Chapter Text
The skirmish was typical, perfectly ordinary in its routine of Tobirama facing off against Uchiha Izuna while their older brothers tore up half of the clearing. It was Hashirama's idea of fun, and clearly Madara was on the same page. He could have watched them for hours, taking in the sleek grace of Madara's motions and his brother's own, more exuberant actions, but Izuna took all of his attention. They were well and truly matched, their blows equal in force and swiftness, and Tobirama kept his senses on high alert.
One day, one of them would get the upper hand, and he certainly didn't want it to be Izuna.
It was because he was so attuned to his surroundings that he caught it. The slight shift in the air, a faint crackling that no one else was apparently able to hear over the noises of battle.
"Giving up, Senju?" Izuna spat. Even then, there wasn't the venom in his barb that there had been years prior, when they were barely teenagers.
Everyone was tired of the war.
"Shut up, Uchiha, there's something—"
Across the field, he watched their brothers halt their battle, too, staring intently at the dead space between them.
Following Madara's lead, Izuna also paused in his half-hearted attempts to kill his so-called mortal enemy, and for a moment, all four of them waited as the fighting continued around them.
A swirling circle of energy, something that felt like both chakra and somehow not, appeared between the two clan heads, and out of it fell three bodies.
Tobirama felt his heart plummet at just how small two of those bodies were.
Children.
He was there in an instant, two flash steps away as he snatched the far-too-fragile pink haired girl from the clutches of the grown man who was attempting to bite her. He reached for the boy, too, even if he was clearly an Uchiha with those ruby red eyes, but found Madara had beaten him to the punch.
Whereas in any other circumstance, they may have glowered at each other, or tried to go for each other's throats, this was different. Their eyes met, red on red, and they nodded at one another.
The boy was shoved unceremoniously into Izuna's arms (after he'd finally come to his senses and made it to his older brother's side).
The strange man, far too snake-like in his appearance, smirked, but Tobirama could read the fear in his gaze.
"Ah, Uchiha—"
He cut off his own words with a wheeze of air, the breath leaving his lungs in shock as the giant gunbai cleaved him in two. Around them, the battlefield fell into total silence. All eyes were on the gory scene before them, the pale man's eyes widening in shock as his legs collapsed beneath him and his torso slid free from his hips, entrails spilling onto the ground between the two sections.
"Bloodline thieves will be dealt with."
Madara's tone was icy cold, enough to raise goosebumps on anyone's flesh.
Yet, Tobirama felt a flash of appreciation. And of something a little warmer, but he would never acknowledge that.
Instead, he nodded again at Madara when their eyes found each others once more, before turning his attention to the trembling girl in his arms.
"Let's…call it off for the day?" Hashirama suggested, looking more than a little lost. His eyes darted from Tobirama to Madara, and then to the boy Izuna was holding back.
"Hn."
"Sakura!" The boy finally spoke up, his eyes still spinning with two tomoe—and then, it was three. He looked so remarkably like Izuna at that age that had the timing not made it impossible for Izuna to have sired a child a decade prior…
Interesting.
In his arms, the pink haired girl, Sakura, began struggling. Tobirama tightened his grip on her, unwilling to let her put herself in danger.
"Sasuke-kun!"
"What are you doing?" Izuna hissed into the boy's ear as he continued trying to wiggle free and get to Sakura. "That's an Uzumaki!"
Sasuke didn't reply, instead fighting even harder, thrashing and wiggling in much the same way as Sakura was. At least, until Madara ended it with a swift pulse of chakra to the back of the boy's neck.
"Fall out!" He shouted, his voice booming across the clearing.
"Sasuke -kun!" Sakura fought even harder against Tobirama's grasp, until finally he had no choice but to use a similar move as Madara and render her unconscious.
It was then, when she was finally still in his arms, that he noticed the headband. The boy had a matching one, silver plates imprinted with a strange symbol in the center.
For the third time that day, his eyes met Madara's.
The moment was over before it could truly begin, though, and the clans separated to return to their respective settlements.
"I've never seen this girl before," Mito said as she observed the still-unconscious girl laid out on the futon before her. "Her coloring suggests an Uzumaki relation, but she certainly didn't live in Uzushio."
"What about that strange symbol on her headband?" Tobirama asked, his eyes glued to the girl. The way she was beginning to shift, as well as the way the movement beneath her eyelids was slowing down, suggested she was about to wake. "It's nothing I recognize, but one of the components is a swirl." A clear Uzumaki clan symbol.
"The Uchiha boy she was with had it, too, you said?"
Tobirama hummed in agreement.
"Strange," Mito muttered. "Very strange. And her clothes…"
They lapsed into contemplative silence for a moment, until Hashirama came bursting into the room with his usual booming voice.
"Is she awake yet?"
As if on cue, the girl shifted, blinking unfocused green eyes up at the ceiling.
"Naruto?"
Tobirama could see the instant when her memories came rushing back to her. Bleary eyes snapped into perfect focus and she bolted upright in panic.
"Sasuke-kun!"
"Your Uchiha friend," Tobirama raised an eyebrow as he spoke the last word, still disbelieving, "is in the custody of his clan."
Her head snapped to the side, jade eyes burning with the same sort of righteous indignation he saw in his sister-in-law's gaze so often at meetings in which the Senju elders were present.
"His clan is—"
She stopped, and Tobirama could see the shock plain as day on her face, followed swiftly by calculations.
Hm. She had clearly been trained as a kunoichi in some aspects (the weapons pouch that had been on her thigh was a dead giveaway), but she was too open with her emotions. And considering she didn't have the raw power to back up such openness like Hashirama… Her body was too thin, too fragile. He wondered how she'd survived so long, with such a lack of skill at her disposal.
Then he watched her try to discreetly break a genjutsu, and as he sensed the sharp, smooth way her chakra bent to her will, his opinion began to shift.
He wondered what she could do with proper training.
"Your Uchiha friend," Hashirama spoke, excitement clear in his tone and the sparkle in his brown eyes, "His name is Sasuke?"
"Yes," Sakura said it slowly, raising an eyebrow in suspicion even as recognition flashed in her gaze. "We're teammates. And that…that man that came with us was trying to hurt him."
The man that Madara had cut through as easily as he drew breath. Tobirama felt an annoyingly familiar tingle run down his spine at the memory, which he swiftly forced away in favor of focusing on what mattered.
"Teammates?" Mito asked. "And how did that come to be?"
"I…" She froze, then turned to look directly at him, as though he would answer the question for her.
Ah, so she couldn't answer the question without being accused of treason. The Senju elders, still feeling Butsuma's influence despite the man being dead for months, would undoubtedly push for execution.
Tobirama wasn't about to let any more children die on his watch.
"You don't remember, do you?" He offered her the out, the lie flowing as easily as his water jutsu. Then, expression serious, he turned to face Hashirama and Mito. "It's likely the jutsu that brought her here affected her memory. No one invented a teleportation jutsu before this," his own jutsu was still in the works, reliant on seals that manipulated not only space but time as well. "So the effects on the body and mind are unknown."
Sakura's eyes dropped to the blanket covering her lap, and Tobirama knew she would have words of thanks for him later, if they got a moment alone.
He was quite keen to get the full story from her, if he were honest. What could she tell him about her trip, about whatever jutsu or seal had taken her from where she'd come from to a battlefield in the middle of Fire?
"Tobi," Hashirama prompted, "You're our best healer. Can you…?"
Perhaps the gods were real. Giving him the opportunity he needed so swiftly and easily was quite possibly the biggest stroke of luck he'd had in years.
"I can try," he acquiesced.
"Sakura-chan, was it?" Mito spoke again, her expression softening as she caught the girl's eye. "Are you alright with being left alone with Tobirama?"
It stung, because Tobirama knew exactly what that question really meant: Do you trust him not to act untoward without others present? But logically, he knew she didn't mean anything by it. It was a move to establish trust, which they would need to get answers.
Still, as much as he tried to get his logical brain to overrule his heart, sometimes it didn't quite work out.
"I trust him," Sakura nodded. Then, realizing her manners, added, "Uzumaki-sama."
Mito smiled in approval, then, with a nod, stood.
"Very well. Hashirama, we have other things to attend to." She looked expectantly at her husband, who had opened his mouth to protest. At her raised eyebrow, he shut his mouth again and, pouting, let himself be dragged out of the room.
Tobirama waited one beat, then two, making sure his brother wouldn't come bursting back in. Only then did he produce one of the privacy seals he kept in the tattoos on his arm, waiting to feel the slight thrum of chakra sweep through the room before speaking.
"You remember the circumstances of your arrival." It wasn't a question.
His tone, combined with his equally stern look, had her fidgeting openly.
"Yes."
There was a long moment of silence before Tobirama gave up and sighed.
"And? I don't believe you understand the magnitude of the situation you're in, Sakura-chan."
Big, wet eyes turned to look up at him.
"They're going to execute me, aren't they? Because I was with Sasuke-kun. The Senju and Uchiha are still fighting, so—"
"Still fighting?" Other might not have been quick to pick up on the subtle implications of her phrasing, but Tobirama wasn't labeled a one-in-a-generation genius for nothing.
Possibilities ran through his mind at a furious clip, fighting each other for prominence.
"I can't—" Sakura started, looking somehow even more scared than she had been at the prospect of execution.
"Can't or won't?" That was a very important distinction.
"I can't," tears began streaming down her face, and the urge to reach out and comfort her warred with his practical side.
He found a middle ground by reaching out to pat her head.
"What can you tell me, Sakura-chan?" He'd get it all out of her eventually, but this was at least a good start.
By the time they were summoned to an evening meal in the privacy of his brother and sister-in-law's quarters, Tobirama was certain of several things: the war between Senju and Uchiha was going to end in the coming months, he was going to personally train Haruno Sakura to become the greatest medic in all the nations, and his new little protege was from the future.
"You need to work on lying," he commented to his student as she trotted along beside him to their awaiting meal. "A good shinobi should never let their true feelings show in the field. Especially when they need to keep certain information hidden."
He looked at her pointedly, and was pleased to note she dropped her gaze towards her feet in shame. Good, she was a fast learner.
Soft-hearted as he was for children, however, he couldn't let her negative feelings go on for long. So, before they reached the door to Hashirama and Mito's rooms, he stopped her.
"Sakura-chan, you weren't wrong in telling me what you did. And I know there's more you can't tell me," that was one of the reasons he knew he needed to speak to her about lying before they had dinner with others. "But others won't be so understanding of the delicate balance of space-time."
He knew too much about the future from just the time they'd spent alone, but he knew how to keep a level head. If she spilled something to Hashirama, particularly about the impending founding of his long dreamed of village? Who knew how that would impact things.
He would be saving Sakura from certain execution with the story they'd conjured up together, so it wouldn't do to have her suddenly written out of existence entirely.
If that was even how time worked. It was very possible that simply by traveling into the past, she and her Uchiha teammate had created an entirely alternate universe where nothing would play out the same way it had in her original timeline. But his theorizing could wait for another time.
First, they had to get through dinner with his brother.
Mito, woman that she was, put Sakura at ease immediately.
"Ah, Sakura-chan, come sit by me," she gestured to the cushion beside her at the low table, a steaming cup of tea already in front of her. "Have you regained any of your memories yet?"
"Not many, Uzumaki-sama," Sakura bowed deferentially before lowering herself into a seated position.
"Ah," Mito's eyes glanced up at him, and Tobirama nodded.
Hashirama might have been foolhardy and uncaring of the consequences of Sakura's truth, but Mito was brilliant in her own right. With just a glance, nothing needed to be spoken aloud. She trusted Tobirama to have cleared their new guest of any suspicion, and what needed to be hidden to protect the rest of them, well, she trusted her brother-in-law to make such a call.
"I will be taking her on as my pupil, for the time being," Tobirama announced as he settled onto his own cushion, scowling as Hashirama burst into the room with a loud exclamation, the tray of steaming dishes in his hands tipping forward dangerously.
"A student? How wonderful! You always did want children, Tobi, and now—"
"Will you be quiet," Tobirama hissed, avoiding looking at Sakura.
His brother deflated for a moment, pouting as he placed the food onto the table.
"Sakura-chan, have you figured out how you're related to Mito? Now it's like a double alliance! Two Uzumaki princesses in one house!"
"I, uh," Sakura stuttered and stumbled over her words, and Tobirama suspected she was more caught off-guard by the exuberance than the line of questioning. He didn't blame her. Hashirama was an…acquired taste. Warily, he glanced at the closed shoji doors leading into the hall, then at the open ones leading onto the engawa, and covertly activated the privacy seal he knew Mito had carved into the table they were seated at.
"Dear," Mito stepped in to save the day, glancing at Tobirama to nod in acknowledgement. "I'm sure amnesia doesn't work like that. She may never remember who her parents were, or if she's ever even been to Uzu before." She smiled fondly over at Sakura, and Tobirama watched a line of tension ease of out his student's shoulders.
"No matter, pink hair is a sure sign of some sort of Uzumaki relation. You may call me Aunt Mito, and we'll tell the elders you came to live with us after your own parents were lost. There are plenty of merchant families in Uzu who send their children to be trained in the shinobi arts, and it's all too easy for a ship to go missing if the person steering hasn't been properly trained in navigating the whirlpools."
Just like that, it was settled.
Tobirama wasn't interested in women in any romantic sense, but he would certainly appreciate it if whichever wife the council of elders inevitably assigned him could be as clever as Uzumaki Mito.
Sakura was moved into the room beside Tobirama's after the meal—not that she had anything to move. Rather, he helped collect some necessary bed linens and a spare futon to arrange in her new quarters.
"I'm assuming this school you went to trained you in proper anatomy, if only for the purpose of aiming at targets." He immediately got down to business as they stepped into her room with their acquisitions.
Sakura's eyes widened a fraction, and she shook her head, letting the futon fall to the floor with a soft thump.
"But I know the parts of the body! I learned them after—" She stopped suddenly, and Tobirama resisted the urge to sigh at her nearly revealing yet more information about the future. "After a mission that went badly."
Well, it was only their first day, so he shouldn't have expected progress instantly. And she'd corrected herself quickly enough.
Still, at twelve, she should have had more wits about her. That was the biggest sign she was from a time of peace—the trust with which she operated, and the softness of her body despite clearly being a shinobi.
He eyed her warily and made an amendment.
Well, in some ways, she needed more softness. He could tell she was malnourished, which contrasted sharply with the vision of a peaceful, prosperous village he'd glimpsed in her explanations of her past life thus far.
The only conclusion he could come to were that her parents were neglectful at best, and abusive at worst. That was the only reasoning, because no shinobi worth their salt, even such an…inexperienced one as Sakura, would purposely deprive themselves of nutrients.
Tobirama knew a thing or two about the effect a bad parent could have.
"Come," he tucked the linens he'd been carrying carefully into the room's tiny closet, a contrast to the messy pile of futon at his student's feet. "There's time to test you on a few things before bed."
Sakura glanced from him to the mattress, then scrambled to fold it neatley and lug it to sit beside the linens. When she looked back at him, beads of sweat shining on her brow from the exertion, he nodded once.
The beaming smile she directed at him made him feel less like the feared White Beast of the Senju and more like Tobirama.