This is a translation of "О красной луне из хрусталя" by заварной_дошик. ( ficbook dot net/readfic/5235917)

Morning — training with father. Breakfast. Training with senseis, studies. Lunch. Helping mother with younger ones. Supper. Sleep. Morning training. Madara is used to this and doesn't really complain. The wheel of constancy keeps spinning, and it spins the world around at the same pace. Madara is almost nine when father brings into the clan a strange boy, and he practically feels how the wheel of ordinariness diffidently stops under Obito's mocking gaze.


Number one: red

…about the red glints in someone's eyes.

Madara is seven.

Madara has a stern father and a completely sick, but kind mother. Madara has six younger brothers, two of them are still-born and nameless, and the youngest one has just turned two. Madara has only "must-must-must" on his mind, and sometimes it drives him mad.

Morning — training with father. Breakfast. Training with senseis, studies. Lunch. Helping mother with younger ones. Supper. Sleep. Morning training.

Madara is used to this and doesn't really complain. He doesn't know how to live any other way, he patiently grimaces as little Akami cries, changes bandages on the chest of six-year-old Uryu with mother, casually urges Ensui to play and diligently tries to remember clan symbols, world geography, how it is important to be able to bargain for missions and clan competitiveness altogether.

Madara doesn't like his lessons, he prefers not to voice his opinion though. He doesn't care why Yamanaka suddenly got angry with Nara, he'd rather take a walk in the forest instead of constant training or spend some time with falcons while cleaning their feathers.

Instead of this he grabs a katana too big for his height and practices all known stances and moves until his hands are shaking.

It is normal. This is what his father tells him to do, even praises him. The clan is at war, the clan earns a living by blood and deaths, so he, Madara, must study hard as well to become a shinobi in future, a killer, one of the demons civilians scare their children with at night.

There's just no other way.

Everything is spinning day by day. Uryu has died, mother sheds tears and strokes smiling Izuna's head, afraid to let him go.

Brother's coffin is small, hurriedly made. Brother looks surreal, and the hole seems deep.

Madara isn't crying. Tajima-otou-san isn't crying, so that means, he must not too.

"The Senju are to blame for this. They will pay for their guile," otou-san almost growls, his fists clenched, somebody unwittingly takes up his words, until a confident cry

"Death to Senju!"

can be heard all over the clearing. Madara is shouting too as he picks up everyone's mood, and father briefly ruffles his hair. His wrinkles seem to smoother a bit because of his tired smile.

After a week Akami doesn't come back from the battle with Senjus. Pregnant mother has a miscarriage. Checking her state and periodic preparing calming camomile tincture are added to Madara's everyday chores.

It's few months later when father is found in mother's room standing above her and holding the unsheathed katana, blood dripping from it. Mother lies dead at his feet, her throat slit as she clutches little brother Ensui with her still warm hands. Ensui isn't moving. Mother's carved dagger is stuck in Ensui's ribs.

"Madara-nii-san!" Izuna that was clinging to the pant leg of father's black hakama comes hurling towards him, he is not holding back his tears.

Madara doesn't look at his father, he is afraid of him: his wrinkles seal deeper into the skin, lips pursed, and his gaze is painfully empty.

Madara doesn't dare to ask what has happened. Sometimes it's better not to ask father questions. Pretend that you don't exist and breath once in a while.

He trains with Izuna now instead of watching his mother and brothers, but the wheel of constancy isn't bothered by this. It keeps spinning all by itself, spinning quietly, it is sometimes interrupted by escort missions, obtaining all kind of things, and rare battles where the boy doesn't really get ahead of himself.

It's not like Madara feels indifferent — he feels nothing. He carries out father's commands, memorizes indicative financial schemes and types of trade, from time to time he lets Izuna play around in lieu of exercising and practicing the hand seals for the Fireball technique.

Madara is almost nine. The world is spinning before his eyes, like a wheel; father has a new wife-lover-woman; Nagisa-sensei has recently died in a fight with Hagaromo clan; Shigure, a servant, has got caught in Yamanaka's trap; nomads from the deserts have mauled his acquaintance Tomomaru.

The world is spinning. Tajima-otou-san barely shows up in the camp, Izuna grows up, and he already holds his katana with confidence. He easily performs the Great Fireball, he also asks his big brother to show him a new cool technique. Izuna's main affinity is lightning, but he wants to master fire. Just like his big brother.

Izuna, maybe, is too fixated on his big brother, though Madara doesn't want to change anything.

The world is spinning. Madara closes the eyes for a moment, and he can't tell apart one day from any of the next ones. Sometimes he ponders what his "any other way" or "if it wasn't like that" might have been, but reaches a dead end. He wants to find out, although bounds of time and morals don't let his thoughts find an end result.

Any other way is impossible. Hatred, battles, fury, war, dead relatives and mere acquaintances. Any other way is kind of unreal.

Madara can read someone's death even in the silhouette of the moon; when at one night the sky turns red, he silently laughs. On the moon, so far-away, all-transcending, on the crystal moon he sees only blood and thousands of its shades.

Madara is already nine when father brings into the clan a boy of thirteen or fourteen years. His black hair remind of spikes, and the right half of his face is scarred. He has only one eye, the right one. Although it is the completed Sharingan with three tomoe.

The boy looks around curiously and smiles broadly. His smile is stupid and, honestly, somehow alien, as if it wasn't created for this world.

Father places him in care of some widow, telling her to train and feed him well, before he leaves with a clear conscience, not deigning to grant his clan members any more attention.

The boy shifts uncertainly for a while as Kaori-san studies her imposed cohabitant with annoyed eyes. The boy cracks first — or pretends to crack, who knows — and bows lowly to the woman.

"My name is Obito. Please, take care of me."

At first Kaori-san can't even comprehend what this is about, she dryly mumbles "Hai" and grabs the boy's hand.

He answers with a smile, and almost everyone sees how the somber kunoichi sheepishly tries to smile back.

Madara is even interested in this Obito boy; where are these scars from, and how did he lose his eye, and how did he survive at all, and how did father find him? But he has trainings, particularly strategy and tactics which he loves much more, he must hurry or else impertinent sensei will tell on him to his father. Strange Obito is forgotten in the routine, buried under dozens of browsed scrolls and trainings with brother, he is fleeting somewhere between lunch-supper-breakfast.

He is reminded of Obito by Obito himself as he comes across him near the edge of the forest on a bloody full moon. His only eye squinted and gleaming, with a fox-like smile he asks a basically stupid question:

"Did you know that insides of the moon consist of crystal? Red, red crystal which was created especially for the moon by goddess Kaguya, huh?"

Madara practically feels how the wheel of ordinariness and constancy comes to a stop, distrustfully slowing its pace.