Blood was smeared over his features, still warm from the gushing neck of the enemy felled by his hands. His expression didn't change from its muted facade, but his sunken eyelids revealed his weariness.
This war between clans was tiring. Too much death. Too much loss.
He tightened his features, flourished his war fan, and then left the area strewn with the body of Senju and their affiliates. The tree huggers were always good at facilitating alliances with the lesser clans.
Even then, they still couldn't match up to him.
In battle, he was the definition of a killing machine, but he never had any hesitation, doubt, or concern, but returning to the clan was different.
Just like now.
It always got him thinking. His mind was sound, and his body was excellent, so battle was practically nothing to him, so then why the need to involve his sister?
He couldn't imagine how his sister would be able to handle it. Even the trauma of seeing a loved one die and remembering them for who they were in life was something his sister couldn't bear, and like a curse, her eyes inevitably took that pain away.
Everything was reset from zero, never again able to associate one-plus-one-to-two, and instead skipping over to three as if two no longer existed. Of course, this wasn't something as arbitrary as numbers, but people instead, but the point still stands.
If she were to be paired in a squad, then made friends, and then went to war with her family, the sheer amount of death would deprive her of those who care about her even faster.
Then there was the fact that she was a weakling.
Izuna still called her a scrawny chicken, but he was childish and beat up anyone who looked at her strangely through no fault of their own. Their sister was closer to a fragile and thornless black rose. Budding in her beauty and warm temperament, but could easily wilt and wither through excessive force or grief.
War would crush her. The battlefield and her naive innocence would never mix regardless of whatever expectations the elders had.
As far as Madara and his brothers were concerned, she wouldn't have to participate in war if they grew strong enough to end it all without her, and that was motivation enough. This was more so for him as even now his capabilities were rising at an extraordinary rate.
Putting away his war fan, Madara breathed in and out while assessing himself.
He had to prepare himself as there was another reason he grew somewhat apprehensive whenever returning to the clan from a solo mission.
He was a mess.
There was no way he could go home like this even if he knew his siblings wouldn't care. There was just something different about the way Ikari looked at him when he wore his bloodstained red plated armour and carried his war fan that made her seem anxious of him. It was like she wasn't looking at him per say, but a shadow that was beyond him.
The fact that she felt that she had to constantly assure him that 'no one was going to die,' each time he came home with a dark expression was still rather off putting even now. Of course no one was going to die. He'd rather sacrifice the world than allow it.
She called him an idiot while crying when he said that, looking as if a heavy burden was on her shoulders, but he couldn't understand what he'd said wrong? Was it because she knew he was being truthful when he said that? He meant it to be reassuring, not to get immediately reprimanded by their mother who wasn't there to hear their conversation and immediately scolded him about bullying his sister. It wasn't the emotional sort of scolding either, but the Uchiha-style silent disapproving 'Hn' between a son who didn't know what he did wrong, and a mother who could care less and sided with the feeble sister.
There was no winning that battle.
Madara's lip twitched, especially when even Izuna and their brothers looked at him as if he did something wrong?
In order to prevent a repeat of that incident, Madara felt he had no choice but to change into clean clothes and wash himself off in the nearby river before heading home every time.
Still, the river's tranquility gave his mind reprieve.
The boy who suddenly appeared on the other side in this particular instance, and dared to brag about his capability to skip more stones over the water than him and even succeed? Not so much.
Pride was something Madara had in spades as an Uchiha to the point he was unable to pee if others were watching.
Yeah. That was why that bowl-head, Hashirama, just got lucky.
Next time, it would be his stone that would easily skip across the river.
Next time.
Next time.
Next time for sure.
"Okay Madada, you can let me down now."
Blankly, Madara let his sister down near the embankment of the river, a blindfold covering her eyes that did little to hide her chakra vision granted by her Mangekyo. Her cover story though was that she was blind.
No- Wait hold up! That wasn't what was important.
Madara finally snapped out of it as he noticed the telltale signs of Hashirama's approach and his sister ignorantly soaking her feet in the river stream.
.
.
.
How did he let this happen?
P a treon. com (slash) Parcasious