tobirama: art by mellon at pixiv (TobiIzu)
[personal profile] tobirama posting in [community profile] el_musebox
Characters: Izuna [personal profile] curseofhatred & Tobirama [personal profile] tobirama
Verse: TBD
Status: Closed Log
Warnings: Edo Tensei should really be warning enough. Gratuitous amounts of angst and feels.




Anyone who met Senju Tobirama almost universally agreed that the man was a genius in his own right when it came to creating jutsu. He’d always been a creative sort of man prone to living in his own head. Outside of the few people he chose to associate with such as his brother and a few members of his family, he wasn’t exactly the type of man who enjoyed the company of others.

His own unstable upbringing in the midst of a generations’ long conflict had taught him that forming emotional bonds with others was usually a wasted effort because chances were they would die relatively soon. The life of a shinobi was a perilous one at best with death as their ever present comrade waiting to sweep in from the wings and claim their lives.

But these days, life was a little more settled. Peace had been reached between Senju and Uchiha and together his brother and Madara had set out to build the village they’d dreamed about as children. Tobirama did what he could to support his brother’s dream because he genuinely did want to see it come to fruition.

Madara of course was continuously contentious about his presence which in a way, the albino ninja could understand. He harbored his fair share of anger towards the Uchiha for all of the Senju blood they’d spilled and the idea of being forced to work with the man who’d killed his last blood relative would have been unconscionable to him as well.

Izuna’s death hung between them like some impassable chasm but the sad truth of the matter was…things were even more complicated than Madara or even Hashirama suspected. He’d never meant to kill the Uchiha on that fateful day. Wound him, yes so that he would be forced to retire from the field of battle and perhaps force him out of the conflict for a few weeks. Tobirama hated crossing swords with Izuna because each time they fought, he knew there was the risk that this time, one of them would slip or one of them wouldn’t be fast enough.

That day, he’d been faster than Izuna and according to Madara, it had taken him the better part of a week to die. The Uchiha spared no details telling the Senju how his last surviving brother had slowly drowned on his own blood from the wound Tobirama had given him and inwardly, he’d felt as though he were bleeding on the inside as well. Because Izuna had gone to his death with a secret and it was one Tobirama would keep himself till he too met his final end. A secret so shameful he couldn't bare the idea of anyone knowing it.

A secret which could very well destroy him if it ever came to light, one which made his current course of action absolutely idiotic and he knew it. Yet he couldn’t stop himself.

In the last years of the conflict between Uchiha and Senju, Tobirama had found himself fraternizing with his mortal enemy. What had initially started as a violent rivalry had turned into something more until he’d finally found himself doing the very last thing he should do.

He fell in love with the enemy.

And then he’d killed his lover on accident and had to live with the consequences. But he’d never been very good at just accepting things as they were. Tobirama was the type of man who if he found a problem he couldn’t surmount, he would keep trying until he’d found a way of either working around it or under it but no matter what, he rarely just accepted things as they were. His clever intellect which often was the bane of his existence came into play here.

He’d first gotten the idea for this particular jutsu when he’d been just a callow young boy shortly after Itama’s death. The constant loss of his kin had made Tobirama question the very foundations of life and death and how exactly he could bypass that problem as well. It had been more of an intellectual exercise more than anything else and he’d never dreamed as a young boy that he might someday figure out a way to bypass death itself and summon the dead back to life.

But he’d gotten older and more clever in his jutsu as the years went by but even he’d been stymied for the longest time about how to complete the jutsu and had put it away once more. Izuna’s death had inspired him to go back to his old notes and rebuild things nearly from the ground up once more. Even working obsessively on the resurrection technique, it took him years to perfect things and dozens of failed attempts. No one else had ever succeeded in what he was attempting a part of him knew deep down that there was a reason for this.

That this particular jutsu in the wrong hands could be devastating. If he’d had any sense, he might have abandoned his work but the need to see Izuna again, to hear him speak and yes...a part of him wanted to return what he’d stolen from Madara…all of that spurred him onwards. One of the first things Tobirama had done once the groundwork for Konoha was complete was carve out a place for himself deep inside what would eventually become the monument mountain. He needed privacy to conduct his experiments and quite frankly, the things he dabbled in wasn’t for public consumption. A simple hiraishin sigil made it so only he could gain access to the laboratory hidden deep inside of the mountain and a large part of his free time was spent there.

He knew Hashirama worried about him but his brother was well-used to Tobirama’s sometimes obsessive fixation on creating the jutsus that swirled around in his mind and simply let it go without comment save for the occasional reminder he needed to sleep and eat more. How could Tobirama do that when he was so close?!
The DNA he’d needed to complete the jutsu had been surprisingly easy to come across thanks to his own sentimentality that had him holding onto the blankets they’d most often used for their illicit trysts. He’d found plenty of long black strands of hair among the folded up bedding he’d kept locked away deep at the bottom of a trunk but Tobirama hadn’t wanted to risk squandering it so he’d stuck to using other people until he’d perfected the summons.

Now he used a few of those precious strands of hair as a marker for the jutsu and poured his chakra into the freshly drawn ink on the stone floor.

The day he’d finally cracked the final solution on how to bind the souls of the resurrected to corporeal form, he’d very nearly broken down right then and there because the price to be paid…the sacrifice necessary was terrible and beyond the pale. But he’d always been good about selectively ignoring his own particular moral compass if the situation called for it and finally…Tobirama chalked up the price to be paid in the life of an enemy-nin to be a necessary one.

After all, the man had been an enemy of Konoha and would have done his best to harm the very thing Tobirama was trying to protect.

He’d been taking lives since the age of five so in the end…it hadn’t been very hard to sentence the enemy ninja to death but Tobirama had to admit…he hadn’t been prepared for the screams of terror and pain that had escaped his unwitting victim. But he also could not let empathy stop him when he was so close to attaining his goals so he’d continued on with the experiment heedless of the sounds coming from a man slowly suffocated in the façade necessary to bind the spirit’s soul to. Finally, blessed silence fell about the laboratory once more and Tobirama stepped back a few steps as the jutsu finished wrapping around the now still body of the Cloud ninja. Already, the darkness of his skin was being replaced by a more familiar pale, milky hue and the hair grew out long and black in those familiar spiky strands of inky darkness he knew so intimately. Soon enough, the Cloud-nin’s rough-hewn and craggy face was replaced by the dark more delicate and handsome features of his dead lover’s and Tobirama felt something tighten around his heart.

The albino ninja had dreamt about this moment for years and finally, it looked as though it was going to come to fruition. How had he forgotten about the delicate arch of those dark eyebrows and ridiculous length of those lashes? He’d thought he had a firm mental picture of what Izuna looked like trapped forever in his mind’s eye but the years had dulled the details after a while and now he was remembering all the tiny things he’d found so pleasing in his lover’s form.

With his heart seemingly caught in a painful vice grip, Tobirama forced himself to stand there still and straight and wait the seemingly interminable eternity to discover if his jutsu was going to function as it should.

Date: 2015-09-08 03:05 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
The final week of Izuna’s life had been hell.

The fight shouldn’t have been anything, a simple little go-back-and-forth, each of them fighting but never meaning to kill, at least not each other. Things had evolved beyond that, making it bigger than each of them, and while he fought to win, he didn’t fight to kill. He had thought the same of Tobirama.

He, apparently, was wrong.

The wound was deep and searing, his eyes widening after it happened in that fragile space of seconds that felt like hours. He had been struck. Not just struck, but struck by his own lover’s blade. And while he tried not to let the anger and betrayal crawl over him (We are shinobi, we knew, this was always there), the anger was a drug he couldn’t stop.

The blood burned his throat as he coughed it up, his brother’s arms around him securing and anchoring him, and it was his sense of immediate insanity betrayal that made him make up his brother’s mind for him. His cursing of the Senju clan. His hateful gaze leveled at them both as blood slipped down his chin.

That would be the last time Tobirama saw him alive.

After that, it had been pain, a world of pain as infections dug in, as vital organs started to shut down, as fevers raged while his body shook. His side burned like fire, and his brother tended to him, their few healers far outclassed for something this intricate; they were a clan of fighters, not saviors. At night, he would have nightmares, and the days drug on while the sepsis expanded, leaving Madara to watch helplessly.

Their other brothers had died cleanly, quickly. This was a new level of torment for both of them. And while he whispered (sometimes screamed) Tobirama’s name, most just assumed it rage over being wounded so, defeated in battle.

But sometimes it was murmured with loneliness, with desperation, with hurt and betrayal.

The day before he died, Izuna harbored a few moments of clarity, a final rally as he whispered for his brother to take his eyes, to use his death as a way to protect the entire clan, to protect himself from those damned, lying Senju. And he had smiled, a shaky, soft thing, and the last thing he ever saw was his brother’s face.

The pain only stopped when he stopped, when the world stopped, when life stopped.

Death was quiet, was calm, was peaceful. It was nothingness and everything, and the madness that had raged inside of him was silenced for awhile. The pain left, his body gone, and he was … free. He was free.

Time had no meaning in death, and he had been content in that, in all things. He had wished his brother safety and good will, and that…that was all he could do.

But fate (or rather, ex-lovers) had a different ideal, and the peace was interrupted by the cold hand of reality, of life. It burned, it burned and he dug his fingers into the void because he didn’t want to go, didn’t know what was happening, didn’t understand; death was death and there was nothing beyond that. But the hand was insistent, demanding, and it didn’t let go. Couldn’t.

The void went away, and there was sensation. Heaviness. Nerves and weight and height and gravity. Physical. He was physical, he was mass. He was something, but he wasn’t where he was. He wasn’t what he was.

His lips parted to draw in a breath he no longer needed; it was habit, instinct, pointless but there. He could feel the presence of someone else, someone who summoned him. But who could summon the dead? Who could drag him out of that? Who had that power?

Long eyelashes parted, the sclera beneath black where white should have been, his pupils red as the sharingan stared at the only other person in the room.

Him. Tobirama. His killer. His lover. His betrayer.

Fingers dug into the ground beneath him but he didn’t get up, didn’t move. The peace he had in death was replaced with the same burning feelings of anger, of hurt that gripped his heart as he laid dying, the fact that not only had this man killed him, but he never came to see him. Not once. Nothing but let him die.

I loved you, you bastard.

"You..."

Date: 2015-09-08 06:20 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Please. As if the bastard had any right to request anything from him! Murderer. Killer. Liar. Liarliarliar!

"What story are you going to tell me this time? Another tale about how much you care, about how you want some peaceful future in our brothers' dream?" He pushed himself up, sitting as the hair fell down around him. Hair...he had forgotten it there, known he had it, but had forgotten how it felt, smooth and slick like silk.

"Was it just to get close to me so you could hurt my brother?" The words were quick, spat, angry, but riddled with hurt, a pain that ate at his heart like a cancer. "Did you celebrate over the news of my death? Throw a feast while Madara buried me?"

It came quick, each sentence, each question a plague. These were questions he wanted to ask, had been aching to ask: was he just a tool to take down his last remaining family member, to break him apart? Had any of what they had been real? Why hadn't he come? Did he hate him that much? And now that the moment was here, was strangely, wickedly here, he didn't know if he get them out fast enough. Tobirama would lie, of course he would, he was dirty Senju, but if he could see something in those eyes, some pain, some humanity, then maybe--maybe--

But Tobirama was different now. Older. Grimmer. How long had it been? It felt like forever and nothing, as if he was just born and existed for all of eternity in the same instance. Izuna had nothing to go on but the fine lines and the leaner body, but that ridiculous fur still. Tch.

Pushing up to his feet, he felt himself, the heaviness of mass, before looking at him, those open hands, everything. Let me explain. What was there to explain? He had killed him! He had--

Izuna stopped, looking off to the side as something caught his eye, something shining as it caught the light. It had been a moment, a glimpse, but he went to the metal bowl, dumping out whatever was inside of it as he looked at the reflection. At the cracked lines in his skin. At the inhuman black eyes. At the wrongness he was, the monster.

The bowl numbly dropped from his fingers, clattering across the floor, punctuating the air. He was... he...

"What...what did you do to me?" he whispered, not looking at him, staring head, staring at nothing. The world blurred as he blinked back what water pain riddled his eyes. "What...am I? Why am I?"

Date: 2015-09-09 03:41 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
“He retreated with me because I was mortally wounded by your blade, Senju!” It was nearly a scream, something harsh and cruel and he wanted to see him in pain, wanted him to feel at least a sliver of what he did. That overwhelming betrayal. That squeezed heart, that torturous fist in his chest. One hand went to his wound, where the wound should have been, and he held it there as if to hold himself in, together, in one piece. It wasn’t for theatrics; he honestly thought he had to.

Had he ever known Tobirama to babble so? Had the other man ever said so many words in a single go before him? And the emotion Izuna could hear quaking behind the syllables, still controlled as he forever would be, almost moved him. Wanted to move him. Some part of Izuna still ached to know that Tobirama cared, that there was a reason he was left behind, left to die.

But, for once, Madara wasn’t enough of a reason.

“You… brought me back?” He looked at his hands, staring at them as if he had never seen them before. Maybe he hadn’t. “Did you dig me up? Rip from the earth as you ripped me from the afterlife? Does my brother know you did this? Did he tell you to?”

But maybe he didn’t have a need to, not if he was busy with a village and the older Senju. So, he went against Izuna’s advice, hm? He trusted the bastards, and it was up to Izuna to warn him, to remind him that they couldn’t let them take over, that the Senju would seek out to tear them apart. (Why am I here, then? If that’s true, why did he remake me) His brother had forgotten Izuna, had forgotten his last wishes, and that burned as much as the rest of this did.

Eyes flickered around the area, finally taking in his surroundings. This place.. he didn’t know this place, unfamiliar and dark, closed in. Madara was nowhere to be seen, but then again, neither was Hashirama. They were alone, and from what he could witness, there was no way out. What was this? What was happening?

“Where are we ?” he whispered. He started to walk around, looking for things, for items, for something sharp. Not for Tobirama, no, but for himself. He needed to see how changed he really was. “Why can I see? I gave my brother my eyes; I should be blind.”

Date: 2015-09-09 03:59 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Izuna was glad he wasn't looking at Tobirama when he said those three words; he didn't want to let the other man see the look on his face, surprised and open and so very pained. Those words. Those damn words. They could bring down an Uchiha, they could bring down him, and he had waited so long to hear them. So...so very long.

His head bowed slowly, hair falling over his face to hide it. He wanted to believe it, wanted to throw himself in and believe that he meant it, believe all of it, that it was an accident, that he did love (current, still) him, that he did bring him back not just because Madara missed him, but maybe he did, too. No kids left to die. No more pain. Just this. Just someone to love him, someone who was emotionally cold but ran physically hot. Someone who was annoying with the way he challenged Izuna. A home with his brother and himself.

But the quiet betrayal wouldn't leave him, trust broken like glass at his feet. And he couldn't shake how it felt, how he didn't know what to make of any of it, of the knife still twisting in his chest. He went to the scrolls, fingers brushing over them before he took one and opened it just to peek. He wanted to know how he was made, curious on what it took; something like this, it wouldn't come cheap, without heavy sacrifice.

"How am I supposed to believe the words of my killer?" he whispered, pulling out another scroll and laying it open. "I'm locked in a room with only your stories, and nothing else. You say you did this for my brother, but you hated him; why do you care if he's suffering? What's the real reason, Senju?"

His red and black eyes found the other man, staring at him, watching him, waiting for something. He didn't know what. Tobirama... of all the people, Tobirama. His heart hurt simply looking at him, fault lines spilling open because the love he harbored was twisted up and blackened, morphed into something else.

Why? Whywhywhywhywhywhy?

It was then that he noticed the different symbol, one...unfamiliar to him. That wasn't the Senju clan markings, it was something else, and Tobirama wasn't without his Senju symbol, just as Izuna wasn't without his Uchiha fan. Leaving the scrolls alone, he stalked back up to the other man, staring up at the swoops and lines etched into the metal. He blinked once, reaching out to touch it.

"What is that?"

Date: 2015-09-10 02:19 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Dislike owing debts.

The flicker of pain that passed over his face was agonizing and fleeting. He knew it shouldn’t have bothered him, that love was a word better shown that spoken; syllables were simple for the lips to form and yet hands crafting symbols of emotions were so much more difficult to find. But those explanations, those little phrases, that tale…He could have laughed, some bitter twisted thing.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t bring himself to.

“I’m a shogi piece to move around your board. A bargaining chip for my brother. A bribe.” The words were ash in his mouth, dry and cloying. “To stop our curse. Tell me, am I rotten from the inside out, too?”

Which, he knew he was, literally so. A home for worms and roots to go, laid to waste, dust in the earth. He was rotten. He was dead. But would he agree on the other side, the other way? Was he as cursed as the rest of them? He didn’t feel cursed, other than with the knowledge that he was bound to a man who had made him suffer and used him even now.

Tobirama… He was taller now. Older. But the face he knew well, had spent heady nights dreaming about when he was alone, when he was so foolishly in love. Blind to it all, to him, to his machinations. Being this close, he wanted to simultaneously kiss him and strangle him, wanted to feel that Adam’s Apple explode beneath his fingers while he tasted his mouth once more.

He hazarded a glance down, saw those hands twisted in his pants, curled there, before he trailed his eyes back up. The motion was misread; pain colored so much.

“Are you afraid of me, Tobirama?” he asked, almost purred, almost laughed. “Afraid of your own twisted creation? Afraid I will kill you like you killed me?”
Edited Date: 2015-09-10 02:31 am (UTC)

Date: 2015-09-10 05:24 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
When that hand curled around his arm, Izuna's eyes narrowed, waiting to be struck, to be fought, to become the adversary he always knew he was. But the blow never came, and suddenly he was touching that soft throat, vulnerable, open and poised for his grip. He could feel the heartbeat vibrating up his hand, so steady, so strong, so fucking alive.

"You don't think I will?" he whispered, hissed, and his fingers tightened. His other hand met the first, and he let both wrap around his neck, that pale column, that foolishly revealed part of him. "Do you think I'm the same person you destroyed? Do you think I'm anything like I was? The person that loved you is dead!"

He laughed, but it wasn't the laugh of anyone in their right mind. His grip tightened, veins protruding on the backs of his hands as he squeezed. Did he understand what he did? Did Tobirama even understand? Could he suffer in the same way? They said that strangulation was the crime of passion, of intimacy, but it was too fleeting, too short, not long enough. It didn't last for a week.

"You are such a fool! Such an arrogant fool!" he hissed, the laughter replaced with something angry, something hurt, wounded. "The world doesn't bow to your cold whims! You can't even control the monster you made!"

Izuna's heart that didn't really need to beat anymore, ached and screamed in his chest. Funny how useless pieces of himself could still splinter like when he had been alive. Those memories were flooding in: the fever, the loneliness, the ceiling he stared at, his brother's crying face. The pain. His utter agony and the way they promised to make him comfortable and always failed.

Nothing could dull the pain in his chest then, a wound far deeper than any blade could give him.

"For a week...I laid there for a week." His muscles clenched as he squeezed harder. "I called for you for a week. A week! Your name on my lips! I called and you-- you--never--you didn't--"

He felt sick. So sick. For every memory of the cruelest memories, others were there. Pleasant ones. The ones where Tobirama could pull his breath from his lungs with a deep kiss. The way he would touch his hair. The warmth of his body as they started to fall asleep. The way he cleaned his weapons and the exhilarating challenge he was to fight.

The way those red eyes watched him as they made love.

The way they hesitated when they knew they had to leave.

His fingers slowly loosened, loosening, loosening, falling away. All of him was falling down to his knees as he was caught between laughing and sobbing, some choked sounds coming from his lips as he bowed his head, hiding his shame from the other.

"I hate you," he whispered. But he didn't. He didn't and it was obvious, because he wouldn't be crying if he did.

Date: 2015-09-11 02:31 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Tobirama hadn’t fought him. He hadn’t pushed him away, hadn’t punched him in the face, hadn’t done anything other than take it. No, no, that wasn’t true; Tobirama had touched his face. He could feel the battle-roughened palms of his hand against his reconstructed cheek, could feel the flinch of the other man. That Senju bastard flinched at nothing, not at him, not at anything he could do.

Were his eyes…?

But it didn’t matter because the fight was out of Izuna as he sat there on his knees, caught between laughing, crying, hating himself, hating the other man across from him. He couldn’t do it. Even now, he couldn’t do it. And sure, he could have fed himself with some stupid tale of how he was making Tobirama suffer with the choices he made, or how he was worried of not being able to leave if he killed him, but that wasn’t it at all. That wasn’t any of this.

Izuna could hear the rasp in the other’s voice, and he wondered if he did any permanent damage. The bruises around his neck… how would he hide those from his brother? Explain those? It brought him back to the lurid games they played, marking one another with lovebites in places where their families couldn’t find it. But this was different. This was horribly different.

I love you. How many times would Tobirama say it? How many times would he say it when it was a knife in Izuna’s heart, stabbing him endlessl?. I love you, and his side hurt. I love you, and he could taste the blood in his mouth, like ryo on his tongue. His head tilted a little, looking through his bangs at the other man, watching him, watching those lips move as he breathed those words.

I’m sorry. For not saying it sooner, or for killing him? Or, even more, bringing him back?

He raised his hand, reaching out to touch that white hair. Things felt muted from this skin, as if there was a blanket between himself and everyone else. Was it shock? The jutsu? What? Poised in the air, his hand hovered, unwilling to go any closer, but unwilling to pull away. Fingers twitched, but he didn’t touch him.

“I…” love you hate you can’t forgive you love you hate you love you His chest was tight, like fingers clawing their way out from the inside, and he trembled slightly. He wanted to rail against him as much as he wanted to embrace him.

I love…

“I want to see my brother,” he whispered. But that wasn't what he really wanted either.

Date: 2015-09-12 03:28 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
It wasn't. It wasn't what he wanted. Or rather, it was, but it wasn't what he completely wanted. He wanted to stick his fingers in that hair and comb it back and feel it, smell it, kiss the head it belonged to. He wanted to breathe in the feeling of that too-warm body against him, bigger than his own, perfect for his own. He wanted to remember what kissing him felt like.

Yes, seeing his brother was important, vital, but the look he shared to Tobirama proved that neither one of them was particularly yearning for it at the moment.

His eyes closed as he dropped his hand, the sound a slap against uneven ground. It echoed in the room, and he heard it in his head, just like those words. They hung between them like a chasm that ended nowhere. Teeth bit his bottom lip.

"Are you going to take me out of here, then?" he whispered, wanting to look around, but unable to wrench his eyes from the look in Tobirama's, that need, that want. He should have stood up, stood and gone back to prowling; it was humiliating for an Uchiha to be on their knees, even a dead one. But he couldn't help himself; he didn't want to move away.

Madara could fix this. Madara could make him whole. Madara could...do something.

But it wasn't Madara that had brought him back. It was Tobirama. Was he a tool or a regret? Was he bribe or something to fix the pain of loss? What...was he?

"Would..." He stopped, quieted, then looked away. He knew the answer, Would you have let me kill you; Tobirama wouldn't offer unless he meant it. "Why...did you let me do that?"

Date: 2015-09-12 05:23 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
What would Izuna have said if he knew the truth, if he knew that Tobirama hadn't taken anyone else after him? There would have been a sick joy, sure; the idea of him suffering after what he did would make the cursed parts of him happy as he felt that such loneliness was deserved. Why would Tobirama be allowed to live, to fall in love, to have a happy life with a good, Senju-approved woman who probably had delightful round hips great for pushing out children?

Clearly, he wouldn't. He wouldn't ever. He wasn't allowed to be anything other than Izuna's living ghost.

They were close. Sitting on this floor, they were so close; he imagined he could feel the rough fingers against his new, strange skin, drifting along the back of his hand, trying to slip up his arm and drag the Uchiha closer. He imagined what it would be like to be pulled close, against that body, to feel--

--alive.

The fact that he would actually bring Madara here surprised him. "Do you plan on keeping me prisoner forever? Or both of us? You know he would never leave without me," he challenged, but another thought struck, dark, cruel: what if Madara didn't believe it was him? What if he thought it was a trick, especially with how he looked, like some twisted puppet, a mockery of Madara's grief? Why would he believe Tobirama anyway? Why would he believe that of all the people in the world Tobirama would bring back, he would bring back his enemy's brother?

Madara would attack him. Or worse, attack them both.

Because Tobirama was right; Izuna had said that. And in some ways, he had meant it. He wanted to be with Tobirama when he died, but from old age and not his own hands. Not from betrayal.

The look. That look in those red eyes, that expression, he couldn't-- he didn't--

"Stop it," he hissed, and this time he did close the distance, launching himself at the other in an effort to try to tackle him onto his back. His eyes were wide, more afraid, not vulnerable than angry, but he didn't know how much of his own truth he was letting through.

"Stop looking at me like that!" I can't hate you when you look at me like that.

Date: 2015-09-13 06:28 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Tobirama wasn't shoving him off.

Tobirama wasn't pushing him away, wasn't yelling at him, wasn't acting like he was an enemy. He wasn't doing anything but reaching for him, pulling him closer, and the dark curtain of Izuna's hair pooled on the other's chest, on the floor as he went with the arms. As he collapsed down on him. As he fell like an angel to the hell waiting for him.

The damn Senju was just as warm as he remembered.

"You're not sorry," he whispered, glad Tobirama couldn't see the wetness in his eyes even if he could probably feel the tears against his neck, nestling in the crook there. Maybe if he told himself that a hundred thousand times, he would believe it. Maybe he could convince himself that because hate was so much easier than loving him. "You're trying to trick me. You're--"

The body beneath him was unwielding because of the armor, heavy and strong, and he was used to it; he had slept against that armored body before when he was alive. But now he hated it, hated it because he was an enemy and it was another fucking mountain between them, an obstacle, a mountain. Why was he wearing it when he had been willing to let Izuna kill him? Why save him from what he consented to?

Pulling one hand up, he struck it, hard. So hard. Enough to split his knuckles; he felt the skin separate, a bloodless wound that should have been oozing. Turning his face to the side to see the damage, his eyes widened as he watched the skin flake back together, reform, piece by piece like little scraps of parchment. When it was done a second later, it was as if it had never even been there.

"I don't..." understand. His hands pressed to the chest plate and he pulled himself up to stare in those eyes. "What am I?" he whispered, his mouth dry. "What kind of monster am I?"

If I heal so easily, does that mean...I can't die again?

Date: 2015-09-15 03:52 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Simulation. He was a simulation. Stasis. He wasn't real. He wasn't real. He wasn't real. He wasn't real.

The strange eyes stared at Tobirama, dimly feeling that hand on his face, holding him gently. I'm not real The Senju was talking still, something about powerful, about being invulnerable, but he barely heard it. I'm still dead. How could he when he watched his hand knit together as if it was nothing. This isn't real life.

His lips parted, then closed once more, until what to say. Tobirama rarely rendered him speechless, but today, today he did a fine job.

Was he proud? Was he proud of what he had done? Of what he brought back? Was he happy with Izuna like this? This simulation? The casing for a soul? This half-life? Was he ecstatic of the monster he had created?

"I'm a doll," he whispered quietly. "I'm not real. I'm just a doll for you."

And without thinking, without missing a beat, he brought his own wrist to his lips and bit down, hard, ripping the papery flesh from the tender underneath where blue veins should have ran. Spitting out the chunk of skinmuscletendons, he waited to bleed out all over the Senju, let him actually watch this time as he died.

But it was anticlimactic, the drama lost as just the skin flew back to him like a magnet, reattaching itself to his arm, neat, as if it had never been pulled apart. He stared for a moment, the sinking realization coming in that he couldn't even die. Tobirama had taken everything from him: both life and death.

He truly was his prisoner in every capacity.

Why couldn't Tobirama touch him like a prisoner, though? Why did he so affectionately hold him? How could he put those fingers in his hair? How could that hand sit on his back? They fit together too perfectly, like before, but they were miles apart. His body wasn't even warm anymore, but now it was no different than a plank of wood.

Why did he do it like this? Was it a requirement of the jutsu, or had he done it so that the past, so that his murder, couldn't be repeated? So they didn't have to go through him dying again? Why?!

"I...am immortal?" he murmured.

Date: 2015-09-15 05:26 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
...and I'll release you.

The words rang in his head and the less stable parts of him wanted to yell at him that he would like that, wouldn't he? That he would like killing him again and again, a repeat of everything he did had done, a show to go with his dinner. And how long until he brought him back again to do it all over? A game! Truly!

But... he knew it wasn't that. The logical part knew, so he shook his head and looked away, moving with him a little as Tobirama propped himself up, his chest still against the other's armor. He knew that he still hadn't answered Tobirama, and he had a feeling that it was cruel to leave him not knowing if his lover wanted to live or die yet again.

So, he waited a moment longer, spitefully.

"No," he murmured, laying his cheek against the cool, unmoveable plates. He felt tired, but in mind, not in body; his body felt like it could go forever, never running out of energy, not too much, not too little. Sleep, food, both seemed foreign wastes, things he couldn't dream of wanting. Was it part of the jutsu?

Slowly, he closed his eyes and just relaxed to him. Tobirama had offered to release him, and that... that had to mean something. That sadness, that mourning, all of it felt real, and as good of a shinobi he may be, Izuna was the better emotional manipulator. That was something they both knew well. This? This wasn't Tobirama's forte.

The fact that he had done it at all said mountains.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked quietly. "Leave me here forever? Have you thought that far ahead, dumb Senju?"

So, maybe that last parted sounded more like the old Izuna than he cared to admit.

Date: 2015-09-16 06:18 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] curseofhatred
Arms. Arms around him, and Izuna couldn't help but tense up, worried between his own reactions and what Tobirama might do. Instead, he just held him and Izuna let him, didn't fight him anymore, just let him touch him as he used to back in the days when they were still happy. Or something close to happy because sometimes it was so difficult to be happy when the world they lived in forced them to fight to the death every day.

And this was the result of all that, wasn't it? Death and obsession, loss and decay. This was what the war had brought to their feet, laying it there, bloody and broken. This was what they had gained.

How much easier would it have been if they had never fallen in love in the first place?

But it felt good to be held. He had forgotten...forgotten what affection was, togetherness, to be taken care of not because he was dying, but because he was loved. He had forgotten how good being loved was when hate had drowned him instead. Fingertips slid along the metal of the armor, slowly looking at nicks and scratches before he traced a little fan against it, as if he could burn it into the chestplate.

"I don't want to stay here," he murmured quietly. "I want to feel the sun and smell the breeze. I want to remember what it's like being alive." But he wasn't alive, was he? He was some reanimated fake, some pretend thing. He sighed, feeling that the breath so useless, pointless, before he closed his eyes.

He could use genjutsu..convince him...

His brother... He almost laughed. Madara...Madara wouldn't take well to this. "Madara will hate you for this," he whispered softly. "He is going to think you're mocking him with me, that you're desecrating me. He might try to destroy us both."

But...but he needed to see Madara. He needed to see him and make sure he was okay, alive, happy. That's all he ever wanted for his brother. He pushed off the armor a little so he could look him in the other's face. "Would you leave two Uchihas alone with you? Don't you want to bring your brother so the sides are even at least?"

Does Hashirama know what you've done?

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-20 04:31 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-22 01:17 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-25 03:52 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-26 06:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-27 11:09 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-28 01:07 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-28 02:52 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-28 04:13 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-29 10:30 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-09-30 04:50 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-10-01 09:29 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-10-02 01:49 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-10-02 04:12 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-10-03 04:28 pm (UTC) - Expand

Before you say it, I'm rude.

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-10-04 06:18 pm (UTC) - Expand

Kick them out!

From: [personal profile] curseofhatred - Date: 2015-10-05 03:20 pm (UTC) - Expand

Profile

El's Musebox

September 2015

S M T W T F S
  12345
6 789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930   

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 12th, 2025 06:48 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios