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?
Just when they all thought Madara was a goner one way or another - Tobirama was disgusted with himself for being eternally grateful that he won't have to be the one to take Madara's life if the black creature caught him and put him under its control again - the most unexpected thing happened.
First, the black being was repulsed as though an invisible force had been slammed into it.
Then, perhaps even more unbelievable, the Particle Release attack seemed to be absorbed until its light and destructive power was no more.
It took a while for the dust and the smoke to settle, while in the meantime all of the other fights stopped so they can all stare at where Madara had been. The first thing that any of them could see was the vine that had been dragging Madara around fall to the ground, a withered, drained, pathetic looking thing, as lifeless as the trees that had been in this rocky terrain before the fight had started and all but obliterated what was left of them.
Then, when the air cleared, their eyes bogged when they saw Madara standing casually as though nothing of note had happened, one hand still pointed in the direction that the black creep had been flung and the other still pointing at where the Particle Release jutsu had been and should have disintegrated him. But it hadn't. The only sign that there had been an attack at all was the small wisps of smoke coming from Madara's gloved hand.
"Too much energy," the Uchiha murmured to himself, looking distinctly nonplussed.
"Madara? Are you alright?" Tobirama came to a stop from his mad dash mere ten meters away, his eyes going even bigger, if that is at all possible, when Madara met his gaze. Not black, not red with three tomoe or the pattern of his Mangekyo Sharingan, but his eyes were instead purple with concentric rings like a bulls eye, from pupil to where the sclera should have been. The eyes caused some instinctive reaction in Tobirama that he didn't really understand; awe and fear and something like disbelief, even if he had no idea what any of this meant. All he knew was that Madara's chakra signature had shifted, had changed oh so subtly and he had a new doujutsu pf some sort.
The grin that spread over the teen's face was as sensual as it was dangerous. "Never better." The words were also all but purred out as the teen lowered his arm. Purple eyes studied him for a moment before Madara turned to face the black being that had just recovered from whatever Madara had done and was dragging itself back to its feet and into the confrontation. "Hello, Zetsu."
The being, apparently called Zetsu, stiffened before raising upright fully to look at Madara. It's strange yellowish eyes somehow widened in surprise when it met the Uchiha's purple gaze. "I knew it. I knew that you could do it. Madara, this is marvelous. We can go through with the plan-" It was blown back before it could finish its sentence when Madara raised his hand again. Tobirama felt the air stir under the force of the invisible blast. Zetsu flew even further away this time than before, but it managed to get its beatings before it could collide with one of the rocks.
"I have no interest in your nefarious plans nor am I stupid to fall for your lies, jubokko," Madara snarled, sounding enraged at the mere suggestion. "You've made a grave mistake about bragging as much as you did. I have a thousand years worth of a grudge against you and I plan to have vengeance for all of my fallen clansmen on their behalf, you disgusting waste of chakra. You never should have targeted the Uchiha." He started stalking towards the now scrambling black being. When Zetsu tried to melt into the ground to escape, Madara's outstretched hand this time pulled him in towards the teen, only for Zetsu's throat neatly to fall into Madara's palm and for his fingers to wrap firmly around it.
"B-but how? How is this possible!? The Rinnegan-"
"What's the matter, Zetsu?" Madara's voice was a dangerous purr as he held Zetsu above the ground, his arm fully stretched out in front of himself so that the thing couldn't reach him. "Didn't you want me to awaken the Rinnegan? You sure did make me bite Hashirama - which was disgusting - in an attempt to combine Uchiha and Senju chakra. But you failed to take into account that you can't force chakra change onto someone."
"So how?" The damned thing demanded, trying to wriggle free of Madara's grip.
"Simple," the Uchiha grinned in that dangerous way he used to when he was enjoying a fight. Tobirama wanted to devote a part of his brain power to the fact that obviously Madara had regained all of his memories but he was too focused on what the Uchiha was saying to worry about the repercussions of that just yet. "I've had a Senju more than willing to share their chakra with me. You see, Zetsu, your little manipulation with the Uchiha Stone Tablet didn't work on me. Simply because I don't give a fuck for the deeper meaning you tried to put into it in order to get the Uchiha to steal Senju chakra or whatever. You should have thought better than to target me, who knows what Tsukuyomi is, for your little Tsuki no Me plan. You should have gotten someone a bit more oblivious or unwilling to read dusty old books. Izuna would have fallen pray to your tricks if our roles had been reversed. I knew that you were up to something, I knew something was seriously wrong with the Stone Tablet and I never put much faith into it. I don't like people telling me what to do. But the most basic levels shared by the Tablet pleased me in its simplicity. Only the union of Uchiha and Senju can bring about true peace. How true it is! Look at Konoha. But you wanted your little plan and you wanted me. That's the biggest mistake you've made in your miserable life. For you see, Zetsu, you made me desperate and when I am desperate, the world tends to quake under my feet. I changed my fate. And then, by some strange stroke of luck, I got some Senju backup. I had a shitty second family where my own cousin tried to drug me. Guess who kept channeling healing chakra all night long through my body, my head?"
"Senju Tobirama is not the required Senju!" Hissed Zetsu, as though disgusted and Tobirama would have been offended if he wasn't so damn confused.
Madara only grinned wider. "But he is a Senju and a damn powerful one at that. Him, I trusted enough to let his chakra into my system. You've fucked up, Zetsu. You can't take me anymore."
"That is what you think!" Zetsu then tried to liquefy itself and melt into Madara's hand but the Uchiha simply once again sent him flying with that repulsive force. Zetsu landed on its feet this time, apparently having grown used to being thrown about by Madara at this point. It hissed and the teen just tsked at it. Then, Madara blinked and Zetsu started being kicked about as though by several invisible forces, far too precise to be the technique Madara had been using prior to this.
"Well, it seems that Limbo works quite well," the teen commented to himself and Tobirama just barely heard it. He wanted to run over to Madara and ask him what the hell was going on, but the teen turned to smile at him over his shoulder in what may have been a reassuring manner. "I'll deal with this dick. Go help your idiot of a brother to capture that Fence Sitter Brat and gather Iwa's forces. Round everyone up and have Hashirama grow several domes one over the other around you. I'about to do something dramatic."
"Madara, can you at least tell me what is going on?" Tobirama finally demanded, unable to keep quiet any longer. "What's with your eyes? What did you do back there to that Jiton jutsu? How did you get your memories back?"
"Perhaps I'll answer when we have more time. Get Hashirama. Leave the biju to me." With that, the invisible attacks on Zetsu stopped but Kurama made a rather startled and confused noise when the other three biju suddenly started getting attacked. The attacks were well directed and were slowly but surely guiding the biju towards where most of the shinobi were. Madara himself engaged Zetsu again, leaving Tobirama to gawk after him before he got moving as well.
"Toni, what's going on!?" Hashirama demanded as soon as he was within shouting distance of his brother, Onoki having gone back to trying to decimate the older Senju. They both paused in their fighting when several wooden golems were once again summoned to fight against Madara in the distance only to see them methodologically sucked away one by one.
"That's it! Give me more Mokuton!" The teen could be heard taunting gleefully. Then, as if to spite Zetsu, with a surge of familiar fiery chakra, Madara responded in kind. At least the field now had some healthy vegetation.
"Is that ... Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence?" Hashirama asked numbly even as they evaded yet another attack from Onoki. Kurama could be heard cackling as he tripped up the other biju and followed the invisible attacks in their herding to help out. The Konoha and Iwa ninja had stopped fighting each other at this point but were instead dispatching the white clones like allies. It made Tobirama wonder what Toka might have told them about Madara's unique situation and what some of them could have overheard from the teen's conversation with Zetsu earlier. "I thought the Sharingan can't copy Kekkei Genkai?"
And it was the above mentioned jutsu, if on a largely smaller scale than anything Hashirama could make, but it served its purpose splendidly in preventing Zetsu from using the white clone things to create more golems. And some of the roots had even been kind enough to pierce the white clones around so that was even less enemies for them to fight.
And then Madara lit it all up like a huge bonfire. A huge black bonfire. There was quite a lot of screeching in the newly made forest as everything that was caught within it very quickly burned.
"Remind me again what you said about who could come out the victor if I were to fight this Madara, Tobirama," Hashirama said faintly even as he finally just used his Mokuton to grab Onoki and bind him tight before dragging him down to their level. Tobirama was quick to slap a chakra restraining seal on him which, for some reason, knocked him right out. Like a puppet whose strings got cut. Well, it would seem that their fears were correct and Onoki had been controlled. At least that is much easier to fix than if it was a true grudge that the man held against them.
"Remind me to never spend a whole night healing an Uchiha. Though I'm not sure if any of them could get those eyes. That Zetsu thing had said he had known Madara could do it but Madara is a vastly different shinobi than even the Uchiha."
"What eyes? Who the fuck is Zetsu?" You knew a situation was bad if Hasgirama cussed.
"No time. Madara said we needed to gather everyone and hide within several Mokuton domes because he's about to do something dramatic, quote and unquote. And I have absolutely no idea what is going on but Madara implied Zetsu, the black thing, monologued at him like those cliche villains from your dreadful books, Anija, so we can ask later. For now, let's do as he says and see how this ends for us." His brother looked ready to argue but decided against it and they simply made their way with Onoki thrown over Hashirama's shoulder over to where everyone else was, including the biju. From what he could see, the binu were still getting wrestled by Kurama and that invisible force. Hadn't Madara called it Limbo or something? He'll have to ask about that, too.
As if summoned by his thoughts, Madara Shunshined to his side silently and Tobirama wanted to curse at him. The Uchiha didn't seem all that apologetic for making him jump. Instead, the invisible attacks stopped again, only to be once again directed to where Zetsu and the white clones were still fighting to get out alive from the black flames - another thing that Tobirama will have to ask about. Fuck, he had a lot of questions. (He wondered if Madara would even want to talk to him, when it was all done, let alone answer.) The Uchiha looked rather pleased with himself. "Now, let's deal with you three." He literally just looked at them and they fell asleep one by one.
"Damn, that's one hell of a genjutsu," Toka, the Senju expert in the area, commented with a low whistle. The biju decreased in size rather rapidly until finally only the Jinchuriki were left in their place. The other shinobi were gaping at the purple eyed Uchiha.
Madara shrugged. "It's temporary. I have to make sure I fully remove the puppet seals on them after I deal with Zetsu. Speaking of which ... Kurama!"
"No need to yell, I can hear you," the last biju standing grumbled but there was no true grumpiness behind it. In fact, he seemed pleased, awed and shocked all at once. "The Rinnegan, huh? Rather interesting, I must say. I haven't seen eyes like those in one thousand years and the last person to have them was the Old Man. Anyway, what do you need, Madara?"
"I need you to protect these fools and make sure they don't actually try to 'help' me and end up being obliterated instead."
"Very well. I'll keep the idiots safe." The two nodded at each other and Madara moved as if to leave but Tobirama stopped him with a hand on his arm and a glare on his face.
"Not so fast, Madara. What do you intend to do that could possibly obliterate us and do you honestly think we'd let you kill yourself when we just got you back? Think again!" Like hell was Tobirama letting his friend - if Madara would even allow him to call him that still - go on a suicide stunt! He hadn't kept the teen alive so far just for him to off himself!
"Susanoo will be sufficient to protect me, but if you insist," Madara said as he plucked one of Tobirama's kunai from his weapons pouch, ignoring Tobirama's indignant glare. "There. Now I have this. You can just reverse Hiraishin me inside the dome if it makes you feel better. Ta."
"Madara! Damn him," Tobirama grunted, not pouting at the place Madara had been just a second before. At least the teen didn't go all that far, since Zetsu had apparently managed to climb out of the forest and the black flames and was now glaring at the nonchalant Madara in rage.
"You will pay for that!"
The Uchiha huffed. "As if." Then, disregarding how angry his opponent was, Madara casually declared, "It's time to end this." Zetsu lunged for him in rage but Madara just let him get close enough only for a weird black rod to grow out of his arm. Madara used it to impale the black thing and it shrieking before going utterly still. Tobirama, what little of its presence he could detect by that point, practically completely lost him. It felt as though its chakra had went completely still, sealed away better than multiple repression and suppression seals together could have managed. Madara let him fall to the ground and produced more black rods, stabbing them through Zetsu's body both methodically and seemingly completely at random. The thing could do nothing more but shriek its rage, but it was no use. Madara finished his circling and stabbing of the body by crouching down in front of Zetsu's face. "You brought this on yourself. If not for that accursed war with the Senju, my brothers would still be here. This is your sentence, Zetsu. You should have never messed with the Uchiha."
"The Sage of Six Paths could not destroy me!" Zetsu yelled and Tobirama and Hashirama exchanged looks because, honestly, they had thought that to be nothing but legend. "A weak imprint-bearer of his weakling elder son won't manage either! You are nothing without me, Madara! If not for my influence on this world, you would have never been born! You are only as strong as you are because of me! I made you!"
Madara's face went cold and his chakra signature flooded with killing intent dense enough that Tobirama got a headache. It was worse than after Izuna's death. Then, grief had been the dominant emotion. Now, it was rage and the wish to bathe in his enemies' blood. Tobirama had heard rumors and half-hysterical retellings when he was a child of a woman who could bring a live battlefield to its knees with nothing but her killing intent. That woman's name had been Uchiha Ryukyu. It would seem Madara took after his mother about as much as Tobirama did.
The legendary Uchiha stood back up to his full height and looked down at Zetsu as though it was nothing more than a worthless piece of trash that had dared find itself beneath Madara's sandals. "Do not be mistaken. This is not a power of your creation." Then, without further ado, Madara called up his Susanoo and formed a hand seal. His Susanoo, two-faced and four-armed, too made two more sets of hand seals and power surged so much that a civilian could no doubt feel it several miles away. Tobirama watched as Madara's hair whipped around in the currents of his chakra before he noticed, at the same time as pretty much everyone else, that the world had darkened, as though the late afternoon sun was blocked out. They looked up and felt their knees weaken and their jaws drop, for there was a huge fucking meteorite hovering overhead, just breaking the line of clouds. That could definitely be seen for miles and miles.
"What is that?"
"Is that really ninjutsu?"
"Is this the power of a god?" Murmurs arose from behind him as they all watched the thing seemingly slowly descend, headed straight for where Zetsu was pinned down. Tobirama could agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly. Was this the power of a god?
"Alright, idiot Senjus, here you come," Kurama's voice snapped him out of his stunned state but Hashirama needed to be nudged into Kurama's protective 'embrace' by a big orange finger for him to focus back on the world. "Now's the time to get those domes up. It won't take long before that thing hits and the shock-wave will kill us."
"What is that?" Hashirama asked even as he put his hands together and used Mokuton to create five domes inside of each other, the smallest just big enough for the Kyuubi to be able to curl up around them all and shield them with its body.
"Madara can explain. Brace yourselves. It's a matter of seconds."
Tobirama took that as his cue to make the hand seals necessary to reverse summon Madara with Hiraishin, sighing in relief when the teen appeared steps away from him. Madara didn't seem surprised by this, instead only creating the Susanoo and having it seep through the domes until it protected the first from the outside as a first line of defense. "Don't let up. A second one's going to come moments after the first one."
"Isn't that a bit overkill?" An Iwa shinobi asked faintly, looking ill to be in such close quarters with the teenager.
Madara shrugged. "I pinned him with receivers, put him in Tsukuyomi, will drop two meteorites on him and have set him on Amaterasu. I once had four brothers. He is the reason none of them live today. Pinning him with the receivers alone is deadly for a chakra construct like Zetsu, but I want revenge. I have yet to avenge myself. For that, I'll be using this," Madara took out a scroll Tobirama was sure the teen hadn't even touched since he settled in Konoha, opened it and unsealed the orange pithos from within. "Kohaku no Johei ought to be able to hold whatever ashes are left of Zetsu when I'm through with him. No more manipulating the Uchiha and the bastard can make friendly with Kinaku and Ginkaku."
"Can you even use that thing?" Toka asked and Madara snorted.
"How do you think I got Kinaku and Ginkaku in here in the first place?"
"I see your point."
Madara's head jerked around to stare at the direction in which Zetsu had been pinned down, looking as though he could actually see through the layers of protection that had been set up. "Brace yourselves. We're about to make touchdown."
Before anyone could ask what he meant by that, the ground shook with residue force of impact. A notable few fell to the ground despite the previous warnings and knowing what was coming.
"I think I know how the dinosaurs felt," Tobirama couldn't help but comment even as he struggled to remain on his feet with all the shaking and quaking and the somehow whipping wind that had made its way inside despite them being completely enclosed inside of five Mokuton domes, a perfect Susanoo and covered by the strongest biju.
Madara just laughed.