Bondage
First thing the next morning Izuna makes a trip to the medics; her chakra pooling early is not a bad thing in itself, but it is something to keep an eye on. Especially since it all but confirms she is carrying twins.
Kiso is returned right after breakfast, just in time to miss Madara leaving to plead his case to the joiners; Tobirama is grateful to not have to be involved in that. He has decidedly mixed feelings about last night that he needs to unpick at his own speed –and some careful questions to put to his wife at the same time– so not having to negotiate for the repairs or deflect attention from the actual sequence of events is a relief.
It helps that Kiso is very keen to cuddle today rather than run around with his toys; Tobirama suspects Tajima has said something that has prompted this clinginess, but decides it's better by far not to make an issue of it. Instead he borrows one of Izuna's illustrated books of nonsense poetry –he has no idea where she got them from but they're completely hilarious– and reads it aloud to the toddler, relishing the wide-eyed wonder and occasional heated objections.
It makes for a very enjoyable morning. Then in the afternoon they have Kei-chan while Kiso is out with Midori-chan, and that is very comfortable as well. Partly because by midday clouds are gathering overhead; the downpour hits after a few hours of ominous thundery rumbles and the rest of the afternoon is delightfully cool, the rain lasting long enough to enact a significant reduction in temperature rather than steaming into vapour less than an hour after the clouds finish emptying themselves.
It's a good day. That Izuna spends the afternoon assembling the decoy pillow –a combination of embroidery project and fuuinjutsu– and laughingly demanding Tobirama comment on how good a likeness to her the stitched features on the limbless effigy are goes a long way to soothing the remnants of last night's nerves. The face is minimal but artistically styled: eyebrows sharp, nose barely hinted at and mouth not much more than a single stitched line but eyelashes individually sewn, clearly conveying that this is a face but not really attempting anything approaching realism. It works unexpectedly well considering her evident unfamiliarity with the new medium.
She also discusses ways to refine the Amaterasu Residence's security to account for sleepwalkers, which proves a very interesting mental exercise. Tobirama's not sure that any specific conclusions have been reached by dinnertime, but they've certainly considered a good number of different possibilities for testing.
Testing will of course be somewhat challenging, but Izuna is right that the first and most important test is the efficacy of the decoy. Tobirama's only contribution there is in testing whether Izuna has managed to get the scent right, which she has, and entertaining the baby in the brief interval she is awake for.
He suspects that his wife already had these decoy seals in her back pocket; laying false trails and turning rolled-up bedding into alibis seems like something she will already have extensive practice in, and the lengths she goes to ensure apparent realism uphold this hypothesis. Izuna is gleefully evasive when he tries to pursue this line of questioning, which is confirmation enough.
It is only when putting Kiso to bed in the early evening that Tobirama realises the floor, shōji threshold and tatami mat in his room have all been replaced while he was distracted by fuuinjutsu debates. He's not sure if he's grateful or unnerved by having entirely missed it happening; he decides Izuna was probably trying to be considerate, but the lack of evidence of last night's near-miss is somehow more unnerving. Or would have been had his wife not spent the entire afternoon working on a mitigation strategy; it's still a little disconcerting as it is.
There's a tabby cat napping on top of his tansu. Tobirama is irritatingly grateful for its presence.
"Izuna?" He says after the toddler has been settled halfway to dreamland and he has shut the fusuma behind him.
His wife looks up from her life-size decoy doll, now 'dressed' in one of her nemaki with the sleeves inside-out and secured on the inside by the belt. "Yes, Treasure?"
"Next time there are repairs, I'd like to be aware that they are happening." Yes, she was trying to be considerate, but the lack of awareness is somehow worse than the lack of control.
Izuna nods. "I'm sorry Tobirama, I thought you'd prefer not to be reminded; I'll ask next time."
"Thank you." This is not the first high-handed decision made in a misguided attempt to make him more comfortable, but at least they are new mistakes each time; she listens to him. Which, considering Tajima as parent and role-model, is markedly better than it might be.
Actually, any instance of not emulating her father really does need to be encouraged; Tobirama walks over to sit next to her and leans in for a kiss. His wife eagerly reciprocates, fingers threading through his hair as he wraps an arm around her waist and gently pushes her down to the tatami.
They're both still dressed, if breathing heavily and distinctly dishevelled, when Madara cautiously announces himself in the genkan.
"So punctual," Tobirama complains quietly, forehead resting against his wife's as he tries to carve out space in his mind for something other than resentful disappointment at the interruption.
"Timely arrival, timely departure?" Izuna murmurs back, tone both plaintive and vaguely hopeful, before raising her voice: "We're both decent, Nii-san!"
"You say that like your decency standards aren't dramatically different from anybody else's decency standards, Ii-chan," Madara says ruefully, sliding open the fusuma of the genkan and promptly slapping a hand over his eyes with a theatrical groan. "And I am proven correct yet again."
"Nobody's naked, Nii-chan," Izuna says reproachfully, tugging at the front panel of her kimono so it gapes less. "Now get in here and admire my solution to your sleepwalking problem."
Madara sighs longsufferingly, but does step inside and close the fusuma behind him before cautiously peeking between his fingers.
"Behold!" Izuna says grandly, picking up the deceptively silly-looking body pillow and holding it out to him upright, a limbless torso with the attached head embroidered with a sleeping expression, wide black loops of silk ribbon neatly stitched to its scalp in a vague mock-up of her own wild hair. "Meet your imo-makura."
Madara's hand drops from his face as he stares imploringly at the ceiling, chakra wobbling precariously between hilarity and mortification. Tobirama has to agree that 'little sister pillow' is a delightfully embarrassing name for the effigy and fully approves.
"Must you, Ii-chan?"
"Yes, I really must," Izuna agrees brightly. "Now hug Imo-chan and tell me how she holds up to scrutiny."
Madara sags theatrically, but does step forwards to cautiously take the life-sized pillow-doll from his sister. The way his eyebrows fly up upon contact say he's noticed its unnervingly realistic weight and possibly the way it seems to breathe as well.
"It has… a heartbeat?" Madara cautiously hugs 'Imo-chan,' then holds it out at arm's length again with a slightly disturbed frown. "Imōto, this does not feel like it's stuffed with hemp fibre."
"I love you very much Nii-chan but I never, ever want you joining me in bed with Tobirama ever again," Izuna says sweetly. "This may be ridiculously excessive but I want it to work first time."
Madara is red in the face by the end of this mild reminder of last night's disaster, and gamely hugs the effigy again.
Tobirama finds the way it mimics his wife's chakra signature a tad unnerving, especially since right now his wife has less of a chakra signature than the pillow does due to her pregnancy. That she can achieve that much with fuuinjutsu is however impressive.
"It smells like you, imōto," Madara admits quietly after a few seconds, "and the weight is… right, I suppose. Other than the missing limbs."
"If you want to give it limbs that's your problem; I thought limbless would be less creepy overall, as it looks less like you're unhealthily obsessed with me and more like I am teasing you by giving you a life-sized cuddly kokeshi doll."
Madara flushes and cringes at the same time. "Point."
"But you are unhealthily obsessed with me, Nii-chan," Izuna continues mildly, "so I'd be grateful if you talked to Moreya-jii-chan or somebody about why it is that your sleeping mind won't believe I'm safe unless you're actually holding onto me. Or talk to an altar if that's easier; something, please, Nii-chan. Because Tobirama's not going anywhere and if you try to hurt him again I will have to actually do something about it rather than pretend it didn't happen."
Madara flinches this time; Tobirama is abruptly reminded of the legal code and the laws that protect non-warrior clansmen from warriors. Madara attempting harm while sleepwalking is not covered specifically by the legal code, although there are other laws covering 'harm done while not in one's right mind,' which come close. Either way there should be some kind of punishment due, or at least restitution, which his wife seems to be channelling into 'embarrass and harry my brother until self-improvement is achieved.'
It might work. It would never work on Anija, but with Madara it feels like there's a better than even chance of success.
"And you owe Tobirama," Izuna adds firmly.
Madara nods, as though this is both fair and expected. "Let me know if you ever want to spar, Tobirama-san. Or anything else."
"I will," Tobirama manages, suddenly intensely curious what it would be like to spar with Madara. He knows Izuna spars with her brother –or did until she retired from the Outguard at least– and he is nominally his wife's equal on the battlefield, so he should be able to more or less match the Conflagration on the sparring field where the stakes are lower.
He wants to find out where he stands there. Especially since he might get to use live steel for such a spar.
"It really does feel like you, Izuna," Madara admits after a pause.
"It's actually tied to me as well; as long as I'm in good health it will feel like it does now," Izuna says easily. "I thought knowing that would help you trust it a bit more."
Madara's shoulders soften slightly. "That does help; thank you imōto."
"Good. Now shoo; I want to take Tobirama to bed."
Madara makes himself scarce, pillow-effigy slung over his shoulder.
"S you're taking me to bed, are you?" Tobirama asks once they're alone once more. Not that he objects in the slightest.
His wife shrugs. "Or we could go back to what we were doing before my brother interrupted us."
Tobirama moves forwards to catch his wife around the waist so he can pick her up and spin her around. "A very fine idea," he concedes, setting her feet back on the floor, "but I'd actually rather like to lay you out on a bed and take my time over you there; futons are comfier than tatami." He pauses. "Your futon, if I may; I'm not sure Kiso's properly asleep yet."
"I'd like that."
Tobirama grins. "Your futon it is then, Lord-Wife."
"How closely is the pillow-doll tied to your health?" Tobirama asks the next morning in the bath-house.
"Not very closely at all," Izuna admits frankly, reaching for the soap. "So long as I'm alive it'll all keep going as though nothing's wrong. But I can deliberately sever the conscious connection, which will make the heartbeat cut out along with the breathing. The chakra signature will only cut out if my chakra gets sealed by a third party, and I don't actually need access to my chakra to set off the alarm part."
Either of those stopping would prompt her brother to panic and investigate very thoroughly the moment he notices; a pair of very clever failsafes. "Is there anything in particular going on today beyond your lesson with your aunt?"
"A few clan vassals are visiting in preparation for tomorrow; valuation specialists," his wife tells him, taking his flannel to scrub his back for him. "They'll be hosted in the Diplomatic Quarters and will probably be eating with my Lord-Father, but are otherwise likely to keep to themselves."
"I thought your clan didn't have vassals."
"We don't have many," Izuna concedes, "and none of them are here on our oldest and original holding, but we do own more land that this and some of that land is inhabited. We just don't advertise that, for obvious reasons."
"That's fair." Though Tobirama's unsure how the Uchiha can have valuation specialists as vassals. Do they own the freehold for an auction house? The Uchiha are not subject to any of the Daimyo's laws on their own land, which would allow for a wider range of wares than regular auction houses generally have available. "Am I allowed to meet them?"
"I won't stop you," Izuna says, amusement trembling faintly in what of her subdued and contained chakra he can sense in the light of day, "but be aware that they might choose to avoid you, and that interacting with them might cause my father to claim your interference in the process and lower the accorded value correspondingly."
Tobirama makes a face as he turns to scrub her back in turn; that would be entirely in character for Tajima. "Will they be staying long?"
"Several days at least, Treasure; I doubt they'll get everything properly valued tomorrow unless your clan decides to hand over more cash than goods."
Which is indeed very unlikely. "I would like to meet them before they leave," he decides.
"I will let my Lord-Father know." So that if such a meeting doesn't happen, Tobirama will know who to blame. "Also, Obon is in a week. Some of the clan do celebrate it, mostly those with recent out-clan ancestors, so I'm going to ask around and see who would be willing to let you join in with their celebrations." She tilts her head back to smile at him. "I'm sure there'll be somebody, Treasure; you don't have that many personal enemies in-clan."
"My wife's optimism is noted." In Tobirama's experience animosity does not have to be personal to be vehemently sincere.
Izuna laughs softly, turning to take the flannel from him and kiss him on the mouth. "Have a little faith, Treasure," she murmurs, "in yourself as much as in me and my kin. You've not made a terrible showing of yourself in the past months, have you? And why should anyone begrudge you the desire to ensure your dead stay at rest?"
Ah, pragmatism. "Very well then, Lord-Wife, I shall do my best."
Tobirama spends the morning with Azumaya-ba, Kiso running around with her younger nieces and nephews as she enlists his help with various gardening jobs and domestic repairs requiring a strong grip, or at least a second pair of hands. It's soothing to just do and to be able to enjoy the fruits of his labours, as well as be able to talk inconsequentially about Izuna's pregnancy, Kiso's ongoing development –the toddler seems to be picking up new words every day despite not being able to reliably pronounce all of them– and listen in turn to what Azumaya-ba's wider family are all getting up to.
"O-Neko-san!"
Tobirama glances down at the six-year-old tugging on his kimono skirt, not moving his hands from where they are steadying the ladder Azumaya-ba is standing on. "Yes?"
"Hoshio-kun says you gots teeth like my tou-san, O-Neko-san!" The little boy –whose name he can't for the life of him remember– says earnestly, sticking two fingers in his mouth and pulling his lips apart. "Thee?"
Where there should have been a single normal blunt human canine tooth are instead two thin and very pointy incisors, in both the upper and lower jaw. "You have cat teeth, do you?" Tobirama asks, not sure if he's delighted, baffled or unnerved.
"Yesh!" The boy gazes hopefully up at him, still hanging off his kimono with his free hand. "Fow me your teef, O-Neko-than?"
Tobirama obligingly grimaces for several seconds, revealing his teeth right back to his pre-molars. He does not have an extra canine tooth, but all of his teeth bar the front incisors are distinctly pointier than human normal.
"Fo cool!" The six-year-old lets go of Tobirama's clothes and also takes his other hand out of his mouth so as to wave both arms enthusiastically. "O-Neko-san your teeth are so cool!"
"Do your other siblings have cat teeth?" Tobiram asks, unable to help himself.
The little boy nods eagerly. "Yes! We all got them because Tou-san's a Cat summoner and so is Obaasan and Ojiisan was too so we all gots the Cat teeth even though we don't got Cat sense. Tou-san says that's Kaa-san's fault for being her Otou-san's daughter, but like he thinks it's funny."
"Don't have Cat sense, Iwate-kun," Azumaya-ba corrects fussily from where she is carefully patching the top of a shōji. "Your father may be an unrepentant ruffian but that does not mean you have to sound like one."
Iwate-kun tilts his head and blinks in a distinctly feline manner. "Do Cats only like ruffians, Azumaya-baa?"
"Cats find ruffians amusing," Azumaya-ba replies without missing a beat. "They like all kinds of other sorts of people as well; Torao-kun in the Outguard is not a ruffian, for instance."
"What's Cat sense, Azumaya-ba, that we don't got– don't have it?"
"I have no idea kitten; don't worry about it, I have it on Cat authority that Madara-sama and Izuna-bi doesn't have Cat sense either, and neither does your uncle Tsuyoshi."
The boy nods philosophically, accepting this pronunciation. "I'm not a Cat, so I s'pose I don't need Cat sense."
"That's the spirit, Iwate-kun. How are your reading lessons going?"
The conversation turns to katakana and kanji and poetry as Azumaya-ba descends from the ladder and chivvies him over to another damaged shōji, but Tobirama remembers those baby fangs and Iwate-kun's matter-of-fact attitude to them. Evidently the cats have left their mark on a good number of Uchiha over the generations, for nobody to think anything of extra teeth.
Kiso is being babysat in the morning of the day that the Senju will be giving his wife her demanded restitution for the assassination attempt on him, so Tobirama has the first half of the day entirely to himself. He wouldn't usually –usually Izuna would be free all day and spend most of it with him– but today is not a normal day at all.
He hasn't actually asked his wife what it is she is extorting from his kin. He's half-certain this is as much about placating her father and following Clan Law to the letter as it is about satisfying her own sense of justice, all the better to lull her own kin into believing that, with the Senju placed at such a strong disadvantage, they will get the best possible terms for the upcoming peace treaty. Izuna hasn't really given him the impression that she's interested in whatever ends up being handed over either, beyond it meeting some unspoken standard that will prompt her father to put it in writing that he will make no mention of the assault to the Fire Daimyo, ever.
Tobirama assumes that whatever gets handed over to buy that assurance will be valued and then sold, the money going into the Uchiha Clan's coffers. Hopefully to fund future peaceful business schemes, but maybe Tajima will decide he can afford to outfit even the clan's orphans in higher-quality armour as well.
Izuna left right after breakfast, escorting Kiso to Naka-Scallion on the way rather than waiting for her to come and fetch him, dressed in a deep murasaki leno-weave tomesode embroidered on the water-blue pattern section of the skirt with waving riverweed in horsetail green and dainty fish in shades of eggshell cream and ivory gold; fish which, on closer inspection, are in fact skeletal. It's very striking and also slightly unnerving, the light and dark grey cormorant damask obi tied in a fancy knot and secured with the sappanwood purple obi cords he made for her combining with the kimono to create a mature yet slightly whimsical overall picture.
It suits his wife very well. Hopefully whoever is responsible for the handover will manage to avoid being struck dumb by the sheer status embodied in that 'simple' summer tomesode.
Not being in the mood to read or braid, Tobirama takes himself off to Asane-san's house for a few games of Go. Yes, he will inevitably lose, but he knows many more ju now and has a much better idea of how to pace himself and build a solid defence, so the game will last longer and he will lose less miserably. Asane-san's teaching games are also extremely enjoyable, and the older man is always willing to talk about other things while playing.
Last time it was the Elemental Nations' various monasteries and which ones are connected to each-other, which ones have overt rivalries with each-other, which ones pointedly ignore each-other and what the fiercely-held theological differences between their various orders are. Tobirama had been fascinated –almost to the point of his play suffering from his distraction– and after the game was over he had hurried home to get out one of the maps his wife had given him, so as to properly visualise all the details and take notes while the memory was still fresh.
Carefully tying his bridge-and-willow damask obi around his concubine-blue visiting kimono with the boats and securing everything in place with some blue-white obi cords he made himself, Tobirama decides he is rather looking forward to finding out what topic Asane will pick this time.
Utterly engrossed in the discussion of grain crops, how they vary by region and cultural background and how this affects perceived national wealth, Tobirama doesn't notice noon creeping up on him until Naka-Scallion arrives at the door with a damp and very grumpy Kiso, who is not amused by there being no food for him to eat right this moment. Asane-san's sesame-seed senbei work as a temporary distraction, but the toddler needs something more substantial so Tobirama hurriedly says his goodbyes, agrees to come back tomorrow morning and then balances Kiso on his hip and heads back to the Amaterasu Residence.
Kiso munches on the senbei and sniffles grumpily the entire way, despite Tobirama doing his best to coax the three-year-old into a better mood.
"Here we are," Tobirama says with determined lightness as they get back to the house, slipping out of his geta in the genkan and removing Kiso's shoes as well. "Let's go wash our hands for lunch, shall we?"
"No."
Tobirama glances down at the toddler on his hip, who is now pouting thunderously. "No clean hands means no lunch, Kiso."
"No!"
Sighing, Tobirama walks through the house and resigns himself to furious toddler screaming once they get to the sink; it seems it's going to be one of those days. And when he has Kei-chan in the afternoon as well, and no sign yet of whether Izuna will return in time to help him.
Kiso sulks for a full two minutes after being given his mushroom onigiri, glaring and refusing to touch them, until Tobirama sneakily reaches for one of them and the toddler instantly snatches his plate away, completely outraged at this betrayal and abruptly remembering his appetite. The meal is then swiftly devoured and followed up by a small bowl of shiruko; Izuna arrives just as Kiso is finishing off his dessert.
"Ooh, shiruko!"
"No! Mine!" The toddler declares, hunching over the bowl and glaring at her. Izuna instantly turns to Naka-Dragon and puts on an exaggeratedly pleading pout, folding her hands in a begging gesture.
"When you've eaten your lunch, Izuna-sama," the clanswoman says firmly, chakra amused as she goes along with the show.
"An' wash hans first," Kiso adds, the little hypocrite.
"I'm going, I'm going!" Izuna laughs, bouncing cheerfully out to the sink. When she returns Naka-Dragon hands her a bowl of cold udon noodles, along with a smaller bowl of miso soup with mushrooms cooked with venison stock. Izuna promptly pours the soup over the noodles, then sets about eating the lot with cheerful relish.
Kiso finishes his warm anko paste and wanders over to sit next to Tobirama, thumb in his mouth and other hand gripping Tobirama's obi cords; evidently he has been forgiven. Tobirama drinks the cup of chilled barley tea Naka-Dragon supplied him with and decides he needs to have a talk with the babysitters sometime soon to find out what exactly is going on there. Yes, Kiso coming home fractious once could just be him, but this is not the first time.
Hopefully it's just a normal case of children being children and not something more serious that will require him to brave the Uchiha's in-clan court system. Yes, he's read about it enough in the clan legal code to have a good idea of how it works, but in his experience these things are never as clear-cut as they purport to be.
"So, do you want the good news, the unexpected news or the less-good news?" Izuna asks after she's finished her first course and Naka-Dragon has handed her a bowl of shiruko with a side-dish of umeboshi.
"Unexpected, good and then less-good," Tobirama decides, one arm wrapped loosely around Kiso's shoulders.
"Well, the unexpected news is that your clan have sent you a box of wedding presents separate from the restitution, which after cursory examination have been handed over to me and are even now waiting in the front hall behind us," his wife says, grinning as Kiso instantly turns to look at the closed shōji separating the iori from the front hall. "I feel like several members of my family are somehow insulted by your kin's commitment to our relationship, so whenever your brother and his wife get around to having children I suspect they will be getting gifts from a cross-section of my more closely-related kinsmen."
Tobirama smirks; seeing as Mito is pregnant right now that promises to be hilarious. He's already looking forward to hearing about the fallout of that particular surprise, as Anija will doubtless misinterpret things and need Mito to straighten him out again.
"The good news is that the Senju Clan have apparently decided this is the perfect moment to offload all manner of expensive but inconvenient-to-fence goods along with the usual prestige gifts that exist to change hands regularly, so my father has absolutely no grounds whatsoever for complaining to the daimyo and he knows it," Izuna continues gleefully, "but the less-good news is that valuing it all is going to take a while, so everything's stalled while that happens and my father tries to argue with the Aburame that the inconvenience diminishes the value."
How very typical of Tajima.
"However note that he's arguing with the Aburame," Izuna continues, "who feel this is a perfectly acceptable showing from the Senju even without full value having been accorded yet, so the restitution has been deemed preliminarily acceptable even though the final numbers are still pending. So if you want to go down to the riverside and host tea nodate for your relatives while my father's quibbling with Shijin-sama, the Aburame are perfectly willing to chaperon that."
"Have tea wif Keifu Baa-tan?" Kiso asks instantly, removing his thumb from his mouth as he looks from Izuna's face to Tobirama's. "Wan' have tea wif Keifu Baa-tan!"
"Do you want to draw an invitation for Sunami-obaa-san, Kiso-kun?" Izuna asks lightly. "It would have to be in two weeks time; your keifu's obaasan celebrates Obon next week, and inviting for this week is very short-notice when she has to travel all the way here."
Tobirama suspects that Baasan would drop everything to come and have a picnic with Kiso on Izuna's prayer-day, but he also recognises that this is a teaching moment so he lets it be.
"Invite Baa-tan," Kiso confirms, nodding his head and slumping against Tobirama's hip. "Have oyaki an' mochi an' amacha."
"Something for you to do this afternoon then," Izuna says comfortably. "I will get out paper and wax crayons for you, and then you can tell me what to write on it."
"Kiso draw for Keifu too!"
"Of course; your keifu needs more art for his tokonoma!"
Tobirama doesn't think he'll have many opportunities to display a toddler's haphazard art, but Kiso is so utterly enraptured by the possibility that he can't find it in him to refuse. "I would be delighted to display any art you give me, musuko."
Kiso settled on the engawa outside Tobirama's living room with many sheets of sturdy hemp paper and a box of variously stubby wax crayons, Izuna quietly leads Tobirama back indoors and silently presents him with a middling sized wooden chest she removes from just inside her study.
"My treasure's wedding gifts from his kin," she murmurs softly, eyes bright, "and now I shall go fetch Kei-chan." She leans in to kiss him. "Enjoy unpacking your gifts; you've got at least half an hour before Kiso decides he wants admiration."
"Many thanks to my unspeakably devious wife." The chest can comfortably be lifted and held by one person, not being wider than his shoulders.
She grins toothily at him, not bothering to hide it behind her fan. "Would you like me as much as you do if I were less devious? I don't think you would."
"You would not be Izuna were you less than scheming," Tobirama concedes, leaning in for his own kiss. "Now go fetch the baby before Shirushi-san decides you aren't coming today." Not that he believes that would happen, but it still makes his wife chuckle and bounce lightly out of the door. Tobirama then sets the elegantly carved box down on the floor, sits himself on a cushion and sets about investigating its contents, half an eye on Kiso who is just visible through the two sets of open shōji.
The box doesn't have a key, but it is locked; nominally at least. Anybody with a wisp of chakra and modicum of chakra control could flick the mechanism open, but it makes Tobirama smile to press his fingers against the edges of the chest and flick the interlocking wedges down, like in those puzzle-boxes that Tokonoma-ji makes sometimes. This is the simplest design –there is not even a specific order to open the catches in– but seeing as it will have been opened for Tajima, Tobirama doesn't mind that. The lock is just to ensure the lid doesn't open while it's being moved.
The inside of the chest is full to the top with rough packages, mostly wrapped in twisted straw or bark cloth rather than washi or silk. A small deception, no doubt deliberate to thwart Tajima's determination to critically impoverish the Senju; these small details suggest his scheme is working, when in truth bark cloth is what the clan have always used for the truly precious things, the things which are kept not because of their monetary value but because they have history.
Most of the trees this far inland are not the best for bark cloth, but there are a few species that work well and the clan keeps an eye on them, harvesting them at large enough intervals to not damage them. Tobirama doesn't know how to make it himself –always so many other things to do– but it's one of the few clan crafts that's accorded value, with a small stipend for the craftswomen even in seasons where the craft is not possible.
The contents of this chest all fall along that theme; precious things, but more for their meaning than their substance. Here is a wall-hanging of bark-cloth painted with the swirling characters of a blessing among oak leaves; here is one of Maki's elk-horn hairpins, the one she stabbed Izuna through the hand with that time. Tobirama smirks; that's a good memory, and given what he now knows about the sharingan he knows that if he wears this pin, his wife will instantly recognise it.
She'll probably laugh. That was a surprisingly good fight and nobody got seriously hurt beyond the hole right through Izuna's hand, which managed to miss the artery.
A pair of carved stone lion-dogs, each about the size of his hand and smooth from age; they had belonged to his great-grandmother once, and to her grandmother before her. Tobirama has only ever seen them displayed in Ōka-ba's tokonoma, and now she has given them to him. A vase shaped like a squat cylinder turned on its side, intended for displaying a single bloom or blossoming branch, decorated with a circular floral pattern in cream against a brown background under the cracked glaze; he's not sure where this came from but Yuta-ba used to put plum blossoms in it every spring. Two-dozen variously-sized storage bags made of thick, costly silk damask –probably the remains of long-defunct obi or kimono– for keeping treasures and tea utensils in when they're not being displayed or used, which have definitely come from Obaasan.
A cheerfully garish teapot painted with a basket-weave pattern and leaves and berries in green, blue, yellow and red with black outlines, along with a single sencha cup with the same basket-weave pattern on the outside and leaf sprays on the inside; Tobirama carefully sets them down then pulls a handkerchief out of his sleeve to press against his face as he breathes. He's not sure if he's worried about laughing or crying right now; it could be either when Anija has just sent him the last survivors of what used to be a favourite tea set. Anija's favourite tea set, specifically; there had at one point been six cups. Once. Anija does better with heavier everyday cups, as they're less likely to fall over when he collides with the fittings.
The rest of the box contains newer things. A quartet of small square lacquered trays, each with a different leaf shape carved lightly in the wood under the lacquer, a set of towels with an Uzumaki wave-pattern edge, a graded set of ink brushes that can only be from Mito, a square box full of camphor nodules to protect his clothing from moths –thoughtful but also very pungent– and a cherry-bark tea caddy that is suspiciously heavy when he tries to lift it.
His family would not give him tea.
Inside the caddy is a rag-wrapped ball of earth with a slightly squashed wisteria seedling sprouting out the top of it, a note scrawled with Anija's terrible handwriting shoved in next to it:
It missed you.
Tobirama carefully moves his box of treasures into his bedroom, closes the fusuma behind him, buries his face in his pillow and cries in earnest.
Then he drops off the eastern engawa in bare feet and plants the seedling in the middle of low-lying garden between his bedroom shōji and the fence, swapping the stone lantern that had previously been central with a narrow stone pillar from nearer to the fence.
The wisteria will hopefully enjoy climbing up the pillar in what is left of the summer, and next year he can build a trellis for it to sprawl over. Tobirama is very willing to cheat ruthlessly to get this tiny scrap of home to take root here, so he can wake up to it every morning. He's not Anija who can make trees grow in a moment, but surely a little chakra won't do it any harm? It's not a mushroom, but he can still dance for it and pray it grows strong.
Eyeing the new layout of the garden from the edge of the engawa, Tobirama walks across the clover again to move the lantern into a slightly more aesthetic position. With a bit of luck he can play this off as a purely whimsical rearrangement and have nobody notice the wisteria until it's established, then claim he likes it and doesn't want it removed.
Underhanded perhaps, but 'my brother gave me a tree and I want to grow it in the garden' is less likely to go down well. There was enough of a fuss over his pine bonsai, despite it not carrying so much as a flicker of his brother's chakra and being firmly confined to its pot.
"Keifu?"
Tobirama quickly jumps back onto the engawa, wipes his feet with a cloth and hurries back indoors. "In here, Kiso!" He says, opening the fusuma to the living room. The toddler blinks at him from the engawa, then settled back into drawing; just a momentary insecurity then.
Izuna should be back in a moment with Kei-chan; Tobirama closes the fusuma and also his bedroom's shōji then heads to the kitchen, both to wash his hands –and his feet– and to fill a kettle with water so as to make tea for his wife. He'll use Anija's ridiculous teapot; that should make her smile. He can also tell her the story of the variously tragic and senseless demises of the missing pieces of this particular tea-set, which she will doubtless find very amusing.