A Few Years

by Miims

Izuna muddles though a few years of his life before he figures things out.

I don't own Naruto

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Izuna is born into a world of love. The baby, he is the youngest of five brothers, and an Uchiha. And while there are many wild rumors about his clan, none of them apply here because his clan loves children above all else. His mother is best, she bends down low to him and tickles his cheeks with the ends of her hair and smothers him with kisses. And his father, weary always, pats his head on the occasions he remembers he has a youngest child.

Masaru gives him piggyback rides and Ito throws him into the air and catches him. Madara, in the middle watches them all and sighs and then Keikohu drags the middle brother into it all because they, none of them, ever even want to imagine what it would be like alone. And Izuna returns the love he is given with as much of his own. At three years old he looks foreword to the rest of his life.

He barely remembers any of this. Instead, when he looks back with his mind's eye, he hears the cool-smooth and all-too-lethal ring of the kunai and feels his first shuriken rip through the pads of his delicate fingers. Ito, the oldest, rushes to his side and says, 'these are not toys.'

Izuna wonders why they have been given to him, clenches his fingers and watches the blood drip down them.

All too soon, his playtime is replaced with sparring sessions and lessons of chakra and agility and genjutsu and tactics and strategy. At first Izuna thinks these are games, but realizes soon that they are not.

Struggle, it's the first time the word enters his life, but certainly not the last. One by one his brothers march off and return wearier, more like their father, drawn and angry. What he does not know is that his two oldest brothers have been marching off since before he was born. Izuna knows only distantly of war. But Madara soon fixes that.

Spoiled, that's not a word Izuna would apply to himself outright, but deep down he knows that he is. When Masaru or Ito call him out to train and he would rather work on his (halting) kanji, all he has to do it pout and beg and they relent. Keikohu howls at how easy he has it, but can do nothing about it. It is Madara who takes a stand. When his oldest brothers return to the training fields without him, Madara marches over and drags him and nothing Izuna does changes his mind.

Izuna pouts and digs his toes into the ground, and whines and moans and complains, and finally, when nothing else works, he sits on the ground and refuses to budge. Madara, as clever as ever, sighs over his little brother and lifts him over his shoulder.

"Izuna," he says, "You must learn to fight," Madara cuts rights through his younger brothers protest, "you must learn to fight because if you don't you will die."

And Izuna knows death. How can you not in a shinobi clan, where all of his father's brother's are dead and his aunts walk as wraiths looking for their lost husbands (and sons). He knows death, and he does not want to die. Life is great, and his is full of love.

"I don't want to fight," he says to his brother.

Madara stops walking, pauses in the middle of the road, and sighs (again). Izuna can feel his brother's shoulders fall, "I wish you did not have too." But he does, it is the unspoken end of the sentence. His brother uses many of these.

No, Izuna, in the beginning is most reluctant about Madara. Madara pushes him the hardest , works him the longest and takes him too see the master of every art the clan possesses. Izuna will never admit it, but all three pay off. His prowess grows by leaps and bounds and for the first time he sees what will become his first (but not his last) love: kenjutsu. Izuna forgets the brush when he watches his fist spar.

Uchiha Tadao wields his sword with a finesses that few can copy, even with the sharingan. It is because, and these are Tadao's own words, "I learned the damn thing without the sharingan," and it shows.

Many Uchiha who learn from Tadao simply copy his moves, and when they move, they move like Tadao, their steps are his, their attacks, they were his attacks first. Tadao wins all of his fights within the clan because he knows how to use the sword in a way that the others do not, and he wins outside of the clan because he is just that good.

Izuna first sees the man on a summer day in the mid afternoon. It is unbearably hot in hi-no-kuni, but still they practice non-stop. Madara drags Izuna by the wrist and sits them next to the training grounds and opens their bento (the only time they ever have to explore now is for lunch). Izuna does not expect much. He is learning hand to hand combat now and finds it… crude. But Tadao is good.

Izuna cannot follow what the man does, but the blade flashes as a sleek-silver brush. It is smooth as calligraphy. Before he moves three steps he disarms his opponent.

Izuna attaches himself to the man right after that, who cares about sparring: he wants to learn the sword! Next to him, Madara turns and smirks down at his brother, Izuna leans his head onto his brother's shoulder.

"You, You must teach me that!"

Madara tries to catch his brother before he can surge foreword, but he fails.

Tadao looks around first for the voice, then down, when he sees what waits for him he scowls and replies, "No."

Abrupt, with no reason, it's the first time it has ever happened to Izuna, "Why not?"

The man does not even have the decency to look back at him as he answers, "Because you have to prove yourself, I don't train just anybody, even if they are the son of the clan head," he says the last part almost absently.

Izuna follows the man doggedly after that. Still, he refuses. A youngest, Izuna is not used to this, he always gets his way (even Madara flails when Izuna wants something that has nothing to do with fighting).

First it bewilders Izuna, he cannot understand why this man will not train him. Then it upsets him. It is not fair. It is his privilege. Izuna decides enough is enough, Tajima is clan head, he can order the man. With this mindset, he strides towards his father's rooms, he is set, he will get this.

But he doesn't, his father refuses him as soon as the words are out of his mouth.

"Tadao is a proud man, if he is to train you, he must choose to do it himself."

Anger, that is what Izuna feels. Fits are unseemly, he does not throw them, but he is furious when his mother finds him. She, in her easy elegance (once she was a kunoichi, though few know it) sits near him and watches.

Izuna goes through the kata, first to last of the ones he knows, and by the end of it is barely calmed. He tries to hide it, but mothers, it seem, know best.

Patiently she smiles at him and waves him over. At four he still is his mother's son, so he listens and dutifully sits at the edge of her Yugata, his fingers brushing the fabric delicately. When she asks what bothers him, he has no choice but to tell her. Compulsion, that is a words that fits perfectly with what he feels, though he does not yet know it.

When he is done with his tale, his mother picks absently at the scars and calluses on her palm (the ones she has to hide when other clan wives visit) and stares off into the empty space. It is the same look Madara gets sometimes when something bothers him. His mother, though, she smiles after a moment and replies.

"Sometimes what is most worth it in life, is what you have to work hardest for."

Izuna does not know what that means, so his mother smiles wider, "I was the same as you, you know. I also wanted to learn how to use the Katana."

"What?"

She nods, "That is in the past, and Tadao surpassed me many years ago. But your father is right, if you want to learn from him. You must earn it yourself. Then you can be like me."

His mother knows Kenjutsu? Izuna had never thought of her as anything other than mother, and clearly that was how the clan saw her too (well, that and clan-head's-wife). But the sword? It is her last line that really slays his anger and gives rise to his determination.

"If you master it well enough, you can have my blade."

And that seals the deal for him. He will learn Kenjutsu, he will learn Kenjutsu from Tadao and he will receive his mother's sword. If Tadao hopes that he will surrender, that he will give up, the man is mistaken.

In September of that year, Uchiha Tadao has a new student. He takes Izuna on only after learning of his intent: his mother's Katana.

September of his fourth year is also the first year he learns of death first hand. Keikohu and Masaru go out to the battlefield and neither comes back whole. Masaru though, he comes back in pieces.

There is a gaping pit in his family, Ito does not know what to do without his brother and Madara grows more protective of them all. Though he saw nothing, Keikohu changes most of all. Before he was vibrant, the boy that Izuna finds in his place is a badly made copy. Izuna wonders if what his brother left behind will ever find its way home.

At four, it is the first taste Izuna has of war, but his father looks at him and says, "You will be there soon too," then he walks away to burn what is left of his son.

Izuna clutches the practice Katana in his hand all the tighter and throws himself into his training. His mother says, 'sometimes what is most worth it in life, is what you have to work hardest for,' and she is right. Many things come easily for Izuna, he sneaks as he breaths and weaves strategy as he dreams. But kenjutsu is hard.

He falls and must pick himself back up, and then he falls again. The sword is heavy, his arms ache and he bruises easily. And he fails. His leaps and he must step, he waves where he must swing. It is clumsy work, and sometimes the only thing that keeps him going is his mother's Katana. It becomes his mantra. The first year is hell, and then everything slips into place. When he is five he hears music in the strike of his blade. Tadao hears it too, he steps back and frowns.

When he is five Izuna realizes he will cut his name on this age with the blade of his Katana. When he is five Keikohu goes to the battlefield and returns in a coffin. His brother is…was seven years old. Izuna's pride dampens, Keikohu had been the closest in age of all of his brothers, and while tired, still one of his best friends. They shared much, including their secrets, including their room. Izuna misses falling asleep next to his brother, he misses not feeling alone. He is five and he begins to feel lonely.

Ito smiles less, Madara blames himself and Tajima's face turns to stone. But his mother, she withdraws, and whispers to herself, 'I can't lose another.'

"I can't lose another," she both begs and states this. Izuna hears it and despairs. He knows a promise when he hears one.

When Izuna is six his father gives him a child-sized Katana and smiles sadly (though really it looks more like a grimace with his father's downturned mouth), "Just until you can wield your mother's."

Then he marches his three sons onto the battlefield and Izuna learns to hate. His nameless hatred finds a face in the Senju. They killed his brothers, they are the reason for his loneliness, they are why he cannot practice his kanji, why he trades his brush for his sword. They are outsiders, they are not Uchiha, they cannot be trusted.

Ito slowly deteriorates, his oldest brother, while strong, was never meant for the battlefield. Izuna loves calligraphy, but something in him also loves to fight. Ito picks fallen birds off the ground and nurses hedgehogs back to health. Ito sits with his head in his lover's lap and reads outdated books on morality and philosophy. Ito is not meant for the world he is born into. His quite love opposes Madara's more radical one. Madara fights, of them all, he is the best, and he protects both his brothers. Ferocity follows in his wake. But Izuna finds his general in his father.

Tajima, while an absent father at home, is all too present on the battlefield. He is uncle and father and brother to every Uchiha that he leads. Izuna sees his father, and knows that he is clan head because he loves all of his kinsmen, he loves them all too much, and his love destroys him. Izuna loves his father and mother and all of his brothers, but the rest of his clan, his love is a distant love for them.

From then on he breathes the fumes of his brothers' katon and the dust and dirt thrown up in battle. War is his teacher, rage his friend and hate his shield in a world he does not fully understand. Another year passes like this and Ito, like Masaru and Keikohu before him, leaves and does not come back.

Izuna falls into a trap. How he got there? He does not remember. Three Senju stand before him, they fight him together because they know that even though he is young, he is dangerous. Izuna cuts the first one down, but before he does the man grabs hold of Izuna's katana and does not let go. Gokyaku-no-jutsu comes easily, the first jutsu any Uchiha learns, it is particularly useful in tight spots. He eliminates the second one this way. It does not matter, he cannot remove his sword from the other. Stuck and the third is behind him. Izuna knows he is going to die. He blacks out after that.

When he wakes Madara stands above him, he stares down disbelievingly, eyes bright with unshed tears. Izuna inhales and exhales and tries to lift himself up, but he cannot. His side is bruised, from what he does not know, but it hurts. He turns to his side and tries to stand. Madara is there, he lifts his younger brother up and carries him off the battlefield, Izuna cannot breath for the fumes. He rests his cheek on the hard edge of his brother's armor. It cools his skin. Madara shields him from the carnage as best he can. But Izuna sees what his brother tries to protect him from.

"Madara," he says through the burns in his throat, "where is Ito."

Before his brother can answer Izuna passes out, he cannot see the tears streaming down his brother's face, but he knows the truth anyway. One the battlefield behind them there is a corpse that used to be a young man who went by the name of Uchiha Ito. Ito dies saving his younger brother, because watching anybody kill somebody he loves was a fate he could not endure.

Madara dries his eyes for the last time (that Izuna remembers), their mother loses his favorite smile and his father, Tajima, his eyes harden. There are too many ghosts in this house. If Izuna is most like his mother, then Ito was most like Tajima, they both loved too much. And now Tajima barely shows it at all. He saves it for the battlefield, there he keeps as many of his kinsman safe as he can. He does this by destroying his enemy. Whoever they might be.

A year later Izuna's mother dies as well; she catches the flu, lies down and never finds the will to stand again. Izuna watches her drain away and cries for the last time.

From then on, theirs is a family of three and Izuna finds that sometimes he is lonely. Madara enjoys being by himself on occasion. Izuna does not. He throws himself into the katana and studies, and he fights, and his brother, his brother disappears.

At first Izuna ignores this. Madara leaves to find himself more often than Izuna would like. But never so regularly. So Izuna discards his clan's insignia and follows his brother on his escapade.

What he expects? It certainly is not what he finds. Izuna watches his brother meet a boy. They spar and compare notes and sometimes they laugh. Izuna, hidden in the shadows, watches and suppresses his rage. The other boy is an outsider. Hashirama, Izuna hates him and wants to stop it. He turns to get their father. Tajima will know what to do. But another boy blocks the way. Clearly Izuna has been found, but by who…

The two outsiders are probably related. They wear similar clothes, though that is where the resemblances end. Where one skin's eats the sun, the boy before him has skin that gets eaten by it. He is a pale shadow.

And he looks as happy about the situation as Izuna feels.

"You're an Uchiha," the boy steps foreword, but the action reminds Izuna of a step back (somehow the boy will find room to strike if he can). He has seen the move, the style, before. Immediately he is on the defensive.

"Senju."

Neither does anything, and that puzzles Izuna. He has had stalemates with Senju, but he has never just not-fought with one. Normally they attack and so does he, but the pale-boy in front of him seems to be content keeping an eye on both Uchiha brothers. It sends Izuna's hackles up, the boy takes control of the situation smoothly. He puts Izuna out of his element by not doing anything. And the boy recognizes this. But buried underneath all of his anger, Izuna finds something else. Something else that terrifies him: curiosity.

That curiosity takes his tongue and holds it. Izuna does not tell his father the next time Madara goes to meet the boy, because Izuna talks to his brother. First they quip at each other about their clans (stereotypes) and then they give each other their names.

And he is not surprised to learn that he knows the name Senju Tobirama already. He just hadn't applied it to the boy standing before him. The second, and now youngest, son of Senju Butsuma.

Sometimes they argue about technique (Izuna learns quickly that they other boy also is a swordsman) and sometimes about philosophy. And one time their exchange consists solely of:

"My brother is an idiot when he is with yours."

"My brother is always an idiot."

Izuna remembers all of his conversations with Tobirama.

"It is dog eat dog with the strongest at the top. Peace is impossible."

Tobirama frowns, his is an expressive face, even if he doesn't want it, "No, I don't think so. All one needs are agreements and allies willing to follow them."

Izuna laughs despairingly, he has lost too many brothers already (and Hashirama is stealing the last one he has), "What? That means respect. That means understanding."

Tobirama stands leaning against a tree with his arms crossed and glares at Izuna from across the clearing, "So you don't respect me?"

Izuna backtracks, "I don't respect your clan."

"No, you hate my clan."

"And you don't hate mine?"

Tobirama thinks for a very long time after this question, it is a trait that will suite him well in the future, "You reminded me of my brother…" he pauses for a long time after this and Izuna knows that the tug in his heart is regret, "No, hate is useless, it fills this world that we live in. It makes men like Buts-" Tobirama cuts himself off abruptly.

Men like Butsuma Senju.

Izuna knows that Tobirama both hates and loves his father, he just does not understand how it could have happened.

Eventually their time comes to an end. Both their fathers have their suspicions (they have discussed this) and both boys know what happens next. They both feel regret.

Looking back Izuna will recognize the importance of their last conversation, in it Tobirama asks Izuna, "Do you believe in what our brothers are talking about?"

He answers before he can think, "No," the answer is an ingrained one, "I will not trust my family to outsiders."

A frown, Tobirama crosses his arms and looks up, "Peace with outsiders. Peace. So if we were to make it, it would not work with the Uchiha?"

The look Tobirama gives Izuna tells him that the white haired boy is still waiting for an answer. He had thought Tobirama pragmatic, but clearly he needs to revaluate what he knows. Izuna does not answer the question. Instead he walks away. Izuna tries not to think of this conversation ever again.

The next time they meet they try to kill each other. It is like that for years and years. With Madara he has a brother and a friend. With Tobirama he has a best-friend and a rival. And he does his best to try and kill his best-friend-and-rival every opportunity that he gets.

Izuna is eight and Tobirama slips past his defense and almost decapitates him. He is nine and Tobirama gives him a haircut. But at ten he slices through the skin of Tobirama's cheek. When he is eleven Tobirama almost takes off his hand. Like a cycle their lives go one, each meeting mimicking the last.

Life changes, when he is twelve he gets the sharingan.

Izuna' mistake is that he underestimates Tobirama's reach. When Tobirama lunges Izuna can see the whites of his eyes. Tobirama sees Izuna and remembers for a moment. That is when Izuna knows he will try to move the blade, to avoid the blow (because they are friends, Tobirama presents a will of steel to the world, but they are still friends). Izuna sees the blade coming towards him, knows that Tobirama will be too late, and feels the impact as something slams into his side (again). Suddenly he is a child and it isn't Tadao pierced, but his brother bludgeoned. Tadao swings his sword in a wide graceful arc and pushes Tobirama back. Izuna regains his balance, and moves to chase after them. To stop the fight. Tadao is dying, but the man can still kill Tobirama.

But can he really? Izuna is twelve, but he can hold his own against Tadao, and Tobirama is better than he is (not that he will ever admit that aloud). Izuna watches transfixed as Tadao moves foreword. He is fast, but mortally wounded. That he still fights, miracle, that's the only word Izuna can apply. But he slips, a fatal opening that give Tobirama's blade access to Tadao's diaphragm.

Tadao dies by Tobirama's hand and Izuna feels his eyes burn. His mother is dead, his father empty, his brother delusional and his teacher, his teacher gives him his eyes.

Across the clearing somebody calls Tobirama's name. Before Izuna can do anything Tobirama is there. He strikes at Izuna, but slower than Izuna is used too. He pulls his blade up and counters, Tobirama replies. With their blades they speak. He feels Tobirama's fear. Before Izuna can do anything else Tobirama disarms him at the cost of his own blade and pushes him back (get out of here he whispers). It is the last time they speak for a very long while. Izuna stops wondering why when Butsuma Senju moved to stand behind his son. He knows that Tobirama still hates and loves his father.

Izuna's burn for days after that. His father celebrates his victory with a small bitter smile and Madara frowns. Their mother is still dead, but she reaches to him across the ages. Izuna is twelve and just tall enough to wield her sword. It is a bitter day indeed.

From then on he and Tobirama are nearly equal on the battlefield.

At home, his father strategizes. It is almost like the brothers are a family of two. Except its not actually the two of them. Madara has been in love for years, he is just to foolish to have figured it out. Something changes though, maybe Madara has finally put two and two together, she now lingers longer than she used to and Izuna is struck again by jealousy. Another person who will take his brother from him. And this time it's a woman (that she fights hardly matters).

Bitter work, on the battlefield Izuna and Tobirama try to kill each other, and off the battlefield Madara and Izuna spar to improve their skills. Then Madara goes off to do who knows what with his woman. Izuna's thirteenth year speeds by, a blur of blood and guts and ash and smoke. The world is a bitter place, his life is empty. It is not till he is fourteen that he realizes he wants to die.

He never acts on it, does not let anybody know- but the thought is there. The thought of it terrifies him.

Masaru, Ito and Keikohu are gone as is his mother and his father throws himself to the clan. Their tactics have never been better. Tajima disappears for solo missions sometimes too, whatever will help the clan. But then one day he makes a mistake. He fights Butsuma Senju one on one for the last time. Izuna arrives late, almost at the very end.

This battle, clan head on clan head, takes center stage. All watch it, seem to forget that they themselves are fighting as well. The two combatants are just so evenly matched. Tajima pushes Butsuma back who pushes Tajima back who parries with a fire jutsu. It goes on and on, but both men make the same mistake (a common one that that Izuna will never ever make again), they underestimate each other. For whatever reason, they each assume that they will be faster that they will take victory. Maybe they are both ready to take the plunge.

Butsuma dies immediately.

Tajima lingers a while.

The battlefield rips itself apart.

At the end of the day Izuna limps to his fathers side. His breath gurgles as he exhales and he coughs and wheezes.

"Izuna, Izuna, you remind me of your mother," he apologizes, "It is hard to look at you because of it."

Their father reaches out blindly to Madara, "come here," he commands, Madara bends down low and their father whispers something to him.

His brother lifts his head and their father continues, "Madara, you are clan head now. I have," he coughs, "already made the arrangements. But before…" he pauses to catch his breath, "before I die, I have one last favor to ask of you."

Both his sons wait with baited breath, "Kill me."

He fades before their eyes, killing him would just speed the action up. It would take away his pain. Izuna does not cry, but he wants too. He loves his father, and in his heart something rips apart. But together he and Madara take their kunai and they… and they- blood and bone, it's all Izuna can think of. Tajima does not even have time to thank them. He dies and Izuna feels something fetid boil into the cavities of his eyes. It overflows, and burns and momentarily he goes blind.

Blind, Izuna is alone in the dark.

Then it is over and both brothers stand over the body that used to be Uchiha Tajima.

Things move faster after this. Madara becomes clan head keeps Izuna even closer. Loneliness sneaks up on Izuna more and more often now. Embittered he does not know what to do, but he needs to stop it. Madara works to keep him and his clan safe, but everyone he ever cares about has died (with the exceptions of Madara and Tobirama, but then he'll kill Tobirama eventually anyway).

The real problem comes with the mangekiyo. He and his brother read the stone tablet again and again, but noting comes of it. Izuna cannot make heads or tales and part of him does not want to. Certainty comes in one form though: the mangekiyo takes your sight. And if Izuna thinks being blind for a moment is chilling? The rest of his life? Terror, Izuna does not feel it often, but at that thought it writhers in his heart like a thing alive.

Like a less-than-predictable-tide, battle comes and goes with an ebb and flow, and Izuna is picked up in it again. He wonders when it will dash him against the cliffs. But now he matches Tobirama's skills. The mangekiyo has not tipped the battle in his favor, but it gives him exactly what he needs to balance the scales. When they fight it is with more than their blades, Tobirama uses his mastery of water release to counter Izuna's fire jutsu and his hiraishingiri to avoid Susanoo'. His fifteenth and sixteenth year pass in this battle-blur. Emptiness haunts Izuna, he wants it to stop.

And just as Madara takes Tajima's place, Hashirama takes Butsuma's, and with it comes a troubling new dynamic.

Madara bends over the scroll and frowns, Izuna, not nearly as patient as his brother, bends over his shoulder and skims through it quickly.

"He must be joking."

He brother looks at him through the shadows that chase their way across his face, "You think so."

"Do not trust them brother, all the Senju have ever given us are the dead in coffins."

Madara closes his eyes and with it the offer for peace. His brother rarely smiles anymore, the face he wears to battle is the same one he wears at home. Sometimes Izuna can say something to cheer him up, and make him smile or even laugh. At first he thinks he is the only one who can, then he catches his brother smile for his lover and Izuna frowns. But she chases the shadows on Madara's face away. He sits a little straighter and relaxes a bit more. His brother looks content.

Izuna and loneliness are old friends, and he suspects Madara is the same. But it seems that Madara has found a way to stave it off.

"…Nanase…san," this is the first time he called her such.

The woman in question turns to him slowly and gives him a look that says that she can't quite believe what she sees, "Izuna-sama."

They stand there awkwardly for a moment, though he suspects that she does so more out of minor revenge than honest I-don't-know-how-to-continue-this (he has not always been the kindest to her). He almost leaves, but his pride and his inability to admit that he is wrong war with each other, keep him rooted to the spot.

Finally she smiles wryly and invited him into her home. He imagines that it must once have been happy, but like his, has lost too many of its members to be anything but melancholy.

They sit across from each other making small talk when she says, "Your brother loves you more than he loves himself Izuna. It's just the way we are in this clan."

Izuna crosses his arms defensively and replies, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Because you are the jealous type."

"You are blunt," he pouts… almost.

"Yes well, small talk with you is painful."

Izuna turns to Nanase and really looks at her for the first time. Her appearance has always been striking, but her personality blows him away. Like their mother she fights, not an easy task for a woman in the Uchiha clan. Izuna finds himself thinking that his brother needs such a blunt woman, and then realizes that he would not exactly mind if his brother married her.

He tells her as much, "My brother must have an heir, and any of the other thumb twiddling girls are useless to him."

She looks at him incredulously and grins, "Are you giving me permission?"

Rather than answer her stupidly mundane and obvious question he ignores her. He can stand to share his brother if it makes him happy, or at least that is what he tells himself. But her to-the-point-humor pulls him out of his empty stupor in the same what that Madara's understated sarcasm does.

Madara marries her in the spring and for the first time in a long time he breaths without weights on his chest. The world feels lighter. Izuna is seventeen his brother twenty. Palpable joy, unbridled in the compound, flows for a few days into their lives. It is the first time in a long time that any have felt this way.

But the world does not stand still long. Madara pulls Nanase from the battlefield (something he has wanted to do for years) and makes her run the clan day by day.

Izuna counts the days, sees his oldest brother's bastard, and realizes how much time has really passed. He is still lonely, but he wants to stop it. He and Tobirama still clash on the battlefield, but it changes. Always they have raced side by side (actually Tobirama has always been ahead, but they have kept pace), but now Tobirama pulls ahead of him. Fatigue creeps up on them both, but Tobirama just seems to have more in him. Chakra exhaustion becomes a new friend, blurry vision and migraines as well.

Izuna now spends much of his time in the medical tents. He does not mind it so much because there his kinsmen surround him. They are… he likes them he finds. Yuutaro has a dark sense of humor and Ichirou never lets anything get him down. Kenji, the youngest plays shamisen and he argues tactics with Nori. Why hadn't he grown close to them before? He wonders, wonders and does not consider that the fault is his, that he never tried. His kinsmen find that they like him as well. Izuna-sama had been distant and stuck up, Izuna-san is clever and surprisingly considerate. He picked up on things fast.

Sometimes he wakes to find his brother's wife by his side, she reads reports and crunches numbers, but she is there and he finds he does not mind it. One day he snatches a scroll from her pile and slices through the seal (it's a powerful one, but luckily Madara does not keep anything from him).

"What is this?"

She shrugs, "Haven't gotten to it yet."

Curiosity intrigued, he skims through the scroll. Discreetly he activated his sharingan and investigates his surroundings. When he is sure they are alone he says.

"I wasn't aware we had spies in the Uzumaki compound."

"Shhh," she does the same as he, though with far more scrutiny (he remembers that she is very talented with genjutsu), "yes… although… I don't think she will last much longer. But I can't convince Madara to extract her."

"Why not?"

"Being a kunoichi is… I left that path for the battlefield and I prefer it, it is more straight foreword. You lose yourself after a while."

"Is she good?"

"Yes, very, though she…"

His brother's wife does not continue, instead Izuna answers, "I'll talk to nii-san."

He shocks them both with his answer, but his answer feels right and he is content with it. He forgets about this interaction until a few months later when a woman (only a year or so younger than him) stumbles into him and bows and thanks him.

Puzzled, Izuna asks, "Why?"

"Ah," she look anywhere but him, "You… uh, you helped extract me from the Uzumaki."

Izuna tries with all of him might to remember her name but still comes up short.

She answers for him, "Ima, Uchiha Ima," though really she added surname redundantly, they are all Uchiha.

"Indeed Ima…san, I will see you around."

He does not mean it literally, but she seems too, because from then on he seems to have gained a quite follower. He does not know how this makes him feel. And he has not time to think on it because his life is war and war does not leave one time to reminisce.

When Izuna returns to the compound he finds himself as Madara's right hand. He has never shirked responsibility per say, but as a young man all that had been expected of him was to fight and kill. Madara, even before their brothers died, was heir apparent. From an early age his father made him breath the leathery fumes of obligation.

Madara treats Izuna in the same manner that Tajima treated him. He hands his duty, and Izuna finds he enjoys it. His duties make him essential to the clan. He no longer feels so out of place, no longer suffers from emptiness, he is not just the youngest son, but a productive member of the community. He wishes he had learned of it earlier: working for the good of others and the satisfaction that comes with it. With it he fights off his loneliness. He makes friends, finds respect, no longer isolates himself. He goes to marriages, he sees the children of the clan. All is well, even if his little spy still follows him around.

He confronts her one-day, not necessarily irritated, not exactly curious, and wonders why she does this. Already his vision is going blurry around the edges, so he activated his sharingan to get a better look. If his eyes unnerve her she gives no indication of it. Instead she stares him straight back, though without his clan's legacy.

"Thank you."

"You already told me that."

"But you don't understand what it means to me," no he supposes, but then he is not a kunoichi. Manic, it's the word he uses to describe her eyes in that moment. He wants to pluck that emotion out of her. But he has no time for that. His brother needs him by his side. Senju Hashirama has sent another missive begging for his blasphemes peace. But if peace were possible, why hadn't their father found it? Why hadn't his father? War, that was what they lived in.

Izuna needs to be stronger, for his brother and for his family. Sometimes his brother is a fool. Whereas once Izuna stepped carefully across the battlefield, now he strides. He must protect them all, even his brother.

Their fights, his and Tobirama's have never been more evenly matched. Izuna finds his resolve at eighteen, right when his strength begins to destroy him. Tobirama's does not (and, to be honest, Tobirama has always been more enduring).

Madara hates it, but more and more often Izuna returns to the medical tent. Madara, always hardier, who rarely went before, now finds himself at his brother's side ranging and ranting. For the first time, Izuna wonders what will happen to his brother if he dies? He squashes the thought before he can dwell on it. He will not be the one to die.

He wakes and the girl, Ima, sits by his side. She is short for their clan he notices, though almost everything else about her he cannot see. The light leaves his eyes slowly, each time he uses the damn things he sees less and less. She notices when he wakes, but does nothing. Normally he chases her away at about this time. But situations change and he realizes that he might like having her by his side. Strange.

They do this many times, meet that is, and they speak and then eat and then more.

When he wakes up in the mornings he realizes that he enjoys feeling somebody else next to him. She fits well into the curve of his body and the ends of her hair tickle his chest.

In his late teens Izuna finds that he has much to fight for, that he is not as alone as he originally thought. His mother and father are dead and most of his brothers as well as his sword master. But he has a clan, and that clan needs protection, especially from the Senju. He will not lose them as he lost his immediate family.

This, Izuna decides, is what he will fight for, he is nineteen years old.

He dies a year later.

He faces Tobirama, a stronger man than the boy Izuna knew, and recognizes that there is something in the Senju that will not break. They have been friends and now they try to kill each other, that is how their relationship works. Izuna knows Tobirama almost as well as he knows himself. They are brothers. But the Senju have taken from him everything he knows.

Izuna barely sees anything anymore and he is exhausted. Susanoo' takes so much chakra to wield, but when facing the Senju brothers he can't not use it. Tobirama stands before him. Susanoo' falls. Both drip with exhaustion, Izuna watches shadows run along Tobirama's face. Dirt smears under his eye. Tobirama stands before him and then he is behind. He moves so fast that Izuna does not register it as such at all.

He feels no pain initially, just shock. Madara screams his name and he falls. Before he hits the ground his bother is there. Dizzy, Izuna tries to support himself and fails. His legs give out, his lungs spasm. Over the fog of war he hears his brother's Senju shout.

Madara pants, the lines in his face get deeper, his brother almost gives in.

"Do not trust them."

Then he blacks out. He does not remember much after this. There is Ima, Madara, Nanase, others of his kinsmen. They try to heal him. He knows the truth.

Like their father before them he waves Madara closer, blind, he only knows his brother is there by the smell of him, the sound of his ragged breaths.

He asks almost whimsically, "Are you crying?"

Madara does not reply.

"Take my eyes," he exhales slowly to avoid pain, "take my eyes and protect out family."

It is the last thing he says.

Izuna dies blind, but he does not die alone. He does not know that his brother will go mad with grief (though he suspects he might) and he does not know that his lover is pregnant.

Content, not happy, Izuna wishes he could have lived longer.

AN

I wrote this fic to hash out what I see as Izuna's personality. This is a pretty big chunk of time, twenty years, so I skipped over a lot of stuff, but essentially this is how I see Izuna. What I really wanted to capture was his growth. He is a pretty spoiled child in the beginning and then he pretty much loses everything. He could have given up, and for a bit he does, but I see him as a person who would seek happiness, even if he didn't actively know that was what he was doing. Hence his desire to get rid of the loneliness.

I also wanted to underline the fact that Madara and Izuna are very different people, brothers yes, but different.

As for the OC's I already pretty much explained it: Obito mentioned being Madara's descendent and Sasuke looks too like Izuna to ignore. Thus, they both had wives and they both had children. Also, I think the Naruto-verse needs more strong ladies.

Taking a study break to post this. Anyway I hope you enjoyed, please review!