Tobirama sat by the creek, watching his reflection. The corners of his mouth were down-turned even in the moving water. Tears dripped from his eyes, down his cheeks and into the small river, further disturbing his reflection.

His unsightly reflection.

"Don't cry, brother." Hashirama's voice, normally vivacious, was soothing as he sat down next to him.

"Leave me alone," said Tobirama. In truth, he wanted his big brother to hug him.

Hashirama didn't. He was silent. If Tobirama looked away, past the water and the treeline, he could almost pretend that his brother wasn't there. Did Hashirama care at all? He wished he wouldn't see him cry. Mercifully, the quiet rumble of the creek covered the near-silent sobs.

"Do you think it's true?" Tobirama asked in the end. His voice was almost a whisper, and too high-pitched. He sounded pathetic.

Hashirama looked at him. "No. Of course not." His voice was firm, warm brown eyes locked with Tobirama's emphatically. "Tobi, you're my brother. Always."

It was a relief to hear it, but even the most soothing of balms won't erase an injury. Feeling drained suddenly, Tobirama turned back toward his reflection. "You don't know that. What if Father is right? What if Mother…"

"She wouldn't," said Hashirama with conviction. "I believe her. She wouldn't have… done that. And… even if… even if she had and you're a – a bastard or, or whatever – even then, it wouldn't matter. You're still my brother, Tobi. Nothing can change that."

"Even if I were an Uchiha's bastard ?" Tobirama asked sharply.

Hashirama nodded vigorously. "Of course! Even then. You're still a Senju by birth and by how you were raised, still my brother. And anyway, Uchiha are black-haired. You couldn't be further away from that."

Tobirama deflated, staring at his platinum blonde reflection. "I… guess. My eyes, though… they're…"

"–not the sharingan," Hashirama interrupted, clasping his hand. "Father's just being… Father about all this."

"They're red," Tobirama finished at the same time. There was a pause. "The sign of evil, brother. Red eyes."

Hashirama scoffed. "Evil spirits are different, Tobi. You're a Senju and my brother, got it? Not some evil spirit. That's never gonna change. Ever."

Tobirama lifted his head to stare at his older brother. "Promise," he demanded.

Hashirama's grip tightened. "I swear it."

Hashirama's oath stayed with Tobirama often. He would recall his encouraging words periodically, would draw strength from them. His brother was his fortress, even if he didn't know it.

Mother's next son, Kawarama, was brown-haired and brown-eyed, just like Hashirama. Tobirama was still the black (white) sheep of the Senju and his Father never allowed him to forget it. He was frail, weaker than Hashirama. A good for nothing, Father often said. With his open disdain, he had practically given the rest of the clan the green light to share in it. They all looked at Tobirama's red eyes and whispered.

Tobirama would force himself to recall his brother's promise so that it was superimposed over the whispers. He didn't know whether he had Uchiha blood or not, didn't know whether he was an evil spirit or not. But he did know that he was Hashirama's brother, always.

Even so, he hated it. Hated his red eyes and that he was less. That Hashirama was the clan's sweetheart and he it's unwanted demon. Sometimes he hated his brother, envied him his status and talent, but that hate ached to his very bones; cut him deep.

Hashirama was the only one on his side, the only good thing he had. No matter how tempting it sometimes was, he couldn't loathe him without despising himself for it. He'd rather hate someone else.

He would sit by the riverside sometimes and condemn whoever had put him through this. Uchiha, he would think. For sure it was one of them and their tricks. Maybe they had put a curse on him. He hated them either way, but he was too clumsy and weak to become a shinobi and take his revenge, Father said. A disgrace to all Senju. Unsightly.

Simpleton was a word that soon joined the long string of adjectives associated with him. During Tobirama's fifth winter, a heavy blizzard set in that lasted days on end and made it too cold outside to train. During this time, Father had made Utahara teach them to read. Hashirama because he would one day be clan heir and would need the skill, Tobirama because he was so useless he might as well do a woman's job.

As always, Hashirama excelled where Tobirama failed. Well, 'excel' was perhaps an exaggeration. According to Utahara, he was a rather slow learner, but Tobirama made him seem like a genius by comparison. He just couldn't make sense of the characters… they all looked the same to him – like disfigured blobs. If he forced it, he could make himself see it a little different, sharper and less blurry, but then he would get a searing headache only after a small while, and the picture, albeit neater, would be double. It was horrible.

Most of all, he was afraid that when he saw neater it was because he had activated his sharingan. He never saw as clearly unless he was forcing it, and that was suspect. That sharp definition couldn't be anything but the product of the sharingan, he figured, which is why in his fear of being caught, Tobirama would avoid the clearer double-sight at all costs. Oftentimes he would wonder how his brother did it – how he could manage to read, to discern the blobs. It felt like guesswork to him without the sharingan. He couldn't make anything out. But that didn't come as a surprise to anyone. He was a useless simpleton, after all.

In kunai practice, he never hit the target. When he was supposed to run, he often tripped on rocks or holes in the ground, and he couldn't deflect a kunai if his life depended on it. He never even saw it coming, Fatyer would yell. Pathetic. A simpleton. Unsightly. Demonic.

The only thing he was decent at was chakra control. He'd mastered the tree-climbing and water-walking exercises quickly, or at least according to Hashirama. His brother, who had been in charge of teaching him because Father had 'no patience for incompetence, had even claimed that Tobirama had done so faster than him, though he was skeptical.

Tobirama's one and only love was the river near camp. In the river he thrived. In the river he was like a water sprite, or so Hashirama said.

In the river he never tripped. Its flowing waters never failed him; he always knew exactly where the water surface was, when there was a disturbance, where the fish and the algae and everything were. He could feel its flow in the very marrow of his bones, could feel it singing in his ears when he dove, pliant to his every move and intention. He was a fast swimmer and an even better diver. With practice, he had gotten to the point where he could hold his breath underwater for so long that his brother never found him during hide and seek. He'd move through the water with effortless grace, grace which he lacked in the training ground.

Applying the principles of water-walking to his hands, he was able to mold it with his limbs, to make it slide around his body like a living thing.

Father had little patience for children playing in the water, however, not when he couldn't dodge a miserable kunai.

Tobirama's time by the riverside was limited.

Until his breakthrough.

"Sakura? What are you thinking of? Are you alright?"

Her grandmother was giving her a concerned look; had even put her knitting needles aside.

Turning toward her, Sakura gave the old woman a curt nod. "Yes, I am fine."

"Are you certain?" Yuzuha asked earnestly. She seemed worried.

"It's nothing," Sakura said dismissively. "I was just... remembering something."

Perhaps it was something about Yuzuha's house, situated in one of the oldest districts of Konoha, (someone dear to Tobirama... she couldn't quite remember who... had lived here), or perhaps it was something else... Perhaps it was Yuzuha's noninvasive presence, the calm way in which she went about her day. Perhaps it was the silence, or the trees, or the orange sky at dusk... but Sakura had, not for the first time since she'd moved to Yuzuha's, found herself reminiscing about her old life.

Ordinarily, she didn't give it much thought. She was busy with learning fuinjutsu, with thinking about the future, with planning her 'heists' and making tags for the business whilst pretending at being a normal Academy student... too busy to look back and remember the pain of a life long past. But something about this place... it made her remember. It wasn't as painful as she'd have thought.

Now, as she contemplatively stared at the blue flowers, the only ones that her grandmother had ever bothered to plant out front, Sakura found herself smiling a little. Their vivid blue color reminded her of the river she had used to frequent so long ago, in another life.

Yuzuha sighed, sitting down gingerly next to her. "Beautiful, are they not?"

"Hm? Yes. I suppose so."

"Your smile betrays you, child." Yuzuha reached out to one of the flowers and touched one gingerly. "These are forget-me-nots."

Sakura's eyebrow arched. That was an uncannily fitting name. Annoying, too.

"What a stupid name," she found herself scoffing. For years she had been forced to remember the most painful moments of her past life through nightmares. The death of her brothers, the war, the fear and pain and hate... the loneliness...

She hated sleeping, she hated remembering. In a way, reincarnation was a curse as much as it was a second chance.

"Hm? Why would you say that?" Yuzuha asked calmly. "I think the symbolism is beautiful."

"There are some things that are better left forgotten," Sakura said coldly.

Yuzuha didn't reply immediately. Sakura watched a sparrow as it crossed the garden, landing on a little fountain that had been filled with water so that the birds could bathe and drink there. She listened to the click clack of her grandmother's needles as she knitted.

"Are there?" Yuzuha mused after a while. "I can't think of any one thing about my life I would want to forget. As it is, my memory is already a little too defective..."

"Of course there are," Sakura snapped. She thought of the mutilated body of Kawarama, of the genjutsu Uchiha Tajima had put her through that time, of the day Hashirama had died. "Some things are too painful to remember. They scarr you down to your soul. It'd be best if we could forget they ever happened."

Yuzuha gave her a searching look. "And yet it is those scars that carve the shape of our being."

Sakura grunted in disagreement. Yuzuha's eyes never left her.

"Time cannot be turned back. A person who hides from their pain, who grows numbed, is nothing but a shade. It is true that the most painful of our experiences shouldn't be constantly remembered, but neither should we repress them. And in any case, I like to think that a flower such as the forget-me-not is too striking to invoke anything but recollections of equal beauty."

Sakura stared at the sky and wondered whether the woman was right. The answer still seemed like a resounding 'no' to her, no matter how poetic Yuzuha's words may be.

"Have you never heard that there is beauty in tragedy, grandmother?" she said quietly, bitterly. "The breaking of beauty is seen by many as beauty also. Exceptional beauty, even, as it invokes exceptionally strong emotions."

"Oh, my dear child," said Yuzuha suddenly. She seemed touched. "Come here."

"Ugh, I don't need a hug," Sakura grumbled.

Yuzuha wouldn't hear it. "Maybe not, but this old woman has gone far too long without one. And you're my grandchild, it's practically obligatory."

Grumbling all the way, Sakura complied and, getting up, wrapped her arms around the old woman's torso. She didn't need a hug! But whatever. Batty old grandma. Yuzuha's aura suggested conflicted emotions and her gaze was different, almost as though she was seeing her for the first time, so Sakura avoided it. So what if she had said something philosophical? To the adults, she would still be a child.

His breakthrough came in the form of an explosive tag. He had found it on one of the storage cabinet shelves while he was cleaning it. Upon closer inspection, he had realized that, though he couldn't discern its blobs, he could still tell they were there – the same way he was able to tell when a person was somewhere, or a tree or an animal – or water. If he concentrated really hard on it, in his mind he could see the kanji, buzzing just the same as any person or tree.

Tobirama's reading skills had progressed exponentially since that discovery. He could read anything that was on a sealing scroll but not the stuff from when his instructor wrote to teach him – which was exceedingly annoying. However, now that he knew he could do it, Tobirama wasn't about to five up. After some pointed questions to the people who made the scrolls, he realized that the only 'special' thing about the sealing scrolls was that they were made with chakra-infused ink. Or, in conclusion, Tobirama could read anything as long as the ink had chakra in it. From there, learning to read had simply been a matter of subtly infusing chakra to the inkpot when he was tasked to write, or infusing chakra into any text he was meant to read. This made the process a lot harder than when the ink was infused upon writing, but after some practice, Tobirama had gotten the hang of it too.

When he explained his sudden proficiency to Father, a strange look crossed the man's eyes. A strange, calculating look.

"I see," he had said simply.

What exactly he saw was unclear, moreso when he proceeded to ask Tobirama some very odd questions.

"Can you tell where your brother is right now?"

"Of course, Father. He's talking to Touka in the stables." Tobirama gave Father an odd look, was even more weirded out at his reaction. A glimmer of something eager, almost greedy, had entered his aura. "Oh? And where is your mother?" Privately clueless as to where this was going, Tobirama answered his every question.

"And Kawarama?"

Tobirama didn't really understand why all of this was relevant. His father and many others could also tell where some people were, from what he had gathered – in fact, couldn't everyone do it? He had always assumed it was normal, a way to compensate for the fuzziness. Sadly, it only worked with living things, things with chakra.

His father didn't seem to care about this when Tobirama had mentioned it. In fact, he looked eager in a wicked sort of way.

"Finally, my luck seems to turn around," he muttered to himself. "Tobirama, my son, how far can you tell where someone is?"

Tobirama hesitated. He could feel some blobs of chakra a long ways off, but he'd never really been away from camp, so he couldn't really give their location a name. He said as much to Father, and the man seemed only even more pleased. "Good, good." He lapsed into a thoughtful silence and left Tobirama where he was. Later, after he'd finished dinner, Father took him aside.

"Son, you are a sensor. This means kami has entrusted you this gift so that you may keep our clan safe."

Tobirama could scarcely believe his ears. Gifted? Him?

He felt something warm and marvelous loosen inside of him. Finally. Finally, he was worth something. Father thought he was gifted. Father was smiling at him. Finally. He would never forget this day, the best day of his life. Or at least, so he thought at the time.

Sakura and Yuzuha remained wrapped in the hug for a long time, until the old woman finally saw it fir to unhand her. Thougtfully, she said:

"You know, Sakura-chan, earlier you were smiling. You were remembering something, weren't you? And yet you were smiling."

Had she? The memory she'd been preoccupied with, the discovery of his sensing ability, was bittersweet, forgotten and pushed aside for the longest time... she always did push them aside, didn't she? As soon as the first rays of dawn hit her face through the window, she would do her best to forget the worst of Tobirama's memories. And yet... perhaps there was something to Yuzuha's preaching after all... perhaps there was something to remembering her old life willingly... this was an odd thought; a new thought. It gave Sakura pause.

sooo new chapter! This was actually meant to just be quickly added to the previous chapter, because I'm trying to make it a one memory per chapter thing, but in the end I felt like this way was better. It got a little angsty, but well. I've delved into tobi's shitty childhood so what did you expect. Hope you enjoyed!

Also, I am going to be replying to comments tomorrow! Your encouragment (mostly on Ao3) is what pushed me to write this so quickly! Well, that and an idea i had about tobi's childhood. This is only the beginning of his memories, but I hope you liked this! Are you guys interested in his past or would you rather hear more about his Sakura shenanigans?