Chapter Text
A stone shoots past Tobirama's face with enough force to embed itself into a nearby tree trunk. He jerks back, drought-dry grass crinkling under his feet as he spins, hand dropping to his sword as he follows the stone's trajectory to its source. The curly-haired ambusher he'd knocked to the ground is still busy wheezing in his peripheral vision when Tobirama locks eyes, not with one of his pursuers, but with a glaring, messy-haired problem.
A flier. A man from the nearest of the winged human tribes.
Tobirama's never seen one up-close before. The Senju have always found it more advantageous to stay to the east of the Nakano rather than trespass on the Uchiha's territory. Regardless of what various daimyo or nobles might want to hire them for, there's no long-term profit for the Senju in making mortal enemies of their closest neighbor. Especially when the Uchiha flock's meticulous patrols essentially create a buffer zone on their western flank.
In Tobirama's lifetime, less than a handful of rival mercenaries have successfully snuck through the Uchiha lands to attack the Senju from the west. It's simply more strategic to leave the territory alone when the flock prefers to ignore humans outside of roasting trespassers.
Of course, that's much less thorough than they tend to be with active threats.
Which... Tobirama might now be viewed as.
This is really not the best day he's ever had. He should have been hugging the coast right now on his way back from the desert rather than taking reckless shortcuts through the Uchiha forest.
Tobirama takes his hand off his sword, keeping his body loose and ready, as he backs away from the prone individual at his feet. The other male keeps watch from twenty feet above, crouched on a thick branch as he rhythmically tosses a second stone up and down in casual threat. His enormous wings are spread behind him in a looming mass, so black they gleam blue where they catch the fading sunlight.
The smaller flier - not even ten yet, Tobirama realizes with regret as he gets a better look at the boy's cherubic face and underdeveloped wings - flees from him as soon as Tobirama backs up a few more feet, white-spotted wings drawn in close as he runs under his kinsman and heads for the cliffs in the distance.
Probably for reinforcements.
A second stone impacting the ground at his feet draws his attention back to the bristling adult who's clearly irritated by Tobirama's focus on the child. The tomoe in his red eyes aren't spinning as an obvious threat, but Tobirama doesn't have a proper frame of reference to judge mood or body language based on wing movements.
So on one hand, this could be going well: the man's crossing his arms and not retrieving either the sling wound around his forearm or more rocks from his hip pouch.
On the other hand, he's getting to his feet on the branch and the Senju have stories about Uchiha shattering armor if they land a kick from a skyward dive.
He'd really prefer not to test whether his reflexes are fast enough to keep the male from breaking his neck.
"I'm sorry," Tobirama says, slow and clear, loud enough to be heard across the clearing. "I hadn't realized I was this close to your nesting grounds."
The man doesn't show any sign of understanding the language which is... actually what Tobirama expected from rumors but not helpful in the least. He'd been hoping Hashirama was right when his brother claimed that fliers spoke the common dialect.
"My name is Tobirama Senju," he continues, slowly and smoothly edging towards the east of the clearing, hoping to get into the partial protection of forest proper rather than an open space where the Uchiha had an unimpeded shot at him, "I'm simply trying to get home. There are pursuers following me, so the quicker I can leave, the less trouble they'll cause in your lands."
From the distance, a sharp clacking bird call rings out, and Tobirama takes several rapid steps as the Uchiha looks towards the cliffs. The flier takes a deep breath and then voices a high-pitched chattering call that doesn't sound remotely human.
Tobirama would really like to know how they do that when the only visible physiological differences are their wings, the underlying support structure in their back, and their feathered tail.
By the time the Uchiha looks back, Tobirama has almost managed to make it to the tree line and he's partly relaxed. In a flat out sprint, he's certain he can beat the man to the trees now. Even if the trunks are far enough apart for the man to maneuverer between them - and with that wingspan, Tobirama's not certain he can - weaving between trees will increase his chances to escape.
The brunet scowls at where Tobirama had been standing before shoving his long hair back with taloned hand. Red eyes latch onto his face, examining small details while a claw idly taps on a dark pendant lying against the man's collarbone. Tobirama continues backing up, watching with mild surprise as wings fold inward as the man turns to look first east and then west.
He has a split second to catch how the Uchiha's eyes narrow at the forest floor before an arrow flies toward his head.
He ducks, feeling the wooden shaft brush his hair as he curses. He looses sight of the Uchiha in the chaos of the next few minutes. Only a handful of the Wind Country mercenaries have caught up to him, but a handful is already a lot of trouble when he's exhausted from being chased over half the damn country.
He grits his teeth, taking the risky option of matching two of their swordsman instead of retreating into the trees. It's difficult to keep both men between him and the archer, but it's doable. It's the reinforcements in the distance that are the real problem.
Whoever hired this group definitely had the attack well planned: two swordsmen to keep him occupied, an archer waiting for any available shot, and another seven attackers quickly catching up. And all of them have the uncommon chakra training needed to enhance speed and strength along with the professionalism to fight silently and work together.
Tobirama dodges another arrow, gritting his teeth against a glancing blow from a short sword. The other reinforcements start arriving at the edge of the clearing, passing the archer as they move to circle around him. He catches a brief glimpse of the Uchiha moving stealthily through the branches and idly hopes that child really had gone for reinforcements. It might not help him get through this, but at least the other mercenaries won't get out of it either.
The crunch of shattering bones distract several of the men. There's a slight pause that Tobirama uses to gut a red-haired man who looked towards the archer. A pleasantly deep voice laughs humorlessly, and Tobirama darts a small glance in that direction as he dodges an attack from a naginata.
The archer is dead on the ground, a bare foot crushing what used to be his skull as the Uchiha rises from a crouch, wings drawn in. Tomoe spinning, the flier deftly dodges the nearest swordsman's attack and launches himself back into the trees with a thrust, clutching the compound bow he'd taken off the corpse.
Their divided attention gives Tobirama time to fell one more attacker before someone gives an order to "deal with the damn pigeon" as they regroup.
The deeply indignant and pissed off sound of rage that follows that statement makes Tobirama smirk; especially when a large stone slams into the speaker's forehead with extreme prejudice.
It only takes a few moments to realize that, despite their outfits, these men aren't Wind Country. Wind mercenaries would have been familiar with the Fuma flock who nest near the border between Wind and River. But since two of the men drew throwing knives to attack the Uchiha overhead, they clearly didn't know about the Fuma and their talent for chakra wind and projectiles.
And since the Uchiha and Fuma are neighboring fliers and inclined to trade and interaction...
Tobirama lunges into a backwards roll, securing enough breathing room from the remaining four attackers to wipe blood off his face from a shallow head wound. The others pursue immediately, but behind them Tobirama can see the Uchiha tilt his head up, tomoe spinning but indifferently unworried about the two men below him.
Only for the Uchiha to grin as they launch a bunch of kunai at him. It takes a split second for the flier to pluck most of them right out of the air. He doesn't even move except to quickly flatten his left wing to avoid a knife.
So they're clever enough to aim for a wing, stupid enough to aim all but one knife at the man's torso, and suicidal enough to use normal projectiles against an Uchiha.
Definitely not from Wind or Fire.
The only surprising part in the next few seconds is that the Uchiha returns the kunai with force at Tobirama's opponents rather than his own. Although given that he hit one in the head and another in the back before the others managed to dodge, it might have been more about aiming for the unsuspecting fighters rather than about helping Tobirama.
Either way, Tobirama ruthlessly grabs the opening with both hands. He ducks under a blade, transferring momentum into kneeing another man in the kidneys, and gets positioned behind the injured mercenary. He slams the kunai further in before messily yanking it out.
Unless the man's got Hashirama's innate healing, that's a ruined lung and a heavy bleed. He'll be dead soon since he's already down.
The last four men back off at that, shooting grim and considering looks at both the Uchiha and Tobirama himself. For all that Tobirama's exhausted, he knows the men also have to be tired, having chased him themselves. And reaching a flier with the high ground is always part of the problem when fighting them: it's why fliers get exceptionally talented at catching weapons. Ranged battle is what they do against land-bound foes.
Which makes sense: they have skill at taijutsu, but it has to be developed around their wings. It's brutal in aerial battles from all reports, but Tobirama expects there's more than a little difficulty in using it on land. When land-bound, wings are simply large, vulnerable targets against an agile fighter. Hollow bones weigh less which boosts speed and aids flight, but... he's certain that fliers have to support them with chakra to avoid damage from hits that normal bones would hold up to. And less weight in general means less force behind hits.
Tobirama smirks grimly as one of men visibly tries to strategize. The Uchiha might have been Tobirama's saving grace after all, so long as the man sticks with the implied decision not to kill him. The flier's the sticking point for the mercenaries. They can't climb the tree to get to him, he'll just kick them down. They can't knock a tree that thick over without explosives, and there's more trees around to jump to if they do. They can't fire projectiles up. And they can't just ignore him in favor of finishing Tobirama because they've already attacked, and the Uchiha will likely dive them again if the chance occurs.
So the Uchiha nicely stymies them, even if the way the brunet's jaw is clenching means there's likely a problem there.
Well, besides the fact that he can't just flambé them all. Even an Uchiha wouldn't risk breathing widespread flame in a drought.
Of course, that's when it all goes to shit.
In the brief silent pause, it's easy to hear the snap of a branch. Everybody looks up immediately, and there, peeking out from behind a tree with a wide-eyed "oh shit" expression, is the curly-haired Uchiha child.
The branch cracks with the force of the Uchiha taking off and both Tobirama and one of the men lunge towards the kid. The boy takes off running - hopefully for home this time, Tobirama thinks fiercely - but the other three men either attack Tobirama or launch more weapons at the distracted Uchiha.
Tobirama slips his sword past the sole woman's defense to slice her throat just as the Uchiha dives, not for the pursuing adult, but for the kid. He hits the ground in an odd, running landing and in a smooth, dance-like spin, grabs the boy by a leather harness and launches the kid into the upper canopy.
It leaves the man just off-balance enough to still be ground-bound when the mercenary reaches him. Tobirama grits his teeth at the messy dodge the flier makes to avoid the sword, scattered pieces of cut feathers falling as proof that he wasn't fully successful.
There's an loud, angry bellow as the Uchiha regains his footing, bare feet digging into parched dirt, and when the sword comes again, it's deflected with a screech of reinforced claws on steel. In a twist of densely packed muscle, the Uchiha slams the joint of his right wing into the first man's neck, crushing it violently.
One of Tobirama's last two attackers diverts, going after the grounded threat. Tobirama, firmly sick of this entire mess and incredibly furious about the crack that just formed in his now-ruined sword, grabs an experimental seal he still hasn't perfected yet, pins it between his hand and the sword hilt, and channels chakra through the seal as he swings widely towards both attackers.
The seal activates in fits and spurts but a torrent of icy water follows the swing with enough force to slam both men over the flier's head and into the tree trunks at the far end of the clearing.
Tobirama breathes out as they stay down, watching the slightly damp Uchiha rise from his crouch with an impressed look. The sword, of course, is now fully ruined from the chakra going through it, and Tobirama examines it with mild regret as he looks at the warped metal. It won't even fit in its sheathe at this point.
"I'm going to guess you ran out of stones earlier," he offers, eyes flickering to the brunet.
The Uchiha pretends to ignore him, scowling with genuine frustration at his outspread right wing which has all its primaries and several secondaries sliced in half.
Tobirama snorts in amusement. "You don't really think," he starts, "that I'm going to believe the rumors of your language skills now, do you? If you have enough knowledge to be offended at being called a pigeon, you certainly know more than enough vocabulary to converse."
The man pauses slightly before shrugging. "It's a useful piece of misinformation," he explains with a small grin as black eyes meet Tobirama's before going back to his feathers.
"Your temper must make that a difficult deception to perpetrate." Tobirama muses. He can just imagine the man's reaction to some of the more biased comments or offensive sentiments he's heard in various cities and royal courts. It's very amusing to picture the Uchiha sitting on a branch, tail and wings bristling, trying not to react as people talk about using his lovely blue-black feathers to make a fan.
In fact, given how the major trade route between Tanzaku Gai and Keishi is essentially the southwest border of the Uchiha's territory, Tobirama's willing to bet that a lot of the "territorial" attacks on that side are less from possessiveness and more from stupid people making idiot remarks that they assume wouldn't be understood.
"Lord Madara really is bad at that," a boyish voice adds cheerfully, a slightly western lilt to his accent.
"KAGAMI!" the man bellows, neatly proving the claim as he whirls around angrily, wings flaring. He basically stomps over the nearest corpse to go lurk under the tree the boy's in, ignoring how Tobirama follows behind him. "Get your ass down here!"
"I'm in trouble, huh?" Kagami says, scratching the side of his neck sheepishly and wincing a bit as he looks at Madara's ruined feathers.
Madara narrows his eyes upwards, automatically folding his left wing in as Tobirama comes to a stop next to him. Then the man turns slightly and slams the bare heel of his right foot into the tree with a neat, rapid kick.
Kagami yelps and Tobirama's eyebrows shoot up as the enormous trunk quivers at the strike, sending leaves and twigs falling to the ground.
The boy starts scrambling downward to where his prickly relative is waiting, going head first and twisting and generally climbing in a manner Tobirama's never seen. From how his wings flare and flap in places, it's easy to see that while his wings are too small to fly yet, they're still very good for some thrust and a little gliding.
The lowest branch in the tree is, like most of them nearby, about 20 feet off the ground, so Kagami just drops, fluttering his wings for a slower descent until Madara catches him. The two of them stare at each other with identical black eyes as Kagami folds his arms behind his head, trying to look innocent in the face of Madara's flat aura of long-suffering irritation.
Between the sleek mass of glossy black and the white-spotted charcoal fluff, their appealing looks, and his underlying interest in the unfamiliar, it's simultaneously the most compelling, striking, and cutely adorable sight that Tobirama has ever encountered.
He's beginning to understand some of the cooing comments his female relatives make when they break out the sake.
"Why did you not go back to the cliffs?" Madara asks slowly, clearly determined to keep his temper.
"He's pretty," Kagami says, pointing at Tobirama. "I wanted to watch."
"That is NOT a good reason!" Madara stresses, voice strangled as he keeps from yelling in the kid's face.
"But you didn't actually hit him with the rock, so you like him, too," Kagami says, like that's actually reasonable logic.
Tobirama raises an eyebrow as Madara promptly drops the boy, letting Kagami land neatly on his feet as the older man slams a hand over his eyes, looking visibly pained.
"And he really is pretty!" Kagami chirps, looking up at Tobirama, tail wiggling behind him. "He can make his eyes red like we do when we want to see things! And I didn't know the grounders could have white plumage without being old! Don't you think he's pretty, Lord Madara?"
"I can't believe I lost flight feathers for this," Madara mutters grouchily, ears blazing red and feathers flattening down as Tobirama smiles at the child.
"We would say I have white 'hair' rather than plumage," he explains to the fascinated boy. "Plumage just means feathers."
"Which feathers?" Kagami asks immediately. "These feathers?" He points past Madara's leg at the man's long tail feathers. "Or these feathers? Or these? Or these? Or—"
Kagami keeps rapidly pointing a different feathers on Madara's right wing, and the Senju can't help smiling a bit wider when Madara yelps as the boy accidentally pulls out one of the damaged primaries. Madara lightly shoves Kagami to the left with his wing, narrowing his eyes at the kid who coughs and then hands Tobirama the diagonally sliced feather.
Tobirama takes it, shooting a look at Madara to make sure it's actually alright, but the man roughly waves it off with a jerky shrug.
"Plumage means all feathers as a group," he continues, idly smoothing down the feather's barbs. "There are some specific words that people use for individual types of feathers, but not all people know about them."
"But how do you know which feathers people mean if they don't use the right word?" Kagami asks, tugging on Madara's pant leg as he looks between the adults.
"Most grounders don't care since they don't have wings," Madara sighs, carefully running his talons through Kagami's hair in a fruitless attempt to make the kid look more put together.
Ironic given the state of his own hair.
"But you know, don't you mister..."
"Tobirama Senju," Madara answers before Tobirama can, surprising him before he remembers the initial introduction he'd done to try and avoid being attacked. "You were right there when he said it after knocking you on your ass. And he knows because he reads a lot of books."
"I forgot! He's pretty! I forgot! I'm allowed to forget!"
"You are years too young to be going empty-headed at a pretty face: don't imitate Izuna to cover yourself. Actually, go find my brother," Madara orders, chivvying the protesting child further towards the cliffs and, notably, away from the bodies behind them. "Tell him to stop preening for attention from whoever and to bring Hikaku and some of the stronger fliers."
"But I want to ask questions!"
"He'll come visit tonight, now move!"
Tobirama watches as Kagami sulks away, waving as the boy looks back at them.
"So you are my brother's childhood friend," he says to the flier, red eyes flickering between currently black eyes and the wooden pendant he can now see displaying the kanji for friendship. "I wasn't certain since Uchihas are supposed to always have red eyes. But unless you guessed about the books...?"
"Hashirama used to talk a lot," Madara says with the same exasperated tone Tobirama's accustomed to using around his older sibling. "He never mentioned anything that would normally come up like, hey, my brother looks like a winter rabbit, but he certainly mentioned your name and the books and whined about how you once set up a giant bucket to drench him after he ruined a book by being a moron."
"I am not a rabbit," Tobirama says icily.
Madara glares right back. "Well show me a cat with your coloring and you can get an upgrade!"
"You'd probably run from a cat; it would be undiplomatic to bring you one."
"Excuse me!" Madara splutters.
"And my brother's not a moron," Tobirama adds, familial loyalty finally kicking in.
Madara snorts. "Does he still have the ugly bowl-cut, the pinstripes, and the habit of getting easily depressed over stupid things?"
"He's changed his hair and clothing style. At any rate," Tobirama says, changing the subject and watching Madara grin at the implied confirmation of Hashirama's continuing ridiculousness, "what exactly did you think you meant by saying I'd visit?"
"Are there more of those after you?" Madara asks, pointedly gesturing towards the bodies.
Tobirama considers, but, "I should have lost them in River."
"Because you lost these ones so well," Madara taunts. "Look, you didn't even hurt Kagami when you could have, and that was a hard reflex to pull with how he surprised you. And you were... decent when I confronted you. The Senju are better neighbors now, but even ten years ago your clan was a lot bitchier despite staying on your side. It's... good to have better neighbors. Also, you helped kill intruders who attacked a fledgling," he adds idly.
"They were originally after me," Tobirama reminds pointedly, a little more interested now.
"What the old buzzards don't know, they can't bitch about," Madara says dismissively. "Just ignore any of the elders and you'll be fine."
Tobirama looks up at the night sky, rapidly darkening from the partial dusk it had been when everything started before glancing back at his brother's childhood friend.
It's a curious proposition. And it's not an opportunity readily available to land-bound people. And he'd like to know a bit more about this man who used to play with his brother back when tensions were still higher. Who, if the stories are right, actually let his brother dump them both in the Nakano during a game of tag despite what had to be an irritating case of water-logged feathers.
(Although that story probably involves a lot more yelling at Hashirama than the version his brother once told him.)
It's interesting.
And Tobirama has a real weak spot for curiosity and interesting things. The cat remark wasn't very off, if he's honest.
"I assume there's a way up to the living space that doesn't require wings," he says, glancing down at Madara's damaged flight feathers.
Madara nods briskly, already scowling as he pulls his wing close and starts yanking out the damaged parts.
"This next week is going to be irritating as hell," he grumbles, glaring as he lets blood-speckled feathers drop to the ground. "And I suppose you'll tell that ridiculous moron about everything so he's definitely going to show up with bouncing, puppy enthusiasm, too."
"He misses you," Tobirama says, lips twitching at the statement.
"Not," Madara says threateningly, pointing a bloody feather point at his face, "until these grow back, do you hear me? I want altitude when Hashirama shows up. Altitude, fluff-head!"
"I'm sure you'll be fine, bird-brain," Tobirama says calmly, ignoring Madara's irritated hissing noise as he looks at the feather Kagami had given him, admiring its iridescent gleam in the low light.
Maybe he could make it into a quill pen? It's something to think about.