#but izuna informed me promptly he wanted to go fox-surfing

[menokami]

Aftermath

//teenie drabble of what I had planned for the Armistice Letters / Deep Silence verse. RIP 

The paws of the beast crushed the trees, flattening wood and uprooting the entire forest. He cut a wide path into the endless growth, a vicious trail of destruction that left behind nothing but churned earth. The forest bowed to his attack, and soon, so would that damned thorn in his side, the village hidden in the leaves. He’d kill hundreds tonight if he had to, shinobi and their children and everything in between. They were all fools, huddled together as if their comfortable lie would protect them from the truth. Hiding behind the trees without understanding what lay beyond the forest. Shinobi village. The words made an oxymoron. How could anything about their lives and traditions be compacted into such a grotesque, abstract concept? Did the lives that each clan had lost amount to nothing more than settling for a false peace?

It couldn’t be done. Their very blood forbade it. You could only hold true loyalty to your kin, and anything beyond that was an illusion cast by a maliciously ignorant soul.

It saddened him deeply, for a time, to know his entire clan had bowed to such a thing. To a tyrant who saw to remake the world as he wanted. His entire clan, and his only remaining brother. 

Madara. When he’d cut loose their bond at the meeting, Izuna felt a change. Not only in his sharingan, but his entire self. A restless anger had taken hold of him, and it demanded endlessly. At first, he didn’t know where to turn it. Slaughter had not quenched his desires and no amount of blood could slake his thirst.

So he had taken himself far, and with him, the most ancient of Uchiha writings. They revealed unto him that great power could be tamed from an anger such as his.

And here he was, in all of its glory, with the splendor of his achievements at his feet.

Taming a bijuu wasn’t the same as controlling it. This one, this mighty fox of many tails, had fought him for a long time. A week, Izuna had chased it down, battled it again and again, until the fox became frustrated and sloppy. Slow. And then, he’d seized his chance. Now, he had a weapon that could challenge even that woodland demon, the very same who had brought Madara to his knees.

His brother’s shameful existence continued to boil Izuna’s blood the most. Even more so than the insult to the Uchiha, the terrible choice that his own clan had presented him with when he wouldn’t accept the suggestion to surrender; all of that paled in comparison to what Madara had become. Subservient. Begging on his knees. A Senju.

Izuna would free him of that notion, of the chains he’d been shackled with. It had taken him years to figure out the why and how, but he was back now, back and ready to save his elder brother who had given up everything out of naked fear for Izuna’s life. His pride, his freedom, even his name. Izuna couldn’t accept that sort of sacrifice. Just as he couldn’t accept the idea of a shinobi village, drawing a sweet veil over the vile face of reality. They lived for violence. They thrived on blood and war. They made their living from killing. How could anyone claim peace while crushing the world under their filthy heel?

Izuna knew better. Izuna saw clearly, and nothing escaped his eyes. The sharingan could not, would not be deceived, or defied.