Chapter Text
Izuko turns two in the summer.
For some reason, Madara agreed to a joint celebration with Hashirama’s son, whose birthday is only a week earlier than Izuko’s.
Now here Hikaku is, standing with his back to the wall in some shadowy corner of the hall they decided to host Izuko and Morimoto’s second and first birthday in.
A crowd of Uchiha and Senju mingle in the center, mostly children who were too young to have been sent on missions before the formation of the village. Boys and girls who hold no hatred in their hearts for the other clan, and are therefore quick to smile and play with the rest of the children. The adults, both ninja and non-combatant ones, seem to have had the same idea as Hikaku, huddling in groups near the wall and keeping a close eye on their respective brats.
Hikaku spies Tobirama sulking near the front where the birthday celebrants are. The Senju is doing a remarkable job at keeping a straight face, especially when Hashirama brings out a deck of cards and declares a game of poker. Uzumaki Mito elbows him on the ribs and snatches the cards from his hand. Hikaku is inwardly impressed by her ability to do a one-handed sign for a fire jutsu.
As Hashirama cries out in dismay at the burnt remains of his deck of cards, Hikaku feels vindicated. They may not be at war anymore, but he’ll always enjoy seeing a Senju be put in their place.
“Gifts!” Izuko screeches in delight when Madara brings something long wrapped in colorful paper.
Hikaku feels his soul leave his body as she begins to unwrap the present. Dear gods, don’t tell him that’s…
Izuko proudly brandishes the wooden sword high in the air, swinging it experimentally and nearly nailing Hashirama’s son in the head with it.
“Look, Mori! I’ve a sword!” She flourishes her shiny new toy at Morimoto, the one-year-old cooing in awe. Hikaku tries not to feel (too) smug that Izuna’s daughter was much more advanced than the Senju fool’s brat is at that age. She’d been running and saying near full sentences, meanwhile Hashirama’s kid can’t take two steps before falling back on his rump and crying for his mother. Their bloodline remains superior, not that there was any doubt.
“Come open my gift, Izuko-chan!” Hashirama bounces over with his own present, a lacquered wooden box in hand. He sets it down the table and lets her open it on her own.
She gasps when the contents are revealed. Hikaku squints from his place, trying in vain to see what the gift is over the top of countless Senju and Uchiha heads just as curious as him.
“Kunai!” Izuko exclaims in delight.
Hikaku relaxes back into the wall, arms crossed in front of him. Wooden kunai were standard for children learning in the ninja arts. Madara’s gift was far more preposterous. Giving a two-year-old a wooden sword? They don’t even begin sword training until they reach the age of five. He was concerned that the Senju would give her something outlandish, like a paper bomb or something equally dangerous, but it seems he was worried for nothing.
Izuko raises the kunai above her head, light catching over the metal sheen of real, live steel.
Madara lets out a sound similar to a tea kettle and snatches the sharp metal kunai away from her hand. He then brandishes it towards Hashirama threateningly, eyes twitching. Hikaku spies a few people tense at the confrontation, but the majority of ninja in the hall only watch in slight anticipation. These kinds of arguments have become so repetitive, by the sixth time Madara threatened Hashirama with bodily dismemberment, Hikaku has stopped palming his weapon in preparation to defend his clan head, and has begun sighing in exasperation.
“What possessed you to give a two-year-old real kunai, you idiot?!”
“I’m sorry!” Hashirama cries, hands splayed out in front of him. “She said she wanted to practice her aim, and you know a wooden kunai doesn’t have the same weight as a real one.”
“And you thought this was a good enough reason?” Madara fumes.
“Well,” he laughs, scratching his head. “Izuko-chan’s smart enough to know how to handle her kunai. She takes after her tou-chan, after all.”
Hikaku deadpans at the clear attempt to change the subject through flattery. As if his clan head would be so easily manipulated—
“Heh. I suppose you’re right about that.”
Hikaku’s jaw drops. He fell for it?!
He looks around the room and similarly finds everyone reacting much the same way he did.
Hikaku meets Tobirama’s eyes across the hall, mirroring each other in shared disbelief—before they realize who exactly they’re commiserating with and promptly turn away with a glare.
Uzumaki Mito steps between Hashirama and Madara and hands Izuko her own present.
Hikaku sighs in relief when it turns out to be a hairclip. Finally something that won’t have Hikaku apologizing at a someone’s parents after Izuko hurt another child in a fit.
‘Cus he’s slow, she told him last week when he admonished her for pushing a Yamanaka child off the swings, or, well, attempted to push him off the swings. It was one of the Uchiha children who hung around her like flies that pushed the Yamanaka boy off to make room for Izuko in the swings.
He remembers when she beat a five-year-old Senju boy with a stick because she claimed he pulled on her hair, though Hikaku didn’t scold her for that one, even when the boy went crying to his parents (parents whose faces he vaguely remembers being on the other side of his blade about two years ago). The Senju bully deserved whatever beatings Izuko gave him, and Hikaku’s of the opinion that if a one-year-old managed to beat him with a stick, then that was on him.
Izuko raises the hairpin above her head, admiring the jewels inlaid upon the silver pin. Rubies, how typical. Everyone seems to think the Uchiha clan’s favorite colors are black and red.
“There’s a mechanism in it to store poisoned senbon,” Mito explains, taking the hairclip to demonstrate. Izuko’s eyes are wide with wonder.
Ah. He should have expected this from someone insane enough to put up with the Senju fool.
He dreads receiving the news that Izuko poked someone’s eye out with that hairpin.
Hikaku’s day goes from bad to worse when his team comes across a group of corpses strewn by the side of the road.
“They’ve been dead for half a day, perhaps more.” Inuzuka Kouki inhales deeply, eyes closed in concentration. His large brown hound stalks through the bushes, nose sniffing the underbrush in search of a scent.
The Hyuuga on their team has his byakugan active, veins bulging on the skin around his eyes. He wears his hitai-ate over his forehead, a clear sign of his place as a member of the Hyuuga’s branch family. Hikaku’s never liked the Hyuuga clan’s barbaric traditions. No matter how highly the Uchiha clan elders think of themselves, they’ve never tried placing a seal of submission onto others. Hikaku wouldn’t hesitate to gut them if they showed the slightest inclination.
The distaste must show on his face, because the Hyuuga tilts his head to him in question.
“Something the matter, Hikaku-san?”
Hikaku activates his sharingan and pretends he’d been focused on the corpses and not the Hyuuga’s questionable family traditions. It wouldn’t do to sour relations between their clans.
“Just wondering what the Hagoromo clan has to gain by killing random travelers,” he answers after a few seconds.
“Not mere travelers.” The Hyuuga nods at the crest on the upturned caravan. “They’re merchants. One my clan used to employ frequently before we joined the village.”
Hikaku scans the scene with new eyes. “Their goods, it’s been stolen.”
“There’s a scattering of tea leaves here, as well as ceramics from the Land of Stone.” Inuzuka raises a broken cup.
Hikaku raises a brow. “You know what Stone-made ceramics look like?”
He shrugs. “My sister has a habit of collecting these things.”
“I see.”
Hikaku lets them scan the perimeter for more signs of the perpetrators, kneeling next to the closest body and examining it with his sharingan. The skin has turned purple, fingertips blue, and the insects have gotten to them. If they had an Aburame with them, they might have been able to gauge the exact time they died from the insects crawling along the corpse. The smell is terrible, but years of experience has desensitized him to such a stench. There are always worse things.
The lacerations tell that a sword was used to kill them, though what kind of sword, well, Hikaku’s strengths lie in ninjutsu and long range fights. He’s not knowledgeable enough in kenjutsu to discern what the pattern of slashes across each body means.
(Izuna would have known from a glance, but Izuna is dead.)
“Find anything?”
Hikaku shakes his head. “No discernible justu was used, just—”
He stops, sharingan catching onto a faint wisp of chakra emanating from a corpse’s eye. He hones onto it like a beacon, three tomoe in his eyes spinning faster and faster as he strains them to discern what that chakra could be, because there is simply no way—
It is.
Hikaku forces his body to relax, to not give himself away.
“Hikaku-san? What did you see?” Inuzuka creeps close, gazing at him with caution.
“There was a jutsu used, but it’s too faint to tell what kind,” he lies, willing his voice not to waver, to not show how shaken he is.
They nod, accepting his hastily made excuse.
“It seems there’s no more information to be had. Let’s bury these corpses and be on our way.” The Hyuuga deactivates his byakugan as he rolls up his sleeve and makes a handsign for an earth jutsu.
Hikaku nods in agreement, peering one last time at the corpse before cutting off the chakra in his eyes.
He will have to inform Madara about this.
“Are you certain?”
Hikaku nods. “My eyes are never wrong. The body showed signs of being placed in a genjutsu right before death.” He swallows. This is the part he wishes weren’t true. “If my hypothesis is true that the genjutsu was cast through eye contact...”
He and Madara share a dark look, understanding the implications of such a thing.
“It means we have a traitor in our midst,” Madara finishes for him.
“Even so, perhaps a dojutsu wasn’t involved,” he tries to reason, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the possibility of an Uchiha going rogue and siding with the Hagoromo clan. The damage this would cause to their standing in the village, the distrust that would spread. All the work done to end this long war that’s gone on for longer than they’ve been alive.
If Hikaku’s guess turns out to be true, that an Uchiha has betrayed them, he will kill them. Slowly and painfully.
Madara places his hand on his chin, deep in thought. The symbol of Konoha glints proudly on his forehead, the greatest proclamation of loyalty he could ever show.
“I need to tell Hashirama about this.”
Hikaku balks. “Hashirama? Surely not!”
This is a matter potentially involving one of their clan members! How could Madara even think to involve an outsider in this?
That Senju fool may have been appointed Hokage over Hikaku’s own clan head, but that doesn’t mean he’ll bow his head and roll over at his whims. It already rankles him to be led by a Senju, one who’s killed countless of his kin. He can stomach it, can hold his words whenever he sees Madara spending time with the man, all for the sake of the village, for this hard-won peace. But he won’t forget how many lives it took to get to this point.
“I trust him.”
Hikaku blinks at Madara’s admission. That…
His lips purse into a thin line. Of course Madara trusts Hashirama. Everyone in the clan knows the story of their ill-begotten friendship during their younger years. Izuna raved enough times about it that Hikaku eventually got the story of what happened back then. He knows they were friends, but to admit his trust so easily, so openly, without an ounce of hesitation to be found—Hikaku would call it foolish, but if there’s one thing he knows, Madara is anything but a fool.
“If you cannot trust Hashirama, then have faith in my judgement.” Madara levels him with a stare that Hikaku would never dare call imploring, but it’s a close thing.
He has followed him for as long as he can remember. As a toddler shadowing his older cousins in the backyard, as a child wanting to keep up with him as a shinobi, as an adult bowing his head when his place was taken by an infant. It’s not a lack of faith that makes him hesitate, it’s the uncertainty of allowing another person in on this. A hypothesis that could alienate their clan from the village, become the next Hagoromo clan being hunted through the woods of the Land of Fire.
Loyal as he is, not even Hikaku would side with Madara if it came to that.
“Tou-chan! Oji! Am hungry!”
Izuko’s voice cuts through the tension in the room. Three bangs come from the closed shoji doors, which means she still has some patience left in her. If she was really that hungry, she would’ve burst in without a care and demanded they give her some snacks to eat.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Madara calls out, tone warm and indulging. The elders say he’s too soft on her, that she needs to be taught proper discipline and respect for her elders, but Madara, as always, forges on the path he thinks is best, regardless of what others say.
It’s this, the knowledge that Madara would never do anything to jeopardize the clan’s standing, to put Izuna’s daughter in harm’s way, that makes Hikaku concede.
“I’ll trust your judgement on this, Madara-sama.”
Izuko bangs on the door again. “Ya done?”
“Yes,” Hikaku says, bowing to his clan head. “We’re done.”
Madara nods in understanding.
“Tou-chan, this’s all ‘cus of a plant.”
Hikaku’s eyes the uncharacteristically serious look on Izuko’s face. She hasn’t touched her food since dinner began, and she’s not one to wait when they serve her favorite food.
Madara looks puzzled. “A plant?”
“Black Zetsu.” Izuko makes a disgusted face. “Blegh.”
Hikaku shares a look with Madara over her head. They’re not quite sure what to make of that. Why is she bringing up a venus flytrap and why is it the cause of… something?
“Is this black zetsu a character in one of your… training sessions?” Hikaku means to say during her time playing with cousins, but she doesn’t take well to the implication that she’s doing anything remotely childish, like playing.
He’s babysat her enough times to know she likes doing those role-playing games with her cousins, the one with a princess to be saved and villains and heroes and whatnot. Izuko always takes the role of queen and seems to enjoy ordering her “samurai” to rescue the princess, which Nadeshiko often ends up as. It’s almost comical watching a girl four years older than Izuko call her okaa-sama.
“No, he’s an alien.”
“An alien,” Madara repeats, tone distinctly amused.
Izuko grips her spoon tight and glowers at them. He gets the feeling she’s becoming frustrated at their inability to take her seriously.
“He’s real! He’s, he’s black like shadow, and he can, um.” Her mouth twists in frustration, face turning red. She tends to do that whenever she encounters problems with her speech, sometimes about pronunciations, other times she can’t find the right words to properly convey her thoughts. Madara told him to remain silent and let her work it out on her own, but Madara has always been the kind of person who views receiving help as a form of weakness.
“He can…” Hikaku encourages, ignoring the sharp look Madara sends his way.
“He can be you.”
“Be me?”
Izuko nods. “Do bad things as you.”
“So this black zetsu can henge into us?” Madara crosses his arms, thoughtful.
Hikaku eyes him in the corner of his eyes, judging. He’s not actually considering the words of a toddler with regards to the potential traitor in their clan, is he?
“No. He’ll make you do bad things as you,” Izuko says.
Something new enters Madara’s eyes. “Like the Nara clan’s shadow possession jutsu?”
Izuko lights up. “Yes! That’s it! He’ll possess you.” She gives extra stress to the word ‘possess,’ saying each syllable carefully.
Hikaku wants to ask how she knows what the Nara clan’s shadow possession jutsu is, but most likely she heard it from one of the Nara children who tend to sleep beneath the canopy of trees when their parents take them to the playground near the Hokage tower.
Apparently satisfied that she’s gotten her thoughts across, she picks up her spoon and starts shoveling food into her mouth, oblivious to the contemplative look in Madara’s eyes.
“A jutsu that can possess someone, similar to the Nara’s technique but on a much more intricate scale. That’s concerning.”
“You’re not seriously considering this as a possibility for what’s been happening, are you?” he asks, tone just shy of incredulity.
Madara loses that contemplative glint in his eyes, glaring at Hikaku for his tone. He lowers his head in silent apology.
Yet still, Izuko may be prodigious in her genius, but believing this black zetsu thing is a bit much. Hikaku doesn’t want to believe that one of his clansmen have betrayed them, but not even he would think this the work of some fictitious entity. The more likely scenario is that the Hagoromo clan discovered a bastard Uchiha and brainwashed them into compliance. Or perhaps some other obscure clan with a dojutsu has turned up in the Land of Fire.
“If you find ‘em, are you gonna kill ‘em?” Izuko asks with a mouthful of food, her youthful face at odds with her morbid words.
“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” Madara chides, before his demeanor turns serious. “That’s the life of a shinobi. They declared war on us by killing our own, we responded in kind, and so the cycle goes.”
This time, she takes the time to swallow her food before speaking. “But it’s diff-er-ent now.” She carefully enunciates the word ‘different,’ looking proud when she pronounces it perfectly. “You and Hashi-oji broke the cycle.”
Something strange passes over Madara’s features, too foreign for Hikaku to read. It’s there and gone as quickly as it came.
Hikaku doesn’t mention the oddly sage words of a two-year-old. He’s come to find that however sheltered and spoiled her upbringing is, Izuko has a strange perceptiveness about her. Perhaps treating a child like a small adult truly does have an effect.
“Yes,” Madara says. “We did break the cycle, didn’t we.”
He looks wistful, turning his head to the table like he’s seeing something else. Hikaku follows his gaze, finding nothing but the same shade of brown that’s seen everywhere else in the village, courtesy of Hashirama’s wood release and—ah.
Madara twists the chopsticks in his fingers, and the spell is broken.
“Now, finish your food.” Madara piles pieces of fish on top of Izuko’s rice bowl.
“S’too much.”
“You’re a growing girl. You need to eat plenty if you want to become a great shinobi.”
“Hmph, ‘kay.”
“And Hikaku,” Madara adds.
He turns to attention, finding Madara frowning at Izuko’s sleeve, particularly how short it’s gotten.
Ah, that’s right. It’s been two years since his last trip to the capital on an errand to buy fabric for Izuko’s wardrobe. She was little bigger than a pot of rice porridge then. Now, after a year and a half, she’s nearly as tall as a sack of rice, and the way her sleeves fall short at her wrist is a testament of time’s passing.
“I ordered bolts of silk and satin from the usual shop the Uchiha clan commissions. Fuyuko will be needing it to sew a new wardrobe for Izuko.” Madara reaches for Izuko’s sleeve and narrows his eyes contemplatively. She grumbles when the movement interrupts her in the middle of taking a bite. “It’ll be upsized, more so than before, so it should last her until she starts the academy.”
“I’ll make the necessary preparations for the trip.” His reply comes instinctively, borne from years of agreeing to whatever order’s been given to him, but one detail makes him pause. “...the academy?”
He’s never heard such a term before. The Uchiha clan has a school to teach their children literacy and arithmetics, but it’s never been referred to as an ‘academy,’ just lectures.
“Hn. A school to teach the ninja arts to young children, another way to gauge their readiness before sending them out on their first mission.” Here, his tone turns begrudgingly respectful, “Tobirama was the one who proposed the idea.”
Hikaku shares a look of distaste with him.
“I suppose I can’t find fault in such an idea, no matter who it came from.”
“Indeed.”
Unbeknownst to them, Izuko stares blankly at her food, having flashbacks from the word ‘school.’
Hikaku’s returning from his trip to the capital when he runs into Yagami and his son. One conversation led to another, until he was coerced to accompany them on the way back to Konoha.
“What’s that on your head?”
“It’s my hitai-ate.”
“Why’re you carryin’ so much?”
“It’s for my niece’s clothing.”
“Oh. What’s a niece?”
“A niece is the daughter of a sibling, though in this case Izuko-hime is my elder cousin’s daughter.”
“Whoa. A princess!” The boy turns a starry-eyed look at him. “Is she a ninja like you?”
“She will be.” Hikaku adjusts the straps holding the fabric to his back. “She’s a little younger than you. Maybe you can be friends.”
“I can be friends with a princess?!” Kagami turns to his father, clutching his sleeve. “Can I really, otou-sama?”
Yagami ruffles the boy’s curls, a fond tilt to his smile. “If her father doesn’t mind.”
“I’ll be good.” Kagami nods, brows furrowed in what probably passes as a serious look for him.
With the ease of their interactions, you’d think Kagami was raised by his father from birth, instead of meeting him just this morning. Hikaku knows it has more to do with the boy’s easy-going nature. He supposes credit must be given to his mother, despite her unfortunate occupation. Syphilis, Yagami confided in him earlier, eating away at her organs until she was forced to reach out so her son may have a chance to grow up with a parent.
“I’m sure Madara-sama won’t mind another playmate for Izuko.” Rather, it’s likely Izuko will pull the kid into her little circle of friends, and Madara, indulgent as he is, won’t voice a complaint unless Kagami does something to compromise Izuko’s safety.
“Who’s Madara-sama?”
“He’s the head of our clan. It would do you well to remember his name, along with the proper respect given to a man of his position.”
Kagami nods, but from the expression on his face, Hikaku thinks he didn’t quite understand all that his father said. No matter. He’s only three. The mannerisms and customs of the clan will come to him as he grows.
“And what’s—”
Instinct, borne from years spent fighting for his life before he was even capable of understanding the weight of it, makes him grab Kagami by the arm and pull him to his chest. Hikaku angles his back in the direction of the slightest hint of killing intent he felt a moment ago.
The clang of steel rings in the quiet of the forest around them. The sharingan blooms in his eyes a second later. He turns his head and finds Yagami with a katana unsheathed, having deflected the kunai lying on the grass a few feet away. Three figures stand in front of them, blocking the dirt path ahead.
All of them have bright red eyes.
Hikaku has never seen such dojutsu before, not even in missions that take him beyond the soil of the Land of Fire. Red eyes with a horizontal strike in the center, like a toad’s.
From the sharp intake of air Yagami takes, it’s clear he knows something Hikaku doesn’t.
“You… no, this can’t be. We killed every last one of you years ago.”
Hikaku’s brows furrow. “Yagami?”
One of them steps forward, a scar bisecting his right eye, as though someone attempted to gouge through it.
“Do you remember when you gave me this scar, Uchiha Yagami?” Pure hatred shines clear in his eyes. “Tajima and the rest of your ilk may be dead, but we remember. And we’ll have our pound of flesh.”
A flash of recollection jumps to Hikaku’s mind. The corpse with the imprint of a dojutsu-cast genjutsu. Of course, of course. No one in their clan would be mad enough to betray the village, Hikaku almost feels ashamed for doubting his kinsmen. But for the Hagoromo clan to recruit another clan in this one-sided war of theirs, it doesn’t bode well.
Kagami flinches when two more emerge from the copse of trees, burrowing deeper into Hikaku’s chest. They’re up against five opponents with dojutsu and techniques Hikaku is unfamiliar with, and he has to protect Kagami on top of everything else.
He sends a mental apology to Madara, before he reaches for his kunai and cuts the straps holding Izuko’s silk and satin to his back. He can’t afford to be slowed by its weight. The Uchiha clan may be richer now without the constant struggle of keeping up their war against the Senju, but not even Madara can justify taking from the clan’s coffers again so soon for a child’s wardrobe. He’s going to get chewed out for losing such precious items when he returns to the village—if he returns to the village.
Hikaku decides to make it up to Izuko someday, before he curses himself for thinking about such things while his life is actively being threatened. He jumps out of the way of a fire jutsu, watching thousands worth of ryo fabric burn to ashes.
Kagami shakes in terror in his arms. Hikaku has to maneuver the boy so he’s settled on his hip, his other arm throwing a kunai in warning to two approaching nin, whose red eyes mirror his own.
“Take my son and run.” Yagami appears behind the assailants and stabs one of them in the back. Kagami’s hands fly to his mouth, trembling harder in his arms. “The Chinoike clan. Tell Madara they’ve joined arms with the Hagoromo!”
Hikaku doesn’t hesitate.
In the years before the formation of Konoha, sacrifice was something to be honored. If one person could give his life for a chance for the others to flee, they did so. It fueled their resolve to return stronger and avenge the fallen, gone but not forgotten. He could have stayed and fought, and they might have had a chance to win. But he’s been in this scenario before, with a different child standing next to him as they faced a group of Senju nin on their way back to the Uchiha settlement.
Aniki, we can take them. So Hikaku fought, and Hikaku won, but Hikaku went home with the ashes of his brother clinging to the ends of his clothes.
He clutches Kagami tighter, gathering chakra for a shunshin.
“Otou-sama?” Kagami whispers, attempting in vain to turn against Hikaku’s iron grip.
He meets Yagami’s eyes and nods. Unspoken but heard all the same are the words, I’ll take care of him.
And they disappear in a burst of chakra.