Aetatis

-at the age of-

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Chapter one, Eighty Years and Change

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Kaguya screamed as she was sealed up, her will clinging to her tightly. It was unable to escape as it had done millennia ago.

This was unacceptable. This was unacceptable. She'd been free, and now she was to be sealed again, by the two who reminded her of those traitorous children she should never have bore into the world.

There was a flicker of something vaguely familiar at the edge of her senses, a soul recently dead. Her eyes widened as she recognized the one who'd briefly acted as her vessel, and her shadowy will whispered the name, and Kaguya smiled. With her diminishing power, she took hold of the fleeting soul, subduing its struggles.

Perhaps she could use her vessel a second time.

She molded the soul, and flung it into a time where it could free her again.

Tajima Uchiha woke up to the panicked cries of the midwives. Crashes and thuds marked pandemonium, and above it all, a baby's wail. He would have gone back to sleep - this was his fourth child, his wife should know how to handle birthing at this point - but closer attention to the screams had him throwing the covers off and sprinting to the birthing room.

Youkai. What child had his wife brought forth?

By the time he arrived, the noise had calmed down. The midwives, kneeling on either side of his wife, looked at him, white with fear - or shock - but silent. He laid eyes on his tired wife next, and made his way over to her and the bundle in her arms.

He looked down and paled. The child had bone-white hair, and its eyes were screwed shut with tears. A thin, puckered line slashed vertically across its forehead, looking almost like a third eyelid.

"What happened?" he demanded. His wife looked up at him, face gaunt and tired.

"I don't know," the admission startled him more than he would admit, as the woman always seemed to have an answer to everything. Sighing, she pushed the child into his arms - which was also out of character, as he'd previously waited until his sons were able to wield weapons before interacting with them.

"Your daughter," his wife pronounced, sounding anything but happy. "Madara Uchiha."

Konoha looked warped from Hashirama's position far above it, but he smiled when he saw the new generation file out of the school he'd built. The loudest child with bright hair was surely Minato's grandson, and Hashirama looked towards the Hokage mountain to see the face of his own grandchild etched in stone.

He turned to the Sage of Six Paths, floating next to him. "You're sending me back in time? I think things have worked out quite well."

Hagaromo was silent, worry clouding his ancient features. At last, he said, "There are different times. Different universes. It is one of these that I am sending you to, at a time you would be familiar with."

The scene shifted, and the sound of battle filled the air. Hashirama's face fell when he saw the Senju and Uchiha symbols emblazoned on armor and weapons. Even after all these years, he remembered the battlefield with perfect clarity, could almost smell the stench of blood in the air.

"Any other time," he pleaded, but the Sage shook his head and looked at him with something akin to sympathy. "What am I to do? End the war sooner?"

"If you wish," the Sage said. "But that is not a concern. Humans will always have conflict," he adds at Hashirama's appalled look. "There is something tainted in this era. It could be nothing, but it could also mean chaos."

"So you're sending me to that miserable era on a hunch?" Hashirama demanded.

"No," the Sage said sharply. "Do not trivialize this. I ignored the existence of my mother's will before, believing it was too weak to cause harm, and look what it managed to do."

The battlefield shifted into Kaguya's image, suspended in the air above the trapped forms of hundreds of dying ninja.

Hashirama's lips thinned. "But you don't know what it is I'm meant to stop?"

"No. Once you leave this place, you will not even remember this conversation," Hashirama opened his mouth to protest, but the Sage continued, "It is the strength and experience you have now that you shall need if the taint causes something of this magnitude."

He slumped, red armored plates clinking. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

"No." The Sage said flatly, and Hashirama closed his eyes.

When Hashirama Senju woke and realized he was twelve years old again, he knew what he had to do, even if he had no idea how he'd ended up there or if it was all a genjutsu. He gathered a miniature Tobirama and Itama in his arms, despite his brothers' many protests, and told them very calmly that he would protect them all, and he wouldn't let anything happen to them and they would all live in the nice village he'd made together with the enemy clan who had just burned their other brother to crisp the other day, which he wouldn't let happen to them, by the way.

Itama had stared at him with wide, watery eyes at the mention of Kawarama and Tobirama had whacked him on the head and told him to stop being so weird in the middle of the night when everyone just wanted peace.

Then Tobirama had rolled over and gone back to sleep, while Hashirama hugged Itama and giggled a little maniacally, promising that this time was going to be perfect and there was no way he would be killed by several adult Uchiha who shouldn't have been ganging up on a little kid in the first place.

Several weeks later, Hashirama was black and blue from defying his father one too many times, and Tobirama was shaking his head.

"I swear, it's like you woke up stupider one day," his little brother said in disgust, although his concern was poorly masked. He scowled and swatted Hashirama's hand away when he reached over to ruffle his hair.

"Father's obstinate. We need a truce, so we can have peace and children can stop dying."

"And how are you going to manage that?"

"I'm going to make a truce with the Uchiha," he said determinedly. Tobirama looked doubtful, but resigned.

"Fine, just be more subtle about it, will you?"

Hashirama laughed sheepishly.

He supposed declaring peace at a war meeting he'd barged in on may not have been the best way to deal with things.

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Ch 1, end.

RnR