Chapter Text
The river ran cold that morning.
Izuna stood ankle-deep in the current, kunai dripping from his fingers, training cuts stinging across his forearms.
He was thirteen, a prodigy, a weapon, a clenched fist in human form.
And yet—
The water glimmered.
The breeze brushed his cheeks.
The sky exhaled.
And in that moment, something inside him shifted—
—not like awakening a Sharingan
—not like gaining a new instinct
—but like remembering a dream that had lived in his bones long before he had a name.
Warmth.
A kitchen.
Gentle hands washing dishes.
A laugh soft enough to heal bruises.
“Tsu-kun, you forgot your lunch again!”
A woman’s voice—bright, tender, full of life.
Izuna’s breath hitched.
It wasn’t his memory.
It wasn’t an Uchiha’s memory.
It wasn’t war.
It wasn’t blood.
It was—
love.
Peace.
Home.
His knees buckled.
He fell into the river, water soaking into his clothes, heart pounding against a truth he didn’t understand.
A name rose to his lips like a prayer he had spoken a thousand times in another life.
“…Nana.”
And the moment he said it—
—Izuna Uchiha remembered everything Nana Sawada had ever been.
A mother too kind for the world.
A woman overlooked, underestimated, but unbreakably warm.
The anchor of her family.
A steady, quiet flame.
And all that gentleness—
all that softness—
all that warmth—
was now tangled inside the heart of a boy forged in war.
Izuna gasped, clutching his chest.
The memories didn’t hurt.
They healed.
He laughed—quiet, breathless, giddy—and the sound was so un-Izuna he startled himself.
“What… what is this?”
Softness.
That’s what it was.
For the first time in his life.
---
Tobirama Senju noticed it first.
Especially since Izuna had an absolutely infuriating habit of looking at him like he knew something he wasn’t saying.
Like right now.
They stood across from one another on opposite edges of the clearing, mid-negotiation of a ceasefire neither of them believed in.
Tobirama scowled.
“What are you staring at, Uchiha?”
Izuna tilted his head.
Then—
to Tobirama’s absolute horror—
smiled.
Not a smirk.
Not a challenge.
Not a threat.
A real smile.
Soft.
Warm.
Impossible.
Tobirama’s brain short-circuited.
“Are you ill?”
Izuna laughed.
Actually laughed.
“No, Tobirama. Just… thinking.”
Tobirama took a cautious step back.
“I genuinely dislike whatever that means.”
Izuna’s smile softened further.
And Nana’s memories flickered behind his eyes—
of a gentle love
of teasing domestic peace
of a man who tried so hard and loved so fiercely without saying the words.
Her heart recognized something in Tobirama.
Izuna’s heart stumbled after it.
And he whispered, almost too softly:
“You’re not as cold as you pretend to be.”
Tobirama choked on nothing.
Madara and Hashirama both stared between them, confused and horrified.
But Izuna?
He just breathed in the quiet warmth inside him—
the warmth that wasn’t Uchiha, wasn’t war, wasn’t pain—
—and let it settle.
He didn’t know what he was becoming.
But it was more than a blade.
More than a weapon.
For the first time, Izuna felt like he was allowed to be human.
---
The compound smelled of smoke and steel.
Old grief clung to the walls.
Izuna walked through it differently now—
not braced for conflict
not simmering with anger
but quietly observing the exhaustion in his clansmen’s shoulders.
The loneliness in their eyes.
He felt Nana Sawada rise in him—
gentle, kind, impossibly warm—
and his fingers twitched with an instinct he didn’t recognize.
He wanted to take care of them.
To feed them.
To comfort them.
To teach them how to breathe again.
Instead, he said:
“Everyone’s pushing too hard. We need a rest cycle.”
The clan elders blinked.
Madara blinked.
“Since when do you care about rest?” Madara asked, suspicious.
Izuna shrugged.
“Since always, nii-san. You simply weren’t looking.”
Madara narrowed his eyes.
“You’re being weird.”
Izuna grinned.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“…IZUNA.”
Izuna laughed and walked away, and Madara stood there speechless, for once incapable of deciding whether his little brother had gone insane or simply grown up overnight.
But deep inside—
Nana whispered gently:
Take care of the ones you love.
Even if they don’t know how to accept it.
Izuna’s chest warmed.
Yes.
He could do that.
For Madara.
For the clan.
For himself.
Maybe even…
…for Tobirama.