Disclaimer: Kishimoto owns Naruto. I just fool around with it.
Notes: Written for the Tobirama week challenge! There was a certain point that I wanted to make with this, but I'm not sure how well it came across... Guess whoever reads it will have to be the judge. *shrugs*
Soundtrack: Apocalyptica – Path.
Death
Those with the greatest hearts were also the most heartless. To be a ninja was to be death itself.
Tobirama contemplated these simple truths as he sat in the woods awaiting his end, senses split between the bright pinpricks of his students' receding chakras and the fast approaching swarm of enemy ninjas. Both of them were truths he had lived by and they had brought him to this point, up to where he was about to sacrifice his life to protect the future of his brother's village.
His heart fluttered briefly against his ribcage, before settling once more.
He rose to his feet and palmed his kunai. The enemy had arrived.
He did not wait for them to strike first and trash talking had never been his style. Instead, he threw his weapons in a wide arc. The scattered hiraishin markers on them allowed him to take out the first enemy wave with as little trouble as any battle permitted.
He was methodical, clinical, flashing from place to place without ever staying long enough to see the blood fly. As fluid as his movements were, however, and contrary to what most people thought, he had always struggled to be a true ninja, a true killer of all that stood in his way, be they people, schemes or hearts — his own most of all. But, as much as he had hated his father, his lessons on how to endure killing himself piece by piece, over and over again every time he picked up a blade and slashed through the flesh of others, had been too well learned to ever be undone.
Those rules had become a part of him and guided his footsteps throughout most of his life, changing him from the boy who liked to lay down among the tall grass admiring flowers to the cold-blooded man whom everyone feared to cross.
The second wave attacked just as he was finishing up the first. The individual speed and skills of these ninjas may not have been a match for Tobirama's, but they made up for whatever they lacked with their endless numbers. Having seen their teammates' fate, they also knew to be more cautious of Konoha's Hokage and bided their time. Any time Tobirama evaded a hit, someone else would be ready to charge, waiting for him to fall into their hands.
They were precise, each cut aimed at drawing blood, piercing armour, severing muscle and tendon, vein and artery. Unlike the first wave, most of these landed.
Tobirama was trapped. He watched the blood spill down his arms and coat his armour red. He tried to mentally calculate how much more he could withstand until he succumbed to blood-loss, before giving up the effort as useless. However long it was, it would be as long as he could make it.
His armour could not protect him anymore. It hung askew from one shoulder, exposing his vital points to the enemy and making it difficult to move. The slashes covering his body were painful, some burning with poison, but right now that strap digging into his shoulder was what was causing the most damage.
Raising a kunai to his shoulder, he severed that last thread holding everything together and, as its weight fell away, Tobirama was able to breathe freely.
It was over. He was dead. There was no escape.
The reality of his situation now crystalized, Tobirama found himself thinking once more about the father he had hated so much in his youth. The subject of how a ninja should die had been another recurrent topic in his lessons. As much as Tobirama had not cared to listen at the time, every word of it was now coming back to him, as clear as if the man's ghost were whispering them into his ear.
To be a ninja was to be death itself.
Tobirama roared.
Startled by the sudden outburst, his enemies fell back.
It was a mistake.
The marked kunai were still spread over the battlefield and Tobirama was no longer playing the detached, heartless ninja.
He was not human.
He was animal.
He was beast.
He was a demon.
He fought like he had never fought before, like a mad man, like spilling blood was breathing and killing was living, hacking away at everything he had been taught and breaking every rule he had held on to in his life.
He grabbed an enemy's sword somewhere along the way and painted the forest in crimson shades, passion and fury incarnate. All the while, he thought of Konoha and of how it would be kept safe for another generation at least.
Those with the greatest hearts were also the most heartless.
He had been only too right before, though, when he had thought that he was already dead. The moment his strength betrayed him, at the briefest falter in his step, the enemy pounced. They may not have been as good as Tobirama, but they were ninja and knew to seize an opportunity. Within a split second, four of them had sunk their swords into his chest.
Blood flooded his lungs and Tobirama's last exhale brought with it more of the warm liquid than air. As grey clouds blurred his vision, a flicker of a smile curved his lips at the irony of how hard he had pushed himself in life to become the best ninja.
Now, as he left it all behind, finally, he was heartless.
Finally, he was death.