Chapter Text
Konoha had settled into something that resembled peace.
People smiled more. Children ran through the streets. The air felt lighter.
Except for two people.
Izuna and Tobirama moved through the village like the only storm clouds in an otherwise perfect sky. To Hashirama, they were no different from the black‑and‑white cats that haunted the Senju compound—always bristling, always hissing, always one breath away from clawing each other’s eyes out.
And because Hashirama and Madara were glued together like two overgrown barnacles, their little brothers were forced into the same orbit.
Sometimes it was tolerable.
Sometimes Hashirama privately thought the Warring States era had been quieter.
At least back then, those two weren’t breaking something every other hour.
Izuna and Tobirama had reached the Hokage’s office at the same time. They should have simply walked in.
Instead, they stopped in the doorway, squared their shoulders, and glared.
Then they both tried to enter at once.
The doorway, unfortunately, was built for normal people.
They jammed themselves shoulder‑to‑shoulder, each refusing to yield even an inch. Their elbows dug in, their teeth clenched, and the wooden frame began to creak like it was begging for mercy.
Inside, Hashirama and Madara stared at them with identical expressions of exhausted disbelief.
“I arrived first,” Izuna growled, elbowing Tobirama with surgical precision.
“It’s the Hokage’s office. My brother is the Hokage,” Tobirama pulled rank, smug and superior, which earned him a sharper jab.
Did Izuna sharpen his elbows? Was that an Uchiha technique?
The door finally surrendered to its fate.
The entire frame tore loose, and both men toppled inside, dragging the broken wood with them like two idiots wearing a shared collar.
A scroll rolled off Hashirama’s desk.
The little brothers froze.
“Look what you did, you hulking brute,” Izuna snapped.
“It was your bony shoulder that knocked it loose,” Tobirama shot back, shoving him again even though they were still trapped in the fallen frame.
Madara cleared his throat.
Izuna remembered where he was.
“Who builds a door frame this flimsy,” he muttered, twisting sideways until he slipped free. The frame clattered to the floor.
“It’s practically an insult,” Tobirama agreed, because blaming the door was easier than admitting fault.
Their older brothers exchanged a look that said everything:
We cannot let them sit together on the trip to Suna.
So Tobirama was placed beside Hashirama, and Izuna beside Madara.
Which only created a new problem—they were now sitting directly across from each other.
The glaring resumed immediately.
“How long is this trip,” Tobirama asked, eyes locked on Izuna like he was observing a dangerous animal.
“We’re almost there. Just a few more hours,” Hashirama said, trying to sound optimistic. Tobirama’s mood was deteriorating by the minute.
Izuna leaned over Madara and whispered—loudly enough for the entire cart to hear—
“I’ll go blind in half an hour if I have to keep staring at his ugly face.”
Madara didn’t even pretend to disagree.
That was the worst part.
The cart hit a tiny bump. Barely anything.
But Tobirama’s knee slammed into Izuna’s like they’d been struck by a falling boulder.
Izuna reacted instantly.
He stomped on Tobirama’s toes with the full enthusiasm of a man stepping on a venomous snake.
“Keep your dangling legs to yourself,” he hissed.
And then the cart became a battleground.
They launched into hand‑to‑hand combat in a space so cramped it should have been physically impossible. Yet somehow, they managed to cause impressive damage. Hashirama tried to separate them and earned a lump on his forehead courtesy of his own brother.
Madara, in his wisdom, didn’t try to get involved. Besides, he believed what Izuna said, it’s hard to look at Tobirama’s ugly face for that long.
Eventually, they switched seats.
Hashirama ended up opposite Izuna, and Tobirama found himself staring at Madara, who regarded him with the flat, lifeless stare of a dead fish, arms crossed over his chest.
Tobirama felt like he’d escaped a burning forest only to fall into a sinking ship.
Bastard got replaced by a bigger bastard. And this one was somehow uglier than Izuna.
He briefly considered stabbing himself in the eyes to end his suffering.
Beside him, Hashirama chatted cheerfully with Izuna, who grunted like a boar preparing to charge.
Tobirama wanted to reach across the cart and slap the smug expressions off both Uchiha faces.
Peace, he decided, was overrated.
The meeting dragged on far longer than anyone wanted.
Madara still had half a dozen urgent matters to argue about, and Hashirama—ever patient—kept nodding along.
They’d been given two rooms for their stay.
Hashirama turned to the younger brothers with the weary resignation of a man who had lived through too many disasters.
“This is going to take a few more hours. Why don’t you two go sleep in the next room? The journey was… tiring.”
Tiring was a generous word for “you beat each other senseless in a moving cart.”
Matching grimaces twisted their faces, but for once they didn’t argue.
The shame of the cart incident still clung to them like smoke.
They set their futons in opposite corners of the room, stretching the distance between them to its physical limit. Izuna pressed himself against the wall so hard it looked like he was trying to phase through it and escape.
Tobirama glared at him while fluffing his pillow with the enthusiasm of a man preparing for murder. If the pillow had a voice, it would have begged for mercy. The slaps turned into punches as he imagined Izuna’s smug face beneath the fabric.
Izuna watched him with a flat, unimpressed stare.
Then, without breaking eye contact, he tore his own pillow clean in half.
Tobirama blinked.
What kind of idiotic intimidation tactic was that supposed to be?
Izuna slept without a pillow that night, head resting on his folded arm like a stubborn child.
He woke up with a stiff neck and a mood that could curdle milk.
Izuna sat up with a hiss, hand flying to the side of his neck.
Tobirama, already awake and combing his hair with unnecessary aggression, didn’t bother hiding his smirk.
“Sleep well?” Tobirama asked, voice dripping with false innocence.
Izuna glared at him like he was considering homicide before breakfast.
“Strange,” Tobirama said, not waiting for a reply “I slept perfectly.”
Izuna’s eye twitched. He looked one second away from launching himself across the room.
Before he could, the door slid open and Hashirama peeked in, bright and cheerful like he hadn’t spent half the night negotiating with Madara.
“Good morning! I hope you two rested well.”
Two murderous stares answered him. Hashirama cleared his throat.
“Right. Well. Breakfast is ready.”
Madara appeared behind him, arms crossed, expression flat.
His gaze flicked between Izuna’s stiff posture and Tobirama’s smug face.
“What happened now,” he asked, sounding exhausted already.
Izuna jabbed a thumb at Tobirama. “He kept snoring.” Snoring was an exaggeration. Tobirama had breathed during the night. It’s just that Izuna could hear it all too well as he couldn’t sleep without a pillow
Tobirama scoffed. “I apologize for not dying in my sleep.”
Madara pinched the bridge of his nose. “We haven’t even eaten yet.”
Hashirama clapped his hands together, desperate to keep the peace.
“Let’s all go to breakfast! Fresh start, new day, no fighting.”
Izuna and Tobirama walked past him in silence.
They didn’t fight. They didn’t speak.
They simply shouldered each other in the doorway, both refusing to yield, and the entire frame rattled ominously.
Hashirama’s smile wilted.
Madara sighed.
“Hashirama, if they break another door, we’re paying for it.”