And back to our regularly scheduled Tobirama!
Bondage
Izuna enters Tobirama's sensing range exactly as Madara is flying Izanami, at which point Tobirama is not only keeping in line two-dozen pre-teens with a firm glare but also balancing Kiso on his hip. His relief therefore stays internal; he will have to wait for her to find him, rather than leaving immediately to greet her. It would entirely ruin the effect of his glare if he were to run off at this point; discipline should be modelled, not just demanded.
The hunt is thankfully completed without a hitch, the goshawk ably pouncing upon a pigeon and decisively emptying the nearby fields of any further game, and then Tobirama is able to tidy up and take the dead bird away, leaving Madara to coo over his beloved hawk while feeding her fresh entrails in between answering questions from his enraptured audience. The man is obviously well practiced at keeping people out of savaging range and Izanami is, for all her bloodlust and innate wildness, supremely confident in her safety when tied to Madara's wrist by her jesses, so it's very unlikely there will be any incidents. The tricky moment is when the goshawk is in flight, driven by the thrill of the hunt and wholly ruled by instinct.
There's a lot more festival preparation ongoing as he walks to the back gate of the Amaterasu Residence with Kiso, paper decorations hanging from buildings and suspended over paved roadways by fine cords, food stalls set out at regular intervals, musicians practicing and a group of Uchiha dressed in Water Country sailing garb –a mix of bright and well-worn independent –or pirate– dress and the crisp uniforms of various merchant companies and a few of the daimyo's navy– reciting some kind of sketch together. Tobirama's not sure if the naval uniforms are the real thing or sharingan-precise copies and sets the question aside for later; Naka Two-Swords will be delighted to tell him, either way.
He and Kiso arrive in the kitchen to put away the bird just as Izuna is emerging from the bathhouse, which is absolutely perfect timing; enthusiastic greeting kisses are duly exchanged, and upon stepping indoors Kiso is provided with a new toy –a brightly-painted wooden horse– which distracts him completely, sending him running out into the garden again to play.
Tobirama takes advantage to kiss his wife again, more at length this time.
"I have gifts for you too, Shikii-kun," Izuna tells him eventually with a laugh, leaning into him with her bathing yukata all askew to reveal her left shoulder and the back of her neck.
"So it's not you who are my gift?" Tobirama asks playfully, dotting kisses over pale, scarred skin. "Is my lovely wife not here for my enjoyment?"
"Oh, always," Izuna replies, half tease and half dazzling sincerity, "but I found some pretty things I thought you might enjoy owning and using while carrying out this particular mission –which was in fact not something anybody else in the Outguard could have managed as well as I did and is important to the clan– as well as a book I don't believe you've read. Whether it will interest you I don't know, but if not I'm sure it will find an audience somewhere in-clan."
"I'd rather unwrap you first, my heart."
"With Kiso in the garden, liable to remember at any moment that there's a festival on and dash in to demand we head out at once?" Izuna laughs at his put-upon pout. "Don't worry Treasure: there will be plenty of time for unwrapping later, and our little boy is likely to need an early bedtime after all the day's excitement."
Tobirama makes a show of sighing heavily but does straighten up and step back, catching her hands in his. "So what will you be wearing to the festival, my heart?"
"A festival yukata, of course! Green, resist-printed with morning glories in white and golden yellow, and my fish-patterned obi."
"I'm sure you'll look very fine in it," Tobirama says easily, enjoying the feeling of her hands in his and the softness of her skin under his fingertips.
"My treasure will not release me so I can change?" his wife inquires archly.
"Your treasure would much rather do the undressing himself, so that you can then be dressed in kisses as much as in linen and cotton," Tobirama replies, smirking unrepentantly.
"The man I carried off to father my children is such a flirt," Izuna laments, freeing one hand so as to rest it dramatically against her forehead. "Dreadful. Terrible. He thinks he can talk me out of my clothes whenever it suits him and ravish me at his leisure."
"Does my wife not want to be kissed today?" Tobirama presses coaxingly; he can see in her face and feel in her body and chakra that she is entirely willing, as well as very much interested. But if she says no, he will accept that. However she hasn't said 'no' yet.
"Oh, I do very much want to be kissed," Izuna assures him with a grin; "kisses are lucky at Tanabata! But I was hoping you'd be up for kissing me out and about during the festival, Shikii-kun; we'll be far from the only couple doing so and there'll be no shortage of alleyways and shrubbery to duck into, especially once evening sets in."
"Kisses are lucky?" Tobirama asks, to give himself a little thinking time.
His wife gently frees her other hand and steps behind her screen to change. "Oh yes; Tanabata is the festival of reunions and parting to meet anew," she answers him from out of sight as she opens her tansu, "and it's traditional to exchange kisses, as a kiss at Tanabata means reuniting at Tanabata again in a year's time to kiss each-other once more. My Lord-Father and I will be opening the festival together at noon and there will be formal kisses exchanged, and then it will be a free-for-all of food, entertainment, dancing, drinking and more kissing until tomorrow's sunrise."
"How shockingly decadent."
"I assure you that that most of it is perfectly decent! Until the younger children have gone to bed, at least." That is much as Tobirama had expected; the passions of the Uchiha clan run deep.
"So I should take care to kiss you assiduously today, so that you will always come back to me?" Tobirama teases, knocking lightly on the wooden screen; it's a beautiful thing, only slightly shorter in height than he is with six well-proportioned hinged panels, beautifully painted with a sakura tree in full bloom at one end and a flowering magnolia at the other, the twisting branches almost meeting in the middle and the gilt background artfully scattered with falling petals. A brief, ephemeral instant captured forever in brightly realistic spring colours, from the fine blush of the blossoms to the textured twisting greys of the tree bark and a smattering of spring bulbs offering vividly coloured splashes along the lower edge.
"Oh yes, very definitely," Izuna answers him cheerfully as behind the screen fabrics rustle, "and please extend a modest fraction of that largesse to anybody else who asks; a kiss means they want to see you again next Tanabata, after all."
As opposed to wanting him dead in a ditch well before then; Tobirama doubts there will be many kiss requests from anybody older than twelve. However dragging Izuna into some barely-private alleyway for something a little more vigorously intimate does appeal, especially since doing so will fall under the wider clan's perception of normal.
And if he should happen to do so within sight and earshot of his esteemed father-in-law, well there's no real reason why he shouldn't.
As threatened, the midday opening of the festival begins with kissing. Izuna being at the centre of attention with her father, older brother and aunt, Tobirama's first kiss exchange is with Kiso; his next one is with Izuna's squad-mate Akira, who hunts him down along with a pack of other young warriors who have all very transparently been dared to ask the Drowning Breath for a Tanabata kiss.
Tobirama goes along with it; it can't hurt. The general mood around him does seem to soften after all nine teenagers have been duly kissed, and he is haphazardly included in various small children's attempts to get kisses from everybody.
It takes Izuna a while to make her way back to him –she is clearly an extremely popular target– but once she has and he has kissed her too, they join the rest of the clan in scattering towards the food stalls, games and other events being arranged for the afternoon and evening.
Their first stop is a food stall –almost everything is fried or grilled and what little isn't comes out of peculiar wooden structures Izuna calls 'steaming towers'– and then, armed with oyaki, tsukune and a great many taiyaki made with the Uchiha's usual batter mix of millet and buckwheat flour, they make their way to the stage set up in the square facing the shrine.
Just the two of them; as soon as Kiso has an oyaki in each hand he vanishes, which would be more worrying if Tobirama hadn't already been assured it was both normal and expected. He reminds himself that the toddler does know where they're going to be for the next few hours, and that Izuna did put that perimeter fuuinjutsu around the pond before they left today, so nobody is going to fall into it unsupervised.
It had been Naka Two-Swords' suggestion they watch a play first, as the second showing will be of the life of Biei-Fuji and Tobirama will happily avoid that one. It's going to be very hot, sitting around in the middle of the day watching a production likely to last a couple of hours, but Tobirama is far from the only person to have brought an umbrella to shelter under and there are some large canvases tied with ropes pitched over the stage and parts of the square like flying tents, which provide additional shade to those who arrive in time to secure seating under them.
The process of sitting and settling in before the show starts is punctuated by more greetings and well-wishes and kisses, along with quite a few swaps. The reason behind the bounty of taiyaki becomes clear as Izuna exchanges over half of them for snacks they do not have, resulting in a far more varied haul for them to eat as the chattering settles down and Naka Two-Swords swaggers up onto the stage to announce the play.
'The Curse of the Black Pearl' turns out to be a love story entangled with a horror story, featuring a daring and somewhat genre-savvy heroine, a handsome, determined but significantly less brilliant hero, a reluctantly helpful pirate on nobody's side except his own –who also seems to have all the best lines– and a large background cast of naval officers, sailors, pirates and piratical cursed zombies. Fun for all the family, indeed; the illusions employed by the actors are gloriously macabre and the plot is a delight with its constant double-crossing between factions and the spontaneous appearance of key bits of information at natural pauses in the action.
It's also shockingly funny. Tobirama suspects the play would not have carried on so far into the afternoon if the cast hadn't had to keep stopping for the laughter to die down again, but then again they seemed to gleefully play to their audience and make a point of provoking as much laughter as possible. It isn't like anybody was on a schedule, and the short breaks between acts are well-timed and not too long.
It ends with the escape of the reluctantly helpful pirate and the engagement of the heroic couple, and then the cast lead everybody in a rousing chorus of the song that threaded its way through the entire play:
"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
A truly startling number of people have apparently memorised it from the various snippets sung on stage up until this point, mostly in the background; Tobirama barely remembers a quarter of the lines, but even the pre-teens are cheerfully singing about being, "rascals and scoundrels and villains and knaves!" as they clap along.
Quite a lot of those words are authentic Water Country mid-caste sailing dialect, as indeed was much of the dialogue in the play; Tobirama recognised quite a bit of it from his time in Uzushio, but most of the insults are new to him and he's not entirely sure what some of them even mean. Not, of course, that ignorance is going to discourage anybody here from using those words…
"What would you like to see next, Treasure?" Izuna asks, leaning into him as they join the general exodus and accept fresh cold ama-cha poured their cups by a clanswomen managing a kettle large enough to fit a toddler into and serving people from several large jugs of chilled tea. There were children with jugs of tea moving through the audience throughout the performance, keeping everybody hydrated, but Tobirama feels he could do with a little more to stave off a potential headache.
"How about you show me the sights?" Tobirama asks, leaning in for a quick kiss before taking another sip of his tea. "You know what's going on here after all, not me."
His wife chuckles as they continue along the path, half carried along by the crowds. "Well, what would you like to see? Musicians? Dancing? Singing? The weaving contests? Or would you like to see if we can find a reasonably discreet corner to make our own fun in?"
Tobirama lowers his voice slightly, but keeps his tone idly conversational. "Do you know where my esteemed father-in-law might be?"
"Yes," Izuna replies after a pause, "I do know. Is this in the interests of avoiding him, Treasure?" Her tone makes it clear she doesn't think that's it at all.
"I was thinking," Tobirama continues, still light and mild, "that I owe him a bad turn for sending you off on missions at no notice on your prayer days. Twice."
"What did you have in mind, Treasure?" His wife does not seem particularly opposed to the idea, which says more than enough about her relationship with her father.
Tobirama had initially considered bringing forward the 'have sex in Tajima's hearing' plan, but on second thought that's best kept for when the man can't just casually wander out of earshot. "What's he doing exactly?"
"Chatting," Izuna says, shrugging one shoulder. "Possibly playing board games with his friends; it's the one day of the year when there really is no work whatsoever, so he'll be socialising. Might take some time with his great-nieces and great-nephews too; he's actually very doting when the child in question isn't yet old enough to start asking awkward questions."
"Hm." That limits the options in some ways, but also opens up new possibilities. "Do you know where Shirushi-san is?"
"I do." A little more caution in her tone this time, but that's perfectly fair; Shirushi-san has been nothing but kind to him, and does genuinely care for Kiso despite not having the time to raise him full-time in her home.
"Do you think she'd object to my babysitting Kei-chan for some of the afternoon?" If Tajima is genuinely fond of little children in small doses, then being the person holding the cute great-niece will force the man to recognise him as a person and not just as a bargaining piece.
Tobirama rather doubts they will ever be on friendly speaking terms, but having Tajima recognise him as more than just a faceless obstacle will give him the space to advocate for further freedoms. Such as potentially walking to the nearest town or visiting his kin someday after peace has been achieved; as Outguard Head, his esteemed father-in-law has the power to veto –or permit– such things.
"I do not think she will object for even a single second, Treasure," Izuna says with a grin. "Let's go get the baby so you can make my father uncomfortable by doting on Kei-chan in his peripheral vision."
"It'll be a nice break before dinner and those various evening activities you've promised me."
"Yes, a rest in the shade now will mean we're still fresh after Kiso's been put to bed," Izuna agrees, faintly teasing. "I seem to remember being promised more kisses, after all."
"There will be many more kisses before tomorrow's sunrise, I promise," Tobirama assures her, leaning in to nuzzle her ear. "So many kisses."
"I will hold you to that, Treasure."
Tajima is sitting in an ume orchard with a lot of other presumably-middle-aged Uchiha with warrior-trained chakra, who are playing various strategy games and idly making conversation. There are also a number of young children scattered around outside the orchard, some watching the games over the fence as others play independently in the grass, all very clearly left here on the basis that they are nominally supervised.
His arrival was by no means discreet –several warriors were already looking in his direction when Izuna led the way into the orchard– but by the time his wife has produced a blanket for them to sit on, the bag of baby supplies and Tobirama's oak-leaf print umbrella from her sleeve seals and then joined one of the card games on the far side of the little field, everybody's chakra seems to have settled properly.
He is still being watched, but it feels casual and intermittent. Tobirama ignores the feeling of wary eyes and cuddles the five-month-old infant against his chest, rocking slightly and humming a tune to encourage Kei-chan to make the transition from sleepy to sleeping. The casual exchange of kisses with her fellow players before Izuna is dealt in rather confirms that the Uchiha really do see it as completely normal and not worth commenting on –at Tanabata at least– so Tobirama lets his own attention wander a little as the baby in his arms gradually settles.
Tajima is a little way away, not the closest but also not the most distant, playing Go with a tall Uchiha with greying hair and a warrior's poise, chatting idly over the goban as they take it in turns to place stones. That one is vaguely familiar, but Tobirama will have to wait until later for that particular introduction. Instead he continues cooing over Kei as his eyes drift across the wider orchard, keeping his chakra soft and diffuse as he tries to match confusingly similar faces to no less confusingly similar chakra signatures.
At least favourite hairstyles seem to be reasonably consistent both in and out of armour and tattoos do not change.
Two of the men he recognises from the day Izuna went to confront the Senju over the assassination attempt; The Inari Head and the Kōjin Head, Uchiha Miune and Uchiha Iwasaku respectively. They are not sitting together; Miune is one of Izuna's opponents at cards, while Iwasaku is playing –and losing at– Go against a solidly-built woman in a subdued and matronly yukata. Izuna's other fellow card-players are a man with a surprisingly strong sailor's accent and a woman –he assumes, given the decorative hairpins and small tattoos under her eyes– whose chakra is vaguely familiar.
Also in the orchard are: an older man sitting with his leg at an angle that suggests a badly-healed injury, a teenage girl with a forehead tattoo, and a man and woman Tobirama can only tentatively identify as 'adult warriors'. Other than Kei-chan, the teenager is the youngest person present actually in the orchard; this is a surprisingly restful corner of the compound, despite the childish shrieking floating on the air and the snatches of music drifting over nearby buildings.
The teenager is ignoring him in that very pointed way that says she knows exactly where he is and is refusing to acknowledge his existence, while half the other adults are far more subtle but not significantly less wary; the other half are actually genuinely ignoring him, which suggests they know rather more about –or at least have significantly more faith in– Izuna's fuuinjutsu that the first half.
Tobirama could not hurt these people if he wanted to. Even with a sword in hand, he would not be able to strike at them.
Kei-chan finally drifts off to sleep; Tobirama settles her more comfortably in the crook of his left arm and fishes out the book Izuna added to the bag of baby supplies; he would like to watch the games, but given the tension it would probably be best to delay that a bit. Plus he has a feeling that being self-contained will bother his esteemed father-in-law rather more than 'spying' would.
The book is a new one, entirely new as he's never seen it before: it is titled Natural Mineral Pigments and Their Usage, a study, and the author's art-name indicates they are a native to Earth Country. Resting the book on his thigh, Tobirama opens the cover and settles in to read the introduction; yes, this really does promise to be fascinating.
"Tobirama-san, my grandfather would like to speak with you."
Tobirama glances up from his reading upon realising somebody has approached him, the words registering only afterwards. The teenager is standing near enough for her words to be conversational, but carefully out of arms' reach. Her tattoo is a small, neat thing, a stylised flame above her right eye that subtly encourages an observer to focus there rather than on her centre of mass, driving an attacker onto the point of her sword. Subtle and clever; to refocus on her chin –as is considered wisest when facing an Uchiha– an attacker's gaze will pass over her eye, ensnaring them in her sharingan.
This teenage warrior of course does not have her sharingan active at present, but she is most certainly employing the clan's defensive battlemask of aggressive blandness.
Tobirama sets a slip of paper into the book, slides it into the baby bag and gets to his feet, taking care not to jostle Kei too much. "And who might you be, Uchiha-san?" He is very sure this person is not somebody he should politely address as 'sama,' not when he has met all the Lineage Heads already and she is not old enough to be any of their wives.
The teenager bows minimally. "Sakurajima of the Uchiha clan, Tobirama of Amaterasu. My honoured grandfather is Asane of the Uchiha."
Properly and formally this warrior should be calling him 'Tobirama-sama' then; Tobirama decides to ignore the insult. Correcting huffy teenagers is not the act of somebody secure in their position and authority. "Please introduce me then, Sakurajima-kun." He will follow Izuna's example and address young warriors as 'kun' regardless of gender.
The teenager bristles warily, but retreats back to the game table where the older man with the stiff leg was previously playing against the man Tobirama does not know the name of or even vaguely recognise. That man has moved around now and is loitering under a nearby tree while eating yōkan, still chatting to the older man. The conversation pauses as Sakurajima leads Tobirama over:
"Ojiisan, Tobirama of Amaterasu. Tobirama-sama, Asane of the Uchiha clan."
So she does use the appropriate address when she knows her grandfather can hear her. Tobirama bows politely, mindful of the infant cradled against his heart:
"Honoured Elder."
The seated man waves a hand at him. "No, no; none of that, Tobirama-sama, I'm just a tatami maker. Please, sit and play a round of Go with me." The affable tone does nothing to hide the hawk-sharpness of his chakra; this is not a friendly invitation.
But it is nonetheless an invitation.
Tobirama sits on the mat on the near side of the goban, with his prospective opponent on a low stool opposite him, and eyes the two bowls of stones set on the table between them. Should he choose black and take the initiative, or white and play defensively?
Whichever one he chooses his opponent has the advantage of age and experience, as well as the less tangible advantage of being Uchiha and therefore more skilled in reading patterns and likely outcomes. He has learned during his imprisonment that not all of that depends on the sharingan; much of it is inherent, laying a foundation for the bloodline gift to build upon. Tobirama may have consistently matched Izuna in the field until his capture, but that was on chakra reserves, brute strength, stamina and excellent reflexes; her strengths have always been speed, agility, greater awareness of the wider field and a knack for near-lethal surprises.
Her capturing him was proof of greater tactical skill and awareness, which have held true throughout his imprisonment in both her influence over her clansmen and her clashes with her father. He has never thought to suggest his wife play Go with him; perhaps he should ask.
Later. Currently he has a game to play against Asane-san; he takes the bowl of black stones, seeing as his only possible advantage here is initiative and he is unlikely to hold onto that for very long. Yes, he has read the journal of a Go-loving ancestor from the Senju archives multiple times and remembers all the various strategies shown, but he is aware there are more ju and styles of play than the ones Senju Buttōma considered enjoyable enough to describe in detail.
But there is rather more at stake here than the outcome of a round of Go; he doesn't yet know why Asane-san chose to invite him to play in the first place. He will have to keep his wits about him while also doing his best to play well.
Izuna has listened to him, conversed with him, piqued him and repeatedly proven that she does genuinely want the best for him, but since his capture she has not truly challenged him intellectually. Morally yes, repeatedly; challenged his assumptions and also his emotional control, and they have played a range of paper games during the rainy season. But this kind of intellectual strategic challenge is something she has thus far refrained from, probably entirely on purpose.
Time to find out where he stands, then.
"Do you have longer-term plans, Tobirama-san?"
Tobirama frowns at the game unfolding between them, aware that he is doing rather poorly but struggling to recover ground. "I am putting off long-term planning until the outcome of the prospective peace-talks has been determined, Asane-san; what will be within my means will change considerably depending on whether Tajima-sama and Tokonoma-ji are able to find an agreeable middle ground between them."
"True," Asane concedes, tone and chakra still smoothly amiable, "but surely there are things you intend to do regardless?"
"Obviously," Tobirama agrees, setting down his Go stone; it strengthens his position, if not by much. "But if peace proves too challenging to arrange, then my wife will likely be returning to the field as soon as she is able, in which case I will be required to take on a larger portion of the childcare." He has no illusions that Izuna will stay retired if peace is not achieved; she will head out into the field the moment she is physically capable of it, all the better to secure victory for the Uchiha so that her children never have to lose innocence and siblings to the feud.
It is what he was trying to achieve for the Senju, before his abduction.
"You would not prefer her to do otherwise?"
"I like children," Tobirama says flatly as Asane places his own Go stone, changing the board once more, "and I have no illusions as to my wife's goals; she will have peace for our children, and if my kin refuse to collaborate, well that is their choice and the consequences of such intransigence are their responsibility. We have both done all within our respective power to bring both parties to the bargaining table, but neither one of us has the authority to negotiate; we must trust that those with that power will act in good faith on our respective kin's behalf, to bring about a solution that will prevent further deaths."
There are many places where he could place his next stone, but he can see traps waiting all over the board, ready to close their jaws over him should he take that step. Yes, he could capture a few stones, but doing so would lead him to lose more. He could pass, but that would simply provide Asane with further opportunities to press his advantage.
Better to take a small victory than to stand by as defeat overwhelms him; Tobirama places another stone and picks up the three captured ones to set aside. Asane-san placing his own stone and picking up five of Tobirama's was entirely expected, but better than giving up on that section of the board and losing it entirely.
"So what kinds of things are you intending to do regardless?" Asane both sounds and feels genuinely interested, so Tobirama answers as he tries to puzzle out what move he should make next:
"More mushroom-hunting, hopefully, and more discussions of fuuinjutsu theory. My wife's background there is very different to what I'm used to, so it's very interesting trying to reconcile the approaches and working out how such different methods can produce a comparable result." Although Tobirama is starting to suspect that the method itself is actually less important than its coherence.
Mito will be appalled. He's rather looking forward to telling her. Hopefully in person, so he can see and hear her outraged reaction for himself.
"I am all in favour of more mushroom-hunting, Treasure," Izuna says, settling on the mat next to him and resting her head on his left shoulder so she can peer down at Kei-chan. "Your soup is divine and so were the mushroom gyōza. The oyaki were also amazing, experimental or not."
"You're craving mushrooms with a fervour to put the most truffle-mad wild boar to shame," Tobirama says dryly, placing his stone on the board and sighing as Asane instantly places his own stone somewhere completely different. He will have to contemplate the board again and see what he has missed.
"It's hardly my fault that all my unborn wants to eat is mushrooms, mushrooms and more mushrooms," his wife says agreeably. "If it was pickles, well that would be different."
"Why would it be different, Lord-Wife?"
"Because," Tajima says from further to Tobirama's left, making him almost drop the Go stone he's holding, "when Hitomi-san was expecting Izuna-kun, she ate umeboshi and beni shōga with everything."
"I remember that," Asane says with a chuckle; "Akagi-san was worried she'd dig so deep into the clan stores they'd have to set aside extra ume for pickling come summer, meaning there'd be less umeshū the following year."
"Not even born and already monopolising the umeshū," Tobirama teases, prompting a wave of cheerful laughter and taking the retaliatory poke to his ribs with good grace. "My mother told me I made her crave pork buns," he says as a peace offering; "dragged a few of my uncles and aunts out on a boar hunt while three months pregnant, much to my grandmother's dismay." His mother and grandmother notably never mentioned what his father had thought of this particular escapade; Tobirama suspects it happened while Otousama was on a mission, and his other relatives conspired to ensure he never found out.
"Oh my, what a terror," Asame says warmly, shaking his head as Tobirama finally sets down his stone. The older man then sets down his own stone and picks up six –six!– of Tobirama's, making him groan as the pattern he had missed forming becomes inescapably clear.
Izuna shifts, sitting more upright so as to pay attention to the goban, and Tobirama feels her chakra twinge in amused dismay. "Tell me, don't spare my ego," he requests dryly, one hand half-covering his face as he screams internally at the inevitable defeat staring up from the board.
"Asane-ji is very good at Go," Izuna says conciliatorily, "but Treasure… for all your tactical acumen, you are not particularly practiced in strategy."
Tobirama sighs grumpily. "I did ask," he reminds himself. His wife kisses him on the cheek.
"In your defence, Treasure: Senju Butsuma never demonstrated any particular grasp of long-term strategic planning either, that I noticed."
So this is something that is taught within the Uchiha clan and that his education has lacked entirely, leaving him to grasp for it by instinct and implication. "How do the Uchiha define strategy then, as different to tactics?" He has always heard them spoken of in the same breath, the difference mainly a matter of scale.
"I will begin a step removed, if you don't mind," Izuna says as he straightens, picks up another Go stone and tries determinedly to see if there is anything left for him to salvage.
"Go ahead, Lord-Wife."
"First there are your goals; goals come first. What is it you wish to achieve? Regardless of your current situation, regardless of your enemy, what is your desired outcome? Articulating that is the first step to victory, as having a clear goal enables you to ensure all strategic decisions are made in the pursuit of that goal," Izuna begins, resting her chin back on his shoulder and wrapping her right arm around his waist. "Strategy is the overall plan for achieving the desired goal through all available means, martial or not; tactics are specifically the actions taken to achieve the strategy, enacted in the short-term to fulfil clearly-defined intermediate steps. For instance: my goal is peace. My opening strategy was your decisive removal from the field, as that would place your clan at a major long-term disadvantage and hopefully lead them to desire a corresponding reduction in hostilities. My tactics however involved a decent amount of fuuinjutsu research and experimentation, then communicating with my squad and my cousin once the fuuinjutsu was complete, so as to ensure my abduction of you would not critically disrupt the wider battlefield while also granting me leverage to use against you and the time to pressure you into complying without interruption."
That all makes sense, but looking back Tobirama can see that he has never actually looked beyond the generic strategies of 'improve my own strength' and 'increase the clan's efficiency,' both of which served his father's higher goal of… Tobirama has no idea, honestly. Wipe out the Uchiha? Survive another year? He's never really thought about it, being too intent on the next mission, the next task, the next problem preventing him from achieving a desired tactical outcome.
Anija had goals –peace– but lacked strategy entirely, so was trying to achieve peace on a tactical level without ever defining a clear overall path. Step one of Hashi's peace plan in fact appeared to be 'get the Uchiha clan on board' which… even Tobirama can see that's not a starting point. That's actually a goal in itself, or at least an intermediate strategic step. Something to work towards rather than a jumping-off point.
He, Tobirama, did not actually have a clearly-defined goal in this game of Go. He did not set out to deliberately hold certain areas of the grid, nor did he have specific ju in mind for doing so. He was simply trying to counter his opponent's apparent efforts, and in doing so allowed himself to be led around by the nose for the first part of the game, leaving him in a very weak position that he is now attempting to defend.
"The Senju Clan don't play much Go, I take it?" Asane asks mildly as Tobirama tries to find a place to put his stone that will not lead him to lose ground even as he advances.
"I play more than most," Tobirama protests, then realises revealing even that much while Tajima is listening is definitely unwise. "Among my peers at least," he amends; "however I've not read as much about the game as I would like to, as books on the subject would have been a frivolous expense." As opposed to the books on geology, botany, water management and erosion, which have advanced his understanding of his Element –and therefore improved his jutsu usage– as well as granting him greater facility in the field in other ways.
"I can lend you a few classic texts, Tobirama-san," Asane says with a twitch of his lips, "so long as you promise to grant me more games in future. Your style is very refreshing."
"If Asane-san wishes to amuse himself repeatedly crushing a lowly beginner then I am delighted to entertain him," Tobirama snaps sarcastically, most of his mind on the utter disaster of the game before him, then twitches as his opponent bursts out laughing.
"I did not know what to think when Izuna-kun brought you into the clan, Tobirama-san," Asane says frankly once he has recovered his composure, idly rubbing his bad leg, "but I think that now I see a little of her intentions. As a Go player you have promise; please do not give up on yourself."
"Well, it will give me something to do that is not dependent on the outcome of the peace proceedings," Tobirama concedes warily, not entirely sure how to take such a suggestion. "However I am passing on my turn, as I do not see a way to not make my predicament worse for myself."
"Then we shall end the game here, Tobirama-san," Asane says generously before smirking across the board in a way that is entirely wicked. "A Tanabata kiss for an old man, Tobirama-san, Izuna-kun?"
Izuna laughs, gets up and leans over the goban to peck the man on the cheek; Tobirama stiffly does likewise, then shifts Kei in his arms so the elder can press a gentle kiss to the infant's forehead.
"I will send the books your way tomorrow, Tobirama-san; I look forward to our next game."
"I am sure it will be interesting," Tobirama deflects; Asane has given him much to think about. As has his wife; he has never heard of tactics and strategy discussed in this manner before, and wants to take a little time to mull over the difference.
Possibly borrow a few books on the subject as well, if she will lend them to him.