Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. However, the OCs do belong to me.

Part 1: Nara Shikari

"It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to."

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

"Strange, isn't it. . . . " Etsuko mused, drawing the thing's attention.

Her gaze fell on their settlement' gate, where a woman was hugging and fussing over her son, a privilege which many mothers might not have. Despite her simple and practical garb, the gold-plated kanzashi on her hair clearly signified her higher status in the clan.

"A soldier and a clan heir, yet treated like an infant that's about to keel over and die. I can't exactly fault his mother, she has had four miscarriages before she had him after all.

"Well. . . ." Etsuko smirked, "I suppose miscarriage is a rather polite term. I heard she terminated them all because they were males. She has always wished for daughters – probably couldn't bear the thought of losing her sons in action. It won't be hard for a medic of Noriko-sama's stature, she certainly knows her way around herbs. Too bad her last prediction is wrong." Etsuko closed her eyes and sighed wistfully. "What I wouldn't do to be her. . . ."

It looked up curiously, her baby girl's wide eyes wordlessly conveyed its question.

"What I wouldn't do to send you into the battlefield, Shikari."

Everyone had that moment, that brief moment of tranquility where they could simply relish in the sheer liberation that came from a well-deserved, however momentary, peace, after they had yet survived from another round of heartbreaking, suffocating, and headache-inducing checkmate from the insufferable thing called life. It was a moment to relax, to unwind, and to allow yourself to breathe and heal as your mind processed the fact that you were still alive, that pain and tragedy had not managed to break your spirit just yet.

But here was the thing about peace: it lulled you into a false sense of security. It made you believe that, for a moment, everything would be alright. It made you believe that it was okay to stop for a second and lowered your guards down because the danger had already passed so what could go wrong anyway?

Well, here's the answer: everything.

Scattered on the floor was the residue of an altercation gone wrong: overturned table and chairs, splatters of blood, and a kunai left forgotten. Sprawled near the wall was a woman. Her pale lips hung open as her blank eyes stared unblinkingly into a faraway corner, the dark orbs were slowly sinking into her skull. Blood poured from the gaping hole that used to be her left ribs and upper sternum, staining her gray sash and brown-trimmed robes.

Light peeked through the open door of the guard post's upper level, where Nara Shikadai stood at the top of the stairs with a lantern on his hand. His eyes carefully swept over the carnage, where there lay a crumpled heap of what was left of the woman that Shikari was supposed to interrogate. He was grateful for the dim light, for it obscured the way his fair skin simultaneously turned paler and greener the more that he stared at her corpse.

Shikadai was done for. A witness to what might have been an important case had died whilst she was under his supervision. As if it was not already bad enough, instead of calling for his superior – either out of arrogance or simply to show his father that he was capable of making his own decision – he had sent an inexperienced girl to interrogate the woman just so that he could have something as frivolous as a power nap. Shikadai could practically see what would happen next. He was going to be dishonorably discharged and the traitors would never be found. The tiny ounce of respect that his father might have had for him now would pulverize and–

"Shikadai-kun."

His eyes snapped towards the girl. She was sitting crossed-legged at the foot of the stairs of the dark basement, her small, bloody, hands were neatly folded on her lap. Shikadai had half of a mind to reprimand her for addressing him with that demeaning suffix, as if she were talking to a child. However, the way that she sat there, the epitome of poise and calmness despite all the blood and innards that were splattered on her clothes and hair; the way that she looked at him – at his shaking hands and feet – with dark eyes that were so full of patience and understanding, the eyes of someone who had seen and been through all, truly made him feel like he was still that child that was clinging to his mother's arms and begging that he did notwant to go.

"Say. . . ." the girl mused, "If you were given a chance to stop being a shinobi, no strings attached, would you take it?"

Shikadai was about to open his mouth to answer when he stopped to think. "What's that got to do with anything?"

The girl's lips bloomed into a whimsical smile. "It could be nothing, it could be everything. Does it really matter?" Shikadai gave the girl a blank stare, for which she only replied with a pretty – fake, he thought – laugh that lighted up her features. "Humor me, please."

Shikadai felt a warning bell rang on his head and almost took a step back. There was something that was incredibly freaky about the girl, something that lurked and hid beneath her impeccable manners and pretty smiles. He could almost imagine that behind those soft, pink lips, stood rows of razor sharp teeth that were ready to rip his neck and tear his flesh should he provided her with a wrong answer. She was beautiful, but so unnaturally wrong.

Shikadai swallowed his saliva and gripped his lantern just a little tighter. He was being paranoid, he told himself, the woman's death was getting into him. He stared right into the girl's dark eyes and said, "Of course, I would," his voice was barely above a whisper, but the sheer bitterness in it surprised even him, "everyone in their right mind would.

"But doing so would be selfish," he quickly countered. "The largest contribution to our revenue comes from doing missions, and no shinobi mean no money. Our crops are mostly subsistence in nature. The excess are stocked for winters, and what little we can spare are sold to the locals, used as bribes, or exchanged for information; the same can be said about our medicinal herbs. The bottom line is, the conventional way to obtain money simply doesn't cut it. I know it's not ideal, but I am more than willing to be a shinobi if it means my family can have roofs over their heads and enjoy warm meals. Mental wise, our soldiers are more stable than countless others from the same line of work – the Yamanaka and the community as a whole provide adequate support to deal with the trauma – so I've really got nothing to complain about."

"That's thoughtful of you," the girl said with a smile. As far as the smile went, it was a small and quiet one – only a tiny quirk on her lips. "You'll be a good clan head one day."

Shikadai narrowed his eyes, not swayed by her kind words. "Is that what the question is about? To find out if I would be a good leader for the clan?"

"No," the girl drawled, "think of it as a– ah, a test of your character."

"Ah. . . . I see it now," Shikadai muttered. "My answer is a reflection of myself. If I would readily abandon my comrades at any given opportunity, then who's to say that I would not simply deny my responsibility, cover up my mistakes, and pretend as if nothing has happened? Don't worry, I won't shift the blame on you. I'll be held accountable for my actions as the higher-ups see fit."

The girl looked like she was about to roll her eyes in exasperation. "Don't be so morose about it. It's not like they would give you a death sentence over this."

"It's not about the punishment, it's the fact that I've even made such a reckless mistake in the first place!" Shikadai snapped. "The expectations are different when you're the only son and a clan heir. I will probably get demoted as soon as my father gets wind of this."

"Probably," she conceded. "But exactly how incompetent do you to think I am that you do not even consider the possibility that I might manage to extract crucial information out of her?"

"Why don't you tell me?" Shikadai rebutted, suddenly feeling audacious. "You're the one who act like there isn't a bloody corpse ten feet away from you. You're the one who have beaten – no, toyed – with full-fledged trainees even though your profile states that you have zero training or experience in shinobi arts. If you're so competent then how come we've only heard of you now?

"I admit, at first I didn't put too much thought into it as it is not my place to ask any question. But then a key witness that was brought into your attention," Shikadai almost snarled, "an anomaly with no clear background or abilities that oh-so-conveniently appeared today at the barrack, ended up dead whilst she was under my supervision. I don't know what your purpose is or whether I could trust you, so excuse me for not knowing how competent you are because honestly, I don't even know you!"

"I…" the girl started, "am a casualty of war."

The lantern flickered.

"I am nothing but a mere puppet, a pawn in a shogi game, brought to life against my wishes."

The girl lifted her palm, soft and unblemished, "I was given an illusion of freedom, a blank slate for me to paint with colors, when unexpectedly. . ." tendrils of shadows suddenly emerged and coiled around the thin appendage, "I was enlightened."

The girl – no. . . Shikari, Shikadai thought – suddenly laughed – loud and hard – as if she had only now registered the meaning behind some ugly, twisted jokes that only she could hear.

"In the back of my mind, I've always known that there must be a catch," she said, as if it could help him to understand what the hell she was talking about. It did not. "I couldn't possibly exist for no reason at all. But still. . ." she mused, "it would be nice to be left alone on my own device, to be allowed to disappear and give absolutely zero care."

"Then why don't you?" Shikadai heard himself humoring her.

Her eyes flickered to meet his again – sharp and calculating, but with weariness that could only be found in seasoned veterans.

"Because the world will burn."

"What. . . ?" Shikadai asked. It was such a simple statement, a silly one even. However, the way the girl said it, with such conviction and finality, as if they would all suffer from an inevitable and horrible future – future that was filled with deaths and absolute despair – made him pause. "Why do– why did you say that? Is it– is it because you killed her?" The evidence didn't really add up – not to mention, her lack of motive – but it would definitely explain her strange behavior. The first kill was always the hardest, especially if it was not a clean one–

"Stop," Shikari ordered, her tone tired, "just stop."

Shikadai warily watched as the girl dusted the dirt from her clothes and walked towards the woman's corpse. His eyes followed her every step as the girl swiftly drew arrays of container seal on a blank parchment, a skill which should not have been possessed by a novice shinobi-to-be.

"I know that you're confused, that things do not seem to make even the slightest sense. But sometimes. . ." she sealed the corpse away and turned to face him, her face serious, "ignorance is a bliss."

Shikadai wanted to protest. The girl was acting precisely like his father: hiding things from him under the pretense of 'protecting' him. He would be thirteen soon, goddammit, he did not need to be babied! Shikari held up her palm before he could voice his thoughts. She turned to him and spoke right into his ears,

"Imagine a world that is. . . broken, where the time is twisted and the sky is distorted. Where space itself snaps and falls into an endless, never-ending red abyss. You could walk with eyes closed and never touch walls. You would live in a dream, where everything that you ever wished would come true. But in reality. . ." she whispered, "your very life would be sucked from you, leaving you as an empty, dead husk."

Shikadai stared at the girl in muted horror as his mind was assaulted with images of the horrid place. A pale, lone moon hung at the center of all the wrongness.

"That is the future," she said, "should I let things to continue as they are now." She patted his cheek reassuringly with her bony fingers, idly tucking a few stray strands of hair into his ear like his mother used to do. She smiled, bitter, but real. "Words of advice, not knowing everything is all that makes it okay sometimes."

Shikadai did not know how to answer. It was as if his tongue had suddenly been swallowed by a void, leaving him numb and speechless. He did not even realize that his lantern had fallen from his grip, scattering shards of glass and spilling oils into the wooden floor. Fire quickly spread through the basement, consuming the enforced, but unmistakably flammable materials which constructed it.

"Well. . . ? Aren't you coming?" Shikari's voice brought him out of his reverie.

"Where to?" he muttered.

It was strange, but Shikadai really could not muster the will to put out the fire. He simply. . . stared. It was fitting, he thought. The scorching heat should cleanse the truth of what had transpired inside the room not too long ago. No one else had to know. No one else had to catch a glimpse of the abyss. Some things, he thought, were better left unknown. Sometimes, the truth was worse than the lie.

"Somewhere," she shrugged. "I need to tie a loose end."

"Who is it?" Who is it that you're going to kill?

The girl smirked.

"Our fathers."

Shikadai stopped breathing.

The friction between the hemp cords and the wooden casket grated on his ears as a gust of wind ran through the lush trees – Hashirama's trees – that surrounded the otherwise barren wasteland.

With eyes void of emotion, Tobirama stared at the Senju crest that was etched on the coffin as it became smaller and smaller, and soon, diminutive from visible sight. He closed his eyes to relish the amalgamation of shame and fury that burnt his chest. It felt like only a day had passed since they had buried Kawarama.

Stood alone in the distance with his wretched smell, Itama continued to sob.

"Shinobi do not shed tears!" barked Butsuma. "Our purpose in life is to die on the field of battle!"

Tobirama bit his lip at his father's tirade. He turned his face away from the casket, expecting to see Hashirama standing beside him, alive and well, expecting to see him argue with their father with his conflicting ideology that always made Tobirama question where the boundaries of ethics and morals truly lied. The eerie sense of déjà vu was immediately dispelled when he was greeted with nothing but empty air.

"Your brother has fought bravely," Butsuma continued. "Despite his… disobedience," Butsuma grimaced, "he has eliminated many of those savages and injured their leader right on his cursed eye. Hashirama lived up to his name as a shinobi and died as a proud warrior, you should honor his sacrifice!"

In hindsight, he should have seen this coming.

Yesterday evening, Hashirama had continued to nag their father for permission to go after Itama's team to no avail. Tobirama knew that Kawarama's death had eaten the older boy alive. Only a portion of the seven years old's remains was able to be retrieved. Should the worst scenario happen, Hashirama would have wanted to give Itama a proper burial. He had always been stubborn after all – he loved them too much – of course he would disregard their father's order to stand down. He should have known that the chakra signature he felt in his brother's room was a mere clone. Tobirama should have stopped him from leaving. If only he wasn't so careless, if only he wasn't so distracted, Hashirama might still have been alive.

He knew it. Sentiment would be the end of his elder brother.

Though the clan head – it was difficult to call the man father when he was sending them towards their deaths every day – did not say it, Tobirama knew that their clan would experience setbacks due to his brother's passing. His big brother was special, a one of a kind wonder that would only appear once in every few generations – perhaps the best shinobi that their clan would ever produce. It was part of the reason why Tobirama was so confident that Hashirama would always return home. His elder brother was nothing if not resilient. His cells regenerated too fast for the wounds that were inflicted upon him to become fatal. It would take nothing less than decapitation or severe chakra exhaustion to the point where his body could no longer heal itself to truly kill him. No one could ever replace Hashirama, lest of all Tobirama, whose parentage was often questioned due to his peculiar appearance – not that they ever said it to his face.

If only he could revive the dead. . .

But he could not possibly do that, could he?

No one had ever resurrected the deaths before. Death was a necessary phase for every living thing. Death was necessary to maintain the balance – too little death would result in overpopulation, whilst the opposite would result in extinction. He should not mess with the balance for his own selfish reason. But was it really selfish if it was done for the good of his clan?

Tobirama had always been the thinker of his family. He could create and do anything should he set his mind to it. The idea of reviving the deaths might be inconceivable for others, but it was doable to him – someway, somehow. He definitely would need to do lots of research and experiment, and he needed cadavers to do that – lots of them. People might consider him immoral, but then again. . . he had always been rather pragmatic. He would not pretend that he was a saint when he was anything but.

Wait. . .

Something pricked at the edge of his consciousness. What–

"BUTSUMA-SAMA!"

Tobirama straightened as a clansman appeared at the clearing. He could confirm what the messenger was about to say. The sudden influx of chakra from the western camp had told him everything.

The messenger quickly briefed his father of the situation with short, rapid codes. Butsuma's face turned grim, his dark eyes then flitted towards his youngest remaining son. "Itama, you're with him," he jerked his chin towards the messenger, "evacuation duty."

Itama gave their father a curt salute and disappeared with the messenger.

"Tobirama," Butsuma continued, his gaze sizing his heir, conveying a message that only the two of them could understand, "you know what to do."

Tobirama gave his father a brief salute – his red eyes shone with determination – before he too, flickered away.

It appeared his first experiment would happen sooner than expected, Tobirama thought.

Surely, nobody would care if a body or two were missing. After all, all was fair in love and war.

"What is that?"

Madara folded his arms together and focused his gaze towards the lump on the tray before him. Its glistening, pinkish interior was reflected on the smooth surface of the sharp blade that lay beside it.

The freezing temperature of the subterranean storage space bit right into his bones, only his fine control over his fire affinity prevented him from being incinerated by the chakra that he kept inside his stomach and lungs. The unfinished fire technique felt absolutely strange, like a twisted and backward version of constipation. It reminded of that one time when his hungover cousin tried to hold back his vomit during a clan meeting.

It did not end well.

"That was an arm," answered a voice behind him. "Well. . . part of an arm."

Duh, Madara thought. That much was obvious.

Madara glanced at the tall woman that had brought him into the room. Her dark – creepy, in his opinion – yellow eyes were filled with mirth, as if she was watching a ridiculous theater show – a one hundred and eighty degree turn from her previous behavior. He remembered her being a fragile and subdued prisoner. She never talked much, not even to her fellow inmates; and the last time he checked she was quite ill. How she had managed to come here all by herself, he did not know. However, Tajima would never let his subjects roam around without his explicit permission, thus the woman must have brought him here for a reason.

The boy gestured his fingers towards the frozen flesh.

"Whose was it? What's up with it?"

The woman grinned, all teeth, as if she was a predator who had managed to lure her prey into a trap. "Why don't you figure it out yourself?"

Madara narrowed his eyes. "How?"

She smirked. "Pay attention, child."

Madara ignored the demeaning remark and watched with strange fascination as the woman – known as Subject 37 – picked the sharp utensil and poked the edge of the brown-skinned flesh. Then, with a surprising precision, she quickly made a horizontal incision on the flesh and divided it into two smaller pieces. She then trimmed the edge of the smaller piece, cutting the flesh into a perfect rectangle.

"Now what?" he muttered.

The woman smiled. "Now you give me your hand." She waggled her long fingers towards him when he hesitated. "Go on, come here."

"Why?" Madara asked again, annoyance began to seep into his tone.

Her smile widened. "So that you can see what makes it so special."

Madara stared. . . and stared some more.

Two opposite sides were waging a war inside himself, one being his self-perseverance whilst the other being his curiosity. The former was induced by the fact that the woman wanted him to surrender his hand for unknown – probably nefarious – purpose was holding a butcher knife with her other hand, which was not okay at all. The latter, on the other hand, was stemmed by the lump's unbearably plain appearance. He, of course, was curious about what made the lump so special. It looked like a commoner's hand, a slave hand. Its tanned, dry skin was probably caused by continuous exposure to the sun because its owner had to work their bones to the ground to provide for their family.

Madara frowned. Now he felt bad for its owner. There was no way that that lump could end up here with its owner's consent. He or she was probably dead now; or missing an arm, at the very least. Thus, he decided, the best course of action was to see what made the flesh so special. He had to honor its owner's sacrifice after all.

With no regards to his own safety, Madara placed his left wrist over the woman's waiting hand. His eyes were alight with curiosity as he waited for some amazing miracle to occur.

Madara immediately regretted his decision.

Without warning, the hand immediately clamped onto his wrist. The woman's long nails dug into his skin, sharp and unrelenting. Before he could make any move to retaliate, Number 37 brought down her butcher knife into his exposed forearm and cut.

His arm was on fire. The blade easily cut through his skin and subcutaneous tissue, stopping precisely just before his nerves. The process was then repeated three more times until a rectangle – perfectly identical in dimension to the flesh that she had previously cut – was formed.

He wanted to scream for help, as retaliating and/or moving his currently trapped and indisposed arm would likely result in permanent scarring and/or accidental amputation; however, screaming most likely would cause him to exhale the flame that he stored inside him, which would not only incinerate the psycho bitch, but also everything in the room – including him. Madara could only grit his teeth and bear the pain until whatever it was that the woman wanted to do was over. Judging from her smug grin, she knew that he was completely at her mercy.

But that was just the start.

Apparently, the pain of being cut was nothing compared to the pain of having his flesh removed from him. Fresh blood oozed from the open wound, dripping into his wrist and fingers. He did not expect the women to replace his flesh with the one on the tray – the tanned skin contrasted greatly against his fair one, which already tinged blue from the blood-loss – nor did he expect her to sew the skins together like cheap rags.

They looked wrong, felt wrong.

Driven by fear, pain, and survival instinct; the second that the women had stitched his skin, he grabbed her with his free arm and flickered into an open clearing. Anger coursed through his vein as he threw her away with a sickening crunch before he let loose of the stream of fire that he had stored inside his lungs. The concentrated blaze quickly engulfed her, its intense heat burnt her to crisp before she even had a chance to react.

Madara swayed on his feet, feeling nauseous. His eyes, now blood-red, were transfixed on the charred clearing, on the charred remains on its center. He knew that fire would first burn and peel away the outer layer of skin, then after a while the dermis would shrink and split open and fat would begin to leak out. The most severe burns could cause so much damage to the nerves that one might no longer be able to feel pain. He did not know whether the woman had survived long enough to recognize that she could not feel pain anymore. Perhaps the initial pain of the fire was so severe that her body went into primary shock.

Madara cringed as the awful, acrid odor that assaulted his nostrils. It was nauseating and sweet, putrid and steak-like, akin to leather being tanned over a flame. The smell was so thick and rich that it was almost a taste. He doubted that he would ever get the smell out of his nose entirely, no matter how long he lived. But still. . . he supposed he had it good. It was better being traumatized than being dead. Moments like this made him understand his father a little more – his ruthlessness, his drive, his quest for vengeance. . .

Perhaps killing everyone was the only way to reach peace. Greed, after all, was the root of all evil. If there was no one left, then there would be no source of conflict. Granted, it might mean the eradication of the human race, but in the long term. . .

Madara shook his head. He was musing silly thoughts again. He had better go to the infirmary and get his arm fixed. He needed to sterilize the wound, perhaps return to the storage room to retrieve––

"Fuck."

That was the only word that could sum up his entire thoughts. He had half-expected his wound to swell – to bleed again, even – but he did not expect it to. . . heal so well. The stitches had fallen off, leaving a perfect – if discolored – skin in its wake.

So that was its special property, huh? Fast regeneration. It opened up so many cans of possibilities for wound treatments and tissue regeneration. Who knew, perhaps it could be used to fix nerve damage, or oh, oh – grow organs.

Madara felt absolutely giddy. He walked home with a spring in his step, the foreign flesh in his arm momentarily forgotten in favor of his new discovery.

Perhaps the medics would be able to heal his father's eye after all.

. . .

In the middle of the charred clearing, hidden by scorched flesh and deteriorating bones, Black Zetsu grinned.

A/N:

1. The storage room in Madara's POV is an ancient type of evaporative cooler called Yakhchāl that was made by Persian engineers in 400BC.

2. In the manga, Madara and Hashirama have only met once before Itama's death.

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