"Do we have an understanding?" Madara asks blandly. Not a single emotion is reflected in his empty eyes.

"Y-yes!" The brat towering a head over him sobs, shivering like a new-born puppy.

Madara keeps his hold on the kid's collar for a moment longer, then roughly shoves him away. "Next time there will be consequences, tell that your friends as well."

With a hasty nod the kid flees from his sight on unsteady feet.

Sighing, Madara turns around and knees down in front of a crying Ren, who clutches his bruised arm close to his chest. "It's fine now Ren, they won't bother you again."

"It hurts."

-Nii-san, it hurts. It hurts so much.-

-I'm know, just a little longer, please, we are almost there. Please Izuna, just a little longer.-

"Let's get some ice from the bar, it will numb the pain." He says, picking the small child up. Ren immediately buries his face in the juncture of his neck, sobbing quietly.

The tiny body in his arms feels so achingly familiar, so terribly similar to another boy. Pain erupts sharply in Madara's chest, like as knife is scraping marrow out of his ribs, like a torch is slowly boiling the blood in his heart. He quick shove any thoughts about him away, into the darkest corner of his mind and locks them away, behind his walls of cold apathy and perpetual indifference.

"I don't like it when the others are mean." Ren confesses in a whisper.

"I know. I will take care of it." Higher and higher he builds the iron walls around his scarred heart. He can't bear to hope, not when any disappointment will shatter the last remains of his fractured soul. His heart has been bled dry in another lifetime already, there is nothing left between his lungs but an empty husk that threatens to crumble to ashes at a single touch.

"Nii-san, can I sleep in your bed tonight?"

-Nii-san! Can I sleep with you tonight?-

-Izuna, you have your own room.-

-But it's too cold!-

The knife digs further into his chest, past his ribs deep into his flesh.

Madara squeezes his eyes shut, pushes the memory away. "Of course."

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.

.

"Look there's the freak and his freaky brother!"

"Oi careful, didn't you hear what Ishida said?"

"You really believe that nonsense, Haru? As if a quirkless monkey could beat up a kid twice his age!"

A chorus of high-pitched laughter.

"Maybe we should show him what a real beating looks like!"

"Yeah, teach the monkey a lesson!"

It's always the same. Madara is tired of it all. He stands up with balled fists anyway.

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"Nii-san! Nii-san! You are back!" Tiny footsteps accompany the loud shrieking.

Madara easily catches the boy as Ren flings himself at him. "Hello, Ren. How was your day?"

"Good! I drew a picture of you, do you wanna see it?" He asks vibrating with excitement.

"Yes, show me." He says even as Ren is already dragging him to their shared room. "Ren, did anyone say mean words to you again while I was away?"

"No one! Takashi even apologised for yesterday. It was really funny!"

"How so?"

"He talked really fast and then he tripped on his way out, over his own feet! Can you believe it?"

"Sounds like he was in a hurry."

Madara follows Ren, holding his tiny hand in his own in a way he did hundreds of times before, hundreds of years ago. And as he watches the growing boy talk animatedly about his day, he can't help but wonder.

.

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"-san, Nii-san!"

Madara's head jerks up. "Yes?"

Ren pouts across the table, watercolours smeared on his cheek and nose. "Did you even listen?"

Each day that passes Ren looks more and more like him and Madara doesn't dare to hope, but he can't help but wonder-

"I'm sorry. What did you say?"

Ren's pout intensifies. "I asked what kind of quirk you think I'll get." He repeats angrily.

Ah. His fourth birthday is across the corner, of course he would think of little else. "I don't know." Madara answers truthfully.

"Do you think it'll be something cool like super strength? Or lasers! I really wanna get laser eyes! And flying!" He babbles on, his anger already forgotten. "Or fire like Endeavor! Hey, Nii-san what's your quirk?"

Quirk. Madara hates that word. His Sharingan is not something as simple as an evolutionary fluke, and he refuses to call it so. It's a Dōjutsu, developed to perfection over the course of generations, for which many gave their eyes and their lives. -Nii-san, please take them, please. It's my last wish.- Calling the Sharingan a 'quirk' would be insulting, even in this world void of any chakra. Not that anyone ever bothered to ask Madara for his opinion; everyone always assumed and Madara was not inclined to correct them. Let them assume, let them think he is weak.

"How about this; I will tell you on your birthday."

Ren groans dramatically. "Nii-saaaan! I wanna know now!"

-Please, Nii-saaaaan! Can you teach me that Jutsu? I want to know how to do that too!-

"It's merely a week until your birthday, you can wait that much longer."

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Ren barely managed to fall asleep tonight. He was overexcited the whole day, unable to contain his anticipation. All the while dread settled deep in Madara's gut.

Tonight is the night. For four years he has wondered, silently waited, not daring to bare his heart just yet, too afraid to get hurt again. For four years, he had watched his brother grow into his likeness. Pale skin, pitch-black smooth hair, and eyes as dark as a moonless night.

Sleep is out of the question for Madara. Instead, he sits on the windowsill, keeping vigil over Ren as he breathes softly on his futon.

The full moon has risen hours ago, casting long shadows in the children's bedroom that shift and move like living beings as the hours tick by.

Madara carefully regulates his breathing, keeps his heartbeat steady and counts the rise and fall of Ren's chest.

The boy continues to slumber peacefully, his face relaxed, free of any pain, no nightmares contort his smooth features or make his muscles spasm. And for the first time in four years Madara ask himself, is it cruel of me to wish for my brother? To wish the innocent child gone, replaced by a ghost like himself? A phantom of a different world? Is it selfish that he wants the boy's mind to be sullied by war and carnage, to rip his childhood from him?

Because Madara wants to, he wants so desperately. He wants his brother.

The gaping wound he left behind never healed, it never scarred over. It still bleeds every day Madara wakes up, and still bleeds when he closes his eyes at night; after a hundred years it never stopped to hurt like the day he burned his body on the funeral pyre. He never forgot his brother's ashen face in the hours and minutes before his death, he never forgot the stench of his rotting flesh, he never forgot the feeling of his wet eyeballs in his hands. Those memories are seared into his mind by the curse of the Sharingan, to never fade or forget.

The light dims with his mood, as the bright moon disappears behind a cloud. An eery chill suddenly shrouds the room, causing goosebumps to rise on Madara's arms. But as soon as the cloud appeared it disappears again, letting the moonlight shine though once more.

It's blood red.

Madara's eyes widen in numbing terror and blinding hope. The whole room is bathed in an unnatural deep red light. The moon seems to swell further in size on the firmament, causing more and more of the cursed light to flood over Tokyo.

Ren's eyes snap wide open, filled with a nameless horror.

Madara is by his side in a heartbeat, gathering the boy up in his arms as the first drops of blood run down his cheeks and drip down his chin. He knows the pain he must be feeling in that moment, he can guess what scenes are playing out in his mind.

"It's fine I'm here; you are going to be fine." He whispers into his ear, cradling him softly. "I'm here, you are not alone."

Over and over he repeats the same words, wiping blood away from under his eyes that are same colour as the moon, three black tomoe spinning in each of them.

The boy in his arm is dead silent, his breathing fast and shallow, so Madara holds him closer, and doesn't cease his silent reassurances. For he can do not much else.

"I'm here, it will be over soon. I'm here."

Tears mix with the blood as the night drags on. The boy begins to shiver, and Madara bundles him up in blankets, keeping him warm with his own body heat.

"I'm not going to leave you; it will be fine."

Morning nears and a tiny trembling hand clutches Madara's outworn shirt, a pair of spinning Sharingan eyes look up to him. He meets his brother's uncertain gaze with his own red eyes.

"Madara?" The boy whispers nearly inaudible.

Madara's heart halts in his chest. "Izuna?"

The boy's expression crumbles, he throws his tiny arms around Madara, dragging up the last bits of energy left in him. "Nii-san!"

Madara is frozen for a moment, before he returns his brother's embrace with unhinged desperation, clinging to Izuna with disbelief and wonder, thanking every God that might listen for this gift. His heart swells with a euphoria and happiness he hasn't felt in decades, breaking down his walls and seeping into his every bone. He grips Izuna tighter. His brother is back, his precious little brother is in his arms. Everything he ever wanted, and here in this world his wish had been granted. It seems too easy, too effortless, all he had to do was wait. No grand plan, no infinite Genjutsu, no war. Madara doesn't understand why or how, all he knows it that Izuna is here and that is enough.

"Nii-san, what is happening? Why are we here?" Izuna asks with a shaky voice, his exhaustion apparent.

"I will explain everything I know, I promise, but first, sleep Izuna."

Madara doesn't let go of his brother for the rest of the night and the morning, and longer still.