Been a while, I know. I've been working on a really big essay all month. It's due tomorrow, lol. I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter and I feel like Tobirama's way too OOC, but I've been struggling with how to incorporate a proper timeskip. So, this chapter takes place the winter after last chapter's summer, and Kyou is officially five. The next time we see her, she'll be older. I'm tired of toddlers.

This chapter is inspired by the song How to Be Me by Ren x Chinchilla

Shuji looked down at his daughter. She looked like a miniature of himself with her red armor and sour expression. With a sigh, he placed a hand on her head, careful not to undo his mother's work with her hair.

"Stay close to me," he ordered, tone brooking no argument. "Be my shadow, this time, alright? I'll do the fighting, so don't use your sharingan unless absolutely necessary."

She looked up at him in surprise, dark eyes wide and fearful. "But, the council—."

He sank to one knee, placing both his hands on her shoulders. She'd grown over the past year, exponentially. At five she was almost as tall as Izuna, the eight year old and his father deliciously bitter about that development. Kyou was growing fast, faster than any of her peers, and Shuji could only wonder if it came from her mother's family. Sometimes, he was tempted to ask, but it would be too much trouble for only one question.

"You're of age, now, Kyou. There are no more exceptions being made for you. You're mine to deal with, understand?"

She nodded, gaze falling some. "I'm sorry, father."

His grip tightened on her shoulders. "Don't be. It was my mistake. You make it easy to forget how young you are, Kyou, but I shouldn't have. It was only a small setback, and it wasn't all bad." She'd gained a summons during her time in the archives, after all, and had begun specialized suiton training as a result. Her suiton was another thing he wanted to ask his wife about, but the idea of going through all that hassle was just…

Annoying.

He stood, laying a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Stay with me. I won't let anyone touch you."

And he didn't. Kyou stayed beside him throughout the battle against the Shimura Clan, her eyes dark and listless in a way that twisted Shuji's face into a deep scowl. She looked over the aftermath of their victory, expression so carefully blank it was like looking at her mother.

"Kyou," he said as he deftly untied the knots of her armor, hands slick with the blood of his enemies. "How has your training been? Your summons is teaching you properly, yes?"

She hummed, not at all the excited child who'd come running to his side when she'd first summoned the strange doglike creature. Her brown eyes were unfocused and tired in a way no child's should be.

He waved off his mother's hands, taking the comb from her and slowly detangling Kyou's silky hair himself. "Have you learned anything interesting? Last time, you said he was teaching you to sense the water in the air."

His daughter shrugged, expression still blank. It was disconcerting to look at with her mother sitting in his periphery with the exact same face, even if she was blurry without the use of his sharingan. Maybe, his daughter wasn't cursed with his looks, after all.

He wiped at the blood spatter on her face, the white cloth in his hand turning red with the stuff. He watched as her eyes focused on it, her breath hitching audibly. Fuck.

He really should have known. Everything had a price. His fading eyesight was proof of that. He was already nearing his forties—a feat few shinobi achieved—but Kyou's eyes would probably fail much sooner than his—if she attained the Mangekyou, of course. It would probably be a good idea to begin training her for sightless combat, just in case.

He stepped out into the night as his mother shut the door on him, insisting that he leave while she tended to Kyou. Her fussing was becoming a nuisance, and she was starting to monopolize more and more of her granddaughter's time, filling her head with useless female knowledge. She was old, though, older than most of the elders on the council, and would likely soon be gone. Letting her fuss over Kyou for however long she had left would likely prove inconsequential.

"Shuji."

Automatically, his face settled into a scowl, the expression easy and familiar. His cousin, Tajima, stood before him, arms crossed over his chest.

"Tajima-sama." Oh, how that suffix rankled.

The Clan Head looked at him for a long moment. Then, "Madara awakened his sharingan."

Shuji inclined his head, a sneer tugging at the scar on his face. "Congratulations. It's about time."

Tajima's expression soured. "I'm planning on presenting him as my official heir once he turns ten, next year. If you want Kyou to stand against him, you'll have to pull him out of that rut before then."

Shuji scoffed, crossing his arms in a mirror of his cousin's stance. "What does it matter to you what I do with Kyou? Your brat can't take up the heir's mantle until he comes of age, anyway." By then, Kyou would be eleven and definitely strong enough to take down any opposition to her rightful place in the Clan. Of course, Tajima already knew that.

"Your son is a genius," the other man admitted easily. "And an asset to the Clan. But, cousin, you must realize that his growth has slowed down, as of late. His peers are catching up to him, and soon he will be just another child. It would be a shame for all that training to go to waste."

Why was Tajima telling him this? Shuji was well aware of Kyou's…difficulties. He'd made a mistake and pushed her too far too soon and now she was reaping the consequences. He knew what a flashback looked like—he had enough of his own to recognize the signs—and he kicked himself for forgetting what a sharingan could do to a young mind.

"Mind your son, Tajima-sama," he spat. "And I'll mind mine."

His cousin regarded him for another moment before nodding stiffly and turning away. With conscious effort, he forced the stiffness from his shoulders, rolling his neck from side to side. His mother stepped out of his home, placing a worn hand on his shoulder as she left for her own. Inside, Kyou was already in their bed, huddled up against her mother's side as though the woman cared. He had never understood the girl's attachment to his wife. Yes, they were mother and child, but no words had ever been exchanged, no affection ever shown. The woman sat still unless prompted, mind shuttered off from the rest of the world. It was her own fault, of course; the result of a choice she shouldn't have made. Still, he sometimes wondered if it would be worth it to let Kyou meet the woman she clung to so desperately, to see the kind of person her mother really was.

Not for the first time, he dismissed those thoughts. With a sigh, he began his nightly ablutions, splashing his face with cool, clean water his daughter had brought into existence.

That was another thing. Her suiton was highly unusual. His nature was fire, like most of the Clan, and he knew for a fact that her mother's was lightning, as out of practice as she was after fifteen years. Of his children before Kyou, only three had lived long enough to be trained, and each of them had taken after him. It was another mystery only his wife could solve, and one he refused to pursue.

Slipping into the bed, he lay still beside his wife and child, both females ignoring him. His wife lay on her back, eyes closed as she breathed evenly. Kyou was a lump beneath the blanket, sticking to her mother's side like a burr. She would straighten out over the course of the night, and maybe even cling to him by the end of it. They would need another bed soon, especially if Kyou kept growing at the rate she had been. She would be tall. That was beyond doubt. Probably taller than him, just like her mother. Hopefully, taller than Madara. It was a small, petty wish, but he made it fervently all the same.

Of course, their home was too small to accommodate more sleeping quarters. The single room they'd shared for all of Kyou's life was all Tajima would allow them. If he tried to ask for another, larger home, he'd be met with staunch opposition from both his cousin and much of the council. As it was, the rations afforded to his household were far too few to support all three of them. Tajima's wife, Atsuko, controlled the grain supply with an iron fist and consistently starved out her husband's opposition within the Clan. Such conviction was admirable in a Clan Matriarch, but less so when he was the opposition. As it was, he struggled to feed both himself and Kyou, let alone his wife.

Maybe, the woman had outlived her usefulness. It wasn't as though she could give him more children—not that he'd try for any with Kyou sharing the bed—and she wasn't even counted when the rations were distributed anymore. Everyone in the Clan was just waiting for her to die. He knew several women who would gladly take her place, too.

Kyou would be upset, though.

As if triggered by his thoughts, his daughter began to twitch in her sleep. With a sigh, he pulled back the blanket. She was crying, again, the tears falling from tightly closed eyes as she relived some horror or another. He sat up and pulled the child into his lap, cradling her against him. She quieted almost immediately and he let out a soft huff at his own expense. Was there anyone else in the world who would take comfort from his embrace? Even Kyou, when awake, recoiled from his touch far more often than she accepted it. Memories of her siblings, all long dead, rose unbidden in his mind. None had lived long enough to amount to much, two falling in battle, one to illness, and others, like her twin, to his own hand. Of all his children, only she had awakened the sharingan; only she denied him with a smug grin; only she would be missed if taken.

Looking back, it was a miracle any of his children lived long enough to even go to battle. He had no patience for infants and even less for idiots—which most children were. Kyou was special in ways he didn't really understand. Ways which almost drove him to her mother for answers.

Ways which left him determined to continue the lie he'd spun all those years ago, training her properly and giving her genius a meaning.

It wasn't as if he hadn't considered coming clean. He had no sons, but in a Clan such things mattered little. His daughter could be his heir just as easily, but she could not be the Clan's heir. It was nonsense, really. Even without his parental bias, he knew Kyou was better suited to a leadership position than either of Tajima's brats. He was certain that, had he raised her as a daughter, she would have insisted on training her ninjutsu, regardless. It was simply her nature. Already, she had used her sharingan to memorize much of the Clan archives. Which of the elders could confidently say that? The girl consumed knowledge at a rate which sometimes frightened him, but mostly filled him with pride. Had her sisters been like her? Had he wasted such precious potential by ending their lives?

He refused to dwell on it. The past couldn't be undone.

His only child moved in his arms, burrowing into his chest in a motion she would never make while awake. He ran a hand over her silky hair. Kyou. Her tongue was sharp, but her heart was soft. It almost upset him to think of how the world would harden it, and the role he would play in doing so.

Almost.

Kyou knelt on the hard packed earth outside her grandmother's house, the old woman sitting in a chair behind her and running a wooden comb through her dark hair. Hands roughened by time and work scraped gently against the nape of her neck and Kyou shivered.

"Sorry," her grandmother chuckled softly, the sound full of warmth and fondness Kyou couldn't find anywhere else. "You're just like me, that way. Your grandfather would always touch me there, no matter how many times I told him to stop."

Kyou didn't like the sound of that—it certainly wasn't anything she'd tolerate in a relationship—but her grandmother's tone made it clear she wasn't all that upset about it.

Her hair was gathered up into what was now her signature ponytail, for all it never stayed in place for long. She made to stand, but a hand on her head kept her on her knees.

"Tell me, Kyou-chan, what's wrong?"

A lot of things, grandma. So many things.

"Nothing, baa-chan," she said as her hair was braided—it wouldn't last, either, and they both knew it. "I'm fine."

The old woman hummed, clearly unconvinced. "Kyou-chan, everyone is worried about you. We can't help you if we don't know what's wrong."

Everyone. Right. The only people who ever genuinely worried about her and not their investment in her future were her grandmother and cousins—as much as children could be concerned for others—and she wasn't all that inclined to share, even with them.

If something was wrong, and stayed wrong, maybe she wouldn't have to join the campaigns this winter. Satan wouldn't be happy, but Tajima would, so maybe she could use him as a shield from Satan's inevitable wrath? Anything would be better than fighting again, killing again, looking into red eyes again—.

Warm arms wrapped themselves around her narrow shoulders, pulling her back against an aged chest as her grandmother whispered into her ear, her horrible, cursed name said over and over in a sweet, coaxing tone. Her ragged breaths slowed, no longer sharp and painful in her chest, and she clung to the brittle arms embracing her with all the strength in her little four year old hands.

"Kyou-chan," her grandmother crooned, coming to kneel in front of her and brushing her fringe out of her eyes with long, elegant nails. "Oh, Kyou-chan, it's alright. You're fine, you're with me, no one will hurt you."

That was a lie. Not even grandma tried to stop Satan when he was in a rage. Still, Kyou buried her face in the old woman's kimono, accepting the comfort for what it was.

"Tell me, Kyou-chan," her grandmother's voice was slow and measured, and Kyou suddenly felt like running the hell away. "What set you off? Was it something I said? Did I touch you somewhere you didn't like? Please tell me, sweetheart, so I don't do it again."

Yep. That walking-on-eggshells tone, the 'it's my fault' spiel, the ever so gentle pats on the head, they were all so horrifyingly familiar. She could almost smell the Fabuloso used to mop the floors of the shrink's office her—Julia's—father took her to every other week for over fifteen years of her life. She hated that smell. It had officially tainted all memories of her mother, since that weasel of a man insisted on dragging them out into the light and examining them from every unnecessary angle. All to try and dig out a secret her mind had erased from existence. Really, if she forgot it, it was probably for the best, right? That's how that whole memory loss thing worked, right? Being asked about something everyone insisted happened but she would never recall on pain of death—literally—was really annoying and just plain weird.

This time, at least, she could answer the questions.

"Nothing," she knew what that sigh meant. "Really. You didn't do anything, baa-chan. Honest."

Her grandmother pulled away, searching her face with worried dark eyes. She cupped Kyou's face between her hands and pressed their foreheads together.

"There is nothing wrong with being afraid, Kyou-chan, no matter what your father might say. I remember how he was after his first kill, and he struggled, too. Everyone does. The sharingan is as much a curse as it is a gift and it can give even the most mundane things power over us. Please, Kyou, let me help you take it back."

Kyou looked into her grandmother's eyes, the sincerity there bulldozing the hang ups she'd developed surrounding her mental health.

"Red and white," she mumbled, kinda sorta hoping that the fabric of the kimono would muffle her answer. She didn't even want to say it, the memory of blood on snow, the light fading from red sharingan in white faces, the red and white uchiwa on their backs—red eyes and white hair.

Her grandmother hummed, accepting her answer. "I see. How unfortunate, then, that those are the Clan's colors."

Yeah. Exactly. Woe was her.

"Well," the smile on her wrinkled face was kind and knowing, like she had somehow learned more than Kyou had shared. "I have an idea how to help with that. Shuji-kun won't be too happy about it, though."

Immediately, Kyou resolved to do whatever her grandmother told her to, if only for the sanctioned rebellion she promised.

That resolve flagged some when she found herself kneeling in her grandmother's house, a nauseating bouquet of red and white flowers lying on a mat between them. She should have known that she would seize any opportunity to make a 'proper girl' out of her. It was a little offensive, but also a welcome reprieve from all the pro-violence propaganda everyone else kept shoving down her throat.

"Now, Kyou," her grandmother began, her back straight as a rod and her hands folded elegantly in her lap. "I want you to tell me—as much as you can—what words these colors bring to mind."

She lifted a white flower, the petals paper thin and many layered. It was pretty, but the overlapping scents of so many plants made Kyou want to sneeze.

"Emptiness," she responded honestly, since white was technically the absence of color—albinism is the absence of melanin.

Her grandmother smiled. "White camellias are symbols of adoration," she pressed the long stem into a handy pot filled with substrate, slender fingers adjusting its position. "They represent innocent love and are the perfect gift for a child to give their parents."

She picked up another white flower, this one with a million more petals and a thicker stem. Kyou scrunched her face as she tried to come up with another word for white.

"Cold." Like snow and the blade pressed against her neck.

It was added to the pot. "White chrysanthemums can mean honesty and loyalty, and are often used as symbols of fealty or to express sincerity."

A red flower was raised, and Kyou actually recognized it as a spider lily. It was in so many animes.

"Blood." It was the obvious connection.

The flower was added to the pot, standing in sharp contrast to its white companions. Her grandmother's smile was smaller this time.

"Spider lilies are often heralded as symbols of death or grief, but they can also mean nostalgia and memories."

This continued as more red and white flowers were added to the arrangement, the red flowers surrounded by the white in a weird bullseye effect. For every word Kyou gave, her grandmother provided a vaguely positive definition. It wasn't hard to see what she was doing—trying to create more positive associations with the colors than negative—and Kyou was sure that if she were a normal four year old it would have the effect she was trying for. As it was, she was just glad she got to avoid all those annoying elders for once. Plus, she got to spend time with her grandma!

"Kyou-chan," the old woman said softly, her wrinkled mouth downturned in a frown as she sighed. "I should have known you'd see right through me."

Um, what?

A withered hand reached out and took hers, the surprisingly rough skin snagging on Kyou's callouses. "I know you don't like hearing this, Kyou-chan, but you are a girl and there are skills girls are expected to learn." Ah, so that was it. "While I agree that genius like yours shouldn't be left to waste, I also think it could be applied to more than just violence." She tucked an errant lock of hair behind one of Kyou's largish ears. "And I can't help but think you would benefit from that, too."

Kyou looked down at her hands, her little fingers clutching at the dark fabric of her kimono in a vice grip. She wasn't sure how to reply. Her first instinct was to deny the need for any kind of coddling, to insist she was fine and perfectly capable of living a life of needless and excessive violence—.

She stopped herself before she could, the words twisting in her mouth until she bit her tongue. That was the issue, wasn't it? She wasn't fine with that. At all. And she didn't want to be. The part of her which had spent over twenty years in a(n outwardly) peaceful society took one look at the path she was being forced to walk and screamed at the top of its lungs, taking particular offense at the other part of her which felt no remorse for the violence she'd committed. Was that a thing? Feeling guilty about not feeling guilty? Was that possible?

"Besides," her grandmother was saying. "There will come a day when you are no longer able to pass as a boy, Kyou. When that happens, the Clan will not be kind to you. I don't know if I will be there to see it, so I want to teach you a few of the skill you'll need before I go."

That…was a horrifying thought. A world without baa-chan? She'd never even considered it. The old woman had always been there, taking up a bigger portion of her life than her own mother. Her grandmother tended her wounds after every beating, washed and brushed her hair, gave her an extra portion of food whenever the village rations were low.

Kyou launched herself forward, wrapping her arms around her grandmother's waist, burying her face in in her chest.

"No!"

A breathless laugh shook them both. "No?"

"No," Kyou affirmed. "Baa-chan will live forever!"

A hand smoothed down her hair, pulling her back and gently forcing her to look up into rheumy dark eyes.

"Of course, I will, Kyou. Just for you."

She recognized then hollow promise for what it was, but she didn't say anything. She just sat in her grandmother's lap and let herself enjoy being pet like the little girl she was. If she activated her sharingan to keep the memory fresh forever, that was nobody's business but hers.

Of course, the small reprieve her grandmother's 'therapy sessions' granted her was not without its consequences. Several days after the first, Kyou trudged through the forest with a bruise the exact shape of Satan's fist sitting square on her cheek. Several others were hidden beneath her kimono, the hand-me-down several sizes too large and dragging in the snow underfoot. Beside her, Warai huffed.

"I don't understand," he said in that soft but judging way he had. "You don't want to fight?"

She sighed, eyes rolling as she tried to answer that question for the millionth time. "No. Of course, I don't. Why would I?"

"Because you'll die if you don't."

Well, yeah. She knew that.

"I know that," she told him, jumping over a fallen log with ease. "Wanting to defend myself isn't the same as wanting to hurt other people, Warai-san. I don't want to be the kind of person who goes out of their way to hurt others."

The hyena cocked his head. "But you already are. Or did I completely misunderstand your relationship with your kinsmen?"

Oof.

"That's different," she insisted as she picked up a funny looking stick and swung it like a sword. "They started it!"

"Do they remember starting it? It seemed like Izuna didn't."

"Perceived reality and true reality are different, but that doesn't change the fact that they hurt me first!"

"You're still going out of your way to hurt them, though."

She turned to look him in his brown eyes, hands propped on her hips and an admittedly childish pout hurting her bruised face. "That's different! Pranks don't leave people dead, Warai-san!"

The hyena didn't look convinced. Kyou huffed and turned away from him, continuing toward the river where they would begin the next phase of her training. A flash of red caught her eye and she added 'cute tiny birds' to her list of 'good things that are red'. It probably wasn't a proper technique backed by science or anything, but her grandmother was convinced that making the good things outnumber the bad would help. The old woman expected an update at dinner every day, too, and always seemed to know when Kyou was lying.

"I don't understand this human Clan," her summons admitted quietly. "Your women are kept weak even as the men dwindle in number. No one has enough to eat, but no one tries to hunt or farm, instead throwing every available male into a war with no purpose. Should the Uchiha win, what will they gain? Land no one will till? Prestige only they will care for? Even more enemies? It makes no sense."

Kyou chuckled dryly. "Yeah. That's it in a nutshell. All anyone cares about it getting revenge and the Clan has stagnated as a result. I'll bet the Senju are in the same boat, but they'll never admit it. We're killing ourselves while trying to kill each other and it's stupid."

They continued on in silence, the air between them thick with the tension that always accompanied Warai's questions about Kyou's reluctance to fight. As the trees began to thin and give way to the riverbank, she sighed loudly and turned to him.

"It's not that I don't like fighting," she said as she stepped out into the winter sun, looking across to the other side of the river with her sharingan for anyone who might make her day worse. "I do. I'm good at it and it's always fun to beat people bigger than me but…"

"Is it the killing, then?"

She watched as the hyena stepped out onto the river's surface, the water still running despite the winter chill. "That's the thing, it should be. Killing people shouldn't be so easy, Warai. I'm little! And weak! A-and I have no experience, but I still killed them and it was easy! I don't even feel bad about it."

He hummed, lapping up some water before responding. "Well, should you feel bad? They were trying to kill you, weren't they?"

No. They weren't. Not at first, anyway. But…

"They were going to hurt someone," she said quietly. "A child. Children don't choose war, we have it thrust upon us and are just expected to accept that it's something we have to do but it isn't! I wasn't even supposed to be there, Warai-san! I was too little, but Satan convinced the council I could handle it."

"And you couldn't."

She laughed harshly, the sound oddly reminiscent of the hyena's own cry. "Obviously not. I'm barely even allowed out of the archives, anymore. Baa-chan is teaching me flower arranging! It's like they think I'm done! Like I won't ever be able to fight again, and they're just giving up on me! It's not my fault these fucking eyes remember everything they see!"

"What?"

Kyou opened her mouth to reply before slamming it shut. That wasn't Warai.

Her palm hit her face with a resounding whap! before dragging its way down. Of course. Of fucking course he would be there. Every fucking time! Was it any wonder, then, that he was so central to her traumas? That is was his face she saw when thinking of the worst days of her life? You'd think it'd be Satan, but no.

Still standing on the water, Warai's hackles rose and he growled at the intruder behind her. She took a moment to seriously consider running away. Really, he was the last person she wanted to see right now—or for the foreseeable future, even—and she'd always planned on leaving one day. The thought of her grandmother waiting for her at home was enough to quell that irrational thought.

With a sigh and a carefully crafted scowl, she turned. "What the fuck are you doing here, Tobirama?"

Fuck. She shouldn't have turned around. He was standing there in his armor with that big honkin' sword that was way too big for him strapped to his back. His arms were crossed over his chest and his legs spread in some sort of power stance. He was bigger than her—always had been, but the margin was smaller, now—and definitely stronger. His hair was still white and his red eyes were filled with anger and hatred.

Shit! Come one, Kyou, find something good! Baa-chan will be sad if you don't! His hair is white and his eyes are red, but that's fine! That's so totally fine because—!

He's cute! Yeah, it's fine because he's cute!

Wait, no!

His scowl deepened, adorable—no!—face twisting as he glared at her. "I could ask you the same thing."

She huffed, copying his stance and raising her chin. "But you didn't! Go away, I'm training."

He scoffed, taking a step toward her and ignoring Warai's growls. "What did you mean, about not forgetting?"

Uh oh spaghettios.

"I don't think that's any of your business, Senju."

Yeah, it was a cheap shot, but whatever.

Those red—cute—eyes narrowed and he reached over his shoulder to draw that too big sword. "Bold of you to think you have a choice. Your brothers aren't here to save you, this time."

It was her turn to scoff. "Excuse you, I saved them. And they're not my brothers, they're my cousins. My brother is dead. You know that."

His glare wavered but only for a second. He growled, the sound unexpectedly cute—no!—coming from a child. "Explain! The sharingan—!"

"Is none of your fucking business," she repeated, shoving her treacherous thoughts into a box and lighting it on fire. "You know that, too."

A vein ticked in his forehead, one pale eyebrow twitching in time with it in a way that was almost—no! no more cute! He took a deep breath and sheathed his sword with what looked like physical pain.

"Kyou," he said slowly in that tone she hated oh so much. "Do you know how little the world knows about the sharingan." Uh, yeah. "It's a mystery to everyone not an Uchiha." Wow, she never would have guessed. "My father would give a lot for any information you might share—."

Wait what.

She couldn't help it. She really couldn't. The laughter erupted from within her gut and left her helpless in its wake. She was wheezing, struggling for breath, trying desperately to get herself under control before Tobirama blew a gasket.

"Wait, wait, wait," she held up her hands and took a moment to appreciate—no!—the bright red flush on his pale face. "Were you serious?"

"At least my father wouldn't beat you," he spat and she immediately sobered. Ah, he was staring at the mottled bruise taking up most of her face. His sudden overture made sense, now…sort of.

"Yes, he would. I'm an Uchiha, Tobi," she continued before he could interject. "That's all that matters to him. If I went to him and offered information on the sharingan like you said, he'd still rip mine from my skull and give them to a Senju. Then, he'd probably breed me for more and then desecrate my corpse once I'd served my purpose." She shrugged. "Tajima would probably do the same to any of you guys, too, though, so it's fine."

Ah, poor Tobirama. He looked so horrified. But not surprised, she noted.

"You already knew all that, though." He flinched, just barely. "Were you trying to get me killed, Tobi? That's not very nice."

He scowled again, the expression so lovable—no—on his child face. "Shut up!"

In a flash his sword was drawn and he was coming toward her. Shit. She reached out with her chakra, the river rising to answer her call but too slowly to be effective. Water still rushed past her, forming a solid wall between her and Tobirama. Warai stepped in front of her, lowering his head and growling at the Senju boy.

"Are you an idiot?" The hyena's normally soft voice was rough and angry, like he'd swallowed a bag of rocks. "You must be, if you really thought I would let you hurt my cub."

Tobirama looked at the hyena in surprise, but the expression quickly gave way to anger. "I see. I didn't realize—," he cut himself off, snarling. "Next time, I won't stop to talk."

Then, he vanished. Gone in an instant. She turned her sharingan on the trees, searching for him or anyone else who might be hiding out of sight.

She took in a shaky breath and buried her face in her hands.

Fuck.