The Golden Ghost
III
.
Another year passes, and Madara finds himself seventeen and a half years old, with nothing but the tireless stretch of war before him.
The battles with the Senju have been heating up, getting bloodier and bloodier. It's probably only a matter of time before Madara once again finds himself stood across from Hashirama, putting his life on the line to ensure that Izuna, that the Uchiha, live on to the next day.
The scars on his skin are steadily growing in number and size, though the severity of them fluctuates. There's not really been a life threatening one since his fifteenth year, so perhaps he is due another one soon. It's the way of the world, making sure there is a balance.
He'd rather there be a balance than a sudden canyon of loss should he die.
Letting out a lone sigh, Madara tips his head back, looking over at his younger brother.
At fifteen years old, Izuna is closing in on reaching the official age of adulthood, being only a year off of his sixteenth.
Madara fully intends to join his cousins when they drag Izuna to town, and he will be the one laughing this time when Izuna drinks himself stupid.
Only, he'll be keeping a better eye on the boy than his cousins did him.
Otherwise they'd have noticed the woman, the Golden Ghost, when she spoke to him. Then the clan would have a lead on the woman.
Not that Madara had actually said he'd met her in the bar that night.
He had reported the river incident as their first meeting, reported her apparent power over the Bijū. Their father had been, concerned, to say the least.
"Brother, what is our mission?"
Pausing to look over at Izuna, Madara draws the scroll out from his pocket, flicking it open to inspect the instructions upon it.
His heart sinks within his chest at the words.
They are to murder near one hundred people, almost all the adult population of their targeted town, as they failed to supply the necessary funds to the local Lord.
It's this kinds of jobs that he hates, he hates to think of how many children he will be leaving orphaned tonight.
It's these kinds of jobs that have him longing for that long ago, ill-forgotten dream he once shared with Hashirama. If they had banded together, if such a thing had been possible, then they could refuse missions like this. They would have the power to protect other children, where they themselves had been failed.
But that was a pipe dream at best, and would forever remain that way.
"Assassination," Madara says in a low, emotionless tone, "showy assassination."
Izuna's face is grim, as Madara knows that his brother too, finds this type of mission as unsavoury as he himself does.
To assassinate someone is one thing, to deliberately parade it around in order to snuff the fight out of others was a whole other scroll of kunai.
But, a mission was a mission, and with the way things were with the Senju right now, they couldn't afford to turn such a high paying job down, not when word would spread that the Uchihas were getting more uppity than should be allowed. Then even more jobs would go to the Senju, and every bone, in every Uchiha body, was against that.
"Come along, Izuna."
"Hai, Nii-san."
.
Usually jobs against civilians like this are easy. Unless they have the money to buy protection, to buy impressive protection, these types of missions are usually a straight up job.
Walk in, kill the relevant people, make a bit of a show of it, walk out.
That was the plan.
That had been the plan.
Madara had been ready for almost anything, perhaps a Sarutobi guard, maybe even a Senju guard for the village, if they could scrape enough money together.
What he hadn't been ready for, was a familiar flash of gold under the moonlight, a gleam so white it left her hair as honeyed milk.
Cerulean blue flash dangerously in the dark of the night and Madara rapidly halts their approach, one arm out to prevent Izuna to wandering any closer.
He doesn't recognise the danger for what it is, not yet.
Though she's a scant year older than him -a year and several months, she turns nineteen this year, before he turns eighteen, he remembers that- the gap in their power is immense.
He can feel it even now, now that he knows what to look for. And she isn't even broadcasting it.
"Madara," she speaks slowly, as if he could have possible forgotten her in the year that has passed between their last meeting.
Her hair is longer now, long enough that she can gather it up into a tiny little ponytail at the top of her skull, the bangs hanging free to frame her whisker scarred cheeks.
Without the wild, male style to her locks, it's obvious that she's female now, as if the curves of her body -she's not hiding them now, he blatantly observes- didn't indicate that enough already.
"Is that your brother?"
Every protective instinct in him roars to life all at once, his body moving until he is a solid wall of flesh between his brother and the woman who makes him seem so fragile. She seems to realise exactly how much of a threat that sounded, because she rubs gingerly at the back of her head, almost dislodging what was probably a painstakingly long effort to get her short hair tied back.
"Geez, sorry. Didn't mean it like that."
Slowly, the Golden Ghost stretches her legs out in front of her, crossing them at the ankles and leaning back on the rock she is perched atop.
Beneath the moonlight, and with her carefree attitude, she's unearthly. Certainly no other woman would have dared to speak with him like that.
But, she is no ordinary woman after all.
"Brother?" Izuna asks quietly, cautious as he senses the tension that coils heavy in the air, weighing down upon their shoulders.
Not the woman's though, she looks so unburdened that perhaps she could fly away. He wishes that were so.
"I'm only gonna say this once," and suddenly, she is deadly serious, and a killer intent unlike anything he's ever felt before, threads through the air like ozone. Thick and promising as much danger and death as the lightning it precedes.
Izuna's whimper is audible to the both of them, and it takes everything Madara has to not tremble.
"This town has asked for my protection," the woman continues, her face cold, "and my protection it shall have."
And while her face is emotionless, her eyes beg him not to push her.
This is greater than Hashirama, this is a fight he won't come out of alive. But he needs to try, for the clan.
.
It's over in a minute.
He doesn't even get time to really pull any of his big jutsus out of the bag, to use his aces up his sleeve.
He sees now, why they call her the Golden Ghost.
The second it became clear he had no intention of turning away with his tail between his legs, the woman had sighed, got to her feet, and then, she'd glowed.
A halo of golden, flame like chakra had surrounded her form, and she'd been merciless in her attack, relentless.
He'd barely gotten time to throw Izuna out of the fight before she was upon him.
And now here he lay, his limbs trembling from the close proximity of her chakra, his Sharingan eyes wide as they stared up into the blue that hovers above them.
No matter how many genjutsus he tried to ensnare her in, he could all but feel the Kyūbi, the fox that did indeed live within her, break them before they could even take hold.
He was beaten, beaten in a manner that seemed as if she hadn't even had to try.
As if the dance they're shared, even as short a two-step as it was, had been nothing more than a motion to her.
No improvisation needed.
Not even a deviation from the steps.
He'd been soundly bested.
Still, even laid beneath her, his hands trapped above his head in one glowing claw like limb that sprouted from her chakra shroud, he could feel his traitorous heart beating fast.
The betrayal of his nose as it registered how pleasant she smelt, not of blood, metal and death, but of warmth, of the forest and of miso.
She smelt like a woman should, and it was the greatest deception of them all.
"Brother!"
Izuna's distressed call was forceful enough to break his mind from its captivity, and Madara forcibly slowed his chest's rapid rise and fall.
The way she has pinned him was no help at all, one hand with a kunai to his neck and her ankles resting alongside his thighs, while her own entrap his waist.
She was too close, too unpredictable to be allowed so close.
But he couldn't overpower her.
"I'm not going to kill you," she breathes, and the scent of her breath -ramen?- left the words hazy in his mind.
"But leave the town alone. Okay?"
He doesn't register that his eyes have slid shut in anticipation -of what, he didn't know- until they shoot open at the slightest brush of lips against his cheek -more the corner of his mouth really, a kiss but not quite- only to find himself back in the river clearing from the previous year, Izuna stumbling alongside him.
There is no sign of the girl, only a modified kunai with a strange Fūinjutsu marking upon it.
He picks it up, cautious of the unfamiliar markings but determined to take the strange clue back to the clan.
Izuna is shaking beside him, the near death -not near death, she could have killed them and they wouldn't have been able to stop it- hitting him at full force.
Madara himself staggers slightly, before straightening himself.
"Izuna?"
He doesn't need to say another word, his brother huddles into his arms without another prompt.
Mission failure.
But at least they're still alive.
God I'm enjoying writing this,
Tsume
xxx