The Heir, the Spare and the One from Elsewhere
The moon shone bright in the midnight sky, the only source of illumination.
Far below, a Senju boy in armor fled for his life from a group of Uchiha warriors.
The boy ducked through the underbush, twirling to avoid a large shuriken before leaping up onto a branch to avoid a ball of fire.
Raising his kunai, he was just able to prevent being decapitated when a sandaled foot sent him flying.
He landed with a crash in a clearing. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet before leaping behind the closest barrier - a grouping of large boulders, fenced in one side by a fallen tree.
In a different reality, the patch of grass in front of the boulders would serve as the boy's execution ground. In this reality, things went… differently.
A week previous, the boy had stumbled upon a clansman practicing the Summoning Technique. He had been strictly warned to not attempt the technique without a contract in place to anchor him. If he failed to get the technique right, he was told, nothing would happen. But if he somehow did the technique would fling him orthogonally across time-space along the fifth dimensional axis. Perhaps he might be lucky to land in a summon's realm, but it was far likelier his body would be lost in the space in between.
The consequences of that were too horrifying to consider but Itama simply wanted to live. And he had no other hopes.
Boar.
Rustling.
Dog.
The faint, almost imperceivable, sound of feet landing and metal clinking.
Bird.
The five Uchiha men that had been chasing him appeared, arraying themselves in front of him.
Monkey.
Three of them readied their weapons, while the red eyes of the remaining two widened.
"Back-!"
Ram.
Itama poured as much chakra as he could into his right hand and duplicated the motion he had seen, slamming it into the ground.
A technique formula spread along the grass, expanding rapidly in all directions. The boy prepared to be reverse-summoned, when rather than slow the chakra drain suddenly increased.
*POOF*
The Senju felt his chakra drain completely, burning like acid in his veins, when a gigantic cloud of smoke burst out.
The obstruction of his vision combined with a rapid acceleration upwards left him completely disoriented, wondering where he was.
Did it work?
A great roar exploded in the air and Itama felt like his ears might burst. The ground he laid sprawled out on rumbled and moved, sending the cloud dispersing.
Disoriented and wanting to puke, Itama grabbed onto whatever he was on, finding purchase on a ridged… Horn? Stalagmite? Any attempts to channel chakra failed, like trying to grab a fistful of air, the life force too elusive.
Oh… Not ground?
As the smoke diffused completely it became apparent what had happened - the boy had summoned a gigantic creature.
The boy's vision was filled with cobalt blue, almost black in the darkness of the night. Its crests, spikes and certain other features were a bright beaten copper. The creature shifted, legs and tail jerking as it tried to take in its suddenly new environment.
"Wh-what is that!?" one of the living Uchiha asked, Sharingan eyes capturing the crushed remains of two clansmen under the monster's talons.
A conflagration of eerie cobalt blue flames burst out of the creature's mouth, engulfing the two of the Uchiha before they could take cover.
The final Uchiha made to run, but the dragon darted forward, the violent jerking motion sending Itama rolling down its side.
The earthy ground rose up to meet him and everything went dark.
—-
When he came to it was a slow process, the sound of the world faint and slow as if underwater. Then, like a dam breaking, it all came flooding in.
"DRAGON!"
How did… when did…
There was a cacophony of yells, explosions and a great amount of roaring.
Something swooped and suddenly his surroundings to the left were on fire. He was in a great canvas tent, with rugs, tapestries and a large chest.
We're at war… the memories came in, vague and disorienting. As he stood up, Itama had the vague feeling that he was a spectator watching out of the eyes of someone, but he could hear the thoughts as well. He could taste the smoke in the air, feel it pushing into his lungs, causing him to violently cough.
As one they felt the almost paralyzing terror and claustrophobia, but buoyed by his recent near-death experience Itama pushed through and threw himself out the exit, collapsing into the mud and a scene of panic.
A large roar from above distracted him from the sight of men in armor running about and tents alight, only for it to be met by matching roars a little closer.
Tessarion! the thought came, from somewhere, where he knew not. But he knew he had to make his way to the edge of the camp, where the head of a familiar cobalt-coloured creature with copper accents made itself seen.
"My prince!" a man yelled, the voice carrying over from a tent and the words completely foreign to Itama. Yet the words felt as familiar to him as his own name.
Itama and the other one collectively ignored it, knowing they had to get to the creature, the dragon Tessarion. But just as he turned a corner he found his way barred by half a dozen men.
Cursing, they tried to turn. But their foot slipped in the wet grass, collapsing on their side.
Movement in front had them tilt their gaze up.
The last thing they saw was the spiked head of a morningstar as it smashed into their face. The pain was immense but short-lived, before there was nothing at all.
—
He woke with a gasp, arms flailing-
"Itama!"
Brown and white filled his vision - the hair colors of his brothers.
"Calm yourself brother, you are safe!" the older one encouraged him, with a gentle smile, grabbing his hand.
The other one sat with his arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed.
"Hashi, Tobi…"
"You're safe now little brother. Breathe."
"I…"
They were in his bedroom now in the house of the Senju head family.
"I will inform father," Tobirama stated with a nod before rising up, dutifully going off.
"Brother, what's the last you remember?" Hashirama asked from his side, grabbing his small hand. So much smaller than the grown hands he had just had.
"I… I thought I died," the boy muttered, trying to sit up on his futon. Half of his torso had been wrapped up, the other half sporting a patchwork of ugly bruises.
I did die, he thought, sure of it. He had felt his skull cave in.
"It's over," Hashirama said, gently pulling him into his embrace. Itama laid his cheek against the older boy's shoulder and wept.
The next time he came to it was to the stern face of his father, Senju Butsuma.
"Itama," the man acknowledged with a nod, staring him down. Flanking him were both of his brothers, along with a healer.
"Father," the boy replied, watching as his father dismissed the man with a movement of his hand.
"Good, you are finally awake. We need to know what happened."
Itama began his debriefing. Through a set of circumstances he had been found himself driven away from the main Senju war party, eventually forced to flee for his life. Chased by the five Uchiha men, he had done his best to shake them off but to no avail.
His father interrupted him at several points in the story and Itama dutifully answered him to the best of his abilities.
It was when he came to the end that he found it difficult to continue. Hashirama appeared in a flash at his side, hand on his shoulder.
"I-I…I thought I would die," he said, reliving the terror of his last moments, recounting the glee of his opponents as they had made sport of hunting him down.
"But you did not," his father stated bluntly. "How did you survive five Uchiha by yourself, boy," he barked.
Besides him Hashirama bristled minutely and Itama felt the hand clench.
"Hashirama found you in the clearing surrounded by five crushed and dismembered bodies, the area around you flattened and the trees surrounding you burning blue. What happened?"
"I… I was trapped, surrounded by the five of them, so I used the Summoning Technique."
His words shocked them, even the normally unflappable Tobirama widening his eyes.
"Itama, that's…!"
"I see," Butsuma said, adopting a thinking face. "And here I thought we owed another clan a debt. Where did you end up? What did you summon?"
"I simply did the hand seals, poured all of my chakra and a creature appeared…" Itama trailed off, thinking hard, trying to put his experience into words. But the details escaped him, besides a vague feeling of scales, the color blue and heat. Instead, the contents of his dreams kept rising to the forefront along with a name.
"Tessarion."
"Ts-a-lyon…?" his oldest brother tried, tongue unused to the foreign language of his dreams. Tobirama also scrunched and tilted his face to the side, unintentionally mirroring their father.
"Whatever… this creature is, it was powerful and saved your life. It could tip the balance in our favor against those despicable Uchiha. Once you have recovered, my son, we will train this power of yours."
His plan for Itama outlined, their father swept out the room, leaving the three brothers to themselves.
An almost imperceivable tenseness in his brother's shoulders relaxed.
"Itama," Tobirama said, sitting down on the boy's side opposite Hashirama. "There is something you need to know."
While Itama had been resting the healer had given them a final medical opinion, one that had Itama's stomach dropping as his brothers conveyed it.
In short, when Itama had performed the summoning technique it had consumed so much chakra, and so aggressively, that his chakra coils had been left permanently damaged. They had cracked at certain places, been deformed and twisted at others. There was a high likelihood he would never be able to do any ninjutsu, and as a result not be able to fight.
Hashirama had smiled at that, expressing his happiness. They would feel much better knowing their brother was kept safe in the Senju compound!
Tobirama palmed his face before Itama erupted, yelling in tears for them to leave.
Fuming, tears gathering at the edges of his vision, he watched both of them leave, one affecting his typical despondent mood and the other chiding him.
As soon as the wall swept shut, Itama raised his fingers into a seal and channeled chakra. Pain, pain like a thousand senbon poking into his coils from the inside filled him, continuing until his brain shut down.
—
Itama spent the following weeks coming to terms with what had happened. The technique that had saved his life and delivered his biggest battlefield accomplishment had left him a cripple, condemned to watch his fellow clansmen fight while he remained uselessly behind.
As if to taunt him, just days after his awakening another great battle took place. His father and two brothers set off, armors gleaming, bidding him goodbye. After they left he had to call for auntie Matsuyo to come take him to the outhouse to relieve himself.
His physical recovery was hampered by his damaged chakra coils, as it made it more difficult for the Senju healers to use their techniques to nudge his body into healing itself. They explained that the uneven, chaotic flow of the chakra required much concentration and a very high level of chakra control to work around. And with the frequent battles, the top healers had to spend their precious energy and time on more experienced warriors rather than the nine year old Itama.
Whereas it might have taken one week of rest to recover from his wounds - a mix of purple bruises, deep lacerations and a broken collarbone - it took him over three weeks. And even that was thanks to his superior Senju constitution.
When the healer had declared him fit for simple training again, he took to it with a gusto. He went on slow jogs along the perimeter of their settlement, panting heavily at the end. Those sessions were followed by either hours of kenjutsu, bukijutsu or taijutsu practice.
Meanwhile, at his side his brothers would engage in their own spars, doton and suiton jutsu respectively being thrown about. The sight had him grit his teeth, before turning back to punching his wooden dummy.
A month later his physical strength and conditioning was back, and his kunai were even flying more accurately than before. The good news ended there, however.
Certain cracks had healed in his chakra system, and the previously tender deformed pathways had at this point done the equivalent of scarring over. Manipulating the energy, at least in bursts, was no longer torture. More worryingly however was the size of his chakra pool.
As a Senju of the main family his chakra should have been overflowing and dense, but instead it was low in volume and brittle, in Tobirama's words. If he concentrated he could whip it up, but then had to cooldown.
The news should have struck Itama hard but he had started to come to terms with his condition. What really hurt was to see the sheer disappointment his father held for him. His father, who had been holding out for a repeat appearance of a giant Uchiha killing monster, but now had to contend with a broken and weak son.
At least Kawarama gets to be mourned and remembered as a hero, he had thought darkly as the four of them bowed before the family shrine. Besides him, Tobirama shot him an accusing look out of the corner of his eyes, and Itama was forced to look away in shame.
Shortly thereafter an incident took place. Apparently, Tobirama informed him, Hashirama had been sneaking out to meet up with a friend for the better part of the last year. Tobirama had taken to following him and discovered that it was an Uchiha - in fact, none other than the Uchiha heir himself, Madara - and dutifully informed their father.
Senju Butsuma had immediately decided to take this opportunity to strike a blow at the Uchiha clan, arranging for Hashirama to take point in an ambush.
Ironically, the exact same thing had happened on the Uchiha side - Uchiha Izuna and Uchiha Tajima had followed Madara to their next meeting, The four of them had briefly clashed but then retreated, both clan heads realizing that the two sides were too evenly matched.
Itama had grit his teeth at that. If he had been healthy enough his father would have brought him along to the fight, and he could have tipped the favor against Izuna at the very least.
It went without saying that inviting anyone else from the clan would have been out of the question. The very idea that Butsuma's heir had been spending months playing with their greatest enemy was ridiculous, skipping stones and climbing while the corpses mounted on their side… While Itama himself had had to rely on others to relieve himself.
To say that Itama was furious with Hashirama was an understatement. It was a betrayal.
—
Itama quickly found himself forgiving his older brother, however, if only quietly and in his heart. There had been a spark in Hashirama, a purity or innocence about him that had been destroyed by the incident. Now, he threw himself into his training, going all out in his spars with their father, all traces of goofiness gone.
Tobirama was not one to be outdone and did his best to match him as well. The two of them were quickly being spoken of with pride within the clan, Senju Butsuma's perfect heir and spare.
"... and the one better off elsewhere," Itama muttered darkly to Touka when granny Kimi uttered those words.
Touka, a sharp-chinned genjutsu mistress of age with Hashirama, gave him a shove.
"Get over yourself, cousin. This pity-party of yours is getting old."
He drew back and glared at her, rubbing his smarting shoulder.
"Isamu has to walk with a peg after the Uchiha burnt his leg; now he works in the forge," she chided him, finger in his face. "Masaki lost his arm to an Inuzuka war hound two years ago and has been assisting the healers ever since. Everyone pulls their weight around here, kid, rather than sulking and brooding about what you've lost you should put your efforts into doing what you can."
Her piece said, the teenager walked off, leaving a stunned Itama in her wake.
"I-I don't sulk…" he finally spoke. But there was no one to hear him.
Itama spent the rest of the day definitely not sulking. The following day, he completed his training early, before showing up at the healers' section of their settlement.
He found the aforementioned Masaki and asked if there was anything he could do to help. The man leveled the boy with a knowing gaze, gave a grin and tasked him with helping to sort out and put away a shipment of medical supplies.
The work was tedious. The boy was surprised, overwhelmed and then impressed by the level of organization they had to follow when putting everything away and keeping inventory. With an extra pair of hands to augment his one Masaki was able to complete the work faster than he had thought, resulting in him slowing down and spending some time explaining the uses of certain items.
"That there's powdered shika deer antler velvet," the man pointed out. "We order them from the Nara clan. It has a wide range of medicinal uses, including making pills that can induce teeth regrowth or replenish chakra."
When they were done for the day, the man asked if he was interested in becoming a healer. Itama shook his head, informing him that he was just interested in helping out.
Masaki nodded and gave him a wry grin. "Well, feel free to show up tomorrow and help out. We have some herbs to pick."
Itama made a non-committal sound and went home, assisting auntie Matsuyo in cooking for the family. Butsuma took Hashirama to the side, to discuss something, and Itama joined Tobirama for reading and meditation.
The next day, after a training session, he took Masaki up on the offer and helped him and some of the other healers in picking herbs. They maintained both medicinal and culinary plants and fungi, though the two sometimes overlapped.
The work continued for a week, and he found himself grudgingly enjoying it. It felt good to see other parts of his clan, a clan that was more than the chakra-slinging frontline warriors. And the Senju were particularly famous for their healers, it was one of their main advantages against their rivals.
The week after he switched to helping out with the forge, employing the same tactic of reaching out to a former shinobi. Or rather, it was more of an armory. Many in the Senju, Itama included, wielded blades and the Senju had smiths that could repair and maintain them. But they bought most of their weapons from outside the clan, as well as enforcing the armor plating they made with seals from the Uzumaki.
When Touka came by to restock on her kunai, he studiously avoided her gaze and the smug expression he imagined to be on her face.
—
His father had largely ignored Itama's activities, though he was undoubtedly informed of them. Broaching the subject of assisting the foragers and farmers in their vicinity had resulted in some skepticism, but a fire had been lit under Itama's bottom. He argued that until his chakra coils had recovered he would prefer making himself useful, pulling his own weight and not rely on being the son of the leader.
The Senju, unlike the Uchiha, were not a noble family in their own right, with their own vassals. Instead they had their settlement bordering on the lands of other nobility, families who supplied them with food from their serfs in exchange for protection and other services.
Where the Uchiha could afford to be as capricious, heavy-handed and haughty as they wanted to in their dealings with others - and these things came easily to them, Itama knew - the Senju could not. Instead, they had to work to cultivate a friendly image, a reputation as the "clan of love".
"I had planned to have Tobirama accompany my cousin Tamotsu on the diplomatic party to Lord Amago. But if you insist on this, you can go in his stead as my son. Rather than make yourself a nuisance to the workers, this would be a more productive use of everyone's time."
"The Amago lands aren't too far and they're in the opposite direction to the Uchiha. There's a low risk of attack," Hashirama pointed out, with a smile.
"And you'd be sent with a proper, strong guard," Tobirama added.
"Hey!" Itama exclaimed, slamming a hand on the table they were sitting around. "Just because I can't use ninjutsu right now doesn't mean I'm completely useless!"
"That's- that's not what we meant, little brother," Hashirama was quick to respond, raising his hands with a placating expression.
"You are our brother and the third in line to lead the clan, Itama," Tobirama reminded instead, arms crossed. "That makes you a tempting target, much more so than cousin Tamotsu would be by himself."
"Enough," Butsuma interrupted, rising to his feet. "Itama, you will spend the rest of the week brushing up on etiquette and diplomatic conduct with your aunt Matsuyo. You will not make a fool of yourself or this family."
The youngest Senju brother stared at his rice bowl, lips pursed.
"Forgive us our selfishness Itama. We don't want to bury another brother," Hashirama said with a wry grin, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
"Don't you think I feel the same, Hashi?" Itama muttered, not resisting when Hashirama pulled him further into his side and engulfed him in a hug.
"I know, little brother. It must be very tough watching us head off into battle."
Itama nodded.
"You've been making great progress," Tobirama stated. "Ninjutsu or not, the basis of all shinobi is taijutsu. Work on your strength, your nimbleness and your speed and eventually you will be sent on combat-oriented missions."
"Eventually," Hashirama responded with a glare at the middle child.
"Eventually," Tobirama echoed, rolling his eyes.
"Regardless," Hashirama continued, rubbing his back. "These things you're doing, assisting the healers and the quartermaster and now going off on diplomatic missions - keep it up. That's how you support the clan as a whole, the frontline fighters and of course us. And one day when father retires and I ascend to leadership you will be my right hand man."
He punctuated his point by raising his arm and flexing his bicep.
Itama giggled and asked, "And Tobi?"
"Eh," Hashirama made a dismissive motion with his hand. "Tobi could be your assistant. You could order him to do whatever you wished."
The pre-teen in question gave the oldest brother a dry look, but raised an expectant eyebrow at Itama.
Itama hummed, before snapping his fingers. "I'd order a lab built for you. You could spend your time working on researching jutsu all day, while I handle the rest."
Hashirama guffawed at that image, while Tobirama gave him a warm smile. Itama chuckled, basking in the attention of his older brothers.