Chapter Text
The kunai whizzed past his head, cutting several strands of his wildly swinging hair and nearly grazing his cheek. The telltale hiss of the explosive tag sent his instincts into overdrive as a litany of emphatic curses left his mouth as he pulled his hands up. Chakra built up in his lungs as a hand moved to form a half tora seal, the other unclasping the gunbai from his back. He pivoted on the ball of his right foot on the branch he had just landed on, and launched himself backwards as he blew out a large stream of white-hot fire. His armor rattled from the pressure released by the technique. WIth a grunt, he moved both hands to the handle of his gunbai and swung hard.
The powerful gust of chakra enhanced wind flew to the fireball quickly, enlarging it to terrifying proportions. Several people in the group chasing him were caught by it, being too late to jump out of the way. He found their dying screams therapeutic.
He spun around mid-air and leapt off the trunk of the tree he had jumped to next, barreling down towards the edge of the forest to open grassland. Several low hissing sounds quickly sounded from the dense underbrush of the forest edge, and kunai with exploding tags came hurtling towards him. With a quick rush of chakra to his legs, he leapt up and avoided them, the tags going off behind him as he landed. The ball of his foot pivoted his body as he pulled out his wakizashi from the sheath on his back in a smooth motion to block an incoming sword strike aimed at his side.
Hair whipping wildly, he ducked under another swing aimed at taking his head off. He moved easily, bringing his body low and kicking his own leg out, knocking the opponent behind him off balance and striking with his wakizashi at the legs in front of him. A loud cry of pain echoed as he righted himself again and leapt back, a small series of one-handed flips before standing and taking a defensive stance. His eye flicked to either side, sharingan spinning into life as he turned his head slightly to see what was behind him.
The rustle of leaves brought his main focus back to the people in front of him. One, the one he assumed attacked him from behind, was standing in front of the man whose leg he had cut. Apparently straight through, if the severed limb several feet away was anything. It was bleeding profusely, a grotesque fountain. Parts of the snapped fibula and tibia poked through the stringy muscles, blood vessels, and jagged skin. The man was staring at it in horror, his body slowly trembling from the loss of blood. He swayed in place before his eyes rolled back and he slumped against the reddening grass.
Other people had jumped from the canopy, landing in a semicircle around the downed man, another two backing up and kneeling down. One, a generic face with dark brown hair pulled into a low-hanging ponytail, ran through several hand signs, pulling one away with their hand coated in a thin layer of flame. He brought it to the bleeding stump of his fallen comrade and ran it over the skin. The scent of burning flesh permeated the air, and the body jerked before another scream filled the air, the man sitting up with his mouth open and eyes a crazed dark green.
He stood still, blade still poised like a defensive viper, keeping his eyes trained on the group of about fifteen in front of him. His lips twitched slightly as he felt vindictive glee of being able to bring such a large group down to these pitiful numbers. The most forward member of the group of bloodline hunters narrowed his eyes, his feet widening his stance slightly, knees bent, with one shifting behind the other. A small blade, a tanto, was pulled from a sheath on his calf and held in a reverse grip. Movements in the muscle were minute, but with the sharingan in someone as experienced himself, every twitch was as obvious as a flash tag.
But the leader didn't move. With a quick look at the other twelve shinobi, he knew he was in for the long haul. They avoided and countered his attacks. No one managed that unless they were exceptionally skilled.
He tensed his own body, shifting the grip on the sword handle to be able to quickly switch it out for his gunbai and attached kama. Chakra gathered in his legs, muscles bulging slightly from under the extra pressure. Silence reigned between them, a soft breeze caressing their bodies and shifting the hair slightly. An unknown signal, and half of the shinobi ran forward. One directly at him, two to his left and right, and another following up behind. The other six formed a tight circle around their injured ally as he was being healed with what rudimentary knowledge the group had.
The two to his left, reached him first. One flicked her wrist and several kunai fell to her fingertips, barely touching them before being flung at him with dexterous precision. It was simple enough to flick his own wrist in retaliation in a show of strength to block the kunai, and to then parry a blow aimed for his liver. With a low growl, he twisted the wakizashi into the man's guard, attempting to stab his chest. The man instead let go of the kunai and ducked, rolling backwards into a back handspring before landing on his feet. His eyes were narrowed as his arm jerked, and several six-pointed shuriken appeared between his fingers. They were flung, all aiming for incapacitating spots not covered by his armor.
With the kunai he had almost been stabbed with, he blocked the pointed projectiles. However, with his interception of one of the shuriken, one grazed the cheek. He clicked his teeth, more in disapproval for his slip-up than any pain. His eyes narrowed before throwing the kunai in his hand, using a small burst of wind chakra to enhance its speed at the woman. It hit her shoulder, making her arm limp at her side. A hiss of pain escaped her lips, her teeth bared as she turned to glare at him.
He narrowed his eyes in thought, pivoting on his right foot to doge several senbon with a purple substance on the ends. His right hand reached over his left shoulder and brought the gunbai and kama out from the holster on his back, flicking the kama forward to the man. The curved blade managed to leave a deep gash along the man's upper torso, revealing the torn edge of cloth, skin, and exploding tags.
"Shit!" he exclaimed. His teeth clenched together as he pulled on the handle of the gunbai to bring the chained kama back to him. The wrist on the handle of the gunbai redirected the angle so it jammed into the nose of the female, who was coming up behind him with a tanto poised to stab him, the tip gleaming with a malicious red substance.
She lost her balance as she yelped in pain, dropping the poisoned tanto and bringing her left hand up to clutch at her face. Blood spilled from between her fingers as her uncovered eye seemed to show her slipping sanity. A low snarl emanated from her throat as she pulled her hand away from her face and lunged at him.
Nearly yelping, he used his free arm to grab her extended wrist and used her momentum to spin around and throw her at the man. A litany of curses escaped his lips as he saw that the man had finished running through hand signs and gathered up a large portion of chakra. There was a crazed grin on his face before he yelled out, voice growing in pitch as emotions of all sorts crowded his mind. "Die, you bastard!"
He jumped back as seal lines lit up under the man's clothes, the woman who he had flung at him looked vindicated as a small smirk lit up across her face. He growled, panic rising in him. Chakra was pumped into his legs quickly as he used the extra boost to try and escape the estimated blast radius. "This is to take you out, Uchiha Madara!"
Madara, at about roughly fifty meters away, fending off the other three who had raced towards him, ducking under swift and accurate strikes from the leader, and blocking several fast punches and kicks with his free arm. He managed to hook the kama around one of the necks of the women, yanking with both hands on the chain, severing her head from her body. The head was launched in the direction of the man.
It was the moment Madara realized he was not far away enough from the blast radius and ended up getting caught in it. A huge, deafening sound rattled his eardrums, a ringing now the only thing he was able to hear. The explosion was bright enough to blind him, though made worse by the active Sharingan.
The force of the explosion knocked him against a tree and threw his already bad sense of equilibrium off balance even further. He felt bile rise up his throat as he stood up, feet shuffling as he almost fell back down again. His arms gripped the tree he was thrown against, and he looked around, the entire world blurry and slightly red. Blinking, he reached a hand up and felt against his face. Something warm registered to his senses, warm and wet. It took a moment, but he realized it was blood.
He felt a hysterical chuckle trying to escape his throat. He was Uchiha Madara, one of the strongest to come from his clan in generations, and yet. Here he was, thrown off balance because of an explosion from a fucking suicide bomber. But he was at fault for not thinking more, if anything, he was more arrogant because he managed to down a group of around a hundred bloodline thieves to the eleven that remained.
"Fuck," he whispered, then coughing as he felt bile escape his mouth. He stumbled forward, almost tripping over his gunbai.
It was with that action that he narrowly avoided a strike to his head from a sword swing. The air displacement made Madara's mind sharpen through the growing agony of his body. But to his ire, it didn't help with his sense of balance, eyesight, or hearing. He clumsily reached for his wakizashi strapped to his back, managing to pull it out in time to block another blade swing coming his way, this time coming down and aiming for his neck.
The force of the strike and his weakened state sent him to the ground, trying hard to prevent the sharp and poisoned blade from touching his skin. He attempted to circulate chakra to strengthen his arms, but all he got was a sluggish feeling in his coils and a slight burn. Madara realized that some sort of chakra-affecting poison must have entered his system at some point within the last several minutes of the battle. He growled, using as much force as he could to push his attacker away, before aiming a slash at his neck, managing to cut deep enough to leave them to a slow death.
A sharp sting appears in his mind's eye, located around his right shoulder. Madara looks behind him to see the outline of someone he assumes is female, hands still wrapped around the handle of a blade. With a cackle, she twisted the blade in his shoulder, moving it back and forth to agitate the skin and wound. He bit back a pained cry, jaw clenching as he hissed. He lurched his body forward, yanking the blade out of his skin and turning around, thrusting forward at the area that held her heart.
There was a soft thump he managed to hear. Madara scooted back, breathing harshly from the agony roaring through his veins. He whipped his head around, trying to find the other nine members of the group. A cry rang out near him, making him panic and throw out several kunai haphazardly. Nausea rose up in him again from the action, and he saw black creeping up in his vision. He managed to hear several exclamations of surprise and fear, before a flash of blue entered his vision. In the last dregs of his consciousness, he murmured, "Senju?"
Tobirama was making his way through the dense forest of neutral territory after having finished his patrol of the western Senju borders, when he felt an enormous spike of chakra north to his position. When he felt it, he rebounded off a tree and landed on a nearby branch, facing the direction of the chakra spike. His eyes narrowed as he focused his attention on the spot, his chakra seeping into the ground as he reached out.
He lost focus when a resounding echo of an explosion rang out. With a start, he leapt up towards the smaller branches at the top of the forest canopy. Peering out, he saw a huge cloud of smoke and figured that must have been the chakra spike. With a small bit of chakra pumped to his legs, he leapt off the branch to the thicker ones below and began to travel to the area.
When he was several hundred meters away from the forest edge, Tobirama leapt to the ground. He knelt, closing his eyes as he placed two fingers on the ground and sent pulses of chakra into the surrounding area. The information he received back gave him the idea of a giant crater, several diminishing chakra signatures, and nine gleeful others. His eyes opened, staring down in contemplation at the ground.
He stood up, sprinting through the trees to the smoking clearing. Tobirama stopped, hidden by the shadows of the canopy. He leapt up to a branch, getting a better view of the carnage in the open space. His eyes narrowed as he saw a mop of black hair slump to the ground under a vicious strike from a woman, another coming up behind the other person and stabbing them in the shoulder with what looked to be a chokuto.
His senses flared out in an attempt to identify who was being attacked. When it registered that it was the Uchiha clan head, he didn't even think before he leapt into the clearing, already having pulled out his sword. It was moments like these that he truly lived up to the name of the Senju Yurei, stepping between enemies like a specter. He danced around them with a finesse that led to most not even catching a glimpse of him as they passed on in a gruesome manner.
Tobirama spun as he dodged a kunai aimed for the back of his head, catching by the hilt and stabbing it upwards into the chin of a kunoichi who attempted to attack him from above. Her eyes widened when she recognized him, a gurgled gasp escaped her as she jumped back. It took several moments for her to topple over, dead as her eyes stared unfocused.
He jerked his arm, a kunai with a seal tag wrapped along the hilt appearing in his hand. With a flick of his wrist, it was let free and sailed into the middle of the non-fighting group with the injured man. It didn't occur to him of what he was possibly revealing to a delirious Madara, but all that consumed his mind was to end this group who had harmed him.
His entire body, after having stabbed another enemy through the side of the throat, seemed to dissipate into nothing. He rematerialized within the group of shinobi, already having struck down two with a kunai to the back of the head, and the other was decapitated. A growl escaped his throat as he used his free hand to reach out with his chakra. The people in the group seemed to freeze in their movements when the wave of cold and intense chakra rolled over them, before sinking into their coils.
With a snarl, he clenched his fist, not even blinking when blood painted his armor and skin. Tobirama frowned in distaste when brain matter slid from the lower half of his chestplate. He turned, his eyes locking onto the downed form of Uchiha Madara. A weary sigh escaped his lips as he walked forward, avoiding chunks of skin and scalp and the occasional eyeball or finger.
Tobirama, after crossing the several meter distance between the place of his mini-massacre and Madara, knelt down and cleared the hair from his face. The older man's breathing was labored and sweat was forming at his brow. Tobirama frowned, he shifted his gaze to where the chokuto lay after Madara had removed it. Moving around behind the man, he noticed the blood seeping from the stab wound. His eyes narrowed, hands rising as they began to glow green. He ran his hands along the length of Madara's head and torso, gaining insight on his internal systems.
Tobirama clicked his tongue in frustration and anger, the green iryo chakra fading from his hands. His fists clenched as he debated what to do. With a sigh and a wary frown, he gently maneuvered Madara up and onto his back, the unconscious man's arms gripped tightly over his shoulders. He grunted from the exertion, but managed to secure him. His eyes closed as he reached out with his sensory ability, latching onto a specific seal matrix and disappeared from the bloodied clearing.
Tobirama reappeared in the middle of a sterile space, standing over a large sealing array. He left the complex matrix and walked over to a lab table. Swiping all the tools to create a large enough space to lay down Madara, he placed the man down on his stomach, carefully laying his head down. He backed up, taking off his bloodied armor and happuri, leaving them in a haphazard pile on the floor. With a small series of one-handed hand seals, the blood on his body coalesced into a ball floating above his hand. He directed it to the sink of his lab and let it fall down the drain.
He then turned his full attention back to Madara, rerunning what he learned from his field diagnostic. "Broken and fractured scapula, ripped deltoid, ruptured blood vessels, pierced subclavian vein, abnormal amounts of a chakra circulation inhibitor, and torn skin. Minor cut on the cheek with a clot-prevention toxin."
It only took him a moment to start divesting Madara of his armor and robe, leaving him only his pants and shoes. The amount of blood that had seeped into the cloth had almost glued it to the torn skin, so he had to carefully cut it away, unfortunately taking several layers of skin with it. It made him grimace slightly. His next step was to get his dermatome, and to cut off the uneven skin laced with the remnants of whatever toxin was on the blade.
From there, he worked to reset the bone in place, having several plates and screws of pure, solidified chakra to help with the bone while it healed. Afterwards, he did his best to realign the blood vessels as he constantly infused the area with healing chakra to reconstruct the muscle, even going as far to use a suture needle and absorbable thread to close the subclavian vein.
It was several hours later when Tobirama took a step back and let one hand drop to his side while the other wiped his brow. He looked at Madara objectively and noticed that his breathing had even out somewhat, but not enough to be relieving. His eyes focused on the stab wound. The sinewy lines of the muscle and blood vessels were still visible, still trickling out unnerving amounts of blood. Tobirama looked at his hands, seeing how shaky they were. He breathed out, tilting his head up.
He cleaned his hands, then rooted around a medicinal cabinet in the corner by the sink, making a small sound at his success. Two small pills were held in his hand, one was an unassuming brown that he swallowed. The other was a bright red that he placed into the mouth of his patient and forced down his throat. After a moment, he felt more revitalized and could feel his chakra reserves quickly fill up once more.
"Sweet sage's balls," he muttered. They were the first words he uttered during the entire time. "You're a pain in the ass, no matter how wonderful your chakra is."
A light blush suffused his cheeks, but he pushed the fluttering feeling in his chest away, instead focusing iryo chakra to his hands again and placed it against the almost fully healed stab wound. He could feel how the healing chakra interacted with the cell dividing process, sending it into high speeds as it knitted together to form new, pale skin. When he felt no more tug on his chakra, he allowed for the glow to fade away, and to pull his hands back.
Tobirama placed some cut gauze, and applied medical tape over it so he could roll Madara onto his back without irritating the new skin. After he did, he sighed. He leaned against the counter by the man's head, lightly carting his hands through the rough and tangled strands. It eventually moved to the section of hair covering his right eye, and pushed it out of the way, tracing patterns on his newly exposed forehead.
Soon, he was sitting on the table, Madara's head on his lap as his hands were laying on his sternum, forcing trace amounts of fire chakra into his coils to help his own chakra to burn the poisons from within his body. It was a slow process, but with the skin-to-skin contact, Tobirama was able to feel the gradual increase of Madara's chakra flow.
Madara awoke to tingles on his face and an incredibly sore body. He shifted, trying to get up, before he realized that there was someone with him, very close and well within his personal space. His body tensed, ready to strike and bolt, until he heard the other speak. "Y'know," came the soft whisper. "I don't think you would have expected someone like me to do this. Being," A dark chuckle escaped their lips. "The Senju Yurei , and all that."
Madara paused in his movements as the words settled in his ears. His eyes shot open, but he closed them immediately when the last of the sun's light hit his pupils just right. A hiss nearly escaped his lips, but he managed to keep them closed. There was slight tugging in his bangs, and he realized that the Senju was combing his hair. What?
"I guess it wouldn't hurt to give some background." A snort. "You aren't awake to hear it anyways."
He was curious now, though still in disbelief. Background on what, though? He asked himself
"I'm aware of your sensory power. It's a very… pleasant feeling when you spread it out and I can feel it." Madara felt a shiver go through the Senju's body as he spoke. It was as if he was remembering something either terrifying or pleasant. "You yourself are aware of the rumors of my sensing capabilities. Though I am unsure how that got outside the clan."
Madara almost snorted. Does he not remember how much of a blabbermouth his brother is?
"Aside from that, I have always had an incredible range, to the point where I got lost in the numerous sensations as a child. Though when its natural limits reached the Uchiha compound, there was something that reminded me of the irori fires in the kitchen when I had moments of clarity. It was something amazing to me at that age. It was a type of inviting warmth that my own brother's signature never provided me."
Madara felt his brows furrowed in confusion and a slight rush of heat to his cheeks. It was the most positive reaction to his chakra he had ever received. He decided it was nice.
He shifted a bit, getting a bit more comfortable. "And it was yours. When I first latched onto it, it was like the rest of the world finally slowed down and fell into focus. It was that moment that I realized I could truly see . But that was only when I could sense you. At least until I learned how to keep myself tethered to my body."
His face shifted into surprise. That sounds quite similar to some of the infamous clan legends.
"After that initial rush, what I could sense in a single person grew varied. Though it was mainly how it fluctuated in reaction to emotions. With yours, I was able to tell how deeply you cared for those close to you, for your clan, and for Hashirama, even if it's dimmer now.
"So I can easily say, after years of being able to come to terms with it, that I love your chakra."
The entirety of Madara's body stiffened, miraculously going unnoticed by Tobirama. His breathing quickened a bit as his mind raced trying to truly comprehend the words he heard. His chakra, who most called overbearing or too hot, had someone infatuated with it? And how did someone become infatuated with chakra?
A soft chuckle escaped graced his ears. He noticed how pleasant it was to hear. "But it goes deeper. I have learned to know you, given a basis from Hashirama after he finally heard my part of the story for the Nakano incident. Mmm… and provided with who you can be with those you care about, there was this ideal forming in my head that I began to idolize. Unhelped with how much of a stress reliever your chakra was."
There was a noticeable drop in temperature as Tobirama's chakra suddenly unfurled and a wave of icy coldness filled the room like a tsunami. "Then came that group of bloodline thieves ." A nearly feral growl erupted from the throat of the Senju, and Madara shivered at the tone. The fist clenching his hair was not helping at the sudden spike of heat in his veins.
"I was in a tea house, on my return journey home from a courier mission. I felt the overwhelming anger of your chakra. I couldn't breathe; it was as if Amaterasu-omikami herself had come raging from the heavens. I could feel how easily you took out the monsters, doing your best to protect what felt like young Uchiha children. There was one you missed."
Madara wondered if this had anything to do with one of the most graphic scenes he had happened across. It made even him queasy at the brutality of it. But it was very much justified if he was right about the fulminated bodies belonging to bloodline hunters.
"His name was Syuusuke, if I remember correctly. Quite the firecracker, despite the situation."
His body relaxed slightly, a smile encroaching on his lips as he remembered how the small child then babbled on about this 'really cool ghosty man'. Syuusuke literally started referring to his savior as 'Yurei-nii' and it was adorable as it was concerning. Especially now that he knew who the kid's 'Yurei-nii' was. That will be an interesting situation.
"I didn't think. All I did was reach out my chakra and latched onto the blood of the hunters. I managed to cover the young child's eyes before… eh, this next part could be considered gruesome." A long-suffering sigh escaped the Senju. "I ripped the blood from their bodies."
Madara was wondering how it was said as if he was talking about the weather. You have to be a certain type of insane to be able to do that. And while most Uchiha were crazy, they weren't 'talk about ripping the literal body apart by forcing the blood out of the body like it's your typical Tuesday morning' crazy.
There was that, and the fact that Syuusuke somehow wasn't traumatized by squashed eyeballs and a clearing spattered with copious amounts of blood and chunks of human flesh . What's more is that the literal psychopath his cousin is, wanted to learn how to do the same thing. It was terrifying whenever he got that glint in his eyes.
"I doubt you noticed, due to worry for the young child. I was watching, to make sure you got to him. I watched in fascination as a son of Ameterasu-omikami, the Fire Calamity, hugged a child as if he weren't going to live another day."
Oh yeah , Madara thought to himself. I forgot about that because I was being traumatized by an eight year old wanting to learn how to rip blood from bodies! The blood-thirsty little shit!
Madara, enamored with his thoughts, wasn't prepared to keep his body still at the words he heard. "It was the day I realized I could love you, that I do love you."
It was at that moment his eyes fluttered open wide, in disbelief. He continued to look on, and his vision seemed to shift. The blurred edges he had become used to after the continuous use of his Mangekyo became nonexistent. He was left with the image of a crown of silver hair turned a specific shade of gold with the late-evening sun, wonderfully wide red eyes, and a soft smile, all looking down at him with something akin to wonder. And as Tobirama himself said, love.
Madara's eyes widened as he whispered out with a slight blush. "Sweet fires of the hearth, I am fucked."