Chapter Text
Two hours past midnight, the sky begins to cry. Its tears flutter over leaves in a light mist. When the earth is damp, the mist condenses into heavy streams, pouring from full clouds. Energy rises and light cuts through the hushed blanket of night. The night sings its prayers in low rumbles. Deep inside the heart of the noble Uchiha House, a young black-haired boy sleeps in his futon with a belly full of rainbow dango, oblivious to the great sorrow of the world outside.
The boy stirs at the feeling of wetness on his cheek, but in his drowsiness decides to ignore it. Just as he is lulled back to the edge of slumber, a drop of wetness lands on his forehead and slips down to his temple. Above him, he hears a soft hiccup. He lifts heavy eyelids to find his mother crouched above him, weeping in the darkness.
“Kaasan?” he murmurs, sitting up. In moments, his bloodline-enhanced eyes adjust to the darkness, and his acute eyesight makes out the wet splashes of crimson in his mother’s white festival kimono, red bleeding into carefully sewn tendrils of the Uchiha fire. As a boy born into war, the sight of blood is nothing new. In the distance, he makes out sounds of battle from the patter of rain against the roof. He knows that these sounds are too close to be a faraway battle—the clan is under attack.
Uchiha Mikoto smiles through the tears falling down her cheeks. She presses the bundle she had been holding against her chest into the arms of her eldest son, and tells him with a breaking voice, “The Senju are here. Take Sasuke, and run. Take care of him.”
The boy looks into his mother’s pleading eyes and understands that this is the last time he will see her. He nods, taking his baby brother’s life into his arms. His mother holds him close and presses a kiss into his hair. “Itachi, I love you. Know that, and find it in yourself to forgive me one day. I couldn’t protect you two, but I need you to protect Sasuke. You must go. Be strong.”
The sounds of war drift closer with each passing breath. Mikoto rises to her feet and pushes her son out of the room. She pushes him out the back door of their home, and watches as her five-year-old boy sprints away from her.
Itachi runs with his baby brother pressed to his heart, each bare foot leaving small imprints in the mud, each breath racking through his chest. Far behind him, his family members continue to fall, one by one, until a snow-haired Senju general calls for the raid to end. The Senju part from Uchiha territory, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints quickly washed away in the rain.
Itachi is fast, but it takes two of his strides to match one of a grown man’s. He enters the forest that separates the two clan territories long before the Senju do, but he is barely halfway through the dense woods when the pounding footsteps begin to close in. He can sense that they are slightly to his left; if he is careful, he can let them outrun him without detection. But the rain makes the ground slick, and as a flash of light breaks the sky, his small foot slips on a loose root.
The night releases a low rumble.
In his descent, he twists to the side, landing on his back with a grunt and a dull thud. The thunder fades out, leaving behind only the soft patter of rain. His baby brother, startled by the sudden jerk, lets out a single cry. Itachi holds him close to his chest, but he can hear sharp words being exchanged by the group of men. He catches the sound of two men racing through the undergrowth in his direction.
He scrambles up, slipping a few times in his haste. Adrenaline races through him as he bolts through the woods, his heart pounding against his brother’s cheek. His strides are too small. He finds a large bush and dives underneath it. Inside, he breathes once, twice, then kisses his baby brother’s forehead and places him on the damp ground. He tucks him firmly into his bundled blanket. “I’ll come back for you, Sasuke. I promise.”
Itachi climbs out from the thick bush and sees his footprints in the mud. He looks back one last time before taking off in the opposite direction. He can hear the men running to Sasuke, and he lets out a yell. They pursue him. He runs, and does not return.
On the other side of the forest, tucked in the warmth of the Uzumaki House of Senju, lies a laboring mother. Uzumaki Kushina of Senju takes another unsteady breath, gripping her husband’s hands until she cuts off his circulation. She heaves, her fiery hair plastered against a forehead beaded with sweat. Pain grips her to the bone, but all she can do is push, push, push. She breathes and pushes until she hears the sweet screech of her firstborn child.
“A boy,” says Senju Tsunade. She catches the slippery baby and wraps the newborn in a blanket. Bright flowers of blood sprinkle the cloth as she clips the umbilical cord.
Kushina smiles through her tears and exhaustion as she holds her firstborn. She glances at his tuft of golden hair and says to her husband, “He’s blonde!”
Namikaze Minato chuckles softly as he stretches out his sore hand. “Seems like he is.”
“I was hoping he’d have Uzumaki’s red hair,” says Kushina. She laughs. “But it’s okay, he’s perfect.”
Minato chuckles and presses a soft kiss to his wife’s head. “He is.”
In that moment, the leader of the Senju bursts through the doors in a bubble of excitement. Kushina hands the infant to her excited father, who smiles down at his new grandson. He takes a minute to admire the blue-eyed boy, overflowing with compliments, before turning to Minato, “I understand that naming traditions are beginning to change, but I would still like to give this child the name of the prevailing clan in the marriage.”
The new father nods respectfully at the commander. As the yoshi, he had taken on the Senju last name when he wed Kushina. “I have no objections.”
Kushina kisses her husband on the cheek before turning to her father, and says, “The first name remains as we have chosen.”
The commander nods happily and nips his right thumb, breaking skin. He presses it again the child’s forehead. “I, Senju Hashirama, hereby welcome Uzumaki Naruto of Senju to the world as an honorable member of the Senju clan.”
As if in giddy agreement, newly named Uzumaki Naruto of Senju gurgles at his grandfather, who responds with a hearty laugh.
Deep in the dense forest, a young Uchiha Sasuke sleeps, unaware of his family’s fate and the sky’s sorrow. Curled around him is a cerulean spirit taking the shape of a two-tailed feline. The forest spirit shields the infant from the falling rain, leaving him dry and warm.
Matatabi, what are you doing?
The feline lifts her head to find her curious friend peering at the sleeping child.
It’s a baby, she says, delighted. I found him.
It’s a human. Get rid of it.
Oh, Kurama. He’s harmless. Look. Matatabi shifts away so that the great fox spirit can peer closer at the baby boy. His nine tails sway from side to side with his irritation and curiosity.
You know what humans do to us.
He’s only an infant. We can raise him to be different. The feline looks upon the child affectionately. In that moment, Gyūki, the eight-tailed bull spirit, joins them. He gently prods the baby’s cheek with a tentacle tail, and laughs when Sasuke scrunches up his face.
It’ll be fun, he says. I’ve been rather bored lately.
Kurama huffs, but does not protest. He will never admit this, but deep inside, he finds a small twinkle of excitement. He sees a small silk ribbon peeking out of the boy’s blanket, and tugs it out. Bringing it up to his face, he inspects the embroidering. A part of it had been snipped clean off—perhaps intentionally—but he can read the remaining letters. Sasuke.
The scarlet fox raises his head as the storm begins to lift at the crack of dawn.
At the entrance of the Senju Compound, snow-haired Senju Tobirama kneels before his clan leader. Dampness seeps into his uniform as his left knee digs into the wet dirt. Behind him, his loyal unit mimics his position, heads low. Hashirama stands at the doorway of his home in his white yukata, dark hair billowing in the breeze. His mouth is set into a deep frown as his stern gaze takes in the men before him. Fourteen men. His brother returned six short.
He shouldn’t have been returning from anything at all.
“Senju Tobirama,” he says. His brother rises and the two walk into the Commandant Room. He orders the guards out with a wave of his hand and slides the shōji door shut behind him. “It has come to my understanding that you have disobeyed my orders and led a direct attack on the Uchiha. In return, we have lost six men.”
“It was a prime opportunity,” explains Tobirama. “The Uchiha had just celebrated the Fire Festival—sake was abundant. Defense was not.”
“You lost six perfectly healthy Senju.”
Tobirama nods, closing his eyes. “We will pay our deepest respects. However, we were able to take out Uchiha Fugaku and Izuna. Without his son and brother, Madara is short two Head Generals. We took out a third of the clan; the Uchiha are weakened.”
“It was the night of their Fire Festival.” Hashirama’s brows come together as he realizes what this must mean. “Tobirama, how could you have been able to tell warrior from civilian?”
The silence answers his question louder than spoken words. The clan may have left sentinels on the outskirts of the compound, but everyone else would have been in festival kimonos. Aside from the recognizable faces of Uchiha Madara and his Head Generals, both warriors and civilians would have looked the same.
“Anija, you have to recognize that what I did has benefitted the Senju.”
Hashirama considers this, but he cannot accept it. “We, Senju, have much more respect for tradition than that. We must not lose ourselves to battle.”
The man’s red eyes shine as he scoffs, “There is no room for respect in a time of war.”
“We must draw lines, or we become nothing.”
Hashirama may have lived during a time without war, but his brother was born and raised by it. They are only seven years apart, but those seven years meant that Hashirama was taught to paint mountains by pressing a wet brush against a blank canvas while his younger brother was taught to defend those very mountains by sinking his katana into the heart of an Uchiha. When Senju Itama and Senju Kawarama had their breaths stolen by Uchiha blades, Tobirama had disappeared. Two days later, he had returned soaked in blood—none of it his own—and said only three words, “For my brothers.”
Tobirama arches an eyebrow at his brother’s burdened expression. He opens his mouth to question it, but Hashirama interrupts, “I am relieving you of your position.”
Tobirama is not surprised. When he charged his men into Uchiha territory, when he slit the throats of Uchiha Izuna and Uchiha Fugaku, he knew that his intentions of bringing victory for the Senju would bring consequences from his clan’s kind leader.
“My dear otouto, you are a great man,” Hashirama says softly, placing a gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder. “But you must also learn what it takes to be a good one.”