Written for Day 5 of MadaTobi Week: Time Travel & Experimentation
Tobirama looked up, eyes already narrowing with irritation, as the door to his workroom swung open and a pillar of fiery chakra walked in. He hadn't consciously noted Madara's presence in the house, he was so often there, leaving Tobirama to be taken by surprise with him suddenly . . . here.
Madara met his look with equanimity, sauntering inside. Tobirama grit his teeth. Like Madara should even be in here. "Weren't you working on something," he said dryly, "with my brother?"
Madara shrugged his broad shoulders fluidly. "He's busy and I thought I'd get out of his way." he said idly, bending over to peer at the collection of vials on the table against the wall.
Tobirama closed his eyes for a moment, drawing a deep breath. "And get in mine instead?" he filled in with an acid tone. He bowed his head back to his scroll, wetting his brush with ink once more and attempting to shut Madara out enough to focus without completely ignoring him, in case he did something-
Tobirama's head snapped up and he dropped his brush aside.
"Give that to me." Tobirama snapped, moving quickly out from behind his worktable towards Madara. He scowled, probably out of reflex, but he was already shifting his grip on the scroll to hold it out. "It's a-"
Hashirama spilled through the door already chattering, breaking off when he saw them. "Oh are you working together? That's wonderful! What are you doing?" he asked, tugging the scroll out of Madara's hand just as Tobirama's fingers closed around it.
Tobirama stiffened, barely feeling the sting of the paper nicking his fingers, and Madara bellowed his brother's name, but more worryingly-
There was a powerful flare of chakra and the world . . . shifted.
"Kinjutsu," Tobirama continued dryly as he reoriented himself, shaking off the shock of the transport quickly - it had been honestly less jarring than his experiments with hiraishin had been in the beginning, "Mito recognised that much but didn't remember what it is and she went to look it up. Which is why it was put aside."
Madara coughed awkwardly, but Tobirama was busy glaring at his brother who should know better. Just grabbing wildly at fuinjutsu scrolls, honestly.
"Ah. Sorry?" Hashirama said, ducking his head and giving his very best sheepish smile.
Tobirama folded his arms over his chest, unimpressed. He'd had a lot of practise with his brother's innocent looks and was not about to be put off by this one.
"This is my house." Madara said slowly. "That wasn't a flicker, and you created the first more complex transport. . . And if that scroll was a kinjutsu. . ." His dark eyes showed worry as he glanced at them both.
"We didn't just cross the village." Tobirama confirmed, suppressing the shudder down his spine. "There is-" he paused, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "We aren't truly here. Or this world is not truly here." Hashirama and Madara both looked at him with variations on a faintly bewildered expression. "I can sense nothing beyond the three of us." he said uncomfortably. The world felt dead and strange, beyond the deep glow of steady strength that was Hashirama and the fiery wildness of Madara.
Tobirama hadn't been so blind to the world, even when caught in chakra suppressors, since he was a very small child, if even then.
A movement caught his eye and his gaze dropped to a tiny figure toddling through the doorway. His eyes widened. "Ah-" he began, with no idea what he had been going to say, and broke off. "There is-" He ticked rapidly through possibilities, turning the fuinjutsu over in his mind and recalling some of the characters used in the seal, even as he watched the little Uchiha boy - was he Madara's? could he be Madara's? - toddle unsteadily further into the room and eventually topple over, his tousled hair bouncing as he landed.
"Either we are in another reality - a world like ours but split by changes - or in our own future." Tobirama said almost absently, still reviewing his mental picture of the seal. "I believe. . . Time. The seal had to do with time. I think we may be in our future. Viewing our future." His gaze flicked to his brother, then Madara, then dropped to the little boy again. "Madara's future?" he corrected softly.
Madara made some kind of abortive movement at the edge of Tobirama's field of vision, then turned as the boy on the floor made a happy nonsense noise, holding up a bird folded of deep purple paper. Madara lifted one hand, almost as though to reach out to the boy. He fell back with a choked sound, and Tobirama closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shut out the world and ground himself with the unsettling lack of feedback to his senses.
He began to mentally review the seal again; especially as it had been classed a kinjutsu it might be that this was unbreakable, or unbreakable from within, but Tobirama had to try.
Madara tore his gaze away from the small child sitting on what was clearly his living room floor, if not quite the way he had left it this morning, glancing around the room. "You think we're in the future? My future?"
"If Tobi says so he's probably right." Hashirama said softly, brushing a hand over Madara's elbow. "He usually is." he added with a slightly crooked smile.
Madara frowned, turning towards Tobirama again. The child yelled suddenly and he jumped, a kunai in hand before he'd even fully identified the source of the noise. Madara scowled at the child, not that he could see it or care, but he seemed . . . fine.
He tipped his head, then clumsily hauled himself to his feet again and toddled roughly towards the doorway, grinning sloppily and making a slightly wet, nonsensical sound. Madara looked ahead of him as he slowly wobbled across the floor.
There, in front of them, was . . . Madara.
Madara stiffened, eyeing the other - older? - version of himself.
He scooped the child up just before he could hit the floor, dusting his clothes off with a quick, light brush of one hand. The boy reached up, laughing and babbling nonsense, and caught hold of Madara's hair, winding it around his chubby little fist and waving his paper bird in the other hand. Madara winced, watching, but the other Madara only held him a little higher, muttering under his breath as he tried to get the boy's fingers uncurled. Madara could recognise the tiny curl of a would-be smile on his own face, despite the displeased mutters.
Madara twitched as he heard something from Tobirama and turned to-
His spike of temper fell unexpectedly flat and his eyes widened. Tobirama was giggling quietly, his usually vicious, eerie eyes gone soft as he watched the other Madara struggle with the little boy he held. It transformed Tobirama's cold, sharp face and Madara lost both the words he had been about to say and the breath to speak them.
The child grew louder and Madara was a little surprised to hear his own laugh, though low and soft. He glanced over. "Kagami!" the other Madara said, lifting the boy higher. up into the air - taking his handful of Madara's hair along with him. He flapped the bird through the air beside him, shrieking with what was apparently not a distressed sound, and the other Madara made a chirping sound at him.
Madara heard Tobirama's quiet giggle again as he flushed, his other self making the mother-hawk sound again. He looked over to find that Tobirama still had that strangely soft look on his face, and though he had brought one hand up in front of his mouth his eyes were bright with mirth.
"Oh kami he's so precious!" Hashirama cooed, and Madara switched his attention to his best friend with a very dubious look. "Do you think he's yours?" he asked, clinging to Madara's arm and tugging at him.
"He's certainly an Uchiha." Tobirama observed, fingers still half-curled in front of his mouth. They didn't quite conceal the curve of his smile.
Madara glanced back at the child in the other Madara's grasp. "He does have the Uchiha complexion." he agreed. His skin was pale and his eyes as dark as his hair.
"I was thinking of that mess on his head, actually." Tobirama said with an odd lilt in his voice, and when Madara's head snapped around he was smiling, his eyes on the boy. "You're all rather hopeless in that respect." Tobirama looked at Madara then, arching one brow and seemingly focusing on Madara's hair rather than meeting his eyes. There was nothing wrong with Madara's hair.
"In any case," Madara said pointedly, glowering, "he isn't mine, I don't- I don't have one!" he waved his arms, trying to indicate the child separate from his other self. It was difficult, as the other Madara was cradling the boy close in one arm and now painstakingly detangling tiny fingers from his long fringe where it fell across his face. Madara reflexively reached up and ran his fingers through that ruffled lock of his own hair, nudging it back by his jaw.
"You don't now," Tobirama said softly, an odd note in his voice, "but he very well may be yours, in a few years. Things change, Madara."
Madara started to respond - whatever the fuss from the clan elders he couldn't see himself with a child of his own . . . certainly not so soon - then fell silent and really looked at Tobirama, thrown by his odd tone and. . . He looked wistful, perhaps even sad, though his eyes still held that alien softness, focused on the child.
Madara frowned, brows drawing together. He was confused, and he didn't like being confused. It was one reason Tobirama irritated him so much; Tobirama perennially just . . . ran ahead, of everyone, lost in his own thoughts and putting together disparate information faster and in more complex patterns than anyone properly sane. Occasionally spouting off rapidfire explanations that weren't nearly enough to be worth the name.
Madara wasn't a stupid man but Tobirama made him feel it sometimes, and it put his hackles up. This, though. . . This was an entirely different sort of confusion.
Madara found he didn't like it any better.
"If we are in the future . . . how do we get back to where we should be?" Madara asked rather than address it, his voice not quite as firm as he had intended. How could he go about asking Tobirama what was wrong with him?
"Vision." Tobirama said, barely audible.
"What?" Madara asked, louder, and Tobirama shifted, eyes sharpening and focusing back on Madara this time.
"I do not think we are truly in the future . . . not fully. We can affect nothing," Tobirama drew a kunai and flung it across the room, and Madara lunged, but it disappeared before it could impact the decorative tessen hanging on the wall, "we are seeing the future but not part of it."
Madara huffed, glaring at him.
"So! Tobi!" Hashirama interjected, startling Madara - he had, somehow, almost forgotten Hashirama was there as he cooed over the child the other Madara held. "If we are trapped in a vision of the future . . . how do we get out of it?"
"Vision. . ." Madara stiffened with realisation.
"Sharingan will most likely not be able to slip you free of it." Tobirama said before he could even voice his thought. "We were still physically transported, this is not a genjutsu."
Madara frowned, but nodded. It made sense, even if he didn't like it. He subtly activated Sharingan anyway, but wasn't really surprised when the slightly strange cast of his living room didn't fade away around him. He shut Sharingan away again and met Tobirama's eyes, expecting at the least a disparaging look, but Tobirama only nodded slightly in acknowledgement.
"I have been trying to review the seal for a weak spot, but I don't even know if it can be broken once activated." Tobirama said with a twist of his mouth. "It was there for Mito and I to look into. An experiment, and not one we were ready to activate." he said pointedly, and Madara resisted the impulse to laugh as Hashirama ducked his head under his little brother's scolding.
"So there is no way out until it releases us on its own?" Madara asked, quieting the thought that it might not be designed to release those caught in it at all.
Tobirama frowned, but nodded, opening his mouth, and then froze. Madara eyed him warily as his eyes went unfocused. "Er. Tobirama?" he prompted, and received no more acknowledgement than a slashing gesture to be quiet, to his irritation.
He crossed his arms with a huff, then stiffened as Tobirama took two quick steps across the room and caught hold of his arm, then sidestepped and clasped Hashirama's as well.
"Tobira-" Madara fell silent as the uncomfortably twisting, choking sensation of the seal activating surged through him again, and clenched his jaw, grimly hanging on.
It was over in a moment, and the tight grip of Tobirama's hand around his forearm fell away, but he took a few more moments to orient himself well enough to see that they were back in Tobirama's workroom. It was not as reassuring as it should have been, after the scene in the familiar-unfamiliar room of Madara's own house. Madara's eyes cut to Tobirama, who suddenly relaxed, almost smiling.
"We're back where we should be; the seal released." Tobirama said, glancing at his brother, then meeting Madara's eyes for a moment before looking away.
"You activated the scroll?" Mito said sharply, eyes narrowed, and Madara tensed. Still muddled from the rapid shift and the vision the scroll had shown, he had somehow failed to notice her in the room. He was still off-balance and an upset Mito was not promising.
"Thank Anija." Tobirama replied without seeming to think about it. Mito's look became a glare and shifted to Hashirama, who quailed before his wife.
"Madara had it!" he defended as Mito caught him by one ear. "He was the one who-"
"Hey!" Madara snapped crossly even before Mito looked at him. "I was handing it back when you crashed in and yanked it away! And made us bleed with it!" He added, holding out his palm, which bore a slender gash where Hashirama had carelessly yanked the scroll from his grasp, in illustration. He'd seen the thin smear of blood across Tobirama's fingers as well.
Mito looked at Tobirama and Madara's scowl deepened. She couldn't trust his word? "He was handing it back. It was about to fall off the edge of the table." Tobirama confirmed, tilting his head towards the edge of the table where the scroll had been tumbling off when Madara stepped through the door. Madara hadn't realised Tobirama had seen that, or thought he would care to mention it. It had been careless of Madara to touch it anyway, it had just been instinct not to let the scroll fall.
Mito tugged firmly at Hashirama and he wailed a protest. "Well I am pleased to find you came through the experience evidently unharmed." she said tartly.
"Did you find anything in the records about it?" Tobirama questioned, leaning his hip against the table. "I gathered that it transported us to view - but not effect - the future, either our own future or perhaps the future of another reality."
Mito nodded and confirmed what Tobirama said - Madara thought; she used more complex terms and fuinjutsu was not something he had made a study of, nor were temporospatial jutsu of any kind. "It does not appear to have crossed the borders of realities in any usage in the past, but show a direct future of those who activate it." she added, and Tobirama nodded, his gaze going distant, tapping his fingers on the surface of the worktable.
"Why is it kinjutsu?" Madara asked Mito, evening his tone as much as possible because he wasn't an idiot and Mito was terrifying even when she wasn't already on the warpath and she still looked displeased, even if Tobirama was distracting her with a fuinjutsu problem.
Mito turned her dark gaze on Madara and he stood firm, meeting her gaze. "Hn." Mito said delicately. "The seal draws on the chakra of those who trigger it, but it will not stop or fail if the user - or users - do not have sufficient chakra. Viewing the future, and not only that but transporting even a non-corporeal figure through time into the future, has a high energy cost; on several occasions the seal drawing enough chakra to fulfil itself killed those utilising it; eventually it was declared unsalvageable and made kinjutsu."
Madara's eyes widened as he contemplated that, a cool shiver trickling down his spine.
"Whose chakra did it draw upon?" Mito asked, turning and sweeping her gaze over Madara and then Tobirama before glancing at Hashirama. "You all seem well, and you have strong reserves, so I was not concerned, however. . ."
"Madara's . . . and mine." Tobirama said, holding up his right hand with the now-flaking smear of dried blood. "Anija accidentally got our blood on it. It drew on both our energies, and showed us Madara's future."
"Hm. Unusual. Perhaps it would have shifted to yours if it had not been interrupted. Or perhaps it only registered the first blood to activate the seal. It did fuel itself with chakra from you both?" Mito questioned, and Tobirama nodded confirmation. "You are both unhurt, though?" There might even be a flicker of concern in her composed face.
"Fine." Madara said, although he could definitely feel the effects of the seal having drained his energy, now he was settled from the whirl of - evidently - having been displaced through time. "I can feel it but it didn't drain enough to take me to dangerous levels." he explained. Tobirama echoed him in the assurance to Mito, looking unruffled.
Mito pursed her lips, making a thoughtful sound. "With the interruption of-"
"Ah, dearest?" Hashirama said diffidently, and Mito fell silent, turning to him with an expectant expression. "Do you really need my presence or-"
"You are going nowhere." Mito cut him off firmly, eyes narrowing.
Madara stilled, one step towards the doorway. Tobirama's eyes cut to his and Madara cleared his throat quietly, lifting his jaw boldly. Tobirama's thin lips twitched as though he might smile and he tilted his head towards the door, his own gaze softer.
Madara hesitated, and Tobirama nodded shallowly. Well, Madara wasn't going to question his fortune in escaping any possible spillover from Mito's displeasure with Hashirama. It wasn't that he didn't understand the importance of examining all the details after an incident with an unfamiliar jutsu, but he knew very little about fuinjutsu and they knew where to find him if they actually needed him.
Madara slipped out while Mito was reminding Hashirama of fuinjutsu protocols with a deceptively soft voice. Tobirama had actually looked like he was about to laugh; Senju were all crazy, Madara thought, shaking his head.
Madara smothered a groan as someone else cleared their throat pointedly, probably with another objection. This meeting had been tiresome enough before it dragged on half again as long as it had been scheduled for.
Although - he shifted his gaze across the table to Hashirama and Tobirama, the latter who had looked decidedly impatient and irritated when they arrived - at least Madara had not been the one who had to interrupt Mito and Tobirama to pry the latter away from research for this meeting. Mito, no doubt, had been no better pleased by the disruption.
"This- this Senju-proposed so-called school is a ridiculous ploy," Shimura said with a disgusted look, "who among us would be idiotic enough to put the training of our children into the hands of another clan?"
Madara was startled. There had been some mutterings about the plan that he had heard - particularly from some of the older members of his clan - but nothing to the degree that Shimura was suggesting, and to say it outright here. . .
"Senju Tobirama is merely suggesting this in the deeply misguided intention of seeing us surrender even further to the Senju than we already have - but are there any among us would be so weak as to willingly lower themselves yet more?" Shimura said with a smug little sniff. "Our children cannot be so easily handed over to those out of our own clans and the Senju should know that - they do know that, under his plan their own children will not be so disadvantaged."
Tobirama's eyes narrowed even further and he looked like he might flick senbon across the table at any moment as Shimura continued the insulting argument. He looked vicious and intimidating and-
"The Uchiha will support the formation of a common Academy under Senju Tobirama's direction." Madara said, almost before he'd formed the words in his mind.
Almost everyone in the room turned to gape at Madara. He glared and half of them quickly looked away again. Hashirama was beaming at him and Tobirama. . .
Tobirama was looking at him with a surprised, almost soft look in his eyes and the faintest hints of a smile. Madara swallowed thickly then cleared his throat with a huff.
"Allowing our children to train together offers a broader base of strengths for them to grow from." Madara said flatly. It was a beneficial proposal, if it could be made to work, and Madara had paid attention, as Shimura evidently had not. "And no one is saying our clan children will not learn clan techniques, the same way they always have - from their parents, senpai, teachers within the clan." He favoured Shimura with a flat look for his idiocy.
Shimura glared at him, opening his mouth to speak, and Madara raised his voice a little and continued - he was good at that, if the finer points of negotiating peaceably tended to escape him; at least when he was angry. "If you felt it was lowering yourself and submitting to the Senju to join the common accord of Konoha one wonders why your clan did join us." he said pointedly and Shimura, who was not head of his clan, ducked his head, going pale. It had not been a diplomatic implication to make, let alone in a room with most of Konoha's founders and the other major clans who had signed onto the accords. "Tobirama will be creating the Academy because it is his project, but he will not be stealing away other clan children, nor will Senju be the only teachers within it." he pointed out with dry impatience.
Shimura was perhaps too shamed to actually speak any further - Madara wondered what his clan head would say to his behaviour; he wasn't foolish enough to think the man's prejudice was unknown to his Head, but to voice it so openly was unwise. The other clans settled - or withheld opinions yet - shortly after, and the meeting finally ended, to his relief.
Madara escaped Hashirama and his clinging hands and overemotional praise - you stood up for Tobi! you really believe in the Academy Madara, don't you? - as quickly as possible, and by happy accident found himself almost on Tobirama's heels two corridors away.
"Tobirama. . ." Madara began, stopping as Tobirama turned towards him.
"Madara!" Tobirama smiled at him as though it was a reflex, as though he just . . . smiled at Madara, ever, and Madara felt like he'd been struck instead. Actually he would probably have been less shaken if Tobirama had struck him. "Thank you." Tobirama said warmly, moving closer. "For supporting the Academy. It's . . . important."
"You." Madara said, and Tobirama cocked his head quizzically. Madara cleared his throat. "I'm supporting you with the Academy. I believe you can make it work. I know you'll try. For all of the clan children." he said honestly, then huffed, tipping his head and letting his hair fall a little further across his face.
Tobirama stared at him for a few long moments, then looked away, and. . . Madara's brows rose. Tobirama's cheeks were flushing a delicate rosy shade. He said something but it was too quiet to really be heard.
"What?" Madara asked, catching himself leaning closer and a little to one side to try and get a better look at Tobirama and moving back.
Tobirama cleared his throat and lifted his head. "The clan children and the children of no clan, or even civilian parents." he said, with a short, sharp nod. Madara shook his head slightly, and Tobirama stiffened. "It shouldn't be just-"
"No," Madara interrupted, shaking his head, "just . . . only you would have thought of it so." he said with a shrug. "Would try to make it happen."
Tobirama looked flustered for a moment, then lifted his jaw, eyes sharp but not cold, nor angry. "I cannot do it alone, however. The clans have been resisting the idea . . . with the Uchiha allowing their children to be taught out-clan many of the other clans will do so as well. You know just how influential your clan is in Konoha, Madara. Thank you."
Madara cleared his throat with a gruff sound. "Many fear the old prejudices showing through with our children, or for their safety."
"I would never allow the Academy children to be hurt, or for those teaching them to approach them as though we were still enemies!" Tobirama said immediately, body language shifting into something more aggressive.
"I know you wouldn't." Madara said immediately, only a little surprised to realise that he did know that, now. Tobirama was cold and withdrawn, difficult to read, but Madara had come to realise that he was as devoted as his brother to this peace . . . if more practically minded. And . . . Madara had a suspicion, now, of noting how much Tobirama seemed to love children. "Their fears are understandable, but," he paused, meeting Tobirama's eyes, "they have no place in our new village."
Relaxing a little again, Tobirama gave him a warm smile. "Exactly. How can we be one unified village if we keep ourselves apart so fiercely? We must trust in one another or. . ." he trailed off with a somewhat sheepish smile. "Well, you hardly need the speech."
Madara grinned at him. "I have heard it." he said lightly. "Hashirama gives it more tears than you do." he added playfully, and Tobirama snorted with laughter. "Actually, I. . . I wished to talk with you about something. Have you time, or must you return to the witch and your research?" he asked.
Tobirama's clear surprise at the request faded as he gave Madara a pointed look for the slight to Mito, but didn't say anything about it. "No, I can spare the time if you wish." he said with a nod. "Now?"
"May I buy you tea?" Madara asked, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the small teashop a couple of streets over. Tobirama looked surprised again, but he smiled and acquiesced, turning and letting Madara fall in at his side on the way out of the tower.
. . .yes, it seems Madara did just accidentally (or not quite intentionally, at least) ask Tobirama on a date.
The second chapter contains something of an omake - a look into the future they saw from the other side.