Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ash in the Sky:

It was the smell that woke her first.

Not antiseptic. Not blood.

Woodsmoke. Earth. Iron. Wet grass. War.

Shizune blinked against the heavy blur clouding her vision. The sky above was bruised with smoke, veined with streaks of distant fire, the kind that didn’t come from jutsu but from crude, burning torches. The kind people used to raze villages. The kind she hadn't seen in... not since she was a child.

She sat up slowly, her limbs leaden, her ears ringing. Her head throbbing. Her hands caked in blood—dried, flaked, with blood she wasn’t sure were her own. She remembered the mission. The field hospital. A miscalculation with a space-time ripple jutsu and a pulse of chakra too dense to be stable.

Then — nothing.

Now —

Now, she was lying on rough earth in the middle of a battlefield.

The battlefield—if she could call it that—was quiet now. Bodies strewn across the mud, some still twitching. No chakra signatures flared nearby, none familiar at least. She took a breath, and it felt wrong in her lungs. Off.

That’s when she saw the fan.

A red and white Uchiha fan painted on the back of a young man’s armor as he paced through the field, checking for survivors. He was alive. Young. Alert. Armor hand-forged and not standard-issue. No flak vest. No Konoha headband.

And behind him—three more with the same crest.

Alive.

Multiple Uchiha's. Alive.

No leaf headbands. No alliance colors. No peace-time patrol formations.

This wasn’t her time.

Shizune’s breath caught, icy fingers of realization creeping down her spine. The weight of her medical pouch still at her side grounded her, but her mind reeled.

This wasn’t just another battlefield. This was... before. Way before.

She crouched low, trying to stay out of sight, but the movement must’ve stirred something. One of the Uchiha—a taller one, older, with a sharp glare that cut across the plain—shouted something. She didn’t catch the words, but the tone was enough.

Intruder.

Three shuriken sank into the mud just inches from her feet. Shizune bolted.

…

The forest swallowed her like a second heartbeat—rapid, shallow, and erratic.

Shizune ducked under a low branch, the leaves tearing against her skin, the sting a welcome contrast to the surreal numbness still clinging to her. She didn't look back. She didn’t need to. She couldn't afford to. She could feel the Uchiha behind her. One of them at least. The others might’ve fanned out, standard flanking formation.

Even here, even now, she remembered her training. But this wasn’t her battlefield.

The world was quieter somehow. Louder, too. No radios. No seal-based alerts. Just the rustling of branches, the smoke fumes in the air, the distant groans of dying men, and the breath in her lungs that refused to even itself out.

"Identify yourself!" A voice cut through the trees. Young, male. Commanding, but not unkind.

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because what would she even say?

"Hi everyone , I’m Shizune Katō, a medic-nin from a village called Konohagakure. Where is that, you ask? Oh, it doesn’t exist yet. Just give it a few years. Also, please don’t kill me."

Another voice—calmer, lower—responded in an undertone she barely caught. “She’s not Senju.”

That should’ve helped, at least a little.

It didn’t.

Because it meant she was an anomaly on the battlefield.

Battle anomalies: kill. A competent shinobi would not allow her to leave. If it wasn't her being chased, she would've respected their efficiency.

…

Her foot caught a root... Her foot caught a root.

Causing her to stumble, she caught herself with her palms. Mud up her sleeves, in her nails and arms. Dried blood and mud mixed.

She turned her back to a tree, panting. Her chakra was depleted—whatever jutsu had gone wrong, it had pulled everything from her. She had barely enough for a diagnostic scan, let alone a defensive technique.

She needed to surrender.

But old instincts died hard.

When the first Uchiha stepped through the bushes, katana drawn but not yet raised, her hand still flew to the pouch at her hip. She forced it down.

He was taller than she expected. Hair tied back, eyes narrowed but not yet glowing with the Sharingan. She could see the suspicion simmering just behind his stare—but not bloodlust. Not yet.

"You’re not from around here," he said. No kunoichi, no shinobi, not even women. Just that quiet observation, spoken with an unsettling calm.

Shizune swallowed. She stood, hands raised slowly, palms open. “I’m a medic.”

The word earned a subtle flinch from the second Uchiha who appeared behind the first. A younger boy, by a few years. He looked at her like she’d claimed to be a ghost.

The older one didn’t flinch. Just studied her. “There are no Senju medics in this region.”

“I’m not Senju.”

"Then what are you?”

She hesitated. For a second, Shizune almost said Uzumaki. The lie hovered on her tongue, clumsy and aching.

But all that came out was:

“...I’m lost.”

The older Uchiha lowered his blade a fraction. “You’re on a warpath.”

“I noticed.”

A pause. Not hostile, but tense. Uncertain.

Then:

“We’ll take her in,” he said to the boy behind him.

The younger one hissed, “What if she’s a spy?”

“Then we’ll know by morning.”

Shizune didn’t resist as they motioned for her to move. She didn’t have the energy. And maybe part of her—a small part, wrapped in exhaustion and distant terror—was relieved to stop running.

As they led her away, she knew one thing for certain:

She was screwed.

Chapter Text

Blood in the Water:

Shizune’s world had become a blur of motion and voices, the sounds of the forest muffled by the dull thrum of her own pulse in her ears. The Uchiha moved with the precision of warriors who had lived in constant battle, their eyes sharp, alert, never lingering too long on her.

They didn’t blindfold her.

That was the first surprise.

The second was that they didn’t tie her hands. No chakra-suppressing seals. No rope. Not even a binding jutsu. Just the Uchiha—armed, fast, and absolutely confident she wasn’t going anywhere they didn’t want her to.

Even if it felt... well—kind of insulting. They were right, of course.

Her chakra was still a hollow echo in her gut, like the aftermath of surgery. Her skin felt too thin for her bones, her fingers stiff and clumsy.

If she tried anything now, she’d die. Fast.

…

They walked her through the forest—forest so old it felt sacred. Not like the Fire Country forests of her time, with their dirt paths and marked trails.

This place was wild, untouched by men’s creations.

It watched her.

The birds stayed silent. Even the insects kept their distance. The only sound was the soft crunch of moss underfoot, damp and yielding. Trees rose like ancient sentinels, their twisted limbs reaching out like gnarled fingers, draped in moss that hung like faded memories. The canopy above was so thick it turned daylight into a pale green haze, muting the world, swallowing sound.

She didn’t know if the silence was reverence or warning.

Each step felt like she was trespassing.

…

It wasn’t long before they reached the Uchiha camp it was nothing like the well-structured barracks of Konoha or the clean field posts she was used to commanding. It was hastily constructed, more a series of shelters and small tents than a fortress. It felt... impermanent. Like no one expected to live long enough to build anything lasting.

Shizune’s eyes darted to the handful of figures that milled about the campfire—men mostly, their eyes wary but expectant. She could feel the weight of their stares as the Uchiha group brought her in.

The older Uchiha, the one who had spoken to her first, led the way in. His posture was rigid, but there was something measured about his movements, a steady cadence that reminded Shizune of the way a surgeon approached a delicate operation—careful, calculating, and deeply aware of everything happening around him.

She found herself walking in time with them, her feet dragging slightly in the thick mud, her chest tight with each breath.

…

The older Uchiha spoke again, his voice still calm but carrying an authority that wasn’t to be ignored.

“Get her cleaned up. And keep an eye on her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

Shizune barely had the energy to react. She didn’t even feel the sting of the water on her skin as they cleaned her hands, the mud and blood being scrubbed away with brisk, efficient motions.

It wasn’t until they made her sit down that she realized just how exhausted she was.

She slumped slightly, her head resting against the cool earth, as the younger Uchiha—who had yet to speak more than a few words to her—hovered nearby, his gaze never leaving her.

The older one moved away, speaking to a few others in quiet tones. The younger boy, still standing nearby, eyed her like she was some kind of puzzle he couldn’t figure out.

“Who are you? Where do you come from?” he asked suddenly, his tone sharp with suspicion, though there was a flicker of curiosity beneath it.

Shizune lifted her eyes to meet his, catching the intensity in his stare. He wasn’t backing down, wasn’t giving her any room to dodge. She could sense the wheels turning in his mind—something about her didn’t quite fit in this world he understood.

“My... name is Shizune, and I... told your... leader?” She rasped, her voice raw and hoarse with fatigue. “I’m lost.”

The boy’s brow furrowed at the mention of her name, but he didn’t look convinced. “You’re not from the Land of Fire?”

“No,” Shizune said, the lie slipping out easily, a thin smile tugging at the corner of her mouth despite herself. “I’m not.”

A tense silence stretched between them, and for a moment, Shizune almost regretted speaking.

The boy glanced at his older counterpart, who had returned to the campfire, his back turned as he spoke to the others. The younger Uchiha huffed in frustration before finally speaking again, this time softer.

“...You don’t act like someone who’s afraid.”
Shizune blinked slowly, her body too wrung-out to manage more than a tilt of her head. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “Fear takes energy.”

The boy frowned, like that answer didn’t satisfy him. His eyes—dark and unflinching—scanned her face like he could carve the truth from bone if he stared long enough.

“You’re a healer,” he said after a pause.
It wasn’t a question. He’d seen her hands—trembling, blistered, but skilled. The blood on her sleeves hadn't all been hers.

Shizune didn’t answer right away. Instead, she shifted in place and glanced past the edge of the camp, at the trees still watching in heavy silence.

“I was,” she murmured. “I don’t know what I am now.”

He looked at her for a long time, his brow furrowed. “People don’t just stop being who they are.”

That made her laugh, short and dry. “You’d be surprised.”

Another beat passed. The boy sat across from her now, not quite close but close enough that it was clearly a choice.

“You’re lucky,” he said after a moment. “Hikaku-sama said to spare you.”

Hikaku, she thought. So that’s who the older Uchiha was.

“I don’t believe in luck,” she replied.

He tilted his head. “Then why do you think you’re still breathing?”

Shizune met his gaze evenly. “Because I haven’t given anyone a reason to kill me yet.”

The boy stared at her, mouth opening as if to say something, then closing again. Whatever reply he’d had died on his tongue. He looked away, glancing back toward Hikaku-sama, who was approaching now, expression unreadable.

The younger Uchiha rose quickly and stepped aside, giving Hikaku space as he crouched in front of her.

“I see you've been cleaned up.”

Shizune gave a faint nod.

“You’re not an enemy,” he said, eyes narrowing. “But you’re not innocent, either.”

“I’ve never claimed to be,” she answered.
He studied her, eyes like ink in moonlight.

“Then we’ll see what you are. Until then... you’ll stay.”

Her throat tightened. “As a guest, or a prisoner?”

Hikaku-sama didn’t blink. “That’s up to you.”

And with that, he rose again and left her in the firelight, the night pressing in with a hush that felt like the breath before something broke.

…

The next morning came slowly, veiled in mist and silence. Shizune had slept—but only barely.

Her body ached with the kind of fatigue that came not just from physical exhaustion, but emotional depletion. The ground had been cold, the blanket they’d given her barely enough, but she'd curled into it anyway, shielding what she could from the chill of this old world.

When she finally stirred, the camp was already awake. Fires crackled, men moved in efficient silence, sharpening blades, preparing for whatever the day demanded of them.

No one paid her special attention now. Her arrival had been yesterday’s curiosity. Today, she was simply another body occupying space.

That suited her fine.

She sat up slowly, blinking against the haze of morning, and saw that someone had left a wooden bowl beside her—rice, a bit of broth, a wedge of what smelled like salted fish. Plain, but not poisoned. That was something.

The boy from the night before watched her from across the camp. She didn’t wave or smile. Neither did he. But he didn’t look away.

It wasn’t long before Hikaku-sama returned. His movements were quiet, deliberate, every gesture wrapped in restraint. He didn’t loom, didn’t threaten, didn’t offer comfort either. He simply stopped a few paces from her and said, “Come with me.”

Shizune forced herself to her feet, her legs sore and clumsy. She followed him without complaint, her senses alert though her chakra still hadn’t fully returned. Whatever had torn her from her time—it hadn’t come without cost.

They moved through the woods in silence until the trees broke open into a clearing, where injured shinobi lay in orderly rows. A makeshift infirmary.

So that’s what this was.

Hikaku-sama turned to her. “You said you were a healer.”

“I said I was a medic,” she corrected.

He didn’t respond, his gaze unwavering.“They need you.”

Shizune looked out at the wounded—cuts wrapped in rough bandages, burns left open to the air, fractures bound with splints made from bark and rope. It was primitive medicine, battlefield desperation. The sort of thing she’d seen before but rarely accepted as the final answer.

“I don’t have chakra,” she said flatly.

“You have your hands,” Hikaku-sama replied. “And your knowledge.”

She stared at him. “And if I were to refuse?”

“Then, you don’t eat. You sleep cold. You never take a step without eyes on you.” His head cocked slightly. “But I don’t get the impression that you want to be of no use.”

The words stung more than she expected. Because they were true.

So Shizune stepped forward.

And without another word, she began.

…

Shizune started slow. Cleaning wounds, rewrapping bandages, and organizing what herbs they had into some semblance of a functional system. It became more and more clear the Uchiha were lacking in so many medical supplies; honestly, it was surprising to her how they made it this long.

The Uchiha for their part, didn’t interfere. Sure— they asked questions, but mostly they only watched her closely. One wrong move, she knew, and she’d be put down like a dog.

She couldn’t afford a mistake.

She worked until her hands ached again. Until her sleeves were stained with someone else’s blood. Until her knees went numb beneath her. Until she forgot, for a moment, that she didn’t belong here—

That she wasn’t one of them.

…

Days had blurred into weeks.

It was late afternoon when she felt it—his chakra. Hikaku-sama was near.

She didn’t turn. Just said, “Still haven’t figured out if I’m a guest or a prisoner.”

He stopped beside her, arms folded. “Still deciding.”

She gave a quiet snort. “Fair enough.”

A silence settled between them, heavy but not hostile. Then she asked, “Why didn’t you kill me?”

A pause.

“When I looked at you,” he said, voice low, steady, “I saw someone trying to survive. Not someone looking to burn the world down.”

Shizune turned just enough to catch his eyes.

“And I’m supposed to trust that?”

“No,” he said. “But you will.”

And for the first time since arriving in this strange, blood-soaked past, Shizune let herself believe she might live.

Maybe even matter.

Chapter Text

The Shape of Silence:

Time, she was learning, had a different rhythm here.

It passed in the stretch of shadows across the forest floor. In the quiet murmurs before dawn. In the slow way wounds healed without chakra, and the slower way trust tried to form in its absence.

Shizune kept working. She cleaned, wrapped, stitched, taught. She spoke little, and they—mostly—let her be. The younger Uchiha who had questioned her still watched her, though now with less suspicion and more... calculation. As if he was waiting for her to slip, or reveal something she hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t given his name. Neither had many of them.

Except one.

A woman—not much younger than Shizune herself—had approached her after a long day tending to a boy with a broken arm and a punctured lung. The woman had sat beside her without asking, elbows on her knees, and said simply, “I’m Izuka.”

Shizune had blinked at her, surprised. “Shizune,” she’d replied.

That had been the end of the conversation, but Izuka brought her food the next day. Progress, she guessed... maybe.

…

Hikaku came to her often now.

Not with warmth, not exactly—but with need. Strategic, measured need. “How long will the boy live if we move him?” “What would you do for a poisoned wound with nothing but bark, ash, and snowmelt?” “What do you think of that man’s chances—if it comes to battle tomorrow?”

She gave him the best answers she could. He didn’t always like them.

“You’re used to having your medical chakra to fall back on,” he told her one night, after she’d snapped at him for expecting miracles. “We aren’t.”

“Medical ninjutsu doesn’t work the way you want it to just because you say so,” she replied coldly. “Stop expecting it to.”

He hadn’t replied. But the next morning, there were clean cloths waiting for her, and a small, sharp knife she hadn’t asked for. The handle had been wrapped with care.

…

It was early spring when they moved camps.

The trees were beginning to bud, and for the first time, Shizune heard birds again. They chirped warily, as if uncertain whether the violence of winter had truly passed.

The new camp was set against a ridge, protected on one side by stone and on the other by a stream too deep to cross without care. She helped set up the infirmary again. Fewer patients this time, but worse injuries. Blood that didn’t stop. Breath that rattled. Heat that clung to skin and eyes and didn’t break.

She held the hand of a dying boy who couldn’t have been older than seven. Watched the light go out of his eyes like a candle in wind.
Later that night, she stood alone by the stream, hands stained red and face blank.

Hikaku found her there.

“You can’t save them all,” he said quietly.

“I wasn’t trying to,” she answered. “Just this one.”

He didn’t offer comfort. She didn’t ask for it.
But he stayed, silent and steady beside her, until the stars came out.

…

It was weeks later—after the third move and the fourth near-skirmish—that the younger Uchiha finally gave her a name.

“Kaito,” he said, after she asked if he wanted her to check the stitches in his shoulder. “My name’s Kaito.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I was starting to think you didn’t have one.”

He gave her a wry look. “I wasn’t sure you’d earned it.”

Shizune laughed, sharp and soft at the same time. “Well then. Nice to meet you properly, Kaito.”

He tilted his head, considering her. “You're still strange.”

“I get that a lot.”

Another beat. Then: “But I think you’re starting to belong here.”

That silenced her.

Because for a moment, she didn’t know if that was a compliment—or a warning.

Chapter Text

Memories:

The rain had passed in the night, leaving the trees dripping and the earth soft beneath Shizune’s sandals. She stood at the edge of the clearing, one hand wrapped tightly around the satchel at her hip, breathing in the cold morning air like she could steady herself with it.  

In the distance, beyond the thin mist curling between the trees, she could hear voices — two of them, deep and quick, weaving sharp patterns into the forest’s hush. They were coming.  

She pressed her palm flat against her thigh, feeling the old reflex of gathering chakra there. Not to fight — not yet — but just in case her legs gave out.  

Madara Uchiha.  
Izuna Uchiha.  

She remembered him — Madara — like a scar she couldn’t scrape away. His shadow swallowing the battlefield. His voice, cold, final — like the world ending in a whisper.  
There was no fighting him. No hope.  
You didn’t dream of living.  
You only prayed — please, let it be fast.

She remembered the soldiers, trickling into her tent like broken ants, dragging the stench of blood and fear behind them. One after another. Each more shattered than the last. So many bodies. So many faces she would never know.

There weren’t enough graves.  
They had to build pyres, stacking the dead like cordwood.

And every time, she had known:  
it didn’t matter how fierce they fought, how desperately they clung to life.  
None of it mattered.  
He would crush them all — not out of cruelty, but because they were nothing to him.  
Children throwing stones at a hurricane.

And she had stood there, counting bodies like tally marks, knowing the next could just as easily be hers.

…

The tent reeked of blood and scorched canvas.  
Shizune’s hands pressed over another gaping wound, chakra flaring beneath her palms in desperate, flickering pulses. Another medic worked beside her, hands shaking, sleeves soaked to the elbows. Outside, the earth trembled violently with the bone-rattling rumble of earth jutsu. The air felt like it was cracking under the strain.  

“He’s moving—” someone gasped from the entrance, their voice breaking. “Madara—he’s coming—!”

The patient’s body jerked violently, the sickening snap of bone piercing the air. Then, it went eerily still.  

Shizune didn’t flinch. She didn’t look up. Her hands moved without pause, sliding to the next body.

The screams outside were growing louder.

…

And now —  
Now that same monster —  

No. That same man was walking toward her. Alive. Human. Breathing the same air she did.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs, too fast, too loud, echoing in her ears. Every pulse was a throb of terror. Her palms were slick, clammy with cold sweat, as if the fear itself was seeping out of her. The world narrowed to the sound of her pulse and the hot, rising panic constricting her chest. 

No. Not now. You can’t do this now.

The air felt thick, suffocating, and her limbs went heavy, stiff. Every movement felt too slow, too sluggish. Focus, she told herself, forcing her hands to stop trembling. This isn’t the same. This is years before that. He doesn’t know what he’ll become. He doesn’t know what he’ll do to us.

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.  

But the lie didn’t settle in her chest. The memory of the battle, the flames, the destruction, the terror of what Madara had—no, what he would—become. That fear pressed on her, relentless. Her vision blurred, black spots dancing in the corners, clouding her sight. A tightness constricted behind her eyes. It’s not the same. It’s not the same. You’re still in control.

"Shizune-san."

The voice cut through her spiraling thoughts, like a hand pulling her out of the dark. She sucked in a breath, eyes snapping open, forcing herself to focus on the figure before her. The panic was still there, clawing at her, but she held onto the thin thread of control she could muster.

She turned sharply, her body rigid, breath still caught in her throat. Hikaku stood a few paces behind her, his expression carefully neutral, but she could see it — the subtle tightness in his shoulders, the faint tension in his stance. He didn’t speak it, but she could feel it in the air. He was waiting, just as she was. Was he worried?

“They’re almost here,” he said, voice steady, betraying none of the tension simmering underneath. “Izuna’s in front.”  

Izuna first, she thought. Madara’s brother.  
She knew almost nothing about him. The thought of facing someone unknown was both a comfort and a curse. She couldn’t gauge him, couldn’t predict what he might do. She couldn’t anticipate the danger, and that made her feel exposed.  

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.  

Shizune clenched her jaw and forced her breath to steady. You can do this. You’ve done this before. She inhaled slowly, deliberately, focusing on each breath — calming her body, forcing the tremor from her hands. 

It’s not the same. It’s not the same. He’s just a man now.

But even as she told herself this, the memories clawed their way back — the cloying stench of rotting flesh, the gases distending bodies until the skin tore open, fluids leaking into mud.  
Corpses stacked like refuse. Pyres burning like warnings.

Her throat seized. Her ears rang.  
Fingers numb. Vision blurring.  
Heart hammering too fast, too loud.

Get it together, she snapped inwardly.  
You're a medic. You know what this is. You know how to stop it.

The voice in her mind was sharp, almost cruel. The voice that had kept her alive when there was no one left to tell her how.

Recognize. Isolate. Suppress.  
Prioritize. Stabilize. Suppress.

Move, she ordered herself. Breathe. Focus. You don't get to fall apart. One man will not break you. Do not let it stop you.

Her feet shifted — sluggish, heavy — but they moved.

Still, the panic surged hotter, fouler. The blood under her nails wasn’t real. The screaming wasn’t real.  
But the terror was. The helplessness was.

Breathe, she told herself again, but softer now. Breathe, Shizune.

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.  

You're not there anymore. You're here. It's different. You’re stronger now. One man will not break you.

The rot could fill her nose.  
The screams could scrape against her skull.  
But they would not own her.  
Not today.

Each step was agony — but she made it.  
Each breath was a battle — but she took it.  

You’re alright. You’re safe enough. You’re enough.

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.  

…

The mist parted like a living thing.  
Two figures emerged, dark silhouettes against the pale light of morning.  

Izuna led, as Hikaku had said.  
He was shorter than Shizune expected — not small, but compact, built like a coiled spring. His dark hair was bound loosely at the nape of his neck, and the line of his jaw was sharp, still too young to be as severe as she was sure it would one day become.  

Madara walked half a step behind him, hands tucked loosely into the sleeves of his robe.  
He was taller, broader across the shoulders — but there was a quietness to him that gnawed at the edges of Shizune’s mind.  
He wasn’t the force she remembered — the walking disaster who had broken armies. Not yet.

Still, something in him pulled at the world around him, like gravity.  

Her stomach twisted.  

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.

…

Hikaku was greeted first, exchanging a few brief words before being assigned a task. He gave a sharp nod and a fleeting glance at her before striding away, leaving her alone with the brothers.

It took everything in her not to turn after him, not to beg him to stay.

Izuna’s dark eyes flicked over her—quick, sharp, assessing. Then he smiled—just barely—and stepped forward.

“You must be the healer Hikaku spoke of,” he said, his voice even, polite.  

Shizune opened her mouth, and for a moment, nothing came out. To correct him?
To say... she didn't even know. 

All she could manage was a shallow bow, her fingers clutching the strap of her satchel until her knuckles turned white.

“Shizune,” she said. “I... yes. I am.”  

The brothers exchanged a glance — quick, subtle. Something passed between them that she couldn’t read.  

“Strange,” Madara said at last, his voice low and thoughtful.  
He tilted his head, studying her as one might study a strange animal that had wandered into camp.  
“You don’t smell like any clan I know.”  

Shizune flinched, very slightly. Smell? They can tell a clan apart from smell? She hadn’t known about that.  

“I’ve traveled,” she said carefully. “My home is gone.”  

Not exactly a lie.  
Not exactly the truth.  

Madara’s gaze narrowed — but Izuna stepped in again, quick as a blade.  

“We are grateful for your help, Shizune-san,” he said, voice smoothing the tension before it could sharpen. “We’ve been short on healers.”  

A faint smile tugged at his mouth — real, but guarded.
A younger face. Familiar, yet jarringly different.
He looked almost exactly like Sasuke had after the war.
Uncannily so. Disturbingly so.

Shizune released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

The wall inside her rose again — steady, solid — but not unbroken.
A single, hairline crack remained.  

“I’ll do what I can,” she said quietly.  

…

They brought her deeper into the compound.  
Uchiha land sprawled beneath the heavy mist, low houses and training fields and watchtowers nestled between towering woods. It was rough, nothing like the polished grandeur she remembered from Konoha’s future — but it was alive.  

Alive with children racing through the muddy paths, laughing.  
Alive with women carrying baskets of drying herbs.  
Alive with old men arguing over a broken fence post.  

Shizune’s throat tightened unexpectedly.  
She hadn’t thought it would be like this.  
Not here.  
Not among them. 

Maybe she was biased.
She hadn’t meant to be — but she’d been raised by a Senju. The last of them.
Not that Lady Tsunade had been prejudiced. Not exactly.
But... some things seeped in anyway.

Assumptions filled the spaces where lessons were silent.
And maybe without meaning to, Shizune had carried some of it with her.

Madara said little as they walked. His gaze drifted often to the horizon, to the shifting mist at the treeline, like he was weighing every shadow.  
Izuna, in contrast, made small gestures of welcome — pointing out the smithy, the river bend where fresh fish could be caught, the rows of drying medicinal plants strung between houses.  

Still, even Izuna watched her out of the corner of his eye, careful.  
Careful in a way that said: We don’t know you yet. And we are not fools.

Neither was she.  

…

They led her to a longhouse near the center of the settlement — simple, with a heavy oiled roof and a sturdy door.  

“You’ll stay here,” Izuna said, stepping aside so she could pass. “Either Hikaku or Kaito will check in if you need anything. And…”  
He hesitated, just slightly.  
“...our wounded will come to you. When they need it.”  

Not if.  
When.
It was a command, not a request.
The war with the Senju had not abated; it was an ongoing event here. Never ending.

Shizune nodded again. Her satchel weighed heavy against her hip.  

She stepped inside.  

The interior was plain but clean — a sleeping mat, a fire pit, a small table, and stool. A second room led off toward what looked like storage.  

She set the satchel down carefully beside the stool and sat, her movements too deliberate, too slow.
Her hands trembled faintly in her lap, the smallest shivers betraying her.

Through the open door, she could still see them — Madara and Izuna, their heads bowed together, voices low and urgent, their bodies leaning in with an ease that made her chest tighten.

The air in her lungs felt thin, brittle. Her ears rang faintly from the strain of staying still.
Only when their figures finally slipped out of sight did her body remember how to breathe.
The first inhale scraped painfully down her throat, raw and unsteady.

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.

…

The days that followed were a blur of wounds and half-slept nights. More so than the weeks prior. She barely slept.
The Uchiha came to her — bruised, bloodied, worn thin by the endless skirmishes along the border.  

Shizune worked with quiet efficiency, hands steady even when her mind screamed.  
She set bones, stitched wounds, mixed poultices, reset dislocated shoulders.  

The clan members spoke to her cautiously at first, wary of this strange healer with no clear past. But gratitude, even cautious gratitude, softened suspicion. When she eased a child’s fever, when she saved a hunter’s crushed hand, when she mended the chieftain’s cousin’s arrow-riddled thigh — walls began to shift.  

Small things.  
A nod here. A plate of food left on her doorstep. A quiet word of thanks.

The people were… kind. Gentle in a way she hadn’t experienced since she’d been thrown into this cursed time. She wanted to cry, the weight of it pressing down on her chest — but who would care if she did? 
So she didn’t.

The core of the clan — the fighters, the elders, the leaders — kept her at arm’s length.  

Especially Madara.

He watched her.  
Rarely spoke to her.  
But he watched.  

Like a hawk measuring a snake it couldn’t quite name.

In.  
Hold.  
Out.  
Again.

…

Not long after the third week, she found herself sitting at the threshold of her small house, watching the rain fall in steady sheets, listening to the soothing rhythm of water tapping against the earth. Jars were scattered around, as they always were when it rained, to catch the fresh runoff.

The air carried the scent of woodsmoke, damp earth, and a distinct, slightly musky undertone — the smell of life after the storm.

Her hands rested loosely in her lap, pale and thin. The faint ghost of chakra burns still lingered beneath her nails from the day’s work.

A sound behind her — the soft scrape of sandals against packed earth.

She stiffened.  

“Shizune-san.”  

His voice.
Madara.

She turned slowly.

He stood a few paces away, arms folded, no armor now — just the typical Uchiha attire.

There was no malice in his expression.
Only... wariness. Thoughtfulness.

“You’re not one of us,” he said. Not accusing. Just stating a truth between them.  

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”  

They stood in silence for a long moment.
The rain around them was the only sound.

“You work hard,” Madara said finally. “You heal without asking questions.”  
He shifted his weight slightly, the only sign of uncertainty she’d seen in him.  
“Why?”  

Shizune folded her hands tightly in her lap, searching for words that didn’t taste like betrayal on her tongue.

“I… owe a debt,” she said at last. “To life. To those who still fight for it.”

Madara studied her for what felt like an eternity.
Then, with a single, sharp nod — almost reluctant — he spoke.

“You’re strange, healer.”
He turned away, the folds of his cloak swallowing the last flicker of moonlight.
“But useful.”

A flicker of dry humor touched his mouth.
“We value useful things.”

And then, just like that, he was gone.

…

Later that night, lying rigid on her mat, Shizune stared up at the low-beamed ceiling, wide awake.

Her heart ached in ways she couldn’t name, an ache that seemed to reach beyond the physical, deeper, where words couldn’t touch.  

Madara Uchiha — monster, legend, ghost. 

Had spoken to her without hate. Had welcomed her, told her she was useful, when in all honesty, she wouldn’t have even offered a scrap of kindness if their roles were reversed.

This was not the man who would tear the world apart.  
Not yet.  
Not yet, Shizune. 

She curled tighter into herself, the thin fabric of her blanket pressing against her chest like a second skin, offering no comfort.

The crack on the wall grew larger.