The leather-bound journal rested tauntingly on his desk.
It has been there ever since Izuna returned from the officiating ceremony of Tobirama Clan, taunting him with its worn yet well-cared pages and the slanted script of Tobirama's handwriting that was scrawled across the cover.
The slanted 'Edo Tensei' taunted Izuna, making the Uchiha's Clan Head fretted over his own curiosity to know what was written inside.
However, Kagami's smug behaviour earlier halted his intention.
After the rather threatening comment the boy made about Izuna experiencing Tobirama's pain, Izuna was bracing himself for a fight—Hashirama's flaring chakra and the glowing chains in Mito's sleeves be damned—but to his surprise, Kagami simply reached out a hand to brush his fingers below Izuna's eyes, the quirk of his smirk almost seemed deceivingly harmless.
If Izuna's heart stuttered and filled with relief once the boy stopped invading his personal space, Izuna was not going to admit it.
Though, in all seriousness, there was something eerily wrong with Kagami ever since Tobirama died.
It felt like the boy was slipping.
Izuna did not even care much about the retarded child.
Thus, when even Izuna noticed the subtle shifts in Kagami's behaviour, things might be more serious than one would initially think. The Clan Head couldn't point out the exact thing that made Kagami behaved even more wrong than the bizarre child who clung to the Uchiha Demon, but the shift was jarring.
It changed the child.
And it only has gone worse after Kagami defected from the clan.
The teenage boy grew darker. It wasn't noticeable if one would only look at his smile, but there was a total hundred-eighty-degree shift in Kagami's demeanour. The teen's innocence was gone as an edged darkness haunted his usually cheerful demeanour. Kagami's words started to be laced with subtle venom, his voice carried an intimidating drawl while his chakra flared with a hint of bitterness and hatred—
—especially when he was in close proximity to an Uchiha
Every Uchiha who had been in Kagami's sensory range has gotten the taste of the bitter murderous flare of the teen's chakra been directed towards them. It was the kind of hatred that was terrifyingly similar to the legend of Uchiha's curse, and it made the clan wary of the boy, treading on a thin thread around the child with worries that one day Kagami would snap to complete insanity and turned on them.
It was very, very nerve wrecking.
Izuna's well-honed shinobi instinct did not allow him to relax in Kagami's presence. Every sense in Izuna's exhausted body tingled in high-alert if the sixteen-years-old boy so much shifted his weight and lifted his hands—the reasonable fear of high-speed unseen hand-signs that used to be the reason Tobirama was so feared by their enemies has made Izuna paranoid.
What if this journal was yet another elaborated attempt to destroy Izuna's already tortured mind?
But the temptation—it was too strong.
Izuna wants to know.
Thus, when Izuna's curiosity won over his self-resistance and he finally sat down in front of his desk, gingerly flipping the journal open with cautious hands, Izuna wasn't expecting that the journal would indeed be a torment to him—
—but in a completely different way than he expected.
Laboratory Report : Edo Tensei
Uchiha Tobirama
Izuna read the title page with brief interest, flipping through the pages of hand-drawn seals and calculations with little to zero understanding. Despite the thorough paragraphs explaining each sign on the seal prototypes and how it would work once combined, Izuna did not understand a single thing about it.
It's all like ancient runes to him. He only saw squiggly lines and weird symbols been combined together in multiple version of seals. That's it.
Thus, he just skimmed through the pages of the sketches, only raising an eyebrow upon noticing the repetition of same seals on different prototypes.
They were the heavenly seal and the earth seal.
Both seals emphasised on binding and grounding souls to the mortal worlds.
Souls.
Of the dead.
Ground the dead to the mortal world.
What even was Tobirama attempting to do?
Curious, Izuna skipped straight to the last section of the journal—the distinct red marker that poked out of the edges told him that it was the personal reflection diary that Tobirama wrote throughout the whole development progress of the jutsu.
The journal has another section detailing the actual development of the jutsu, but since it was all ancient runes to Izuna, he didn't even bother to read it. This reflection diary section won't have that kind of complicated elaboration, right? It's a diary after all.
Perhaps it was written in the language that Izuna could comprehend.
Izuna's a shinobi. Shinobi did not need a high-level linguistic competency since their job scope was mainly to do the dirty deeds of other people from the depth of the shadow.
They were not meant to be seen, let alone to use the kinds of weird jargon that filled a good half of this journal.
At this rate, Tobirama was just showing off to his readers.
Izuna ran a finger over the cover page of the section, absent-mindedly tracing the slanted script of Tobirama's handwriting over the page.
Inhaling a deep breath, he started to read.
Picking up the development of this jutsu from where it was stopped. All notes have to be revised again for accuracy. Refer to surviving scraps for a start and look for any remains that Father might miss.
Additional note : Retrieve samples from the clan's record. The keepers should still keep the heirs' umbilical cords.
Izuna frowned at the very first entry.
The date struck him like a bucket of cold water washing down his chest, smothering his heart with pure chills as that little traitorous part within him—the one that shamefully dared to feel pity and guilt towards Tobirama—trembled in horrified anticipation.
The date was Izuna's own birthday after all.
He remembered this date.
He was fourteen. Senju Butsuma just died the week prior and Tobirama has just been crowned as the Clan Heir not two days beforehand.
Izuna celebrated his fourteenth birthday brimming with spite and anger. He remembered sulking in Jiro's old room, hugging his brother's urn tight in his chest and ranted his heart out to the ashes of his elder brother. The spite was still brimming up to till this day—Izuna's wounded ego after being denied the rights to be Tajima's heir because of that half-bred bastard still fuelled his hatred to his half-brother—and reading this only served to fling Izuna back into the hatred.
Then, he frowned in utter confusion, finally realising that Tobirama was behaving strangely at that time.
Was this the reason? He was behaving strangely because of his research?
Back then, Izuna was too deep in his spite to notice. He thought that the demon was trying to annoy him.
Oh, he did remember Tobirama's shifty stare in his direction—the ruby eyes stared owlishly a bit off to Izuna's own eyes—even when Izuna shot his elder brother an impatient get-on-with-it-already look. Izuna remembered Tobirama tried to approach him after his coronation ceremony (to gloat, no doubt) as the demon dared to disrupt Izuna's grieving of Jiro.
Izuna was irritated for the whole week.
Tobirama was everywhere. He took Izuna's flank in the dinner hall, acting like a complete idiot while Izuna's appetite soured every time the bastard demon opened his mouth only to shut it again without saying any word. He was at the training ground the exact time Izuna chose to train—ruby eyes darted distractingly in Izuna's direction, only to be averted when Izuna channelled a glare as a response. Tobirama was in the bathhouse when Izuna wanted to soak in the steaming hot water—and if the demon looked a bit dejected when Izuna snarled at his offer to wash Izuna's back, it was none of Izuna's concern.
Tobirama must be an idiot if he thought protecting Tajima by killing Senju Butsuma would change anything in their relationship.
It took a very annoyed Izuna to snap at Tobirama to leave him alone right in front of the whole clan to make the demon stopped his pestering.
If Izuna had hidden his mournful tears as he claimed that the demon would never come close to Jiro (so could Tobirama please fuck the hell off?)—no one who witnessed the scene dared to comment anything.
Izuna shook his head at the memories, embarrassed with his teenage-self. The slip of his emotions back then was one of the few things that he regretted. It was shameful—to show to the half-bred demon that he was still weak whenever his dead brother was mentioned—and such moment of weaknesses would have been the death of him should Tobirama ever used it against Izuna.
Tobirama retreated into his 'study' after that. No one ever saw him again until the next battle against the Senju.
Or rather, no one cared to look for him.
Tajima was the only one who did seek for the demon, but after the first few days, he relented and allowed his half-bred son to retreat into the isolation of his lab.
Izuna traced his fingers over the fine handwriting, wondering if this was what Tobirama was up to during his isolation.
Freak.
Drowning the rising spite in his chest, Izuna let his gaze wandered to the second entry and continued reading.
There was nothing too interesting about the second entry. Tobirama talked about his search for the scraps of his notes that Tajima might have missed. Apparently, he had snuck out of the clan's compound to make a quick journey to his childhood home with the aim of looking for any surviving notes of his that he managed to hide in his little brother's coffin.
Izuna scowled at the slanted script.
He knew that Tobirama has no honour whatsoever, but to disrespect their father's will and disturb the grave of his own little brother—
—well, it wasn't that surprising. Izuna always knew that Tobirama was a demon who has no understanding of how human's society works.
Tajima deemed it fit to destroy Tobirama's notes on this jutsu. It must have been really bad.
Izuna huffed and returned to his reading.
Tobirama mentioned the name of his dead brother only twice in the total ten entries that Izuna has read so far.
The first time he wrote it was in the first entry, crossed out by a single straight line—a fleeting mention that Izuna didn't bother to pay attention to. The second time the demon wrote the name was in the form of a squiggly script so unlike his perfect handwriting in the previous entries before the sentences were crossed out and smudged so horribly it was almost impossible to read. The page was the most incoherent page in the journal, dirtied with smudged ink that the only read-able words were the first few words mentioning the name of the demon's deceased brother and the cluster of phrases that didn't make sense at all.
Kakashi.
Izuna merely cocked a disinterest brow at the name of his supposed other half-brother.
If his nightmares were not a genjutsu, he assumed that this was the name of the dead boy he saw in his first nightmare. The silver-haired boy that died the day Tobirama first awakened his sharingan.
It felt odd to have a name to the dead boy that haunted his sleep. It caused discomfort, a strange twisting feeling in his chest that ached like bruises—it wasn't that significant, but the ache was noticeable.
A name made the dead boy real.
A name reminded Izuna that the boy's death was as real as Jiro's death.
A name made Izuna reluctantly accepted that Tobirama's grief was as painful as his own.
As if the entry itself was not proof of his grief.
The paperwork during Tobirama's reign always has a perfect script—not a smudge of ink nor any missed strokes of the brush. His words were perfectly arranged with strange beauty that nobody expected from a hard-edged shinobi.
This entry was the exact opposite of that. The read-able words were arranged in such erratic manner that one would have thought that the writer was slipping into insanity the moment this was written. It was smudged here and there; some words could not even be read due to the way the ink smeared over the paper as if someone accidentally let the words encountered an unnecessary amount of water. Some sentences were crossed out so violently Izuna could see the ink seeping to the next page as the paper thinned under the forceful writing.
Izuna immediately squashed the image that his mind decided to conjure.
No. No no no no no no no.
Such images would only make the demon appeared human.
Izuna didn't want that. The images gave him breathing difficulties, made his chest hurt and uncomfortable as they lodged something huge and heavy in his throat.
However, he couldn't stop his own imagination.
Izuna closed his eyes and saw his half-brother hunched over this very journal, tears dripped down the pale cheeks to smudge the perfect script on the dry paper.
Izuna didn't like the twisting discomfort in his chest.
He didn't like it all.
The rest of the diary was filled with short detached paragraphs.
It seemed like Tobirama refused any more slips as he did in the incoherent entry. The rest of his entries that followed his break down was written with a detached tone, mainly summarising the detailed entries of his actual progress report. Izuna has opted to cross-check both sections and ended up with the conclusion that the rest of Tobirama's supposed personal entries was mainly a dumbed-down version of his progress report.
Thank Sage for that.
Izuna did not understand a thing in the progress report section. This dumbed-down version was actually helpful to the young Clan Head as he attempted to figure out what the hell Tobirama was up to and why the fuck Kagami deemed that reading this journal would shed some light to Izuna's supposed darkness.
By the time he reached the entries dated at the third year of Edo Tensei's development, Izuna has reached a conclusion that his half-brother was extremely scary, and it was a relief that he was gone.
An army of the dead.
Tobirama was creating a jutsu to reanimate the dead.
As much as the appeal of upgrading their military prowess with an army of indestructible undead was incredibly tempting, the process to reanimate a dead person made Izuna squirmed in discomfort.
If they wished to have a thousand men in their undead army, they needed to sacrifice living humans of the same number to realise that wish.
It was a dishonourable thing to do, even for a shinobi.
The uncomfortable twisting of guilt and grief in Izuna's chest eased up to its original indifference state—
—until he saw the single line in Tobirama's last entry.
Edo Tensei is complete—Uchiha Jiro is successfully reanimated.
Izuna's first reaction was a horrified shock.
Then, the confusion.
Why?
Why would Tobirama reanimate Izuna's brother but not his own?
Why reanimate Jiro but not Kakashi?
Izuna let his gaze fell on the open pages of the journal, exhausted groggy mind spinning with theories as he tried to make sense of Tobirama's behaviour.
None of this made sense.
Then, it finally dawned to him that the demon has disturbed the peace of Jiro's eternal rest.
Izuna raged.
How dare he?!
He was extremely close to setting the journal on fire but managed to refrain from doing so.
He needed proof of the cause of his reasonable anger if Hashirama decided to crash into his house and interfere with his act of spite.
Izuna's vision was tinted red—whether it was his pure anger, or it was his sharingan he did not know—as he has all but stormed to the locked and untouched room of his deceased half-brother, determined to burn that part of the house to the ground.
He gritted his teeth in pure wrath when the seals rejected him, warning sparks of Tobirama's raiton chakra sent tingles upon his fingertips but Izuna braced on. His anger overpowered his sense of pain and he persisted, chakra flaring in pure wrath to force the door open.
The door didn't budge.
Izuna hissed, scowling in distaste as his gaze fell on his scorched hand—the burn was painful, but it wasn't as painful as the thought that Tobirama dared to disturb Jiro's rest—
(Even though Izuna felt the disappointment rising up his chest because he did not know this. He did not know that his beloved Nii-chan was reanimated. He did not know that he has missed the opportunity to meet his Nii-chan again, to hear Jiro's voice for one last time because Tobirama deemed it fit to keep this a secret….)
Despite the horrible burn in his hands, Izuna braced the pain and weaved the hand-signs for a Great Fireball jutsu, filling his lungs with fiery chakra.
He almost choked on his own chakra when the door suddenly swung open and there was a hand reaching out to press over his mouth, halting his intention to burn Tobirama's room mid-breath. Izuna swallowed, feeling the burn of the beginning of the katon jutsu washed over his throat in a simmering wave that caused him to cough in pain.
The hand that was covering his mouth retreated.
Izuna heaved a pained breath and looked down with a distasteful growl.
"Izu-chan."
And he suddenly felt like he was five again.
Despite the fact that he was a good two feet taller than the boy, Izuna felt like a child again—helpless and confused. A soft whimper tore out of his throat upon meeting the pitch-black eyes, the whimper turned to a confused choking noise as he recognised the unique pattern of the Mangekyou—a sure sign that this was no impostor. He recognised the fair skin—though the one he remembered was smeared with blood instead of decorated with these hairline cracks—and he couldn't tear his gaze from the slightly exasperated smile on the boy's face.
It was a smile so painfully similar to his childhood memories.
Izuna crumpled onto his knees, his exhausted mind was rendered numb with utter confusion. His throat was sore from the sudden halt of his fireball while his hand was scorched—tingling with sparks of raiton chakra. Confused and in pain, Izuna vaguely registered the small arms that wrapped around the breadth of his shoulders, nor did he notice the exasperated sigh that slipped past the boy's mouth. He barely felt the small arms pulled him close to the skinny chest that smelt of death and dust, his mind was sluggish with shock and confusion.
"Good to see you grow up so handsome, otoutou."
Even the voice was the same as the last time he heard it twenty-three years ago.
Izuna whimpered, burying his face to the cold collarbone, shaky arms came up to return the embrace. He clutched the small body tight—fear racked his whole body.
He feared that this was just a cruel dream cast by Kagami to torture him.
He feared that the body in his hold will crumble to dust the moment he let his guard down.
"How?" Izuna spoke, voice quiet and small. "Nii-chan, how—"
Jiro hummed, resting his chin over Izuna's shoulder.
"Our brother is a genius. That's how."
Izuna didn't see the punch coming before it sent him across the hallway.
Time was meaningless and fleeting for the dead.
If Tobirama's age was any indicator, it has been almost eleven years since Jiro's reanimation.
It has been eleven years, yet Jiro did not feel the passing of the time. It didn't feel that long to him—in his eyes, Tobirama was the one who aged so quickly, and it was not the time who has passed without him realising it.
Though that didn't mean that the reanimated Uchiha did not notice that it has been so long since his silver-haired brother returned to this room. He was used to hearing Tobirama's silent footsteps walking into the room, the privacy ward flaring up in his presence and Jiro would take that as a sign that he could come out of his hiding place to greet his half-brother with a pat to the marked cheeks.
Sometimes, Jiro wondered if his presence here only tortured Tobirama's mind with guilt.
But an Uchiha was typically stubborn to the core, and Jiro refused to be sent back to the afterlife until these two brats that he has the misfortune of being related to finally sorted their shit together.
Once Tobirama has done explaining Jiro's current predicament as a reanimated corpse (as well as the masochistic brat's plan to reunite Jiro with their very much spoiled and bratty baby brother as Izuna's seventeenth birthday gift), the first thing that Jiro did was to punch that socially awkward and impossibly kind brat across the face.
Tobirama risked his own morals, suffered through the heavy guilt of sacrificing a life—although it was an enemy nin, but to sacrifice a life for personal gain was different from killing in the battlefield and Jiro knew how much it haunted Tobirama—carrying the sin and guilt on his young shoulders for the sake of making Izuna happy.
Despite everything.
Jiro has dramatically blasted himself with a bunch of paper bombs once Tobirama ended his explanation. He didn't need a detailed version of the story. The exhausted hunch and dejected ruby eyes told him enough. And he was done.
Done.
Not even a few hours have passed since his reanimation, Uchiha Jiro was already so done with his troublesome baby brothers.
How the hell Tobirama still has the patience to accept Izuna's brattiness was beyond the dead Uchiha's comprehension. Tobirama was either impossibly kind-hearted or a masochist to accept the abuse from his own baby brother with that resigned glaze in his eyes.
Jiro would have dunked the brat into the pond if he was the one in Tobirama's place. Repeatedly. Until Izuna learnt his lessons.
They were at war. Every living family member should be cherished and loved, no matter the circumstances of their birth. This pointless war has taken so many lives that it would be stupid for anyone to outcast one of their own just because he was not born fully from the clan.
(Plus, if the Uchiha clan has some sort of common sense, acknowledging Tajima's marriage to the middle princess of the Hatake clan was equal to an alliance. The Hatake was fiercely loyal to their allies, and their sensory abilities would be proven advantageous if partnered with sharingan.
Was his clan always lacking common sense or this was an occurrence that started after Jiro's death?)
Once his reanimated body fixed itself, Jiro stood on tip-toes to pinch Tobirama's cheek, bringing the tall teen down to his level with all the force his reanimated fourteen years old body could muster. He hadn't had the chance to hit his growth spurt before his untimely death—and Uchiha's men are generally not as tall as Hatake's men anyway—thus the shocked squeak that Tobirama let out made Jiro's cold lips curled in a grim prideful smile.
"Jiro-san?" Tobirama squeaked, arms flailing when he tried to brace the sudden shift in his gravity centre as the teenage Clan Head ended up kneeling in front of the reanimated corpse instead, his left cheek was still held hostage in the Jiro's grip. "Izuna is—"
"Brat," Jiro growled, pulling the soft cheek in his grip. "I may look younger than you in this body, but I was 14 when you were seven."
Tobirama loudly swallowed, ruby eyes looked up to meet Jiro's pitch-black eyes—childlike wonder swam in those hopeful eyes.
Jiro's lips curled to an authoritative smile. "Address me properly, otoutou."
The disbelieving hopeful shock on the abnormally pale face was worth the thought that Jiro was not going back to the afterlife and be with his family members. He would miss his parents, step-mother and other brothers in the wonderful afterlife, but these brats needed help and since he was already here, he should fulfil his duties to his baby brothers before he could even think to rest in peace.
He would consider this mission as an extended vacation in the mortal world.
His extended vacation in the mortal world would have been shorter if only Tobirama was not a brat too.
But noooo. If one would think that the sharingan was the only family resemblance between Izuna and Tobirama, Jiro has prepared a long-winded rant to counter that opinion.
Jiro cursed the Uchiha's gene for giving him two incredibly stubborn brats as baby brothers.
Brats. These brats were going to be the death of him.
And Jiro was already dead to begin with.
Izuna clutched his throbbing cheek with a dazed glaze in his eyes.
His eyes were wet, yet his cheeks were dry as he stared at the reanimated form of his beloved elder brother with utter shock and confusion. Jiro's eyes spun in vicious Mangekyou, the curl of his lips made Izuna gulped as his mind wandered back to the memories of a long time ago where he has displeased his beloved Nii-chan enough to warrant a forced dip in the closest body of water available.
"Nii-chan?" Izuna blurted out, voice edging the note of hopeful hysteria.
"I would've dunked you in a pond, Izu-chan," Jiro smiled brightly, all leaking out cheeriness and innocent joy. "But there is none available," he hummed, stomping towards the sprawled Izuna.
Izuna barely registered the weight of his reanimated brother straddling his torso before a yowl escaped his throat when fingers that tasted of death and dust hooked the corners of his mouth, cold knuckles trapped his cheeks in an unforgiving grip.
Jiro showed no mercy while pulling his cheeks.
"Nii-chan!" Izuna yowled, tears pricking his eyes.
No, not tears of pain. He has had injuries more painful than this.
It was tears of joy—because he missed this interaction dearly.
"You spoiled little brat," Jiro started, squeezing the warm flesh in his hands without mercy. "Twenty-three years. It has been twenty-three years since my death. Twenty-three years since Tobi come into your life. Twenty-three years since you lost a brother and gained another. It has been twenty-three years and you're still that five-years-old spoiled brat that needs to be dunked into the nearest pond."
Izuna blinked a few times, clearing his gaze from the tears. "I'm the Clan Head," the words came slurred due to his predicament of being trapped in Jiro's grip. "Am not a brat."
Jiro rolled his eyes. "I beg to differ."
Izuna didn't have the chance to retort because the cold small hands that were abusing his cheeks and mouth moved away to grip his chin. Jiro's face fell to a cold calculative expression—it was the kind of face that he made during training; the face he made when he was serious. Izuna's face was tilted up, ruby eyes met vicious crimson spinning in the black sclera and Izuna fell.
Izuna fell into the memories of his dead brothers.
"You could have done this sooner, you know?"
Jiro snorted, gently closing Izuna's eyes, knowing that unlike his, Izuna's would be vulnerable to drying if he left them open like this. He stood and dusted his clothes, the deep blue fabric stretched over his frame and Jiro's eyes softened at the faint scent of his half-brother that still clung to the fabric.
"If I did this sooner, Izuna wouldn't believe it," he hummed, stepping around Izuna's prone form to stand in front of the exasperated man. "He would think that Tobi used me as a puppet to win him over. He would deny, deny, and deny and Tobi would be hurt even more," Jiro huffed, staring up to meet the narrowed dark eyes. "Izuna didn't have that excuse now that Tobi is gone."
"Gone, you say…," the man grumbled, bending down to lift Izuna into his arms. "Yet you're still here…"
Jiro smiled. "Now, now, Hashi-kun," he purred, running to catch up with Hashirama's larger stride as they returned to Izuna's room. "I keep my existence exclusive to the knowledge of selected few only. I want to be able to return to the afterlife in peace once these brats sort themselves out."
Hashirama sighed, placing Izuna's body on the untouched bed, dark eyes darted to stare into Jiro's abnormal eyes with unveiled fear.
"I'm glad that Tobirama is no longer my enemy," the Hokage muttered, running a shaky hand through his hair. "If we're still at war…," he murmured, voice hitching in hysteria. "I don't think I can take it if I have to fight my deceased brothers as enemies."
Jiro reached out a hand to pat the man's shoulder, eyes softening.
"Even if there was no peace between our clans, Tobi would not do that," he soothed, small fingers curled around the solid mass of Hashirama's bicep. "You have known him as a person, Hashi. You know what kind of man he is. He would not stoop that low no matter how desperate the Uchiha is."
"Yet he kept you here."
"Oh, trust me," Jiro hummed, pitch black eyes gleamed in mischief. "He has no choice. I refuse to be sent back to the afterlife until my brothers started acting like brothers," he huffed, crossing his arms, face scrunched up to a scowl. "Or until Tobirama grew a spine and be more assertive against the bullshit this clan has made him went through," Jiro added after a while, his scowl deepened. "Which he refused to do so. That masochistic brat."
Hashirama huffed a quiet laugh. "Menace," he said, reaching a hand to brush the hair away from Jiro's cold skin. "You're a menace," he repeated, shaking his head in pure amusement. "I knew I was justified to fear you back then."
"You're more terrifying, Hashirama."
"Don't sell yourself short, Jiro-san," Hashirama countered with a soft voice, memories reeling back to the time when they were at war against each other. "You almost killed Touka."
"That harpy menace who took the form of a cute girl?" Jiro pondered, and despite his words, the curve of his lips was fond and dazed. "She is very breath-taking."
Hashirama promptly decided to change the subject. He did not wish to dwell in the what-ifs, knowing Touka's phase of denial after her close call with Uchiha Tajima's eldest son. He did not want to speculate whether Touka would break her vow of not getting married if Jiro was alive. The what-ifs would cost him the peace of his mind.
Thus, the Hokage tipped his head in Izuna's direction, schooling his face to a curious expression as he changed the subject;
"May I know what you showed him?"
Jiro flashed his teeth in a devious grin.
"My memories."
A/N : I swear to god that this and the next chapter was originally one single chapter. Then it gotten so long and I was like, fuck the plan.
Enjoy