Author: Ri-Ryn

Genre: Horror/Angst

Chapter 3: Caitiff

Word Count: 862

Rating: M for Mature Teens/T+

Summary: Words held power, careful what you speak aloud. Unfortunately it's Tobirama they hiss of with the chakra to do it.

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Musashi Kishimoto.

A/N: My thanks to fanofthisficiton from FF, yes the life of a ninja is quite vicious! To Frosty_Abyss of AO3, worst parents of the year award goes to them for these prompts! Did I turn Tobirama into a grim reaper-like thing? Maybe.

A/N 2 - Caitiff: (n.) a base, despicable person | (v.) base, despicable

Whumptober 2021 Prompts; D#3: taunting | insults | "Who did this to you?"

Somewhat linked w/ Prompt D#9 - Bellwether

Potentially linked w/ D#2 - Ronyon

Warnings: Bullying, Supernatural Elements, Mental Health Issues, Angst, Tragedy. Child Abuse. Abusive Family. Horror.

The initial slurs were mild at first, stereotypical for any clan with a second heir born wan. Ill-omened was a favorite, heralded by the winter of his birth. Sans that, no particular misfortune followed his heels and befell their clan, no more than was rote. The problems began as he aged, after Kawarama's death and their shared dame's soon after she shed the weight of another child.

Three sons: even including him, four were a blessing. It lessened the non-existent slight that Kawarama would be the spare proper, the second heir. Tobirama turned four, finding public eye again as the Senju at large suddenly remembered him.

Hashirama, Touka, his younger brothers; they spent Tobirama's most vital years tempering their shared family's slander. A tepid manner to speak of the pestilence the aforementioned inflicted him with during his boyhood.

Malignant. Youkai. Weapon. Militant. Callous. Inhuman. Unnatural.

It would be lamented that the last two met consensus amongst the Senju clan.

Tobirama's loved ones combated the words when able.

Loyal. Fair. Adorable. Not cruel. Strict yet kind.

It was ironic his enemies considered him a culmination of these traits and deigned him above all: honorable. 'Like a samurai' they sneered, respect and slur in one.

The snare was that both those near and far to him agreed upon one moniker: merciless.

'Demon' fell away in his youth to readily accommodate 'harbinger' when Tobirama was eight.

"Ghoul!" one of his cousins crowed and though Tobirama knew it was coming, he left them to strike with their numerous rocks or blunt training weapons. A rounded kunai struck his temple, split the thin skin he bore. Tobirama confirmed his blood was red as it trickled earthbound; his eye underneath succumbing to the garnet hue. He refused to close it in hope of blinking the contaminant away, reveled in making them watch sickly.

It was Yūsuri who broke his mold, a nail in the proverbial coffin. Clouds withheld their thunder, waited to wash away the shinobi.

"Hardly," she tittered, "look at him! He must have been born dead. Lady Senju delivered us a revenant."

The heaven's spilled; they pelted the five children and Tobirama with rain. He was on Yūsuri, blows hard enough that blood from a ruined mouth daubed his skin, persisting against the downpour. Tobirama didn't register the children's attempts to stop him until he froze, the others beaten back and Yūsuri still but not dead beneath him.

Abhorrence for what he did wasn't what stopped him. It was the indifference germinating in his veins, in his brain.

They had insulted his dame. He never once loved her so it was moot. They insinuated he wasn't human, and in a manner that would wrack Hashirama with grief, curl Touka's lips, and set Kawarama and Itama sobbing. Hashirama in particular labored to ensure Tobirama lived. The implication otherwise or contradictory was loathsome.

The shedding of his humanity for disinterest petrified Tobirama, sent him right back to the main house and his Anija's arms while the little ones were out.

"Otouto! Oh Tobirama…your eyes." Against the will of the twelve year olds' healing, the exposed and slivered flesh persisted and nothing was to be done for the blood dyeing the younger's sclera until it could be flushed with water.

"I don't care." Tobirama passively observed the hands holding his face, green with chakra.

Hashirama whimpered. "You don't care?! I do! Who did this to you?"

The smaller sensor pitched forward from his seiza, left ear now perched above his Anija's beating heart. "I was angry at them," he began. "Not at first. Not when they cursed me nor hit me because I let them be. Not until they called me a revenant."

The heir apparent held him tighter. "Tobirama," Hashirama replied wetly.

The younger cut the coming platitudes and assurances off. "I was seething with rage and then nothing. I am terrified and it is worsening. The clan, this war, our rivalry, Uchiha, hunger, children dying, nothing," Tobirama hissed. "I cannot even say I love you, Anija, nor Kawarama and Itama or Touka."

Hashirama cried and embraced his otouto, whom was fractured and confused, close. The admission was painful but his brother's chakra didn't yet reflect the apathy in his voice. Tobirama was in agony.

"Do not cry," the suiton user soothed, shaking his head against Hashirama's yukata. He patted a tan arm, sensed the mokuton's thrum under his Anija's flesh. Hashirama felt he held a stranger now. "I will have to take Kawarama soon and Lady Senju not long after. Sooner still will be Itama and in a few years Lord Senju."

Tobirama glanced upwards subtly. "Later, in decades, I will take you too, Young Heir."

Hashirama flinched, grip tightening impossibly further. He didn't know what Tobirama saw in him but it was not young. Those eyes were aged in a manner he instinctually knew he should never see, not yet.

"I will take many as they come. They beckoned me to do so and as such bequeathed it."

Harbinger. The thought was unbidden. Merciless. Hashirama's thoughts were sacrilege.

Senju Tobirama's designation would drive a necessity to master fūinjustu.

Tobirama later understood what ruptured inside of him.

D#4: Bailiwick

"Do you trust me?" | taken hostage | pushed