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 new 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?
As always, Madara was an early raiser the next morning, though Tobirama had been waiting for him to wake up since dawn. Yes, he had been injured and tired himself out the day before but whenever his mind was filled with intriguing and confusing thoughts, he automatically attempted to create more waking hours for himself to figure it out. His new fascination was, of course, centered around yesterday's events.
Namely, the transformation Madara had went through.
First of all, the teen's entire chakra signature had shifted. The roaring flame that now resided within him was the exact replica of the inferno Tobirama had gotten used to feeling from Uchiha Madara. He had not even realized how muted Madara's chakra was until its full volume was released. It was still not fluctuating and pulsing the same way it had in the Uchiha's first life but he has yet to breathe fire. Tobirama suspects that the moment the first katon passes from his lips, Madara will be pretty much back to his old self, chakra wise. Second, the teen's eyes had turned into the Sharingan and he had been fighting with its prowess against Kinkaku and Ginkaku like he already knew them all. Not that surprising, as Madara was not only a genius and a prodegy but the best, finest master of the Sharingan that the Uchiha had seen to date. One of the things that worried him about the rediscovery of his kekkei genkai was that it might trigger memories - or rather, that he might remember.
Sharingan offered a perfect, immortalized memory of whatever it sees. Madara had seen a lot.
Tobirama feared what reliving those memories might do to Madara's piece of mind.
The third thing he was thinking about was how he had gotten here and how he had apparently dragged Kinkaku and Ginkaku for the ride. He was now of the opinion that it's not just the amount of chakra that had triggered this time travel event, but also it's nature. However, that still left him wondering if it was lighting natured chakra or the chakra the Silver and Gold brothers got from the Kyuubi that had triggered such a completely different reaction. He didn't have enough data to base his hypothesis on but he figured a little more time to think on the matter would be necessary for all to become clear. He had patience and he had time. Whether he ever returned to his own time or not didn't really bother him all that much in the end.
If he could settle in, here, in this time, with Madara, he was surprised to find he would be perfectly content. Not happy, as he honestly wasn't sure if he even knew what real happiness was like, but he would be lying if he said he was indifferent to how things were developing between him and his young friend here. If he were ever indeed to find a way home, he knew he'd never tell Madara about it. The boy would try to convince him to go back to his brother and his students, to his village that he had put so much effort into, and Tobirama would be forced to leave Madara behind. Something that sat truly ill with him. And he couldn't just drag an innocent into a war that had nothing to do with him, even if his previous life is to be taken into account. It had been years since Madara's death when the unrest turned into conflict and conflict transformed into open war. He truly had nothing to do with it.
(It was Hashirama's own damned fault for advertising that Konoha had a way of sealing biju and that they were aiming to capture the other ones and then offer them to the other nations as guarantees for peace. Mito had very nearly strangled him when Kirigakure first set its sights on Uzushiogakure. It was not pretty.)
His train of thought had been cut off when he felt the first stirring in Madara's chakra that he knew meant the teen was waking up and had settled to wait for him to properly get his bearing together before they could open the subject. Madara insisted that he get them some food from the kitchen before they begin and snuck out before the shinobi could protest. He tracked his movements through the house with his sensory abilities and was relieved that everyone else seemed to be asleep still, allowing Madara a free get away.
The boy had not even taken his first bite when his first question came. "What is the Sharingan? You mentioned it yesterday while staring at my eyes. Who were those people? What did they want? What were those weapons? How was I able to use them? How was I able to do any of what I did, for that matter!? What is going on, Tobirama?"
The Senju considered his companion for a moment, noting the way Kurama seemed to be bristling on the bed behind Madara's head where they were sat on the floor so as not to get crumbs in their bedding. He chose to ignore the strange fox and instead set about answering the questions. "The Sharingan is a special ocular technique unique to the Uchiha bloodline. It involves illusionary powers and illusion resistance, the ability to see, read and copy anything that the eye sees and additional powers that seem to be both universal and vary from Uchiha to Uchiha. The Sharingan is activated in moments of emotional stress or duress, such as the happenings of yesterday, when strong emotions trigger a special kind of chakra in the brain and transforms the eyes. It has several maturity and development levels and yours appear to be fully mature. Impressive, that. What else you can do, we'd have to experiment to see, so I suggest we hold off on that. You have just used chakra for the first time in your life just yesterday. As for your other questions, those were Kinkaku and Ginkaku from Kumogakure, a nation at war with my own, and they and a squad of ninja had been sent to kill me on my way back to Konoha in hopes of weakening my brother, the Hokage, and the village as a whole. They wanted to finish what they had started - they were the ones that had injured me before we first met and it seems that I had dragged them to your time when I myself unexpectedly ended up here. The weapons, I have no idea what they are but they are some of the most powerful tools I've come across as of yet. Regarding what you've been able to do ... And what's going on ... " He paused, hesitated, a frown drawn on his forehead as he regarded his now extremely worried but also relived - apparently, he had been worrying about something following Tobirama to this world even if he had never said anything, though whether that was a result of the 'movies' of this time or if he was the paranoid sort remained to be seen - friend for a moment before deciding hiding anything from him would only cause harm. "You're a shinobi, Madara. And a very talented one, it would seem."
"What?" Predictably, the incredulous question came within second, sounding faint as Madara appeared to be trying to match Tobirama in complexion. His eyes looked scared and Tobirama hated that he had brought about such emotion in the teen.
"A shinobi. Remember our first meeting and how I mistook you for someone else? And how I then told you you reminded him of him and just how dangerous and skilled he was?" The black haired one nodded hesitantly, obviously connecting things to where this will end up going and hating or dreading it. "Yes, well, if nothing else, you are a reincarnation of sorts of Uchiha Madara, one of the strongest shinobi of my time. He died in battle a few years ago and I think you might just be him, in some sense or form. Your chakra is nearly identical to his. It's what tripped me up the first time. It's how I found you in the first place. Uchiha Madara seems to have been reborn in you."
"But how ... How is that possible?!" Madara sounded like he was panicking and Tobirama didn't blame him one bit for his reaction. Any sane person would be taking it no better, though it could have been much, much worse. There was no denial. "I'm just some ordinary kid! I'm nothing special! Yes, I have good grades and martial arts are a thing I find easy but I'm not some super special awesome ninja!" Okay, scratch that, there was a bit of denial involved. Tobirama let it go, figuring calming his friend down and continuing this conversation at a more acceptable and subtle volume would do them both good.
"I don't know. Reincarnation is not something even shinobi have any information on and we practically bend nature and reality to our whims with the power of will, energy and some training all the time. What I do know, though," he cut in before Madara could actually become hysteric. "Is that we might be facing some other problems, soon. Your Sharingan and the memories it might have immortalized for the rest of time. Your counterpart has seen much and above 90% of it had not been pleasant in the least."
Madara looked rather subdued at that. "Then what should I do?"
"For now?" He shrugged. "Nothing. Wait to see if any new dreams or memories start popping up. If they do, you immediately tell me so we can sort through them together." Though he honestly hoped that Izuna's death at his own hands won't be the first one to come about. He wanted Madara to still trust him and not hate him if he was going to help the Uchiha deal with the potential mess the reawakening of his Sharingan might cause. "I should probably stop talking about my life for now, lest we trigger something unwanted or in an inappropriate setting. Another thing you might want to consider is training."
"Training?" Madara echoed, frowning at him in confusion. "What, like ninja training? Are you sure that's at all a good idea? What if it triggers some memories or something else? I don't want to hurt you or anyone else by accident or lack of control."
"Judging from how you carried yourself during the fight and how you handled it, I think you have rather more control than you'd believe. Besides, the Sharingan is a tricky thing. If you were ever to accidentally activate it, as it is connected to your feelings, it could force your body beyond its current limitations. How you didn't drop dead tired right after the fight is a mystery to me but I'm attributing that to your frankly ridiculously large chakra reserves. If you feel uncomfortable with the idea of learning ninja skills, though," he offered an alternative, tentative as he was to skip over what might be essential to balancing Madara out now that his chakra was more active. He'll start feeling restless if he keeps it contained like that. "Hand-eye coordination at the very least, then. Reflexes. speed. The Sharingan sees and processes the world ten times faster than your body can react unless you've balanced it out with training. Trying to make up for that disbalance will only make you collapse. And while I doubt we'll ever run across enemy shinobi in this time and age, it is best that we never risk you fainting somewhere anyone could do anything to you without protection."
"I guess that makes sense. Yeah, we can do that." The raven haired boy even nodded to himself firmly, determined to go through with this plan of action. Tobirama dearly hoped this will not come back to bite them in the ass. "Are you okay after yesterday, though? You were quite beat up again, though you looked nothing like the first time."
"The first time I fought them, I had already been rather tired after a lot of other fighting and missions," Tobirama said with a nod, sparing a moment to wonder how his students were faring with him gone. He hoped Kagami wasn't taking his frustrations and grief on Anija. Hashirama was no doubt already mourning and finding it difficult to reconcile his world and his life with the fact that both his last brother and his best friend were now gone, that he had buried two more of his precious people and that he had outlived those whom he had sworn to protect. Madara's death had had Hashirama staring off into the distance for days before he had forced himself to move on. "I had been at my limits and wasn't able to keep up at all. Yesterday, I have fared much better and had more than enough chakra to heal my wounds. I just didn't have enough time to heal my ankle before the healers arrived."
Which was one of the first things he took care of this morning when he woke up. It may be the weekend, so Madara didn't have to go to school, but he knew both him and the teen would prefer to eventually get out of the house and away from the tense atmosphere persisting over the house.
"It's fine, now."
"Well, that's good to hear. I never want to see you that hurt again," the teen mumbled and Tobirama found himself inexplicably touched. Yes, he had known that the teen had come to care for him as much as Tobirama had gotten attached to his host, but he had apparently forgotten the golden rule when it comes to dealing with the Uchiha: their emotions ran deeper and stronger than a normal person's. Madara's fondness of him was obviously a bit more than the acquaintanceship and hesitant friendship he had thought it to be. He wondered if they were at the level of Madara and Hashirama's friendship before Madara was all but ran out of Konoha by its people's suspicions and fears of him. "So, on a brighter, lighter matter, what do you want to do today?"
"Just ... anything. Anything to get out of this house, at least."
"I should probably go to my insurance company and to my bank to check on my funds," Madara mused to himself, absently picking at his food and munching on this or that one at a time. "The sooner all of that is settled, the sooner we get out of here."
"Sounds like a plan."
Madara shook his head, though. "Only one problem. You have nothing to dress for the occasion. I'll have to go alone. You, on the other hand, can take Kurama out for a walk." The teen had the audacity to laugh at the offended, disgusted faces both fox and the Senju made at his suggestion. "What? He's not that bad, he's just got a bit of a temper," Madara defended the fox as he ran a hand through its orange fur.
"Then why do I get the impression that he'd go for my throat if I turn my head for just a second?" Tobirama groused, not at all amused. He glared at Kurama when the fox sent him what seriously looked like a haughty grin and an arrogant sniff. That's it, just for that, he was going to take the damned animal out for a walk in one of those 'dog parks' that they passed on the way home from the market. He hoped there will be some hounds today.
"Don't be grumpy," was all the answer he got before there was a knock on the door, disturbing their conversation and Tobirama found his hand automatically reaching for the kunai knife he had hidden under his pillow last night in typical shinobi wariness and paranoia that had kept him alive all of these years.
"Madara, honey? Are you awake? I thought I heard voices."
"We're fine, kaa-chan, just talking," called Madara to Sakura-san, shooting Tobirama a look when he realized what his hand had reached for. The white haired man only took his hand back and raised both hands in a show of surrender. He had no intention of hurting Utaha Sakura-san, who seemed to be the only one to genuinely care for Madara in this household.
"Okay, well come out for breakfast, then. Don't be a bad host to your friend. We can't let Tobirama-kun go hungry."
"That is alright, Sakura-san. Madara grabbed us breakfast a while ago," Tobirama called just seconds before the woman poked her head into the room, giving them and Kurama especially a curious glance. The fox only waved its tail at her before burrowing its head in Madara's hair. The woman, predictably, cooed at the 'cute' display. Tobirama wondered if Madara had trained the damned thing to be unassuming when it might just be a killer attack fox. Judging from the barely stifled smirk, there was indeed more to Kurama than his mother or roommate were aware of, apparently.
"Well, if it's like that. Though do come out for a bit, yes? Your cousin Asama heard you're back home and he came to visit." Judging by the identical eye roll both mother and son preformed, this Asama wasn't exactly their favorite relative. "He appears to want to take you guys out this evening, but you'll have to discuss that with him."
At this, Madara made a grimace. "Must I pretend that we don't hate each other's guts? Because no matter what he says, I know damn well he had not accidentally broken my rib that one time we sparred as kids."
"If I remember correctly," Sakura-san said with amusement clear in her voice while Tobirama wondered if he should just start walking around these people in his armor and all of his weapons in sight to get them to back the fuck off from the Uchiha. "You repaid him by spraining his ankle, breaking two fingers on his left hand and cracking three bones in his right foot. I think your Sensei didn't know whether she was more astonished or impressed. That was, after all, the only time you'd been moderately aggressive."
"Bastard deserved it. I nearly had to skip the championship because of him. I know there are a lot of cliche movies about dojos trying to incapacitate the opposition's best fighter but I'd never thought I'd live through that bullshit in real life," Madara groused as he reluctantly stood up and walked towards the door, sparing Tobirama a glance and an arched eyebrow in silent question to see if he was coming. As though Tobirama would ever leave him alone with these bastards.
"Language, young man," the mother scolded but there was no real heat behind the worlds. Yes, Madara was definitely the closest with his mother.
Now if only Tobirama could figure out what the fuck was wrong with the rest of them to be so antagonistic towards Madara.
'Guess that's one more mystery to solve.'