Chapter 2: Gotta See, Gotta Know
Madara was furious. Oh he was definitely beyond furious. How, no why has he ended up like this? Why has kami forsaken him?
Currently, the four of them were sitting on the floor of the dark room that they happened to have arrived in, Madara, keeping a safe distance between him and the Senju brothers, kept Izuna close. Hashirama had healed his legs. Although, Izuna was sceptical of him at first when Hasirama had offered to assist him with his injury but Hashirama had insisted that the wound needed to be treated before it gets infected. The last thing Madara wanted to do was to be roaming around with an infected wound and a severe loss of blood. He had seen many of his kinsman die due to battle wounds gone horrible because of infections, had seen men succumb to their injuries due to lack of proper medical attention, men who should have lived. And he didn't need to become a liability if he wanted to protect his little brother.
He agreed to Hashirama treating him though Izuna had kept a track of whatever he was doing with his sharingan. Madara had always appreciated his otouto's protectiveness for his elder brother.
And besides, he had a feeling that Hashirama wouldn't hurt him intentionally. He didn't particularly trust other Senjus but Hashirama was different. Maybe because he had known him as the enthusiastic boy with a bowl cut and lame clothes who always dreamt of a better future, shared his dreams with Madara, always looked so unaffected by the harsh realities of the world, looked so pure even though Madara knew that he has seen war. Must have been forced to kill people. Afterall, they both were child soldiers meant to be used by their clans to eliminate their enemies. And yet, Hashirama always seemed so pure, his heart untouched by the cruelties of this shinobi world. Madara sometimes was plagued by the doubts, doubts that maybe peace was not possible. But Hashirama? He was never fazed by such doubts. No, he won't be held down by these shackles of uncertainty. He always believed that their dream of peace will come true. They'll make it happen together and all Madara needed was to see his warm smile and all his doubts would vanish in thin air. His warm smile that could light even the gloomiest of the shinigami's heart. But those were childhood dreams. Now it was different. He was no more the boy by the riverbank whose company Madara cherished so dearly.
No. He was a Senju. His duty would require him to protect his clan from him, to go against him in a battle, to have him as his enemy. Oh how desperately Madara wished it wasn't so. Wished that he could stand beside him and look over their village of dreams from the cliff, protecting their loved ones just like they used to plan when they were children, when fate had not cruelly separated them.
Madara sighed. Musing about such idle things was futile now. They could never show each other their guts now. Although a small hope somewhere deep within his heart wanted to resist this thought. He looked up to notice that Hashirama had already healed his legs. Not a scar left where there was a gaping hole earlier.
As soon as Madara was healed, Izuna demanded an explaination for this ordeal caused by a certain Suiton user. "Alright Senju, what the hell did you do with us?!" he asked positively fuming.
Tobirama kept his face stoic and answered coolly, "Well, I was trying out something new. It happens to be a space-time jutsu that allows me to travel from one location to another within excessively short interval of time, almost instantly, if that makes sense."
Madara frowned. Alright, that did make sense but still it would not explain their situation.
"Go on" Izuna said impatiently. Madara was certain that all his little brother wanted to do was stab this white haired juggalo in his butt (probably in his gut too).
Tobirama continued, "Well from the looks of it, the jutsu didn't work as I planned and has somehow managed to teleport me here along with the ones who were in my vicinity as well." He finished somewhat annoyed.
Madara was somewhat impressed thinking how much work and knowledge it must have taken to come up with such an impeccable technique. Well impeccable if it had worked that is. But considering that if it did, Izuna would have had no countermeasures to come up with since he wouldn't have been expecting such a thing, Madara was kind of relieved that it hadn't worked. For all that Izuna was brilliant, Tobirama was surprisingly more cunning and that didn't bode well with Madara at all to think that his last remaining brother's life could have been in danger. He felt a sinking
feeling in his stomach.
Izuna almost snorted upon hearing that. "Senju, you couldn't even do your jutsus correctly." Tobirama stood up abruptly, "You should be grateful actually that it went wrong, because if it hadn't you probably would have been dead by now!" Well there it was again, the sinking feeling. Madara knew that Izuna was aware of that as well, but he would never admit that in front of his enemy in a million years. Madara instantly activated his mangekyou daring Tobirama to step any closer.
Hashirama was suddenly between them, effectively shielding his brother from Madara. "Listen all of you. It would be very foolish to start fighting here. We could be in the middle of an enemy base for all we know. For now, let's just cooperate until we get back to our clans." Both Tobirama and Izuna grimaced at that. Nope, they hated the thought of cooperating obviously. At least that was clear as a crystal.
Madara looked around. It seemed to be a storehouse of some sorts. There were different types of ninja weapons all around. So they had to be in a place inhabited by shinobis ofcourse. He could tell from the shape of the shurikens that they were still in the Fire country. It was possible that they had not managed to go very far. Maybe they could make it back in time. He only hoped to be able to protect Izuna if there happened to be enemies around. No he didn't hope. He would do it no matter what.