Chapter Text
It’s all Hashirama’s fault, really.
(Hashirama is not oblivious: he’s aware that this is a state of events that is, regretfully, not that uncommon.)
In his defense, he’d never been able to control his mouth.
But – really!
The confrontation with Zetsu had just been so - anticlimatic.
With Itama’s help, they’d gotten out of their binding and fought their way out of the cave to where a red-haired woman who’d initially introduced herself only as Itama’s foster-sister had been waiting patiently. Itama hadn’t even explained; he just said it was an emergency and she’d immediately followed them as they made their way back to the village by means of the hiraishin that Tobirama had apparently taught Itama through their correspondence.
Their highly illicit correspondence.
The Uzumaki had cut off communication for fear that Itama would remain too tied to his former homeland, but being told ‘no’ had never stopped Tobirama before.
(Hashirama is very proud of the fact that he’d been the one to solve the issue, suggesting that if they both signed the same summoning contract, their summons could pass along messages between them. It’d worked wonderfully, and Tobirama – who likes writing – had enjoyed having someone to tell everything to in the same way that Hashirama – who hated writing – liked pouring the same everything into his only nearby brother’s ear.)
Anyway, they’d appeared at the edge of Konoha and run inside, only to find a confrontation in the middle of the main street, with a very confused Madara attempting to hold back a hissing and homicidal Tobirama who was demanding to know who the not-Hashirama and not-Izuna really were and where his brother actually was.
The Zetsu had been trying to explain, but as soon as the real ones arrived, it took one look, merged back into a single black-blob entity, and ran away before anyone could react.
It hadn’t even bothered to wait until the Uchiha activated their Sharingans to figure out who was who!
Hashirama, who’d been looking forward to trying to prove himself and was a little disappointed, had opened his mouth and said the dumbest possible thing.
“Well, that was easy.”
Which means, of course, that when – less than twenty-four hours later – Zetsu had returned with a set of kidnapped Uchiha and the kyuubi in tow, all of them raging mad, possibly brainwashed (it was under debate), and intent on destroying the village, it was all Hashirama’s fault.
At least Tobirama’s ridiculous senses had allowed them to find out about the upcoming invasion early enough in advance that they could go out to try to stop them further off.
That battle had – not gone well.
At all.
To say the least.
Zetsu had laughed at them, and, honestly, Hashirama thinks he’s really starting to dislike the thing.
Madara had been the one to call it a failure and ordered the retreat. They’d done only enough damage to stop the kyuubi from rampaging further that day, buying them some much-needed breathing room, and in the meantime they’d fallen back to Konoha to debate their very few remaining options.
“Genjutsu would be an option if we had the Eternal Mangekyo,” Izuna argues, his arms crossed over his chest. He’s been tightly wound up ever since they successfully chased Zetsu away from the village – as the one who’d been captured by Zetsu the longest, he’d been certain that Zetsu would return, intent on achieving his goals by force now that treachery had failed.
He’d been right, too.
“For the last time, Izuna, no,” Madara snaps. “I’m not going to give up all of that work we all did modifying the Senju’s healing technique to keep our eyes from deteriorating quite so rapidly in favor of an approach that leaves you blind.”
“But –”
“Your clan’s records suggest that the Eternal Mangekyo requires sacrifice,” Hashirama agrees. “We have no idea if you would be able to take Madara’s eyes in exchange, or even someone else’s, and I’m not interested in testing it out.”
“We need to do something,” Izuna argues. “Or are we just going to let the kyuubi destroy everything we’ve worked so hard to create?”
Hashirama shakes his head. That’s not an option. “There’s still the first method I proposed,” he says. “I could hold it with the Mokuton until Itama and his friend Mito seal it into a person.”
They were all currently pretending that Mito, a smiling red-haired woman dressed in warrior’s clothing (but walking as if she was more used to fancy kimonos), was not, in fact, the princess of the Uzumaki clan, because admitting that would require trying to send her back and no one wanted to even suggest that.
Hashirama also had the additional motivation that admitting her identity would force him to actually talk to her about the tentative arrangement between their clans that they marry in a few years when Itama came of age and honestly the longer he can push off that conversation, the better.
Not that Mito isn’t great!
She’s great.
She seems very sharp and clever and funny, and Hashirama totally wants her to be part of his family. It’s just that the very idea of talking about marriage gives him the chills, and that’s not exactly a good thing right before a major battle.
“I still maintain that’s a terrible idea,” Madara says.
“Absolutely. The kyuubi never attacked before,” Itama agrees. “Not either clan, even when we were ripping up the entire forest with battlegrounds. There has to be a reason it’s doing so now, even if we don’t know what that reason is yet – though given the Uchiha Zetsu took, I think we all have our suspicions.”
“I was more thinking about consequences,” Madara says. “If we end up with a contained bijuu, then what? The other countries will declare war for fear that we will conquer them, and who knows, maybe the other bijuu will attack as well.”
“We could try to trap the other bijuu too?” Hashirama suggests, glancing at Mito who’s nodding in agreement. “Then we could spread them out –”
“No. Don’t – just – you’re a strategist, how can you not see how terrible of an idea that would be?”
“Yes, well, compared to the other available options – which is to say, nothing – ending in a mutually assured destruction scenario doesn’t seem that bad.”
“We seem to be at an impasse,” Izuna says. “That is, unless Tobirama can pull another ground-breaking new jutsu out of his ass to give us an advantage over a bijuu, or at least something that can nullify what may or may not be a Mangekyo genjutsu capable of controlling a bijuu that none of us Uchiha can break.”
Everyone looks at Tobirama, because, well, that’s more or less what he specializes in doing.
“Not out of there, no,” Tobirama says, rolling his eyes at all of them. “But there is something we might be able to use, though it may require the Uchiha elders to finally agreeing to give me full and unfettered access to your scrolls to figure out how to best utilize it.”
He looks at Hashirama pointedly.
Hashirama winces.
Of course Tobirama knows; he should never have doubted it.
Well, at least this way they don’t have to have an awkward conversation about it?
Tobirama rolls his eyes again, clearly following Hashirama’s line of thought, but he looks more amused than anything else.
“There is?” Madara asks, crossing his arms. “Is this something else related to the Uchiha that you Senju forgot to mention? Again?”
“Um,” Hashirama says. He hadn’t thought about the awkward part of telling Madara about it.
“Do I know about this?” Itama asks.
“Um,” Hashirama says again. Another thing he hadn’t thought about.
“Is this something that should have been shared with your allies?” Mito asks, her eyes dancing even as she pretends to scowl.
“Um,” Hashirama says.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re amazingly bad at information exchange?” Izuna says. “It’s actually shocking how bad you are. Why is ‘hide everything’ your first instinct every time?”
“Clearly it’s because our family’s guardian spirits are a burrowing species,” Hashirama says brightly, relieved by the change in subject and ignoring the way both Madara and Izuna look pained at the reminder. Tobirama’s completed Susanoo kitsune apparently has something of a magnetic effect on their own tengu, leading to some fairly hilarious results. “Tobirama, it’s yours, so if you want to share, go ahead.”
Tobirama nods and closes his eyes to concentrate, his chakra tugging lightly at Hashirama’s own to pull in what he needs.
Hashirama turns to look at everyone’s faces.
Sure, there’s a gigantic chakra monster heading towards his beloved village, intent on destroying it, and probably everyone’s going to hit him for keeping this a secret for so long (he’s going to get punched until he’s black and blue, he just knows it), but he’s only going to get to see their first sight of the Rinnegan once, and he plans to savor it.
Tobirama opens his eyes.
“What the fuck?!”
(It’s totally worth it.)