We're past the middle and light's burning slow
And she said take all the memories we're never going home
All that we need was a reason to get another lover,
Summer ending to a winter night
~ "Summer Ending to a Winter Night"- Call the Cops
Tobirama wakes slowly; first from the edges of his awareness, he feels the cool of shade and the scratching of a worn wool blanket. Second, he smells the familiar scent of freshly turned earth, wet and alive with life, smells jasmine flowers in full bloom and a wood stove. Third, he hears the peace of the morning, the rustling of songbird wings and the gurgling of a small brook in the distance. Fourth is what he doesn't hear more than what he does; obviously, this place is cared for by someone, but where is that person? He strains his ears for footsteps, for breathing- anything. There’s nothing. An unknown ought not to be displaced, he thinks. He opens his eyes cautiously.
The domesticity he awakes to... Isn't what he expects. He remembers the shower of arterial spray splashing against his armor, the agony of a sharp blade through his back in the dark of night and thinks that he shouldn't be awake at all. Least of all in a place that's so much like what he expects heaven to be (Peace. Peace and the undisturbed quiet of the morning.)
Still, he isn't shinobi for nothing. He didn't expect this chance (no matter who's the one giving it- at least he's not in chains) but that doesn't mean he won't take advantage of it.
He feels for his weapons, finding nothing. Well, it's not unexpected. Whoever this person is, is certainly very thorough. Most civilians hesitate to even approach shinobi, let alone undress and disarm them. But he finds himself surprisingly painless, his torso without bandages and his skin clean of sweat and blood. Professional. He knows not of a healing profession this meticulous, but he'd be a fool not to recognize professional competence when he sees it, no matter the field.
He frowns and looks around. The room he's in- a hut, really- is small and humble, made of dirt and wood. In the middle of the room, a large slice of a wood stump serves as a table and a woven reed mat in place of where tatami mats would be. He sees bundles of herbs drying on the walls- and to his amusem*nt, a string of garlic and onions as well- and a small rack of poultices on the wall. He looks next to him where he lays on a woven reed cot- strips of what seems to be softened bark lie in a clean bowl of water. Beside that, a mortar and pestle rests, some unknown dark mixture within. It smells of mint and something else, medicinal and probably foul to the taste.
There's a small stool next to his bed where his armor and clothing are, his weapons cleaned and laid out exactly the way he's used to. Quietly, he puts on his clothing and arms himself, feeling worlds better just from having his familiar tools of trade back with him. Safety, he reasons, shouldn't be left in the hands of others.
With one last cursory glance- looking to see if he missed anything hidden in the walls- he steps out into the sun.
When Sakura decided to go back in time, she never considered going the other direction. The seal she designed was for a one way trip only, and she figured she’s young enough to live the last ten or twenty years over and still make it alive to whatever time period she came from. Only she didn't expect to be shot back into what looks like the age of the dinosaurs- or at least, the equivalent of it in Konoha's history. That she won’t live through, she thinks.
But it's not all bad, she reasons. She got she wanted; a life of peace and quiet (ironic as it is to find such in the Warring Clans Era) and that's all she has ever wanted in the first place
Time travel isn't a foreign concept, not by far. What stops people from going through with it isn't the chakra expenditure, isn't the risk. It's that time itself flows in a stream. What you do in the past doesn't affect the future- what you remember of the future has already happened. Nothing of what she does will change anything in the course of history, and nothing will return her to the future (her present- what used to be her present). That is simply her reality.
Still, that doesn't stop her from trying- or at least from getting her pound of flesh from the relevant parties involved. (At the end of the day, there simply wasn't enough of Kaguya for everyone to air their grievances on, and now she's managed to beat them all to the punch and get the goddess all to herself.)
Mountain's graveyard isn't even a point on the map this far in the past; the first thing she does is make sure it never appears.
Kaguya's will is nothing compared to hers- nothing compared to her determination to stop the tears in Ino's eyes and the anguish in Kakashi's face. And so, it disappears in a seal, housed in the back of her garden, under several hundred pounds of manure. A venus fly trap like him ought to be composted; it’s only a fitting end for him.
With that settled, she finds a small patch of unclaimed land in the middle of nowhere and calls it her own, builds her sanctuary and exchanges seeds for small acts of healing and labor work. She grows her own food (grows her own future) and settles down in a way she never could in the future where the losses of war shadows her very steps.
Or at least, until her future starts finding her.
It starts with an injured Inuzuka. As always, the Inuzuka show up completely unannounced, metaphorically knocking on her door by collapsing in a bloody pile right in front of her porch. The dog included. She opens her door, blinks, and looks down.
Well, what's a girl gotta do? Leave them for dead? The compost pile doesn't quite have enough space, and bone takes far too long to break down organically. She'd prefer not to have something so... Lumpy in her garden.
With a sigh, she heals both of them (though she admits to fumbling a bit when it comes to the canine equivalent) and hauls them into her house, puts them on her bed and waits for them to wake. (As Sakura knows they will- what she doesn’t know is that once upon a time, Inuzuka Hani died on a mission and left the clan leadership for someone else, the alpha's line ending with her and passed onto the ancestor of Inuzuka Tsume.)
"You're lucky that it's my doorstep you collapsed on," Sakura says, when the Inuzuka wakes. She brushes the flour off her apron and sets a loaf of freshly baked bread in front of her patient. She ignores the way the Inuzuka bristles and backs away defensively. She doesn't hunt for meat very often- mostly whatever falls into the traps around her gardens- but she has enough to spare some jerky for the ninken. It barks at her happily, his tail all but a blur. Slowly, the ninja too, relaxes.
"You're all healed now; please be more careful from now on," she says and pats the ninken on the head. Such a good boy, she thinks. Good and smart, to drag his partner here.
The Inuzuka looks at her oddly, a bit disbelieving, a bit skeptical. "And you're just going to let me go like that."
"Well, I can't exactly stop you from leaving," Sakura raises an eyebrow. She trusts her seals; they won't let in anyone other than her. Won't let them find her unless there's real need. Won't let them in even then if they intend to harm her. It's her work, and her work has never been anything less than perfect.
"I don't need anything from you; I only ask that you keep quiet about my location so that I can have my peace and quiet," she says, sipping her green tea. "I would prefer not having bleeding shinobi on my doorstep to deal with every day." Please, she mentally adds. She's had enough of that to last a hundred lifetimes.
Inuzuka Hani nods- it is a perfectly normal reaction for civilian of that era not to deal with shinobi if possible. She counts her lucky stars that she even found one this time who wasn't willing to leave her for dead. (She can't help but think that if the situation was reversed, her clan would not have done the same, and she vows to change that one day. The Inuzuka will not turn away the sick from their door. That’s on their honor and the only way she can pay back the debt she owes.)
"Here, have some of the dried meat for the journey back," Sakura says and starts bustling around the house, packing her provisions.
Generous too, Hani thinks. What an odd civilian.
But her luck doesn't start and stop there. It's a Hyuuga after that- nearly blinded and halfway concussed to hell. Then a tiny Uchiha who can't be older than seven, his arm broken in two and bleeding. Then a boy with honeyed hair just like Tsunade and amber eyes. Then only two thirds of an Ino-Shika-Cho trio (there should never be any less than three, Sakura thinks with horror), the girl looking far too much like Ino for Sakura to feel comfortable turning away.
She could be Ino’s family. That one could be Tsunade’s, Sasuke’s... Neji’s, she thinks and guides them to her bed.
And lo behold, now she finds Senju Tobirama with her morning mail. If she even has any to begin with.
She sighs, well used to skittish murderous shinobi by now (their skittishness compounded by their lack of safety and control. Rule one of treating shinobi- never wrest their sense of control away from them. Ever.) She stops the worst of the bleeding and hauls him into her guesthouse. It wasn't her intention to have a separate house for guests- goodness knows she doesn't have the space- but she wants her bed back. She may not be an active shinobi now, but one doesn't quit being a shinobi. She may know their children's children, but that's neither here nor now, and she needs her safety and rest.
Just how is it that even years away from Naruto, his luck still manages to rub off on her? She grumbles and puts her back into weeding the garden. (She'll never know it, but when she sets her seals to "do not let them find me unless they have true need", that her seals direct those with need to find her. That they follow the unconscious desires of their wielder- to be needed.)
"Oh, you're awake," Sakura says, popping her back as she straightens up from kneeling in the dirt. She tosses the last weed in a pile- it'll have to be burned, she figures. "How are you feeling?"
She didn't get a close look at the venerable Nidaime in the short amount of time she had with him on the battlefield, but now she understands why Tsunade always said that the Edo Tensei was an insult to their memories- that they were only shades of their former selves, if even that.
But now, looking at Senju Tobirama in his prime, dressed in muted blue armor and a full ruff of fur around his neck, she can't help but think that her mentor is correct (as always). It should be illegal for someone so imposing (and so dangerous) to look like that, Sakura thinks with a sigh. Three generations of semi-peace really does away the physique of shinobi, Inner rues. Focus, she tells herself.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders where that Ino-Shika-Cho trio are, if the Shika in it is gone (held back by enemies to give his comrades a chance to live) or if they escaped and met again elsewhere. She desperately hopes it's the latter, but if Shikamaru is the prototypical Nara...
She gives herself a mental shake. It wouldn't do for her attention to lapse in front of someone who uses Hiraishin, no matter how uninclined he is to use it. "There's dried meat on the table and fresh fruits in the garden. I can bake you a fresh loaf of bread, if you'd prefer that instead?"
Tobirama doesn't say anything- only nods cautiously as the only sign he even heard her in the first place. He studies her, and she lets him; there's nothing he can find from her appearance that even hints at anything close to the truth, though his eyes linger on the diamond in the middle of her forehead. She doesn't know what conclusions he draws from the seal alone, but he seems to relax just a tad.
"You have my thanks, Healer," he says at last, proud and noble. "I... Am well," he says with some degree of confusion.
"No thanks are necessary," she says, waving them away. "I would be a poor healer if I turned away the needed at my doorstep." Even though she knows that there are plenty of hedge witches in this time and day who do exactly that. Or worse yet, poison their patients to get them to return.
He tilts his head curiously, as if not quite expecting that response. She sees the glint in his eyes and think that she'll take professional curiosity over murderous intent. But she knows better than anyone that curiosity in the wrong hands might as well be a blade in its own right.
"I am not the first shinobi you have healed," he half states, half asks as he walks up behind her to pluck an apple from the tree in her garden. She doesn't tense; she has no reason to, really. Standing this close, she can't help but want to put some personal space between them, but she doesn't back down.
"No, you're not," she says easily and harvests the tomatoes. "I don't care what clan you are from or what conflicts brought you here. If you are hurt, I will heal you. It's that simple. I have everything I need here; I want no payment except for a promise not to disclose my location."
And to her, it really is that simple. She asks for nothing except the peace and quiet that she deserves.
"But what you do..." Tobirama considers, moving his shoulder gingerly. It's stiff after the healing, but that's already much better than what he expected. He didn't think he'd have an arm left. "Healing on this level is unheard of outside the Senju clan." And even then, it's only Hashirama who can use it well.
"Is it?" Sakura asks easily. "Thank you for the kind compliment. I'm simply glad that I can help." She sets down a heavy basket of tomatoes and starts on the peppers. Second Hokage or not, he'll have to try harder if he wants information out of her.
Still, he stares. And she's had worst things leveled on her back than a stare- Nidaime or not, so she smiles sweetly at him and gets right back to work.
He stays for a couple of days, stretching his sore muscles and healing from chakra over exhaustion.
On the first day out of his sick bed, the healer Sakura thrusts a large wicker basket at him. "Here, if you're going to stay, you're going to have to earn your keep," she says sternly. "You can start by gathering the eggs from the hens."
He can't help but stare; all his life, he's never been demoted to farmhand of all things. The second son of Senju Betsuma would never have to lift his hands for anything so demeaning. These hands of his have never touched without the intent to harm- not outside his clan.
"Well?" She asks, her hands on her hips, the sternness in her countenance diminished by the smile that tugs at her lips. "Are you saying that you can't? Or won't?"
He can, and he will (even if he knows he's being goaded), and so he goes. Only to return an hour later with bloody fingers, feathers in his hair, and a full basket of eggs. Vaguely, he wonders if it's any worth to track down a chicken summoning contract for the clan. If the miniature versions of these beasts are this ferocious, surely the giant versions of them will be quite fearsome on the battlefield.
"You are a shinobi," Tobirama states one day when he notices Sakura observing his kenjutsu kata with undisguised fascination and critical eyes. He's almost there- almost attained the flexibility and strength that he used to have before the injury.
"I am," she says easily where she sits on a stump and holds half a willow bark weaving in her hands.
He eyes her suspiciously, the modicum of trust they have built over the last couple of days evaporating like the morning mist.
"Surely you didn't think I would let an injured male shinobi into my house without any means to defend myself," she raises an eyebrow and gestures at herself. Female, petite, and quite delicate- at least on the outside. “You know full well that you lot don't take well to being laid out on a bed."
And isn't that the understatement of the century, she thinks, remember Sasuke and Naruto's blown apart arms.
"You never said you were shinobi," he accused.
"You never asked." She replied just as quickly. "What does it matter if I'm shinobi or not? If I wanted you dead, you would be." And he would be, if she wanted him to be. There was never any doubt about it, only facts.
That kind of confidence doesn't come easily, Tobirama knows. Only the truly powerful disregard advantages- no matter how underhanded they may be. That alone sets him on edge; very few people look at him, look at his reputation, and are this confident that they can kill him.
"What clan are you from?" Tobirama asks instead. He has a sneaking suspicion- her hair and the seal on her forehead- and around the property- only leaves one answer.
"Civilian," she continues her weaving.
She's not lying, he realizes with a spot of surprise. Her chakra doesn't jump the way a liar's does. Or simply, she doesn't know.
A bastard child not told of her heritage? It's common enough that he wouldn't be surprised, but the Uzumaki have never been against halfbloods or bastard children, not like the Uchiha. What is there to fear? And clearly, someone did train her in the shinobi arts. Civilian wouldn't have the knowledge or expertise to train someone so competent.
"And your teacher?" he wheedles and continues his katas.
"A lone Hatake without a pack," she says sadly. "He trained me from a young age, but he's gone now."
Improbable but not impossible, he thinks. Surely he must have noticed the same thing that he did. The sorrow in her voice certainly is genuine. But something tells him that there's a part missing. A puzzle piece that isn't all there. Hatakes aren't known for healing, but she claims to not be Senju; Senju-Uzumaki couplings are not uncommon given the close ties of their clans, so there would be no reason to hide a child like her. But still, he knows grief when he sees it- especially reflected so keenly in those green eyes, and so he stays quiet.
He didn't plan on interrogating her about her upbringing and past; he's grateful enough that she saved his life without exacting a cost that he'd rather not upset his host without a good reason.
(And if he was honest to himself, the peace of her gardens and the life she lives in this little hidden corner of the world- he doesn't want to disturb that. In this ephemeral dream where he is merely Tobirama the farmhand who loses to the chickens every day- he doesn't want it to end. Doesn't want to wake up to reality where he's Senju Tobirama the merciless killer, the second son of Warlord Senju Betsuma. He wants to stay- forever if he could- and ignore the blood and war outside these four walls.)
That was, until pruning day. He wakes up and finds her with a pair of shears in one hand and her face set in a severe scowl. She's looking at nothing in particular... Except a row of grape vines.
"Now see here you- you can't go and get tangled with the beans like that, you ungrateful little sh*t," she argues with the vine. "I'll never manage untangle you two, and then where will you be? You'll end up tearing each other apart, that's what. We’ve been over this before." she reasons, holding up one finger.
She's arguing with a plant, Tobirama deadpans. Still, he spoons another bite of rolled oats. It's not the strangest thing he has seen by far (not when his brother talks to his bonsais on a regular basis). But he didn't think anyone except his brother does that, and Hashirama isn’t... the stereotypical example of normal.
Then, to his surprise, the vine reaches out and curls a small tendril around her hand, stopping the finger in its place.
"None of that now," Sakura tsks and gently uncurls the errant greenery. "And stop your pouting- you know better than that." She turns and glares at the bean plant where its grumpily untangling itself. "You too," she says, removing the bean's leaves from her hair. "Quit drooping."
She huffs and kneels down to sprinkle more fertilizer on the rows.
"Why can't you guys be like the pumpkins and squashes?" she bemoans. "They're perfectly alright growing on their own. And I'm not setting three rows of corn for you to climb on no matter what you say- I don't even like corn," she grumbles.
The sheer absurdity of it all... Tobirama shakes his head and sets down his empty bowl of oats. Still, he can't help but let out a laugh, incredulous and relieved at finding family of all things. She turns to him, an eyebrow raised and questioning his judgement.
"You're Senju," he states plainly, a smile on his lips. Mystery solved. The Mokuton itself is the proof- there is nothing else she can be.
"I'm not," Sakura argues. Focus, Sakura, she tells herself and gives herself a mental shake. The history books didn’t label the Nidaime’s smile as a forbidden technique. (It should be, Inner muses.) "I was taught healing by a Senju at some point- I won't deny that. But I'm sure she would have told me if I was secretly a Senju."
Tobirama tries to remember if any of their healers have gone missing in the past years and comes up empty; the healers rarely if ever leave the compound, and they're simply too precious to be spared on missions. They keep whatever their advantages close to heart, and healing would be one of them.
Still, he shakes his head. "You wield the Mokuton," he insists. "Perhaps not well, but you do. That itself proves you are kin." Certainly, his brother has never had plants rebel against him. But if they did, Hashirama would lose. Hands down.
"I wield it just fine, thank you," she says with a frown and a hand on each hip. "These plants are simply too used to me taking care of them. They're spoiled is what they are." She rolls her eyes and glares at the grape vine which was sneakily trying to extend a tendril to the beans again.
Sakura sighs. She knows what he's getting at- but she's not Senju. She's not. The Mokuton isn't something hereditary; it's just something that's really hard to reverse engineer. She may have done it on a drunken dare; that she'd get the Mokuton down before Naruto gets his Hiraishin perfected, but she still did it. For someone with perfect chakra control like her, it's child's play to find the exact ratio of earth, water, and yin chakra that creates life. It's just most people can't find it or can't replicate it with precision even if they do find it. All with the exception of Tenzo, who might as well be a genetic clone of Hashirama.
But she's not just anyone. And she did win that bet. But the look on Tsunade's face when she woke up the next day- sober and realizing just what she managed- wasn't what she expected.
"... You can never show this to anyone, Sakura. Do you understand me?" Tsunade commanded, her tone harsh and her eyes full of three generations of grief, her skin ashen grey with fear. Fear for her little civilian-born apprentice, not of. Fear for what people would do if they knew that she was able to wield the Mokuton organically and not as the result of some bastardization of Hashirama's genetic material.
"I understand, Shishou," Sakura had said, not quite understanding it at the time. But after a one-man invasion that leveled Konoha, after an attempted coup and the Fourth Shinobi War after, she thinks she understands at least half of that. Certainly, she never used the Mokuton on pains of death.
But that is then and here is now. There's no madcap scientist here to whisk her away to some secret lab. There's no village to hold her on a pedestal. Instead, there is simply one Senju Tobirama, recovered and looking at her with far too much interest.
"Does it matter whether I am related to you or not?" Sakura retorts and goes back to trimming her plants.
Her mind whirls. But really, was she related to the Senjus? Tsunade would tell her if she was.
... Would she really? Inner asks quietly.
"Does it matter?" Tobirama echos, the closest thing to shock he has felt in ten years still reverberating in his bones. He thinks of Itama and Kawarama, his brothers who only escaped death by a hairs breath, thinks of his mother and aunt crying for the clan's dead children, of Hashirama's guilt at not being to heal others. And thinks- does it matter they're family? There's nothing that has ever mattered more.
"Well, knowing that fun little theory isn't going to change anything around here," Sakura shrugs off her apprehension and pretends there’s nothing said that she doesn’t already know.
"We're clan- don't you want to know your family?" Tobirama insists. While you still have them, he mentally adds, morbid- realistic- to a fault.
"I have a family," Sakura rolls her eyes. "Civilian. Ones dead and buried."
Callous, Tobirama thinks. Perhaps the first objective sign he sees that she has the proper countenance of a shinobi no matter her claims (if the seals around her property didn't already prove that). Surprisingly so given how she implies she has taken in stray shinobi time after time.
He studies her- really looks at her- and sees the tight press of her lips and her stiff shoulders. There's something he's missing here, and it's bothering him far more than he likes.
"Won't you come back to the Senju clan?" he tries. "My brother- Hashirama- he wields the same power as you do."
Sakura shakes her head and smiles at him. It doesn't reach her eyes. "I won't," she says calmly, not caring about Hashirama's mokuton. "I have no desire to leave my lands. I have what I need here, and I want for nothing. I know well enough what I can and cant do. I don’t need another’s instruction."
"Not even the protection of the Senju?"
"I can protect myself perfectly fine," she snorts, sending a jolt of chakra into the ground. A network of seals wake up all around her, their spidersilk thin chakra lines almost menacing. A spider's web, Tobirama thinks. All the more foolish of him to be misled by appearances, he scolds. He grimaces at the weight of the chakra bearing down on him, a hundred thousand eyes and kanji poised to strike him dead.
"I see," he says and shakes himself.
"I have no desire to join a clan," Sakura says. The way she says it speaks of grief and a personal history. And just the smallest hint of contempt. A dash of pride.
"Whatever misconceptions you have about shinobi clans, the Senju are not-"
"Not what? Bloodthirsty? Child-killers? Morally dubious at best? Concerned about the bloodline?" Sakura laughs and snips off the stem of a squash with more force than necessary. She slips a kunai out of the folds of her work apron and spins it smoothly in her finger.
Tobirama eyes the kunai carefully. If she's a kunoichi like she claims, then she must be a very seasoned one- to make it through to her age without the loss of limb or life. And he knows exactly what a seasoned shinobi can do with even something as simple as a pair of shears or a kunai.
"If you are the kunoichi that you claim to be, you hardly have the moral grounds to stand on yourself," Tobirama argued. Shinobi is shinobi no matter which way you cut it. Civilian born or not, he doubts that will change. If anything, being civilian born puts her at a disadvantage; she wouldn't have the bargaining power that the Senju have.
"I'm retired."
Retired. Tobirama can't help but be taken back by those simple two words. Retirement for shinobi- is she joking? They live long enough to die- and maybe just enough to marry and continue the bloodline. Even the elders themselves aren't spared from missions when push comes to shove.
"What? You've never heard of the concept?" Sakura snorts, bitter. "I'm not surprised."
The sounds of quiet snipping is the only thing that breaks the stilted silence of the air.
Sakura tosses a large pumpkin in her basket and sighs, feeling all thirty years of her age. "Can you really blame me for wanting a life of peace and quiet? I'm done. Done with the killing, done with the blood and guts and death. Do you know what it feels like to heal someone and send them back out and only see their half charred corpse the next day? Do you? I'm trained to be a healer, so why do I have to use my hands to kill?" she asks, glaring hard at the ground. Her plants reach out to her, curls their leaves around her hair and freely gives them her shade, hides her tears in their shadows.
"I have no desire to be chained to strangers whose only claim to me is blood and a name. I will not die for you; I'll live for me," she says, looking him fearlessly in the eyes.
Is that what she thinks they are? A name and an obligation? Tobirama mentally snarls, shrinking back and curling in on himself. It's not as if he has given her reason to believe otherwise, but to think of the bond between his clan members simplified to mere obligation...
But can he really blame her? Part of him whispers from deep in his mind, traitorous. Given the choice, wouldn't he do the same? The peace, the quiet of the morning. Being completely self sufficient and not living from kill to kill with hands dyed scarlet with the blood of the innocent. To live like that away from his worries. Wouldn't he do this too?
No, he tells himself firmly. No, he wouldn't. Not while the people around him breathes and lives and fights with every breath.
"That is simply your choice, but I have no reason to believe you," Tobirama states. "The Mokuton is the Senju bloodline; so is healing. If word gets out... Our bloodline has to be protected at all costs."
She shrugs. "Your bloodline is of no concern to me. Why do I care what you think of my abilities? They are no fault of my own,” and isn’t that a lie, she think. “There's nothing I can give more binding than my word that I will stay away from conflict. And well, you haven't heard about me all these years, have you? That itself is my proof."
Logic, Tobirama thinks, is a most troublesome weapon when the one wielding it isn't him. He crosses his arms and frowns down at her.
"You may say that, but any children you have are not subject to your vow," he argues.
Then, to his shock, she brushes aside her apron and lifts the edge of her kimono. Haven't she any sense of propriety? Tobirama averts his eyes quickly and stares at the brown of the forest.
" What children?" She snorts. When Tobirama still won't look at her, she says, "Relax, I'm wearing clothes underneath." She lifts her kimono to show the small horizontal scar across her abdomen. The same one that reminds her of the worst day of her life. Of an emergency surgery and the disappointment in Sasuke's eyes-
Tobirama reluctantly looks at her and then down at her exposed skin. He winces and says nothing.
"Barren," she says bluntly. "So I ask again- what children?"
He snarls- why doesn't she get it? He can't- won't just leave his family to die, not when he has just managed to find one where he has to bury them by the dozen. He can't- not when there's something he can do.
"You know full and well I can't leave you alone here," he shakes his head. He doesn't even bother pretending it's some sort of chauvinistic sense of duty. There's no such thing in the shadow world they live in.
"Sure you can," Sakura disagrees. "The exit's right there to the left past the hibiscus bushes. And I can even promise you it's not booby trapped."
Tobirama glares.
"What? Are you going to force me to join?" Sakura snorts.
"If I have to," he grits out.
"You can't," she says sadly, remembering her days of chasing Sasuke, of getting him and trying to get him to live a normal life. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink."
There is wisdom in her words, loathe as he is to admit it.
"You can't keep me confined forever, and you most certainly can't force me to heal," Sakura says, confident in her abilities. "Besides, what kind of family would you be if you did that?"
He owes her a life debt, that much he knows. He can't force her to anything, that he has to admit. What this doesn't mean is that he has to her up as a lost cause.
But he can't stay here forever, and she can't avoid her confrontation either. If- god forbid- she finds an Uchiha stray- he can't even imagine what kind of hell they'll inflict on her, if only to stop a second coming of Hashirama.
"You should stay away from the Uchiha," he says, reluctantly shouldering his supplies; it has been more than a week past when he's expected back at the Senju compound, and he cannot delay leaving anymore.
"The Uchiha can't do sh*t to me," she snorts.
Completely unladylike- a testament to her not being raised by their clan like she ought to be, but in the back of his mind, he thinks he know of one Senju lady who was raised by clan and behaves just the same.
He sighs. It's one thing to not care about a healer- no matter how competent- and another to care about someone he shares blood with. He can't guarantee her safety (can't even guarantee his own on most days depending on the missions) but at least he was able to secure her water source and keep it free from tampering, to suggest some of his own traps and seals. If only to settle his own unease.
The surprise on Sakura's face when he does this- when he offers to help- doesn't belong.
"You'd do well not to underestimate them," Tobirama warns. "Even Hashirama has trouble against the Uchiha's fire."
"I know full well what the Uchiha are capable of," she laughs. A world war? Resurrect a goddess? Manipulate the entire world for a hundred years? Just a walk in the park for the lot of the. It's really no surprise that the clan meets its end at their own hands; anything this volatile can only self-destruct.
"What? Are you worried?" Sakura teases.
Tobirama scowls. "Not in the least. If you meet your end, it's your own doing," he snaps and leaves with a flourish.
Sakura watches his retreating back and waves him off. She chuckles. Who knew the Nidaime was so cute when he cares?
Her life settles the way it's always meant to after Tobirama leaves. The seasons change and the leaves change with them. Her harvests come and go, and soon she's drying a new batch of onions and more mushrooms than she knows what to do with. She adds fish to what she can preserve, now that Tobirama has rerouted a river onto her property. Animals too, visit much more frequently, and Sakura thinks that maybe she's gathering too much food if it's starting to look like she's preparing for the Fourth War a century too early.
There's no such thing as too much food, she reasons, the taste of rations and soldier pills never leaving her memories.
She houses a Hatake, then a Yuki, then a Hoshigaki. She even finds a young Kazuku one icy winter day, his face free of scars and his eyes still free of the age old wariness that defined him in his later years. He even thanks her- and isn't that the most surprising thing she has seen that season.
She has more than enough food, more than enough of everything she needs, but she can't help but think that something's missing. That something is calling to her beyond the edges of her forest, beyond the reach of the seals that keep her hidden and safe.
Sakura ignores the feeling niggling at her and continues her sewing.
"Anija," Tobirama kneels before his brother, his eyes fixed before the slow lazy curl of steam that rises from his ceramic cup of green tea. He watches the lazy snow drift from the warmth of the veranda, idly wondering if the little pink haired healer from the woods was managing alright, if she had enough firewood and food, if the river had frozen over or not.
“Tobirama,” Hashirama greets with a smile and pats the cushions next to him. “Come sit and enjoy the morning with me.”
He sits, because when Hashirama asks something of him... well, there’s very little he wouldn’t do. Within reason, of course.
Hashirama plates a wagashi and hands it to him. “What brings you here, Tobi? Usually you’re out doing your katas at this hour.” He chuckles, “Not admiring the sunrise like me.”
Tobirama looks down and pokes at the lump of sugar in his lap. It’s... not unappetizing. But it’s not the same sweetness as freshly harvested apples, plucked straight from the trees and the sap still pearling on the stem. In truth, he was doing his katas, but he simply... drifted. Back to the girl with pink hair and a diamond between her eyes.
“My mind drifted,” he confesses at last.
“Oh? That’s rare,” Hashirama queries. “usually your focus is much better than mine.”
A chipmunk would have better focus than him, Tobirama thinks but wisely keeps silent.
He considers how to tell Hashirama of his discovery- of the little secret that he has kept silent on for seasons. Just... this winter is particular harsh, with snowfall piling higher than last year’s.
“Have any of our healers gone missing throughout the years?” He asks at last.
Hashirama blinks. “No, not that I know of.”
“They never left? Not at all?” He presses still.
“No, Tobirama. Why are you asking?” Hashirama asks, a bit baffled.
Tobirama huffs, deflates a little and looks towards the bamboo groves, snowed over and still standing proud. He looks at the bluejay sitting on a branch, puffed up into a ball and still singing loud in the cold air.
“... I think I found one of ours, Anija,” he says quietly. His grip on the teacup tightens.
Hashirama blinks again, the dots in his mind there but not quite connecting. Or at least not in the right order.
“Our clansman,” he clarifies.
“We have an unknown clansman who heals?” he repeats.
This might take a while, Tobirama thinks. Nonetheless, he continues. “It was during that courier mission to Tanaka Castle when I was late for a week,” he admits.
“Our unknown clansmans who heals made you late for a week.” And he does remember that mission; Itama was besides himself with worry. Kawarama wouldn't leave Tobirama's side to a week, he thinks with a chuckle.
Tobirama rolls his eyes and sighs, aggravated. “No, you dolt. She healed me.” He touches his shoulder, an echo of the pain in his mind reflecting in a twitch of his arm. “I would have died if she had not found me.”
At that, Hashirama’s eyes finally find the brightness of enlightenment. “Ah, you miss her!” He grins.
That’s... not inaccurate. But best to nip this in the bud. “No,” Tobirama growls. “She healed me fully with her chakra, but she claims not to be Senju. She uses seals but claims not to be Uzumaki. She uses Mokuton- in front of me no less- and still denies being kin.”
“Well then what does she consider herself to be?” Hashirama asks curiously when he’s done scraping his jaw off the ground. Another Senju who can heal others, another with the curse he was born with!
“Civilian,” Tobirama growls, not at all unlike his own summons. He spits the word out like a curse- it might as well be in a situation like this.
Ah, so this is what has his little brother so upset, Hashirama muses. She stepped on his tail, metaphorically speaking that is.
“And she really wouldn’t see reason?” he asks, knowing exactly how much Tobirama treasures family- how much all of them treasure what family they still have. “She doesn’t want to join us? Why wouldn’t she want to join us?” He asks, his mood spiraling down and straight to the bottom.
Tobirama rolls his eyes as his brother starts cultivating mushrooms in a corner and stabs the wagashi with his pick. “If she did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, Idiot.”
But he considers- their father is old now, his strength failing with every passing day. He doesn’t see it himself and still leads their clansmen to battle on every turn of the moon, but it wouldn’t be long now until the inevitable end and his brother steps up. Until the decision would be his.
It’s part of the reason why he has kept his silence until now. He knew full well what his father would do if he knew of Sakura’s existence.
“And you wish to go see her, Tobi?” Hashirama asks, a hint of amusem*nt peeking out from his depression.
It’s rare, that Tobirama would even spare a glance at the fairer sex. They’re both past the time when they should be married and continuing the bloodline, but Tobirama wouldn’t hear of it- and he doesn’t have the heart to push an arranged marriage onto his little brother. Gods forbid, he might actually break an alliance instead of strengthening it.
To his surprise, Tobirama doesn't brush off his question. He nods. It’s jerky, barely a surprised twitch of his neck, but he doesn’t fly off the handle. Doesn’t even bother deflecting or denying.
Ah, his little brothers grow up so fast, he thinks wistfully.
“She’s in a defensible location, but she is still a lone woman... and winter is harsh this year,” he says quietly. Already, he’s had to turn away requests for food from smaller villages nearby. "I owe her at least this much of a life debt," he reasons.
He remembers what it looks like, to see the people they're supposed to protect begging at their feet.
“Please, Honorable Lords,” one man bows to them, his head thumping on the iced over ground. “Without your aid, we’ll starve. There’s not enough to live to the spring- please, just whatever you can spare.”
Tobirama didn’t stay long enough to see their clansman turn them away, didn’t stay to see Hashirama slip them a basket of persimmons and a bundle of wheat that he grew from his own precious yin chakra. Didn’t stay long enough to see the man weep on his way back to the village dwindling in the snow.
He thinks of the how the pink would look against a background of white and thinks that he doesn’t want to see her eyes hollow with hunger, her frame thin and bones jutting-
Even if he has to take from his own shares... Well, he owes her a debt, he reminds himself a second time. And it’s one he intends to pay back.
That’s not even counting her unfortunate habit of randomly adopting stray shinobi, he thinks.
Hashirama hums and studies his little brother- certainly, not so little anymore, to earn his name on the battlefield. In all honesty, soft isn’t a word that can be used to describe Tobirama, but perhaps something similar...
“If you wish to go, do set out early and return before father returns,” Hashirama says at last. “I’ll cover for you.”
“Oh, Tobirama, you’re back.”
“... I am not injured.”
“I should hope not- not after all I did to patch you up.”
“And you? Are you...”
Sakura tilts her head, not quite getting what he's trying to say. She has one hand curled around a bundle of deer hide, tanned and softened, and another around a bone needle and sinew thread. She can’t say that she’s surprised Tobirama didn’t drop the whole clan issue, but what she is surprised about is how he’s standing before her.
He shouldn’t even be able to find her, she thinks. Only the needed, she reminds herself and feels for her seals. Nothing’s out of place and nothing’s broken. She turns a glare at her seal work, daring the error to reveal itself.
After all, she has nothing that he needs.
“Am I what, exactly?” She asks, a little amused and a lot confused.
He sets down a box of tea cakes on her table. “A gift, from my brother. He sends his greetings,” he mumbles.
Still, Sakura waits patiently and accepts the tea cakes.
“Are you... well?” he says hesitantly. Alive wouldn't quite cut it; of course she's alive. Functional- what is even her function?
It’s almost gruff, almost an accusation in the way he said it, but he means well, Sakura thinks. Men, she almost snorts.
“Well enough,” she shrugs. Then, she looks at him- really looks at how he’s grown and matured, the weary shadows back in his eyes and his expression on the verge of haunted, and says- “Thank you for checking on me. There’s no one staying with me right now, so you can stay for a couple days if you’d like?”
“The winter’s harsh this year,” Tobirama murmurs, his calloused hands brushing against the apple tree he has grown fond of, now laying dormant in the cold. He has already checked the river, relieved that it’s not frozen over. The well too, is fine and nowhere near frozen.
"It likes you," Sakura says plainly when she sees him looking up at the naked branches of the tree. "You need to help with apple season next year; I swear she lowers her branches for you," she rolls her eyes and levels a glare at the sleeping tree.
Sakura looks away. “... Some of the shinobi I treated were starving. Malnutrition. It fights against the healing,” she says sadly. “When there’s nothing for the body itself to work with, what I can do with my chakra is limited.” She looks at her hands; not bloody, but warm. Too warm, against a thin frame dying from the cold.
He studies her expression, the way her cheeks fill out, her clothes taut against her frame, her eyes sad but alive, and thinks that he’s glad there’s nothing to worry about, not this time.
“Have the crops failed this year?” Sakura asks softly. She did notice the abnormally dry summer, but it was never a problem for her, not even when the river's level dipped too low for her comfort.
“Yes, in many different places of Fire Country,” he says. Even for a large clan like the Senju, they had to stretch their food from grain stores. All across the land, battles over territory intensify. Even if it’s one inch, one mile- it’s one more mile of resources that can mean the difference between life and death. In a lot of the cases, it only means death for the very people they're fighting for.
She looks down and gets up, brushes down her working clothes and gathers up a large basket from near the hearth.
“What are you doing?” He raises an eyebrow. He blinks, and the woman before him is no longer the Sakura that he knows; in front of her is a nondescript woman with brown hair and dull grey eyes, old but not yet wizened. Impressive chakra control, to not need seals, he grudgingly allowed.
“I have plenty to spare here,” Sakura says, her voice cracked and hoarse, but the determined look on her face was still undoubtedly Sakura's.
What- no- Tobirama gets up to stop her. That’s the exact opposite of what he came here to do, but a glare from her stops him in his tracks. For a woman barely even five foot tall, she has an impressive glare.
“I. Have plenty.” She reiterates. “What kind of a healer would I be if I left the needy to starve on my doorstep?”
She bustles around the house, gathering dried herbs and crops, jars of acorn flour and dried mushrooms, and packs of dried fish. She sets down the provisions and steps outside with no hesitation in her stride.
She’s really not like them- nothing like them, Tobirama thinks wistfully. Perhaps it is wise not to call them clansman after all.
He watches her as she argues with the birch trees to grow more bark and makes deals with them about which ones can spare her sap. He kneels in the snow with her around the juniper bushes when she shakes them down for their berries.
He coaxes the water to and fro around the watercress near the banks of the river and creates shallow pools for the plants- in return for their harvest.
“Even healers need to eat,” Tobirama reminds her not to spread her resources too thin.
She makes a ram sign with her finger and directs a spike of chakra up into the river from the ground; up pops a trout, speared on the concentrated chakra right through the gills.
She raises an eyebrow. “I eat plenty.” She shakes her head and sets out, one heavy basket on her hip and another shoved in Tobirama’s arms.
If he has to stay, he might as well help out, he reminds himself. And she's safer with him escorting her. He reluctantly henges into a man to match her disguise and sets out behind her.
“Have you come across any other shinobi?” He asks one morning, watching the way her petal pink hair turns golden in the morning sun. She soaks the rosehips for tea and digs through the cupboard for blueberry jam. Acorn flour pancake is an acquire taste, he concludes, but food is food in whatever form it comes.
“A few,” she says, sitting back on her tree stump and counting on her fingers. “Maybe ten or so? Give and take a couple?”
“... No Uchihas?” he presses. He has to be sure- enough of his clan have died at the hands of those cretin.
“I tend not to ask,” she admits with a shrug. “It’s not something I need to know; a patient is a patient regardless of their blood. Sometimes knowing less is better- safer in this time and day.”
That is true, but ignorance can also be equally dangerous, he thinks.
Tobirama shakes his head. “No matter where you stand in regards to your heritage, there are those who will attack first and ask later- or never.” It goes unsaid that the Uchiha would be one of them.
“Don’t worry,” she smiles, her eyes warm with far too much kindness. “They will not harm me while I am in my own home; the seals will not permit it. And even if I am outside, I am not defenseless,” she reminds him.
It would be a marvel if he could just take apart her seals at the seams, just unravel it a tiny bit so he can see what makes her seals capable of coming to life like that. Even the Uzumaki's seals aren't so capable.
“Have you improved any on your katas? Or are you still overextending your left foot on the twenty-first stance?” Sakura says drily.
Overextending the-
He gets up and puts on his shoes; he’ll show her that his katas are just fine, thank you.
He stays only for a couple of days this time before disappearing one morning, a tripronged kunai on her table the only sign that he was there to begin with.
He didn’t even leave a note what the kunai is for, Sakura thinks and shakes her head, exasperated.
Honestly- she didn’t think that the Nidaime would be such a mother hen.
She puzzles over the enigma that is Tobirama Senju- how on Earth does he keep showing up? Before she finds the answer to her question, he appears again. Then leaves. Then reappears again, sometimes for days, sometimes just overnight, and sometimes for a week.
She wonders how long it’ll be until he stays and doesn't leave.
But still, she never chases him away, never demands anything of him except for peace. (There’s shame dogging his footsteps, guilt and sorrow in equal parts, and death looms over his shoulders. If sharing her space, her sanctuary with him even for this much time can help chase those shadows away- well, maybe she’ll at least spare him the egg-collecting duty.)
He never asks again, and she never offers. Sometimes he’d fish with her in the river, turning it into a competition until the river runs empty of fish (he’s cheating, he must be, she reasons).
Sometimes she sees the shadow of him by the edge of the groves when she brings in another patient and nurses them patiently, one flicker of green chakra at a time.
She doesn’t care for clan wars and politics, but it’s clear that he does as the heir of the Senju clan; sometimes he hovers over a Hyuuga or a Kurama, but he stays far from the Kaguya and never lets her out of his sight.
She teaches him as far as she’s able to, but his control- for all the Hiraishin is all about fine tuning chakra for space time seals- isn’t quite enough for healing jutsu. There’s simply too much of it, she reasons. But that’s not an excuse to quit, and she moves on to teach him about foraging food and basic first aid instead.
He listens and asks pointed questions sometimes and only looks pensive on other days. On the rare occasion, she sees him draw massive seals on the riverbank, his kunai tracking sharp lines over the mud. Those days are her favorite, Sakura thinks. They’d talk seals from sun up to sun down and waste away their winter’s day.
Winter melts into spring, as it must. And with its arrival leaves Tobirama.
She hardly notices (she doesn’t and she does- or at least Inner does) and keeps busy with her gardening. The seeds need to be sowed as soon as the ground defrosts, the compost and fertilisers laid down, the trees tapped and their sap turned to syrup.
She bustles her days away and pretends she doesn’t notice the faded lines of their seals on the riverbank when she does her fishing, pretends she doesn’t miss the quiet presence and a white ruff of fur.
Sakura bears the unending gratitude of the village near her when Spring comes, and her henge dies a convenient death not long after Spring comes and the world awakens. The worst of the hunger should be over, she reasons.
Still, the shinobi don’t stop dropping dead on her doorstep, and she doesn’t stop healing them.
Even if she does drag in this era’s equivalent of Sasuke one spring evening. And she’s pretty certain that this is Sasuke- or at least that it's his soul stuffed in that body. The chakra, the physique, even the face are exactly the same. She’d know, given how close they were once upon a time. Physically at least, if not emotionally.
She digs the kunai and the poisoned shuriken out of his back, heals over the lacerations in his kidneys and carefully takes out the paralytic-laced senbon making a pincushion of his cervical spine. He’s lucky that it didn’t nick his spine, she thinks.
Satisfied with the healed over wounds on his back, Sakura turns him over with one chakra laced hand, immediately running a diagnostic over his eyes.
Overuse of the Sharingan, Sakura sighs and rolls her eyes. Of course. She had her hands full with just one Uchiha and one and a half Sharingan in her lifetime, but lucky her- the entire clan is still whole and hale this time. She wouldn't have it any other way, but that doesn't mean she's happy about the work involved in keeping their eyes healthy. She soothes over the prickly inflammation of the ocular nerves, dismantles the scarring of the interocular muscles and sticks the retina back where it belongs (and makes sure it really gets tacked down this time).
She peeks in his mouth; blood all around the teeth. There’s internal bleeding, and he probably punctured something if his abdomen recoils like that, she thinks grimly and presses down once more.
When she said “only the needed”, she didn’t mean the half dead, she grumbles in her mind and gets to work. It’s going to be a long, long evening.
“Kunoichi,” Not-Sasuke breathes, awe and wonder in wide eyes that have never looked at her in anything but contempt. He pats himself down, hurriedly scrambles at the back of his neck for needles that aren't there and wounds that don't even leave scars.
“Yes,” she agrees and sets a bowl of porridge in front of him along with freshly grilled fish. "Breakfast," she says in lieu of an explanation
“You healed me when I was fated to die,” he whispers, barely even breathing from shock. Is this where he gets the panic attack to go with the near death experience? Sakura keeps a wary eye on him.
Well, not quite so dramatic, she thinks. But then again, this is an Uchiha she’s talking about. “Not quite so- you would have lived, probably.” Maybe, in this era’s equivalent of medical care (it’s first degree manslaughter is what it really is, she thinks.)
He shakes his head. “I know mortal wounds when I see them.” Have dealt out enough of them to know, he doesn't say.
Abruptly, he gets up and kneels at her feet. He unsheathes his sword in a flourish and lays it down at her feet, blade towards himself. He bows, curling his body over the sword's edge.
“Know this- you saved the life of Uchiha Izuna with your kindness and mercy. My eyes and sword are yours to command.” He turns his mature Sharingan on her, the gaze focused over her mouth in a gesture of respect.
“Eat your porridge before it gets cold,” is the only thing Sakura says to that.
Dramatic declarations of life debts aren’t her forte, but she’s been on the receiving end often enough to know how to deescalate one. Food always work one way or another, she thinks and pushes over half her portion of fish in addition to the porridge.
Uchiha Izuna is clingy, where Uchiha Sasuke is not.
He’s also nosy where her ex-husband is not.
And mischevious where Sasuke would sooner hang himself dead.
He bugs her about her healing prowess, about her seals and her coloring and about her heritage, and she smiles and smiles and tells him nothing.
He leaves in a huff but vows on his pride as an Uchiha not to lead others to her. That's about as good as she'll get, so she lets him go and waves him goodbye.
Uchiha Izuna is not Senju Tobirama, and Sakura would be blind not to notice.
Sakura doesn’t care about the politics of this time, not when there’s f*ck all she can do about it. Safe and sound in her little sanctuary from the world, there’s nothing that can bother her, nothing that can disturb her. She’s insulated where she is, isolated and completely comfortable with her lifestyle.
Except even she shares a sky with the rest of the world.
It had never occurred to her that her airspace would be an issue or really what the issue could be. There’s no such thing as pollution, and the weather was perfectly fine. Summons pass her by and have no reason to land.
But it’s not any of that. It’s the smell.
She’s pruning away the errant branches of her fruit trees one day when she smells it: the charred smell of oil, almost rancid and sickeningly sweet.
It's a smell that she'll never forget no matter how much she tries: the smell of burning human flesh.
She ignores it, snipping the branches steadily one by one. But the smell intensifies with every clip. The skies darken with smoke, and ash falls, covering her rose bushes with a layer of grey. She tries not to think too hard about what the constituents of the ash. It doesn't take much brain power to take an educated guess.
Snip. Snip. She wonders if it’s Tobirama on the other end of the fire, on the other end of the blade. Wonders if the man who cared enough to make a trip to her little house in the middle of winter is okay and looking after himself.
Wonders who she’ll find bleeding and broken this time (again) lying in front of her.
She swallows the bile that rises up in her throat and gets up.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” she murmurs to the plants, “but don’t think I won’t know if you put out too many offshoots.”
The apple tree whacks her in the face- or tries too- with a bough, and Sakura catches it and gently lets it off (this time, at least. Damn her for being soft on Tobirama’s favorite tree, and the clever thing knows it too.)
Again, he stands on the battlefield, his sword slick with blood that doesn’t stay long enough to clot. He flashes in front of one terrified face after another, cutting them down with a lick of shame pushed deep in his mind.
They come out of winter alive only to die at their hands by the turn of spring.
But it’s Uchiha, a part of him that sounds way too much like Betsuma snarls.
It’s Uchiha, like Uchiha are anything but humans, still just as flawed and just as fragile as the lot of them, a voice that sounds like Sakura says.
A whisper of a sigh brushes his mind. If Sakura lived closest to the Uchiha, do you think she would have hesitated to share her food with them?
It this thought that stills his blade, just long enough for the Uchiha in front of him to slip a kunai between his ribs. He twists, and it only barely glances across the flesh.
Red meets red straight on. There’s nothing to say, not like this. There’s no breath to waste on words, for all good words do on a battlefield.
For all good words do indeed, he thinks bitterly, daring to look over at his brother fight a farce of a battle with his childhood friend (where did his father go wrong, to raise a firstborn who befriends Uchiha Madara of all people?)
“I think you should know better than to take your eyes off me by now, Senju,” Izuna says, his voice sounding behind his left ear. He hears the sound of live steel and-
sh*t- he let his mind wander, and he closes his eyes and brace for the pain, says his prayers and apologies and for one second, let himself remember a woman with pink hair and a sad smile...
And thinks that maybe he doesn’t deserve heaven in this life.
But again, the pain doesn’t come.
“Hold!” A voice yells across the battlefield. Surprisingly, the blade stops half an inch from his heart, and Izuna drops it.
The steel clangs as it hits the ground, and the heat of an enemy pressed far too close fades into chilling fear.
He takes one step back, then another, black eyes wide.
It’s so completely unlike the Uchiha Izuna he knows that he can’t help but gape, if only for a fraction of a second before he leaps back and puts some space behind him, kicking the Uchiha’s katana somewhere out of range in the process. Izuna leaves the katana where it lays.
“Who are you to disturb the Uchiha?“ One of the older Uchiha war generals bark, a rabid dog in charge of instigating this mess. He roars a fireball that morphs into three dragons; in any other circ*mstance, Tobirama would be impressed by the elemental manipulation, but here and now he recognizes the voice and he’s not close enough to intervene. Not now.
He holds his breath on an inhale, and he sees Izuna doing the same, his hands already forming seals for a Grand Fireball- in the opposite direction of the dragon.
But he doesn’t need to; doesn’t even finish it-
“Shannaro!” The ground rises up in a vengeance, the very earth alive and fracturing with the punch of a fist; certainly, Tobirama has seen earthquakes with less destructive capability, and they jump back. He almost laughs when he sees the look on Izuna's face as he ducks behind a boulder and slices another in two before he has to dodge one himself.
There, in the middle of a newly formed crater reminiscent of meteorfall, is a burst of pink, her trusty gardening shears in one hand and bits of foliage still stuck on the sleeves. Her presence feels alien and familiar all the same, but Tobirama can only hear the exhale of his breath- his relief at seeing her unharmed, his awe and shock at seeing her appear out of no where create a crater with her bare fists.
“I’m a pissed off homeowner is what I am! For f*ck’s sake, stop dying in front of my house!”
Tobirama laughs, long and hard and breathless. Words are useful enough in a battle if it’s used for maximal impact, he corrects with a smile and lays down his sword.
