Raising up your dead...

[tobirama]

Characters: Izuna curseofhatred & Tobirama 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.

Comments

[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..."

[tobirama]

Izuna’s last words had haunted him throughout the years. The betrayal he’d felt towards his lover had been apparent in his gaze and in the warning he’d uttered to his brother not to trust the Senju. The Senju…or one particular Senju?

Tobirama had fully intended on making things up to Izuna after he’d recovered. What he hadn’t expected was for Madara to coldly inform him that fateful day about how his brother had died. Killing Izuna had never been his plan, he’d never wanted that!

But that was in the days when his hiraishin was still new and relatively untested. He’d thought he had centered on his marked kunai but instead, his jutsu had locked on the closer seal which happened to be the one he’d placed on his lover’s body without him even realizing it.

He’d originally done it so that if he needed to, he could go to Izuna’s side in a time of crisis. Hashirama and certain members of his own clan like Touka all bore that hiraishin seal. Things had gone terrible awry and instead of scoring his lover lightly enough to cause him to retreat from the heat of battle before someone did end up hurting him; instead he’d ended up killing Izuna by accident. That guilt had eaten away at him like a black rot until the idea of righting the wrongs he’d made had consumed him.

Now…faced with his resurrected lover and the look of anger and hate on his face…the accusation in those horribly wrong eyes and it was everything he’d been expecting and more. After all, Izuna was an Uchiha and they never coped with perceived betrayal well, especially the kind which Tobirama had unwittingly wrought upon him.

That single accusatory word was like a razor sharp flail cutting him straight to the soul and try though he might to keep his composure, the pain and grief that was threatening to overwhelm him shown plainly on that sharply featured face. There were subtle signs that while for Izuna it might have been nothing but a blink in time but for the real world, years had passed. Tobirama had always been given to looking grim and dire but there was a new hardness to the set of his mouth that hadn’t been there before and those conflicted looking red eyes were beginning to be flanked by the fine lines which might one day grow into crow’s feet. He’d matured and grown even leaner and some would definitely say harder over the years and it showed in both his face and the whipcord thinness of his body.

“Izuna, wait. Let me explain, please.” Placation wasn’t something he’d normally see out of Tobirama but that was exactly what the Senju was doing as he held out his hands in a supplicating gesture.

[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?"

[tobirama]

“No tale, just the truth.” Those desperate eyes watched Izuna as the resurrected ninja sat up in a tangle of long black hair. Tobirama could still recall what it had felt like to bury himself in that heavy curtain of hair as it lay unbound and spread across their sweat-slicked bodies as they’d cooled down after a bout of lovemaking. Sometimes it had smelled like the faint sandalwood shampoo the other man had favored, other times it had stunk of sweat, smoke and blood but having lost it once, Tobirama would take any iteration he could get these days.

Izuna’s barbs flew true and dug in deep till the Senju actually flinched beneath that level of angry venom. Celebrate his death?! He’d mourned him as much as he’d ever mourned his brothers. Even more so than he’d mourned his own father and despite the fact that years had passed, that wound still hadn’t healed over because Tobirama never let it. Instead he’d picked at it incessantly with his continued obsession with bringing Izuna back and righting the wrongs he’d made.

“I had no idea you’d died! I didn’t realize how badly you’d been wounded. My jutsu went awry. I was just trying to take you out of the battle and then Madara retreated with you and the next time we heard from him he told me you’d died. I had no idea, Izuna!” Emotion choked him and left his voice raw and scratchy. If he’d been any other man perhaps he would have tearfully confessed everything because those tears burned on the inside but Tobirama wasn’t that man. He’d never been and even in this he found his own ability to articulate his feelings was his own downfall.

He took a few hesitant steps forward as though to try and help the Uchiha. “Things are different, there’s so much you need to be caught up on. Madara and Hashirama did it. They found a way of reaching peace and they built this whole damned village of theirs.” He had the feeling his was babbling but couldn’t seem to stop himself. Only the look of horror that filled the shorter man’s face when he finally caught sight of his reflection in the metal bowl stopped him because Tobirama wasn’t a fool. He knew how shocking the edo tensei form could be if you weren’t prepared for it. The blackened sclera and papery skin of the façade which was not quite like flesh but something else…something different.

“I brought you back, I had to.” Such simplistic words that covered the better part of a decade worth of obsession and skittering madness at the clawing at the back of his skull and his thoughts…those words couldn’t even adequately convey everything. Could it be so simple? Could it be distilled down into such a pure statement of truth? “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I—I—“ I loved you. How could three simple words be so hard to spit out even after everything?

[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.”

[tobirama]

“I didn’t know, I swear to you, I didn’t realize you’d been hurt that bad.” They had traded small wounds back and forth for the better part of two years in an attempt to keep up their charade. Izuna had known the risks just like Tobirama had but that day his untested jutsu had gone afoul and struck truer than he’d ever meant to.

“I love you, I had to bring you back and make right what I took from you and your damned brother.” Love…not loved. Present…not past tense. Even now with Izuna angry and spitting vitriol as nasty as any katon jutsu he’d ever tossed his way, the albino ninja still loved him. Too bad it had taken the other’s death and unnatural resurrection to get him to utter the words he should have said years ago.

“Madara knows nothing about this. No one does. I couldn’t…I couldn’t get his hopes up only to fail. He misses you so much, Izuna.” The Uchiha had tried to overcome the loss of his brother and had tried to put aside the hatred of a lifetime for Hashirama’s sake and the sake of the village they’d built together. But Tobirama could see the gathering shadows in Madara’s eyes every time the Uchiha sided with Konoha.

“I know you don’t want to believe me but Senju and Uchiha have found a way to coexist together. We’ve built a village together and so many clans have joined us. There’s no more petty squabbling and kids having to kill one another.” Izuna would find no sharp items or instruments because Tobirama wasn’t a fool. He hadn’t know how the Uchiha would react to being dragged back to the world of the living but he wasn’t going to make it easy for him to kill him if he was in a homicidal mood.

“This is my where I work on my experimental jutsu. It’s a safe place.” A safe place for everyone in case he couldn’t control Izuna and his often unpredictable temperament. If the Uchiha managed to kill him, there would be no way for him to get out of this sealed and locked stone vault. Only Tobirama had the key because only he could perform the jutsu required to teleport in and out of the lab. Perhaps Hashirama might eventually be able to tunnel his way in but even his brother didn’t know the exact location of Tobirama’s labs and he’d left explicit instructions in his home to not seek him out of he happened to disappear.

The Senju stood there while his former lover prowled around the lab. Scrolls were stacked up and neatly organized because Tobirama was a neat and methodical sort of man but he made no move to interfere while Izuna wandered around. It was curious that almost in support of his tale, instead of the all too familiar Senju family crest on his happuri faceguard, instead Tobirama now bore the symbol of Konoha with it's swirled leaf design. Not that Izuna would recognize it or know what it meant or it's significance.

[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?"

[tobirama]

It cost him so much more than Izuna could ever realize to utter those words. Admitting such things, admitting that sort of vulnerability even to the man who’d been his lover was hard for someone like Tobirama. He tried to control his emotions, tried to ice over his heart but somehow, this sneaky little Uchiha had managed to chisel his way inside and even his death hadn’t been able to excise him from his heart.

Tobirama didn’t regret things very often. To his mind, it was a pointless sentiment but he’d regretted not saying those words out loud to Izuna just once when he’d been alive. He’d regretted the fact his lover had gone to the grave never knowing the true extent of feelings he had for him mainly because he’d been too much of a coward to say it out loud.

He wasn’t surprised Izuna didn’t say or even acknowledge those words. After all, to his mind he was just his murderer, right? The Senju had spent more time than he wanted to admit trying to envision what Izuna’s last days had been like. How he’d felt knowing he was dying at the hand of his own lover…that Tobirama had known he was dying and never came to him.

Those were the types of thoughts that kept him up at night but made for effective evenings when he’d been trying to perfect his Edo Tensei jutsu.

“I don’t hate your brother, I never have.” Disliked him immensely, yes. But hate required too much of you and gave the other person a permanent home in your thoughts. “Hate is more your clan’s purview than mine. But I did take you from him and I dislike owing debts. More importantly, I’ve seen the way he looks and knew it was only a matter of time till he lost himself in the curse that rots you Uchiha from the inside out. If I could restore you to him then perhaps he won’t lose himself to that inner darkness. Konoha won’t lose one of its founding members and he and Hashirama’s dream can continue to flourish.”

Their dream…not his. It had never been his but for the love of his brother and his clan, he’d done his best to support it. If it meant Senju children and other children didn’t have to go out to die at the hands of adults with poor training and no hope of survival then he’d do anything he could to see to it that Konoha made it.

Greedily, he drank in the sight of Izuna’s way of moving. It was both graceful and deadly in its perfect economical smoothness. He prowled like some big hunting cat from distant lands he’d only read about in his books.

Finally, finally his restless prowling around the lab brought the Uchiha close and Tobirama stood his ground even though a part of him would like nothing more than to reach out and drag him into his arms. But he knew such an act would only drive Izuna back again like some skittish creature. His composure very nearly broke when that fine fingered hand rose to point at the etched in symbol gracing his face guard. In truth, most days he didn’t even think about it or the fact he’d so readily cast aside his clan symbol to support Hashirama’s dreams.

“That’s the symbol of our village. Konoha. The hidden village in the leaves,” Tobirama’s palms itched with the urge to reach out and touch Izuna’s hand and to control the urge, he ended up curling them into the material of his pants instead.

[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?”

[tobirama]

Thankfully, he happened to catch the flash of hurt that flickered quickly across Izuna’s face. The Senju wasn’t a fool, he realized almost immediately how badly his words could be taken so he was prepared somewhat for the fury and venom that dripped from the shorter man’s voice.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s not like that.” Was it like that? He’d tried to convince himself it was but deep down; even Tobirama knew that to be total bullshit. He knew this wasn’t about Madara…not really. This was all about his own selfish desires. He had wanted to see Izuna again…wanted to have him back in his life. So he’d gone against the very natural order of the universe to see him again.

Against all common sense, all morality and his own better judgment he’d still brought him back. Senju Tobirama wasn’t a selfish man by nature but this man had always managed to make him want more than he was allowed—more than was safe to want.

“Yes, I brought you back for your brother’s own sanity but that wasn’t everything. I had to see you again even if all I could have was your anger and venom towards me.” He said softly, that tremor of emotion making his voice waver ever so slightly.

His fingers twisted and clenched in the material of his pants but Izuna’s challenging words proved to be too much. Afraid of him?! Never…afraid of what he might do for him...well that was a whole different matter. One pale hand finally shot out and caught the Uchiha’s arm and dragged his hand up to press against the hollow of his throat where above his chest plate. That vulnerable spot where armor didn’t cover and where it would be so easy for the Uchiha to act on his homicidal urges if that was what he desired.

“I’m not afraid of you, Izuna. And if you feel like you have to kill me to make up for what I did, then do so.” Theoretically, Tobirama knew if he died then his resurrection would fall apart to nothing but dust and ash once more without his chakra to sustain it. But Izuna didn’t know that and Tobirama wasn’t going to tell him. Let him take his revenge if that was what he needed. “Go ahead, I won’t stop you.” Even in this, baring his throat to a potential enemy, the pulse that beat beneath that pale skin was strong and steady because he apparently had ice water flowing through his veins. Or maybe he truly would accept dying at Izuna’s hands without protest or a fight. Who could tell for certain?

[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.

[tobirama]

Only a suicidal fool would willingly bare his throat to an insane Uchiha. But Tobirama had made peace with the idea that Izuna might not be happy until he’d taken from him the very thing he’d stolen from the Uchiha—his life. And it was a price he was willing to pay.

The violent way the shorter man started to squeeze his throat immediately closed off his windpipe and made it impossible for Tobirama to draw in any real breath. His instincts were screaming at him to strike out…to knock those hands away and fight for his life. Instead, he ignored his own survival instincts and stood there as passively as he could as Izuna’s grip tightened further.

A somber sort of resignation settled on the Senju’s face and his expression grew more and grimmer as Izuna railed at him viciously. Each comment was like a hot flail digging pieces of his very soul out. Tobirama wanted to argue he back but he couldn’t have formed words if he’d wanted to. That pale face had gone red as his body desperately tried to draw in any oxygen it could but it was all but impossible with that punishing grip around his throat closing off his windpipe.

His arms felt as though they weighed a ton but Tobirama managed to move the hand which had been holding on limply to Izuna’s wrist still to move up shakily so that he could reach out to touch that beloved face on final time. Something suspiciously close to tears gleamed wetly in the albino’s ruddy colored red eyes and Izuna would be able to feel the flinch that ran through him as he coldly told his former lover about how he’d spent over a week dying by Tobirama’s hand. Izuna was one of the few people who probably knew the Senju well enough to read the subtle signs of grief and regret in the man’s otherwise impassive face.

He hadn’t known…if he’d known he would have gone to him in an instant but Izuna had no interest in hearing those excuses and honestly, what was the point. Would his regret unmake the mistakes of the past? Would it bring his lover back to life?

His vision had begun to grow gray and dark around the edges as a weak sort of lassitude stole through Tobirama. It felt as though his knees were turning to water and that they couldn’t support his own weight any more.

Finally…finally that chokehold on his throat was loosening and even as Izuna sank down to the ground, the coughing and weakened Senju found himself following suit. Shaky hands kept him upright but even that was nearly too much for him. Tobirama had to take a few precious moments to greedily suck in air before he could speak.

“I…love you. Should have…told…you it…before.” His throat was absolutely killing him and each word felt like sandpaper dragging across his raw larynx. He’d have a lurid ring of fingerprint shaped marks around his throat thanks to Izuna’s grip. “I should have…told you. I’m sorry.”

[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.

[tobirama]

He was not as arrogant or foolish as to think just because Izuna hadn’t choked the life out of him didn’t mean the unbalanced Uchiha wouldn’t strike out with deadly force if pushed too far.

So as much as Tobirama wanted to reach out for his former lover and pull that eerie husk given false life close, he kept his hands to himself once they’d reached an uneasy stalemate kneeling there on the rough hewn rock floor. The unevenness of it dug painfully into his knees and aggravated the right knee especially which every year seemed to grow stiffer and cantankerous.

But compared to the pain in his throat, such minimal discomforts were trivial at best. The albino ninja was worried Izuna might have done some lasting damage but it would have to remain to be seen. He wasn’t going to risk anyone else coming into his hidden lab because even in this, Tobirama’s deep set need for paranoid secrecy ran deep. That…and deep down he knew if the truth came out about what he’d been doing down here. If Hashirama discovered what sort of dark and amoral things he’d been doing that his brother would shut him down.

Worse yet, he would look at him with such disappointment in his eyes and that was more than he thought he could bear. It didn’t matter that the lives sacrificed had been enemies of Konoha. For a man like Hashirama, such things were unconscionable. Tobirama had always been the more ruthless of the two…the one willing to dirty his hands in shadowy business and dirty dealings to accomplish the mission.

Those shadow filled red eyes finally rose to look up at Izuna when he sensed the other man reaching to touch his hair only to stop halfway. The Senju wanted nothing more than to lean his head up into that outstretched hand like an affectionate cat like he’d done countless times over the scant few years they’d had together. Just as Tobirama had been fascinated by the long and sleek blackness of the Uchiha’s hair so too had his colorless hair intrigued the other man and Izuna had taken especial pleasure in stroking or petting it.

But now, he couldn’t trust the Uchiha not to curl his fingers in it only to try and rip it from the turf of his scalp. Or perhaps Tobirama simply didn’t think such presumptions would be appreciated. They were standing on the razor-sharp edge of a precipice where even the slightest unbalancing of power could send them screaming over the edge into destructive madness.

“If that’s what you want.” He said softly, tone colorless and forcibly bland. Tobirama had always had a hell of a poker face and he'd gotten better at masking his feelings in the past few years but no matter how good his control, those damned eyes gave him away. They looked at Izuna with all the miserable hunger of a starving child eager to reach out and take what sweet morsel had been placed in front of them. Thankfully, he had more self-control than a ravenous child but the ache and need were there gnawing at him incessantly all the same.

[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?"

[tobirama]

He’d become well acquainted with the pain of longing and yearning for something forever denied to you. No one else had ever stirred Tobirama like Izuna had and he hadn’t even had the solace of finding a new lover to help bury his memories of the dead Uchiha.

How could he crave another human being when he knew his one perfect match; the person who completed him in every perfect way was dead? Even their bodies seemed crafted to fit seamlessly together. Anyone else seemed like a poor fit and Senju Tobirama was a man who craved perfection. No one else could stimulate him mentally or give him the thrill of a challenge quite like Uchiha Izuna ever had.

And now here he was restored to him yet so distant and seemingly untouchable thanks to the confused resentment and anger he was radiating. Tobirama wanted nothing more than to reach out for him but the audible smack of that hand falling away was like hollow peal of a death bell ringing.

Deep down he knew his next words would only drive the wedge between them further and make the impassable distance between them all the more unbearable.

“I can’t.” He couldn’t risk Izuna getting out into Konoha uncontained. “Everyone thinks you’re dead and for now its better that way. I’ll…I’ll bring Madara here.” The idea of sharing this immensely private place of his with Madara was unpleasant to say the least. But for Izuna’s sake he would let even his worst enemy into his more private of spaces.

The question shouldn’t have been unexpected yet Tobirama still found himself surprised to hear it. They continued to kneel there on the cold stone ground with just a handful of space between them. All it would take was one of them reaching out to touch the other and the seemingly impenetrable distance between them would fall away to nothing.

“You’re the one who always said only you were allowed to kill me.” It should have been a jest, a comment made in the spirit of light hearted humor Izuna had always meant for it to be but the Senju sounded deadly serious as he looked at the man somberly.

[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.

[tobirama]

Senju Tobirama had always strived to do the best he could for his clan. He’d followed his father’s orders even when he didn’t agree with them and had done the same for his brother once Hashirama became the clan head. In many ways he was the perfect soldier but when it came to settling down and accepting a woman who might help strengthen Konoha’s political ties, he was nothing but a disappointment.

Hashirama despaired of his brother but not just because his refusals to even consider a political match of some kind but because he wanted his brother to have some measure of peace and happiness. But thanks to the fact he and Izuna had kept their own relationship so tightly hidden, Hashirama simply accepted the fact that perhaps his baby brother was one of those people who didn’t crave companionship or relationships. He certainly seemed happier with his books and his intellectual pursuits than he did dealing with the fairer sex so finally he’d just let the subject drop.

But deep down, Tobirama knew Hashirama worried about him and his future. Gods only knew what he would say if he found out about this but that was a concern for later. He had far more pressing matters to worry about right now.

“You know it’s not like that. I don’t want to keep you in a cage, Izuna but until I can measure how Madara or my brother will react to this then it’s safer for you to remain here.” The Uchiha had a valid point and he knew it. Once Madara learned Izuna had been brought back…who could predict what the man would do. He’d always been obsessively protective of his brother and he doubted death had changed that much.

Tobirama had never allowed himself to dream of a future for him and Izuna. He was a pragmatic man and had known the chance of either of them living to be old men was slim to none. Even if his lover had lived to see Konoha’s founding, there was still a good chance they’d still die in the line of duty. But a part of him had always hoped that perhaps Hashirama and Madara could bring about their peace and perhaps he and his lover might have one day gotten the opportunity to share their lives together rather than a series of stolen moments.

But Izuna had died at his hand and that dream had died with him.

Now the Uchiha was back but more unstable than ever. He looked like a wild-eyed madman as when he suddenly surged forward to tackle Tobirama. The Senju’s eyes widened in surprise but he made no move to fight the other man off. If anything, that sudden unexpected contact seemed to break his resolve because instead of trying to push Izuna away, Tobirama was reaching for him, desperately trying to pull him closer heedless of the dangers.

“I can’t, I’m sorry.” I wanted to see you for so long and now you’re here in front of me. It’s what he wanted to say but the words seemed to choke off in his throat.

[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?

[tobirama]

He’d expected Izuna to struggle or fight against his desperate attempt at drawing the resurrected Uchiha into his arms. Instead, he just sort of sagged unexpected into his arms and the albino ninja found himself pinned under the shorter man’s dead weight.

The armor Izuna currently hated protected him somewhat but Tobirama knew it was hardly an idea position for either of them to be in. The armor plating bit into his back painfully but it was slightly better than kneeling on that hard stone floor. Or perhaps it was the fact that—finally—Izuna was close enough to touch and grab onto. Tobirama’s arms closed around the Uchiha gently, those long-fingered hands falling into the familiar pattern of holding him close. One cupped the back of that dark head and threaded his fingers through those dark strands of hair and the other pressed against the small of his back.

“What reason would I have to trick you, Izuna?” Can’t you see how much I missed you?! Was what he wanted to demand but he kept that accusation to himself and buried his nose into that tangled mane of black hair. The texture of Izuna’s artificial flesh against his own was strange and a little unsettling. There was no warmth radiating from his slightly papery feeling skin and it just served to remind him all over again that this was just false life given to an inanimate form. No matter how far he’d come with his jutsu, he still couldn’t bring Izuna back.

Not with flesh and blood…not to restore him to true life.

The limitations of his jutsu were frustrating but as Izuna soon learned, it wasn’t without its advantages either. He felt the blow of his hand hitting his armored chest hard enough that it knocked the wind from his lungs.

He’d crafted the Edo Tensei with the utmost care so unlike Izuna, Tobirama was not surprised by the way that wounded hand seemed to knit back together seamlessly though he could understand why it might be shocking or even horrifying to someone who wasn’t expecting it.

Sure enough, the horror was plain to be seen in Izuna’s eyes and it hurt more than he’d been expecting to see it there in those eerily colored eyes. “The jutsu is designed to bring you back from your point of death. It’s not true life but merely a simulation of it.”

Tobirama knew he could have lied, could have tried to spin the truth to make it more palpable for Izuna but he opted instead of offer it wholly and unvarnished in hopes his former lover would see it for what it was. He moved the hand that had been cupping the back of the dark-haired man’s head slightly so he could cup his cheek and jaw tenderly and bring that eerie gaze back to meet his.

“You’re in a sort of stasis and any damage the body sustains will be absorbed automatically so that the jutsu can maintain the stasis. In a lot of ways you’re more powerful and invulnerable in this form than you ever were when you were alive.” He knew he shouldn’t be telling him this. It could give Izuna all manner of ideas but Tobirama had made a silent promise to himself that he would be forthright with the other man from here on out. No more lies, no more hiding. Just the truth no matter what it might cost him.

[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.

[tobirama]

Deep down, he knew Izuna wasn’t going to react well to the truth. It gathered like the breathless, dangerous calm right before a storm and sure enough when the Uchiha was finally shaken out of his stunned silence he reacted violently and with a viciousness which was painful to behold.

Instead of turning his teeth and fingers to tearing out Tobirama’s throat he instead savaged his wrist like some feral creature. He could hear the muscles and tendons give way, see the way that papery skin ripped away like the finest washi being torn asunder. It was horrible to regard especially considering no blood flowed from the wound and that savaged skin just seemed to flake back into place with stomach-churning serenity.

“You’re not a doll, Izuna. But this is the best I’ve been able to do. I’ve been trying to perfect this for years and this is the best I can manage, I’m sorry.” The wealth of sorrow and self-recrimination in the Senju’s words was unmistakable. He truly did regret the fact that even his own agile and genius intellect couldn’t fully restore his lover to life.

It didn’t matter that this jutsu was a wondrous achievement in its own horrible right. He’d found a way of cheating death itself albeit only in a limited fashion. Tobirama wasn’t a spiritual man but even he knew he was gambling with powers beyond his control by creating this particular jutsu. When he passed onto the next life, he fully expected to have to pay for the sins he’d done in this life and perhaps this beautiful and pervasive jutsu of his was his worst sin of all. It sought to upset the natural balance of life and death but even knowing that it didn’t stop him from perfecting his awful art and technique.

Restoring Izuna to life was worth the risk of his immortal soul and having to face a thousand years in hell.

“For as long as the jutsu is active.” Perhaps sensing that his continued touch only confused the Uchiha or made him all the more conflicted, Tobirama’s hands slowly drifted away from Izuna’s body to lie passively at his side. He slowly moved to prop himself up on his elbows in a half-reclining position.

“I can dismiss it if you want me to. I don’t want you to feel as though you’re some toy to be animated for my personal amusement, Izuna. Just say the word and I’ll release you.” It was the absolute last thing he wanted to do and his heart ached just thinking about it. But Tobirama’s moral compass was not so broken that it would allow him to force this false-life upon the Uchiha if he truly found it so horrible and unsavory.

[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.

[tobirama]

Tobirama had waited years to be reunited with his lover, he was willing to wait a few minutes while Izuna decided if this half existence he’d forced upon him was too unbearable or unwanted. He knew it wasn’t a perfect solution but he hadn’t been able to figure out how to bring Izuna back any other way and Tobirama had the sinking feeling this was as good as it was going to get.

Those shadow-filled and somber red eyes watched the Uchiha silently as he wrest with his own tenuous existential crisis. But finally hearing that softly uttered no, the relief that flashed through the albino ninja’s eyes was unmistakable. He’d been quietly dreading the idea that Izuna would demand he release him back to the nothingness of the Pure Land.

He carefully sat up despite the weight of the Uchiha curled up against his chest mainly because the discomfort of his armor digging into his lower back was becoming too much. Tobirama gingerly moved to wrap his arms around the dark-haired man as though uncertain of his welcome. Izuna was far too mercurial and unpredictable right now to predict how he’d react to anything so the Senju was trying to not make any sudden movements.

A part of him longed to draw Izuna back into his arms without the bulky and uncomfortable armor in place. He wanted to curl up with him in bed once more on one of those rare lazy afternoons where they could forget about their responsibilities towards their respective clans and the ongoing war. For those few stolen hours they’d been allowed to simply be Tobirama and Izuna; just two simple men without the weight of their clan names resting on their shoulders.

It wasn’t even the sex that he missed though he’d certainly enjoyed that was well. It was the quiet intimacy they shared and the soft confessions they’d made in a kindred spirit who could understand the troubles the other man faced. The fear of losing their brothers, the weight of being second in command and the overwhelming pressure that position brought. For two men born on the wrong side of the war, they’d been perfectly matched in so many ways.

That was what he missed; that connection he’d felt to this man. A connection he’d never found in a single other soul.

“I told you, it’s safer if you remain here. The last thing anyone needs is to see the ghost of Uchiha Izuna wandering around Konoha. I will bring your brother here and the two of you can talk. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there.” No, he wasn’t very good at emotional manipulation or emotions in general Tobirama tended to suppress his feelings until he presented the near perfect façade of cold remoteness but Izuna knew him better than that. He’d seen the Senju at his most vulnerable and his most passionate and he knew the truth depth of the heart that existed beneath that coldly logical and pragmatic mind.

[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?