“Do you want to end up like your weakling little nii-san over here?”

“No…”

“Then stop dawdling and eat!”

They ate. Sasuke learnt new things about these new players in Izuna’s life, ‘baa-chan all too happy to be allowed to reminisce about the past and Kagami too young and trusting to question why his nii-san needed a subtle refresher about their relation to him. 

‘Baa-chan, who refused to be known as anything else, had been the two mainline brother’s housekeeper, ever since Kagami’s parents had been killed in a skirmish with the Senju. The mostly blind woman was forced out of retirement to care for her toddler grandchild, and Madara had hired her on the spot to support them. She had run the Uchiha’s armoury with an iron fist while on active duty, and now wielded a broom and control over the mainhouse’s upkeep with the same fire and zeal. 

It was refreshing to see someone talk about Madara’s failings as a clan head, though their complaints didn’t quite reach ‘trigger the end of the world’ territory. Sasuke didn’t remember anyone dare to speak so freely about their issues with the clan head back when his father held the reins. There had been dissent, he’d later come to learn, but generally the clan head title was one to be respected.

Not to ‘baa-chan’ though. Or the gossip circle of Uchiha that baa-chan kept referencing to back herself up. The only person with wholly positive Madara experiences appeared to be Kagami, who would occasionally interject with some cute moment or other he had with the man.

It gave Sasuke the courage to ask what he wanted to know. “If you are so dissatisfied with Mada-- Nii-san , then why keep him as clan head?”

Baa-chan’s chopsticks paused where she had been breaking apart the soft white flesh of the fish. “And what else would you have us do, Izuna-sama?”

Um. “I’m just curious,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to be leader so I need to know what I can tell him to work on.” Liar. 

“Hmph.”  Milky eyes gazed somewhere past the point of his head, Kagami falling silent too at the sudden change in atmosphere. 

“Your brother is strong. Who else can stand up against the Senju and their God of shinobi? You?” The flaky meat of the fish disintegrated under her chopstick’s tight grasp. Sasuke reached out to help, only to be rebuffed with a slap on the wrist. 

“The Uchiha would fall to subjugation within a single battle, Izuna-sama. Do not argue with me on this, your skillset is too different to fight against Senju Hashirama. And let’s not even entertain the thought of any of the other foolish kids the elder council are pushing forth to lead our units, none of their bloodline even comes close.”

“He and you aren’t that bad compared to those schmucks! Stubborn as a bull and twice as stupid, but not the worst leaders we’ve had or will have past my time.” 

Her lips quirked up in a wry smile as she successfully liberated a chunk of fish and managed to drop it into Sasuke’s bowl, her other hand patting the same wrist that she had slapped just moments ago. 

“Your brother is currently fighting a council of dogs, who are screaming that the sky is a sign we have to destroy the Senju now or lose heaven’s favour. They beg him, because he has power they can only dream of. He, and you as well.”

“If you ask me? They’re a bunch of warmongering, doomsaying pussies. This war took my sight, my husband, my daughter, and her husband from me, all but Kagami-kun. And it will continue to take more. And yet, change is in the air. Perhaps Madara and you may be the forces that enable us to live to see it.”

Sasuke picked up his bowl, choking down the soup to avoid responding to baa-chan. It was bitter, just like the growing realisation that he wasn’t quite sure what do to anymore about Uchiha Madara.

Kagami tugged on his sleeve.

“Nii-san, what are pussies?”

Holed up in his lab, Senju Tobirama threw down his brush and buried his face in his hands, frustrated.

It just didn’t make sense. There wasn’t any kind of natural phenomena that could possibly cause the odd, sudden turn of the sky the other day. And with the burst of aberrant chakra that had echoed through the field as the sky bled red, Tobirama couldn’t help but feel that whatever had been behind the change wasn’t doing it on a whim . 

He and Hashirama had ordered a retreat and total lockdown the moment they returned to the compound. Except, as far as anyone could tell, nothing has happened since then. The sky had gone back into its normal state within seconds, no sudden natural disasters across the land had been reported, and life had seemed to carry on as usual. 

Staring at the mess of notes, books, and failed experiments carpeting his desk and floorspace, Tobirama was this close to tearing his hair out. No precedence, no clear motive, and no seeming consequence. 

But everything had a consequence. It was just a matter of time . 

His calculations showed that no matter what, the culprit had to possess far more chakra than a bijuu to produce that amount of wasted chakra. That was a threat on an unprecedented scale. For once, he had drawn a complete blank on how the Senju could even begin to protect itself against such a threat. The best chakra storage seals the Uzumaki had couldn’t even contain his brother’s entire output.

And when that line of thought hit a dead-end, he had turned to trying to replicate the odd weather phenomenon on a small scale, using jutsu, seals, and every other method he could think of. Nothing worked to produce that red, then pulsating purple sky other than a particularly uninspired use of genjutsu.

The Uchiha were masters of genjutsu, but they had been obviously alarmed too. Trapping both clans in a mass genjutsu was frankly idiotic even for their standards, when one could have the element of surprise. Tobirama knew none of the Uchiha had the stores to do that and release so much chakra as a byproduct anyway. 

Once again, it just didn’t make sense.

Trapped in his spiralling thoughts, he barely noticed the panicked shouts right outside his door. 

“What is it?” He asked the runner, who was half bent over, attempting to catch his breath on his doorstep. Hm. Maybe it was time to reevaluate the clan’s general fitness regimen again. 

“Tobirama-sama. It-It’s the Uchiha! Your rival—Izuna—and two unknowns are approaching our borders rapidly with the Kyuubi!”

And of course. Why not make his day even worse? Of course that Uchiha had to bring trouble knocking at the worst possible time. 

Tobirama made a beeline for his armour. “Tell Hashirama to protect the compound and for all units to be on high alert. I’ll deal with Izuna myself.” 

Chapter Text

“You are not welcome here.” Across the Naka, Senju Tobirama stood tall, dressed for battle in his armour and white ruff. His face looked like he’d swallowed a dozen pickled plums, eyes trained only on Izuna. “Turn back.”

Turn back? Absolutely not, Izuna had a bone to pick with his rival. Many bones. A whole skeleton that he’d been constructing in his mind since he started wondering exactly what he did to deserve this terrible kidnapping in the first place, before realising he was asking the wrong question.

As far as he was concerned, he was entirely blameless in this scenario. It clearly was due to outside forces. His troubles only began after the turning of the sky, during which…

“You ran and left me behind before we finished our fight, coward!” Izuna pointed an accusing finger at him. “It’s your fault that I’m in this situation.”

His rival gave him the stink-eye, mouth twitching at Izuna’s get up as he gestured at the two Uzumaki and the goddamn Kyuubi hovering behind him. “The same situation that you’ve brought to our borders? Deal with it yourself.”

“Senju-sama, please listen!” That was Sakura, who was waving excitedly at The Worst Person Izuna Knew. Hey, why was Tobirama ‘Senju-sama’ while he was Izuna-san? Unfair. “Hi! I’m a big fan of your work! We need your help on a seal!” 

Tobirama tilted his head at her, suspicious. “You and the boy’s chakra, though muddled, indicates Uzumaki descent. Why would those of my honoured sister’s clan require my aid on seals?” 

“Eh? I’m a Haruno, not an Uzumaki.” Wait, what. “And it’s because you’re a genius, and Izuna-san volunteered your help to help us save the world!”

Accusing eyes fell back onto him as Izuna cursed. They’re crazy , he mouthed at Tobirama. The Senju’s hand twitched over the hilt of his sword. 

“I’m sure he would have made you aware, Haruno-san, that our clans are presently at war. I will be unable to aid you in your issue. Please leave before I forcibly make you.” He drew his sword, the Naka rumbling something fierce in response. Behind them, the Kyuubi yawned, the loud sound booming through the woods. 

Well, Izuna had expected this outcome. The Uzumaki and not-Uzumaki hadn’t deemed it necessary to give him any weapon, but Izuna didn’t need anything other than the gifts of his own body to best Senju Tobirama. 

Red bled into his own irises as he glared into the other’s own red eyes in challenge. 

“Bold of you to think you can make me do anything, Senju,” he taunted, settling easily into their song and dance. “I’ll make you run back home instead, how ‘bout that?”

Fire streamed forth from his lips, boiling the massive wave sent forth by the Senju and cloaking the area in steaming mist. Cackling, he leaped forth, meeting Tobirama mid-air and using his foot to kick the blade swinging forth up and out of Tobirama’s grasp, snatching it neatly out of the air. 

“Too slow,” he breathed into a furious face, before throwing himself backwards, feet landing securely onto the bank. In the slowly dissipating mist, he could see Tobirama too had returned to his side of the Naka, unsealing a curious three-pointed kunai and readying his stance. 

With a wide grin on his face, Izuna tested his new sword in lazy arcs, eager for what’s to come. He shifted his feet, preparing to shunshin forward when—

“Wait!”

A hand grabbed onto his obijime and lifted him up into the air. Izuna yelped, Sakura casually shaking him around aggressively like a ragdoll. The moment the sword slipped from his hand, Sakura set him down, that same hand dropping threateningly onto one shoulder. He blinked woozily at her as she used her other hand to shake a disapproving finger in his face. “We don’t attack people like that, Izuna-san!” 

“He started it,” Izuna slurred, pointing somewhere behind him in the Senju’s vague direction. Oddly enough, the man too had stopped attacking, though the rambling speech Izuna could identify as Naruto’s probably had something to do with it. 

Ha, the Senju was probably getting the time-traveller special too. Izuna wanted to see this. He needed to record the Senju’s face in response to Sakura and Naruto’s delusions to laugh at for the rest of his life. 

Ignoring Sakura’s own lecture, he craned his neck around to look at Tobirama, who was… nodding at Naruto with a considering look? 

Wait no, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Drawing chakra to his ears, Izuna could feel his own face slowly shift with the dawning horror that somehow, the two time-travellers had apparently parsed out the Senju’s greatest weakness:

Intellectual curiosity.

“So our problem really lies in: ‘How do you capture willpower in a seal?’ You can store physical things like bodies, but you can also store chakra, which is energy, and you can store living chakra, so willpower can probably be stored too, right!” Naruto explained, drawing out the characters in the air. 

“We used the mind figure, since that’s where willpower comes from, and the heart, for emotion, but we couldn’t agree on the rest of the trigrams, see, it could be any of these ones or maybe all of them at once? But that knocks out the balance so…”

Izuna recognised that look on the other’s face. It was the same one he had when one of Izuna’s taunts got through to that brain of his, only for Tobirama to pull out a shiny new jutsu he made up on the fly that completely threw Izuna’s challenge out of the window. Curse Senju and his weakness to intellectual conundrums.

“Willpower is a human concept. I don’t understand why you would think of including plant or animal characters to your seal, the trifold diversion will be wasteful.” Tobirama said, coming closer. Dammit. 

“That’s because this one’s not human!” Sakura chipped in cheerfully. “Zetsu’s the escaped willpower of an alien moon goddess that has its own physical form except when it possesses people.” 

Naruto nodded vigorously in agreement. “Yeah! But Sakura and I couldn’t agree on whether this one counts as an animal or a person or a plant because it grew out of a giant tree but also walks and talks so we don’t know which radical to use and used all of them. It was either all characters or make a new trigram for aliens and we don’t know if that will work.” 

“Hm. A new trigram for unprecedented possibilities…” Tobirama’s eyes flickered to the trees, then back to Naruto.

In Sakura’s tight grasp, Izuna seethed.

“Are you fucking serious, Senju?” He snapped. “They’re insane!”

The Senju should be scoffing at their madness, not considering—whatever this was! He should be mad at them too for wasting his time, then he and Izuna can get back to beating the utter shit out of each other until Izuna wins and humiliates him in front of his adoring fans and the Kyuubi. Izuna could not believe Tobirama would betray him like this.

Naruto was still rambling, Tobirama paying rapt attention to the blond and not noticing Izuna’s meltdown at all. 

“We used a seal to travel here from the future you see, it’s really really bad there, the world was ending, and Zetsu—that’s Kaguya’s will—he’s the thing we gotta stop if we don’t want this to happen here! So, we gotta catch him because he’s a sneaky bastard, but that’s kinda hard because Sakura and I mostly learnt from Uzushio’s library and your notes and your handwriting is really hard to read, like, worse than mine and Kaka-sensei kept making me redo my reports so you know it’s super bad if I can’t read it.” 

“You have his notes?” Izuna asked, pausing in his furious tirade against the Senju’s bloodline, eyesight, brain, and personality. “Can I see them?” And shred them after you hand them over? 

“You won’t be able to understand them anyway, Uchiha.” Tobirama scoffed, finally turning one eye onto Izuna, before his gaze drifted up to Sakura, who had already pulled out a stack of paper and was holding it up and away from Izuna’s grabby hands. “May I?”

Reverently, Sakura held it out, looking hesitantly at the river as if she wasn’t sure she should cross. Wordlessly, the Senju summoned a clone who stepped over to the Uchiha side, plucking the notes out of her hand and flipping through, teeth worrying his bottom lip.

Izuna glared at the clone looming over him, paying him no mind.

“Now you’re trespassing Senju!” He hissed, Sakura’s tight hand on the back of his neck the only thing keeping him seated on the ground and not lunging for the clone.

Rolling its eyes, the clone strode back to the river, passing the notes over to the real Senju before dissipating in a poof of smoke. Tobirama scanned through them himself, muttering under his breath about the possibilities that Naruto had brought up.

Izuna was going to explode. 

“Not going to even ask about the time travelling, Senju?” Izuna burst out. “Maybe that it’s a trap or something before entertaining them?”

The other shot him a disparaging look, lifting up the notes. They were covered in that same ugly scrawl he knew from the time the two had thrown written insults at each other on the battlefield. “They have already established that they’re from the future and have a genuine problem to solve. I know you’re slow but do keep up. It looks bad on me if my regular opponent is an idiot.”

“S-shut up!” 

“Mm. No.” Turning to Sakura and Naruto, he nodded. “The notes you left in the margins are of the right thinking concerning the use of earth radicals as binding.  I’d argue that willpower veers closer to yin chakra, being of the mind, and the trigrams should feature more unbroken lines to give it the strength of yang.”

Naruto beamed. “Thanks! But won’t that make the seal unstable?”

Tobirama thought for a bit, still chewing on his lip. “Use a confining water symbol as balance for the earth. Let the elements settle so yang can draw in yin.” Water rose from the river, forming into the trigram the Senju referred to.

“Oh, it’s like my seal!” Sakura tapped her own forehead, right over that purple diamond. “It stores yin for my medical jutsu.” 

“Indeed.” Then. “Your seal is most curious. My sister-in-law has one similar.”

“Uzumaki Mito-sama?” Sakura gasped, “Shishou told me so much about her.”

“Mito-nee would be able to advise on this much better than I can.” Overhead, the trees swayed and dropped a shower of green and yellow leaves on their heads. “Anija and her will arrive shortly. Please stay put.”

Senju Hashirama and his Uzushio princess? Izuna looked around him for an escape path, seeing nothing but trees, his rival, the crazy time travellers, and the Kyuubi grinning nastily at his misfortune behind him. “They’ve been listening the whole time?”

“You led the Kyuubi to our doorstop, what do you think?”

Izuna scowled. “I think you need to shut up before I sever your vocal chords, right now.”

“With what weapon? Are you going to try with that ridiculous obijime of yours?” Tobirama smirked, curling his hand into a loose circle, mocking its excessive size. “I never knew you were the sort to don such a style outside of the battlefield, but considering your personality, it seems as if those crass stereotypes Touka-nee told me about such people are correct.”

Oh, that was it. Sakura shrieked and let go of Izuna as a current ran up her hand, shocking her. Before she could get her hands on him again, Izuna ran and leaped over the river, not wasting a single second trying to claw out Senju Tobirama’s throat. 

Someone will die today. 

As Sasuke stood in a new world, dressed in stolen clothes and staring down at his sleeping doppelganger, he felt sick.

“We could all just hunt Zetsu. Why do I have to do this, again?” 

“Why?” Calloused hands grabbed his thin frame and spun him into Sakura’s crushing embrace, so tight Sasuke couldn’t move. Her sickly sweet voice didn’t bother hiding the venom laced in her question. “Wasn’t this the dream you told us about all those years ago, Sasuke-kun?”

Team Seven may have come together once more when the world fell apart around them, but Sakura had never quite gotten over Sasuke abandoning them for his dream of revenge. She leaned in close, lips brushing over his ear so that Naruto couldn’t hear her next words.

“Don’t say I don’t love you, Sasuke-kun. Here’s your chance! Kill your brother.”

The hand attempting to grab the back of his sleeping yukata missed as Sasuke ducked, wind rushing past his ear alerting him to just how close of a call it was to being caught. He grimaced and swiped back, using his pursuer’s imbalance during their lunge to push them off the roof. Down they went, buying him a precious few seconds to make his escape. 

He looked around wildly, searching for this next move. Already, the crowd of Uchiha below were taking note of the activity going on over their heads, pointing and yelling. The roofs were far too exposed. Sasuke jumped off the roof in the opposite direction, ducking into a building and hiding under the window. With bated breath, he counted the seconds until he heard the now familiar footfall and colourful cursing of his guard run past, fading with distance.   

After ‘baa-chan and Kagami had left to attend to other duties, he attempted to leave, only for a guard to stop him from leaving the house. Madara’s orders, they’d explained, voice slightly muffled from the bandana tied around the lower half of their face which reminded him of a certain ex-sensei.

Naturally, the combination of those two factors had made Sasuke immediately incapable of staying put. This was his third time successfully out of the mainhouse, but the clock was ticking before the guard dragged him back.

He needed to find Madara. 

He should kill—

He had to know—

Was it madness in the blood? Or:

The yawning, howling grief that consumed everything in sight, fed with hatred and lies until it seemed like nothing else but revenge could fill it?

What would he do, if his brother was gone? 

From Sasuke’s brief stints outside, awkward, quick interactions with amused Uchiha before the guard found him, the clan adored the two brothers of their mainline. 

The last two left, a smoking washer lady had said, recalling how Madara once had been a younger brother too. Madara would do anything for you. Why, is your sickness more serious than everyone said?

She had yelled out for the guard to take him back immediately, wrapping a clean, dry blanket around him like he was a particularly fragile child. 

A group of children had given much the same story as Kagami. He’s kinda scary looking, but he gives us candy! Do you want some? He said you were sick. 

They were the hard candies Sasuke had only ever seen in old lady client houses from his genin D-rank days with Team Seven. He declined. 

“Hey,” he rasped at the gaping dye-worker who had been eating his measly onigiri lunch. The warehouse he had taken refuge in was otherwise deserted, quiet save for the bubbling vats of foul smelling indigo between them. “What d’you think of Madara?” 

“Madara-sama?” The older teen stuttered. One wooden leg tapped nervous rhythms on the ceramic vessel he was perched on. “He, he’s strong. He and you! Both of you protect us very well, Izuna-sama.” 

Sasuke waited. The teen cracked. “Um, don’t hurt me for saying this but he’s really scary? But he’s nice too! I don’t know, I…” He gestured at the vats with his free hand. 

“I thought that my life was over after the Senju got my legs, y’know? All my friends, my family are shinobi, but he came to my house and yelled at me to stop whining and do something about it instead of shutting myself in. Then he picked me up and carried me here, which uh. It’s been nice, learning from the artisan branches. More peaceful than a battlefield, but just as hard work!” 

“Hn.”

The teen’s testimony matched Madara’s current reputation across the clan. Scary, but kind in his own way. Overprotective over his brother. Weirdly concerned with everyone’s wellbeing. A good leader, while highly emotional.

The first hokage’s former friend, who went insane over the death of his brother, and who got conned into following a scheme to create a perfect world that caused the destruction of their old one. 

It could almost make sense, if he looked at it that way. And yet, Sakura’s words, her plan, and the memory of a madman stopped him from fully buying it. Then again, Sasuke was tired of constantly being told what to do or where to be, from Madara, from Sakura, and from countless other people who had thought him a lovely pawn in their old world. 

What to do? 

I trust my belly-feeling, Sasuke! A memory of an indignant Naruto flashed before his mind’s eye, mad at him for doubting Naruto’s novel way of navel based navigation to evade the moon goddess. It hasn’t led me wrong yet!

Then, the memory of his brother’s last words, telling him that he’ll be loved no matter what path he chose. 

He needed a new plan, Sasuke thought.

There was no way he could keep living as Uchiha Izuna, not if he wanted to lose his mind. And if Madara was not inherently a monster by nature as a little Naruto-like voice in his mind wanted to believe, then Sasuke couldn’t kill him. He couldn’t kill a brother. 

He wouldn’t be able to carry on after that, wearing Izuna’s face and taking up a stolen title just to ‘make things right’. 

But if he didn’t, Sasuke knew the truth behind him impersonating Izuna would come out eventually. He didn’t see Madara taking it well at all. 

He had to find out Madara’s truth and decide if Madara would die by his hands. Sasuke wasn’t sure where Sakura and Naruto were on the timeline of their half of the mission, but he knew he was running out of time. He had to find Madara before the other two succeeded in killing Zetsu and Sakura could cut off the final loose end of their plan that was Uchiha Izuna.

Mind made up, he waved carelessly to the dye-worker and crept out of the warehouse. It wouldn’t do to alert the guard and be hauled back to the mainhouse all over again. 

He lasted five more minutes. No one was happy about this.

Chapter Text

Izuna had never seen Uzumaki Mito in the flesh, though tales of the princess’ beauty had spread far and wide throughout Fire when her marriage to Senju Hashirama was announced. 

As she and Hashirama strolled into sight, Izuna could tell that the rumours weren’t exaggerated. With her striking red hair, simple but elegant dress, and a round, doll-like face, Uzushio’s princess was truly a beauty. 

What hadn’t been said was that Uzumaki Mito was tiny. She barely came up to her husband’s chest, even with her twin buns giving her some extra height. It didn’t stop her from having the most commanding air of everyone present in the clearing, though, even with treeman and stupid Tobirama standing next to her. 

In Izuna’s opinion, Hashirama, tall, handsome, and renowned as he was, had definitely married up. The surprised gasp and sudden freedom he had from Sakura’s leglock told him that he wasn’t the only one who thought that way. Groaning, Izuna stood, rolling out the kinks in his shoulders and shaking the numbness from his legs as he watched Sakura rush forth to greet Mito.

Unlike the princess who had been gliding forth with graceful steps, Sakura’s approach was far more reckless. Izuna sniggered when the girl tripped and slipped into the Naka in her haste. She looked hilarious, spluttering and gasping like a fish out of water. Except, she was in the water! Internally, Izuna praised himself for that comparison. Outwardly, he howled, drawing a dirty look from Sakura and rolled eyes from Tobirama.

Tinkling laughter resounded in the air, Mito snapping out a silk folding fan to hide her mouth while Sakura’s face reddened to nearly match the lady’s hair. Izuna’s laughter slowly trickled to nothing as he watched the princess extend one dainty hand to help Sakura up, the girl stuttering out greetings and eyes darting about everywhere but the woman in front of her. Naruto shot her a thumbs up in encouragement. 

Ohhh. Hm.

“So you are my wayward, time-travelling relatives that I’ve been hearing about,” Mito said, eyes half lidded and observing Sakura’s seal with great interest. “Tobirama, would you mind using that jutsu of yours to dry this poor girl up?” 

“T-thank you!” Whether she was addressing Mito, Tobirama, or both was lost on Izuna. The girl was practically vibrating in delight at seeing Tobirama pull off a simple drying jutsu done with no seals, all the while holding on to Mito’s hand.

Naruto slowly wandered over, watching his rival pull the water and grime off Sakura and dumping it into the river with fascination. With the two time travellers now standing in front of her, Mito snapped her fan shut, looking up at them with a brilliant smile. “Now, what is this about a seal I could help you on?” 

Soon enough, the four were drawn into a discussion Izuna could barely follow. He raised his eyebrows, waving to get Sakura’s attention before signing: Really ?

One was married, and the other was Senju Tobirama. Sakura wasn’t allowed to do that. For more than one reason Izuna refused to name. 

She shot him a discreetly raised finger in response, before turning back to the discussion and ignoring Izuna. 

He turned to find Hashirama, only to find that he had somehow raised a massive tree without Izuna realising to bother the Kyuubi face to face. Whatever he was doing , it had the Kyuubi feigning sleep, doing its best to not react to the Senju clan head’s antics. He had evidently missed Sakura’s entire… thing about his wife and possibly his brother. Right. Okay then. 

No one was paying attention to Izuna. 

Slowly, slowly, Izuna crept backwards, closer and closer to the edge of the woods. 

Izuna was nearly out of sight, shadowed in the tall trees on the Uchiha side of the river.

This was his chance. He hoped Madara wouldn’t fret too much over his prolonged absence.

There was something off about Izuna. 

It wasn’t just the illness his brother had gotten from his exposure to the freezing koi pond (Madara felt incredibly bad about that), it was that he was acting, well, incredibly odd. 

For one, despite Madara cooking his favourite grilled pork last night, Izuna had barely even looked in its direction, much less taken a bite. Even at his sickest, Izuna had always made sure to devour it. Waste not, want not, he would say, especially when you could never tell when you may eat it again.

Instead, he had gone for the new curry recipe, only to throw up instantly in front of a horrified Madara. 

Madara didn’t have a clue where he went wrong, as he wailed to Hikaku at the start of their meeting. None of the ingredients were things Izuna was allergic too, and he had even made it extra spicy as Izuna liked!

His cousin had regarded him with tired eyes. Madara-sama, he had said in a flat tone, spice is no good for the sick, it upsets their stomachs. They should be eating bland foods like porridge. 

Also, I told you that you needed more apple in it. 

Whatever. He was never making it again. Clearly, it was a bad recipe. 

Hikaku had rolled his eyes and told him to bring Izuna around when he was better, and that he would make the curry instead the right way for the brothers to try. Madara had responded with a noncommittal shrug.  

Second on Madara's list was that Izuna was worrying the clan members . Even at his sickest, his brother had always made sure the clan’s morale came first, refusing to make an appearance until he was better and playing even more into his charming, lovable and spoilt heir persona to prove that there wasn’t anything to worry about. 

The whole day, he had been harangued by dozens of their clansmen, finding him to report that not only was Izuna not staying at home and resting, they had seen him out on the street evading his guard. Those who did manage to talk to him had also found him moody, disoriented, and flinching from their touch when they tried to check in on him. He had never heard of his attention hog of a brother not welcome a clanmate’s fussing over him, ever. 

Every meeting he had today had been delayed, if not from clansmen demanding to see him and reporting on his brother’s odd status, then from those he had to meet starting the conversation asking about the wellbeing of his heir. Madara had long lost track of the number of times he had to emphasise that no, Izuna is not dying, but please let the guard know if you see him, thank you . 

It was heartening to see the concern and love his people had for his brother, but the sooner he could clear his schedule, the faster he could go home and care for Izuna! The aunties needed to stop scolding him and wasting his time!

Though, it seemed like Izuna had decided that he needed to check in on Madara, too. Which led to his third point about Izuna's weird behaviour thus far:

Izuna was constantly complaining that Madara was a mother-hen and way too overprotective. They were close, of course, but they weren't joined at the hip. His brother had grown up, and Madara had grudgingly agreed after much yelling and scuffles that Izuna needed time to himself to grow out of Madara's large shadow. 

Izuna liked touch and loved attention, but he wasn't as clingy as many thought, often slipping away when he had enough. 

Today though, the brat was constantly running out of the house, eschewing much needed bedrest in favour of attempting to draw Madara’s attention. It was hilarious (and worrying) the first few times Madara had spotted his brother running after him, giving the Uchiha present a good chuckle when the guard dragged a grumpy Izuna back to his quarters, but now it was just annoying.

Madara had a job as the clan head to carry out around the compound, he couldn’t spend his whole day by Izuna’s bedside just because his brother demanded his time. That could come later, when he finished his meetings that people including Izuna himself  kept interrupting.

“Go to bed!” He yelled at the sprawled figure on the table between him and Hikaku.

“No! I’m--achoo! Fine! It’s just a cold!” Izuna spat, voice hoarse. It appeared that his childish brother running about in the cold with only this thin sleeping yukata on had consequences . Who would have thought?

Madara snorted. “You sneezed and fell from the ceiling, dumbass. You are not well. What’s so interesting about the grain trade that you feel the need to sit in on it, huh?”

“I think Izuna-sama was vying for your attention as he did the previous times, Madara-sama,” Hikaku said, tugging the scrolls out from under Izuna’s body. “And Madara-sama is right. Please go and rest, Izuna-sama. You are not in top form today. This was maybe your worst attempt.”  

“You--” 

Madara sighed and grabbed Izuna by the collar of his thin yukata, pulling him up into a sitting position. “Even if you weren’t sick, you aren’t even wearing enough to go out in this weather!” He dropped his hanten around Izuna’s shoulders, tying the knot firmly until he was satisfied that Izuna couldn’t possibly undo it. “It’s getting colder these days, stop running around in your sleepwear while you’re sick.” 

Izuna glared at him defiantly, sharingan activating. “I wear what I want.”

“Hikaku, with the power vested in me as Uchiha clan head, I’m making it a rule,” Madara drawled, not taking the bait. “Please have it be known that Uchiha Izuna has to wear at least two layers of weather-appropriate clothing when he’s outside.”  

“Noted,” Hikaku said, reaching for a blank scroll. It burst into black flames in his hands, prompting Hikaku to drop it on the table and watch in resignation as it enveloped the rest of the paperwork he and Madara had painstakingly completed. 

“Izuna-sama, please refrain from summoning the everburning flames in a wooden building. Put them out please.” Hikaku stared unblinkingly into the other’s spinning mangekyo, a silent staring game that Izuna promptly lost, looking away with visible discomfort. The flames died out with nary a single cinder left. 

A great sigh left Madara as he looked at the remains of the lost paperwork. He dropped a heavy hand onto Izuna’s head of short hair, ignoring the flinch and petting it in heavy motions until the mangekyo faded to black. “Oh, yeah. Second rule. No using dangerous jutsu in buildings, or the offender gets trash sorting duty for the next week.”

“Will you even follow that rule yourself, Madara-sama?”

“Hah! With trash sorting on the line? I’ll do my best.” Izuna’s harried guard rushed back into their meeting room, apologies spewing forth from their lips. Madara watched as the guard plucked Izuna off the table, preparing to cart him back to the main house once again. 

"Wait no-achoo! We need to talk—Damn it!"

“Aa, Katsuki-san? Make sure he doesn’t leave his chambers at all until I return, thank you. I grant you authorisation to activate the baby-gate seals in the doorway, he’s banned from accessing the rest of the house. And you ? Stay there. My patience is running thin.”

The door to his office slid shut. Hikaku put down his brush and looked at Madara. 

“Madara. That wasn’t Izuna. His mangekyo looked different.” 

“I saw.”

A familiar hand gripped the back of his collar as he made a run for it through the woods. Instinctively, Izuna kicked back, foot slamming against an armoured torso and flipping away. The force pulled his shirt’s ‘zipper’ open, baring his chest to the elements and his entirely unimpressed rival.

Future clothing sucked .

“Going somewhere, Uchiha?” A dry voice said. “Which one of us is running away now?” 

He glared at the bane of his existence, scrambling to tug up the ‘zipper’ that had worked smooth as butter when Naruto showed him, but was now annoyingly jammed and not budging at all. “Leave me alone, I have places to be that don't involve you weirdos!”

“Like the theatre you acquired your garments from?” Izuna scowled, pulling even harder. With a sharp tug, the pull tag broke. The two watched as the shiny piece of metal bounced off into the woods, never to return. Izuna’s shirt stayed regrettably open in the chilly weather. 

Whatever. He took off once again, jumping through the trees as he tried to outrun the Senju. He knew these trees, this path, and the shortcuts he could take. With enough luck, he’d be out of the forest (dangerous territory where the Senju were concerned) and on the edges of the indigo fields the Uchiha cultivated in no time. 

Infuriatingly, the Senju was somehow able to catch up every time he attempted to throw him off his tail, appearing out of thin air and narrowly missing Izuna despite this not being his territory at all. Izuna really needed to review just how much the Senju knew of their neck of the woods when they were back. For now, he’d just taunt his rival in the hopes of making him slip . 

“What do you know about theatre or fashion, Senju? I haven’t seen anyone wear a happuri unless they were over 50 and a samurai.”

There was a log in the way. He jumped up, leaping from tree to tree, higher and higher until he could see the sky overhead, leaving leaves rustling loudly in his wake. Not great for hiding his position from his pursuer, but the forest canopy was great for hindering the taller Senju from reaching him. He ran, over and under and around twisting, narrow branches that the Senju in his heavy armour definitely could not reach. 

“Unlike yours, they are practical.” 

This time, he could hear the Senju’s retort somewhere far below. Izuna jumped, the whistling of a kunai through the air alerting him to a danger that passed by harmlessly. “Too slow!” He called, watching the three headed kunai bury itself into a nearby branch. 

But then—

Izuna screeched as the Senju somehow dropped into existence right in front of him , strong hands latching onto his shoulders in a vice grip. In the blink of an eye, a seal was slapped onto his bare chest again. A thousand shocks erupted from the sticking point, coursing through his nerves as he fell off his tree and collapsed to the ground, twitching uncontrollably. 

Two feet dropped neatly into his line of sight, silent and catlike. 

With little fanfare, Senju Tobirama hoisted him over his shoulders like a sack of yams, Izuna’s face barely missing the hard lacquer and flopping face-first into Tobirama’s (stylish, weather-appropriate, ticklish—damn it all) fur ruff. 

Izuna moaned as he felt his freedom slink further away with every step. 

“With Mito’s help, we have finished our calculations on constructing the new trigram and seal. We’ll now be setting out to find this Will of the Goddess to destroy it. Unfortunately for both of us, Sakura-san has insisted that you factor into her plans in a major way and must come along.” 

At this point, Izuna thought, death may be a mercy.

Dinner that day was simple. Madara had been busy, and hadn’t been in the mood to cook much after the day he had. Just plain eggs, pickles, and congee. 

It was a good, simple meal for those who were unwell.

Izuna helped lay out the table, fumbling a bit when he forgot where they had stored the cutlery.They ate in companionable silence, broken with the occasional quiet sniffle from Izuna until Madara spoke.

“You know, there are currently only two of us with the mangekyo.” Madara split a hard boiled egg in two, dropping one half into Izuna’s bowl. “You, and me.”

Izuna’s eyes flickered up to him, and back down to his food. “Hn.”

“It’s unique, you see. Both being able to reach such heights of power, and the pattern itself.”

“So, tell me.” The world disappeared into a bloody red wasteland, Madara shoving the other to the ground and wrapping a hand around his neck. 

“Who are you?” 

Chapter Text

Sakura’s mouth twitched as she watched Tobirama stroll into sight, one defeated Uchiha slung over a broad shoulder with his ass high in the air and feet weakly kicking against the Senju’s tight hold.

“Maybe he’ll resist less if you’d carried him princess style, Tobirama sama!” She called out, something bright blossoming in her chest as Naruto burst into laughter beside her. Grinning herself, she easily bore the weight of the other as he curled into her, both of their bodies shaking in shared humour at the situation.

A muffled, outraged scream sounded out from behind the Senju, Izuna’s struggles against the paralysing seal getting more desperate. “I’m not a princess! Senju put me down right now!”

Things were… going well. Even with the unexpected deviations from her plan. But now it’s better! Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama were here. And so was Uzumaki Mito in all her glory.

She loved her boys, she did, but it had been so long since she could rely on other people for help, have an adult look at her desperate efforts to keep them alive and tell her that she was on the right track, that they will help her reach her goal.

And she will.

Uchiha Madara had intended for everyone to live a perfect world in their dreams, but Haruno Sakura was going to build that better world for everyone to live in reality.

Standing in a new world in the past, watching the legends from her history book bicker, Naruto safe, laughing and alive in her secure hold, Sakura breathed in. And out.

The air was sharp and crisp with the arrival of colder weather, so much different from the choking, polluted wastelands she came from. The place that Team Seven survived.

Here, they had a chance to make things right.

Madara, Zetsu, Kaguya would not threaten the world she envisioned. She wouldn’t let them have the chance to in the first place.

Naruto’s chuckles quieted down, neither of them pulling away as they sat in comfortable silence. Sakura’s thoughts drifted to their missing third member, busy with his own mission. It had been a tall order, she could admit, tasking Sasuke to discreetly assassinate Uchiha Madara.

He wouldn’t have half the powers he had terrorised the battlefield with in their time, but the man’s martial prowess even now was no joke. That was why, after all, her plan had involved trickery and Madara’s own brother.

Fake a heart attack with a weak chidori or poison their meal, she had suggested. Sasuke was immune to most poison anyway, and surely Madara, if he went that crazy over the death of a brother, wouldn’t refuse a home cooked meal or a lovely nap with Izuna, right?

From her research, Madara loved Izuna. She was sure of it. And by all accounts, the younger brother was a most loyal supporter of the older. No one would think Madara’s sudden passing to be a plot or a coup by Uchiha Izuna if done right.

All Sasuke had to do was stick to the plan and not reveal himself until the deed was done, and the Uchiha wouldn’t suspect a thing.

Sasuke choked out a cry as the hand around his throat squeezed.

“You wear my brother’s face, wield our clan’s sharingan and are blessed with its refined form. Your chakra sings with fire and lightning just like him, enough to fool me and yet,” Madara hissed, “you are not him.”

Sasuke stared back in horror.

It was Madara. Powerful form bearing down upon him, wild hair spilling over broad shoulders with sneering face inches from Sasuke’s own. An expression Sasuke was acquainted with from their time on the battlefield in another world. The madman himself.

And yet, the scrouge of the Uchiha was... different. He wasn’t in armour, nor stripped down to his pants with Hashirama’s face growing out of his chest, nor donning the pale robes of the ten-tails jinchuuriki. He wore a casual yukata—the worn, faded one that clearly used to be the rich deep indigo of most Uchiha garb, but had since washed out into a softer, muted blue, patched in places with strategically placed embroidery of mountains, clouds, and birds in white thread.

He had worn it yesterday too. Sasuke had watched Madara shrug it on after returning back to the house and making sure ‘Izuna’ was dry and bundled up in enough warm blankets to his satisfaction. The upright, proud posture of the Uchiha clan head had immediately slouched into something more relaxed and tired.

Comfortable. Vulnerable? What an unthinkable term to associate with Uchiha Madara.

And Sasuke knew that the look of Madara in that worn, well-loved yukata had to be the privilege of Uchiha Izuna alone, the only other person who lived in the massive, dreadfully empty main house of the old Uchiha compound. The person who Madara trusted and loved unconditionally as a brother could, let his guard down around.

It was a relationship that Sasuke had no right to be a part of. He didn’t deserve the familial care freely given to him by Madara under the guise of being Uchiha Izuna.

“Well? Not going to say anything?” The monster from another time asked. He leaned in, breath carrying hints of their shared meal as he hissed into Sasuke’s ear, teeth too close to the earlobe for comfort.

“Tell me where Izuna is, and then I’ll kill you.”

Looking at him felt wrong. It felt like confirmation. It felt nearly like a betrayal.

(Why should it matter? Sasuke was never the intended recipient of Madara’s care anyway. Was never his brother. He was the one deceiving Madara anyway. Guilt had no place in his heart when faced with the monster that had helped end the world.)

Involuntarily, Sasuke’s eyes flickered away to the side, his mangekyo instantly clocking their surroundings and—

Oh.

He was back.

Red sky high above and barren rock under his feet, facing Uchiha Madara once more. Who was raising his other hand and beginning some familiar handsigns—No. No.

“G-get. Off!” Susano’o erupted around Sasuke’s form, throwing Madara back. The man rolled and got to his feet, house slippers easily finding purchase among the broken ground of the hellscape that Team Seven had left behind.

Madara’s own Susano’o enveloped him in response, Madara himself looking entirely too unphased by the pushback as he settled into a battle ready pose. Sasuke felt sick, breathing harshly through his mouth and fighting his body’s urge to shiver.

The other Susano’o flew forward, and Sasuke braced himself.

He had to survive this. Naruto and Sakura were counting on him.

Elsewhere, the Senju clan head, his wife and the Uzushio Princess, the infamous Senju heir with the Uchiha clan heir hoisted over his shoulders and two random teenagers ran on, the Kyuubi following right behind.

It was a sight that had led many a farmer across the land to shake their head in disbelief, looking at the flask they had been casually sipping from and wonder if they had perhaps overindulged too much, too early.

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their movements, with the group spontaneously turning around and heading the other direction at points like a confused flock of chickens.

Among the group itself, their lack of direction was causing quite a bit of tension.

“Ah! Sorry everyone! The weird energy moved! We gotta head back now.”

Senju Tobirama let out a frustrated sigh. “Naruto-san. Your method isn’t working. If it’s a distinct chakra construct, I would be able to find it. I shall take point.”

“Nah, you really don’t know what it feels like until you’ve met it, trust me. I got this.” Naruto sped off, leaving Senju Tobirama to chase after, Izuna making loud complaints as he was subjected to a bumpy ride over the Senju’s shoulder at a punishing pace.

Sakura groaned.

“This is taking forever.” At this rate, they might as well hang around the Uchiha compound and wait for Zetsu to show up around Madara. Even with all the hopping about, some things had to happen eventually if the alien will’s plan remained the same.

“Hm. That may work. You are rather bright aren’t you, Sakura-chan?”

“H-huh, what?” She hadn’t realised she had been speaking out loud.

The Kyuubi snickered. “Finally figured it out, kit?”

Mito smiled at Sakura with beni-red lips, makeup somehow impeccable despite having been on the same goosechase as them all for the last couple hours.

It made Sakura abruptly aware that she hadn’t brushed her matted hair in weeks other than the cursory fingercomb. Subtly, she tried to sniff the air. Did she smell? That random dip in the river should have helped remove some of the grime, right?

“Tobirama, Naruto! Come back. We shall make haste for the Uchiha Compound.” Mito flicked open a fan and began scribbling something down its spines.

“Husband mine, I don’t suppose you could be a dear and expedite this message to Madara, would you?”

“They’ll never let you in!” Izuna screamed. “Absolutely not!”

Tobirama rolled his eyes and swung a fist behind him, other arm still firmly gripping onto Izuna’s legs. Sakura winced. That was a rather loud thump. She hoped she wouldn't have to check Izuna for a concussion later considering the other's foul mood.

“No, I very much think they will. You’re with us, you imbecile.”

“I hope they kill you on sight, bastard!”

Sakura’s wandering thoughts screeched to a stop.

She had planned this with the assumption that they—She, Naruto and Izuna—would catch Zetsu far away from the compound before it even had a chance to tamper with the Uchiha, long enough for Sasuke to get on with disposing Madara and her to… plan an accident for Izuna when Naruto wasn’t looking.

The euphoria over meeting her intellectual idols had taken over so much, she’d forgotten that a major part of her plan hinged on only involving the Senju in village making after they had finished replacing the Uchiha head, no one the wiser to the swap.

Shit.

If they went to the compound and Sasuke was there… It wouldn’t take long for the discrepancy to be noticed and the ruse found out.

Idiot! The memory of her wondering if Sasuke was sticking to the plan seemed to mock her now. Why worry about others when she should have been worrying about her own carelessness?

The group began to turn east towards the Uchiha compound. Sakura swallowed and kept pace. She was their planner. She had to stop panicking and fix her mistake.

Sasuke’s life depended on it. Depended on her.

Chapter Text

Fighting Madara now was just as aggravating as it was the first time. Potentially worse, considering Sasuke was going about it alone without Naruto by his side.

Sure, neither of them had the rinnegan in this fight and Madara wasn’t throwing around meteors or literal shadow clones. Even so, it seemed like pulling out all sorts of overpowered jutsu from his arsenal was an Uchiha Madara special from the very beginning.

There were fire tornadoes Sasuke had only read about in the Uchiha archives, bored off his mind while Sakura and Naruto carved bloodied trigrams into the floorboards. Sudden and abrupt air pressure changes that left Sasuke dizzier than ever and made his ears pop. Lightning pillars that left afterimages burning in his vision and the taste of ozone in the air.

Aggravatingly, Madara had the audacity to seem mad that Sasuke was somehow surviving this barrage by the skin of his teeth and the protection of Susano’o. If anything, it just seemed like he got angrier the longer he had to fight Sasuke, which was extremely unfair considering he wasn’t the one struggling here.

Or perhaps it was because he was still angry at Sasuke for impersonating his brother. The comments the other made certainly pointed towards this being the case.

“You dare wear that face still?”

“This is my face!” Sasuke yelled back, equally frustrated.

Damn Uchiha Izuna for being his lookalike and starting this whole mess of a plan in the first place. He hoped the other was having an absolutely miserable time in Team Seven.

Madara scowled, the expression twisting his face into something more oni-like than it already was. “So stubborn. I’ll just have to make sure you can’t keep up such a farce any longer.”

That may not take long at all. Sasuke’s head was pounding as hard as his heart, while his chakra was being consumed by the Susano’o at an alarming rate.

Still, he had no choice but to endure. He had to win.

On the other side of the battlefield Madara panted, dropping low to the ground. The arrows of Sasuke’s Susano’o flew overhead, inches above that wild mane. Madara himself had long done away with his own Susano’o construct, apparently confident in besting Sasuke with the other, lesser skills.

“You dance well.” Madara tilted his head, sharingan assessing Sasuke’s form consideringly. “Who are you?”

A quick flash of hand signs and howling gales burst forth, the Uchiha Clan head dashing beside them in a sudden burst of speed. Sasuke gritted his teeth as he fought to stay on two feet, bracing against the wind. Underfoot, the ground began to roll like waves, unnatural as a dream can be.

“I’m Uchiha Sasuke, and I have to kill you.” He stumbled as he let out a great sneeze, rolling to the side and shooting another round of black flames at the approaching figure while sniffling. Something flashed across Madara’s face before it was buried beneath that furious scowl once more.

“Uchiha?” Madara scoffed, slowing his gait to a stroll, stalking forth with the ease and arrogance of a top predator. “I know my people, from the babes to the old. You are no clan member of mine.”

Two grand fireballs collided, a spectacular explosion blazing to life between the two. Sasuke took advantage of the brief block to put some distance between them, readying his next attack.

He sneezed again, cursing under his breath as his head spun. Fuck, surely that quick dunk in the koi pond couldn’t have sickened him this quickly, icy cold as it was. Madara had made sure he was warm and dry as soon as possible, back when-- No, focus.

Trembling fingers twisted into hand signs as the scent of ozone filled the air.

In the eye of the storm, he howled.

“There wasn't an Uchiha clan left in my time, and it’s all your fault!”

That man (brother?) monster danced through the hail of lightning, footsteps sure in the hell he created. It laughed, loud and mocking and incredulous all at once.

“What nonsense do you speak! Your time? My fault? Have you not had your fill of seeing the clan through my brother’s eyes, interloper? We stand strong under my lead, and I am the strongest of the Uchiha.” That cocky smile haunted him. “Under me, the Uchiha will never fall.”

“It doesn’t last,” Sasuke rasped, bloody tears spilling down his cheeks. “Your perfect world killed us all.”

Susano’o’s light faded to nothing, Sasuke’s chakra spent.

“Because of you, everyone else is dead.”

Sakura laughed uneasily as she ran up to Hashirama at the front of the pack.

She had to come up with something before the legends in her textbooks mistook Sasuke for the shapeshifting alien and killed him where he stood. But what?

Fuck, the derailment of her plans by her own hand was causing something dangerous to stir and awaken in the back of her mind, drawn in by the uncertainty and panic that she was barely keeping at bay. That level of inadequacy she hadn’t felt since she was a simple genin gnawed at her insides, her mistake echoing in the back of her head like a heartbeat sending adrenaline shooting throughout her body.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Sakura was Team Seven’s planner, so why was her mind screaming anything but a solution?

She needed to calm down. A distraction for herself and the rest of the party until she could breathe and think.

To stop.

“Everyone, it’s been a long day!” Sakura forced out, keenly aware of each and every step forward. They were approaching the Uchiha border at an alarming pace, already crossing the same battlefield they had originally fallen into the other day. Scrambling, she dug up an excuse based on the self care talks Shizune forced on her after too many all-nighters.

“Could we maybe find a spot to set camp and rest for the night? We’d have more energy and presence of mind to continue on and deal with the missio—the Uchiha tomorrow.”

Tobirama barely glanced at her as he continued speeding ahead.

“If this alien is such a threat to our world, it would be faster to set up our trap and precautions then rest,” Tobirama pointed out. “Doing so under the cover of night and with as little Uchiha aware we are in their lands is also preferable.”

“My brother is right,” Hashirama said, not breaking his stride alongside Mito. “If it endangers the Uchiha we should help them as soon as possible.”

“But—!”

Noting the distress on her face, Mito smiled at her, round eyes curving up into a far more fox-like shape. Her gentle voice did nothing to allay Sakura’s stress levels. “It’s been a long day Sakura-chan, but hang in there. The Uchiha compound isn’t far now. Once we arrive you can take a little rest while we adults handle the situation for you, alright?”

From his position over Tobirama’s shoulder, Izuna was still making his displeasure over their collective destination heard as loud as possible. “When we get there I’m telling aniki to keep you all out! If there’s an intruder in our home we will deal with it ourselves.”

This was useless. Logic dictated that they should press forth. She needed another method. Something that would convince battle hardened shinobi legends to stop in their tracks and go against that logic.

She needed… someone who can convince them.

Talk no jutsu!

Sakura put a bit more power into her run and dropped back, veering closer to Naruto and leading him away from where he had been chatting with Kuruma. “Back me up, we got a problem,” she hissed, hand tugging at his sleeve.

Her friend grinned, gently bumping his shoulder into hers as they ran side by side. “What’s up?”

“Sasuke.”

“Eh? What about the bastard?” Naruto asked, a little too casual and a little too loud for Sakura’s liking. She cast a wary look at the rest of the group before leaning in.

“Naruto, he’s in the Uchiha compound pretending to be Izuna. We have Izuna with us and are about to get there. If they find out what Sasuke is doing… well. You need to help me convince them to stop for the night so we can tell Sasuke to get the hell out of there.”

Forget assassinating Madara. Whether Sasuke had managed to succeed or not, they needed to keep the Uchiha and Senju unaware of their trickery at all cost if they wanted the clans’ help against Zetsu.

She couldn’t afford to lose any trust in Team Seven at this point with Tobirama and Mito's offers to help set up the seal. What precious knowledge she and Naruto clawed together from scraps was simply inadequate to stop Zetsu, this she knew. 

“Oh. Right.” Naruto’s face turned into one of realisation, before relaxing again. “I mean, we can just explain and they’ll get it right? It worked out for us so far!”

Sakura resisted the urge to scream. “That won’t work this time.”

“Hey, hey.” Her best friend grabbed her hand, blue eyes wide and trusting in a way that struck guilt to her core. “Don’t worry alright? You always have a plan and I believe in you! We got this, Sakura.”

Naruto pointed ahead, to where Izuna was attempting to pull chunks out of Senju Tobirama’s fur ruff.

“Look, Izuna’s pretty high ranking, right? We just need to tell everyone that Sasuke was just helping take over his duties while Izuna helped us defeat Zetsu, it will be fine. They’ll probably appreciate it!”

“It’s not just that,” Sakura argued, stressed out of her mind. Naruto didn’t have all the information. He didn’t get it. “There’s also that other thing Sasuke had to do and I don’t know if he’s managed it yet and when they find out—”

“What thing?”

She trusted her teammates, but Sakura hated uncertainty. And people like her boys were wild cards and so was Uchiha Madara. A new worry gnawed at her, memories of that old battlefield and what Team Seven had experienced flowing back.

Had she been too confident, sending Sasuke to deal with Madara?

Even before all the aliens and Zetsu and immortal zombie shenanigans, Uchiha Madara, she had read, was a menace on the battlefield. If Madara had noticed the swap, it would no doubt lead to a fight. It was why she had been particularly insistent on Sasuke using less obvious methods of ending Madara’s life than a chidori to the heart like he had proposed.

(“Do not engage directly,” she had warned. “Sasuke, I’m dead serious about this.”

Sasuke had scowled back. “I’m not an idiot, Sakura. I’ve fought that man before.”)

She loved him, but Sasuke was an idiot.

That uncertainty grew. And grew. She couldn’t hold it in. Doubt was always her greatest enemy.

“Naruto, what if—”

Madara snorted as the false Uchiha cried something about Madara killing his family.

“Do you think blabbering nonsense over some sort of misplaced revenge will guilt me into sparing you?”

He had killed many on and off the battlefield since he was old enough to know how to strike true and well. One unfortunate family was barely something he’d have lost sleep over, even if it clearly had taken a toll on his brother’s imposter.

How boring a motive as well, revenge. Though, he could appreciate the amusing plot of masquerading as the close family of your family’s killer. It would be something he and Izuna would laugh over later, once he learnt where Izuna actually was.

Or not, actually. Izuna would be incredibly indignant that Madara and the clan as a whole took so long to realise that he had been replaced. It really was embarrassing. Shaking his head, he addressed the imposter once more, lips curled in a mocking sneer.

“Did you think you could best me, Uchiha Madara? What did you think would happen, Uchiha Sasuke, if that truly is your name?”

The other glared back at him, pupils trembling. Hatred and fear had dilated them into nearly drowning out the red, that familiar face set into a look of utter betrayal, like he had the right to feel that emotion after the trickery he pulled.

Still, seeing such expressions on that face was disconcerting.

Madara extended a tiny tendril of chakra forth, prodding and sensing the interloper’s reserves and frowning at his discovery. His plan had worked.

And yet…?

“Where are you from?” He demanded.

“I am from the future. A future that you helped destroy. If I kill you here and now,”—this too, was interrupted by another sneeze and the harsh breaths Izuna’s doppelgänger had resorted to taking in through his mouth—”Then maybe I can save this clan. Save my friends. My brother. The world.”

Madara’s brows furrowed, watching the insane stranger wearing his brother’s face hold up a shaking hand and summon that screaming, chirping ball of lightning once more. It dissipated into nothingness as a sneezing fit wracked that thin frame.

How weak. They had only danced for a little while before the other’s chakra reserves were exhausted, nothing like his hours-long bouts against Hashirama. It didn’t take long for the body to give up the greater immunity against illness that chakra afforded shinobi after that. For it to no longer power anything that could shield his opponent’s body against Madara.

Susano’o, seals, a henge…

The imposter had already been sniffling and sniveling the night before, and those little excursions to seek Madara out earlier had clearly been taxing on a body fighting off sickness. Madara had felt terribly sorry before he’d known, but now—

He looked at the sweating, sorry thing before him. Bloody lines streaking down soft cheeks, eyes creased in a picture of misery as he struggled to stay standing. A pitiful and terribly unwell creature.

(Had he seen Izuna this way before? Yes, when he had first unlocked the mangekyo. Madara had stayed by his bedside all night. This mewling worm would receive no such care, he decided.)

Short, mussed up bangs fell over the other’s eyes as he shook, hiding them from Madara’s gaze.

Goddess above, he looked so much like Izuna back then, ashamed about his aniki seeing him so weak even after unlocking one of their clan’s greatest strengths.

He looked so much like his brother right now.

(Could it be that—?)

“So you claim, but from where I stand, you do not seem capable of saving yourself, much less bear the burden of a saviour.” Madara simply observed.

“Shut up!”

Madara sighed, waiting for Sasuke to realise the inevitable, before changing his mind. Waiting for the stubborn boy to give up would likely take longer than his already spent patience could afford.

Under his silent command, the sky shifted.

Three dark voids opened above them, the sky twisting and bending until the holes connected into a spinning wheel, three spokes stretching outward over the red horizon.

Eyes to the sky, Sasuke finally fell. His body thudded heavily onto the dry earth.

A calloused hand dropped over his forehead, feeling its temperature. Sasuke shot Madara a weak glare, stubbornly attempting to call upon the dregs of his chakra as a last ditch effort.

Nothing happened.

Madara looked down upon the foolish little thing he had thought was his brother, chakra flaring out from every corner of the dreamworld he’d built from Sasuke’s memories.

“Don’t even bother, you fool. What makes you think you have any power in your worst nightmare?”

Sakura realised her next cardinal mistake all too late as Naruto’s mouth dropped open.

Never tell Naruto about the nightmare scenario. 

His response could be hard all the way across the land of Fire.

“What?! Madara’s killing Sasuke?”

Chapter Text

This couldn’t be the end.

Sasuke refused, silently cursing the way his prone body trembled as Madara leant over him, hand brushing back damp bangs as the elder Uchiha studied his face. Searching for something with a glare that left Sasuke feeling wildly exposed and uncomfortable.

No, he had to fight on. Scraping the remnants of strength in his aching body, he jerked upwards, aiming for the bastard’s face with his forehead. Undignified and moreso a move Naruto would pull, but Sasuke would do whatever it took to free him from—

The unforgiving winds howling in the background simply slammed him back down, Madara barely having to twitch a finger for the nightmare to follow his command.

“You’re too warm, even after sparring.” He noted instead, ignoring Sasuke’s feeble attempts to get up. Casually, as if they were still having a quiet, if pleasant chat at the dinner table rather than fighting to the death in Sasuke’s mind.

That hand on his forehead had moved to his hair, combing through and sweeping it here and there in what Sasuke knew had to be a mocking imitation of care, a reflection of that first night he’d spent in their house under Izuna’s name.

Sasuke was well acquainted with the circumstances of Izuna’s demise and had seen Senju Tobirama’s repeatedly skewered body on the battlefield in the previous world. He was also intimately familiar with the hellscape that Madara (and Zetsu’s) planning had cast them into post-fall out with Senju Hashirama, and the whole initial Kyuubi incident.

Point being, Madara apparently held grudges like Kakashi sensei had held on to his mask. Deeply personal, overly dramatic about it, and never letting go.

Sasuke had to get away right now.

“I—I fought you—and I can fight more!”

Madara shook his head, snorting. “It was I who graciously allowed you to dance, fool. But your body is sick, unintentionally by my own hand. And so, our dance has lost its appeal for me.”

“I must—achoo!— kill you. I got to—” Fight? Flight? In this damn nightmare he could do neither but he absolutely had to or else—

“For your family or something, yes yes. I heard you the first time.” The other had the audacity to take those accursed eyes off him and roll them, heaving a great sigh while he grasped Sasuke’s chin to tilt his head left and right. “And that this is your face, as you claim.”

“Always has been.” Sasuke growled through gritted teeth.

“Then why do you resemble my brother, Izuna?” Madara asked softly. “Enough that you knowingly deceived my clan, tried to deceive me?”

He couldn’t answer. The plan was an easy explanation, and Madara already knew half of it if he had been paying attention long before Sasuke had yelled at him about saving the future. And yet, he found himself stuck, unable to force a single word out. So he closed his mouth, glaring at Madara in lieu of an answer.

“You cannot be a bastard of my bloodline, either. We have measures against those kinds of transgressions, and that of the mainline hasn’t failed in centuries.”

And it would never fail. As far as he knew, Madara’s branch died with Madara, and because Sasuke was the very last Uchiha, the clan would end with him. Madara was fated to doom his bloodline twice over. “You—”

Madara huffed, interrupting him. “Whatever. I care not for where you came from, nor what your reasoning is for trying to kill me. We fed, bathed, and clothed you as if you were the most beloved of our clan, not knowing you were a cuckoo among crows.”

Sasuke closed his eyes, unwilling to look at the elder any longer.

“Your foolish attempt is an insult to our hospitality and this clan’s kindness, and I would kill you right now for the audacity.”

“Then do it.” If Madara killed him here, surely Sasuke could do something, right? Trap the other in his own dying mind with him before he came for the remnants of Team Seven, or led their future down the same ruinous path in time to come.

“I can’t hurt you.” Fabric rustled as he heard Madara stand, footsteps indicating that he had stepped away just a little, granting Sasuke a small reprieve. He could still feel the other’s eyes boring into him.

“I have other questions. Fortunately in this realm, we have all the time in the world for you to answer them.”

Sasuke was in danger?

Eyes widening, Naruto opened his mouth, ready to repeat himself when Sakura’s hand shot out viper-quick and slapped against his mouth.

For just a moment, he fielded the urge to lick the other’s hand in retaliation. It would be kinda gross, did Sakura wash her hands? Kakashi sensei said that they should wash their hands always because of germs or some stuff like that, but water had been pretty hard to come by in the apocalypse. Sakura did take a dip into the river earlier though… Shaking his head, he shoved the thought aside. Now wasn’t the time, they had other problems at stake!

Madara had been a hard opponent during the war. Only he and Sasuke working together could defeat him. If Sasuke was alone and had been found out by Madara and was fighting for his life right now, Naruto had to help.

“Mm mh!”

“Shush-- I know,” Sakura hissed, using her other hand to swipe the air in the universal symbol for ‘shut up!’, but it was too late. The rest of their party had paused in their tracks, watching the two time travellers after Naruto’s scream.

“Sasuke… as in the Sarutobi heir?” Hashirama asked, brows knitted together in confusion.

Eh, Naruto didn’t remember what the Sandaime’s family was like. He only knew the old man and Konohamaru. If they had an ancestor named Sasuke, that was pretty cool, he guessed.

Again, not the point, and Sakura was stuttering something which really wouldn’t help answer Hashirama’s question. They couldn’t waste any time if he wanted to save Sasuke from Madara.

Naruto made up his mind and went for it, causing Sakura to shriek in disgust as she ripped her hand away, shaking it like she could get rid of the saliva that way. He wrinkled his nose at the salty, grimy taste gathered on his tongue, sticking it out before exercising his regained right to speak.

“Oh, nah. Our friend, Uchiha Sasuke!”

From the nidaime’s back, Izuna’s head popped up. “Excuse me, who the fuck is that?”

“You don’t know your own clansmen, Uchiha?” Tobirama asked, though his eyes were narrowed more than usual. Naruto gulped, glancing at Sakura who looked like she was experiencing the world’s end for the second time. He brushed his hand against hers, only to yelp as she seized it in a vice grip, holding on for dear life.

“If someone named their kid the same name as that monkey asshole, I think I would remember, Senju! And that is rich coming from you, I bet you just hole up in your little lair doing crimes instead of interacting with your clan. Mine would know if I went missing but even with your weird colouring I bet half of yours don’t know what you look like—”

Izuna and Tobirama argued worse than he and Sasuke did. Which fit, seeing as the book Sakura had shown him said the two of them were rivals, just like him and Sasuke. Izuna even looked almost exactly like the bastard too, except his hair was longer and his cheeks weren’t quite as round as Sasuke’s and his lower lip was slightly puffier, too.

Wait, if Izuna was like Sasuke as they were both Uchiha and also looked like twins, wouldn’t that make Naruto Tobirama in their rivalry? That wasn’t quite right, he thought. He and Tobirama were really different. Tobirama didn’t seem to smile a lot, for one. They both did like sealing, though.

Tobirama and Mito (His ancestor! Woah!)’s additions to their anti-zetsu trap had been incredible. Naruto didn’t even consider the possibility of making up a new trigram, but since their opponent was a literal alien from the moon, it made sense that they would need to come up with something that didn’t align with the rules of their land and their knowledge of the stars. Zetsu will never see it coming.

Maybe after they saved the world Mito would teach him more? Naruto wanted to learn, both about sealing and their shared family. He would share it with Sasuke and Sakura of course, and everyone will get to live and rest and chill once Konoha’s future was secured. They had this in the bag, he believed that wholeheartedly. Even now—

“Everyone, please pause for a moment.”

By Hashirama’s side, Mito stepped forth, sporting a thoughtful expression that Naruto had seen a lot on Kurama’s face in the past. As it is, current Kurama looked absolutely delighted at their unscheduled stop, leisurely settling on his haunches and grinning at them with a toothy smile.

That was good. Naruto felt that they weren’t quite friends just yet, but for Kurama to be comfortable enough to smile and relax around them, that was progress. They’ll be friends soon enough.

Speaking of friends, “Naruto-kun, Sakura-chan, would your Uchiha Sasuke also be one of your friends from the future?” Mito asked, drawing his attention back to her with a flick of her fan to cover her lower face.

“Yeah!” Naruto confirmed.

“No.” Sakura mumbled.

Sakura’s hand had grown limp and clammy in his. Yikes.

“And why would Madara-sama want to kill your friend?”

That, he wasn’t quite sure about, actually. Tilting his head towards Sakura’s, he shook their connected hands, trying to prompt her to answer. The light in her eyes had dimmed, Sakura staring straight ahead with something like grief in her expression.

Geez.

“Psst, Sakura. Sakura?”

“We are all going to die.” Were the numb words that fell out of that slack mouth.

Sakura got like this sometimes, back in the old world as more and more of it fell apart with reality’s collapse. Days when she went without speaking, numbly leading them forth from one safe zone to the next while he and Sasuke shielded them from the dangers. Naruto had always found just the right words to say to get her out of her funk and place determination to live back in those frog green eyes. This time wasn’t going to be an exception.

“Hey! Don’t say that! We got this, we got help,” He said, waving at the rest of the gathered people watching. “Sakura, we’re going to survive Zetsu, and we can save Sasuke from Madara and Sasuke is gonna succeed in his mission. We’ll build Konoha and everyone lives, okay?”

“Fuck the mission. Fucked it.” Sakura mumbled, turning away and screaming wordlessly into her hands.

“Mission?” Hashirama asked, curiously, walking up to Sakura with an outreached hand, intending to offer a comforting pat that the girl shakily dodged before collapsing into a ball by Naruto’s feet.

“He’s helping cover Izuna’s clan stuff while Izuna’s helping us,” Naruto explained reasonably, “‘Cause he’s an Uchiha. That way, Izuna doesn’t have to come back to so much paperwork or whatever Uchicha stuff he gotta do once we save the world.”

Izuna made a noise like a dying duck. “Your friend is doing what?”

“Well, he really looks like Izuna, so…”

“We don’t all look the same! Oh goddess, these clothes.” Izuna moaned. “He can’t, you can’t do that!”

“Madara wouldn’t take it well if he found out your friend was impersonating Izuna, that is true. It was sweet that you thought about helping Izuna with his tasks though.” Hashirama said thoughtfully. “Is that why you were afraid for your friend, Sakura-chan?”

“It doesn’t mean their friend has the capacity to handle clan tasks, glaring security risk aside.” Tobirama pointed out. “Not that the one he’s impersonating seems all that capable either.”

“Hey, fuck you Senju! I do my work completely fine.”

“And yet you’ve been replaced for what, two, nearly three days without any alarms or search parties I could sense? Clearly no one has noticed you went missing.” Tobirama paused, before a smirk curved across that face. “Mine would.”

“Your clans would collapse without either of you boys.” Mito cut in smoothly, “Fret not, I’m sure we can reason with Madara, Sakura-chan.”

The mop of pink hair by Naruto’s knee shook. Naruto frowned, concern brewing in his belly as the awful feelings (guilt, frustration, fear—overwhelming fear) emanating from his friend began to drown out the much more distant pulses of malice from the zetsu they hunted. “Sakura?”

Green eyes looked out from a gaunt, haunted face.

"But... he’s trying to kill him.” 

Madara was circling him, footsteps fading and then growing nearer and his voice echoing around him in the dream. 

“I rarely do this, mind you, it is much quicker to take someone’s head off their bodies or reduce them to ash in an instant. But when I do, what I find never fails to fascinate me. I was curious what shape this nightmare would take, and I wonder...”

If Madara was going to monologue here and now, Sasuke was going to find a way to kill himself.

“A person’s personal nightmare is quite telling of themselves. What scares them, where they’ve been, who they know. This red sky is the same red as the sky above the battlefield the other day. But I do not recognise their faces on these bodies, Sasuke.”

Bodies?

Sasuke’s eyes shot open, the winds easing as he scrambled to sit up and take a proper look at the nightmare realm, ignoring Madara observing him at his side curiously.

He had been too focused on fending off Madara—to focused to realise—

[skip]

Strewn across the wasteland that was the end of the world were the bodies of Uchiha from his time, his childhood. Shinobi in torn uniforms, dismembered and scattered about, civilians from the artisan districts or the fields sprawled carelessly on half remembered streets, edges fuzzy within the dream.

Children.

Some were on their front, Uchiha crest on their back clear to see, others were face up. Time had long muddled their memory, but each face he recognised only fed the yawning, gaping wound of horror and grief that had torn itself back open deep in his gut.

There was Granny Hiuchi who made and sold skewers by the schoolhouse slumped by the side of her cart. Izumi from down the road who had been Itachi’s age (and what the fuck, his brother had been fourteen then), seated with her head bowed as if she was simply taking a nap.

His parents, embracing each other with red staining their midriffs, a smile on his mother’s face that didn’t match empty eyes which were utterly devoid of life.

And a mere stone’s throw away from Sasuke and Madara, him. Kneeling as if in eternal penance, staring straight ahead at Sasuke.

Itachi looked as he had on the day he died, trails of blood leaking from his mouth, hand outstretched to poke Sasuke one last time.

Sasuke couldn’t breathe. Every bit of air he gasped in through his mouth was a labour, too quick and painful and simply not saving him from the dizzying waves of panic seizing up his lungs and crashing his every thought while he looked upon his brother’s dead body.

It wasn’t enough. Dark spots danced in his vision as he wheezed, trying to grasp onto anything, something when he felt absolutely detached and yet all too present in the screaming terror overtaking his mind. It was too much.

He wanted to—

***

Maddeningly, it was Madara. Madara’s voice that broke through the muddle of his horrified thoughts threatening he could feel arising within him, a hand coming to run down his back over and over and the other steering his face away from Itachi, another face crowding into his space with just as severe eyebags and a deep frown.

“Breathe. I am not done with you yet.”

Madara’s large hand began patting his back in a two-beat rhythm, a steady heartbeat he shamefully clung onto like a lifeline.

This close, he could smell the lingering smoke of Madara’s kiseru and the earthy aizome of his faded blue yukata. Sasuke let out a hysterical laugh. They were the same scents that lingered in the main house’s hallways and in clean clothes sitting within Izuna’s wardrobe, proof that the house was lived in, that the clan was alive. A far cry from their surroundings in the nightmare he was trapped in.

The pressure in his nose and head threatened to drag him under, sinuses so severely stuffed that there was no way he could have smelled anything. And yet, he did.

Because this was Madara’s dream to control. Already, he had him in his grasp, the older man having maneuvered Sasuke to lean against him, head resting against Madara’s collarbone.

“Calm down, I can’t hurt you.” But he had the power to, Sasuke screamed in his head. The dream shook in response to his alarm, red sky twisting and bodies shuddering as if in the throes of death. Madara merely glanced around, before staring intently at Sasuke again.

“Was this what you meant about your Uchiha being all dead?” He asked. “I would remember the carnage I have personally wrought on such a scale, I would think. I would remember killing my own men. Or any incident involving this many Uchiha dead.”

“It all leads back to you.” Sasuke growled shakily. Tobi, Obito, that other guy, had appeared to Itachi in Madara’s name. Madara had brought the Uchiha into Konoha. Madara had unleashed Kaguya on them all.

“Perhaps, from your perspective. Your reactions are genuine enough. Familiar to me. Isn’t that odd?”

Something about Madara’s tone didn’t sit well with Sasuke. It was too pleasant. Not the mocking tones of the monster on the battlefield, nor the gruff, bashful older brother that fussed over his brother and his clan. He sounded like Sakura, when the other was about to present an insane idea they’d have to go along with, just like the one that had landed him in this situation.

“What’s your point.”

“You and my brother. You’re connected.”

“We look similar, so?” This emphasis on his resemblance to Izuna was beginning to get old.

“Even with your chakra exhausted, your face remains the same. No henge, or seal to alter it. Almost perfectly like Izuna’s.” Rough, bare hands gently took hold of his face, forcing him to meet Madara’s gaze once again. “And your nightmares show a village full of Uchiha, our people, all dead. But that has never happened.”

“Not yet." Sasuke sneezed, then returned to glaring holes into Madara's forehead. "I told you already, I’m from the future.”

“A future you desire, in return for what I supposedly did to your people? This, I know, would be a nightmare of Izuna’s to be sure.”

How dare he. “You drew the Tsukuyomi from my memories, my nightmares. My family, my people—”

Madara ignored him, all too invested in voicing out his own theories, the dramatic nature of the older man out in full force as he gestured around them.

“Things can bleed together, sometimes. If a genjutsu is sloppy and the injection of chakra is done wrong. It happens on occasion, with our younger trainees. An enemy sees their loved ones in peril, but the environment is all wrong, too Uchiha, too foreign.”

He was too tired to even shoot Madara an incredulous look at this point. “You think I stole some of his memories while learning to impersonate him.”

“Is that what you did? Tell me Sasuke, if what we carelessly inflict onto the mind was done to the physical body too, what would the result be?”

Impersonation… Madara was looking at him in a way that eerily reminded him of his old mentor. Like the other could peel back the layers of Sasuke’s skin to unravel the plotting and desperate attempts to fix their timeline, force out the information he was seeking from Sasuke. Perhaps find Izuna within and under the many layers of Sasuke.

“Are you going to tear me apart, then?”

He wondered what happened to Orochimaru in the wake of the apocalypse. Knowing the snake, he’d probably managed to slither away; there had been no shortage of bodies for him to jump into in the end. Maybe the sannin had gone for the grand prize and possessed Kaguya while he was at it.

Something nagged at him about that line of thought, telling him to remember it even in this life or death situation he was caught up in.

“No, no. I can’t hurt you like that.” Madara reiterated.

A thumb wiped away the uncomfortable drip that was trickling from his nose, Madara smearing it carelessly on his yukata just above a delicately embroidered range of five mountains. For a brief time, the washed out fabric returned momentarily to its original Uchiha indigo.

Hn.

Possession.

“Not you, who has Izuna’s body.”

Ah, fuck him.

“Tell me, Uchiha Sasuke. How do I rip your soul out of his body?”

“I told him…He’s gonna kill him…”

Tobirama looked away and into the distant horizon, noting the low hanging sun in the sky while Sakura had her meltdown.

They were wasting time. Fear of Madara's wrath was an understandable reaction, particularly since the two time travellers had apparently convinced their friend to partake in a poorly thought out scheme to disguise himself as Izuna of all people.

Sakura's conviction that the ruse would be up the moment they reached the compound with the real Izuna in tow could be comprehended, though her dragging their entire party to a screeching halt was neither optimal nor rational if they were to save her friend. 

He had the suspicion that something else was holding her back. For now, he tried to reason with her logically why moving forward was better than continuing this current pity party.

“Sakura-san. You’re spiraling. Your team’s concerns and action was… not the best thought out, but understandable. Madara is a brute on the best of days, but we have his younger brother as leverage and Hashirama. Should we resume running, we can reach the Uchiha compound by nightfall. We can prevent Madara from exacting his wrath onto your friend.”

Tobirama tilted his head as he reached out with his sensing, easily locating the Uchiha compound and all the bright sparks within. Madara was particularly easy to find, that searing, blazing bonfire outshining any other of their generation. He was stationary, next to a smaller signature that crackled with the wild dance of lightning amid a firestorm.

Oh?

“Hm.”

Perhaps Sakura was right. Madara was quite possibly killing her friend after all.

“What was that, Senju?” On his back, his rival wriggled and craned his neck, having caught the soft noise of surprise he had carelessly let slip. Long, dark bangs flicked into his line of sight, prompting Tobirama to push Izuna’s head back in annoyance.

“Otouto? Something up?” Hashirama asked, familiar with his quirks and habits. Ah, how troublesome. He could never deny his brother and clan head potentially important information.

“There is…” How should he phrase this?

“Madara-sama’s chakra is showing signs of sharingan activation, particularly that of the advanced stage. It is also infiltrating the chakra signature of the person next to him, whilst behaving like a genjutsu has been cast." Fascinating. "Neither of them are moving for there to indicate an ongoing physical fight.”

For the first time since he’d captured Izuna, the other stopped struggling or trying to attack him. The sudden stillness did not serve as a comforting sign however, every instinct in Tobirama’s body screaming to defend after a lifetime of battling the Uchiha.

“Tsukuyomi.” Izuna said tonelessly. “Oi, weirdo kidnappers. What the hell is your friend doing in my place.”

“Um…”

“We had to.” Sakura stared down at her feet. “For the world.”

“Had to do what?” From what Tobirama knew, Madara would do anything if Izuna’s safety was in peril. There was a period where he was dodging Madara’s fireballs and Hashirama did his best to keep Madara on him on the battlefield, the elder Uchiha having decided that Tobirama needed to be taken out personally to ensure his brother’s safety.

Madara enjoyed the thrill of battle, chased the sweat and the blood and the physical exertion that had his chakra flaring up high and proud, nearly blinding Tobirama everytime the two clans clashed. He had never seen the man utilise the neatly devastating genjutsu previous Uchiha heads had mastered.

Genjutsu would be perfect for interrogation, should he wish to get information out of Uchiha Sasuke regarding Izuna’s whereabouts. But it wasn’t Madara’s modus operadi. Tobirama still wouldn’t discount the theory, however. Aggravatingly, the man did maintain a semblance of a strategic brain on occasion.

Plus, judging from Izuna’s reaction, Madara using a genjutsu implied that something much more serious was afoot.

All eyes were on Sakura.

She looked utterly exhausted.

“In our world, he doomed us all. Zetsu used him, and it worked. We cannot risk it. Sasuke… I had him…” She trailed off, but the implication was caught by all of them, shinobi that they were.

The kyuubi was laughing in the background, loud and horrible. 

“Tobirama. Put me down.”

For once, Tobirama listened to his rival. With a twist of his chakra, he overloaded and broke the seal. (Field testing successful, he noted, but element of surprise against subject has been lost.) Izuna rolled off his fur and onto the ground, landing easily on his feet as he set red eyes onto Sakura.

Roots snaked out of the ground to curl around Izuna and Sakura.

One burnt them to ashes, and ran.

Nobody stopped him.