2.
Madara sleeps fitfully. He's had worse nights, all things considered, but when he wakes up his clothes are damp and the clifftop is drenched in a thick scrim of white fog. He shifts uncomfortably in his wet cloak. A cold, sparse rain is falling, and the sky is a delicate pale gray. By his estimations, it's just after sunrise. There is a distinct lack of wind and birdsong, which makes his heartbeat seem much louder than usual.
He's a little embarrassed at the course of last night's events. Was he overreacting? Maybe he should go back. He could probably still make it all the way home, and Hashirama would never even know he was gone…Madara doesn't know, even now, if he's done the right thing.
He winces as he sits up. Something feels distinctly off, somehow. He can't put his finger on what it is. It is as if the entire universe has shifted about three inches to the left. His head is buzzing, and as he looks around, squinting into the mist, he feels a horrible pang of dread. The sycamore tree, the loose clumps of dirt up on top of the cliff, the starlike moss that he had fallen asleep on last night, even the air itself—it is all steeped in the darkest, most foul chakra that Madara has ever felt. It makes his heart race and his head pound, and as he stands up from the patch of moss and tries to regain his bearings, a hot trickle of blood drips out of his nose. He mops it up with his sleeve, clenching his jaw in what he thinks might be terror. This chakra is so vile that it's giving him a nosebleed.
Edo Tensei, he thinks. Tobirama, what have you done?
His mind races as he sprints down from the cliff, barely able to see his hand in front of his face in the fog. He's sure there's residual blood crusted under his nose, but it hardly matters; he doubts the village's opinion of him will significantly lessen over a bit of dried blood—not that the village's opinion of him can get much lower, his brain helpfully supplies. He jumps from the roof of the aviary and lands hard in the street, panting.
The key to Tobirama's apartment doesn't work. Madara furiously jiggles it around in the lock, trying to coax it into cooperating, but it won't budge. "Come on!" he shouts at the door. Did Tobirama change his locks overnight? Truthfully, Madara wouldn't put it past him.
There is a certain freedom in being the proverbial black sheep of Konoha, Madara thinks, as he kicks Tobirama's door clean off its hinges and dashes into his apartment. He can't imagine what people would say if they saw Hashirama breaking and entering like this.
Not only did Tobirama change his locks, but he also seems to have redecorated, if the magenta shag carpet and floor-to-ceiling poster bearing the words Tsuki no Kuni Wet'n'Wild World Tour are any indication. The apartment also seems to have gotten mysteriously messier since Madara saw it last. He kicks aside a silk slipper in mild disgust, and winces from the copious crumbs scattered across the carpet, looking like ginger dandruff on a bright magenta cat.
"If this is your idiot brother's idea of a birthday prank, I'm going to be very pissed off," Madara shouts. "The faster you explain yourself, the better." He can sense Tobirama's chakra, below him, somewhere in the lab. He thunders down the stairs and throws the door open. Tobirama is bent over something at the desk. He looks up and sees Madara. His mouth pops open.
"What did you do?" Madara half-yells, trying to catch his breath. "What did you do, Tobirama?"
"Well, this is certainly interesting," Tobirama says, crossing his arms over his chest and tipping back in his chair in a very un-Tobirama-like way. "You sure have some nerve coming back here after all this time."
Madara blinks. "Excuse me?"
"I said," Tobirama says, cupping his hands over his mouth and beginning to shout, "You sure have some nerve coming back h—"
"I work here, you utter imbecile!" Madara hisses, stabbing a kunai into the table. Tobirama jumps at the impact. "Let me in and let me see what you did. You promised not to work on Edo Tensei without me, so just—"
Tobirama bristles. He whips out a kunai of his own. "What the hell are you talking about?" he says. "I may not have a personal vendetta against you like some people I could mention, but I really won't hesitate to kill you, you know—"
"Don't play dumb!" Madara shouts, seizing Tobirama's collar and giving him a hearty shake. "You must have seriously pissed on some spirit or deity or something, you idiot, now hurry up and undo whatever you just did before some shinigami steps through the veil and smites us both!"
"What the fuck?" Tobirama says, clearly affronted. "This is top grade rabbit fur, get your hands off of it—"
Madara does a double take. He quickly takes his hands off of Tobirama's collar, sending him overbalancing out of his chair and onto the floor.
"What the hell are you wearing?" Madara says, because really.
Tobirama groans, crawling onto his hands and knees. He's dressed in a ripped fishnet top and buckled sandals, along with the shiniest, tightest leather pants Madara has ever seen—including a pair that Izuna had worn (and then peeled off, after one too many drinks) at a particularly rowdy bonfire party, a very long time ago. And that's not all—the scattered scars on his arms look distinctly different from the ones Madara remembers, and he's wearing what looks like an entire tube of eyeliner, which is caked around his eyes so severely that he resembles an overtired raccoon.
"Oh, fuck," Madara mutters. "Oh, no. Oh, holy hell."
He's not sure how he didn't notice it at first, but Tobirama's lab has undergone an even more severe transformation than his apartment upstairs. Gone is the neat autopsy table, carefully labeled vials and beakers, and pristine shelves full of scrolls. Now most of the space is taken up by wildly messy bookshelves stuffed with brightly-colored paperback novels, which are spilling over in places onto stacks on the floor. Countless crumpled papers litter the area under the desk; Madara can spot at least five cold cups of tea abandoned in various places throughout the room, and most of the desk is taken up by a large scroll, upon which Senju Tobirama is written about fifty times—is he practicing writing his signature? Madara thinks. He reaches over the desk and seizes the other, smaller piece of paper that Tobirama had been poring over when he first arrived.
"NO! IT'S NOT FINISHED YET!" Tobirama bellows, unbridled panic in his voice, diving over the table at him. Madara dodges him easily and begins to read it. His eyebrows furrow together, before shooting up towards his hairline.
Tobio's scarlet eyes gazed deep into Fuyuki's smouldering blue ones, the color of sapphire pools of tears. Fuyuki gasped, his muscular abs glistening with sweat as he caressed Tobio's pale cheek. His own breath caught in his throat at the bitten-off noise. He pulled back, unbuttoning Fuyuki's trousers and pushing them down out of the way, then cupped him with one hand. Then he curled inwards again, bending over Fuyuki's hips, and left a trail of deliciously wet kisses at the hem of his boxers…
"What the fucking hell is going on here," Madara says weakly, dropping the paper. The key. The shag carpet. Tobirama's lab transformed into this den of bizarre promiscuity. "This isn't right. None of this is right—where am I—"
The back of Madara's neck prickles. He gives an involuntary shudder. Then, without warning, a jolt of incredible, burning pain flashes through his head. He staggers, catching himself on the edge of the table, and squeezes his eyes shut. Its source is quite far away, but he can tell it's the same horrible chakra he's been sensing since he woke up. Madara clenches his teeth, feeling sick. This chakra feels like bones charred to ash, like skin and muscle melting like wax, like rotted eye sockets weeping old blood, like steely talons tearing into burning flesh—and if he didn't know better, he'd think—
That's my father's chakra, Madara thinks, pressing his sleeve under his nose once again to stem the flow of blood. As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he realizes his mistake. A shiver runs down his back. It's not Tajima's chakra; it's his own.
Tobirama staggers up from the floor, his eyeliner smudged, his face the color of one of Hashirama's heirloom tomatoes.
"You really don't know where you are?" he says, panting. "It's as if you're from a different world, or something."
Tobirama might as well have dropped an anvil directly in front of his face. Every pore of Madara's body freezes. He is seized with an insane urge to drop to his knees, screaming.
Madara mentally shakes himself. He attempts to gathers his wits. This sort of thing must happen more often than it seems, he thinks. Hell, just yesterday, he and Tobirama were talking about the practical applications of space-time ninjutsu over the autopsy table. But if the Tobirama in this world is a musician and not a scientist, does space-time ninjutsu even exist in this world? Or has someone else invented it? How is he here?
Tobirama is looking at him very strangely.
"Humor me," Madara says slowly, surprised at how calm his voice sounds. "Say I am from a different world. Say I was dicked around—I mean, cast into this universe by forces unknown, for example. What happened to the Madara who was already here?"
Tobirama considers him for a moment, frowning.
"You left," he says at last. "Six months ago. Almost killed my brother. Emotionally, I mean. Well—not that he wasn't already emotionally constipated before, but—"
"What?" Madara snaps. He feels like he's been kicked in the chest. "I—I did?"
Tobirama starts to laugh. "Oh, shit," he says. "Wait till my brother sees you. He's gonna be pissed."
"Take me to him," Madara demands.
"Um, I don't think that's a good idea," he says. Madara groans. Even in this world, Tobirama still treats him like an obnoxious child. But at the same time, he feels a vague trepidation rising in his throat. This does not tally at all with Madara's previous dealings with Tobirama, whose incessant need to constantly check on his brother had resulted in some very memorable encounters over the years, including one occasion when he had walked in on Madara and Hashirama engaged in a very private activity on the Hokage's desk.
"Fine," Madara says, turning around and marching out the door, "I'll go myself. I'm sure your brother would be ever so disappointed to learn that you failed to apprehend me when I showed up at your house, and then proceeded to allow me to break into the Academy and wreak havoc on the offices—"
Tobirama groans.
"Fine, fine," he says. "Listen, I need to borrow 500 ryō from my brother anyway. Come on, let's just get this over with."
He stoops, his leather pants squeaking, and very carefully reaches under his desk to pick up the page of his novel that Madara had dropped. He folds it up and gently slides it into his pocket.
Madara watches him, bemused. "I can't decide if I like you better or worse here," he mutters.
Tobirama perks up. "What am I like in your world?" he says, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
"Oh," Madara says, caught off guard by the question. "Well, you look pretty much the same. But in my world, you're a necromancer."
"Oh, man," Tobirama says. "Whatever that is, it sounds pretty fucking sick."
"We're lucky there aren't that many people around," Tobirama says as they approach the center of the village. "But keep your hood up. It would be a real pain in the ass if someone recognized you here."
Even though the sun is coming up, the village is still shrouded in fog; barely any of the shops are open yet. Tobirama gazes fondly at the bar as they pass by. Gradually the Academy appears, looming through the fog like a scarlet beacon.
"It's a little early for Hashirama to be at work, isn't it?" Madara says as they walk. "You're sure he'll be in there?"
"Oh, definitely," Tobirama says. "He never leaves that damn office. He's probably been in there all night."
Madara frowns. This behavior seems most unlike the Hashirama he knows. "What is your brother like in this world, exactly?" he asks, a little wary of the answer.
Tobirama has to think about that for a while.
"Tall," he says at last. He taps his chin with his index finger. "Tone-deaf."
He pauses at the door to the front office, holding up one hand. "Actually, as much as I'd love to see my brother's reaction to you showing up out of the blue like this," he says in a would-be casual voice, "I really don't feel like dealing with him right now. You go in. Just make sure you stay out of sight, and all that."
He shoves Madara through the door. "Can you get that money from him for me, though?" Tobirama calls, and slams the door with a resounding bang.
"Thanks," Madara mutters. Now that he thinks about it, it's actually a little comforting that Tobirama is still as insufferable in this world as he is in Madara's own. He makes a mental note to pour salt in Tobirama's coffee some morning if he ever makes it back.
The offices are eerily quiet. The front hallway is darker and narrower than he remembers it, but (Madara thanks every deity he can think of) the layout of the place remains relatively unchanged. He slips off his hood, not sensing anyone in the immediate vicinity, and starts to walk. Embarrassingly, he doesn't even make it to the end of the hallway before he's intercepted.
"Come with me," says an unfamiliar voice, rough and deep and angry, "now."
Madara curses. So the Black Ops still exist in this reality. A strong hand claps over his mouth; an elbow crooks around his neck, cutting off his windpipe; then he finds himself being pulled forcefully backwards down the hall towards the underground vault that houses the village's archives. Through the haze of foul chakra that's been pervading his senses all morning, he can detect a hint of Hashirama's warm, earthy chakra, somewhere close. He just has to get to him.
The steel door to the archive room slams shut behind them and they are plunged into total darkness. A kunai is pressed to his throat.
"Did anyone outside this room see you?" the voice asks, in a low, severe rumble. "Are you here alone?" The man gives him a shake. "Answer me."
Madara grits his teeth. It must be some sort of powerful genjutsu that's making the room so dark; the air in here feels strangely more solid than it should. He doesn't have time for this. He can't see his attacker, but he can still sense his chakra with the Sharingan. If he steps here—and then feints to the left—
The man reacts exactly as if he's read Madara's mind. Madara slips out of his grasp, goes to stomp on the man's left foot as hard as he can, but he pulls it out of the way just in time and Madara's heel collides sharply with the cement floor. They both whirl around each other in the dark; Madara draws a kunai from his pouch and aims it for the man's face, but he blocks it just in time. Both blades lock—Madara can feel the heat from the sparks—then with his free hand Madara twists the man's shoulder around until he cries out and his kunai clatters to the floor. Madara kicks it out of the way. He knows how the man is going to react, somehow—right hook, then switch feet, careful of his knee—it's not the swooping clarity of Sharingan in action, exactly; it's more of a nagging feeling that he's encountered this man before—fought him before. They circle each other again; the man is raising his hands in what Madara thinks is defeat, and he rushes forward to deal the final blow. But it's a bluff; the man kicks him squarely in the chest as soon as he's in range, sending him sprawling into what feels like a pile of boxes, all sharp edges and splintered wood. He lies there for a moment, winded, his Sharingan throbbing.
The man releases the bringer-of-darkness jutsu, then strikes a match and lights a tiny lantern on the table. Madara gets to his feet with difficulty, leaning on the wall for support.
The stranger is wearing a set of long red-and-white robes with scarlet flames adorning the sleeves. His dark hair reaches his chin in a blunt bob, and he's wearing thin, wire-rimmed glasses that emphasize his cold black eyes. Madara is sure he's seen him somewhere before. For a moment, he could be thirteen years old again, staring up into the grim, lined face of Butsuma Senju. But then he looks again, and reads the word Hokage embroidered on the man's left shoulder, and understands, with a pang of horror, why the man feels so hauntingly, persistently familiar. Madara's mouth falls open. "Hashirama?" he whispers.
The man frowns. Now Madara is sure it's him. There's Hashirama's familiar squint, and his neat, oval-shaped fingernails, and even a glimmer of his teal necklace peeking through his high collar. That's his chakra, too, or at least a very faint strain of it. Just like everything else in this world, though, it feels irrevocably wrong.
"Hashirama, it's me," says Madara.
Hashirama's frown deepens. He doesn't move. "Prove it," he says coldly. His glasses glint in the firelight. Madara shivers. He can't remember the last time that Hashirama sounded this angry.
"It's difficult to explain," Madara says, meeting Hashirama's eyes and fighting the thrill of terror that twists through his stomach. "I am Madara. But I'm not the Madara you know."
He takes a step closer. Hashirama's jaw is clenched. He seems to be holding his breath.
"And you, you're…"
Madara runs his hands down those strong shoulders, feeling the familiar muscle beneath his robes, and he looks up at that harsh, lined face, at the stern mouth and furrowed brow and those steely black eyes, so different from his Hashirama's warm dark ones.
"You're not the Hashirama I know, either."
When Madara finishes explaining, his voice is hoarse, and Hashirama is sitting quite still at the records table with his fingers steepled in front of his face.
"I was afraid of something like this," he says at last, adjusting his glasses. "We had heard rumors that he was experimenting with these sorts of reality-bending jutsus recently. I can't imagine why he'd try to summon you here, though."
"Me either," Madara says truthfully.
It feels unbelievably strange to be talking to this Hashirama as if he's a stranger, when just last night he and Hashirama were lying in bed, limbs tangled together, partners in every sense of the word. Staring up at Hashirama's tired, bespectacled face, lit up from below by the tiny lantern on the table, makes Madara feel unbearably, persistently sad. Burning shame prickles in his throat. He remembers countless lazy days down on the riverbank, of skipping stones and laughing and talking and basking in each other's company; he remembers all those looks of quiet sympathy shared on the battlefield, in between parries; he remembers those quiet nights they had all to themselves, in those first, early days of the village, and how beautiful and brilliant it all felt. And then he thinks of his Hashirama, wonders if he's even awake yet, wherever he is, imagines him rolling over with his eyes still closed, searching for Madara's warmth next to him in the bed and finding nothing at all.
"Madara," Hashirama says.
Madara takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "What?"
Hashirama doesn't answer for a while. He surveys Madara's lips with an oddly hungry expression on his face.
"I think," he says at last, "that you had better go see Izuna. He might be able to help you get back."
Madara's heart leaps into his throat. His mouth goes completely dry. "Izuna's alive?"
Hashirama nods. "Why?" he says sharply. "What happened to Izuna in your world?
"He—he died," Madara says. "Your brother killed him in battle."
Hashirama inhales sharply. "Something like that happened in this world," he says, "just before the village was founded. Tobirama was wounded very badly in a battle with the Uchiha. I healed him, naturally, and then you and I came together and hashed out the truce."
Madara swallows hard. He refuses to cry in front of this strange, not-quite-right version of Hashirama. "Where is Izuna now?" he says, once he's sure his voice won't quiver.
Hashirama rubs his temples. "After the Uchiha clan disbanded—"
"What?" Madara cries out.
"—he ended up moving to Sora-ku. He should still be there now."
Madara feels like he's been hit in the face. "The clan disbanded?"
"Well, yes," Hashirama says. "After you left the village. Madara, the Uchiha clan loved you. You held them all together. A few of them still live here and there on the outskirts of the village, but most of them went off on their own."
Madara mouths wordlessly at him for several seconds. He feels as if all the air has vanished from his lungs. "They…they did?" he croaks, once his voice is working again, and then it's a frantic roll call. "Hikaku?" he says. Hashirama shakes his head. "Naori left? Hakubo? Kagami and his aunts? Naka? Sora? Yumi and her sister?"
Hashirama is still shaking his head. Madara puts his face in his hands.
"I can't believe I let this happen," he whispers. His eyes are burning. "How—how can I possibly face Izuna while he knows I'm responsible for all of this?"
"It's not that simple," Hashirama says sharply. "Many people think you were the best thing that happened to this village. Not just the Uchiha clan, either."
"How could anyone think that?" Madara cries out. "I've failed you, I've failed the clan, I've failed my brother—"
Hashirama stands up from his chair. "Madara," he says, his voice low and serious, "Look." He turns around, holding out his arms. The back of his robes read Second Hokage in neat red lettering.
Madara's mouth falls open.
"Oh, no," Madara breathes. "You can't mean…I couldn't possibly be the—"
"Like I said before," Hashirama says grimly. "The Uchiha clan loved you. It was a close vote, but at my recommendation you were elected officially. I truly thought you would be best leader for our village. I much prefer to work behind the scenes anyway. Cut-and-dry work like this suits me fine." He gestures to the dark file cabinets behind them.
Madara wants to curl up into a ball. Guilt unfurls in his stomach. Of course Hashirama would have thought he would be the best person to lead the village. And the clan—how could he do this? How could he leave all of that behind? What could possibly have been more important to him than protecting the Uchiha?
"What is it?" Hashirama says abruptly. Madara realizes his mouth is hanging open. He closes it, frowning.
"Why did I leave?" he asks, finally.
Hashirama's face is blank. "I don't know," he says. "You didn't tell me."
Madara's heart sinks. On the table, the lantern gives a tiny flicker. There is that restless feeling again.
"I'm going to Sora-ku," Madara announces, standing up from the table. "I have to see him. I—I have to talk to him. Tell him I'm sorry."
Hashirama nods gravely.
Madara pauses at the door. He needs to talk to Izuna, yes—but he also needs to ask the thing that's been floating to the forefront of his mind ever since he first laid eyes on this Hashirama—ever since he first entertained the notion of leaving Konoha, back in his own world.
"Hashirama?" Madara says, then curses himself for opening his mouth.
Hashirama's response is swift and measured. "Yes?"
Madara grits his teeth. "What was I to you," he says quietly, "before I left?"
Hashirama frowns. He looks like he's thinking quite hard.
"You were the most charismatic man I've ever known," he says, finally, staring down at the wood grain on the table as if he's trying to learn every feathery line and ringed knot by heart.
The fog has finally lifted by the time Madara steps out of the Konoha archives, shielding his face from the mid-morning sun with one gloved hand. He squints up at the cliff, at the pair of stone faces carved into it. He feels sick. His own face, proud and haughty and regal, stares back at him. He can't stand to look at it for a moment longer than he has to. Quickly, he sets off. He has a long journey ahead.