#edo tensei and its equivalents

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and it's Equivalents

7.

Tobirama blinks into awareness in a coffin. Not the strangest thing that’s ever happened to him but considering he was dead a second ago, it’s up there. His body feels heavy and strange, and when he has the chance to step out of the coffin, he realizes it’s responding slower than usual as well. Like he’s been drugged. Or, more accurately, like someone’s stuffed him into a false body using a modified Edo Tensei. It’s a lab, well lit but without even a hint of windows. Underground, he would guess and there’s enough familiar chakra around that he can assume that he’s in Konoha, at least.

There’s a piercing feeling, something adjacent to but not quite pain, and the summoning seals he had used to bring Wei Wuxian to their world so long ago light up brilliant amber. There’s a moment where his mind and body demand he obeys to the sibilant voice behind him before the controlling seal’s hold on him snaps. Tobirama, off balance from whatever surge of power (vitriolic and burning, like Wuxian had been at the end) had just overtaken him, shakes his head, eyesight blurring.

He turns and spies the man that had attempted to control him— to what ends, he can’t imagine. Slim and pale and snake-like, the man is someone Tobirama has only seen when his family had allowed him to check in on the living. Orochimaru. Hiruzen’s student, or at least one of them. Tobirama remembers him as a child, brilliant and distant from the world. A curious little creature. Too curious, maybe, if it led him to Edo Tensei.

“How did you do that?” Orochimaru wonders, genuinely curious. Tobirama flexes the muscles in his arm, still tingling from the unfamiliar power. The tattoos are smeared, fuzzy from exhausting their remaining power in such an explosive manner.

“A gift from a friend,” Tobirama decides on. He doubts it’ll work twice, whatever left over energy stored in the tattoos has likely been used up. Now that he has a better grip on what’s happening, though, it’ll be more difficult for Orochimaru to put another seal on him.

“A gift,” Orochimaru repeats, unconvinced. Tobirama dips his head. This seal, Wuxian’s seal, is not something he’s ever shared before, and he’s certainly not sharing the secret with a man he doesn’t even truly know. Hashirama is the only other person who’s seen the entire seal and even then it had been a fight with himself to share it.

“You brought me here for a reason,” Tobirama say eventually. “What is it?” Orochimaru stares at him a moment longer, unblinking. Tobirama imagines that that’s how he usually gets answers people aren’t keen on giving him; The snake-like eyes, snow-pale skin, and the way he doesn’t seem to be breathing are quite disconcerting but Tobirama grew up in a war and he grew up knowing he was the creepy one— Orochimaru is going to have to try harder than that. Anyway, he’s not nearly as intimidating as Wuxian, cheerful and kind and soft, could be when he tried.

“I am creating and recreating powerful jutsus for the good of the village,” Orochimaru says eventually, not sounding particularly convinced by his own words. That’s the official mission, then, but not Orochimaru’s personal motivation. Curious.

“You want my help,” Tobirama says. Orochimaru’s chakra twists in unhappiness at that but he doesn’t argue, doesn’t say a word. He takes a long moment to just look at Orochimaru, take in the way the man looks and acts, the way his chakra twists and coils. Hiruzen was not good for him, Tobirama realizes. Hiruzen always believed the best in people but unlike Kagami, who had the charisma to earn their best and the experience to understand and accept their worst, Hiruzen had always been a little naive. It was never anything Tobirama managed to talk Hiruzen through; it’s why the boy was his second choice for Hokage, not his first. That blind hope worked for him as a child but it’s clear it didn’t help as a teacher, not when he had a student so undeniably similar to Danzo and even to Tobirama himself. He doesn’t sigh but a part of him wants to. So long has passed and Hiruzen is still blinding himself to the flaws of those he’s close to.

“For every question of mine that you answer truthfully,” Tobirama decides eventually, “I will help you with another jutsu.” It’s a deal that favors Orochimaru but that’s exactly what Tobirama wants.

“…And if I don’t agree?”

“I created Edo Tensei,” Tobirama says dryly, “I know how to end it, whether I’m the one that originally used it or not.” Orochimaru watches him silently, most likely debating whether it’s worth it to take the deal or whether he should try his luck in controlling Tobirama with another of those seals.

“Fine,” Orochimaru capitulates. “Ask your question.” Tobirama smiles.

“Orochimaru, what’s your favorite food?”

It keeps going. At first, Orochimaru won’t answer another question until they finish the jutsu he’s owed and Tobirama keeps the questions themselves simple. Favorite food (onsen tamago), favorite color (purple), favorite animal (snake). Orochimaru’s natural wariness starts lessening with the easy questions and soon he’s letting Tobirama stockpile questions, keeping close track of how many jutsus (taught or created) he’s owed.

He runs out of really simple questions and starts letting them progress along. Not too quickly or Orochimaru would close up but he starts complicating them slowly, carefully, adjusting them based on his new student’s mood. And Orochimaru is his student now, whether he knows it or not. The first question to truly give Orochimaru pause is ‘what are your teammates like?’ For a long moment, Tobirama thinks he won’t answer, that he’s hit a barrier. Orochimaru is unwilling to trade information on his teammates for the chance at more power. But no—

“Tsunade-hime is the Shodai Hokage’s granddaughter and the last officially recognized Senju,” Orochimaru says, confident in his choice to answer. “She’s a decent shinobi but her loyalty to her Medic Code is a weakness; if freed from it, she would be a force to be reckoned with. Jiraiya is much the same. His skill comes from his powerful ninjutsu and his spy network but he’s still too weak, too kind. And his obsession with pornography is— beneath him.” There’s real annoyance in that last bit, and being able to discern all the little emotions in Orochimaru’s voice and chakra has been hard won, recently. Tobirama smiles and starts describing to Orochimaru the basics of San’nokku.

Tobirama lets the subject lie for a while, slipping back into easier questions. He learns that Orochimaru prefers a good book to most anything, that the intricacies of politics intrigue him, that the only time Hiruzen has truly denied him something was when he asked to be an official Medic nin because he wouldn’t accept the Code. He learns other things as well, not just about Orochimaru, but about the world. Konoha has grown since he was Hokage and changed in other ways beside. It’s… nostalgic, a little, and he feels some combination of sadness for missing it and happiness for it’s success.

The next time Orochimaru has trouble answering Tobirama’s question is the first time the younger shinobi has flat out lied to him.

“Do you like your teammates?” Tobirama asks, expecting a quick and easy answer. Orochimaru’s chakra is forced into unnatural stillness, golden eyes turning to Tobirama, unblinking.

“I hate them,” Orochimaru says, lies, and it sounds like I love them. He doesn’t add a tally to the jutsus Tobirama owes him. Neither of them mention the lie and their careful balance continues on.

They’re the Kagami to his Danzo, he decides. His moral code, the only reason he hasn’t slipped from Konoha to chase his own goals. And they’re gone from Konoha, Tobirama is aware of that much. Jiraiya is the main force of Konoha’s spy network, bringing in information otherwise unobtainable, but Orochimaru never gave a reason for Tsunade. With how skilled at healing Tsunade has apparently gotten, Tobirama doubts Hiruzen would send her off on an extended mission so he has the feeling whatever is keeping her from the village is personal.

“Why don’t you go find them?” He asks at one point. Orochimaru blinks, turning his attention from the jutsu he was perfecting his control over.

“What?” He asks, apparently genuinely confused. Not surprising, he has tunnel vision. Much like Tobirama himself does, when working on a project.

“Your teammates,” Tobirama clarifies. “Why don’t you go find them?” Orochimaru’s eyes flick away. He wonders if the man is going to lie again— or give an excuse that’s not technically a lie.

“They wouldn’t want to see me,” Orochimaru says, his truth. Tobirama watches him, watches him keep his hands busy, and sees a tiny, fluffy haired boy twisting a kunai in his hands and watching the edge of the blade with a raptness that’s clearly born out of anxiety. It’s odd, how a man Tobirama had so closely compared to Danzo could so easily remind him of Kagami, traumatized and orphaned and never sure of his place in the Uchiha clan. Even when Madara had been a strong figure in the clan and a near father figure for Kagami, the child had thought that he never truly belonged with the Uchiha— that they didn’t want him, really.

Tobirama had never been able to break Kagami from that line of thought, not before Madara abandoned them and certainly not after, but Uchihas feel emotion differently than most, so incredibly strongly, and maybe there’s still a chance for him to set Orochimaru on the road to healing. All he knows for now is that he can’t leave, not with Orochimaru’s tentative trust cupped so delicately in his hands, and definitely not without Jiraiya or Tsunade, preferably both, around.

He keeps going with the current deal for lack of anything else. At last, an idea comes to him, quiet and soft.

“Could you get me some himono?” Tobirama asks Orochimaru. “I miss the taste of fish.”

“You miss the taste of fish,” Orochimaru repeats, puzzled. Tobirama nods.

“I like fish of all kind,” Tobirama explains easily. “Fish is my favorite food, though I prefer salmon if I had to choose.” He shrugs. “I’m simply craving himono at the moment.” Orochimaru eyes him like he’s lost his mind.

“We don’t even know if you have proper taste buds,” Orochimaru says as if he thinks Tobirama has suddenly transformed into an idiot. He doesn’t take it to heart.

“Then it’s the perfect time to test it,” Tobirama urges. He won’t push Orochimaru any more after this, he’s already done what he set out to do, but part of him really does crave himono. While he can eat whatever he wanted in the Pure Lands, it’s been a while since he was revived with Edo Tensei and he’s not eaten (or drank) since then. Plus, Pure Lands food had always tasted almost too perfect. There had been little variation. But he needn’t have worried because the idea of an experiment, even one as harmless as this, brings Orochimaru alive with scientific curiosity.

“Salmon himono,” he murmurs, half to himself, and turns distractedly back to what he was working on. Tobirama notices that Orochimaru makes no move to add that particular question to the tally of owed jutsus.

The himono is delicious, when he gets it, and he keeps giving Orochimaru bits and pieces of himself in the meantime. He has no doubt that Orochimaru has caught on to what he’s doing by now. He, by his own admission, has spent time with T&I and while Tobirama has technically gone about it a little backwards, it’s not any less effective at building trust. Tobirama, of course, isn’t intending to use it against Orochimaru as it would have been in a T&I setting but that doesn’t stop his youngest student from pinning him with a calculating look one day and saying, dryly, “I know what you’re doing.” Tobirama smiles.

“You’re letting me,” he points out. Orochimaru frowns at him and turns away but doesn’t deny it. Tobirama can’t give the other shinobi the therapy he so clearly needs, therapy wasn’t something terrible worried about when war was such a complete constant and he doubts the attitude towards it has changers overly much, but he can at least be a friend. Even he has to fight his way into that position. With all his students, really; the village wasn’t at the point yet that six children trained to kill and to lead from six separate clans could live peaceably with each other. Torifu and Kagami were the most receptive to the idea of a team with outside but even they were wary and distrusting in the beginning.

Their balance continues. And it’s working in the way that Tobirama wanted it to— Orochimaru is fixating less and less on learning, on creating, and more on living but…

Tobirama’s not alive. Not anymore. He can’t be Orochimaru’s only support. Edo Tensei was never a jutsu meant to last. The dead should stay dead. Tobirama knows this better, now, than anyone else. Being here in the living world is getting harder and harder. It’s slow, gradual, and Orochimaru hasn’t noticed it yet, but Tobirama’s chakra is responding slower. It’s making his senses just a little dimmer, his body just a little harder to control. He’s on a time limit.

When Orochimaru next leaves him to his own devices, he decides to make a move. For the first time since Tobirama died, two snow leopard summons step into this dimension. Isami and Ayame are different than he remembers. Age has started to leave it’s mark on them, even if they still clearly have the restrained power and easy agility that younger cats take for granted.

“It’s been a long time,” Tobirama says to them, sliding his hands over their cheeks and through their thick fur, “but I have one last thing to ask of you, old friends.”

Tsunade stops, every muscle in her body going tense. Shizune freezes beside her, immediately scanning the forest on the edge of the road. If it’s someone after her for a debt, they’re good. Tsunade’s not even entirely sure what alerted her to the presence in the first place. Between one second and the next she had simply known: they’re being hunted. Likely, their hunter has been following them for a while and just made a mistake or, more likely, they had let her sense them.

Tsunade stays on edge as the seconds tick by, most of her attention on making sure Shizune stays safe and secure. Tsunade doesn’t want to fight but she wants Shizune to have to fight even less so she’s willing to, if she has to.

There’s a flash of white accompanied by a rustle and then a snow leopard steps out onto the path ahead of them, footsteps silent and blue eyes piercing. The snow leopard is big but not as big as she knows they can get. She recognizes Isami, even if the last time she saw him she was just a child, curled into her great-uncle’s side as he told her about his work, the snow leopards spread around them. Isami had always been her favorite, so close to her uncle in temperament.

Isami watches them, eyes slipping to the side to take in Shizune, defensive and wary but not willing to make a move until Tsunade does. Then he turns, glancing back at them only to nod his head in Konoha’s direction. Isami disappears into the forest and Tsunade takes a step in his direction, unthinking, before she stops again.

“Tsunade-sama?” Shizune questions. Tsunade looks at the girl who would have been her niece and thinks. Shizune has never really supported Tsunade’s decision to leave the Leaf. It had been her home, both of their homes, for their entire lives. It’s still Shizune’s home. (If she lets herself be truthful, it’s still her home too, even after everything.)

And— someone summoned Isami. Someone sent Isami to her. Even now, there’s only one choice she could ever make.

“We’re going home,” Tsunade tells Shizune.

Tobirama opens his fist, watching the movement lag jaggedly. There’s no hiding it anymore. If Orochimaru hasn’t picked up on it already, he will soon. He sighs and glances at the tally. Eleven jutsus still owed. He has notes, has written down seven he had yet to teach Orochimaru and three that he had been working on before being the Hokage on top of being a sensei consumed all his free time.

One left.

The door to the lab opens and Orochimaru steps in, oddly hesitant. He’s been expecting this ever since he felt the soft peat of Tsunade’s chakra, accompanied by a crackling blaze of unfamiliar chakra he assumes is Jiraiya and a smaller blip of water chakra that must be the girl traveling with Tsunade that Isami told him about.

“You’re leaving,” Orochimaru says, voice oddly blank. Tobirama nods.

“Edo Tensei only lasts so long. And I miss my family.” Kawarama and Itama the most, if he’s being honest— he has spent his afterlife thus far relearning his little brothers and he regrets missing this much of their un-lives, even if he knows the Pure Lands are a fairly static (and safe) place.

“You still owe me jutsus,” Orochimaru denies. Tobirama gestures to the scrolls he stacked neatly on the place that has become his workshop.

“Ten jutsu, finished and unfinished.” He releases an eleventh scroll, thinner than the rest and decorated in blue and silver, from a tattoo on his arm. “And… a gift.” Orochimaru stares at the scroll before his eyes flick up to Tobirama, wide and overwhelmed.

“That’s a summoning scroll,” he says.

“It is,” Tobirama agrees. “You can’t sign your name, not when you already have a pact with the snakes, but they’ll come if you need them and…” he hesitates, sliding his fingertips along the edge of the scroll. “I have no use for summons in the Pure Lands. I can’t bring them there. I would entrust choosing the next summoner to you, if you would accept.” Orochimaru doesn’t move for a long moment and Tobirama knows the man well enough by now to recognize the fear and uncertainty that twists through his chakra but it’s still a relief when Orochimaru accepts the scroll almost reverently. Tobirama smiles and cups Orochimaru’s cheek, tearing the man’s attention away from the scroll and to him.

“Live well, Orochimaru,” Tobirama tells him. “And know that if nothing else, I am proud of you.”

“Thank you, sensei.”

The second time Tobirama is summoned with Edo Tensei is much less pleasant. Orochimaru is the one to summon him again, among a selection of other people. Hashirama, Kagami, Minato, Hiruzen. Little Itachi and Kisame. Others he never learned the names of, even in the Pure Lands. It’s not for research, which Tobirama could understand, but for something far, far worse.

Over a hundred years ago, now, Tobirama fought in his last war, a last attempt to make the world safer and better for those that came after. Now he’s fighting again, fighting another damn war, armies of people he’s never met, a conglomeration of all the Hidden Villages, all against a handful of people. People controlled by Edo Tensei, a few living people.

Madara and Izuna, fighting side-by-side once again. Another Uchiha, as intangible as a ghost and powerful enough to hold his own against the strongest they have to throw at him. The Akatsuki members that Orochimaru couldn’t get to in time. An army of weak but plentiful soldiers, white and inhuman.

Tobirama does what he can, following in the wake of Izuna’s destruction as he makes loops around Madara. Madara, at least, is context to fight the other reanimated Kages, practically dancing around them as they get used to their new bodies. Izuna is much less willing to play around, sending battalions scattering with powerful attacks so that the Zetsus have a chance to change the tide of the fights before vanishing again, a shadow of death flitting across the battlefield. Tobirama follows doggedly, spending precious seconds putting out out-of-control fights and stopping landslides, drowning Zetsus when the Shinobi Alliance battalion is really struggling.

And finally, finally, Tobirama catches up, back where Madara toys with Hashirama and Minato and Kagami. Hiruzen is gone, released from Edo Tensei or off to help with an issue elsewhere. More people have congregated here, in this lull in fighting. Tobirama recognizes the boy with golden-red hair from the beginning of this battle, and his two teammates. There’s a silver-haired Hatake, as well, and the third Uchiha working with Madara and Izuna, standing close between the two sides.

And then—

Golden-white light and living wisps of shadow, an explosion of harsh wind and sound.

Tobirama blinks spots from his vision, ears ringing. His side seems similarly out of sorts, shaking their heads and pressing hands to eyes, to ears. Tobirama’s eyes sweep back over to the Uchiha brothers and freezes, breath catching. There, standing just to the side of the Hatake and Uchiha pair, is a group of people in odd clothes with odd swords and odd not-chakra signatures, led by a man with fluffy dark hair and friendly dark eyes. Tobirama looks at Wuxian, taking in the familiar energy signature and the sharp, mischievous grin with disbelief.

Wuxian had been dead, Tobirama knows that, and he also knows that this man’s features aren’t quite the same as Wuxian’s but the signature is the same, just shades different from what the bijuu feel like. And Wuxian isn’t alone. There’s four teens just about the Uzumaki’s age clustered together, taking in the battlefield with wide eyes and insistent whispers.

Behind them is a clearly reanimated man, whatever jutsu or seal or talisman holding him together looking like some sort of Edo Tensei offshoot. There’s a resigned man in purple who looks like he’s seconds away from snapping standing with a wide-eyed man in green who looks innocent and child-like but sets off all of Tobirama’s instincts. There’s a man in white as well, expression more flat and emotionless than the Uzumaki’s Uchiha teammate could ever hope to be.

“Tobi-er!” Wuxian cries, his face lighting up. Everyone near them turns to Tobirama with varying levels of surprise and Tobirama wonders if he wants to test the tentative ceasefire by strangling his oldest friend. “And Naru-er!” He adds brightly. Naruto beams and waves enthusiastically.

“Hi, Niichan!” The Uzumaki calls back. On the other side of the new group, Izuna makes an unflattering noise.

“You!” He shrieks. Madara, barely visible behind the group due to his short stature, appears to be muttering to himself about Tobirama’s nickname. How wonderful. Wuxian whirls around to face the Uchiha brothers.

“Angry ghost child!” He gasps, pointing at Izuna aggressively. One of the two teenagers that are dressed in white robes that match the stoic man’s robes yanks Wuxian’s arm down, snapping something at the man in that odd language of theirs. Unfortunately, it’s been far too long since Tobirama’s had a chance or reason to so much as think about the language and all he seems to be able to recall is ‘Xinlà de’. Spicy. The other teenager that’s wearing white robes gives them all apologetic looks and says something that’s probably an apology.

“Were you guys fighting?” Wuxian asks. Then he adds, confused, “also aren’t most of you dead?”

“Isn’t that man dead as well?” Tobirama asks dryly, gesturing to the man at the back of the group. Wuxian glances at the man when he says something.

“Oh,” Wuxian says, “that’s right,” and he pulls out a stack of talisman from… his sleeve? He proceeds to smack one onto each of his companions. The one in purple becomes visibly murderous.

“Now you should all be able to understand each other!” Wuxian says cheerfully.

“Wei Ying,” the one in purple growls threateningly.

“Okay, okay,” Wuxian complains, as if the man gave him a comprehensive lecture instead of a two word threat. “Everyone, this is the world that I sometimes disappeared off to when I was a kid and is also where I was trapped as a spirit. That guy is Tobi-er, that’s Naru-er, that’s Izuna, that’s his brother Madara, I’m pretty sure that one’s named Hashirama, and that one’s Kagami.” He pauses. “I think that’s all the names I know. Anyway these are Lan Yuan, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, Ouyang Zizhen, Wen Ning, Jiang Wanyin, Nie Huaisang, and my husband, Lan Wangji!”

“Hello,” Yuan greets politely with an odd bow. Disconcertingly, the boy’s mouth doesn’t match up with the word he apparently said. Probably an effect of the talisman.

“Hiya!” Uzumaki chirps. “I’m Naruto and these are Sakura and Sasuke! And the old man over there is Kakashi-sensei and the other guy is Obito!”

“Your names are weird,” Jingyi says bluntly.

“Like you’re one to talk!” Naruto protests at the same time Yuan scolds, “A-Yi! Be nice!” The younger people devolve into petty squabbling, Yuan and Zizhen futilely trying to play peacemakers while Wuxian laughs gleefully and more and more people get roped into the growing argument. There’s a crackle of purple light that snaps angrily around Wanyin. It shuts everyone up pretty quickly when paired with his downright bloodthirsty expression.

“Someone tell me what’s happening right now.” Wanyin demands angrily, still sparking. When Wuxian goes to say something, he snaps, “not you!”

“Oh, we’re in the middle of a war because those guys over there think that the world’s so sucky that it would be better if everyone was trapped in a giant illusion where everything was perfect even if that means that you could never have friends or be in love or anything because everyone would technically be you cause it’s all in your head,” Naruto says cheerfully. Everyone goes silent, staring at him.

“…the kid’s got a point,” Madara mutters.

“This was your idea!” Izuna shrieks.

“You wanted to kill everyone!” Madara shouts back.

“Not everyone,” Izuna defends, “mostly just the Senju.”

“You guys do realize that there’s only, like, one officially recognized Senju, right?” Wuxian asks. Izuna and Madara’s attention snap to him.

“…What.” Izuna says blankly. Tobirama heaves a sigh.

“At this point, we might as well just talk this out like the adults we say we are,” he says. Hashirama, who has looked lost up until this point, immediately lights up.

“Oh! I can make a building!” And then he proceeds to do exactly that.

“Whoa,” Zizhen says. “How’d you do that?”

“I have Mokuton,” Hashirama tells him. Ling scrunches up his nose.

“Wood Release?” He repeats, confused.

“…A lot to talk about,” Tobirama says on a sigh, mostly to himself.

It does not get any less chaotic once the entire group is wrangled around a table. The juniors, as Wuxian calls them, keep getting into arguments with the youngest generation of Team 7 (or at least Ling and Jingyi do). Kakashi and Obito appear to be trying to share a skin, much to happiness of Minato, all of which is something Tobirama wouldn’t want to touch with a thousand foot pole. Hashirama has apparently found a kindred spirit in Huaisang even though the man still raises Tobirama’s hackles. Wanyin has apparently decided that all of them are beneath him but has lowered himself to complaining about elder brothers with Izuna— Wanyin is Wuxian’s adopted younger brother, it turns out, although he doesn’t seem particularly at ease with that information. Wuxian is egging on the young ones and bugging Kakashi and Obito and butting into Wanyin and Izuna’s complains; really just making a general nuisance of himself.

The only ones not adding to the chaos are Wangji, who hasn’t said a word or emoted since he got here, Sasuke, who appears to be attempting to out-stoic Wangji, Wen Ning, who shrinks in on himself anxiously anytime anyone remembers the fact that he exists, and Tobirama himself, who really just wants to be released back to the afterlife and his baby brothers. And maybe to drink an entire store worth of sake before that. Either way, he would be free of this nonsense.

“So, Ghost Boy,” Tobirama hears Wuxian say, “what are you gonna do now that the clan you were after is gone?” Izuna tosses his hands in the air.

“I don’t know! I never liked Konoha, get rid of that?”

“Why?” Wuxian asks, as the conversations around them start quieting down, everyone tuning into the conversation to see what’s said.

“Because it was never in our favor!” Snarls Izuna. “Because we forfeited our freedom at a disadvantage and we stayed disadvantaged! Because when doling out jobs, the Senju were the leaders and protectors and we were the enforcers, as if there will ever be a time were something like a police force is looked kindly upon!” And something in Izuna breaks, then, gets quiet and sad but still fierce. “Because I had to live with the people that killed my brothers, watch them smile and laugh, and know that they’ll never see justice for what they did.” As much as Tobirama wants to have the perfect answer for this, he knows that nothing he says will make the situation better. He has never been the most sociable of people and any explanation he tries to give for putting the Uchiha in charge of the police force (something that was never, never meant to mean only Uchiha, always Uchiha) will only incense Izuna. Plus, he understands well Izuna’s last point— if he hadn’t hunted down Kawarama and Itama’s killers himself, if he had to live beside them, day in and day out and know…

He’s not entirely sure he would have done anything different.

“Izuna…” Madara says quietly, pained, in the silence his brother left.

There’s another pause, everyone unsure of what to say, before Yuan speaks up, “My entire family was killed when I was four.” Wuxian doesn’t flinch but he does look away from the teenager and Tobirama sees the sadness and guilt that darkens his eyes. “My sect was in a war against nearly everyone. They lost, eventually, and if was just me and my family leftover. Farmers, creators, a child, a medic. The only ones that knew how to fight were Wen Ning and his sister and Senior Wei, when he joined us.” There was a pause as Yuan thought of what to say next.

“My sect killed Sect Leader Jiang’s family.” Wanyin tenses, purple lightning crackling over his knuckles. “They killed Jingyi’s parents.” Jingyi’s eyes turn downwards, his jaw clenching. “They killed Zizhen’s cousins.” Zizhen glances away, blinking away tears. “They killed a-die’s father and the people he was meant to look after.” Wangji blinks and Tobirama catches just the slightest flutter, the most emotion he’s seen since the man’s appeared. “My sect committed atrocities in the name of war because a- a warmongering old man told them to. And when the war was over, people were still hurt because their families were still dead. But my family, the last of the Wens, they were alive and they were Wens.” Minato takes in a sharp breath. Kagami looks sick, far too aware of the horrors of the war to be surprised but still too kindhearted to accept it.

“They took my family from me because my family looked like the people that took their families from them. I could hate them for it. I could kill Jin Ling because his grandfather convinced everyone that my family was evil just because they were Wens or because his uncle caused Senior Wei’s death. I won’t though. I won’t fall so far as to do to them what they did, afraid and angry, to me.” Yuan hesitates, glancing at the other teenagers, and finished with, “and if I had killed them, I’d have never known what it would be to love them.” That pulls Izuna up short, and his eyes flick between the four teenagers. His mouth twists, eyes flicking down, and Tobirama realizes the other must be thinking of someone. Maybe someone he could’ve loved, given a true chance to know them.

Across the table, Tobirama meets Madara’s gaze, and he wonders.

“A truce,” Madara offers. “For now, at least.” Izuna does nothing to deny it, no longer paying any sort of attention. Hashirama smiles and it’s a little more worn now, a little more wary, but it’s still oh-so-hopeful.

“A truce,” he agrees. “You’ll tell whoever’s using Edo Tensei on your side, then? And the Zetsu?”

“No need,” says an insidious voice says darkly.

…

Silver and blue slashes brilliantly through the air, a blade singing with bright power. By the time Tobirama has turned to the intruder, he has been run through, a white sword stuck through his chest, it’s glinting blade stained golden with the creature’s blood. It’s something like a Zetsu but blacker than night with flat, empty eyes. The creature explodes, disintegrates into quickly scattering power. And there’s cords of music, music that speaks to the part of Tobirama still in the Pure Lands, thrumming through his soul and the fingertips of this false body. It’s warm and safe and Tobirama can’t help but lean into the feeling as the music cuts through the waves of power, splitting it around the table like they’re an island in a raging river.

As quickly as it had begun, it’s over.

The creature, the black Zetsu, is gone, vanished from this plane of existence. The music has stopped though the soothing warmth still suffuses the air. The sword, untouched except for the droplets of gold blood lingering on it’s blade, hovers in the same spot, unaffected by the laws of nature. Tobirama’s eyes slide over to Wangji, now standing, and the guqin resting in the air before him, similarly unaffected by the idea that there’s nothing to hold it in the air in the first place. In a flash, the sword as returns to the soft blue sheathe at Wangji’s side and the guqin has vanishes as though it never existed in the first place.

“You killed him,” Madara says, dumbfounded. Izuna looks speechlessly surprised at his side, staring at the spot that the black Zetsu once resided in.

“No,” Wangji denies and does not elaborate. Tobirama turns expectant attention on Wuxian, whom pulls through.

“Spiritual swords are made to be used against nonhuman entities like vengeful spirits, fierce corpses, and the occasional god. The spiritual energy they’re practically bathed in allows the soul, if the enemy has a soul, release from the negative emotions that bind them to this plane. Basically, Lan Zhan, Wangji, set that thing to rest,” Wuxian explains. “It was more difficult to discern what it was than it usually is back home because of the differences between energy and chakra but Lan Zhan is amazing as always and recognized it as a minor god, probably given form by people’s belief, and dealt with it before it could make trouble.”

“How did you know it wasn’t friendly?” Tobirama asks curiously.

“It, uh… felt bad?” Wuxian says hesitantly. “It was made of resentful energy, actual resentful energy so this world has the ability for it, it’s just not common, and things that subsist off of resentful energy are rarely friendly. It taints them, twists all their emotions up until only the negative emotions are there. Wen Ning is one of the few resentful beings still in nearly full control of himself and that was mostly because I… well, I’m not entirely sure what I did, to be honest.”

“Interesting,” Tobirama muses. “So—”

“Not to interrupt,” Madara says loudly, “but do you think that could have affected other people’s emotions? The, what did you say? Resentful energy?” Wuxian tilts his head.

“It’s possible,” he allows after a moment. “Since it was some sort of minor deity, it might have had the ability to affect humans. The only other time I’ve had direct contact with a minor deity, it gained it’s power by fulfilling people’s wishes and then eating their souls as payment, which is a different power set completely, but there’s more variation in the abilities of deities than in most other things. If it came to life with the purpose of manipulation or something similar…” Wuxian trails off, lips moving indecipherably as he murmurs to himself in his own language.

“Shouldn’t we be helping contain the other Zetsus now?” Minato points out. Madara and Izuna frown, sharing a glance.

“We might be able to convince Kabuto to call off the Edo Tensei,” Izuna says, “but Zetsu is unlikely to stop, especially now that his other half has been… lain to rest…”

“Then we better get moving,” Kagami says firmly.

Kagami, as the only Uchiha Hokage and practically the only one of the group that Izuna can stand, goes with Madara and Izuna to inform Kabuto of the change in plans and deal with the fall out of that as necessary. The rest of them split off into groups to help with the Zetsu. All of the cultivators’ (as they call themselves) techniques work astoundingly well against the Zetsu so they’re spread out, a group of cultivators for each Hokage (or Hokage-adjacent shinobi) so that they could protect the cultivators from any unfriendly shinobi.

Minato (and later Hiruzen, when they run into him again) gets the teenagers and Wen Ning, Naruto and Sasuke get Wanyin and Huaisang, and Tobirama gets Wuxian and Wangji. Hashirama is set to the task of hunting down the Edo Tensei on the other side of the war and capturing them in his Mokuton.

Watching Wuxian and Wangji work together is odd. They can fly with the assistance of their swords, which is strange enough, though they’ll stay on the ground near Tobirama when not traveling so that he can better protect them, but they also end up fighting the Zetsus mostly with music. Wuxian will play something on his dizi and that brings the Zetsu in hearing range under a fragile sort of control, keeping them from mostly docile while Wangji uses his guqin to ‘cleanse’ them. The swords, Bichen and Suibian, he learns, pick off any stragglers. The Zetsu drop by the hundred. They’re probably not as powerful as the original Zetsus were since they’re all just solid clones but it’s still impressive to see how effective they are.

The war is over. Or at least it’s stopped. Kabuto has (rather reluctantly, by Kagami’s descriptions) told his reanimated soldiers to stand down. He had then been abducted by Orochimaru and a woman called Anko, looking resigned to his fate all the while. Wanyin had not returned and Huaisang informed them that he had made friends with the current Raikage. Huaisang looks faintly traumatized and wanders off with a distant look; Tobirama sees him with a Nara several minutes later. He still doesn’t trust that man.

The Juniors have been adopted into Team 7 and they seem to be trying to teach them some sort of game. The pale one, Sai, is the only one having any luck with it. Jingyi and Naruto are having a competition that Minato is overseeing to see who can balance on their hands longer while Sasuke and Sakura snarl threats at Sai and Yuan and Zizhen try to explain the game more clearly. Jingyi, he notices, isn’t so much as sweating from his handstand. Naruto’s arms are already trembling. Wen Ning is a couple of feet away, chatting quietly with a red-haired kunoichi.

Izuna and Madara and Kagami and Obito are talking as well, the Hatake lingering beside them with sharp eyes. Hiruzen has left as well to hunt down his students, apparently to make amends. All over, people are resting and healing. Miraculously, no one is dead. The war hadn’t had the chance to get into full swing before Wuxian and his group crashed in and confused everyone to the point of ceasefire. It a miracle. And more than that, it was a chance for the Hidden Villages to see how much more powerful they are when working together. Maybe this scare, short-lived though it was, will be the catalyst for true peace.

“What are you thinking about, Tobi-er?” Wuxian wonders. Lan Wangji is a wall at his back, unmoved in the face of an entirely different world.

“Peace,” he says truthfully, with a gesture around them. At all the people sitting together, talking together, trusting each other regardless of village. A sight that Tobirama had thought he’d never see. Something he thought, on his less optimistic days (of which there were a good number), was completely impossible.

“Good thoughts, then,” Wuxian says, cheerfully.

“Maybe I wanted the war,” Tobirama says, just to be contrary. Wuxian rolls his eyes but makes no move to keep the teasing going like he was so keen to do when he was younger. Instead, he’s content to just stand with Tobirama and Wangji, watching the Juniors make friends. They’re his team, as far as Tobirama can tell. Or at least, the alternate universe version of a shinobi team.

“The fighting you and Wangji-san did earlier was impressive and beautiful to watch. You two make a great team,” Tobirama says eventually.

“Yeah we do,” Wuxian says, love struck. He glances up at Wangji with a sweet smile. He pauses at whatever he sees on n Wangji’s expression for a moment and then ducks his head to say something to his husband in his native tongue.

“Sorry, Lan Zhan isn’t used to people referring to him as just Wangji.” Wuxian explains, “we show respect different back home.”

“Oh,” Tobirama says, a little surprised the thought that something like that could be different never occurred to him. “How do you show respect, then?”

“Well, you guys use honorifics a lot, and we have those too, just different ones, but we also have courtesy names and titles and stuff,” Wuxian starts, a little slowly. “Basically, my name is Wei Ying. That’s the name my parents gave me when I was born. Usually only friends call me Wei Ying and only close friends or family calls me some variation of Ying. Then I have this courtesy name, which is something you usually earn later in life. Mine is Wei Wuxian. It’s what the majority of people call me. Then there’s a possibility of a title. Not everyone has to have one but I do. While usually used to show even more respect, some titles are given for other reasons. For instance, I’m called Yiling Laozu mostly in fear or hate. You use just Wuxian for me which puts you in this kind of limbo between formal and informal since it’s not my given name but it’s also not my full courtesy name.”

“Would either of you like me to call you something else?” Tobirama asks. Wuxian waves him off.

“It’s fine, you didn’t know and I’ve gotten used to it.” Tobirama looks at Wangji.

Wangji: “Mn.”

Tobirama looks back at Wuxian, Wangji’s assigned translator.

“He agrees with me,” Wuxian assures. Tobirama accepts that easily enough. He trusts that Wuxian can reliably understand Wangji and that he wouldn’t lie to him about something like this, which is less likely to make harmless chaos and than to start a fight.

“It’s good to see you this last time,” Tobirama tells Wuxian. The man— younger at this point even if he had started out older, something that is a little disquieting —blinks wordlessly at him, a little taken off guard. “I had thought that I’d never be able to give you a real goodbye. Never be able to thank you for all you’ve done to protect my family.” Wuxian goes red, embarrassed.

“It was nothing, really,” Wuxian tries but Tobirama isn’t standing for it.

“It wasn’t nothing,” Tobirama says firmly. “You saved my students, you brought the Uzumaki back to Uzushio. You’ve helped so many people. You’re a good person, Wei Wuxian, and I am glad beyond words that you seem to have found yourself your own happy ending.” Wuxian opens his mouth, likely to argue, but his eyes land on Yuan and Zizhen and Ling cheering Jingyi on (who still has yet to drop from his handstand), on Naruto, just as hyped and pressed close to his father, and he sighs, instead, expression going soft. He meets Wangji’s eyes for a moment and Tobirama sees sees something indescribable pass between the two.

“Yeah, I am too,” Wuxian says, with more love and warmth in his voice than Tobirama has ever heard someone be able to carry. Then his dark eyes turn on Tobirama, a spark of mischievousness coming back to then. “What about you, then?”

“What about me?” Tobirama asks. Wuxian nods at towards the group of Uchiha. Tobirama turns to see them better and meets Madara’s gaze. (He’s just as beautiful as he was a hundred years ago, confined to his desk by paperwork and three years before that, back lit by raging fire as the sharingan spun hypnotically.)

“Do you really want this chance to slip by too,” Wuxian eggs. Tobirama shoots him a glare but Wuxian meets it head on, grinning sharply and unaffected. Tobirama looks away first. Wuxian laughs bright and loud, patting him on the shoulder.

“Go,” Wangji says, unexpectedly. “Or you’ll regret.” That sounded personal, knowledgeable. Still, Tobirama hesitates. Wuxian shoos him off with a gesture, still smiling widely. Tobirama sighs heavily.

“If you insist,” he says, more put upon than he really feels. Wangji is right, after all. If he doesn’t do this now, he won’t do it in the Pure Lands, and he’ll regret it until his soul enter the reincarnation cycle. So he goes, Wuxian nudging Wangji behind him with warm murmurs.

As he approaches the Uchihas, Izuna rolls his eyes heavenward but Kagami says something that has the man snickers. The Uchiha he doesn’t know the name of sighs irritably, grabbing his Hatake by the elbow and disappearing with a swirl.

“Hi Tobirama-sensei,” Kagami chirps. He links his arms with Izuna’s and starts dragging the other away, calling over his shoulder, “bye Tobirama-sensei!” as Izuna grumbles uncharitably under his breath. Tobirama watches them go bemusedly.

“What was that about?” He wonders aloud. Madara groans, wiping a gloved hand down his face.

“I don’t even want to begin to know,” the Uchiha says pathetically. “Those two hit it off far too well and now I’m worried for the continuing sanity of everyone here.” Tobirama snorts.

“As if there’s any shinobi with sanity in the first place.” Madara pauses and then nods at him.

“You have a point. I worry for the continued self-control of everyone present,” he corrects. Tobirama shakes his head, smiling. It really is an understandable worry— In the distance, there’s an explosion of lightning, both of chakric origin and that odd purple lighting that sparked around Wanyin, followed by a loud screech of “Uchiha!!” that tells them where Kagami and Izuna got off to.

“I’m not fucking dealing with that,” Madara says blankly.

“Neither am I,” Tobirama agrees immediately. They exchange a glance and immediately hightail it in the other direction. Tobirama is laughing when they stop running, feeling lighter than he has in years. They’ve escaped the battlefield entirely, hiding away in a nearby forest. Madara is laughing as well and it lifts years from his face.

"Hashirama's gonna kill us for leaving them to deal with those two,” Madara says, far too gleefully. "Kami, I wonder what they did? They were gone for, like, two seconds!”

“You’re beautiful,” escapes Tobirama before he can stop it and he winces when Madara freezes, eyes wide.

“What?” Well, nothing for it, he might as well double-down.

“You’re beautiful,” he repeats. “I’ve always thought so, just…” he shrugs. Between the war and building the village and everything with Izuna, there had never really been a moment Tobirama had felt he could be completely honest with Madara. And that’s an excuse too, he knows, but it’s a comfortable one and a true one.

“You— I—” Madara cuts off with a high-pitched noise, cheeks pink, and stomps up to Tobirama. He watches, bemused, right up until Madara’s fingers curl around the edges of his armor and he’s yanked down into a searing kiss.

Oh, he realizes, feeling a little dumb.

“I’ve wanted to do that for years,” Madara says victoriously when they part, looking proud of himself. Tobirama can’t help another short laugh and presses a kiss to Madara’s lips, happiness settling in him.

“Oh, ew!” Izuna shrieks. Madara tears away from Tobirama with a war cry, lunging at his younger brother with murder in his eyes. Izuna yelps, scrambling to get away. Kagami’s there as well, laughing at his partner-in-crime’s misfortune. Tobirama wanders over to his student’s side, watching the two brothers fondly. This is what it should have been since the beginning.

“About damn time,” his student teases. “I expected to get adopted by you two ages ago.” Tobirama rolls his eyes.

“Don’t make me sick Orochimaru on you,” he warns. Kagami snickers. Izuna shrieks when Madara tackles him, kicking at his older brother in a desperate bid for escape.

“I”m gonna dunk you in the pond, you brat!” Madara snarls.

“There’s not even one here!” Izuna wails.

“I’ll make Tobirama make one!” Madara scrambles to keep all of Izuna’s limbs under control and makes the mistake of getting an arm too close to Izuna’s mouth. The younger Uchiha goes for blood.

“I’m happy for you, sensei,” Kagami tells him, surprisingly sincere considering the dubious way he’s eyes Madara and Izuna. Tobirama smiles helplessly.

“Thank you, Kagami.” Nothing’s perfect but… it’s better than it was an hour ago, than it was a hundred years ago, and for the first time since his brothers died, Tobirama is really, truly happy.

Part 6

[sasukeless]

i just go here with ideas now apparently. tbf its because of your tag so. post-story sasuke being listless and not in fact finding peace and naruto wants to 'do something nice for him' so he has orochimaru grow a new brother, then edo tensei itachis soul into it. he doesnt come back wrong he comes back exactly as he was. which was wrong. zombie itachi proceeds to follow sasuke and mother hen the hell out of him, and not in the cute way. things get weird

naruto giving sauske the equivalent of frankestain moster but its itachi 😭 that would be so fucked for sasukes mind, i kinda wanna see it.

imagine during one travel they come across kids and suddenly sasuke starts to think back at the uchiha kids that lived and then he looks back itachis there aka the reason those children are dead, dead at his hands not less. like i bet it would get suffocating because its a whole mix of guilt for himself too isnt it? in the end even if itachi agreed w the village the reason he himself committed it was to spare sasuke and thats an awful spot to be in. especially if u keep on living w that person by ur side too, what makes u worthy of having ur brother back? all those families are dead because of him and for you?

and yeah not to mention itachi being the worst overbearing brother would NOT HELP

[writer-and-artist27]

Working Too Hard (Team Minato version)

Inspired by Gakkou Gurashi, also known as School Live in the West, the moe-zombie show I can somehow watch without being scared. Somehow. 

A sacrificial lamb in the show being named Kei, though, made me a bit unhappy. So, fluff seemed about right to cure that. And thankfully, the Narutoverse doesn’t have a zombie-equivalent aside from Edo Tensei, and even that seems mild compared to zombie apocalypses. 

Heavily based on an idea I originally pitched to @langwrites. The rain outside the library accompanies the mood of this rather nicely, I think. And since I cited Gakkou Gurashi as the inspiration for this oneshot thingie, why not use a theme from it too?

Takes place in the S&S verse as always.

---------------------------------------

“Kei, don’t you think we should let her sleep?”

Who…? 

“Normally, I’d agree with you. But a dinner chair is not exactly comfortable, Obito. She’s gotta get up.”

Something was poking me. Something pointy, yet warm. The darkness was slowly ebbing away in favor of soft light, and it took a moment for the urge to blink to set in.

“…Muu?” A yawn left my lips before my vision kicked back into full gear. The poking was still there, persistent and a bit Ow, but the amount had lessened, as if the person just realized I was coming back. “Who hit the timer…” 

The poking turned into two fingers reaching over to pinch my right cheek. “Wakey wakey, Tomo-chan.” 

“Mugu…” Without thinking, I reached up to bat at the pincers holding my face, covering another yawn with my other hand. Slowly blinking my eyes was enough to get any dust out of my vision. The teasing black eyes staring back at me merely confirmed whose hands I just batted away. “Good morning, Kei-chan…”

“Good afternoon, Tomo.” A chuckle left Kei’s lips as she reached over to hold my shoulders in a side-hug. When did it become afternoon? “What have you been doing, snoozing away on a free day?”

“Baking…” Another yawn left my throat before I could think about it. The remaining dust was feeling itchy too, so I reached up with my free hand to wipe it away from my eyes. “There’s muffins in the oven, cooling. Chocolate chip.” What was I doing again before that…? 

Maybe— 

A yawn cut through any thought Hisako could voice and I rubbed my eyes again. “I’m sorry, I’m just feeling tired…”

The presence of someone else quickly became apparent once a palm was resting against my forehead, pushing my bangs back. “No fever, but still a little warm,” Obi’s voice confirmed, sounding a lot more quiet than his usual tone. The hand on my head still brushed my hair, patting my head. “Is that all you did, Tomo-chan?”

“Muuuuu, why does this feel like an interrogation…?” 

Kei laughed again. “Considering we just came home to find you sleeping on your muffins, Tomo, it’s natural we’d be worried. We have questions.”

“Yeah! What Kei said!” With a fwhish of air, it felt like Obi had done a fist pump of sorts, accentuated by his yelling of the words, but he quickly subsided once one of Kei’s hands moved. Was there… a whack? “Whoops. Sorry, Tomo-chan.” 

Oh. So there was a whack. 

The hand on my head merely moved down to my back, patting it. “Want to go to bed, Tomo-chan? Kei and I can go.”

“Noooooo…” It didn’t take much energy to turn around and properly latch onto my friend’s waist in a hug. Even when my muscles felt weak, even when my vision was flickering in and out of reality, I knew I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be alone. “You and Kei-chan just came home. I can’t be sleepy now…!” 

Obi was warm, snuggly, and alive. Sure, he had stiffened up like a tree from my grip, but he was still alive. 

I squeezed him tighter and shook my head. “Don’t go yet…!” 

Don’t leave me!

Another hand was patting my head. “Tomo, even if you sleep, it’s not like we’ll be gone forever,” Kei said, softer this time. “We’ll come back.”

“But there’s muffins and cake and a lot of other things I could make for you…” So many things, so little time. Why were my eyes so heavy? “You came back okay from the front again, so the least I could do now is play something on the piano to—”

Someone was hugging me back. Obi? 

“Tomo-chan…” There was a small choking noise above my head, but my face was too squished into my friend’s front to really tell if it was him or not. I could only guess that it was from the proximity. “You don’t have to. Even if we go, even if we don’t see you immediately, you don’t have to push yourself. W-We’ll always come back. Promise.”

The words settled into my mind enough for my grip to fade a little. A hand was brushing my hair again, making my voice come out meek and weak. “Promise…?”

“Cross my heart, hope to—” Obito paused, stiffening before moving on with a forced, “not die, stick a thousand needles in my eye!”  

“No needles please,” I said immediately into his mesh shirt.

“Agreed,” Kei added. Her hand was easy to make out even in the sleepy haze, gently tugging at my shoulder to let Obi go. “Now c’mon, sleepyhead, to bed with you.”

“Muuu…” It was hard to ignore the pull of exhaustion as my eyes slowly closed to half-mast, my hands barely staying up to rub at my eyes again once Obi was out of reach. “Neh, Kei-chan…?”

A familiar plush was staring up at me from the corner of my fading vision as someone slowly pulled me to my feet, a blue-sleeve covered hand reaching over to push said plush towards me. Blake. Pretty kitty with her big purple bow. 

It took whatever strength I had remaining to hold her in my right hand, leaving me to be tugged along to wherever else with my left hand, barely walking if not for Kei clearly guiding me. Her response too, came from in front as my feet slowly dragged along the tile of home. “What is it, Tomo?”

“Will you…” A yawn left my lips and Blake the plush cat seemed warmer, bigger even, when I hugged her. “Will you take the muffins out of the oven for me…?”

The hand tugging on my limp left one tensed, just slightly, before tightening its grip. The thumb was rubbing the back of my palm. “Of course I will.”

“Thankie…” It felt harder just keeping my head up. “And, Kei…?” 

“Yeah?”

“Could you…” Another yawn cut me off. Why is it so hard to stay awake… “Could you and Obi tell me how they taste once I wake up…?”

The click of a door barely rang through my ears as the hand tugging on my left one continued leading me somewhere. It took a minute for me to realize the hand was soon gone and my left hand was being covered by a blanket. When did I— 

“Don’t worry, Tomo-chan.” The blanket was covering more than my left hand now and I could feel it brush my chin. “I’ll make sure Kei doesn’t forget.” 

“Yep.” A hand gently covered my eyes. “We’ll tell you all the details once you wake up, Tomo. Now get some rest.” 

“Okay…” My eyes closed without me thinking, the darkness slowly coming back. Wait… not yet… “Love you, Kei… love you, Obi…”

I didn’t get to hear their replies once sleep took over.

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 3/18 Word count: 1669 Summary: When Tobirama is exiled from the Senju clan without warning, without even the chance to plead his case, it feels like his life is over. What does he have to live for now without his older brother to believe in him? Captured by the Uchiha in his moment of weakness, Tobirama slowly learns to live again with the last people on earth he would have ever expected to care for - or to fall in love with.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI in the blog header!

Chapter 3

They came and went irregularly. Sometimes they brought food and sometimes they even forced his body to sit up and consume it. Other times there were words but he couldn’t focus on them. All that existed was the static in his head, the worst moment of his pitiful existence on repeat again and again and again. Until a couple of weeks ago he had thought no day in his life could be worse than when he had lowered a second brother in to a too-small grave, displaced the dirt with another too-small body, but he’d been wrong. He hadn’t known then the pain of Hashirama turning him away as though all the years between them had meant absolutely nothing.

If it was Izuna who came to him again and again he wouldn’t have known. If it was one person or more he could not have cared. Not until the day someone opened the bars of his cage and propped him against the wall, fingers under his chin to lift his face towards the light of a candle. Tobirama flinched away from the unexpected brightness purely on instinct, too used to the dark after so long in captivity, but the fingers holding him were unyielding and he too weak after so long inactive.

“What did you do?” were the first words that registered on him since he woke up to find himself in Uchiha custody. Tobirama’s mind churned sluggishly and he squinted passed the light to find Madara, the clan head himself, looking back with guarded curiosity.

“…do?”

“Yes. What crime could you possibly have committed that the Senju would dispose of their second strongest soldier? And not even have the foresight to kill you off?”

His heart was already shriveled but he felt the crumbled remains tremble as he murmured, “I only wanted to see them again.”

Madara had a dozen questions and more but it was no use. Tobirama shuddered and reverted inside himself once more. It took another week before his stupor was broken by a bucket of water dumped over his head. He wondered idly if he had been bathed before now and how any of them could stand to be near him if he hadn’t. The stench must have been quite unbearable.

When he rolled his head to the side with apathetic disinterest he found Madara glaring down, fire in his eyes and hair a wild cloud around his head.

“You will answer my questions,” the man snarled. For the first time, Tobirama hesitated.

“Will you let me die?”

“You – what?”

“If I answer your questions will you just let me die already? I’m…tired.” And he was. He hadn’t moved more than what it took to relieve himself in weeks and still he was bone-deep exhausted.

Madara looked taken aback, though he recovered quickly enough to hide his thoughts on that question. “If we don’t have any further use for you then I don’t see what the point of keeping you alive would be.”

Privately, Tobirama thought that he didn’t see the point of keeping him alive this long anyway but he kept that to himself. It wasn’t as though he had any hope of being set free even if they did believe him but on the crazy off chance they did…then what? He could eke out an existence somewhere else – there were dozens of places he could go – but the very thought of it turned his stomach. To never see Hashirama smile at him again, to never sit with Touka and laugh over something stupid one of her neighbors had done, to never roll his eyes at all the enthusiastic young pupils so eager for another lesson, it seemed an empty existence and he wanted no part of it. Better to end himself now than delay the inevitable when he went completely mad later.

His captor hadn’t used the clearest language, Tobirama knew that, but he still intended to give the man what he wanted. Madara’s roundabout hint was his first sign of hope for the end he wanted so badly; he would have done almost anything for such a promise, even a vague chance.

It felt like he talked for hours. After so long in silence his throat was scratched raw by the time he had the equivalent of one paragraph out. Each word was pain, both mental and physical. When his tale was finally done he felt as though he could drink an entire lake and his voice still might not return to normal after all that rasping.

It was quite the tale to tell, though. At its conception the Edo Tensei jutsu had been designed as a weapon, an attack to turn the tides against their enemies in a way that could not be countered or outrun. Every battlefield had dozens of dead cluttering the ground, broken and discarded, forgotten and trod on until the fighting was over and their bodies were returned to the earth for surviving loved ones to swear vengeance over. Most people wouldn’t think to desecrate the fallen and reanimate them to fight again – but Tobirama was not most people. He thought first of how to win and only after did he think of how to live with his own victories.

Somewhere along the line it had occurred to him that his enemies weren’t the only dead that might rise again. If he was going to breathe life in to people beyond the grave then why should he not have the chance to see his loved ones again? That was all he had wanted, to hug his little brothers one more time, to hold them close and apologize for failing them so poorly, to say the goodbyes he had been denied. But that wasn’t what the elders saw when they discovered what he was trying to do.

What they saw was the disturbed earth in too-small graves and dirt underneath his fingernails. They saw the aftermath and never questioned the intentions, never stopped for a moment to listen to his explanations. They brought their evidence straight to Hashirama and all he saw was the bones of his lost brothers desecrated after so long and the one brother left to him damned by his own mind, his own actions. That Hashirama at last had no more forgiveness for him was the thing that hurt the most.

Madara listened to his story without interrupting beyond for a few questions, only prompted him to go on whenever he fell silent. After he was finally allowed to stop talking Madara got up and left without a word. Tobirama assumed he had what he wanted but he came back a few minutes later with a pitcher of water and left it on the floor within reach.

For a while he merely stood there, everything about his stance projecting uncertainty, and silently watched his prisoner. Tobirama’s only interest was in the water that cooled his throat. It was difficult to resist the animal desire to guzzle the sweet liquid all at once but he forced himself to go slow, to sip at it bit by bit so as not to disturb his roiling stomach. Adding nausea on top of all his other problems when he could easily prevent it was just stupid. He wanted to die, not to suffer more.

Tobirama lifted his head, uncaring for how pathetic he must look.

“You promised,” he said, tired voice grating in the quiet room. “Will you let me die now?” He waited as Madara met his gaze with something unreadable in his eyes.

“I never promised you anything. And how do I know you’re telling the truth? We still have no confirmation that any of this is true. For all I know Hashirama is looking for you as we speak and all of this has been a ruse to prevent me from gaining any sort of advantage of your clan.”

The sound of the metal pitcher striking the bars was ringing throughout the room before Tobirama even realized he had thrown it.

“I have no clan!” he screamed. Hot fury rushed through him, lightning fast and unexpected, bringing with it a rush of energy that sent him surging to his feet. “What part of this isn’t getting through your skull? I. Have. No. CLAN! I am not one of them! I never will be again! I gave my fucking life to them and they turned me away like a begging orphan caught stealing! This isn’t for you to believe, Uchiha, its life! Life is cruel!”

“So you say,” Madara told him coldly, backing away before he could reach out with his withered arms. Tobirama bared his teeth at the man.

“There isn’t any more to say. I am nothing. No one. Your bargaining chip is useless!”

“We shall see.”

His captor slammed the cell door closed and spun around to leave, hair swaying around him like a dark waterfall. Tobirama kicked the bars as hard as he could, unprepared for the recoil that sent him stumbling backwards, having momentarily forgotten how weak he’d let himself become. When he regained his balance he balled his fists and bent himself double to scream as long as he could.

“You promised, you faithless dog! Lying Uchiha! Worthless waste of fucking space! You promised! Get back here! Just let me die!” Mindlessly he threw himself at the bars and rattled them with both hands, running on adrenaline and only half aware of what he was shouting. “Where is your honor!? I gave you everything and you promised! Just let me die already, I’m no fucking use to you! UCHIHA!”

Only when he had screamed himself hoarse again shouting the same words over and over did he realize there were tears streaming down his face. His grip loosened on the bars and Tobirama slid down to his knees, bowing his head as the tears dripped from his chin unchecked.

“I gave you everything,” he moaned softly, unsure who it was he was speaking to. “Just let me die…”

[fineillsignup]

on the kage bunshin topic: you bring up cool points. butttt i wanna voice how i always viewed the topic: a chakra problem. since the kage bunshin are solid, they would require the basic minimum amount of chakra to exist. hence, it is "forbidden" for genin to learn because they don't have enough chakra to fuel a shadow clone, so recklessly doing so would end in extreme cases of chakra exhaustion. naruto is the outlier due to the combination of uzumaki reserves and kyuubi. (1/2)

(2/2) well either that or u gotta be able to have v good control over your chakra so there’s less wastage. oh and the technique is more “konoha’s forbidden technique” and less “the whole ninja world’s forbidden technique”. maybe because it’s tobirama’s jutsu thats why konoha restricts its use, but outsiders who know it probably teach it, w warnings of chakra exhaustion. so other hidden villages would have it in their syllabuses.

(follow up to the 2part kage bunshin thing i submitted cuz i had a realisation™) my logic meant that konoha lit put themselves at a disadvantage, esp in the chunnin exams omg. so maybe that theory doesnt hold too much water. still, that’s how i see it *shrugemoticon*

Your view seems to be more or less the official one promulgated by the databooks (and possibly the anime–my knowledge of the anime isn’t super great), but I don’t find it satisfying, which is why I came up with my headcanon instead.

Here’s what bothers me about the official explanation:

What separates a jutsu as a kinjutsu/forbidden technique versus just a high rank technique? Especially because in the databooks, multiple shadow clone jutsu is only an A rank technique, not the highest S rank. “It’s very dangerous” describes all the upper rank ninja techniques, surely? If ordinary ninja don’t have the chakra for the technique, describe the technique as requiring X amount of chakra and so on, but why make the technique forbidden, especially when the other notorious forbidden jutsu in Naruto involves turning a living person into a sacrifice to resurrect the dead and enslave them?

Moreover. This is the Naruto world. A world where they send genin, most of whom are still children, into a inherently dangerous forest where they are encouraged to murder each other. Where their deaths are embraced as a proxy for war.

Concern for genin’s well-being? In my Konoha? It’s less likely than you think.

Moreover, Kakashi “Chakra Exhaustion” Hatake is well-known to not have a great amount of chakra because of his eye, and yet at the end of the battle with Zabuza, he was still able to make lots of shadow clones. He noted that he gave each barely any chakra, but even so: they were impressive in appearance of number. If he could make that many at that point, it doesn’t make sense to me that an ordinary genin with full chakra, with careful instruction (ha!), couldn’t make a dozen or so.

To me, to make a jutsu forbidden, it should be for one of two reasons:

1. It’s too inherently evil even for shinobi. Edo Tensei would be this one. In a universe where Snakebert and Danzo got all their dirty deeds dragged into the light, they probably had a lot of these.

2. Being widely studied would be inherently bad for Konoha. This is the reason my headcanon relies on for why the shadow clone jutsu is so restricted–not despite the apparent ease of learning and using it, but because it’s easy to learn and use, and therefore would be the ninja world equivalent of disruptive technology that threatens to upend the established strategies of war and commerce.

But again, it’s merely my own headcanon that I find better than canon, YMMV. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and It's Equivalents

5.

Tobirama sighs, sorting through the pile of paperwork that had been left at his desk while he was out at lunch. Some of it he recognizes from Hashirama’s desk, likely the man’s desperate attempt to have less work. He sets that aside- Hashirama knows well and good not to shuck anything urgent off onto him -and turns his attention to his work. Most of them are simple reports on the various projects he’s started up around the growing village but there are a few applications from clans reaching out, hoping to join the alliance. Thankfully, his secretary knows him well enough to sort it by what he classifies as urgent. He makes his way through it all steadily, frowning when he comes across several instances of Izuna causing trouble for the village. Though he understands that his rival has known nothing but war his entire life, the other is really going too far. The war is over and Izuna should know at least when to give up a losing battle.

An inkpot, thankfully empty, clatters as it tips over. Tobirama watches as it rolls to the edge of his desk, only moving to keep it from shattering on the floor. He puts it back down carefully. There was no reason that should have happened. It wasn’t unbalanced and it’s too heavy for the light breeze to have knocked it over. He stares at it for a few more moments. Just as he’s about to return to his work, it rocks again. Not enough to tip over but enough to be noticeable. The papers under his hands flutter slightly as if both they and the inkpot are reacting to some outside force.

How curious.

There’s not chakra in the air, or at least no more than usual, so there’s certainly not some invisible shinobi bothering him but there is something. He keeps watch but nothing more happens the entire time it takes for him to finish the paperwork. If it happens again, maybe he’ll bring it up to Hashirama.

(It happens again. He keeps it to himself.)

Izuna has been acting strangely recently. He has still been irrationally angry, of course, but beyond that, he has simply been… weird. Tobirama can think of no other way to explain it. At times, he will catch the Uchiha heir staring not at him but near him as if there’s someone standing next to him. The few times he has followed Izuna’s not-quite-glare, there has been no one there. The first few times, Tobirama had assumed Izuna had double vision whether because of a head injury or because he decided to get drunk.

Of course, that went out the window when he accidentally stumbled upon Izuna arguing with a wall. More specifically, the general area in front of the wall. The strangest thing about that particular instance was the way Izuna’s eyes tracked across the room like he really was talking to an actual person and not just an empty room. It reminds him, inexplicably, of those scant moments where his inkwell moved and shifted on its own.

When, again, Tobirama finds Izuna’s eyes tracking across a room, it’s during a meeting. Again, there is nothing there to watch. Izuna gets progressively more irritated as the meeting wears on, not exactly a new occurrence, and yet it happens faster than usual. Then, when he deigns to offer his insight, he oftentimes says something that has already been said or that otherwise gives away that he had missed part of the conversation.

Tobirama wonders what he can see and hear that the rest of them can’t.

"The other countries are making their own villages," Mito says once they settle down with their tea. Tobirama sighs. Part of him had expected this but another part had been hoping that he was wrong and that this would just be a nice, calm time between friends.

"I know," he says.

"They won’t be content staying within their borders."

"I know." Tobirama glances away from Mito, watching the growing village out of the nearby window. He’d do just about anything to protect this, he thinks.

"Hashirama might be an idiot but he’s not stupid. We’ll have to bring this up to him eventually." Mito eyes him. "You can’t deal with everything on your own, Tobirama."

"...I know."

Despite what most people think, Tobirama doesn’t hate the Uchiha. He gets along well enough with both Madara and Hikaku and has nothing against the rest of the clan. It’s only Izuna who he can’t get along with. Somehow, his lack of hatred for the Uchiha got out. It’s the only reason he can think of for Uchiha Kagami to have pushed his way into Tobirama’s lessons with his team.

Remarkably, the boy seems to level out his team despite his overwhelming energy. He gets along with them all, even drawing the reclusive Danzo into team activities. It… reminds him a lot of Wuxian. The man had always been able to draw people in, even with the language barrier. Admittedly, that’s likely the reason he takes a shine to Kagami so swiftly.

Now, the six of them are sitting in a circle, playing some sort of game with a set of twenty smooth stones that Kagami had fished from the river. He doesn’t bother them, wanting them to be able to enjoy the childhood Tobirama never got.

For now, he’ll let them enjoy themselves. It’s a hot day anyway- too hot for them to go through their usual training. (A lie, of course. All of them know ways to cool themselves off and Kagami, like any Uchiha, is hardly affected by the heatwave.)

Honestly, he should have expected it. Izuna had been getting exceedingly hostile the more time has passed. However, Tobirama hadn’t thought that the attempt on his life would be so blatant.

The only reason he hadn’t gotten more seriously injured was because something- pushed Izuna’s wrist away at the last second. Tobirama had had front row seats as the frustration washed over Izuna’s features. Then his self-proclaimed rival vanished into the forest, Madara and Hashirama too shell shocked to stop him.

There was a pressure against his wound, strange and foreign. Flickering as if unstable. The blood wasn’t flowing quite right, either. Well, at least what- or whoever has been haunting him isn’t malevolent.

"Tobirama!" Madara and Hashirama chorus, like the particularly useless lumps of drama they are. Both are panicking despite the fact that the wound is far from lethal and that one of them is the most capable healer around. Honestly, how have they both survived to this point? He waves them both off, finally pushing himself to his feet. Immediately, the pressure on his wound vanishes. He replaces it with his own hand.

"If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find my team. The children are far more useful than the pair of you," Tobirama says blandly. He can almost hear the laughter of his childhood friend at Madara’s wordless screeches and Hashirama’s overdramatic wails.

"I see you’re the one that stole Kagami," Madara says as he comes up beside Tobirama. The kids are sparing half-heartedly in front of them as a warm-up. He snorts.

"I didn’t steal him- he appeared one day and I haven’t been able to get rid of him," Tobirama says drily. He tilts to the side to avoid a wayward blast of fire, giving Madara a significant look. The Uchiha is unashamed of his clan’s pyromania.

"Either way," the man says, "we’ve been wondering…" Madara trails off. When Tobirama glances at him, he’s staring off at the forest. He follows the look, finding nothing much of note besides a dying plant.

"Madara?" Tobirama says, turning back to his companion. Madara blinks, coming out of his strange daze, and turns black eyes on him.

"I…" Madara hesitates, glances back at the woods. "I thought I saw something." Tobirama snorts, remembering the times Izuna clearly saw things that weren’t there. Maybe it runs in the family.

"So lonely your imagination is making you friends?" He teases. Madara snaps out of his funk then, sending him a sharp glare.

"See if I ever help you again," he threatens, stalking away. Moments later, Kagami bounds up to him.

"Where’s Madara-sama going?" He asks curiously.

"To pout," he answers, laughing when Madara turns back one last time to flip him off.

Whatever has been haunting him, whether it’s been some strange spirit or a legitimate ghost (and stories of those linger from the long nights he had once spent with his mother), has been growing stronger. At times, he feels a brush against his arm, the hair-raising feeling of someone leaning over his shoulder even when there’s no one there. He’ll see flickers in the corner of his eyes of something dark and red and silver. It’s disconcerting but he knows that whatever it is means no harm. At most, it’s too playful and curious.

Several times now it has left his office or house a mess, clearly trying to do something but not yet powerful enough to hold objects for more than a few seconds at a time. It has made those that don’t know him well avoid him and those that know him too well (know of edo tensei, of his attempts to bring the dead back) wary and suspicious. Of all those around him, only his team and Madara are relatively unaffected. Even Touka has begun to give him searching, knowing looks despite being entirely wrong in her assumptions. Whatever this is, it wasn’t caused by him (he doesn’t think).

Of course, Kagami and Madara are jumpy, clearly more connected to this thing than anyone else has been besides Izuna and maybe Tobirama himself. Perhaps it’s a proximity thing; both of them practically live with him at this point, like the leeches they are. (He and Madara haven’t spoken on it yet, still too raw from years of war, Izuna’s near-death and later betrayal a gaping wound between them. He wonders what could have been, in another world.)

The Kyuubi bears down upon them suddenly, on a day meant to be peaceful. Tobirama sets his children on the village, protecting civilians, children, and themselves. He speeds towards where Hashirama and Madara and Mito’s chakra are clashing wildly with a dark, oozing chakra that he doesn’t recognize as Izuna’s until he spots the wayward Uchiha. He recognizes the seal Mito is painting along the ground with blood-ink and pretends he doesn’t (pretends it’s not an inverse of the seal he had once used to summon Wuxian to his side, a seal now tattooed along his arms in some desperate attempt to keep his friend and saviour close).

"Izuna!" Madara screams, as heart-rending as it had been that moment on the battlefield, where he had the ability to kill Izuna and hesitated. (There was something else going on then, something just as dark and oppressing as the kitsune in front of him now, so similar to Wuxian that last time they had seen each other.) Izuna doesn’t hesitate. Tobirama refuses to do so either.

Madara is the one to strike the last blow.

He has never seen Madara so broken, so quiet.

(He knows, he has lost his chance to love the man for good.)

He gave his team, his children, time enough to escape. Torifu is injured but not seriously so; hopefully it will be enough.

It has to be enough.

His invisible, insubstantial follower is trying to help, slowing and taking the power out of attacks, knocking aside anything they can manage. It’s only delaying the inevitable. The Gold and Silver brothers are too powerful for a nearly dead shinobi and ghost to take on alone. (And it is a ghost; since the Kyuubi, they have gotten powerful enough to recognize Wuxian in those short flickers and he mourns for the friend he had never realized he had by his side.)

He falls and the ghost explodes, bijuu-esque chakra flaring outward strong enough to send the brothers flying. Tobirama isn’t strong enough to stand. There’s a hole in his lung, his throat, his side, and not even Hashirama could save him, if his brother were still alive. He blinks, drowning in his own blood, drowning for the first time in his life, and Wuxian is over him, skin pale, dressed in those same unwieldy robes.

"Ki-ds," he chokes, and Wuxian makes a broken noise, voice filled with power that’s no help here.

"Please," Wuxian begs, "please, you’re all I have left, please…"

I’m sorry, Tobirama thinks, words impossible now. He can’t see, all dark where the light once burned. I’m sorry, he thinks, and can’t help but hope Wuxian will make sure that his kids make it home.

He refuses to see them again so soon.

Part 4 | Part 6

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and its Equivalents

1.

The first time Senju Tobirama summoned Wei Wuxian, he’s seven. He’s seven and angry. He’s angry at Butsuma for giving Itama such a dangerous first mission when the boy was more healer than warrior. He’s angry at the Uchiha for seeing Itama as a threat, present or future, for toying with and killing his brother. He’s angry at himself for leaving Itama when he knew it wouldn’t, couldn’t, end well so close to the border. Under that, he’s just... desolate. Desperate and smart enough that his desperation makes him dangerous. All he wanted was to see his brothers again. To see Itama and Kawarama, to hold them in his arms. To apologize, beg for a forgiveness he doesn’t deserve, because it’s his fault his younger brother died.

(He never would have been content with just a moment longer; always would have stretched the boundaries until it killed him.)

He uses blood because anything that needs this much power will need a conduit that can survive it. Ink would just burn up when the chakra floods it. Beyond that, blood is naturally infused with chakra and he needs any edge up he can get. He clears off his floor and paints it there because the scrolls he has access to simply aren’t large enough. He checks and double checks and triple checks through his haze of blood loss because he can’t make a mistake or this will all be for nothing. He’s sure that everything’s perfect and that it’ll work, it has to work. He presses his fingertips into the nearest seal line and takes a deep breath to steady himself when his vision swims, spots black.

Then, without a second more of hesitation, he pours every scrap of chakra he has built up into his seal. The chakra crackles blue, the bloody lines glow red, and his room is painted an ominous purple. Tobirama’s eyes burn with the brightness of it. There’s a ripple, the air twists, and Tobirama can only hope the privacy seals he plastered to the walls will hold because this is so much more powerful than he expected, drawing on something that’s not him because he only has so much chakra (not enough). His vision, or what remains of it, is graying out in a mix of blood loss and chakra exhaustion but he holds on because if he fails when he’s so close, he’ll-

He’ll-

The only way for him to describe what happens next is that the air tears though at this point, his sight is less than trustworthy. There’s a sound, like a shout under water, and he doesn’t know if that’s from the blood rushing in his ears and his dizziness or it it’s because whoever made the sound is still on the other side of the tear, the portal. A black blur hits hit floor, he can’t hear the thud he knows must have been made of the body against the wood, as his seal folds in on itself, collapsing. He has long since dropped below safe amounts of chakra, running on dregs if anything, lungs frozen. He tries to stand, wants to rush to the side of whoever he just summoned, has to be sure it’s Kawarama or Itama. He barely manages to shift his weight before his sight leaves him completely and he’s no more.

When he wakes up again, he’s stiff, sore, and can hardly move. He feels awful, although better than he expected after using up so much blood and chakra. For a moment he’s desolate, sure he had failed even though he has no idea what might have gone wrong. Then the memory of what he had fallen unconscious to returns and is gripped by energy so manic and intense that he manages to struggle his way onto his elbows. He needs to see who he summoned, needs to- to- An unfamiliar face comes into view, concern clear on their face, a hand pressing him back down onto his bed. He failed, then.

He failed.

"Hen haoxing nin hai huozhe," the person says, nonsensically. The words are a sidestep away from being familiar, strange in their pronunciation and stranger in their structure. Tobirama frowns. This can’t be good. He’s tired but it shouldn’t be so much so that spoken language sounds like gibberish. He takes another look at the person- man -he summoned. The man isn’t that old, maybe fourteen, fifteen, and doesn’t have a clan symbol anywhere that he can see. There’s is a bell hanging from the man’s waist but he’s never heard of a clan using something like that as identification. His clothes clearly aren’t shinobi garb, either. A civilian, perhaps? Something about that strikes him as wrong, though.

"Ninhao?" The man sounds halfway impatient, halfway concerned and Tobirama still can’t understand a word coming from his mouth. He should... probably find a kunai. His lack of ability to move is making that damn hard, unfortunately.

"I can’t understand you," he manages around his dry throat and pounding head. The words scrape and ache, almost burn. The man pauses, brow furrowing, staring at Tobirama like it’s him that’s out of place and not this foreign man with his equally foreign language. The man man hums thoughtfully and then points at himself.

"Wo jiao Wei Wuxian," he says firmly. Then, a bit slower and more pronounced, "Wei Wuxian. Tobirama catches on immediately.

"I'm Senju Tobirama," he introduces. Like Wuxian had, he repeats his name, slow and precise. Wuxian grins so widely and brightly that Tobirama is sure it must be painful. It reminds him, a bit, of Hashirama, though there’s a mischievous edge to Wuxian’s grin that would be more on brand with Kawarama than Hashirama. The man chatters in that strange language of his, using his hands to make gestures that don’t help Tobirama translate the man at all. Finally having enough, head swimming, he interrupts.

"Wuxian." Wuxian gives him a sheepish look, letting his hands drop. Then, seemingly realizing something, the man pauses, staring at him strangely. Wuxian smiles after a moment and suddenly Tobirama is very worried.

"Tobi-er," he chirps. Tobirama makes a face at the nickname before he can stop himself.

"Tobirama," he corrects.

"Tobi-er," Wuxian sing-songs persistently, stubbornly. Tobirama wants to argue more but his sight is going again and he knows he’s used up what little energy he managed to accumulate during his sleep. Wuxian seems to notice this as well and says something else, voice soothing. He faintly feels fingers press into the underside of his wrist and keeps from jerking away only because of the exhaustion that had risen in him like a vengeful spirit. This time, Tobirama goes to sleep to warm energy circulating his body and Wuxian smiling, soft and sweet.

When he wakes up once more, it’s to Hashirama, panicked and scared. Wuxian is gone, not a single trace of him left, and the only thing that proves the man existed at all are the minor changes made to the blood seal and the trace amounts of warmth still circulating through his meridians that Tobirama only barely catches. He holds tight to Hashirama, endures Butsuma’s punishment, and resolves himself to protecting what family he has left. He’s not sure Hashirama could go on, at this point, if Tobirama left him as well.

Later, much later, he finds the note Wuxian left him. He can understand the characters written on it, the simple ‘goodbye’ that rests on the paper, above a small but incredibly well-drawn picture of Wuxian piling cats onto him. He scoffs at it and makes a mental note to destroy it later, tucking it away so no one else will see it until then. (It never gets destroyed, ending up tucked away in the place he would come to hide his plans for a village he only made to support his brother and the impossible dream of two naïve children.)

— — — —

"Hen haoxing ni hai huozhe" — Good to know you’re still alive

"Ninhao" — Hello

"Wo jiao Wei Wuxian" — My name is/I’m called Wei Wuxian

Part 2

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and it's Equivalents

6.

Wei Ying’s figured it out. He’s powerful enough to be physically present, strong enough to fight and kill but not enough to save Tobirama. (He’s never enough to save those he loves. Only Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan had survived him and both of them had made their feelings on him very clear, even if Lan Zhan had had some sort of stroke of madness at the end and tried to save him. Probably thought it was too good an end for the despicable Yiling Laozu.)

Blood is still oozing between his fingers sluggishly but it’s clear that Tobirama’s heart has long since stopped beating. He can’t tell if the blood and body are still warm; he can’t feel much of anything. Wei Ying stumbles to his feet, blood gliding off his ghostly skin like oil on water. He needs to check on the kids. Tobirama begged him to make sure the kids live with his last breath.

He’ll come back later.

He can’t jump through the treetops like a squirrel (or shinobi), nor are the trees far enough apart to use a sword (not that he has one, anyway), but an application of this strange resentful energy makes him fast and, if he’s careful, he can phase through things like trees for a few extra seconds time. The kids aren’t moving fast, far from the speeds he’s seen them reach in the past, and they’ve only made it halfway to Konoha. No one will come after them, he’s made sure of that, and the shinobi of Konoha are going to where he had to leave Tobirama. The kids have too little spiritual energy, chakra, left for the shinobi to notice them as they speed past.

Wei Ying knows he doesn’t look like a threat to these people; Tobirama had been the only one to ever see through that and then Wei Ying had gone and proven him right when he had taken on those three Uchiha on his own. It’s not a big effort to make noise as he approaches the kids’ camp, either, so when he ‘stumbles’ upon them, he knows he looks truly civilian to them. The kids still standing round on him with knives– kunai –and wary looks, barely appeased when they see Wei Ying isn’t one of the ones after their lives. He raises his hands immediately, showing off his lack of weapons.

Not that he or another ghost or a shinobi would need a weapon but it’s the thought that counts, right?

“I’m a doctor,” Wei Ying lies before he can think better of it. Besides, he’s got the skill of any civilian doctor; Wen Qing made sure of it.

“We don’t need your help,” Danzo, ever suspicious, growls. Kagami’s half in his lap with a broken leg. Wei Ying’s more concerned about Torifu.

“You’re from Konoha, right? He–” Wei Ying motions to Torifu, not yet letting his hands drop, “–won’t make it back in his condition.” Even without being a true medic, Wei Ying knows it’s true. The resentful energy is gathering around the boy, ready to feed his soul until a spirit forms. Luckily, the resentful energy in this universe lacks the ability to make a fierce corpse.

“You don’t have any supplies,” Danzo is quick to shoot back. Wei Ying grimaces.

“I was robbed on the way here– I’m lucky enough I got out with my life and my clothes. Besides, you would likely feel safer if I were to use your tools anyway.” The group pauses, Koharu and Homura turning to Hiruzen, their leader in Kagami’s absence. Danzo has seemingly lost interest in the argument, curling protectively around Kagami. “What do you have to lose?” He adds, gentle.

“I–” Hiruzen hesitates for a moment before stepping aside. “Okay. But– But if you hurt him…”

“You’ll kill me?” Wei Ying finishes, forcing the wry amusement out of his tone. He doesn’t wait for the confirmation, pressing forward to Torifu’s side. He forces away any resentful energy not being used to keep him solid and visible, aware that its presence will only make Torifu die faster.

“Can you remove his shirt?” Wei Ying asks. “I need direct access to his wounds.” He leans back while he considers. The boy will definitely need stitches. If there’s any internal injuries, though, he won’t be able to do anything for him.

He hopes there’s nothing internal.

“You, ah, you use needles, don’t you?” Wei Ying asks, unsure which kid he should direct the question to. “Senbon, I think? I’ll need one of those and some thread.” He racks his memories. What else had Wen Qing told him? He leans forward when Torifu’s shirt is finally cut away– Hiruzen had enough sense not to move him, thankfully –and grimaces at the dirt. Then– cleanliness. But there’s not enough time to collect water and boil it and wait for the senbon to cool, not to mention the lack of any sort of container they could hold the water.

“Here,” Koharu says, and it’s better than he could have hoped. The girl hands him a first aid kit stocked with needles, thread, and bandages alike. Wei Ying turns his full attention to Torifu, hands steady as he begins the tedious process of stitching the boy up. He goes through the worst of the wounds first, careful not to touch Torifu’s skin directly, using a small section of bandage as a barrier in the absence of gloves. He has a feeling (deepset, in the empty section of his soul where his golden core used to be, now containing only the resentful energy he needs to survive) that contact between the nearly-dead and the all-dead won’t do any wonders for the aforementioned nearly-dead.

(Something here is wrong. Kagami’s presence aches, burns, in the same way Izuna’s had after Wei Ying had inadvertently saved his life. Torifu’s doesn’t. Did he just trade one child for another? Has his presence saved Kagami but doomed Torifu?)

When he’s finished his stitches, he sits back on his haunches. They aren’t the prettiest, he’ll admit, but it’s easy enough to blame that on having four ready-to-murder children at his back, which is probably more terrifying than four ready-to-murder adults. He cleaned the area around the injuries as best he could without proper supplies and now only has to wrap the poor kid up like a mummy. Not now, though. Shifting him around in this state is definitely a bad idea.

“Can any of you, uh. Heal?” Wei Ying wonders, standing to look at the children. He doesn’t like the idea of putting Torifu’s life in the hands of his friends but he doesn’t really have a choice, at this point. He’s done as much as he can without spiritual energy and there’s no way in hell he’s going to try to use resentful energy as a substitute.

“Homura can,” Hiruzen says immediately. Then, less excitedly, “But I doubt any of us have enough chakra left to do any jutsus, much less healing.” Homura nods.

“I, uh, I’m pretty close to chakra exhaustion,” Homura says quietly. “But I can try.” Wei Ying shakes his head firmly.

“Chakra exhaustion is dangerous for shinobi, right? I’m not going to let any of you threaten your lives for each other.” Wei Ying bites his lip, watching the way blood soaks through Torifu’s temporary bandages. The stitches have slowed the bleeding but not enough. He’s not going to let any of the kids go off on their own to get help and he’s not leaving them, either. Wei Ying takes a deep breath and steps away from the kids, manoeuvring as far from Torifu as he can while still being in the clearing.

“Mister?” Hiruzen asks, at some halfway point between suspicious and concerned. Wei Ying makes a motion with his hand even he is unsure the meaning of, letting his eyes slide shut. The strange slithery-ness of the resentful energy is still there but it listens to him now, responding to him nearly as well as the resentful energy of his home world.

All he needs to do is catch the attention of some Konoha shinobi and keep control of the resentful energy. Easier said than done but part of him still clings to the idea that anything is easy if he believes it is. He takes a deep breath.

In.

Out.

Again;

In and out.

The resentful energy responds in time with his breathing, growing under his skin and creeping in from the forest more each time. Like the tide, it comes in and pulls out, tugging almost playfully on his control. He keeps part of it, coiling it deep within where his golden core once rested, feels the way it chills him further with the more he consumes. Then, he releases it.

It explodes upwards, just barely still in Wei Ying’s control. It’s a pulse of dark, cloying energy, strong enough to make the younger trees sway. Somewhere through the whirlwind, he thinks he might hear the kids shouting. At each other or at him, he couldn’t tell.

Wei Ying reforms in the remains of the original Senju Compound. It takes him a moment to adjust, considering he last remembers being in a forest an upwards of a hundred li away. The room (or at least, what’s left of it) has what’s almost a film of resentful energy over it, preserving it far better than it should be, left to the elements as it is. It’s Tobirama’s room– the place where Wei Ying was first summoned and then summoned again as a spirit. Despite the fact that the seal– the summoning circle –is long since gone, the resentful energy has gathered in the impression of its lines to allow him to reform.

He’s stuck here, then, unless someone back in his own world figures out how to summon him there, he supposes, but he’s not sure why anyone would want to, considering what everyone believed him to be, there at the end. That is, if his memory is kept on at all as anything beyond a scary story to tell children. Well, he might not be stuck here indefinitely, if the area around the summoning circle, or the remains of the summoning circle, or the imprint of the summoning circle, or whatever, is drained of resentful energy, but then he doesn’t know where he’ll go if he has to reform and, frankly, that’s a terrifying thought that he doesn’t want to test.

He sighs and rubs a hand against his eyes, tired and worn in a way he hasn’t been since he died. He needs to get to Konoha, make sure his last ditch effort actually did something. He needs to make sure he didn’t fail Tobirama in this, as well.

It takes longer than he truly wants to think about to find his way to Konoha. He hasn’t travelled between the old Senju Compound and Konoha since Tobirama finished helping his clan move and turned his focus onto building up the village, both in the literal sense and in the sense that Tobirama is the reason the village can actually run without too much issue.

The point is, it takes Wei Ying, a being that does not need food, water, or rest, a little over three days to find Konoha. It’s a little like going home, finding Konoha, though he still misses Lotus Pier and even the Burial Grounds fiercely. He keeps himself invisible as he wanders around, not really in the mood to deal with people, especially ones as suspicious as shinobi. Plus he’s used to being able to go through stuff and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by walking straight into a wall or something. He wanders around, moving towards the hospital, hoping he was successful but not really wanting to confront his own failure if he wasn’t.

It’s good, then, that he comes across Koharu on the way. It’s immediately obvious that he spent longer reforming than he initially thought. Koharu is no longer the teen she was last time Wei Ying saw her— she’s an adult now, definitely somewhere in her thirties. It’s a bit jarring, he’ll admit, and Wei Ying floats along curiously behind her, watching as she collects a frankly ridiculous amount of groceries. Despite how strange it is, it’s peaceful, watching her move so confidently around the market, knowing she’s safe.

Homura joins her just as she’s leaving the market, falling into step beside her easily and taking the proffered bags without complaint. Two down, Wei Ying thinks, four to go. He had never known the village particularly well, since every other time he was here he was tied to Tobirama, so he doesn’t have a clue where the pair might be heading.

Not too long later, Kagami and Danzo slide from the crowd, hand in hand, to join the group, Kagami immediately filling the (relative) quiet with chatter. While Danzo, Homura, and Koharu are relatively unchanged, Kagami is clearly different. He has a weight to his shoulders he’d never had before and a scar running across his cheek from near his temple to the corner of his mouth, like an extension to his smile. He’s alive, though, and that’s all Wei Ying can truly hope for, with lives so dangerous. Only Hiruzen and Torifu left, then, and his worry makes him stick even closer to Tobirama’s kids.

They come to a house Wei Ying recognizes somewhere in the back of his mind but he shakes it off. No point in guessing, since it’s clear he’ll be inside in just a moment.

“We’re here,” Kagami calls cheerfully as he swings the front door open. The group shuffles in, spreading out over the house like they belong. And maybe they do, Wei Ying certainly wouldn’t know.

“Took you long enough,” an older Hiruzen needles, appearing through a doorway. Danzo scoffs, immediately falling into one of his usual friendly arguments with his teammate while Kagami pretends to play mediator while actually egging them both on. Homura and Koharu move towards what must be the kitchen with their groceries and Wei Ying follows, hoping beyond hope that he managed to do what Tobirama asked of him.

The kitchen is roomy and sparkling clean, the counters cleared to make way for Koharu’s haul. There’s a woman there that Wei Ying recognizes but doesn’t know the name of and, better than anything, Torifu, inspecting what Koharu and Homura brought him. The anxiety and fear in Wei Ying’s chest loosens its claws and he can’t help but smile in his relief. He basks in the bright warmth of the home for just a few minutes before he leaves, unwilling to intrude even though he’s a ghost.

Wei Ying stays in Konoha for almost two years, syrupy days stretching into syrupy days. He bounces between tangible and intangible, visible and invisible, careful to not be seen by anyone who might recognize him. A lot of those who would are dead— Tobirama, Hashirama, Touka, the Uchiha brothers —but better to be safe than sorry. A few of the ghosts he knows have moved on, as well, most notably Itama and Kawarama. It definitely makes for long, lonely days, and it… hurts, to walk through Konoha without Tobirama by his side.

That’s what drives him away, eventually. There’s no place in Konoha for him while his failure to protect Tobirama hangs over him like a shroud. At first, his only thought is about getting as far away from painful memories— good and bad alike —as possible. The time he spent in Konoha assured him that Tobirama’s kids could look after themselves; even if they couldn’t, there isn’t much Wei Ying can do once he loses the advantage of surprise. He’s not used to such fast paced battles and, really, he’s not used to fighting at all, anymore.

He catches a boat across the water to Uzushio, where he’s been a few times before, trailing after Tobirama and Hashirama and Mito. It’s beautiful and it reminds him achingly of Lotus Pier. He doesn’t stay long, leaves even further across the water to Kiri. Kiri actually reminds him a little of the Burial Mounds mixed with Qinghe. It’s definitely a strange place and ominous enough to match. Wei Ying doesn’t particularly like it but he stays long enough to get to know the people, to chat and trade and make merry. If nothing else, Kiri knows how to let loose, chaotic and sharp and warm despite the chilly weather.

Months turn into a year before he moves on again, chased further across the water by the animosity towards Konoha and her people. The lands there have little to do with anything happening closer to Konoha’s mainland, only participating in trade with Kiri and, occasionally, Kumo. Wei Ying, wanting nothing to do with the high tensions, stays here for as long as he can manage. Ten years, travelling between villages, growing his collection of things until he’s practically an official trader. He’s forced to move on when people start talking, rumours of a wanderer who doesn’t age beginning to follow him.

He heads to Kumo where it’s clear they’re still nursing resentment from the war Tobirama had died in. The people are suspicious and altogether poor. Wei Ying does what he can, collecting food to hand out or, when that garners more suspicion that it actually helps, trading the food for little doo-dads that interest him. Jewellery and art and small seals; nothing that’s particularly useful to him but also won’t hurt anyone to be given away. He helps with people setting up farms for the first time, remembering the long, cold, and hungry months in the Burial Mounds before Wei Ying had managed to get their gardens going. It’s easier here to grow things— there’s not nearly as much resentful energy that needs purging.

It takes some work, considering everything, and a good few years, but he eventually manages to create talisman-seal hybrids that consume the natural resentful energy to convert it into chakra that helps plants grow. It’s not perfect but it’s something and he trades them as well, usually for stories or small, pretty things. When he starts garnering entirely too much attention, spending more time hiding from shinobi on the hunt for him than actually helping people, he moves on.

He runs into the Samurai, who are similar enough to cultivators for him to feel at home, and spends more time there to exchange stories and advice and swordplay. He ends up staying with them, bouncing between clans, until the newest war ends, at which point he finds himself drawn back to Konoha, intent on making sure Tobirama’s legacy still stands strong in the absence of the man himself.

It does, though it’s clearly a village (a nation) suffering the aftereffects of war. Kagami, having taken over as Hokage when Tobirama died, is clearly tired and stressed but unwilling to retire when his people so clearly need him. Despite the toll the war took on him— and on the rest of Tobirama’s kids, all of them looking old in a way that’s more than just skin deep —Kagami is still kind, still bringing together the people of Konoha with his infectious pride and confidence. He and Danzo share a home, now, and a team; a trio of kids that may as well be their actual children for how protective and adoring they are. Hiruzen, as well, has a team, and among them, Wei Ying recognizes Hashirama’s kindness and Mito’s strength and Tobirama’s genius in Tsunade. Orochimaru and Jiraiya level her out nicely and they make a powerful team even while it’s clear they aren’t quite at Hiruzen’s level yet.

None of the rest have teams, though Koharu and Torifu both have lovely wives now. Homura is alone in comparison but seems fine with it; all six of them meet up often, anyhow, and it’s clear they’re just as close now as they were when Wei Ying left so long ago. He stays barely a handful of months in Konoha proper, spending more time wandering the Land of Fire to trade his talisman-seals. The people here are less hostile than in many of the other nations he’s visited but they won’t take handouts regardless and he ends up with another collection of shiny, interesting things, sealed away in yet another scroll. He can only feel grateful that he can change the sealing scrolls enough for him to use with his resentful energy.

He ends up going up towards Iwa, after, because, though he will always be on Konoha’s side, he knows better than most that wars are never as black and white as they seem. No matter what, there are innocents on both sides, and Wei Ying feels duty bound to help as many as possible, regardless of side.

The Iwa people are like Jiang Cheng, over all; they want to lick their wounds in peace, without an outsider poking his nose in. Wei Ying gives them what help they’ll accept and Wei Ying cuts through Ame on his way down towards Suna, giving them the help they need before moving on. The desert is notably harder to work in. While sandstorms aren’t a danger to him, they are to the living, whether that’s people or animals or plants. He helps build indoor farms, doing his part to dig out hollows in the cool earth or haul stone for walls. Unlike most nations he’s visited, the shinobi village is doing only barely better than the normal people. It’s the lack of easy access to water and crops, he thinks.

He moves finally to Uzushio, which, despite declaring themselves neutral, had been hit heavily. There’s no one left on the island itself; they had been forced to flee or die, and Wei Ying spends time cleaning the area up before going on a hunt for the survivors. They had been scattered to the winds and, for anyone else, it would have been impossible to track them down again. Wei Ying knows seals, though, and he knows talismans even better. It’s relatively easy to rig up something to track Uzushio’s unique signature. He collects the ragtag shinobi and finds himself furious at having to steal back stolen children, returning them to family. Or, at least, people as close to family as they have left. The shinobi return to Uzushio quietly, keeping their movements slow and under the radar.

Wei Ying helps give them their home back and, for the first time since the Wen Remnants died under his charge, he feels like he’s… not making up for the ruin that he brought Lotus Pier but balancing it out, good for bad. Uzushio doesn’t rebuild itself in a day, of course, or even the near ten years he spends there, and the people likely won’t ever be the same again. They’re a warier sort, now. Untrusting and hesitant in a way that Wei Ying recognizes in himself and in Jiang Cheng. They are a people betrayed by the ones they trusted most, purposefully or not, and it’s not something they’ll be able to forget easily.

At this point, it's pretty much an open secret Wei Ying isn’t a normal person. Just about a hundred years have passed and even with the precautions he’s taken, the knowledge of an unaging and undying wanderer that wants nothing more than pretty, useless things in exchange for help, who can escape even a Great Nation vying after him, has spread. The people of Uzushio don’t ask questions but there are signs that they suspect what he is— offering food and making little lanterns with crows to represent him rather than their usual fox designs. It’s… nice, to be known and still accepted. Wei Ying never confirms anything but it warms him regardless. Wei Ying pretty much makes his new base of operations Uzushio and even when he starts leaving the island again to check on the other nations and the other Hidden Villages, he knows he’s going to go back. He can’t not, considering how closely he’s tied to the people there, now.

Konoha is much the same as it was when he left. Kagami has finally retired, and he double checks that the boy (man, now, and old man on top of that) is really retired and not dead (he is; he and Danzo seems to be having some sort of cold war regarding whether or not they’re gonna stay in Konoha’s politics but are otherwise fine), and a young blonde kid has taken the hat up. Jiraiya’s apprentice, apparently, and life is really going by too fast. Minato, the Hokage, has both a wife (a terrifying Uzumaki who Wei Ying aches to tell about Uzushio but can’t without putting his people in danger) and a gangly little silver-haired kid. The rest of Konoha is doing well as well, though Wei Ying doesn’t so much as check in on the Inuzuka as he does just sort of assume.

Jiraiya and Tsunade are both off doing whatever though Orochimaru is still around. Wei Ying spends the day following the boy around while invisible. Strangely enough, Orochimaru seems to be able to tell he’s around, even if he can’t see him. Besides him, he also spends time looking after Kagami’s kids; Chikae and Kasai are fine, spending their time helping to cheer people up, but Shiro’s badly hurt, confined to a wheelchair. All three of them seem to be retired although he can’t be entirely sure about that.

He tells Uzushio his news when he returns. None of them are particularly interested in any of it except what Kushina was doing which makes sense since she’s Uzumaki. Still, they let him talk with fond looks and offerings of spicy food that he couldn’t ever deny.

He returns to travelling the nations as a trader, bringing what he’s given back to Uzushio to decorate the island as make-shift wind chimes and just simple little glittery things. It’s okay, this life he’s built, even though he knows he’ll watch all the friends he made grow old and die and move on without him. All the nations seem to finally be settling, as much as they can, at least, and there are whispers on Uzushio debating revealing themselves. The general consensus seems to be ‘wait and see’.

The next time Wei Ying goes back to Konoha, things are different. Minato and Kushina both died at some point in the interim— Hiruzen has been signed up for the position of Hokage, this time. Orochimaru’s gone now as well and Wei Ying doesn’t know where he nor his teammates might be. Kakashi is a pain in the ass to track down but the boy is alive, at least. All of Tobirama’s kids are still alive, miraculously, and Wei Ying wonders if that’s something he did or if the six of them are just ridiculously good at surviving. Shiro’s gone but Chikae and Kasai are still around, at least. The worst thing, though, isn’t the death and change, which Wei Ying has regrettably gotten used to. No, instead it’s little Naruto, who looks so much like his parents that his birth could never be denied. The boy, a four year old at Wei Ying’s best guess, is living on the streets, scavenging for scraps, while his village condemns him.

Wei Ying hasn’t felt such incandescent rage in a long time.

Naruto is tucked behind a dumpster when Wei Ying hunts him down again after all of his anger’s dissipated. He lets himself be visible and tangible, unlike how he usually visits Konoha. He won’t be checking in on Tobirama’s kids so there’s no point and besides, he can’t help Naruto if he can’t interact with the boy. He had made sure to buy some food for the kid— soup, because he has a feeling Naruto hasn’t been eating very well and he knows that food with more substance can be uniquely bad on truly empty stomachs.

“Hey there,” he greets quietly, crouching down to keep from looming over the boy. Naruto peers up at him with mistrustful blue eyes. They’re not as dark as his father’s were, more sunshine-y than the former Hokage. “Hungry?” He asks, offering the soup takeout container he got from the restaurant down the street. The kid is still clearly wary but his hunger overrides his caution and he sneaks forward to take the takeout container and a wooden spoon from Wei Ying. He urges Naruto to eat slowly but he remembers the desperate way each meal has to be eaten on the streets if you don’t want to lose it.

“Do you have anywhere to stay?” Wei Ying asks, knowing the answer and hoping, hoping, he’s wrong. Naruto hesitates but the food seemed to have warmed his attitude up and he gives a shake of his head without too much wariness. Wei Ying wonders if the boy can speak, if anyone ever taught him how. Wei Ying doesn’t have an apartment. He doesn’t need one; he can’t sleep, he doesn’t get too cold or too warm, he doesn’t get tired of standing. He has money, though. A hundred years exploring, helping people, and trading results in a lot of random stuff, yes, but even he couldn’t avoid grateful people foisting money off onto him. He spread it around as much as he could but the people here like free money even less than they like free help.

“I can get you a place, if you want,” Wei Ying offers. Naruto hesitates again before nodding, slow and shy. Wei Ying debates his next move with himself for a moment but he walks faster than Naruto and the boy’s probably desperate for any kind touch so he opens his arms beckoningly.

“Can I carry you—” Before he can even fully finish the question, Naruto is slamming into him with the speed and force of a newly made fierce corpse. He doesn’t lose the air in his lungs because he doesn’t have any but he does rock back, the surprise nearly making him lose his balance. Naruto curls in close as Wei Ying stands, hiding his face away in Wei Ying’s shoulder. The dark resentful energy of the Huli Jing Naruto has sealed inside him (the people here call it a kitsune, a demon fox, the Kyuubi) tugs at Wei Ying’s own resentful energy, trying to tempt him into making bad decisions, into taking revenge. Wei Ying shoves it to the side the best he can while still using resentful energy to pretend to be alive.

He wanders through the streets, looking for somewhere he can buy an apartment or even a house. It’s not too difficult; the recent war left vacancies that have yet to be filled. Still, he spends time looking for a place in a good neighbourhood. He won’t be able to stay here with Naruto, he can’t when he has Uzushio to look after, and he needs Naruto to be in a place where he’ll at least have a fighting chance. He eventually settles on a place just outside the Uchiha Compound. The owner tries to make him pay an exorbitant amount but Wei Ying is skilled with people; he knows what makes them tick. He doesn’t threaten the man. He just stares, eyes red with resentful energy, as the man runs himself into guilty circles all on his own.

The price is lowered.

The man leads Wei Ying to a room on the second floor. It has a window that can open and has access to a tree that arches, flowering, over the Uchiha Compound's wall. An escape route, should Naruto need it. The room has a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and living space. It’s better than Wei Ying really hoped for. He pays the rent for the next year and closes the door with one hand after the owner has slunk off. Wei Ying tries to set Naruto down on the couch but the boy only clings to him tighter with terrified little noises. Wei Ying accepts his clinginess without comment. He still remembers, distant and foggy as it might be, now, what it had been like to crave any kind touch, how terrifying it had been to have that touch taken from him again and again. He’ll do what he can for Naruto.

They sleep on the couch, Naruto curled into his chest and Wei Ying less sleeping and more wandering in the safety of his mind. He can’t go too far or risk him and the Kyuubi aggravating each other with their matching corrosive presences but it’s enough to pass the time. It’s late morning the next day before he makes either of them do anything. Naruto needs food and clothes and a multitude of other things he had never been able to really give Wen Yuan. It feels a little like a second chance and although Naruto would never be able to replace Wen Yuan (and Wei Ying doesn’t want him to), Wei Ying is grateful he can give this child more than he had been able to give the first.

Naruto explores the clothes shop with an amazed kind of curiosity. The worker, a teenager who looks half-asleep, watches them with half their attention but seems disinclined to spend the energy it would take to view Naruto with the same derision and hate the majority of the villagers seem to hold. The boy’s still clinging tightly to Wei Ying’s hand but he’s interested enough to walk on his own, picking out clothes that he likes.

Wei Ying notices, amused, that the boy is drifting towards close to what he’s wearing. There’s nothing quite in the style of clothes that Wei Ying is wearing— something that’s gotten him curious looks in the past —and it seems to irritate Naruto although the boy is staying nearly silent. A survival instinct, Wei Ying thinks, and hates it.

They end up with a collection of orange, black, red, and, on Wei Ying’s suggestion, some blue and purple kimonos plus a couple dark grey-ish green outfits that work better with the kind of life the people in this world live. He can’t imagine kimonos work terribly well with the kind of fast movements and fierce fights that happen here although he has seen a few fighters here and there that get by with the looser, more constrictive clothing well enough.

They stop by a restaurant on the way back so Naruto can get some more soup into him. He’s a little grumpy that Wei Ying didn’t let him get half the menu as he had been angling to do but eats his soup without complaint. They get a couple nasty looks from the owner that Wei Ying fends off with blank, dangerous looks of his own. He’s not a shinobi but the people here know well and good to back off in the face of something stronger than them.

A week passes of Wei Ying setting Naruto up with everything he could ever need (including a bank account that had been a pain in the ass to set up), then another of teasing the boy out of his shell. He turns out to be a rather precocious and bubbly child when not fearing for his life, quick to bring fun to any scenario. He’s not the smartest kid out there— or maybe Wei Ying’s not the best judge for something like that; he and Tobi and Minato were all geniuses —but he tries hard and throws all of himself into whatever he’s genuinely encouraged to learn.

Here Wei Ying is, some months into this whole endeavour, watching Naruto carefully trace out kanji in the little kid’s spelling book Wei Ying bought with his tongue stuck out in concentration, when he has a thought. A stupid thought, maybe, but one that might let the boy squeak a little bit further under the radar. The villagers are on the lookout for a little blonde boy— not for a fiery-haired Uzumaki.

“Do you like red?” He asks Naruto. The boy takes the time to finish out the kanji he’s working on (Wei Ying thinks it might be horse? He’d never really learned the written language) before pulling his head up.

“Huh?” Wei Ying huffs a fond little laugh.

“Do you like red?” He asks again. Naruto tips his head in thought like a curious fox.

“I guess so,” he decides, “but I like orange better.” Wei Ying nods. He’d known that but he doesn’t think orange will have quite the same effect.

“Do you want red hair?” Naruto perks up immediately.

“I can have red hair?” He nearly squeals in excitement, bouncing up and almost knocking over his ink pot. He does send his brush skittering and it leaves a black stain on the floor Wei Ying has the feeling will never come out. He laughs as Naruto throws his little body into his arms, repeating ‘can I can I can I’ over and over excitedly. Shinobi, Wei Ying knows, have little seals that can be used to change a part of someone’s appearance for up to a year before the seal burns out but they’re noticeable if you know how to look and Wei Ying wants something a little harder to see through. Dye it is, then.

“You stay here and keep working on your kanji,” Wei Ying says. “I’ll go grab what we need to change your hair colour.” Naruto beams and agrees right away, collecting his brush as Wei Ying heads out. Finding hair dye is easy, finding hair dye guaranteed to last a long time is a bit harder but he manages to hunt down shinobi-grade dye guaranteed to last a year. When he gets back to the apartment, Naruto has finished his kanji for today and is practically vibrating with anticipation.

“To the bathroom,” Wei Ying says. Naruto pouts at him. Like most children, he has a grudge against being clean and therefore against the bathroom.

“Why?” The boy whines.

“Because this can be messy and we’re not doing it out here,” Wei Ying informs. Naruto huffs and grumbles but does, in fact, follow Wei Ying to the bathroom. The dye is easy enough to prepare and as Wei Ying is carefully covering all that golden hair, he hopes the red hair will be enough that people will see Naruto and think Uzumaki instead of Kyuubi. Maybe their guilt over what happened to Uzushio will protect him.

He stays in Konoha for as long as he can force himself to. Between his years of constant travel and the other Uzumaki relying on him, he gets restless fast. He doesn’t head out immediately, of course. He keeps the apartment well-stocked with non-perishables and makes sure Naruto has the basics of everything he needs to survive on his own until Wei Ying can return. He doesn’t trust anyone in Konoha well enough by half to leave Naruto’s wellbeing in their hands— as a matter of fact, he trusts Naruto to take care of himself as a former homeless and abused child far better than he does the emotionally stunted shinobi (who may be well off but usually lacking any sort of skills that pair well with childrearing) or the small-minded civilians (who had been the majority of the ones going out of their ways to make life miserable for little Naruto). Still, he ends up sticking around long enough to feel the need to tidy up Naruto’s dye job.

He leaves not even a full two days after, once Naruto has made him promise many times in increasingly complex ways to come back. He doesn’t bother with the front gate since he stands out enough between his looks and amalgamated accent that the guards would probably stop him, opting instead to go intangible and invisible and just walk straight through the wall. He then proceeds to walk the entire distance between Konoha and the shore closest to Uzushio, absently grateful for the fact that he can’t physically get tired anymore. Mostly because physically, he doesn’t exist.

Getting from the shore to Uzushio is a trickier issue. A couple of Uzushio shinobi had sailed him over in a nondescript boat that they had kept well away from anywhere that could have recognized them. Getting a boat to sail back there is pretty much impossible between his inability to sail anything by himself and the innate danger that would come with outing the existence of a slowly-rebuilding Uzushio to the greater world before they have the protective seals, general power, and population to resist a second wave of complete annihilation. On the other hand, he is dead and as nothing more than a spirit it would actually be very possible for him to just sort of. Fly over to the whirlpool-surrounded island. However, he hasn’t actually used that skill since his time with Tobirama, reading reports and books over people's shoulders.

(It’s significantly easier to do than he had expected, being mostly instinctual once he figured out how to start. The water and the distance does not end up being the big conundrum he had built it up to be in his mind.)

Uzushio, when he finally gets there, welcomes him back with open arms. This has been the longest he’s stayed away since he first helped rebuild the island village and the people fawn over him with worry and curiosity in equal measures. He accepts their gifts easily, passing out all the trinkets and other interesting bits he had collected before being waylaid in Konoha. He tells his stories, as well, ones that have been traded to him for his help and ones he’s made himself, chatting to an ever changing crowd of individuals. There are new people around, as well, and they tell their stories as well, being drawn to Uzushio like an indescribable current was reeling them in or being brought back with shinobi who had left the island and ended up saving them from uncharitable situations.

Eventually he tells them of Naruto, and their righteous anger matches his as they clamour for retribution. For shinobi, the Uzumaki have always been as fair and just and kind as people could come and Wei Ying looks up to them for it and their determination not to let their dismal history drag them down. In light of Wei Ying’s revelation regarding Naruto, the people of Uzumaki are even more understanding of his absence. A haphazard group of parents and older siblings drag him to the side to teach him how to handle children, how to deal with hair and clothes, how to make a balance between strict and lenient, how to cook and bake and know what children need to grow up strong and healthy, how to do make-up and sew and clean. He’s not the best at all of it and several people worked together to beat it into his head that he can’t just drown food for children in every spice under the sun but eventually they deem him passable enough to release him from their claws.

He flees back to Konoha and Naruto before they can change their mind and the boy is so gleefully happy to see him that he feels guilty for ever leaving in the first place. But as much as he has a duty to Naruto, he has a duty to Uzushio, and, much as he wants to, he probably can’t take Naruto (or, rather, the Kyuubi) from Konoha without launching the volatile world of shinobi into another war. He can’t really explain all of this to Naruto but he tries his best and the boy seems to understand which is… sad, in some undefinable way.

Naruto badgers him into teaching him swordsmanship and into painting the boy’s bedroom into a sunset of oranges and reds. As much as Wei Ying hates to admit it, Naruto has absolutely no natural talent when it comes to the sword and he’s half terrified that the boy’s going to somehow manage to kill himself with the stick they’re using as a sword. Sealing and talisman work, though, is an entirely different story when Wei Ying decides to finally try it out. He knows the Uzumaki are considered incredibly talented masters of fuinjutsu but he hadn’t expected it to be somehow hereditary like it apparently is. Naruto devours all the knowledge of talismans that Wei Ying can safely give him and the comparably little amount of sealing that he knows.

When he returns to Uzushio, he makes sure to gather as much information on sealing as he can to bring back to Naruto, an endeavour the Uzumaki enthusiastically agree with. Everything from oral teachings to surviving scrolls. Everything he can get his hands on short of bringing an actual surviving Uzumaki sealmaster into the heart of Konoha. It’s all graciously poured over when he passes it off to Naruto, particularly after he absentmindedly and offhandedly mentions that seals were the speciality of the Uzumaki Clan.

He falls into a rhythm splitting his time between Naruto and Uzushio. He never completely gives up his visits to other countries and villages but they dwindle to the point that his existence slowly goes from undisputed fact to mysterious legend. And he doesn’t have Jiang Cheng or Jiang Yanli or Lan Zhan or the Wens or little a-Yuan, he doesn’t have Tobirama or a real home or a Clan, but he’s happy.

For the first time in a long, long time, Wei Ying is really, truly happy.

Then space and time and the universe itself fold and rips around him and he wakes up in the place he doesn’t recognize in a body that isn’t his, surrounded by a language he hasn’t really spoken in over a century.

Wei Ying thinks about doing this all again, about crafting a life he’ll only lose, and he cries.

Part 5 | Last Part

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and it's Equivalents

4.

The fourth time Wei Ying is summoned to Senju Tobirama's side, he gasps and coughs and chokes for air that he can't get into his lungs. He curls up as tightly as he can, hands scrabbling at his chest and throat in an attempt to soothe the burn or pressing into the floor, desperately trying to feel something, anything, beyond the pain and panic and regret (and flickering, poisonous anger). The fourth time Wei Ying is summoned, it is bare moments after taking his mistakes into his own hands to destroy, letting his resentful energy tear him and the Stygian Tiger Amulet apart. The fourth time, he is dead and Tobirama is not. Senju Tobirama hums above him, familiar and confused, and Wei Ying calms slightly, thinks he's safe now, Senju Tobirama will listen to him and believe him-

"It didn't work."

-and the panic returns, crashing into him and determined to break him (he's already broken, what more could he give, what more can be taken from a dead man?) all before he even has time to let himself uncurl, his finger digging like claws into the wood beneath him. Lan Zhan doesn't believe him and Jiang Cheng hates him and Shijie is dead and Senju Tobirama can't see him and-

And-

He'd failed. He failed, he's a failure, why did he even try?! Madam Yu was right; everything he touches breaks or goes to shit and now the YunmengJiangs are gone and so are the Wen Remnants and little A-Yuan. A-Yuan who looked up to him and believed him and loved him. A-Yuan who was a child, they killed a child, he let them, he- he failed him, all of them, and now he's dead so he can't even give himself over to Jiang Cheng so he can pay his debts.

"What did I do wrong?" Senju Tobirama's murmured question staves off the panic, quiets the self-hate, and brings him back to the present enough for him to register the wood of the floor and the lines of blood-ink inches from his face. He hadn't even thought of the idea of blood-ink until Senju Tobirama had brought it to his attention. It certainly made directing the resentful energy easier. It listened to blood, to pain, more than it ever did pure ink.

"Nothing, Tobi-er," Wei Ying breathes. "Absolutely nothing." He garners no attention, not even the slightest or pauses, nothing to prove that this really exists and isn't just some fever dream his mind made up in its last moments. Senju Tobirama steps away from the array, swiping up a journal from a nearby desk, talking to himself as he begins to pace, working through ideas and questions. It's a process Wei Ying had employed, the few times he had been able to research something that he wanted to know more about, to perfect and show off or to claim as solely his own. His friend's speech is too fast or quiet or complicated, or all three, for Wei Ying to understand. He lets himself lay there instead, letting the soothing babble of words lull him into something that couldn't be considered sleep even for an insomniac like him. He wants- a lot of things, really, but death would be nice. Finally being able to rest, to put this goddamn mess of a life behind him. Then the people he loves might actually get a good life, without him around to screw it up. Being able to cry would be nice, at least, if not-existing is off the table. He lets out a shuddering ghost equivalent to a breath and pulls himself carefully into a sitting position. He's not sure what he expected, or why he expected anything at all, but when Senju Tobirama still doesn't notice him, he feels disappointed. Irritated.

(Unnatural anger curls low in his gut, simmering and beckoning like his resentful energy once had. Begging to be used, adored, fed.)

He crushes the uncharitable feelings deep down inside him because he knows Senju Tobirama doesn't deserve his annoyance and short temper. Besides, disappointment has never done anything more than drive families and friends apart, trust him. It's a wonder anyone stuck by him in the end, considering how disappointing he knows he was to them all. A demonic cultivator and a Wen sympathizer? What a perfectly good waste of a cultivator, right there. The door to the room swings open with a slam and both he and Senju Tobirama turn towards it. A strangely familiar man stands there, older and tanner than Senju Tobirama. He has darker hair as well, with those chocolate locks. An almost unheard of colour, back home (not his home, Wei Ying reminds himself fiercely, not anymore), even more so than Senju Tobirama's white- although white-haired people were rare enough on their own. White hair only showed up with albinism, something Wei Ying had gotten curious about, after his first meeting with his friend. Albinism has so many different effects on the human body. Senju Tobirama seems to have lucked out in that department; as far as Wei Ying can tell, the other has a fully functional golden core (or whatever passes for one in this strange land), full hearing, smarts enough to outwit any man. Just a light sensitivity and a tendency to burn which he likely 'fixes' with a layer of that weird, impure spiritual energy (hadn't Senju Tobirama referred to it as chakra, once?).

"Tobi~" The newcomer whines, drawing out the 'o' and 'i' sounds. Are they close, then? He swears he recognizes the man from somewhere. Senju Tobirama closes his journal with a loud snap. The man is unafraid, apparently unaware of the fact that the albino is on the verge of homicide. Wei Ying leans forward, wishing he had something to snack on while he watches this go down.

"Don't call me that," Senju Tobirama says, his almost as sharp as the sound his journal had made. Under it, deep under it, Wei Ying can make out the fondness. The other man ignores Senju Tobirama, chattering on about something Wei Ying has no hope of understanding, although he does manage to catch a few words here or there. It's not nearly enough. Eventually, Senju Tobirama cuts the man off, gesturing at Wei Ying as he says something. Or rather, gesturing at the talisman Wei Ying is still sitting in the smackdab middle of. Actually, now that he thinks about it, why hadn't Senju Tobirama used the smaller, improved talisman that he had created? The one he used last time, that had fit so snugly into a scroll? Had Senju Tobirama already tried that and it was just too weak to summon Wei Ying? Spirits are probably more slippery than living humans, particularly ones that haven't been around very long... Wei Ying watches as Senju Tobirama begins to argue with the new arrival, quiet and insistent. He's pretty sure the albino could pass off as a Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan love child-

Nope!

Nope, no, absolutely not, that's a horrifying thought!

Senju Tobirama scuffs a break into the array with his foot and Wei Ying hisses a breath in, muscles bunched and coiled, eyes wide as he waits for the inevitable reaction. Except... nothing happens. And nothing continues to happen. Not a single thing; not a spark or a surge of energy or release of tension. He thinks that that might be worse. He shifts forward into a crouch as Senju Tobirama sweeps one last, furrowed look over the array. Wei Ying waits until his friend and his friend's friend have left the room before he edges from the array, overly cautious and hyperaware that bad (and hazardous) results are abundant with talismans. It can't be terribly different with these one-sidestep-from-normal talismans that Senju Tobirama's world dabbles in. Again, nothing happens when Wei Ying leaves the array, besides one or two harmless sparks of spiritual energy at the section where he stepped over.

There’s a tug in his chest, tight like a band pulled taught, and the longer he lingers the more insistent it gets. Uncertain of the rules of the afterlife and not particularly wanting to get his soul torn to shreds in the first few minutes of his new half-life (as much as it would probably be better for everyone involved), Wei Ying generously decides to follow it. Based on his haphazard luck, it has the possibility of being an absolutely horrid decision and the only way to find out is to just do it, he supposes. He travels cautiously through the unfamiliar halls, sticking close to the sides to avoid the living walking around. He doesn’t want to run into one on the off-chance he’ll actually hit them and give himself away or on the likelier chance that he’d phase through them because that’s just plain weird. He can’t imagine what it’ll feel like.

In the end, he's back by Senju Tobirama's side, peering over his friend's shoulder to take a look at the stuff he's got laid out in front of him. What Wei Ying can make out is... not terribly interesting, to be honest. Finances, it looks like, and supply routes. There are some other things that look sort of like war plans but he can't make out enough of them to be sure. He looks away from the papers, eyeing the brown-haired man that had called Senju Tobirama so familiarly. Now that he can investigate the man properly, his panic and other unsavory emotions squirreled away into a tiny little box, the man shares some features with Senju Tobirama. They're plenty different, of course, but there are enough similarities in the facial structure to make him think that they're related. Maybe siblings. If one took more after the mother and the other after the father, adding to it Senju Tobirama's albinism, there's more than enough evidence for that. Wei Ying hums curiously and flounces away to the corner of the room. He'll have to content himself with watching since it's not like he can do much else. Death, he thinks, is going to be quite boring.

...

Fucking Hashirama! That guy is Senju Hashirama, how did he forget Senju Tobirama's brother, honestly he knows his memory is bad but this is just sad!

Wei Ying shoots a glance at Senju Tobirama, checking that the man is still asleep. Seeing that he is, Wei Ying sighs and turns back to the book he's trying to use to entertain himself. It had worked for a bit- until he read the entire page and realized that he can't flip the page. He had tried to control the resentful energy around him to maybe solidify his hands or cause a gust of wind or something but the resentful energy is being incredibly slippery. He thinks it's because he's dead but either way, he's definitely not going to be able to control it without even his dizi. Well, any instrument would work but he would prefer Chenqing; he already made her into a spiritual weapon. Resentful weapon? Whatever, the point remains the same.

"Hello?" Huh. Wei Ying hadn't heard the door open. He doesn't bother looking, knowing the greeting isn't for him. He glares at the book. If the page would just flip-

"What are you doing?" The newcomer asks. Wei Ying glances at Senju Tobirama to see what's so interesting but his friend is still sleeping. Weird. He shakes it off and turns back to his problem. Alright, he can do this. He created the first stable version of demonic cultivation, he can get resentful energy to turn a damn page in his book. He takes a deep false-breath in, closing his eyes to focus on the resentful energy around him. It's strong but not as pure as the resentful energy in his own world. It's mixed with the same stuff these people mix their spiritual energy with. He frowns, focusing more fully on the resentful energy. It may not live in any way people accept but Wei Ying knows its heartbeat, its hunger, its sentience. It wants, craves, in the same way people do. It wants a home, somewhere to rest and someone who will take care of it, feed it. He just needs to let it in-

"Stop!" The person from before snaps and Wei Ying is yanked backwards. It snaps his concentration and the gathering energy dissipates. Wei Ying snarls whirling on the person-

It's a kid. It's a kid, no more than eight, blood staining his skin.

It's another spirit.

"You're-"

"You were hurting him!" The boy interrupts, angry and protective in equal measures. Wei Ying blinks, glancing at Senju Tobirama. His friend is no longer sleeping, now pressed into the corner with a kunai held out in front of him, an instinctual fear making his eyes wide and his grip shake ever so slight. Shit. He's already released the resentful energy and it's clearly already having an effect. Senju Tobirama is calming extraordinarily fast, now more confused than fearful. Wei Ying turns back to the child spirit.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize, I'll- I'll try not to do it again," Wei Ying says quietly.

"You better," the boy hisses, storming over to Senju Tobirama's side to hover like a mother hen. Under the boy's baleful eyes, he lets himself out of the room, sucking in a sharp breath when he's out in the hall.

"Shit," he breaths. "Shit."

After running into the boy spirit (who now sticks close to Senju Tobirama's side and glares at him when he gets too close), Wei Ying gets a lot more observant. To be frank, there are spirits everywhere. Most are clearly family or friends of the living but there are also vengeful spirits. Ones that were killed and want to kill the Senju but don't have the innate control over resentful energy that the dead did in his former world. The good thing about this is that it means he can rope various spirits into conversations (read: arguments. Most of them are on the aggressive side of things) to learn more of this dumb language.

It’s so strange, how similar yet undeniably different this language is to his first. It makes some aspects difficult and he’ll often times end up mixing the two languages together but he thinks he’s starting to get the hang of it. He’s not sure he knows enough yet to explain himself to the child ghost but he’s getting there. He’ll get there.

He has had less time to research and experiment on the strange reaction people here have to resentful energy, considering he can only get so far away from Senju Tobirama and his overprotective little follower, but he thinks that he’ll be able to figure it out eventually. Maybe not in Senju Tobirama’s lifetime but there’s only so much he can do if he stays in this world where spirits are so much less powerful anyway. He doesn’t understand why spirits are so weak, either, since resentful energy, even if it’s impure, is teeming in this place, swirling around people and clinging to souls like some sort of disease. Honestly, with how resentful energy seems to affect people here, he’s not entirely sure it isn’t a disease or a leech or some other equally bad analogy.

Whatever the case, it’s not as active, as sentient, as it was in his former world. He thinks that’s good, considering how abundant it is here.

(He wants to experiment, to get himself home, but if it comes at the cost of anyone in this universe- especially Senju Tobirama -he’s not sure he’d ever forgive himself.)

(Oh, who is he kidding, he knows he wouldn’t. He’s carrying it with him the same way he carries the destruction of Lotus Pier, the loss of Jiang Cheng’s golden corse, Shijie's death, Jin Ling’s status as an orphan, the deaths of the Wen Remnants.)

"You’re weird," a spirit says to him. Wei Ying blinks, eyeing the kid— and that doesn’t even surprise him anymore. There are so many child spirits here and it breaks his heart. The boy honestly looks rather like Senju Hashirama if Senju Hashirama was about ten and unimpressed with what the world has to offer.

"So are you," Wei Ying says back stubbornly, not to be outdone.

"No- well, maybe- not as weird as you." The kid sounds rather frustrated. "You act weird and talk weird and somehow managed to piss off ‘Tama— I didn’t even know that was possible —and you never leave Tobirama alone." Wei Ying tilts his head.

"You know Senju Tobirama and his..." Wei Ying hesitates, glancing over to his albino friend and the even younger child glaring holes into his head, "his bodyguard?" The boy laughs.

"'Course I do. Tobirama's my older brother and Itama’s my younger one." The kid grins. "I'm Kawarama, the best, of course." Wei Ying bites back an insensitive comment about his status of life and how that makes Senju Tobirama and Senju Hashirama better, reminding himself that Senju Kawarama is a child and doesn’t deserve his pent up frustration.

"Okay," Wei Ying says slowly, "so why aren't you ever by Senju Tobirama? And why do you want to talk to me?" Senju Kawarama waves him off.

"A person Itami is angry at is clearly a person I have to be friends with. Besides, I'm almost always with Hashi- I like him best," Senju Kawarama says in the manner of a child without fear.

"Err... that’s sort of rude, isn't it? Picking favourites?" Wei Ying may have never entirely understood Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli but he had loved them equally— even if he had pretended otherwise to get Jiang Cheng to actually accept his love without being all weird about it.

"Eh, it doesn't matter. Itama's favourite is Tobirama and Tobirama's favourite is Itama and my favourite is Hashirama and Hashirama supposedly loves us all equally but none of us actually believe that," Senju Kawarama say, matter-of-fact.

"That sounds..." He doesn't even know. Awful? Impossible? He couldn't ever imagine picking one of his siblings (they're not his siblings anymore- he threw their bond in their faces like it didn't matter and then killed Shijie-) over the other. It's just... not possible.

"Hello, earth to- wait, hey, I don't even know your name!" Wei Ying laughs, focusing back in on the kid.

"I'm Wei Wuxian."

"You're the one Tobirama kept trying to summon!" Kawarama pauses, staring at him. "No wonder it didn't work if you're dead." Wei Ying glares playfully at him.

"Rude, bringing up my lack of life. Don't you have any manners?" The kid snickers.

"In this family? Hell no." Wei Ying has a bad feeling that that sums up this world quite well.

"Why do you talk so weird?" Senju Kawarama asks, curling in the air over Wei Ying’s shoulder. Wei Ying pushes him away, trying to see the scroll the kid is blocking. He thinks it’s something on finances and war plans but he can’t quite tell. He also thinks it might be in code.

"What do you mean?" He asks absently. This scroll is so, so annoying. It’s like when you open a book expecting one story and getting a completely different one. Sort of uneasy and confused and angry all in one.

"Well, you say words weird and you always say people’s full name." Wei Ying pauses, his attention finally pulled away from the scroll. He turns to actually look at the hovering kid (note to self- he needs to figure out how to do that).

"You don’t use people’s full names when referring to them?" He asks curiously. Kawarama shakes his head.

"Nope. Too long and annoying."

"Oh. Well it’s a sign of respect where I come from. You always use people’s full names unless you’re close enough to them that they let you use their personal name," he explains. Kawarama sticks out his tongue.

"That’s so stupid! When we want to show respect, we jus add an honorific onto their last name. Like, you’d be Wei-san and Hashirama would be Senju-sama because he’s the leader of the clan now. And there’s also -chan and -kun but those are for friends. I think." Kawarama shrugs. "I never really paid attention and now I don’t have to use them so whatever." Wei Ying tilts his head, humming interestedly.

"We have something like that, too. I can call Senju- err, Tobirama Tobi-er. Then there’s also a- like a-Yuan-" Wei Ying snaps his mouth shut, swallowing thickly at the thought of the little boy who had idolized him. The little boy that’s dead now because he couldn’t save them, he can’t do anything, he-

"That’s not good, you know," Kawarama says softly, breaking through his fog of self-deprecating thoughts. He forces his breath not to shudder, yanks the mask he had used during the war, after the war, down around him.

"What’s not?" Wei Ying asks, smiling and ignoring the way the fake expression sends pains like needles through him. "Using familiar-"

"You’re blaming yourself for something," Kawarama interrupts, making Wei Ying’s voice die in his throat. "Or someone, like how Tobirama blamed himself for me and Itama." He shudders, his mask fracturing. He shakes his head, ignoring the desperate edge to the motion.

"Was it the name you used? ...Yuan?" Wei Ying takes a step back.

"Kawarama," he warns quietly.

"Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself-"

"Don’t" Wei Ying snarls, the diluted resentful energy snapping and crackling around him where it’s counterpart would have flooded in like smoke. Kawarama stumbles away, eyes wide and fearful. "Don’t talk about things you don’t know about." Wei Ying turns and stalks from the room, rage seething in the pit of his stomach. He knows he shouldn't have reacted like he did, shouldn't have gone straight to threatening. Kawarama's just a child after all, no matter how long the kid has been dead. He can't apologize though. Not now, when he's still seething and hurt.

He just wants to go home, just wants his mismatched family of Jiangs and Wens (and Lans) back. Hell, at this point, he'd even take Jin Zixuan.

Whatever his feeling, his leash is short and he reaches the edge of where he's allowed quickly. He tucks himself into the corner, sliding down to wrap his arms around his legs. The dead can't cry. He wants to. Oh, how desperately he wants to.

Itama is even warier of him from then on. Wei Ying can’t really blame him. First, he accidentally scared Tobirama and then he went so far as to basically threaten his brother. He would hate him too if he was Itama. The brat is definitely Tobirama’s brother, with a glare like that. In other news, referring to people by their first name only is still strange but he wants to respect their customs even if he can’t control his own emotions. The other ghosts are avoiding him as much as they can and he himself is avoiding Kawarama so he hasn’t had an actual conversation partner in forever. He makes do listening to the living. Usually, they’re just talking about boring stuff. Every once in a while, like today, the compound is energized and talk of the supposed war echoes through the halls. This is the first time he’s seen Hashirama and Tobirama gearing up for a battle, however. Kawarama and Itama seem unconcerned. He, on the other hand, is full of jittery nervous energy.

This will be his first time seeing what this world considers a war. Not only that but he’s a ghost; unable to interact in even the most basic of manners. What happens if Tobirama is in trouble? What will he be able to do? His control over resentful energy has waned with his life and he���s not sure what strand he has left to pull on would be enough to save his former friend. (He still remembers when Tobirama was young and full of fear for a man that should have been his father. The protectiveness never really faded, he supposes.) In what world do ghosts lack power like this? Gods, he hates this. He’d rather not exist at all if he’s only going to exist to watch his friends and family be cut down in front of him while he watches like it’s some sort of sick play he can’t stop or even walk away from.

"It’s better to know what happens, isn’t it?" Wei Ying jerks, expecting Kawarama, but he doesn’t recognize the ghost in front of him. They have the same features as most of the Senju, although something about them doesn’t quite fit with the theme.

"Who are you?" He asks curiously. The ghost smiles.

"Funny that," they say. "I’m not entirely sure. I’ve been around so long I’ve forgotten who I was." Wei Ying can’t imagine that. To be a ghost so long you forget your family, your own name… it must be horrible.

"It isn’t, really." When Wei Ying jerks again, breath hissing out between his teeth, the ghost smiles apologetically. "Sorry, habit, I suppose. But back to what I said… forgetting can be good, I think. Can’t hurt to remember if there’s nothing to remember." Wei Ying has to admit he can’t think of a logical argument against that. Still…

"I wouldn’t give up my memories for anything," Wei Ying says. "They might hurt but they’re mine and… it proves some part of me is still alive, in a way." That’s not the only reason, of course. It’s not even the biggest reason. He simply can’t think of a way to explain his feelings to someone who allowed themselves to forget all their bonds.

"I suppose," the ghost muses. They fall quiet, neither of them really willing to budge on their opinions. Wei Ying lets his mind wander although it’s not a surprise when it comes back around to this curious being in front of him.

"What did you mean when you said that it’s better to know?" Wei Ying asks. The ghost hums, tilting their head like a curious songbird. It reminds him oddly of Nie Huaisang and all the little birds he would sneak around within Cloud Recesses.

"Well, it’s better to know what happens to the ones you care about than being left in the dark." Wei Ying shakes his head.

"But there’s a difference between knowing and being there, unable to do anything," he insists. The ghost simply watches him with blank eyes. "Anyway, I thought you don’t remember anyone you care about." The ghost’s eyebrows furrow.

"You seem to think I can only care about people I knew when I was alive," the ghost says. "But you forget I have been here watching as the shinobi around us grew from children to adults. I care as much about them as I would about anyone I would have known when alive." Wei Ying frowns, unable to see how. Watching someone’s life and interacting with someone as they grow are very different. You just can’t get the same kind of bond as an observer. The ghost shrugs at him, seeing his disbelief, and floats away. The ghost was interesting, despite their differences in opinion. He hopes they meet again.

Besides that, the ghost had used a word. ‘Shinobi’. Wei Ying has heard that word used by the living and dead alike but he still doesn’t know what it means. It’s a strange term. He thinks it’s something like ‘cultivator’ but the more he watches these supposed shinobi around him, the more differences he finds. The first being the clan mentality. Although cultivator sects had been built around specific families, they still took in outside disciples. These shinobi don’t do that. Then there’s the lack of monsters and fierce corpses and whatnot. What are the shinobi for, if not protecting the people? (He knows the answer, remembers distracting those three shinobi so that Tobirama could escape, he just doesn’t want to believe that there’s an entire culture built around murder.) He misses his easy friendship with Tobirama most these times, the way they could talk and figure out the differences in their language and cultures as easily as snapping their fingers. Other people are more difficult to deal with, especially in this universe.

When Wei Ying turns back to Tobirama, Kawarama and Itama are gone. He hesitates, not entirely sure if the kids aren’t just lurking around in wait, before steeling himself. It’s not like he can avoid them forever, tied to Tobirama like he is. He returns to his place by his friend’s side, peering over the albino’s shoulder as he sharpens his sword. The movements are methodical and calm although unneeded. Honestly, if Tobirama continues sharpening his already very sharp blade like this, he runs the risk of weakening or dulling it. He twists over his shoulder, grimacing as the whetstone slides through him. At this angle (which would be very uncomfortable if he wasn't a ghost), he can see Tobirama’s expression. It’s as blank as he can make it but Wei Ying has had practice translating Lan Zhan’s expression (though he was often wrong) and this is comparatively easy to figure out. He’s anxious. He has a right to be, of course, war is dangerous. This feels different, however, in a strange way Wei Ying can’t grasp.

(He figures it out later when the air cracks and splits and Tobirama vanishes. Wei Ying’s presence falters, blinks and glitches with the lack of a lodestone, resentful energy surging, before he’s yanked across the battlefield, Tobirama reentering reality. It’s the resentful energy, he knows, that makes Tobirama flinch. It’s why his sword strikes shoulder and not lung.

It’s why Tobirama is spared when his opponent’s brother appears in a rush of speed and panic, stumbling under the weight of Wei Ying’s flickering control and lashing resentful energy. It’s why a ghost, hateful and tainted, doesn’t join them.)

The man was supposed to die. Wei Ying can taste in the air, feel it pulling at the empty place where his golden core used to rest. It sings to him. The man was supposed to die to Tobirama and Wei Ying prevented that just by being. The air is electric and tense as Hashirama works on healing him. The start of a peace treaty. Wei Ying is glad- he doesn’t want to watch another battle. Still… he flits around Tobirama, trying to get more space between himself and the Man Who Should Have Died without leaving his friend’s side. He’s jittery, energy compounding with every glare or muttered word sent the way of his friends. He wants to do something, to break the tension. The only thing he can do, though, is flood them with resentful energy. He knows from experience that that only makes everything worse.

"There!" Hashirama exclaims, seemingly blind to the tension. The Man Who Should Have Died is asleep, healed, beneath his hands. The brother, the man that had been fighting Hashirama himself, nearly sags with palpable relief.

"Thank you." Hashirama beams at the soft words, waving them off.

"Anything for a friend!" Except… friends don’t try and kill friends. Friends don’t go to war with friends. Not when the so-called friends are both leaders of their respective sects- their clans -and make no move to stop the war. Wei Ying tucks himself into Tobirama’s side, desperate for any sort of comfort as his memories rise and pull like currents. They stay long enough for someone else to check Hashirama’s work as if someone like Hashirama could be as needlessly cruel as someone like (Wen Rouhan, Jin Guangshan, Wen Chao). Wei Ying stays close to Tobirama’s side as they’re led from the building. He glances back once, to see, and finds the Man That Should Have Died groggy but awake.

Piercing red and black eyes meet his and he pauses, checking once on Tobirama and Hashirama. He turns back to the Man That Should Have Died, tilting his head curiously. This, he thinks, will be fun. He waves, watching as the man hesitating lifts his hand in response. With a grin, he twists back around, flitting back to Tobirama’s side.

"Where did you go?" Wei Ying asks. "During the battle?" Kawarama hesitates, glancing at Itama and Tobirama. He’s always uncertain, Wei Ying has noticed, about how much he can say.

"We were waiting," Kawarama says slowly. Wei Ying doesn’t speak, content to let the boy come to his explanation naturally. "We didn’t… want to see it. See them die. So we- we went. And we waiting for them to show up."

"You don’t have very much faith in them." Kawarama shakes his head, frustrated by Wei Ying’s words.

"It’s not that- how many people have you seen that are- old. Like, over thirty. How many ghosts?" Wei Ying glances around, realizing for the first time that Kawarama is correct; dead and living alike are all disturbingly young. "I don’t know how it is- wherever you come from but people don’t live long, here." Wei Ying turns back to Kawarama, stomach churning at the idea of what Kawarama is saying to him.

"...How did you die?" Kawarama’s bottom lip wobbles dangerously for a moment before his features still into a bitter smile. Wei Ying’s heart sinks in his chest. What is Kawarama? Twelve, at most? And Itama is younger- Kawarama leaves him with this realization, heading back to his family. Wei Ying stumbles over to a table, bracing himself against it even though he doesn’t need to. He wants to throw up. Wei Ying stares blankly at his pale, translucent fingers splayed over the surface. How could the people of this world think this normal- ok, even?

The peace talks are… strange. Certainly not peaceful, in any definition of the word. The one who should have died, Uchiha Izuna, seems particularly against the peace. Part of this is understandable- Tobirama had nearly killed him. Would have killed him, if not for Wei Ying’s timely but accidental intervention. Still, he’s too… angry for that to account for it all. There’s something visceral, familiar about it. Familiar in the way it devours anger and doubt and hesitance to sow chaos and deception. It’s living. Not in the same way resentful energy is living but more like a spirit or monster. Something with true sentience, rather than just desire and hunger. It sinks a pit in Wei Ying’s stomach.

Izuna himself keeps a careful watch on Wei Ying whenever he’s not arguing against the peace. Every time they meet eyes, Wei Ying gives him a face and a thumbs down. This only seems to irritate Izuna more but there’s not like Wei Ying has much choice in how he interacts with the living. Resentful energy won’t exactly be very useful in this particular endeavour. Unless he could flush Izuna’s system with resentful energy and take the strange leech- infection? -with it. It might be an idea but it’s one he’d have to save for later, at a less precarious time. He wonders if Izuna would react with fear towards the resentful energy as most do or if the infection would be able to take it, warp it until it comes out angry and spiteful.

Wei Ying lets his attention wander away from his watcher, returning to the empty space by Tobirama’s side. People tend to give his friend space- only Hashirama is brave enough to stand a solid presence by his side. It reminds him of how everyone started to give him space after he started manipulating resentful energy except for shijie (and Lan Zhan, always there even though he seemed to hate Wei Ying, always hovering, standing by him until suddenly he wasn’t). He’s face to face with an Uchiha in his new position, the one always with Izuna and Madara. He doesn’t know what the Uchiha’s name is but he has the niggling feeling it starts with ‘H’. He has to lean forward a bit to get a good look of Madara, all the way on the other side of Izuna. Wei Ying still doesn’t really like him but he also sees the way Madara almost seems to revolve around his younger brother, his clan, and Wei Ying can respect that, at least. There was little he wouldn’t do for Jiang Cheng, his own shidi. Or, well, former shidi. Not only has he left the sect but he doubts Jiang Cheng still considers them brothers after all he’s done.

Izuna mutters another comment that has Madara bristling, arguing with Hashirama, and Wei Ying can’t help but wish they weren’t brothers. Or at least, not as close as they are. He just wants this to be over, for Tobirama to truly be able to rest and recuperate. Wei Ying knows how a war weighs on a person, drags them down and drowns them even if they don’t notice it. These people may have been born and bred for war but he is stubborn in his belief that it must affect them in the same way. Who wants to take another’s life? Who really feels good about, revels in it? Even these violent people couldn’t possibly be like that. (He can still taste the smug contentedness of when he had taken Wen Chao apart, piece by piece, as the other had screamed and cried and begged. He remembers revelling in the blood, the fear, feeling it justified. Sometimes he still feels that way. Other times, he feels sick, revolted with himself. With what he allowed the resentful energy to do to him. Sometimes, he thinks Lan Zhan was right.) He’s not sure anyone leaves the peace talk happy. Not even Hashirama, painfully optimistic (and yet so he never once reflected his words in his actions as he moves troops, took land and lives and gave nothing back).

The village starts slow. The people are tired, eager to finally rest, but they are still wary of their new allies. The air is filled with tension and unease, people trusting their years of being enemies more than they trust this new treaty. It’s fragile. Wei Ying knows Tobirama can see that, can see that his friend hesitates and deliberates. He knows Tobirama doesn’t know how to bring them all together. Wei Ying wishes he could help, watches as Tobirama throws himself into the logistics of the village in the absence of the skill with people that Wei Ying finds comes so naturally.

Itama has returned to his place by Tobirama’s side. While the boy seems less wary of his presence than before, Wei Ying would prefer not to test him so he stays away, tests his leash. Whatever ties him to Tobirama has been weakened, flickering ever since that last battle when it was severed for those precious few seconds. He uses it to people-watch, mostly. Not that there’s much else for him to do, of course.

Life, or rather the lack thereof, is quiet. Not in the stifling way Cloud Recesses had been or like the oppressive sorrow of the Burial Mounds. No, it’s quiet in the murmur of voice, the settling of lives. In quiet in the way Wei Ying finally finds himself in a sort of peace, lurking like a shadow amongst these people, pretending he still has a place there. Many of the ghosts seem to feel the same way and it’s gotten to the point where Wei Ying can’t quite tell if the crowds are living or dead.

There are still those in opposition. He thinks there probably always will be. He’s learned over the years that that is simply how people are. Wei Ying resigns himself to ignoring it, lets himself relax his overprotective nature. It hasn’t been able to do much for him in a long, long time. He lingers in this place and finally lets himself rest in the only way he can, anymore.

Part 3 | Part 5

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and it's Equivalents

3.

This time, Wuxian won't be summoned by a faulty seal- he's long since learned which parts of the seal latch onto his otherworldly friend. No, he's summoning Wuxian on purpose this time because it's the only way to get someone he trusts to his location in time. Tobirama stumbles a few more paces from the site of his fight, limbs numb from blood loss, and trips over something that might be a root or a plant or a bloody limb. His sight is blurring, graying out at the edges. It's been a long time since he was last in such bad a condition; probably not since that first time he summoned Wuxian. He knows he won't be able to make it back like this and like hell will anyone friendly manage to stumble across him. His luck's not that good. So, instead of trying and getting himself killed, he fumbles a summoning scroll from his belt with stiff, cold fingers. He nearly drops it twice, can barely manage to unroll the damn thing.

He's never let anyone touch the scroll, hasn't even when it earns him Butsuma's ire or Hashirama's pouts or Touka's dangerous curiosity or the elders' analytical glares. He thinks he's grateful for his possessiveness, now. He can't really tell. Everything seems... so far away. Distant and foggy. He doesn't bother biting or cutting his thumb- there's plenty of fresh blood already on him. He pours as much chakra as he can (not very much; not enough) into the seal and hopes it will be enough because if it isn't...

If it isn't, and Wuxian doesn't come, Tobirama fears he will die here, in this bloody clearing. Hashirama isn't nearly as fragile as he once was but he still doesn't want to put his anija through the loss of his last remaining brother. It would tear Hashirama apart, just like it would tear Tobirama apart if he lost Hashirama.

He blacks out before he knows the results of his last desperate measure.

He's not sure how long he spends drifting between unconsciousness and the verge of consciousness but the moment he's aware enough to realize that he's still alive, he knows his summoning worked. Well, either that or he's officially the luckiest person in the Elemental Nations. From then, it takes simultaneously too much and too little time for his chakra and blood to recuperate enough for him to force himself into full consciousness. It takes a few blinks for his eyesight to actually work, his first look being blurry and dark. The ceiling of a cave is the first thing he sees when he comes to, golden with sunlight and the light of fire as shadows dance in the corners of his vision. There's the sound of cloth on cloth and Tobirama immediately matches it to the unwieldy clothing of his friend (can they be counted as friends after so few meetings?) wears. He lets his head lull to the side lazily and Wuxian finally comes into view. Wuxian is watching him intently and he meets the familiar silver eyes fearlessly. While the other smiles, Tobirama can see the edges of rage lurking in the corners of his lips, the light of his eyes. Tobirama frowns as he pushes himself into a sitting position, ignoring the way his vision wavers dangerously. There's a darkness around Wuxian that had been missing before, just this side of killing intent. Wuxian looks tired, not quite sickly, and he's not dressed in the royal purples or soft whites that he had worn the first two times they met. He doesn't have his sword either, Tobirama realizes, and while that shouldn't be concerning, it is in a way he can't explain.

"Wuxian," Tobirama greets cautiously. Wuxian's smile is strained, forced.

"Tobi-er." The return is laced with cheer so false it's almost painful.

"...Are you-" Wuxian's eyes flash unnatural red and his mask falls, the other's features turning sharp and angry although Tobirama is sure it isn't really pointed at him. The darkness presses down at him, making him tense.

"Don't," Wuxian says firmly. When Tobirama nods, the mask snaps back into place, fragile and just as easy to see through as it was. "Words?" Wuxian sounds so hesitantly hopeful that Tobirama acquiesces easily. He won't push Wuxian until he's sure the other can take it. They pick up where they left off, methodically working through the basics of their languages. The shared written language, even if Tobirama's language has two more added alphabets, makes it easier than it otherwise would be. Still, by nightfall, they're both antsy. Tobirama needs to return to the Senju Compound and he's sure Wuxian has to return to his own people. His chakra is recovered enough that he's confident in his ability to return at least relatively safely. However, Tobirama hesitates, glancing out the cave entrance into the dark of the night. Wuxian is watching him carefully, almost fragile, in a way, when he turns back. The fragility has disappeared over the length of their conversation, to see it return is jarring.

"Stay the night?" He asks quietly, slowly, so his words come across clearly. Even though his friend hesitates in agreeing, Tobirama can see the relief etched into his bones. More time to rest and more chakra is far from a bad thing, he supposes. They fall asleep slowly that night, both on edge, but they sleep side by side, pressing together for warmth and the pretense of safety. The night is warm and his sleep better than it rightfully should be.

"Tobi-er," Wuxian says quietly, waking him up. Tobirama hums, cracking his eyes open. The fire had gone out at some point, a chill seeping back into the cave. Wuxian is crouched above him, eyes sharp in a way he recognizes intimately. Instantly, he's alert, tense and on edge. He rolls smoothly to his feet and just begins casting his chakra out to sense (why had he been so stupid? To let his guard fall so far in a time of war-) when the entrance to their cave is darkened by a trio of people. Three shinobi- and Uchiha at that. Damn. He shares a glance with Wuxian and, remembering the sword from the other's last visit, makes a plan as he lunges to his feet. He unsheathes his sword and tosses it to Wuxian, also on his feet, drawing a pair of kunai for himself. They don't bother to stay and fight, instead just forcing their way out into the light of early dawn. Tobirama takes to the trees, only pausing when dark energy (so cloying and thick and he remembers this, or something close to it, when stumbling across a kitsune the size of a mountain) nearly makes his slip with its sudden appearance. He glances back to see Wuxian, wreathed in black energy and smoke, sword in hand and Uchiha standing warily across from him.

"Wuxian," he snaps, panic rising. Something is going on here that he does not like, does not want to happen.

"Go," Wuxian says sharply. Tobirama wants to argue, to stay and help, but the darkness surrounding Wuxian surges, consuming the other for the barest moment, making the air heavy and thick in his lungs. The message is loud and clear- Tobirama will leave or Wuxian will force him to. Wuxian tosses a glance over his shoulder as the Uchiha try to recover, darkness still pressing down so heavily on them all. Wuxian's eyes are red and just as dark as the power he wields. A power that is hungry, eager to devour them.

"Zai jian, Tobirama," the man says with a finality that makes him nervous; nervous and scared and unable to argue. Tobirama leaves without looking back.

— — — —

"Zai jian" - goodbye

Part 2 | Part 4

[shadow-bringer-ao3]

Edo Tensei and its Equivalents

2.

The second time Wei Wuxian is summoned, only a little less than four months have passed. Being summoned at all is weird but being summoned twice? In one year, no less? That’s just down right concerning. The summoning itself isn’t painful or anything, just sudden. He was sparring with Jiang Cheng when it happened, this time, and that probably makes his reaction to the sudden displacement worse than it otherwise would have been- he hopes he didn’t worry Jiang Cheng too much. His cute little shidi is always so violent when worried.

The place Wei Wuxian lands in isn’t familiar, at first, so he feels no one can blame him when he land ready for a fight, Suibian out in front of him protectively. The room is littered with scrolls and paper, weapons and armor on a stand in the corner. Below him is a strange talisman that niggles at something in his memories. What really gets him, though, is the young albino kid in front of him, holding a strange kind of knife. The boy exhales sharply and Wei Wuxian jolts, sliding his sword away as he lets himself relax. Why is the boy so familiar? It hits him after a moment, though the idea feels preposterous.

"Tobi-er?" He asks, hesitant and uncertain. You can’t blame him. Even though the last time he saw the boy was just shy of four months ago, Senju Tobirama seems to have aged several years. That, combined with the low light level of the room, is why he had had so much trouble putting a name to the face.

"...Wuxian," Senju Tobirama says quietly. Wei Wuxian’s lips twitch a bit- Senju Tobirama had called him so informally first and even more shamelessly than Wei Wuxian. No one will ever believe him that he’s met someone more shameless than himself (there’s a chance it’s another difference between their homelands, like how Senju Tobirama speaks a different language, but the idea is just so strange). Whatever, it doesn’t really matter anyway. Wei Wuxian groans dramatically and bypasses his little baby friend entirely, flinging himself bodily onto the bed beside them. They’re going to have to piecemeal their languages together if they want to communicate at all. He lets himself sink into the comfort of the bed for a moment, lets himself ignore Senju Tobirama’s unnatural suspicion and battle-readiness, before sitting back up with a sigh. He shifts on his claimed throne to look at Senju Tobirama. Starting with introductions should be easy enough for the boy to grasp.

"My name is Wei Wuxian," he says, pointing at himself. Then he points at Senju Tobirama. "Your name is Tobi-er." He admits to using the nickname specifically to see the boy twitch in irritation.

"My name is Tobirama," Senju Tobirama hisses back. The words are accented but Senju Tobirama did admirably for his first try, not even stumbling. Wei Wuxian grins and claps for the boy. He gets a smoldering glare in answer. Jiang Cheng would get along fabulously with Senju Tobirama; it would be horrifying. Wei Wuxian motions for Senju Tobirama to go, hoping the boy will understand and use his own language so Wei Wuxian can copy the words. When Senju Tobirama just stares blankly, he's disappointed but isn’t terribly surprised.

"My name is..." Wei Wuxian tries again, trailing off pointed, motioning again at Senju Tobirama.

"My name is?" Senju Tobirama repeats, confused, but Wei Wuxian is shaking his head before the boy is even through the words. What could make this easier to understand...? Switching gears, Wei Wuxian pats the bed he’s sitting on.

"Bed," he says slowly and turns an expectant look on his small friend.

"Bed," Senju Tobirama repeats. Wei Wuxian nods, giving a thumbs up. When he’s sure Senju Tobirama is done testing the new word, he points at Senju Tobirama and then at the bed. He could almost cry in relief when he sees the realization dawn on Senju Tobirama.

"Beddo," Senju Tobirama says, pointing at the bed as Wei Wuxian had. He grins victoriously and repeats the word. He points at the talisman on the floor, next.

"Talisman," he says and can’t help from grumbling, "sort of."

"Talisman," Senju Tobirama repeats. Then, "inkan." They continue in this pattern for a while, Wei Wuxian switching from items in the room to harder things like adjectives and what not so he can make actual sentences, even if they are rather simple. Eventually, they have enough to work with that Senju Tobirama can ask, through a mixture of charades and the two languages, what Wei Wuxian had done to teleport himself back home the first time around. He’s a bit ashamed to say that he lets himself get swept up in his excitement, explaining in tangents and swift charades that probably don’t actually help Senju Tobirama at all, going off the numerous uncomprehending looks he receives. Finally, Wei Wuxian gives up with an aggrieved sigh and unhappy pout.

"Food?" He tests. If he’s going to be here for any length of time, he needs sustenance, the spicier the better. Has he learned that word yet? He searches for it for a moment. "...Shokumotsu?" He's... decently sure that’s right, at any rate. Senju Tobirama hesitates, glancing at the door to the room. When red eyes return to him, Wei Wuxian makes his most pitiful face. He can almost see Senju Tobirama crumble.

"Bakkin," Senju Tobirama snaps. The sounds promising, even if Wei Wuxian doesn’t actually know what the boy said. "Koko de machi nasai." Senju Tobirama points warningly at Wei Wuxian and he offers his most innocent look. Senju Tobirama does not look convinced. With only a moment more of hesitation, Senju Tobirama disappears out the door, carefully closing it behind him. Wei Wuxian waits, staring at the door, until he’s sure Senju Tobirama is gone. Bored and inconsolably curious, Wei Wuxian launches to his feet and begins poking around the room. He ignores the papers and scrolls after a short glance finds them largely untranslatable and instead just tries to find things interesting to test.

There’s nothing interesting in Senju Tobirama's desk drawers or anything but there are weapons absolutely everywhere. Not even just in and around the sword stand- there’s one in almost every desk drawer, some laying around on the desk and shelves, even one under the bed’s pillow! Most are some strange knives, like the one Senju Tobirama had had in hand when Wei Wuxian originally arrived, or lightweight, throwable needles. Then there’s the armor, of course, on its stand. All in all, it’s rather concerning. Just what kind of place is he being summoned to? The door slams open and Wei Wuxian jumps, whipping around to brandish a makeshift weapon. Admittedly, he probably should have grabbed the knife instead of the scroll but whatever, he has Suibian if he needs a weapon.

"Tobi!" The intruder cheers, cutting off rather abruptly to stare owlishly at Wei Wuxian. He stares back, just as wide-eyed. The boy, only one or two years younger than Wei Wuxian and with darker skin and hair a shade of brown he’s never seen, drops his gaze to the scroll Wei Wuxian has brandished. Suddenly, he realizes that it probably looks like he’s stealing the damn thing.

"Wait-" Wei Wuxian says, panicking. The boy opens his mouth, taking in a big breath, and a white blur slams into him, bringing the pair of them further into the room. Senju Tobirama is sitting on the boy’s chest, one hand clapped over the boy’s mouth, the other holding a box, and a dark glare in his eyes.

"Anija," Senju Tobirama hisses out through clenched teeth. "Ki ni shinai yō ni itta." The trapped kid splutters out unintelligible words around Senju Tobirama’s hand.

"Um," Wei Wuxian interrupts, blinking when both boys snap around to stare at him. "...Kon'nichiwa?"

"Wuxian, kono baka," Senju Tobirama says. It sounds like an insult. Wei Wuxian makes an appropriately aggrieved face. Absolutely none of this situation is his fault! Senju Tobirama was the one to summon him, that boy was the one to break in without knocking or anything, Wei Wuxian is just going with the flow! Senju Tobirama throws the box in his hand at Wei Wuxian. He manages to catch the unwieldy projectile, blinking at the younger in confusion. Senju Tobirama makes furious motions and words at both Wei Wuxian and the other boy that he takes to mean 'stop trying to kill each other and don't move'. The door is closed and locked. Wei Wuxian exchanges a knowing, horrified glance with the formerly-pinned boy.

He debates how likely it is they're going to get out of this alive. If Senju Tobirama is anything like Jiang Cheng, which he is, they have a -52% chance of survival.

"Kare no namae wa Wei Wuxian," Senju Tobirama says, pointing at Wei Wuxian. He points at the boy on the floor, next. "Your name is Senju Hashirama."

"His," Wei Wuxian corrects. The albino glares at him. If looks could kill, he would have just been frozen, burned alive, and electrified all in one go. When Senju Tobirama is an adult, his glares will be almost as scary as Jiang Cheng's! Senju Tobirama and Senju Hashirama (related- brothers?) have a rapid exchange in their native language. Wei Wuxian, deciding that it's not worth the headache trying (and failing) to follow along will undoubtedly cause, turns his attention to the box in his hands. He opens it, grinning when he realizes it's filled with rolls. He glances up at Senju Tobirama to give his thanks but, finding the boy still deeply embroiled in his conversation, decides to forgo the thanks and just dig in.

Senju Hashirama makes an affronted noise he skillfully ignores.

The rolls are not, unfortunately, spicy. He hadn't really expected them to be but he can hope, right? Maybe he can convince Jiang Yanli to let him make some curry when he gets home. Oh, maybe he can get Jiang Cheng to join them and it could just be, like, a family bonding thing or something! He thinks that would be fun if he can convince both of them that it's a good idea. Which it is! All of Wei Wuxian's ideas are good. Well. Most of them are, anyway.

"Kon'nichiwa," Senju Hashirama chirps, apparently deciding that testing Senju Tobirama's clearly limited patience isn't worth the risk. Then the boy is off babbling in that other language. Wei Wuxian makes agreeable hums around his food, nodding along like he has any clue about what's going on. Senju Tobirama is looking between, exasperation mounting in his expression. He looks a bit like he regrets stopping Senju Hashirama and Wei Wuxian from killing each other.

Oh no, Senju Hashirama is giving him a very expectant look. Did the boy ask a question? Wei Wuxian gives a thumbs up. Senju Tobirama’s eye twitches. Senju Hashirama looks very confused and concerned. Shit.

"I can't actually understand you," Wei Wuxian enlightens, uselessly. Senju Hashirama’s face goes through a lot of emotions very quickly. It almost looks sorta like he’s having a stroke or something. Then Senju Hashirama turns suddenly on Senju Tobirama, attaching to the younger boy like an octopus with a wail. Wei Wuxian snickers at his small friend’s absolutely done expression.

Maybe he should explore while Senju Tobirama deals with his brother? That sounds fun.

Neither brother notices him as he slips out. Senju Tobirama is too busy trying to survive while Senju Hashirama is too busy trying to smother his brother. Wei Wuxian assumes it's loving smothering because he doesn't really want to have to save his friend. He has things to do, you know? Those things being causing chaos, of course. He wonders if he can flirt even if he doesn't know the language of these parts. It'll be interesting to know how strong his flirting skills are.

"Where did your friend go?" Hashirama asks innocently. Tobirama freezes and then whips around to where he had last seen Wuxian. The man is gone because of course he is.

"Oh shit," he says. There's an explosion of chakra. Tobirama exchanges a wide-eyed look with Hashirama. That had been Touka- they could recognize her signature anywhere. They take off, following the sounds of destruction, because what else are they to do?

Of course, neither of them expect to find Wuxian and Touka working together (or at least appearing to) to... cause damage? Tobirama's not sure what their end goal might be. Tobirama screeches when Wuxian swings by and he finds himself unexpectedly taller, perched on the man's shoulders.

"Where'd you find this guy?!" Touka yells. "I love him!" Wuxian devolves into some concerning cackles.

"Tobirama- Touka- What is going on here?!" Tobirama twists on Wuxian's shoulders to find Butsuma next to Hashirama (who is currently struggling not to burst out laughing), looking for the world like he doesn't really want to know what's going on here. To be fair, Tobirama still has no idea what's going on and neither Wuxian nor Touka, both still cackling and backlit by fire, seem like they're going to explain anytime soon.

"Who is that man?!" Ah, that's a significantly easier question to answer.

"Tobirama's friend!" Hashirama chirps at the same time Tobirama says, "I accidentally summoned him."

"...Right," Butsuma says flatly.

Honestly, being scolded by some old guy in a language he can't even understand wasn't in his plans for the day but none of what's been going on was really in his plans so whatever. He's used to it, though, and it's not like any words directed at him, even if he could understand them, could match the sharp sting of Zidian. Clearly, the words are affecting his new friends much more, though. The girl, maybe a bit older than him, with whom he had caused glorious chaos, has the sort of expression that Jiang Cheng always had on the rare occasion that he gained Lan Qiren's ire. The face that means she's only accepting this scolding because she has to, not that she agrees with it. Senju Tobirama is keeping his eyes firmly on the floor but his hands are clenched where they rest on his legs. Senju Hashirama keeps sneaking concerned looks towards Senju Tobirama. None of them seem to be taking the scolding particularly well- it makes him feel angry on their behalf. Suibian thrums at his hip, a silent encouragement. He stands, bringing the old man’s attention abruptly back to himself. The man snaps something and he can’t help but snap back.

"Fuck you," he hisses before turning and scooping Senju Tobirama up to settle on his hip. The boy makes an affronted noise that he ignores, too focused on not letting his spiritual energy bubble over. The old man says something that he resolutely ignores just as he had ignored Senju Tobirama but then the man takes a step forward that he’s not stupid enough to pass over as a threat. His free hand goes immediately to Suibian’s hilt as he glares furiously at the man. No matter who he is, no one gets to treat Wei Wuxian’s friends like that. Senju Tobirama’s hands grab at his arms.

"No," the boy says firmly though his voice tremors slightly. Wei Wuxian's eyes flick to Senju Hashirama and then the girl, taking in their tense posture, the way they clearly don't know what they're supposed to do. Wei Wuxian scoffs, stalking angrily from the room. He can hear an argument start as he leaves but doesn't turn back, tightening his grip protectively on Senju Tobirama. The boy in his arms doesn't say anything, apparently understanding that any attempt to calm him down would be futile, but just watches him with sharp, intelligent eyes.

When Wei Wuxian hunts down Senju Tobirama’s room once more, with some unobtrusive directions from the boy himself, he finds it bereft of the one thing he needs: the seal. All traces of it have been cleaned up, the only thing remaining the faint scent of blood. He drops his small friend on the bed and paces around the area the talisman had been. He doesn’t remember enough of the talisman to completely recreate it and he can’t speak easily enough with Senju Tobirama to have the boy fill in the blanks. Fuck.

It takes them a month and a half.

An entire month and a half for Senju Tobirama to collect what he needs and to repaint the seal, interspersed with times where his young friend fights in what is apparently a whole ass war. Senju Tobirama is not old enough to fight in a war.

He is absolutely done with this universe.

"Ochi," he grouses, the word strange on his tongue. "Watashi iku ochi." That wasn’t quite right, was it? Whatever, Senju Tobirama clearly understands, even if he seems a bit surprised. Honestly, Wei Wuxian isn’t dumb, no matter what Jiang Cheng claims.

"Hai," Senju Tobirama says, sounding agreeable. The boy offers him the ink that smell weirdly like blood. Wei Wuxian takes it, making a face. He turns his attention to the seal. He has forgotten the exact changes he had made the first time around but it shouldn’t be terribly hard to figure out a way to make it work again. He moves steadily around the talisman, Senju Tobirama’s eyes sharp on him, and makes small changes. Reversing a talisman, even such a strange one, is more simple that creating new one. Wei Wuxian shifts the flow of energy in the seal, leading it around to the area he wants it to pool in. He makes adjustments to remove the secondary energy source that isn’t spiritual or resentful but not terribly far from either. He tries not to mess with the main components at all— he doesn’t quite know how the thing works —and so adds a small amendment to the edges to take him home instead of bringing him here. Around that time, something seems to click with Senju Tobirama and the boy takes a step back to see the whole talisman more clearly.

He wonders if Senju Tobirama knows what he’s done, if the boy has figured it out. As the creator, the boy honestly probably knows how Wei Wuxian’s additions have changed the talisman better than Wei Wuxian does. When he’s finished, Wei Wuxian stands, grinning proudly.

"Tobi-er," he calls because Senju Tobirama looks more caught up in whatever the adjusted talisman has revealed to him than Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian tosses the brush at the boy’s forehead with precision that has gotten him through many-a pranks and Senju Tobirama looks up just in time to fumble through a catch, clearly taken off guard. Wei Wuxian snickers and tosses the inkwell. The catch is much smoother this time around and Senju Tobirama gives him a dirty look. Hey, he wants to say, at least he threw the brush first.

"Bye," Wei Wuxian says cheerfully as he drops back down to press his fingertips against the edge of the talisman, spiritual energy rushing to activate it. “Sayōnara!” The repetition is likely unnecessary but he wanted to make sure that Senju Tobirama caught his goodbye. He’s swallowed up by his own spiritual energy a moment later, reappearing right where he had been when he had been summoned. He swears the entire sect is there, only a few actually practicing while most seem to be doing some sort of investigation.

"Um... hi?" He offers to the stares of the people he’s grown up with. Jiang Cheng lunges forward and he prepares for a punch but that leaves him so utterly unprepared when his adopted little brother drags him into a lung-crushing hug. Wei Wuxian’s arms hover out by his sides, unsure of what he should do with them.

"Jiang-"

"Shut up," Jiang Cheng interrupts with a hiss, voice tight. A breath shutters out of Wei Wuxian. Oh, he thinks. He lets his arms loop around his shidi, lets his hands bury into the fabric of his brother’s robes. Oh, he thinks again, finally seeing the concern and relief on the faces of the other disciples, in Jiang Yanli and Jiang Fengmian’s faces.

(In another world, a ten year old child soldier breaths the same word, meridians warm with the spiritual energy that had bubbled over and been left behind. Oh, he thinks and he tightens his hand around the brush and inkwell in his hands, his goal to bring his brothers, killed far, far too young, back no longer seems like a dream out of his reach. He realizes this all and ignores the part of him that craves to summon Wei Wuxian again, to experiment; whatever Wei Wuxian is, whomever he is, he is not something that should be able to exist in a world balanced so carefully between the spiritual and physical.)

— — — —

"Beddo" — bed

"Inkan" — seal

"Shokumotsu" — food

"Bakkin" — fine

"Koko de machi nasai" — stay here

"Anija" — older brother

"Ki ni shinai yō ni itta" — I told you not to bother me

"Kon'nichiwa" — hello

"Wuxian, kono baka" — Wuxian, you idiot

"Kare no namae wa..." — His name is...

"Ochi" — home

"Watashi iku ochi" — I go home

"Hai" — okay

"Sayōnara" — bye

Part 1 | Part 3