This one's sort of weird. Started with me sort of mad at someone accusing me of something, and then progressed into something sort or murky. I'm not sure what it is, but it's Kagami-centric. (Oooh that person just made me mad again... lol... stop harping on my computer time! Let me type in peaceeee. -laughs-)

(He's muttering now. Shaddaaaappppp. Can't study. lol How funny.)

Kagami goes to Mariko to talk. And then some dark stuff happens, and...I have no idea how this happened.

ANYWAY. Enjoy! (errrr...as much as that's possible, anyway)

A/N: I hate when people mutter to themselves, and its obvious that they're bashing you. (Oh my brother...why are you so... graaahhh. How do Naruto characters do it?)

Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine, because I have no idea what happened to Kagami.

Chapter 22: Possession

"What was that?" Toka snapped.

"Nothing," Kagami answered flatly.

"No, I saw it. Hand it over," Toka said impatiently.

"I didn't do anything," Kagami retorted, frowning. He seriously hadn't. However, Toka's stern face indicated that she wasn't accepting anything except a confession as an answer.

"I saw it," Toka repeated, irritated.

"I. Didn't. Do. Anything," Kagami stressed emphatically, raising his eyes to his sensei's. He glared, but didn't dare activate his Sharingan. Even if he did, his bloodline eyes only had two tomoe, and were essentially powerless against someone like Toka. They were taking a jounin promotion quiz, something that was issued to Konoha chuunin to assess whether they were ready to be judged as higher level shinobi. Such practices were abolished later, when they proved to be inefficient and hardly effective. It became a matter of judging by eye instead.

Danzo and Torifu remained silent, glancing furtively at their Uchiha teammate.

"Kagami," Toka said slowly, her voice almost menacing. Kagami tried not to flinch; he seriously hadn't done anything. "Give me that paper."

"What paper?" Kagami had no paper.

"Kagami. I don't have the Sharingan, but I saw that." Toka glared harder. Her gaze intensity was climbing up the scale, passing Mariko Level and bouncing between Madara Madness and Mito's Glare of Doom.

"Saw what?" Kagami stalled.

"Kagami!" Toka sentenced him to an hour of washing windows for lying to her. But lying about what? Kagami was still confused as he wiped down the windows of the Hokage building. He muttered a few swears, dropped a few f-bombs on his sensei—she was frustrating, at times—and continued cleaning glass.

If Tenzou the cat hadn't yowled when he did, Mariko would not have noticed the sulking Uchiha boy trying to enter Senju premises. He sometimes sought Tobirama out, but more often, he sought out Mariko because she was the best listener next to Izuna. But Izuna was dead, as was his older brother, and Kagami's father had taken the clan head title; not that Kagami ever talked to his father, anyway.

"What brings you here?" Mariko asked, trying to be cheerful. She knew well enough what happened though, after asking Toka why her student was swinging right outside Tobirama's window, shoving the dirt around the glass with a cloth, a sponge, and a bucket.

"Stuff." Kagami plopped down by the tree just outside Mito's safety seal. (It was fondly called the Anti-Uchiha Barrier.) Tenzou the cat hissed at him, but then made himself comfortable in Mariko's lap, quickly progressing to a content purr. Mariko picked a burr out of his coat.

"Stuff?" she asked.

"Stuff." Kagami glared at the ground, lacing his fingers together and pressing his face behind them, as if deeply concentrating. (It was an expression that would be seen many years later on an Uchiha Sasuke's face. Kagami seemed to pass down strange Uchiha traditions, including a battle cry inherited by Obito…) The young Uchiha wiggled his toes, studying the digits and also the soles of his standard shinobi shoes. The straps were wearing down, one of the buckles nearly broken, and one of the button clasps hardly able to close up the shoe. Maybe it was time for a trip to the supply shop…though Kagami had no intentions of visiting that mall again.

Mariko, on the other hand, sat patiently, waiting for the boy to speak. Unbeknownst to Tobirama, or any other Senju, she'd promised Izuna to take care of Kagami. Perhaps it was because Izuna had grown fond of young Kagami, seeing—ironically—that no one ever cared for him or looked after him. His parents were stiff and power-oriented, with little care for Kagami or his siblings.

"Little things," Kagami sighed, finally. "Little things make me angry."

"That's normal," Mariko replied neutrally. She waited.

Kagami glanced at the blunette, who was petting the stray cat's ears.

"Do you remember when," Kagami suddenly brought up, "I beat Hyuuga Aki during the chuunin exams?"

"Of course." Mariko remembered. Kagami had been sorely beat down by the Hyuuga, and his father had been so disappointed that he left the arena. However, despite his father's dramatic exit, the clan leader and Izuna stubbornly stayed, despite the latter's lack of sight. He wished to "see" Kagami succeed, so Madara watched for him (though it seemed as if Izuna himself could see all, even without eyes). Madara himself was actually rather impressed with the young boy, especially when Kagami summoned a great fire-laden hawk which seared his opponent with flaming wings.

During that fight, Kagami's Sharingan had developed its second tomoe, and he learned to cast genjutsu.

Before the match, Izuna had walked all the way down to the genin stands, and had drawn Kagami aside. The younger Uchiha was stoically staring at the ongoing matches, but the moment Izuna laid his hand on his shoulder, it was obvious that he was nothing but calm and collected.

Kagami shook harder than a sopping cat, so much so that Izuna felt as if letting go of the boy would send him into a fish flopping out of water frenzy.

"You are afraid," Izuna said simply.

"I am not."

"Don't be afraid to admit your fear," Izuna told him gently. "Fear is not evil."

Kagami was silent.

"Fear not, you and I have both seen this," Izuna continued softly. Kagami lacked the energy to point out that Izuna was blind, but then again, the younger brother of the clan leader often meant things in a metaphorical way.

"Fear not," he repeated quietly. He tapped his head, and then Kagami watched as Izuna tapped his chest. "It's all in here."

Kagami won.

"And then, do you remember when Izuna-sama congratulated me?" Kagami continued.

"Yes."

"And then what happened?"

Mariko was silent. She had not known what happened after the match, sitting up in the standards with the Senju.

"He thanked me for showing him that the Uchiha had at least one more strong generation," Kagami murmured. Mariko frowned, now, putting pieces together. Shortly after the grand first ever of the chuunin exams in Konoha, a small party had challenged the Uchiha and solely the Uchiha clan. They were quite the formidable enemies, a clan based in Iwa with a secret technique that utilized clay and earth to create intense explosives, as well as other earth-manipulating jutsu. This clan eventually faded away, until its special techniques were stowed away as kinjutsu, forbidden to all shinobi.

However, it was in this clan war that Uchiha Izuna died.

"The night before he left, he left me a map to the Uchiha clan's secret shrine." Until later years, the Naka Shrine holding Uchiha secrets only readable by increasing levels of eye power, the progressing Sharingan, the shrine was kept a secret from most clan members besides the higher-ups.

"I didn't think much of it," Kagami continued, almost muttering to himself. "But I felt proud to be included."

"But…he had an ulterior motive?" Mariko suggested.

"He wanted to show everyone the shrine."

"And?" As far as Mariko knew, secrets within clans were closely guarded, and within the Uchiha, the secrets would definitely be kept safe.

"I couldn't read them."

"Kagami, you only have two tomoe on your Sharingan," Mariko reasoned. She was becoming puzzled as to why the boy was panicking about such a simple notion. He simply had to develop his Sharingan as he grew, and eventually, all would be revealed

"No. I only read one thing."

"One thing? Don't tell me, Kagami, if it's a clan secret." Mariko glanced around. She hoped that Kagami wasn't about to blurt something that would leave the Uchiha in a rage, mostly directed at the Senju.

"No, I think it's okay." Kagami took a breath. "It said, beyond the Sharingan lays what your brother possesses, and what you must learn to understand."

As far as Kagami knew, that made no sense. Mariko, with little notion of the meaning, had barely a clue to the true definition of such a mysterious phrase. The two sat in silence. After a while, both supposed that perhaps it had something to do with Izuna. In Izuna's case, Madara had the greatest Sharingan possible, but to become more powerful, perhaps he needed what Izuna had—more patience, more kindness, and less of a black heart. Did it mean that power was driving Madara mad, and that he couldn't achieve more without a heart?

In a way, it fit.

Later that night, Mariko would tell Tobirama a little of what she heard before she fell asleep. Tobirama, finding this rather intriguing, remembered it. The next day, he told Mito. Mito, also intrigued, kept a mental note to ask Hashirama if he knew anything about the secrets of the Uchiha, seeing as he was the clan head of the family destined to hate them.

Upon hearing Kagami's little reading, Hashirama only frowned and shook his head.

In truth, he was frowning to himself, because he knew exactly what the words meant. True, they could fit Madara's power-obsession, the type of egocentrism and power craze that would lead to one's ruin, but it also meant something else. Should he ever obtain what the "brother's possession", he would learn of the greatest power, and also achieve the greatest eyes. However, the Senju themselves had their own secrets. Theirs was a life force unparalleled in the ninja world; without this life force, the perfect eyes would not be achieved. While the Uchiha had their shrines, the Senju held their own secrets in the life force of the old oak in the middle of the complex. It was beyond old, and Hashirama knew how to read its history:

With the older brother's hate and fury, he would never achieve power. That is why the descendents of the younger brother, the man whose willful emotions of love and family and life drove his power higher, ruled superior—

The Sage of the Six Paths had deemed it so himself.

"Hey, Kagami," Toka said, in a softer voice, after yelling at Hiruzen for interrupting her training schedule randomly. "Sorry about yesterday, I was too harsh."

Kagami refrained from saying that she was always too harsh, and nodded: apology accepted. Toka ruffled his hair fondly then, and Kagami smiled. She was like the older sister he'd never had, and he was attached to her as well, despite the Uchiha hate for the Senju. Izuna had never despised the Senju as much as Madara; was that the missing key? Love?

"Now, I want you all to show me that if I make three clones, you'll be able to deal with them efficiently in an effective pattern. Think about the type of strategy you want to use—one on one, or take out the clones before focusing on the real one?" Toka went on to explain how to discern the real one through actions and reactions, where they move, if they avoid attacks, etc.

"And if we take out the real one first?" Danzo said flatly.

"Well, Danzo, you're just jumping ahead now," Toka replied. "Of course, in most cases, by taking down the original, the clones disperse."

"Then we'll do that," Torifu said, "since I can cover with my large attacks, and Kagami can…spit fireballs."

"I can take them all out with my fireballs," Kagami sniggered.

"And if they're all Suiton users?" presented Toka.

"I'll take them out anyway," Kagami declared. The group chuckled, before beginning their practices. All was fine and good, a regular training routine for a maybe not-so-regular group of chuunin, still young enough to be under the supervision of a jounin, but preparing to set off on their own.

No one expected, with Hashirama toiling away at the papers in his office, the Kyuubi to suddenly appear in the middle of town after one Uchiha Madara broke into the Senju home. He surely received a few nearly fatal blows from Mito, but it was his intentions that sent the usually peace-promoting, calm, collected Hashirama into a rage.

The Kyuubi destroyed a good portion of the village before Hashirama chased it out of Konoha. From there, Tobirama had teleported to the border of Konoha—each one had one of his early development time-space seals—and summoned the group there. He tried to help, but his older brother shoved him away brashly, telling him to keep out of it.

However, before the Kyuubi was swept away from Konoha, all the young shinobi set out to take it down, without a care for their lives because they loved their village so. The older ones tried to push them back, but none of them listened. It was after a swipe of the Nine Tails' claw that triggered the third and last tomoe of Kagami's Sharingan. He hollered and screamed, a battle cry that rose among all the others, and returned with a vengeance to take down the monster.

By sunrise, the entire village had heard that the fight was over, and that Uchiha Madara had been the cause. By sunrise, Team Tobirama, Team Toka, as well as a massive number of other shinobi arrived at the border of Konoha to see a young waterfall trickling its way down a canyon, enormous boulders pummeled from the rock face to the ground. When the sun rose high enough so that a sliver of sky was seen between its round edge and the horizon, the medics found Hashirama at the foot of the new waterfall, armor nearly crushed, but otherwise safe. In his arms, he held Mito, who slept peacefully in his arms, power spent after sealing the entire beast within herself.

Finally, they found remnants of Uchiha Madara beneath the rubble. They found a hand, and a foot, and a crushed body. Uchiha Madara was dead.

Kagami attended the former clan head's funeral, and also attended the ceremony in which his own father became clan head.

A shadow passed the window of the building where the ceremony was taking place, and Kagami thought he saw the sliver of a face smiling at him. From then on, whenever a mysterious event occurred, and the little kids began to say it was Old Man Madara come to haunt the Uchiha, Kagami seriously believed that they had a valid point.

He wouldn't be surprised if the old clan head showed up at his doorstep one day, as if to ask Kagami's father for his position back.

Madara had been disliked for a time, now. He'd been deemed an outcast for a time now, despite his living in the clan and the respects still paid to him. However, just before the incident, he'd claimed to go on a "trip". Right after Izuna's death.

The night before Izuna died, Izuna had told his brother:

"If you ever find it, nii-san, be sure to pass it on."

"What do you mean, Izuna?" Madara had said, slightly puzzled.

"By the time you find it, Madara," Izuna paused, using his brother's name rather than an affectionate calling of older brother, "you will be old and frail and nearing death. Should the Sage of the Six Paths choose to cut the cords between you and your clinging life, you would be gone in an instant."

"How do you know, Izuna? I could find it tomorrow, next week, next month!" Madara told his brother jovially, shoving his sibling's shoulder lightly.

"Madara. You know I'm right. The power you're searching for will take a lifetime. No, it will take more than two."

"I know, Izuna, but it doesn't mean I'll stop. You know I'd live past that."

"That's why you should pass it on," Izuna reasoned. He brushed the hair out of his face, despite having no eyes to obstruct the view with. He imagined his brother then, so clearly it was as if he was seeing him without eyes through the bandages wrapped around his head. A dubious expression, left eye visible, while the other remained hidden under his wild black mane of hair, glinting with a sort of malice, a sort of exasperation, and a sort of dismay. Izuna saw it all, because Madara only showed this face to his little brother.

"And who would I pass it on to?" Madara asked, sighing now. His quest for ultimate power... "I don't have a son, and I doubt I ever will."

There had been a point in time when Madara had confessed to his younger brother that perhaps someday, he should have a son, or even a daughter, that he could raise to become a fine shinobi or kunoichi, to represent the Uchiha name and power. The pass it on to. Madara realized that Izuna was right, then, but he lacked the solution to the problem.

"Then you wait. I will help you." Izuna sighed. If he strained any further, he was sure he'd lose it. He would help his brother, though, because he saw far enough to know that it was possible.

"Help me find a wife?" joked Madara, huffing.

"No, a son."

"You're being ridiculous now, Izuna."

"Oh, I am so ridiculous," Izuna deadpanned. His voice was so monotone, it sounded ludicrous with the sarcastic comment. Madara chuckled.

"You are, my foolish little brother," Madara muttered fondly, tousling his brother's hair. "If, somehow, when I'm an old hermit clinging to life, you bring me a child to pass on my great power—I'll find it, then—then I shall honor you."

"Yes, but by that time, I'll be long dead. Who's the foolish brother now?" Izuna smiled, and so did Madara, despite scolding his brother for talking so casually about death. They lived in a ninja world filled with blood and despair and death, but it was as if speaking the word sealed the deal; one was to speak of life and prosperity.

"Well, Izuna. Make me a deal, then."

"There's no deal, Madara. I've done a lot for you that I'll never get back."

At this, Madara almost felt a twinge of guilt, a heart string so faint, that the fibers of it shivered at the words, but pulled no effects. Madara had long since slashed apart these strings. He'd missed the deepest one, however, because some of his feelings were still not killed.

"No matter. Nii-san, I can see that you will pass it on," Izuna continued.

"I'm sure a boy or something will just fall from the sky, and let the circumstances permit that he be willing for me to teach him," Madara laughed.

Oh, if he knew. Izuna certainly did.

Many, many years later, after more than two lifetimes—a time when Hashirama's granddaughter was a skilled kunoichi, an adult fighting in the war, and when Tobirama's granddaughter was a young girl learning the ways of the ninja world—Madara wondered how he could honor his brother for his rather surprisingly accurate determination of the future.

After all, a boy had just fallen from the sky.

Tenzou the cat bristled when Hashirama returned with Mito in his arms. He sensed the monster fox dwelling inside of her, its evil and its hate emanating from its core and irritating Tenzou's animal senses. Mariko held the cat to her chest, tickling its chin and petting its ears in an attempt to calm it down. The cat only continued growling.

Mariko recalled the end of a poem about evil:

It is dead for now.

Dead for now.

For now.

Now.

Now, what had died that night?

Uchiha Madara pushed the rocks out from over his head, ignoring his broken bones and crushed history. They mattered very little, now.

He had obtained it.

Kagami wasn't sure, but the night of the Uchiha massacre, the night he died, he heard a whispering at his ear. He feared he was delusional, already past crazy, a poor, psychotic Uchiha while Hiruzen remained a sane, sensible leader. Perhaps he should complain to the Hokage, his old friend, for special care. Koharu would look at him funny, but nowadays, she always squinted like that.

The whispering returned.

"Fear not. You and I both have seen this."

In front of him, Izuna smiled.

A shadow passed—it strode towards him with a deadly murderous aura, a confidence held only on the shoulders of an Uchiha who sought one goal—Uchiha Madara, yet not.

"Fear not," the voice whispered again.

Izuna put a hand on Kagami's shoulder.

A wooden board creaked, and the shadow moved in.

Kagami's vision went black.

Death.

Anyway. That became rather...dark.

Note: So called "poem" is inspired by Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, which we had to read in class =u=''

In anycase, foreshadowing! And it's raaaainin' boys! Hallelujaaahh it's raining...uhhh I'll stop now.

:D

Anyway, you guys reviewing make my day!

(Someone suggested something -hugs- and I thought it was great! I'm totally open to suggestions if they're super interesting...)

lol I won't do something like "Hashirama grows a tree, and it sprouts bread".

Oh wait, that actually seems interesting.

I meant "Minato shows Jiraiya the Rasengan! Oh wait, this has nothing to do with old Konoha!"

lol. What happened here...