Obito jolts awake to a bone-chilling scream that reverberates through the silence of the bedroom.

In a heartbeat, he's on his feet, kunai gripped firmly and poised to strike. Instincts ingrained into him since his earliest childhood surge to life; adrenaline floods through his veins like a tsunami, sweeping away any remnants of elusive sleep and disorientation, giving way to a state of hyperfocus that has kept him alive more times than he bothers to count.

The bedroom lies still before him, shrouded in dark shadows and silver light streaming in from the window, still closed, as is the door. The traps are in place. It's soundless except for raspy, choked breaths coming from underneath his bunk bed. No one entered their room. Madara has a nightshift at the agency, leaving only himself and Izuna.

Kunai thrown to the side carelessly, Obito jumps off his bunk bed. Landing in a silent crouch, a pair of erratically spinning Sharingan snap to him nonetheless with lethal accuracy. Three black bars extending from vastly extended pupils swim in a sea of glowing red and are framed by wet lashes, an unspoken threat lingering in the air between them.

Obito knows better than to approach a shinobi in this state, mind still in a limbo between dream and reality, vision fogged by memories.

He keeps his distance, staying low on the ground as he watches the black pattern spin on and on in a mesmerizing eternity, his own heartbeat settling into a steady, calm rhythm as the minutes tick by. The Sharingan has never been a source of fear for him, not when there are so many more horrible things to fear in this world.

Clarity is slow to return to Izuna's faraway eyes, glazed over by the remnants of his nightmare. He blinks a few times, brows furrowing on his pale face, causing more tears to drip down his cheeks.

"Obito?" he rasps into the night, his voice only a subdued whisper, filled with sorrow and distress. Never before has Izuna sounded so unlike his usual bright and cheeky self. It unsettles Obito.

Nightmares are nothing new to them. Not to Izuna and Obito, and neither to Madara. Nightmares don't care who you are, a newly minted genin or a veteran known across nations, whether you are a lord sleeping on silk or a peasant with only an old shack to his name. The horrors of reality follow everyone into their dreams. Faces from a distant past haunt behind closed eyelids, some blurred with time, some as sharp as life, some loved and dearly missed, some hated with an iron passion. There is no escaping it, especially not for shinobi like them, with more blood on their hands than in their veins.

Obito and Madara get little to no sleep whenever the corpses piled in graves beneath their feet decide to come and pay their due visit. More often than Obito would like to admit, they find themselves spending long nights in each other's company, sitting shoulder to shoulder and shrouded in oppressive silence. Both exhausted but unable and unwilling to lie back down, to surrender to the ghosts clawing at their bones, with words stuck in their throats to never be spoken aloud - they wouldn't change a damned thing.

Izuna, on the other hand, wakes less often, and when he does, he is quiet about it, quieter than even Obito and Madara. There are no terrified screams or harsh breaths. He doesn't leave his bed, doesn't jerk upwards. There is only rustling sheets and the faint dipping of his mattress before it goes quiet again. Obito wouldn't know about it if he hadn't been awake to witness it.

"I'm sorry for waking you up," Izuna utters between short breaths, wiping his damp cheeks furiously with his sleeve. His other hand clutching the blanket is trembling.

"Nightmare?" Obito asks, despite already knowing the answer.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it. You should go back to sleep," Izuna dismisses with a crooked smile that never reaches his eyes and does nothing but make Obito's skin crawl in unease. As if Obito is going to ignore this; whatever this is. He may be a heartless asshole, but this is Izuna that is crying. Izuna, who always smiles like a crazed maniac, walks with an excited bounce in his step, and stands back up, bloodied and beaten, no matter what whenever the world pushes him down, if only to kick it back twice as hard.

"Scoot over," Obito tells him with a gentleness that sounds utterly out of place in his voice.

Izuna sniffles, hastily drying the last of his tears, and makes space for Obito beneath the blanket without a word of objection—always one to find comfort in physical contact.

Pressed against the far wall and curled up beneath the covers, only his head peeking out, Izuna looks tiny, for once resembling the child he physically is. Obito sometimes forgets that Izuna is almost a decade younger than himself. In the context of a shinobi's average life expectancy, where each year survived with blood and sweat is only a year closer to an early and violent death, a decade's gap translates into an immense rift.

"You should deactivate the Sharingan; otherwise, you might have a migraine tomorrow," Obito says offhandedly as he lies down next to Izuna.

"Ah. Yeah, probably… Thanks, Obito." The dim red shine painted across the walls disappears with a small sigh and some of the tension gripping Izuna melts away. Then he is wiggling around beneath the covers, readjusting his pillow until he seems to have found the most comfortable position—close enough to Obito to absorb his body heat without actively clinging to him.

Another content sigh. "Good night, Obito."

"Night."

Obito closes his eyes but doesn't attempt to go back to sleep; he knows it's a lost cause for him. Instead, he listens to the breaths next to him gradually evening out into a deep, steady pattern.

As the hours slip by, he drifts off into half-sleep, tethering on the edge of consciousness, but unable to tip over into the darkness.

When the first sunrays stream into the bedroom, Izuna is sprawled out on top of him, but Obito doesn't wake him.

.

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A dull thud and a wheezed breath mark the end of another one in a series of a dozen sparring matches, the same as all the times before: Shoto sprawled out on his back, looking dizzily up at the high ceiling of the training room lined with blinding fluorescent lamps, and Madara casually looming over him with crossed arms and half-lidded eyes. Not a single wrinkle in his clothes, no bruises on his exposed arms from blocking punches, and no sweat gathered at his temples.

A stark contrast to Shoto's ragged state, gulping air down greedily and limbs aching and trembling. He can already feel his skin turning blue and purple, and his back is drenched with sweat.

"That's enough for today," Madara says, looking down at him with those pitch-black eyes that seem to swallow the light around them. "Do your stretches."

"Yes, Shishou," he mumbles in response. Breathless, he somehow manages to hoist himself upright with wobbly arms and legs, easing into his first stretch.

Madara is quick to correct his form with a few pokes and prods here and there until Shoto is internally groaning, maintaining balance only with effort and stifling a pained scream behind clenched teeth.

Endeavor never put so much emphasis on flexibility in his training. Shoto has stretched more in the last week than during entire months under his father's regimen. He doesn't really understand why Madara insists on doing it – something about the range of motion and a lower risk for injuries – but it does start to feel nice after holding the same position for a while, and he is already getting considerably bendier, so there is that.

"Shishou?" Shoto speaks up once the burn in his muscles shifts into the pleasant territory, away from the painful stinging.

"Yes?"

"Why are we not training my quirk?"

Whether building stamina, enhancing flexibility, or improving hand-to-hand combat skills, every training session of Madara is, in essence, a meticulous physical workout. Not once had Madara mentioned anything about quirk training; on the contrary, he explicitly forbade Shoto to use his.

While Shoto is not about to complain, it strikes him as odd. With his father, everything has always revolved around his quirk, forming the core of his training. Madara's methods, in contrast, diverge sharply from this familiar routine, leaving Shoto feeling disoriented. He had assumed every hero trained more or less the same way, tailored to their specific quirks, of course, but following a general framework. After all, the quirk makes the hero. It makes sense to focus training on its mastery.

Madara regards him with an unreadable expression, showing no hurry to answer. Instead, he asks a counter question, "What are quirks to you, Todoroki? And don't recite a scientific definition. I want to know what quirks mean to you, what they represent in your eyes."

Shoto frowns, annoyed. While Madara allows him to ask however many questions he wants and will listen to his opinions and thoughts with his undivided attention, it's impossible to get straight answers from him, Shoto has learned. For every voiced question, he always receives another few in return. At least this one is easy. "Quirks are the powers you inherit from your parents. They represent status and determine the paths available to you in life. They are what make you one of the strong or the weak."

Madara's blank expression gives nothing of his thoughts on the matter, "There certainly is truth in that." He concedes, tilting his head, "Yet, here I stand. Having passed the license exam without having used my quirk once - quirkless, you could say. Do you consider me weak, Todoroki?"

"What? No!" Shoto exclaims, taken aback, shaking his head in disagreement. The idea of Madara being weak is ridiculous. "You were strong enough using your quirk became unnecessary!"

"You are contradicting yourself. Earlier, you told me that strength is determined by one's quirk. So, how can I be 'strong enough to not use my quirk' if my quirk is the very origin of my strength? I've won fights against heroes who relied heavily on their quirks, quirks considered powerful by society. According to your logic, that shouldn't be possible."

Shoto opens his mouth, then closes it again. Now that he thinks about it, he had never seen Madara's quirk. How did Madara win fights without his quirk? How did he land a hit on Endeavor? Well, for one he is extremely fast and acrobatic, for another he is very skilled and knowledgeable in hand-to-hand, and not above using dirty tricks. But still…

"You only landed a hit on my father because you fought without your quirks. If Endeavor had used his, you would have been defeated in seconds." He insists. Endeavor's flames are the reason he is the second strongest after all. Madara would have had no chance.

"In a fair fight, face to face, and in an open environment with no cover on top of that? Yes, I would have lost." Madara easily admits, showing no embarrassment whatsoever over the admission. "Though, why would that scenario matter in any significant capacity? Real life does not play out in sterile, isolated environments, encapsuled in four walls."

Shoto frowns, again; it feels like that's all he does when talking with Madara. How does it not matter? His confusion must be visible on his face, because Madara, for once, elaborates.

"Tell me, Todoroki, what does it matter that Endeavor can melt steel if he gets struck in the back by an ally when he least expects it? What does it matter that All Might can level mountains with one punch if people are bleeding out left and right around him and he can do nothing but watch? What does it matter that Gran Torino is faster than the eye can see if I break his legs in his sleep?"

Shoto nearly scoffs out loud. The mere thought of Endeavor getting betrayed is absurd, no hero would betray a colleague and superior. Even more absurd is the image of All Might being helpless in any situation; it's All Might! He always knows what to do and never fails. The number one hero saves everyone with a smile.

Before he can voice his disapproval, Madara's indifferent expression morphs into a sharp, knowing smirk stopping him dead in his tracks.

"I know you disagree with me. All you have seen from the world of heroes to this day is what you have been shown on television and perhaps on the internet, which is only a small fraction of it and certainly the prettiest one. You would be surprised by how much stays hidden behind closed doors just to save face, but that's a topic for another day." A glint of amusement suddenly enters Madara's eyes, that Shoto can't begin to interpret. "How about this: We will shelve this discussion for now and revise it at the end of my internship. On my last day I will ask you again what quirks are to you. Let's see if your opinion has changed by then."

Shoto doesn't like it, but he has come to terms with the fact that Madara is cryptic on a good day and downright confusing on most. He accepts the proposition with a nod.

Only when he leaves the training room to take a shower, muscles feeling like overboiled noodles and clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin, does he realize that he never got an answer to his initial question.

.

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Another day in the agency, another day doing mind-numbing paperwork. Madara can't say he is surprised by this development.

Before he can handle solo cases and venture out on patrols on his own, he is apparently first required to partner up with another hero and shadow them for a few days to learn the basics. However, given that Endeavor and his sidekicks are prominent daytime heroes, Madara refuses to be seen in their proximity outside the office, where paparazzi and fans are only waiting for the opportunity to capture photographs of their favorite heroes, and would, in extension, catch Madara as well.

In turn, the agency doesn't do typical underground work or patrols at nighttime. After sundown, only a handful of people remain in the office, and all of them merely on standby in case of an emergency.

This effectively brings them to a standstill and confines Madara to the office; at least until Endeavor can be bothered to adjust the schedule of one of his sidekicks for a nighttime patrol with him.

However, that might take a while. Endeavor is still pissed because of his broken nose, which is most certainly also a reason why there is paperwork piling endlessly on Madara's desk. Not that he can be certain; he hasn't spoken to the man since the first day and has barely even seen him.

Madara spends more time with his kid than Endeavor himself, who doesn't seem to care for this development at all; if anything, his silence about it is approval enough.

Work gets delegated to him by the sidekicks, who are a mixed bag. Some are just curious about him and polite enough, albeit condescending and belittling. Others ignore him and pretend he isn't there, which suits Madara just fine. Then there is a selected few who are openly hostile towards him. Though, if they believe their pathetic glares across the room and insults disguised as pleasantries are going to even inconvenience him, then they are sorely mistaken. Those fools are not worth being annoyed about.

Madara sighs, bored out of his mind, and pulls another stack of files toward him, shoving another one to the corner of the desk. Organizing documents before archiving is the task he's been assigned today, much to his displeasure. At least his shift ends soon and he can get out of here.

Besides, Todoroki is building up stamina rather quickly; he can likely extend their training sessions soon for at least half an hour. That's half an hour less spent behind this desk, and with the brat, which is infinitely better. Todoroki is fairly competent all things considered and a fast learner, albeit as dense as a rock when it comes to social cues and a bit of a hero fanatic.

Madara is rather curious about how far he can push Todoroki in these next months. Motivation, perseverance, and spite are qualities the kid possesses in abundance. Not to mention the cunning craftiness lurking just beneath his skin, waiting to be unleashed to bare its teeth at the world. With a little nudge in the right direction, he could become someone to be feared. By whom will remain to be seen.

The clock on Madara's desk strikes five pm, and he's out of his chair the next second, ignoring any stares and glares directed towards him. Overtime is not uncommon in the hero business, whether fueled by a sense of duty, a desire to impress, or the simple need to overachieve. Madara, always clocking out punctually, is the exception. Though, as long as he is assigned desk duty, he couldn't be bothered to do anything beyond the absolute minimum he can get away with.

With quick, purposeful strides, he makes his way to the main entrance of the agency. His sour mood begins to somewhat lift as he approaches the exit, but it plummets rapidly when he spots who is waiting for him there.

Izuna is grinning his most shit-eating grin, the one that spells trouble for everyone involved, Obito is glaring daggers at him with an intensity that would kill lesser men on the spot, and Todoroki simply stands there, blinking in confusion between the three of them.

Izuna's face nearly splits in two as Madara approaches them with an air of resignation and a scowl that has long since lost its effect on Izuna.

"Nii-san, when did you plan to tell us you took on a student?" Izuna exclaims with an excessive amount of enthusiasm, shaking Madara by his shoulders.

"Never."

Izuna gapes scandalized, clutching his chest, making sure to put on a good show for everyone in the entrance hall. "That's utterly unacceptable! How could you hide such an adorable student from us?" He emphasizes his words by poking Todoroki's admittedly squishy cheek. The kid freezes on the spot, appearing more bewildered by the action than anything else, glancing at Izuna as if uncertain about what exactly is happening and what he is supposed to do in this situation.

Madara swats the finger away; otherwise, Todoroki might come to think that Izuna's antics are socially acceptable. "Stop poking him. This is precisely why I haven't told you. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Obito and I wanted to get ice cream and decided to take you along." Izuna explains cheerfully. "We asked Shoto if he wanted to come too, but he is waiting for his sister to pick him up."

"Then we are done here, let's go." Madara says, grabbing Izuna by the scruff of his neck and dragging him away from Todoroki. He knows the damage is already done, and there's no way to salvage this, but he can at least pretend for a while longer.

"Bye, Shoto!" Izuna yells, waving at the boy.

"Goodbye, Ren, Nobuyuki, and Shishou," is the more appropriately toned response.

In Madara's grip, Izuna positively cackles. "Shishou," he repeats with glee. "The kid is so cute. I can't believe you got yourself a student, Nii-san! And Endeavor's son, no less."

Madara tunes Izuna's rambling out, though he is not so successful in ignoring Obito's silent glare. He can almost feel Obito's eyes cutting into his back.