#i love time's dumb antics and legend's smug face

[iffondrels-library]

Drew another LU comic. My favorite flavor of Time is bastard. Anyone wanna guess what effect the poe has this time around?

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Bonus: the smallest, angriest Wild I could draw.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Eyestealer 11 - ao3 link

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama (mostly gen, hints of other relationships)

Summary: Hashirama really doesn’t approve of the thoughtful way his father looks at his younger brother’s bright red eyes. He’s sure it doesn’t mean anything good for anyone.

He’s right.

——————————————————————————————

“Captured by fake plants,” Hashirama says mournfully, looking with very real dismay at the sickly white vines with chakra suppressing seals drawn all over them wrapped around his wrists and elbows and shoulders and all the way down the rest of his body at approximately equivalent interludes. The underground cavern he fell into (was carried into? hard to tell if it's the same cavern at this point) is lined with the white not-plants, giving it a deceptively bright and open feeling. “Fake plants. Tobirama is never going to let me live this down.”

The black-void-vaguely-humanoid-thing that appears to be his captor suddenly gives a whole-body shiver and the blackness twists, transforming until it’s his own face looking back at him.

It's a pretty good imitation, actually; you can't see anything left over from the black-thing it was before.

“You assume you’re going to live, then?” it asks with Hashirama’s own voice. It sounds amused.

“Of course,” Hashirama says, like the contrary asshole he turns into any time he’s being condescended to. There’s a reason he’s given very strict scripts to recite verbatim anytime he’s in the presence of daimyo, accompanied by many, many threats, and he sometimes even listens and sticks to what he's been told to recite. Sometimes. “You don’t actually think that you can pretend to be me for very long, do you?”

Not-Hashirama smiles a nice big old smile that looks an awful lot like what Hashirama sees in the mirror. “I’ve replicated you down to the bones,” it says. “Every scar, every birthmark – even your chakra. Even your Mokuton.”

“Sure, sure,” Hashirama says dismissively, even though a chill runs up his back at the thought of some weird plant-thing having access to the full, deadly extent of his Mokuton. With any luck, it’s neither as creative nor as powerful as he is. “But what about my winning personality?”

Not-Hashirama continues to smile.

Hashirama smiles back.

They might have stayed at an impasse if there wasn’t a groan from the other corner of the cavern, and honestly Hashirama’s never been great at staring contests anyway so he turns to look.

“Izuna, you’re here too,” he says, puzzled.

“No shit,” Izuna says. He’s trussed up just like Hashirama is, except he looks worse: circles under his eyes, unhealthy tinge to the skin. He’s clearly been here a few days. “Be careful. That thing is tricky.”

The creature laughs, drawing Hashirama’s attention back to him, and then bisects itself down the middle – while still wearing Hashirama’s face, no less – until there are two Hashiramas, just like with Tobirama’s shadow clone technique.

“Mitosis!” Hashirama shouts.

The creature stops smiling and starts looking confused.

“What the fuck, Hashirama,” Izuna says pleasantly.

“Tobirama had a microbiological science phase,” Hashirama explains. “While we were working on improving healing techniques. I know most of what’s happening, but I usually forget what words go with what thing, but I remember that one!”

“How are you this much of an idiot?” Izuna moans. “You’re the Hokage of the village, the God of Shinobi, and you’re just – you’re so unbelievably dumb –”

Actually, Hashirama is just easily distracted, bad at starting things, tends to think of too many things at once, and has no verbal filter whatsoever, none of which have anything to do with how smart he is or isn’t, but since Hashirama does in fact consider himself to be something of an idiot (his brother is Tobirama, obviously he’s outclassed in the mental department) and also it pays to be underestimated in front of something that’s planning on imitating you to your closest family and friends, he just shrugs.

Also –

“I had nothing to do with the God of Shinobi nickname,” he says. “I just want to be clear on that. I don’t even know where it came from. It seems excessive.”

The not-Hashiramas snort, and one of them shivers and turns into a perfect copy of Izuna. “If it makes you feel better,” he drawls in Izuna’s snide tones, “I suspect you’ll have a different nickname after I’m done.”

Ooooh, is this the part where they get to find out the evil plan? Will there be monologuing?

“You’re going to stage a fight between Hashirama and me, resulting in one of our deaths,” Izuna says flatly. “Probably me, which will make Madara succumb to the family curse and go absolutely insane, making him kill you – or rather, kill Hashirama, that is, I assume you’ll sub out for the real thing at the last possible moment to leave the real Hashirama helpless – and that, in turn, will get Tobirama to kill Madara. Something like that?”

Izuna is such a spoilsport sometimes.

The not-Hashirama laughs and the not-Izuna smirks.

“Close,” not-Hashirama says cheerfully. “Your peace came too quickly, and despite my best efforts has not yet faltered, but I will make it fail. It will be just as you say, except Tobirama won’t succeed in killing your brother, of course, not even with that stolen Sharingan of his.”

Hashirama frowns.

“Oh, yes, I know all about that. I’d been wondering how you’d managed to make peace so quickly, even over my best efforts, but this…this is better than I could have hoped! A Sharingan among the Senju – that fits perfectly into my plans. All that’ll do is make him more susceptible to the Uchiha curse as well: a perfect tool. Two sides, both consumed with hatred…!”

Yeah, that sounds pretty bad.

“This will restart the war even better than before,” not-Hashirama says with a pretty good approximation of Hashirama’s own glee, except he’s never actually seen his face screwed up in evil laughter quite like that before. “And once I produce Izuna – his body, at least – to prove that it was all a set-up, all the clans of Konoha will unite against the Uchiha, forcing your brother to turn to…let’s say…drastic measures.”

The not-Izuna taps the corner of his left eye, smirking in a way that means nothing to Hashirama but judging by Izuna’s horrified expression means something to him, then adds, “Also, who says we’re going to kill you? Possession is much more effective – and we might need a replenishing source of Hashirama’s DNA if his brother proves insufficient.”

Hashirama really hopes they mean his blood or flesh, not, uh, other replenishing sources because, well, ew.

“You won’t get away with this,” Izuna says flatly.

“Why not?” not-Hashirama asks. “I have before. More times than you can imagine. I’ve infiltrated both clans time and time again, taking on multiple identities, lying in wait until the time is right –”

“Wait,” Hashirama says, unable to resist. “Are you saying – are you really saying –”

The not-Hashirama and not-Izuna smirk at him, smug and condescending and triumphant.

“- that you’re a plant?”

The way their faces fall is hilarious.

Izuna looks like he’s seriously considering bashing his head against a cavern wall right now.

In Hashirama’s defense, as a self-respecting Mokuton user, he had no choice but to go for the pun. There’s a saying, after all, about low-hanging fruit…

Heh.

The not-them recover quickly, though, glaring at Hashirama, and then head out, presumably to set up the utter destruction of everything Hashirama holds dear.

“So,” Hashirama says, a while after when he’s fairly sure they’re alone. “Is that eye-tapping thing some sort of implicit threat or something? I don’t know Uchiha sign language.”

“What? No, that – it’s not sign language. It’s a reference. To the stone tablet, the part about the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”

“The what now?”

Izuna slams his head backwards against the wall of the cave.

“Hey, I didn’t get to see your super special tablet! Your elders said I wasn’t allowed!”

“It’s not a…you wouldn’t have even be able to see…ugh. Never mind. It’s a bullshit legend anyway and Madara would never.”

Hashirama arches his eyebrows.

“…Madara would probably not.”

Hashirama waits. He loves Madara, he really does, but…

“Oh shit we really need to get out of here,” Izuna says with a groan.

“I’m open to suggestions on how,” Hashirama says dryly. “Ideally before we get embarrassingly rescued by my baby brother.”

“I’ve been here for three days and nobody noticed that I wasn’t the one who ‘left’,” Izuna says flatly. He sounds a little hurt by that. “What makes you think anyone will notice when he goes back as you?”

“To start with, leaving a note on Madara’s desk that says ‘gone on mission for interesting stuff don’t wait up’ is a lot more characteristic of you than me –”

“I think I actually did write that note,” Izuna groans. “Did he actually just re-use one of my old notes? This is terrible. I'm so ashamed.”

“– and anyway half the village reported someone sneaking out fairly ostentatiously, and there was obviously no henge involved, so we just assumed it was you. Clearly that’s a mistake and we’ll need to set up more official check-in and check-outs to avoid particularly sneaky infiltrators.”

“Oh, if we get back, I have plans,” Izuna says with all the savagery of a very offended head of village security that has identified a giant gap in his defenses. “But again, that still assumes we get back at all. Why do you think Tobirama will notice?”

“Because that thingamajig –”

“It calls itself Zetsu. Please use that. Have some dignity.”

“You Uchiha care too much about dignity,” Hashirama complains. “Who even cares?”

“Me,” Izuna says. “I care.”

(His lips are twitching, though. Uchiha love to look down their noses at ridiculous people, but they also tremendously enjoy watching their antics. And anyway, Izuna’s been stuck here for three days; he deserves to have a smile put on his face.)

“Fine, fine. Because Zetsu’s imitation of me is all wrong.”

Izuna arches his eyebrows. “It seemed pretty good to me. What was wrong with it?”

“He was happy.”

Izuna blinks. “…and?”

“I’m also happy,” Hashirama explains. “But it takes effort. There’s a difference. Tobirama’s a sensor; he’ll notice.”

That’s not quite the truth, or at least not all of it. Tobirama is indeed an amazing sensor and Hashirama hopes he’d notice just on that basis – he always notices when Hashirama’s doubling down on smiling, so it makes sense he’d notice it when it's an imposter – but regardless he has a trump card. Hashirama always briefly merges his chakra with Tobirama’s every time they’re in the same room together – an old holdover habit from when Tobirama was young and sickly and Hashirama was always trying to sneak him extra with nobody noticing.

Zetsu won’t know to do that, and if he does, it probably won’t have the same effect or feeling.

“And if he does notice, then what’s to stop Zetsu from coming back here and just murdering us both outright?” Izuna says.

“Mmm. An excellent point. We should definitely try to escape first.”

Izuna sighs. “Well, master of the Moktuon, can you do something about these vines?”

“They’re not real vines,” Hashirama says. “They’re fake plants. Plants would be ashamed to be associated with something like this. This is worse than a lawn, and I don’t say that lightly.”

Izuna gives him a strange look. “I thought Madara was joking when he said you had a thing about lawns. Apparently not.”

Hashirama decides to ignore him – clearly, no Uchiha will ever understand his pain in this matter – and tries reaching mentally for the forest.

For a few minutes there’s a lot of nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing –

“Wait, I think I’m feeling something,” he says.

Izuna sits up straight. “You are? What?”

“I don’t – I'm not sure. It doesn’t feel like plants – it feels more like –” He frowns. “Lightning?”

The entire cavern is lit up by a bright flash – not unlike the hiraishin, for that matter – and then something heavy lands on Hashirama.

It lands fairly badly.

“Owwwwww,” Hashirama moans, trying to curl up into a ball. At least he won’t have to worry about Zetsu getting his genetic material out that way, at least not until the bruises heal….

The source of the weight, a tall man with tricolored hair – black and white growing out of his skull, and plaits of bright red woven into them as they form a series of intricate braids – blinks down at him and frowns. “You’re not Tobirama.”

“No, he’s my brother. Who’re you?”

“Your – wait. Hashirama? You got tall! I mean, really tall; I thought Tobirama was joking!”

Hashirama blinks. While it’s true he was rather embarrassingly short for a while there in his childhood – Tobirama was nearly the same height as him for a while despite being three years younger – his teenage years had paid that back with interest. But only someone who knew him as a child would know to say that, and Hashirama doesn’t know anyone with black-white-red hair and braids; those are pretty distinctive, he’s sure he’d remember that.

In fact, the only person he knows who ever had both black and white hair was –

Wait.

No.

“Itama?!”

“Hold up,” Izuna says. “Senju Itama? I thought you said all your other brothers were dead – wait, no, don’t tell me Tobirama’s perfected that stupid bring-back-the-dead jutsu Madara has nightmares about –”

“It’s called Edo Tensei,” Itama says. “And it’s not stupid, just – probably unwise.”

Izuna makes a face. “Whatever. Just…tell me you’re not dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Itama says obediently.

“I said all my other brothers were gone,” Hashirama corrects. He feels slightly smug about being right that his baby brother would rescue them, though he concedes he was thinking of a different one. “Not dead. And officially it’s Uzumaki Itama now, not Senju…wait. Itama, aren’t you supposed to be in Uzushio right now? I’m pretty sure there’s another few years left on that fostering contract of yours before you’re allowed to come home.”

“Yeah, well, I saved Uzushio from being eaten by a giant whale – long story, don’t ask –”

“I’m asking,” Hashirama says immediately, fascinated. He wants to see a giant whale. That sounds awesome.

 “– and anyway to cut to the chase I got permission to go out wherever I wanted,” Itama concludes, ignoring him. Why do Hashirama’s brothers always ignore him? So not fair. “So obviously the first thing I did was come to see Tobirama.” He frowns. “And got you instead. Are you wearing his clothing?”

Hashirama wiggles around to look at his back. That shade of dark blue suggested it probably wasn’t his. “…apparently so? I wasn’t paying attention to what I pulled out of the closet this morning.”

“Are you two still sharing a closet?” Itama says, exasperated. “You’re adults! What will you do when one of you gets married?”

“Get a bigger closet and try to avoid grabbing any kimonos?”

“Not to interrupt this beautiful sibling bonding moment and, might I say, truly wonderful opportunity for future blackmail,” Izuna says, his voice dry as dust, “but maybe you could get us out of these vines and then out of this cave before Zetsu destroys the entire village we’ve been working so hard on? Any time now?”