Time Heals All Wounds
Summary: The day Tobirama died happens earlier, during Hashirama's time as Hokage when they are at war with almost every mew village but years after Madara's death. Only he didn't die. He somehow ended up in a time not his own and met a familiar face he though gone forever. Can he get back? And what of his new friend?
A/N: Hi! Here's the new chapter! I just wanted to point out that this story was inspired partially by the picture I am using as a cover (not mine; found it on twitter by Blackberreh!) and partially by some songs I've been listening to recently. They'll probably be mentioned later, but I really think some of them fit Madara to a fucking T.
Hope you enjoy and please r&r!
Tobirama once again found himself waking up when he had not been expecting to ever again, this time to a delicious smell coming from nearby and a ceiling overhead that he was staring at. Just minute shifting told him that his wound was treated but not healed and flaring his chakra around himself told him he was in some sort of house with two other chakra signatures. One he recognized immediately, despite it having been gone from the world for a number of years now, while the other seemed to belong to a medium sized animal, a pet perhaps. Only he had never heard of a fox being kept as a pet and yet there it was, glowering at the Senju from across the room where it was lying on a futon mattress. Tobirama blinked at it and swore it looked somewhat familiar but a flare of satisfaction in that familiar signature brought his focus back to the impossibly alive man he had met just before everything went black.
Sitting up on the couch he had been sleeping on provided him with the sight of a perfectly alive and healthy, if much younger than the last time he had seen him Uchiha Madara at a small stove, finishing the preparation of what Tobirama realized was stir-fry. When the dark haired man turned around to serve the food at the set table - Tobirama noted that there were two plates - the man nearly jumped out of his own skin when he saw Tobirama looking at him over the couch's backrest. He regained his composure quickly enough and gave a revealed sigh.
"Oh, good. You're awake. I was starting to worry I would have to take you to a hospital if you didn't wake up soon. Hungry?"
"Where am I? How long was I asleep? And what did you do to my things?" He noted that the sky outside of the window in what appeared to be the living room was near black outside, suggesting a rather late hour but that didn't answer any of his questions, not really. However, before the teen - because Tobirama realized he was just a teen - could answer his questions, the albino's stomach gave a protesting growl that not even he could suppress, causing his host(?) to snort.
"I'll take that as a yes to my question. Come eat and I'll answer yours," he said casually even as he started depositing a portion of the food onto one of the plates. As Tobirama reluctantly approached, he noted that there was already a serving of rice waiting on the plates. "You're in my home, the East outskirts of Tokyo, about two hundred feet from where you fainted on me-"
"I did not faint," the retort was instinctive after years of trading barbs with Madara but this Madara flinched at his sharp tone and didn't comment, sounding meeker as he continued answering his questions and serving him food.
"You slept for about six and a half hours. I had to stitch the wound closed but it wasn't infected, small mercies there. I should probably check on it and change your bandages later, but that can wait until you've gotten some food and water into you. You look like death warmed over. As for your things, the blue armor thingy was in the way when I was trying to get to the wound so I had to take it off. I put it in the bath tub because it was all bloody and I didn't want blood all over my floors and your clothes are in the wash. They looked like you've returned from the WWII with the amount of dirt and blood on them. You didn't have a bag of spare clothes on you so I hope you don't mind making due with mine. Sorry if it's a bit tight but not all of us are built like damn trees."
The Senju tried not to snort in the water he quickly gulped down when he noticed the glass set next to the place that's obviously meant for him. Madara always used to say that exact same thing when the difference in height between him and either of the Senju brothers was made obvious. Still, he noted that he was fairly comfortable in the clothes. They were short at the sleeves and pant legs and the top was a little tight around his chest and shoulders but it was all a minor annoyance. It looked rather similar to what the boy himself was wearing.
Madara - if this was really Madara and not a figment of his own dying mind - was dressed in a way Tobirama had never seen before on anyone, much less on the proud man whose very name was synonym with danger and power. He was dressed in some loose pants seemingly of the same soft material Tobirama was currently wearing and a shirt with a hood at the back with some sort of metal mechanism to keep it closed at the front, those strange things that produced more noise around his neck, keeping his hair from being all over the place like it should be. It looked somehow wrong that something was suppressing a part of Madara that Tobirama had always thought to be free as the man's birds of prey. Still, he was curious about the contraptions. Madara had been wearing them on his ears when he had found him and he had seen many other people wearing similar gear. But aside from attire, this Madara also looked different in his features. He was undeniably Madara but he definitely looked years younger and not nearly as stressed. No, he was stressed, but he didn't seem to be grieving, which gave him a whole new appearance. His hair was also shorter, still long and wild but not the mane he had become famous for back home.
"Just what the hell is going on here?" He wondered more to himself than his companion but Madara shrugged.
"You tell me. I wasn't the one bleeding all over a random stranger I've never met before, asking weird questions and passing out from exhaustion." Then he casually started eating without so much as a 'Itadakimas'. Tobirama stared at him even as he expressed his gratitude for the meal and started eating without so much as a check to see if the food was poisoned. As he had been pondering when he was at death's door, as if Uchiha Madara would ever use something like poison to off his enemies. The man didn't do subtle unless absolutely necessary. The food was good. Sure, Tobirama had never been one for fried foods but he was hungry and the dish was as spicy as he liked.
"You're not a stranger I've never met, Madara." Though he was starting to question that. The Madara he had known would have never cooked him a meal. Or would he? If Tobirama had ever given him a chance to show he was more than the battlefield Fire Demon, would Madara have offered to prepare him dinner and the two of them talk like old friends? "And you've not been all that clear about my location. Are we still in Fire Country? And why did you never come back if you had somehow survived the fight against Anija? You were mourned."
But the teen was looking at him as though he were crazy. "You must have me confused with someone else because I am sure I would remember knowing a real life goddamn ninja. I don't know you and I certainly don't know your Anija. I don't know where this 'Fire Country' is, but Tokyo is the capital of Japan, located on the Japanese Islands, in the Pacific Ocean as a part of the continent of Asia. We're at the bottom of Mount Fuji and we have a port to the sea. I figure if you don't already know what any of that means, there's no point in me going into geographical details since you're clearly not from around here."
"But I am," argued the shinobi, glaring at his companion. "Listen, I've never heard of this ... Tokyo but you must have heard of Konohagakure no Sato."
Tobirama relaxed when he saw recognition flash in the younger man's eyes but they narrowed when it was replaced by shock. He called out after the teen when he suddenly bolted from the table and back into the living room, back in a second with an old book in his hands, leafing through the pages until he made a grunt f triumph and showed his findings to Tobirama. The Senju looked down to see a history book all bot shoved into his hands and he frowned in confusion when he saw a legends section under which the Five Elemental Nations and the five biggest shinobi villages were listed. As made up concepts, as empty stories and not facts.
"I think you are probably in the right place but you're definitely in the wrong time," his companion mused. "Whoever you're mistaking me for could have only been a great great grandfather or something. Because the newest records of Konohagakure state that the village, if it ever existed, died out three hundred years ago."
"No," he whispered, unable to believe what his eyes were seeing. That couldn't be. It just couldn't. The text before him stated that Konoha had started dying out after guns were invented, whatever those were, and ninja were made obsolete. Not to mention that the book couldn't state who won the Great Shinobi War, only that half of the ninja population had been whipped out by their own hands. The art of using chakra has been lost ever since. Which would explain why he couldn't feel anyone but Madara with beyond civilian levels of chakra and even those were low.
Madara ... This had to somehow be Madara's doing. Why else would he be the only one with chakra in the world? And he was Uchiha Madara and he was the only one with any real amounts of chakra in their world ... Or is it this age? Either way, Madara's chakra had always been unmistakable for Tobirama. The man shone like a star and radiated twice as much warmth to his senses. For all that they had fairly hated each other while the man was alive, Tobirama had loved being in the same room as him because it always made him feel warm. Even the coldest of winters couldn't dim the flames within that man's chakra. When he had left the village, Tobirama would every once in a while exercise his sensor abilities, reaching out all across the Five Elemental Nations to find Madara's chakra signature and bask in its warmth even from afar. He missed the scorching heat that he used to be able to feel but he contended himself with what he got.
When his Anija finally ended Madara, Tobirama wasn't sure hoe he really felt about the whole ordeal. Relief for knowing their village will now be safe as only Madara could be considered a real threat to it. Regret that a man he respected was no more and that he had never gotten the opportunity to right his wrongs and give the man a chance to prove himself as more than a battlefield monster. But he also felt remorse and shame that he was sadder that he won't be able to bask in the man's warm chakra than at the passing of the man. The sorrow and the unexpected longing for the other's company came only years later. When it had all happened, the village had already gotten used to not having Madara around and that time, Tobirama had not been one of the few who had felt their co-founder's absence so painfully.
He did after Madara's death.
For years.
And yet here he was now, sitting across from the man himself, giving it his all not to just let himself sink into that unparalleled warmth and resigned himself to all of this being reality. And would it be so bad if it was? At least there was recorded evidence, even if people thought it to be nothing more than legend, that the village had survived the war and had operated for years to come. Their time would have had to come and he was just grateful that he hadn't had to grow old, watch his loved ones die one by one, become weaker and weaker until death took him as well, feeling helpless when he couldn't assist more the younger generations. He'd already resigned himself today - the day before? How long had he been here before he woke up in that weak strip of forest in this new world and had ran off when he felt a vaguely familiar chakra signature in the distance? - to dying and to his family mourning him. Would it be so bad for it to be life instead, even if it was so far away from his home that he will likely never return?
At least he had Madara here. He was a familiar presence, a familiar and surprisingly dearly missed face. He can live with that. Even if this Madara doesn't know him. 'Reincarnation? Or transmutation? Either way, he doesn't know me and he clearly doesn't know anything about shinobi.' Perhaps he'll get to see the Madara Hashirama had always been waxing poetics about, the boy who wanted peace for his little brother and his clan so no one would have to mourn a lost loved one anymore. The Madara who shared his Anija's dreams, who had named Konoha in the most ridiculous manner and yet it had been fitting and it stuck.
The Madara who might have been frowning at him in hesitant worry like this Madara was. Tobirama stirred himself away from his thoughts and focused back on his fellow should-be-but-obviously-isn't shinobi, arching an eyebrow. He watched in fascination as the teen bit his lip in an obvious show of unease and hesitance. That was odd. Madara had never been nervous around anyone before. Even around Hashirama, the only person capable of defeating him, Madara was nothing if not completely in control and absolutely confident of himself. He didn't do hesitant.
"I'm sorry for your loss." That took Tobirama aback so hard he nearly flinched, eyes going wide as he regarded the boy who had essentially saved his life from his own foolishness. "I can't imagine how difficult and ... horrifying this must be for you, to be stuck in a different time after all you've ever known is gone, but ... You can stay here, I mean with me- I mena here with me, in this house! For as long as you need! If ... If you want to, that is. You know, to stay? I'll just shut up now." The teen had worked himself into a flustered state and refused to look up to meet Tobirama's eyes. It was probably a crime punishable by death at the man's own hands to think of Uchiha Madara as adorable, but that was what he was, what with the light pink dusting across his cheeks and the way he ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up all over his head like it should be.
"Thank you for the offer, but I don't think that's wise."
Madara looked up to frown at him in a way that was too familiar for Tobirama to deal with at the moment. He was still hungry - he hadn't taken more than a couple of mouthfuls of his dinner - he was tired, he was in pain and he needed to process all of this before he drives himself mad with contemplating everything at once. "But why?"
"Because you're very obviously not at ease with my presence in your home and I would rather not intrude on your comfort in your own home after everything you have done for me, despite our first meeting."
Madara only frowned harder, letting out a derisive scoff that brought back memories he had to push back in order to pay attention to his companion. "Of course I'm a bit uneasy! It's not everyday I get a knife held at my throat! Anyone would be a bit uneasy, especially if the knife had been held by a stranger who turns out to be a real ninja from times long since past that has a deep dislike if not outright hatred for me - or rather, whoever you've mistaken me for! Now that you're obviously no longer planning my murder and we got all of this out of the way, I don't mind your presence. Just don't go on a killing spree around the city and I will gladly share my home with you until you figure your situation out."
"It's not that I dislike or hate the man whom I've mistaken you for," Tobirama chose to focus on that and not the generous offer he knew he couldn't refuse. He knew nothing of this world and chances were, he'll stick out whatever he chooses to do should he leave the boy's company. At least he can keep some measure of pretend normalcy until he figures out how he even ended up here and if there's a way back and if he'd be willing to go back by the time he finds it. A familiar face will be welcome in his adjustment period. "It's just that we've never been very fond of each other and you were practically a carbon copy of him but not quite the same as the last time I saw him. Given we all thought he was dead, I wasn't sure how you - if you were him - would react so I played it safe."
"So the guy was that dangerous?" Madara asked even as he finally sat back down and continued with his dinner, probably deciding it as best not to freak out about his own situation in all of this until he had finished his meal, too. "The guy you thought I was? Was he really that powerful that not being dead when he should be wouldn't even be all that surprising?"
"The man I thought was you when I held a kunai to your throat was more than powerful," Tobirama said as he set the book aside, making a note to himself to read it and whatever other history texts his companion may have later. He needs to get himself well acquainted with his new living environment so as not to be a burden to his young host. "If I were to have ever tried something so bold and so foolish with him, I would have been dead before I could grab a kunai. And while we're at that, I apologize for my actions and I thank you once again for your generous hospitality."
"Kunai? The weapon you used before?" Madara, as always, chose to stray away from genuine emotions, even gratitude, as they always made the man uncomfortable so he stuck to what he was always comfortable with. Battle, fighting and weapons were always somewhere at the top of his list and that doesn't seem to have changed in this reincarnation or whatever the teen was, either. "I've never seen something like it before, not even in museums."
"It's a standard issued weapon all across the Five Nations. Even civilians can get their hands on them though whether they know how to use them properly is a different matter altogether." Tobirama replied, taking another few bits of the stir-fry and the rice. "Okay, I'm not usually the one for these types of food but this is really good."
Madara looked flustered again but there was a big, happy grin on his face. "Oh? Then what kind of food do you like?"
Tobirama let himself half smirk a little as he settled into the conversation, once again taking note some time later that the fox Madara kept was a very weird pet as it glowered at him when it settled in its master's lap. But he didn't pay much attention to that, letting himself focus, if only for now, before he has to face the new reality he was living in, on lighter topics as the two of them began a deep and amusingly serious discussion about ramen toppings of all things and then his host started all but rambling about the different foods he had to introduce his guest to.
The worries can wait for tomorrow, when he is rested well enough to give them the right amount of attention without frying his own brain.
For tonight, he enjoyed the pleasant company of man he had never gotten to know how he had longed to when he no longer had even the promise of a chance to. The worries can wait.
Madara's smile was much more pleasant to contemplate for now.