Raising up your dead...
Sep. 7th, 2015 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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el_museboxCharacters: 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.
curseofhatred & Tobirama tobiramaVerse: 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.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-02 03:43 am (UTC)former?best friend.He’d had the day from hell already so really, this was just about the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. The Hokage had taken Madara’s defection hard because he’d never believed his friend would turn his back on their dream. The village they’d poured their blood, sweat and lives into. It was their home, their dream.
But instead of being allowed to drink the bottle of sake he’d snuck into his office in peace, he instead found himself with a brother who was obviously ensnared in some Sharingan illusion and a not so dead Uchiha brother.
“Anija, please, don’t let him die.” Tobirama pleaded, still trapped in the illusion where he held a bleeding and dying Izuna in his arms.
“I’m afraid that’s not an option. Not until I have some answers.” Hashirama said, face hardening ever so slightly and when Izuna moved to try and dive out the window the Hokage made a few hand seals and the wooden frame suddenly transformed as wooden bars criss-crossed in a lattice across the window to bar the Uchiha’s way.
“We can handle this like civilized people and you can tell me what the hell is going on or I will truss you up and let Tobirama give me some answers.” A bleak look filled the brunette’s dark eyes as he studied Izuna and his curious appearance without ever actually looking directly into his eyes. At first he’d thought the Uchiha to be a living, breathing man but now he wasn’t so sure about it. The cracked and papery skin was a dead giveaway as was the darkened sclera he’d seen in passing.
The older Senju made the necessary seals to break the genjutsu cast on his brother. “Kai.” Izuna had seen Senju Hashirama fight toe to toe with his beloved elder brother countless times over the years butg had never had that terrifyingly powerful chakra directed at him. It was strong enough to send a lesser shinobi to their knees and cut through the illusion cast upon Tobirama readily enough.
With an audible gasp, the albino ninja snapped back to reality and the instantaneous look of shocked disbelief and outrage that flashed across his face was painful to behold. Baleful red eyes snapped to Izuna but like his brother, he knew better than to look his former lover directly in the eye.
“You bastard,” Tobirama said and for a moment he didn’t even seem to register the fact that Hashirama was standing there. But then the realization of just where he was set in and he felt an icy hand wrap around his heart. “Anija—I—“
“I’d like some answers, Tobirama. What is Uchiha Izuna doing standing in my office.”
no subject
Date: 2015-10-02 04:12 am (UTC)If he had just told Tobirama he would stay and accepted his offer...
Feeling his genjustu being shattered snapped his chakra off, and he felt it coming back to him. Hashirama's power was strong, deep, and had he been anyone else (or even been alive), Izuna might have been afraid. But no, no, Tobirama was the one that could kill him without any effort at all, and Tobirama was the one hurt most by everything. His greatest ally was his greatest threat.
Izuna watched the look on the other's face, before turning his own away, arms crossed over his chest. Betrayal burned, and he wondered if this somehow made them even.
"I told him how you found and captured me," Izuna intersected, still not looking at Tobirama. Hinting. Trying to show him the best way he could that he could still try to protect him.
"Odd that you would interrogate you ally and not the brother of this village's enemy." Stop going after the idiot albino and come at me, instead!
no subject
Date: 2015-10-02 07:32 pm (UTC)It helped sooth his wounded ego at having been placed under a genjutsu once again by the other man and soothed the sense of betrayal he’d experienced at the other man’s hands.
But there was a difference between not telling Hashirama everything he was up to and outright lying to his brother’s face and he didn’t know if he was ready to do that just yet. There was still some moral ground even he wouldn’t step over.
“That’s where I’m a little unclear. If Tobirama had found you alive and in Konoha then he would have told me immediately.” Hashirama disagreed solemnly. “He’s always been scrupulous about those kinds of things.”
Those words…that implicit trust Hashirama had in him immediately sent a shaft of agonized guilt through Tobirama. How could he have even considered lying to his brother when he trusted him so completely? It made him feel like he was lower than pond scum and the guilt shown on the younger Senju’s face.
“Anija—“
“I'm not interrogating him, I'm simply trying to get to the bottom of all of this. Madara isn’t…he’s just confused. I am still hopeful this can all be resolved and he’ll come back so it’s a little bit hasty to be labeling your brother as an enemy of Konoha just yet.” The Hokage continued, accidentally talking over his brother in the process. How the man could still have faith in Madara after everything was beyond Tobirama. His loyalty to the Uchiha stepped into the realm of naïve optimism as far as he was concerned. “But none of this explains how you’re here, Izuna. You were dead as far as I know. Unless Madara was lying to me all these years about your death…”
“I bought him back.” The words burst from Tobirama before he could even think to edit himself. Hashirama glanced over at him sharply, the solemnity in his face temporarily replaced by confusion.
“What do you mean, “you brought him back”, Tobirama?”
“I created a new jutsu which summons the dead and provides them with a corporeal form and I brought Izuna back that way. I didn’t find him, I made him.”
no subject
Date: 2015-10-03 04:28 pm (UTC)Here he was, giving Tobirama an out, and he didn't take it. He told the truth, he shamed himself in front of his brother, and Izuna couldn't help but look away. He didn't want to watch that. That was a private affair between the two brothers, and he felt like an unwelcomed fly on the wall. Regardless of the fact that this was about him, about his entire existence, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe he should be anywhere else at the moment.
"'Created me'?"Izuna muttered, annoyed by phrasing. "Your ego makes you sound like a god; stop that. You designed a jutsu that tried to right the wrong you did so long ago. That is more accurate."
And even Izuna's phrasing was kinder than it should have been. It wasn't broke the laws of nature, cheated death, or anything of the sort; no, this was a jutsu to fix a mistake. This was something right, something righteous, something proper. Surely, they had to understand that.
Maybe Hashirama wouldn't let Tobirama send him back. Maybe he would recognize the fact that he was person, and to kill him again would be cruel. Maybe this was the best choice.
Or maybe Hashirama would order it because he was an abomination of life, of existence, laughter in the face of the gods.
He couldn't die like this. He couldn't.
"It doesn't matter how--" It did, of course; it certainly did, but he wasn't about to say as much. "--but I'm here now. I'm alive--" sort of "--and you know that if my brother finds out that you knew about this and didn't tell him, that if you killed me again, there would never be any hope of him coming back. He would never forgive you."
Tobirama was a rock, immovable by water, but maybe Hashirama might be a better option. Or rather, his only option.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-04 05:13 am (UTC)“You…created a jutsu that resurrects the dead?” Hashirama repeated slowly as though he couldn’t quite believe his own ears.
Tobirama looked decidedly uncomfortable and fought the urge to look away.
“That’s correct, I—“ And then Izuna was interrupting with his rather bitchy comments and the albino ninja slanted a rather irritated look his way. “I created the jutsu and brought Izuna back because I’d hoped it might give Madara a reason to stay in the village. I had no idea he was going to defect when he did.” If he had…would he have ever brought Izuna back? He didn’t know and that scared him.
“Tobirama…you can’t just go screwing around with the balance of life and death like that! I know the two of you have a history and all but going around resurrecting your dead …” The Hokage trailed off suddenly but the damage had been done. Tobirama looked wary now as uncertainty curled through him in a sickening wave.
If Izuna had thought it was uncomfortable before, he was about to learn the true meaning of the word.
“You knew?” The albino ninja asked softly. “You knew about us the whole time?”
“Not the whole time but come off it, I’m not an idiot. You disappeared for hours or even a day at a time and you didn’t think I’d be worried? Once I figured out what you two were up to…” Now Hashirama was the one who looked uncomfortable. And Izuna didn’t make things any less uncomfortable with his little speech either. The Hokage looked stricken in the face of those manipulative words but Tobirama was the one who spoke up sharply and coldly.
“Izuna! It’s bad enough you manipulated me but you’re not going to manipulate my brother like that. This was a mistake, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you back.” A grimly determined light entered those red eyes. He started to form the seals necessary to release the technique.
Before you say it, I'm rude.
Date: 2015-10-04 06:18 pm (UTC)That...that wasn't how he was brought up. Was that weakness or strength the other showed? His heart would get him killed someday, but--
Hashirama hadn't minded. Madara would have killed Tobirama, probably would have tried to get Izuna to do it himself, but Hashirama had allowed it. They could have stayed together, grown together, had a home and been content in a village like this. It was hope. It was beautiful hope and his eyes widened as he started to smile because they had been accepted if only by the silence of omission.
And it was ruined all by Tobirama's next words.
The smile crumbled away in slow-motion, and the hurt that passed in his eyes was unavoidable. I shouldn't have brought you back. He might as well have said I shouldn't have tried to save you. I shouldn't have told you I loved you. You are the mistake. It all sounded the same to him, all mashed up into the sort of regret and remorse.
Tobirama had never intended on keeping him around.
"I was just an experiment to you," he hissed, reaching over to try to grab his hands, to stop it. I don't want to die again! I don't want to go back! Don't send me back! Tobirama, PLEASE! "To see if you could."
He shook his head, his hair shaking as he looked up at him, at his eyes, not bothering with genjutsus because there wouldn't be a point with Hashirama here; the second he could cast it, it would just be broken. "You would kill me a second time? Was once not enough for you? Your brother knew and he didn't try to stop us; was that because he knew you would do it well enough all on your own?"
His odd eyes narrowed, nothing in them but hurt and betrayal and shame; that he would do this in front of Hashirama made him feel more inconsequential, more vulnerable, shamed. They would probably laugh after he was gone, the damn Senju, and he could feel that old mixture of lovehate inside of him, twisted and gnarled like ancient trees. And his brother would never know. His brother would never know that for a few precious moments, he had been alive again. His brother would be blissfully ignorant, and maybe that was horrible and the best thing at the same time: then Madara wouldn't have to beholden to the Senju who could rip him away from Madara at any minute.
Sacrificing himself for his brother... it wouldn't be the first time.
He backed away, looking down at his feet. "Do it. I won't be the tool, the hostage, the bargaining chip against my brother like you want me to be. I would gladly die for him." He looked up, his hands curled tight. "Just like you enjoy killing me for yours."
no subject
Date: 2015-10-05 01:03 am (UTC)“You knew…” Tobirama repeated utterly mystified.
“Yes, I knew. And I wanted you two to be happy. For us to reach peace with the Uchiha so that the two of you would have that opportunity.” For years, he’d been so afraid Hashirama would look at him with disapproval or anger…or worse yet with disappointment in his eyes. But no, his brother was a better person than that wasn’t he?
Izuna’s barbs dug in deep and left him bleeding internally. He’d always known the best thing—or perhaps the worst thing—to say to make Tobirama feel awful.
“You weren’t! Izuna I—“ He stumbled over the words that wanted to burst free because of his brother’s presence out of habit more than anything else. Izuna wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to air their dirty laundry out in front of his brother. But the damage was done already. “I love you but you’re going to run off to Madara and join up with him. Then you’re going to start killing the people of this village.”
Izuna’s hands kept him from making the seals and a part of Tobirama wanted to just reach for them. But he knew what he had to do and once Tobirama made up his mind, it was hard to turn him away from it. “I’m sorry, I wish I could have shown you a world of peace like I promised you.” He started to form the last few hand seals needed to complete the release of the jutsu
“Tobirama don’t be hasty here. We can work something out with Izuna. And I haven’t given up on Madara yet.”
“There’s nothing else to do, Anija.” Tobirama said but his eyes never wandered away from Izuna. “I’m sorry.” Whether he was apologizing to the Uchiha or to his brother was uncertain but Tobirama made the last seal. “Kai.” The word lacked any ring of conviction and those red eyes shimmered as they looked at Izuna. “I’m sorry…”
I want you to know that I almost started crying writing this...
Date: 2015-10-05 02:08 am (UTC)Hashirama's words fell on deaf ears, for both of them. Izuna thought it was a sweet sentiment, a sentiment his younger brother -- Izuna's own lover -- would never share. There was no room for the Uchiha in that life, no space carved out in Tobirama's life; he ranked low on the list of priorities.
I will go out proud. I will not shame my clan, and I will not shame Madara. I am a strong Uchiha warrior. I will not show them how much this hurts.
"I don't forgive you," he whispered, knowing those words would wreckdestroymaim. Absolution was something he wasn't granting him, and the twisted part of him realized that Tobirama would live with those words forever, haunting him. He would die knowing that he killed Izuna not once but twice, and his lover didn't forgive him. He would come to the Pure Lands knowing that Izuna was there, nursing wounds that were old but never fading.
The word, kai, hung in the air, and he could feel it, feel the light inside of him, could finally feel that papery skin starting to flake away. He looked down at his hands, staring at the halo of luminance, feeling his grip with the world, with this dead body he puppeted becoming thin, loose. His strength was fading fast; he didn't have long.
Maybe it was crueler that he did have time than if he didn't.
He looked to Hashirama, face grim. "My brother is a good man," he whispered. "I don't think you can kill him, but if you have the chance, I ask that you don't. Spare him. He...deserves peace. He deserves happiness. And don't tell him I was here. It...would pain him to know that he couldn't see me himself."
Slowly, he turned back to Tobirama, and he hated it, hated looking at him, hated the way his own eyes were watering, the tears that started to slip down his flaking cheeks. Betrayal burned as much the second time as it did the first, that searing in his chest, the kind that beat against his ribs, that clutched his guts. Lips parted, closed, and parted again.
"You spoke of my curse, Tobirama," he whispered, "but you have it as much as I do. Look what you have done for what you think is love: murder, lies, breaking the laws of nature. Look at how you killed what you used to hold at night. It will never leave you; this will follow you no matter who you touch after me. It will follow you to the Pure Lands."
Those pale, glowing fists shook at his sides as he raised his tear-stricken face. "Your curse was far worse than mine could ever be, Tobirama. Especially because this is simply who you are at your corrupted core."
Who's cutting onions in here.
Date: 2015-10-05 06:25 am (UTC)After all, as he’d said…he’d killed him not once, but twice. Sure, you could argue whether Izuna was truly ‘alive’ but it didn’t escape the fact that he was still sending the other man back to the Pure Lands against his will.
The film of tears in his eyes threatened to obscure his vision and burned fiercely. Tobirama blinked furiously in an attempt to clear his vision because he had to watch this. This terrible act he’d perpetrated on the other man.
Ironically enough, Hashirama looked more upset by the proceedings than his brother did. But then, he’d always been freer with his emotions. Unlike Tobirama, he’d never seen the point in hiding what he was feeling under a mask of icy indifference. “I want that too, trust me. I just want Madara to have the same thing.” He assured Izuna somewhat weakly. What more could he say to the man but that?
Tobirama met those hurt and angry eyes unflinchingly as Izuna’s hurtful words spilled over him in a venom-laced wave. The tenuous control he had on his own emotions threatened to shatter but deep down…he knew Izuna was saying nothing but the truth. And that truth was hurtful but it didn’t change the facts. He’d had no illusions about the morality of his actions and no doubt would have to face gods only knew what once his brother discovered just how perverse his jutsu truly was.
In that moment, he wanted nothing more than for a sword to come flying down from the heavens to impale him and put him out of his misery. But that was too easy, wasn’t it? Tobirama approached the rapidly disintegrating Uchiha whose corporeal form was flaking away like dried paper. Even though he had no right to, he still reached out to try and touch that tear-streaked face.
“You’re right, about everything.” He didn’t try and defend himself which made it worse in its own way. Tobirama knew in his heart of hearts that there would never be anyone else. How could he risk it when his own heart was prone to the same kind of poisoned, obsessive love that would put an Uchiha to shame? He was tainted…cursed just as Izuna had said. “I will still love you until the day I die. And if I’m allowed to enter the Pure Lands then…”
Those accursed tears were back again and it made his vision all watery and unsteady. “…you can kick my ass from here till eternity. Or until the next life where maybe we won’t be so cursed.”
Kick them out!
Date: 2015-10-05 03:20 pm (UTC)But it was a Senju that didn't turn them in, didn't hurt either of them when he had the chance. And that... that had to mean something.
But Tobirama agreeing with him, touching him, Tobirama crying, he wasn't prepared for that rawness, for that. "Don't," he whispered, but he didn't push that hand away, even leaned into it, leaned into the last warm thing he would ever know. The last person who would touch him would be the one who betrayed him, and he wasn't sure if that was fitting or cruel.
But still a life where they weren't so cursed, one where they wouldn't have to kill one another, where they wouldn't have to put the needs of others before their own, that sounded nice. Pleasant. And maybe they deserved it. Maybe they had earned it with the way this had played out.
Or maybe they were soulmates, tied together, destined for this hell every time. Izuna didn't know anymore.
"That...would be nice."
His eyes closed, the tears thick in his long lashes. The light was brighter, and no matter how much will he put forth, no matter how much he wanted to staystaystay, it was impossible; the void wanted him, and that was a stronger pull than anything he could grip onto.
Maybe one day, someone else would pull him from the Pure Lands and give him a body. If Tobirama could do it, so, too, could another wise person. Maybe this wasn't the last time Tobirama would see him. Maybe his brother would find a way, and maybe...maybe...
"I am tired, Senju," he whispered, his eyes opening half-way. "Leave me to join the ranks of ghosts that haunt you, please?"
And the light turned blinding, the paper flakes fluttering everywhere as his soul left the body and started to ascend. Somewhere beneath, he could hear the thud as a corpse fall to the ground, wasted and lifeless with its strings cut, and that would be another crime Tobirama would have to answer to. Izuna tried not to think about the fact that he had rode in that; flesh was flesh, bodies were bodies, and here was little more than that.
No, he didn't worry, because his gaze was on Tobirama, knowing that the pain he saw on the man's face would be a poor escort to the Pure Lands.
I hate myself for loving you, Tobirama. And you will never know how much I feel both.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-06 12:54 am (UTC)But what right did he have to take such liberties considering what he’d done to Izuna? A part of him wished they just might have the chance at a second life somewhere and the chance to find happiness. Tobirama had never been a particularly religious man however and he didn’t know if he even believed in such things.
Yet this jutsu of his had at least proven the Pure Lands existed right? That a spirit could be dragged back to the world of the living from that realm so what more proof did he need? Perhaps he would need to revise his whole thinking on the subject. “Yes, I’d like that.”
A new life with the chance to finally have his lover at his side without a war or their clans threatening to rip them apart sounded almost too good to be true. But considering his sins, Tobirama didn’t know if he’d even be afforded such an opportunity or if he’d be doomed to wander the Naraka instead of ever even reaching the Pure Lands. It was a risk he’d taken the moment he’d decided to create his jutsu.
He found himself drifting ever closer, the distance between them melting away without conscious effort on his part. His thumb lightly brushed the tears clinging to those dark lashes as Izuna’s eyes finally drifted close.
Hearing that quietly whispered comment about how tired he was, Tobirama thought his heart might break again. He could sense the end was near and that Izuna’s time on this plane was up. Desperate now, he tried to capture the Uchiha’s mouth for one last kiss and for split instant, he was able to brush his mouth against that familiar mouth.
But then the jutsu was released and the façade was released as the light emanating from Izuna turned dazzlingly bright. It blinded Tobirama briefly and had him pulling away in surprise which was perhaps for the best. The poor Cloud ninja who’d served as the sacrifice for the jutsu dropped like a marionette who’d had its strings cut.
Tobirama looked up with an agonized look on his face as he struggled to blink through his tears to make out the form of what he could only say was Izuna’s spirit dissipating into the light. He didn’t do anything so trite as to reach out for him or to try and pull him back because it was a futile gesture.
But then Izuna was gone and the light faded rapidly away leaving him in the middle of his brother’s office with a dead corpse he needed to explain away to a brother who would no doubt be disgusted by his actions. His heart felt so heavy and like it had been shattered into a million pieces though so it was hard to even concentrate on what lay ahead for him.
“Tobirama…what have you—“ Hashirama started to say only to find himself cut off abruptly by a sharp gesture from his brother.
“I will clean up the mess.” Was all Tobirama said as he knelt down to pick up the body of the dead Kumo ninja.
“We need to discuss this!”
“I know, Anija. Just…let me clean up this mess first, please.” With that, Tobirama focused his chakra and honed in on the mark he had carved into the walls of his hidden laboratory. But he knew he couldn’t hide in there and that eventually he’d have to face his brother.
There was so much he had to answer for.