Chapter Text
Izuna steps into Madara’s office, closing the panel behind him, before his shoulders slump and he leans back against it, looking haunted and exhausted.
“What’s the damage?” Madara asks, voice raspy from overuse of katon and the cup of shochu he’s drunk into the bargain.
Izuna looks haggard, his hair in disarray, his mantle torn - or cut, Madara doesn’t want to think about that, about his brother being injured - and there’s a spray of something dark across his face. His expression is grim.
“Seventeen dead shinobi,” he says. His voice is also raspy from overusing the clan’s famed jutsu. “Forty in the Healer’s Hall, variety of injuries. Number of dead is likely to rise.”
Madara closes his eyes. “And the rest of it?” he asks.
“Thirty eight dead civilians, nineteen wounded.” Izuna reports, then hesitates. "Mainly women and children," he finally finishes and Madara resists the outraged howl that is stuck in his throat, wanting to be let out.
"Hikaku?" he finally asks and watches as Izuna flinches.
"Hanging on," Izuna says, voice low. “Ayane as well. Eijirou… will probably never fight again, bar a miracle. Chihiro might lose an arm. Daisuke… it’s a gut wound. The medics are just trying to make him comfortable. We’re… the healers told me they’re going to run out of milk of poppy.”
Some of the best fighters in their clan. Godsdamned it. Godsdamned it. Madara growls and turns back towards the document he’s been attempting to work on. He’s hopelessly lost - but not so hopelessly lost he can’t see what’s right in front of him.
“Akiko?” he asks, because while he wants to focus on his injured and dead, he has duties, and if there’s one person who can help him with the mess of seals that are the wards around the compound, it’s his clan’s records keeper and de-facto sealmaster.
“Alive and unharmed,” Izuna says, “but… Murashige’s house was amongst the first hit. There were… no survivors.”
Bile creeps up Madara’s throat at the thought. Baby Haruka had yet to see her first year. Akiko’s son and daughter in law, plus their three children, gone in a night. Rina had been so pleased to have a daughter - she’d asked Madara to name her.
“Who else is good with seals?” he croaks out, trying not to think of the little girl he’d named last spring.
“Aniki, I’m sure…” Izuna starts.
“Do we have someone we’ve worked with? Are any of our sellers capable of more than storage scrolls and explosion tags?”
“We can find someone,” Izuna says. “In due time…”
“We don’t have time,” Madara says, desperately. “I don’t know what they did - I don’t know how they did it - but they broke the seals on the compound, otouto.” He gestures at the scroll he’s never had reason to unseal before, the base for the seal matrix underpinning their security measures.
Their grandfather had paid a disaffected Uzumaki sealmaster a king’s ransom to set them up, and now they’re just… gone.
Izuna’s eyes widen. “What do you mean they broke…”
“I mean,” Madara says, taking a deep breath, trying not to lose his head from panic. “I mean that we’re sitting ducks out here.”
Izuna flinches. “I’ll get Akiko,” he says. “We all have to work despite our losses sometimes.”
Madara tries to calm himself. “Yes,” he says. “Get Akiko. And then… compile a list for me. Sealmasters in Fire Country, regardless of clan affiliation. Anyone we could theoretically get to. In order of competence.”
Izuna hesitates. “You’re not going to like it,” he says, voice low. “But… the top name on that list, both in competence and… I suppose, sheer proximity, even if we’ll have to figure out some way to make him work for us…” he trails off.
“Spit it out,” Madara says, feeling exhausted far beyond his years.
“It’s Senju Tobirama,” Izuna says, before slipping out the door.
+++
Izuna probably gave him the name to warn him - to impress on him just how desperate their situation is, to get Madara to start thinking about other avenues immediately.
Unfortunately for Izuna, Madara doesn’t think he has any other options. Madara has worried about the potential failure of their seals since before he took the headship, since he realized that ever since their last contracted sealmaster died, the seals have received minimal maintenance. He’s made sure that their allies and trade partners know that they’re looking, but sealmasters of any competence are few and far inbetween unless you have a relationship with Uzushio, and the Uchiha don't.
He knows that Akiko can’t fix this. He’s pretty sure if Akiko could fix this, they wouldn’t be in this mess, but Akiko, while she has made excellent use of her Sharingan and her natural talent for mimicry, isn’t a sealmaster in the truest sense.
She arrives in his office a few minutes after Izuna has left, tear-stained and shaking with emotion, but she gasps when he shows her the problem, and does her best to get to work. Madara assigns her a runner - all things considered, he does not want her to return to her cottage up by the northern pasture for any documents or things she might need, seeing as it has a perfect view over to the gathering of houses by the west exit from the compound, where her son lived - as dawn breaks, the horrors of the night become ever more evident, and there is no need for her to face that.
By midmorning, the casualty count has risen steadily, and Madara is on edge. Akiko had confirmed his hunch - their shielding seals need significant repairs, if not replacement, given that the attackers had known how to break past them. In the meantime, Madara is using his abilities as a sensor the best he can, but it is wearying, especially considering that the people in his immediate range are almost all angry and grieving - as they should be, but he’s finding it hard to filter those emotions out, focusing on the outer edges from where they might face a threat.
When Izuna turns up just before lunch, trailing Kiko and Elder Tadanori, Madara is ready to scream.
“No evidence of Senju involvement,” Tadanori says, nodding in gratitude at Kiko as she serves him a cup of tea. “All the enemy dead are Hagoromo or Kaguya, or shinobi of no clan we know - if you wish to see for yourself, we have gathered their bodies up by the northeastern wall.”
“Additionally,” Kiko says, pouring tea for Madara, “intelligence indicates the Senju should be… well, otherwise occupied. Rumor has it a delegation from Uzushio will set out as soon as storm season is over, over there, and that Senju Hashirama intends to wed Princess Uzumaki Mito this spring. We have no evidence of them setting up for a major incursion like this. According to rumor, even the White Demon has spent most of the past few months shuttling back and forth as a courier for the happy couple.”
Madara looks around his kitchen, getting the sense that he’s seeing rather more of Izuna’s spy network than he usually would, but he doesn’t comment. They each have their specialities, and when it comes to undercover stuff, Madara’s speciality falls squarely into the “loud distraction” bracket.
“So this was not a Senju plot to weaken us,” Madara says.
“No,” Izuna says. “It doesn’t look that way. It looks more like the Kaguya and Hagoromo made an alliance and thought that they might take advantage of general Senju distraction and our focus on them to surprise us.”
“They succeeded,” Madara points out, and Izuna breathes out a huff.
“Be that as it may,” he says. “Their plot makes little sense. I can’t figure out what they are hoping to achieve - they’ll never be able to hold our lands.”
Madara hates to burst his brother’s bubble but… open as his senses are, he’s good enough to tell who is in the vicinity of the compound and who isn’t. There is… a rather suspicious absence from the main trading route to the southeast, towards the capital and the Daimyo’s court, given the time of year.
“They might not, alone,” he says. “But if we consider they might have support from the Hyuuga…”
Izuna blanches. That makes their situation even more dire than it would have been, had they been attacked by the Senju.
“The Hyuuga have stayed out of the clan wars,” Kiko says, though she doesn’t sound like she’s protesting, just making the point.
“And it hasn’t worked out well for them,” Madara points out. “Skirmishes on their borders keep chipping away at their lands, and political power in Fire has ended up concentrated on either side of the war - but they’d never ally with the Senju, that’d be anathema to them.”
“Fucking snobs,” Izuna says, but he sounds rattled. “Are you sure, aniki?”
“No,” Madara admits. “But the trade route to the capital is within my range, as is the eastern river road feeding the main road, and there are no Hyuuga chakra signatures on either of those paths. Considering the time of year and their relationship with the Daimyo, it’s…”
“Suspect,” Tadanori says, sighing into his teacup. “And given the state of our seal wards…”
“They were state of the art when grandfather contracted Shuji Uzumaki to create them,” Madara says. “But given that since he passed, we haven’t had a proper sealmaster for maintenance - well, the Hyuuga might have had an easier time of it than we’d all like to believe.”
“There is no indication of Uzumaki involvement, either,” Izuna says, voice mild. “Just in case anyone’s thoughts were going in that direction. We all know I hate the Senju, but I won’t blame them for something they didn’t do.”
“So,” Madara finally says, after a long silence. “What are our options?”
Izuna looks pained. “I compiled your list,” he says, handing it over. “It’s… worse than I expected.”
Madara accepts the scroll and looks over the names. Senju Tobirama is there at the top, just as Izuna had warned him he’d be, and Madara looks at the few names below his.
Their second best option is a Nara, but the Nara are unholy terrors if someone captures one of their own - if ‘unholy terror’ is going to be a feature, he’d much rather go for the Senju, he’s more accomplished.
The third to fifth options are all a variety of independent sealmasters they’ve had some dealings with, one of them another disaffected Uzumaki, though clearly one less able than their original Uzumaki, based on his going rates for general use seals, the other two clearly sealmasters in name only.
“So,” Madara says, putting the list down, looking up. “Our best option is Senju Tobirama, unless one of you has some way to kidnap or convert an actual Uzumaki.”
“There will be an Uzumaki delegation traveling through Fire shortly, if the rumors are to be believed,” Kiko says, voice mild. “But stealing someone out of the retinue of the Uzumaki princess would be tantamount to us declaring war on both the Senju and the Uzumaki, and I am not sure…”
“We wouldn’t survive that,” Izuna says frankly. “Not after this. Honestly, we need to send word to our away teams that if confronted with any Senju, we have to de-escalate - as loath as I am to admit it, a confrontation is the last thing we need.”
“Except we need their White Demon,” Madara points out, sitting down with a heavy sigh, accepting more tea from Kiko. “Think we can borrow him for a while? We can put him back where we found him.”
Izuna barks out a hoarse laugh. “We could try asking nicely,” he says, voice sarcastic.
Madara’s mind flashes back to those sun-drenched days by the Naka, before he knew who Hashirama actually was, back when they’d strategized about peace and everything seemed possible.
Maybe, he thinks. Maybe he could ask. But… no, he can’t do that. He can’t lower himself like that, can’t lower the Uchiha like that. If he asks, Hashirama would be a fool not to humiliate them with his terms, and Madara would rather hold on to the hope they can one day meet on equal terms.
“I need options,” Madara says. “Anything you know about him. Anything I could use to compel him to work on our seals, positive or negative. All I know about him as a person is that he likes children.”
There’s a long silence, before Izuna, sighing, starts talking. Of all the Uchiha, he is the one who would know the White Demon the best - but his knowledge is all battlefield observations, and they all know that while Izuna has complicated feelings about his main rival in the field, ever since eight year old Junji walked up the road to the compound a few months ago, whole and unharmed with his freshly awakened Sharingan still in his head, full of tales of ‘Tobi-sensei’ who had saved him from the bloodline thieves who’d taken him, they’re aware that their information on the man has to be woefully shallow.
They’re several cups into Madara’s sake when Kiko sighs, leaning back on her hands and staring up at the ceiling.
“If only we could somehow bring him into the clan,” she says. “Then he’d be honor bound to help protect us.
Madara sits upright in sudden inspiration, and watches as Izuna, across the table from him, shakes his head in denial but… it’s the closest thing to a plan that they’ve got.
+++
Tobirama is running back from Uzushio to the Senju compound, glad that this is his last trip for the time being. Mito’s entourage is ready to set out in two weeks or so, all he’s bringing back is a few scrolls - some final agreements and the estimated timeline, so his clan can prepare to receive their new matriarch, as well as a few gifts.
He doesn’t mind making these runs; he enjoys Uzushio and he’s learned a lot over the past four years he’s served as the main diplomatic go-between - ever since Butsuma died and tensions eased, while there have been formal delegations in accordance with custom, the easiest way to get things done and decisions made has been to send Tobirama.
There is an unofficial armistice regarding the main roads of Fire, and he’s in Senju territory besides, so he isn’t sensing quite as diligently as he would be if he were in enemy lands, but even then, he ought not to have missed Madara. Madara reads like a miniature sun on his chakra sense most days, and he’s had to actively develop strategies to ignore him when sensing - he’d had no idea the man could mask his chakra to the extent that he’s able to sneak up on Tobirama.
He gets a split second of warning, and it’s not enough - all the signs required for the current iteration of the Hiraishin still take him a couple of seconds, and while he’s a fast runner, this is his second day of travel; he'd run hard yesterday and set out this morning at first light while Madara feels fresh, like he lay in wait for Tobirama on the road.
“Why would he do that?” Tobirama thinks frantically as he takes to the trees, attempting to evade and escape - but Madara is a powerhouse, and while Tobirama is wily and fast, in an all out bout, there’s no competition. He’s proud of the nearly ten minutes he manages to run, but Madara clearly had lain in wait, considering the amount of traps in the woods he’d chased Tobirama into, and Tobirama finds himself on his back with Madara on top of him, tangled in ninja wire and as near to helpless as he’s ever been.
He closes his eyes, wondering what could have happened during his absence from Fire Country to elicit this reaction, why he hadn’t heard anything of it before he set out for his clan compound, hoping that whatever grievance the Uchiha have against him, his death will not be fuel to the fires of war.
He keeps his eyes closed - there is no need for him to see his own death coming, he thinks, and if he’s cowardly in this one thing, he doesn’t think anyone could blame him, considering the way he was raised and that he’s stared death in the face since he was a toddler, given his upbringing.
He’s expecting a blade, or a jutsu. He’s expecting to die, and his main regret is that he won’t get to see his brother marry. He’s expecting pain - but all Madara does is loop a cord around his wrist, on the arm he’s pinned under a knee, and Tobirama feels it tighten, tying him to… Madara’s wrist?
He opens his eyes and stares in naked astonishment at the red rope wound around both their wrists as Madara pulses chakra into it, tying them together in the eyes of the gods.
“Tobirama,” Madara says, and he sounds breathless. “I claim you for myself and for my clan, in the old tradition of matrimonial hunts. Do you yield?”
Tobirama tries to throw him off - who wouldn’t? Madara, however, is stronger than him and is sitting on his ribcage besides - it’s not like Tobirama has leverage.
“Tobirama,” Madara says, leaning over him, and there’s something bleak in his gaze. “Please yield. I can take this further, if I must, but I’d rather not, given that I’m binding us together for life.”
Tobirama lies beneath him, chest heaving in exertion, and no, he does not want Madara to take things any further. His chakra isn’t bound - not yet, he thinks - and it’s a mistake on the other man’s part, but barring a miracle, Tobirama isn’t going to get away.
He’ll take what weapons Madara will afford him, though, mistake or not, so Tobirama scans the other man’s chakra while he still can, before Madara has enough sense to slap a suppression seal on him.
Madara’s chakra is roiling with desperation, grief, and a thread of revulsion, but Tobirama doesn’t think he’s repulsed by him, as such - more by the notion of what he might have to do to bring Tobirama to heel. If he doesn’t yield.
It’s been an unspoken agreement, throughout the war - there have been no marriage hunts called between the Senju and the Uchiha, until now. Tobirama can’t help but wonder what changed.
Tobirama could easily challenge the parameters of this hunt before the gods. It was not properly announced. He was attacked in territory that is implicitly neutral. No one will blame him if he refuses to acknowledge it.
And yet… if he refuses to yield, and Madara goes through with his threat, their union will be much more difficult to dissolve, having been consummated by the old laws, whether or not Tobirama is willing.
A fact Madara has to know. And there is still no sign of a suppression tag.
Politics, Tobirama thinks, exasperated.
He relaxes, and Madara, on top of him, doesn’t quite follow, but he’s a little less tightly wound.
“I yield,” Tobirama says, voice low.
“Formally,” Madara says through gritted teeth, but he moves so he’s straddling Tobirama’s hips,
“Madara,” he grinds out. “I accept your suit and your claim.”
“Thank you. I will accept you into my clan as my husband. On my honor,” Madara says, bringing their tied arms to his heart in a gesture of fealty.
Tobirama chuckles darkly, but doesn’t say anything, nor does he replicate the gesture. He lets Madara pick him up - he’s been hunted and claimed, he’s got no incentive to make things easy for the other man - and relishes in the fact that Madara doesn’t carry him with ease.
His chakra is still not bound, so Tobirama takes a moment to center himself and to sense for disturbances. He focuses west, towards the Senju compound, and is rather surprised to find absolutely nothing amiss. Elder Masayoshi is annoyed, but that’s more or less a permanent state of being for him. Hashirama is exhilarated, though he seems to be training with their shinobi, so that would explain that. The concentration of chakra signatures in the Healer’s Hall is as usual - if not somewhat reduced from when he left, actually, Rina and Daichi must have finally recovered from the pneumonia that had gone around the clan compound all winter. Touka is… running, ah, she’s on the main road outpost this week, Tobirama realizes.
Whatever reason Madara had for hunting him down and marrying him apparently has nothing to do with the Senju.
He resists checking on the Uchiha clan for thirty minutes while they run, but all it gets him is a near burning sense of curiosity, and an increased awareness of just how uncomfortable it is to be carried at shinobi running speed in a fireman’s carry. Madara’s shoulder is digging into his groin in a way that might become abruptly very painful if his grip on Tobirama falters a little.
Tobirama still isn’t inclined to make this easy on him, but he reasons that he might as well check on the Uchiha, if only to take his mind off his discomfort. What he finds has him freezing in shock.
The Uchiha compound feels like a wound in his chakra sense. Not only are there much fewer signatures than there ought to be, the ones there are almost universally in pain - physical or mental, he’s not sure. He finds Izuna, a familiar tinge of electricity in his signature, the sharpness of his grief and anger making the breath catch in Tobirama’s throat.
Something has happened, clearly. Something not involving the Senju - if his own clan had scored such a devastating hit on the Uchiha, the Senju compound would not have felt as placid as it did.
Tobirama can’t help himself, searching out the little spark of the child he’d found in the camp of bloodline thieves earlier this winter, after he’d been contracted by the Yuki to search for missing children from their clan. Junji is alive but terrified, and he’s somewhere with a lot of signatures that are in various stages of pain or… fading. The Healer’s Hall, probably. There’s a lot of young-feeling chakra signatures around there, and Tobirama wonders how many orphans the clan now has.
His clan, effectively.
Madara isn’t with them, Tobirama realizes, the pieces falling into place in his mind. Madara isn’t with them, and the only explanation is that they must have desperately needed something, and so Madara went to get it.
Him.
Why would they need him? Do they just need to make sure the Senju won’t attack while they recover? Sure, sending a ceasefire offer is risky when you’re weak and the offer comes out of the blue, because then the other party might wonder why you don’t want to fight, but Madara must have known that anija would never…
He expands his range out of curiosity. The more information he has the… better…
“Fuck,” he yelps, yanking himself out of his meditative sensory state and slapping Madara’s hip with his free hand. “Fuck, Uchiha, let me down, we’re too slow, let me run, I’ll come with you, just…”
“What,” Madara barks, stopping in a clearing. He’s foregone roads and is making his way directly back, through the forest, but they’re still too far away. “What are you on about?”
Tobirama twists until Madara either has to let him down or tighten his grip, and is relieved when the other man relents and Tobirama is standing again, looking down at their hands, still tied together with the red rope - it’s more a formality, but Tobirama understands why Madara would want to keep it at least until they’ve entered the compound, if not the Clan Head’s house, as is tradition. They have no time, though, and Tobirama isn’t superstitious enough to believe that their marriage will be ill fated if they undo the rope ahead of time for practical reasons. Especially given that it was rather ill-fated from the outset.
He brings his right hand to his heart and makes a fist. “I will accept my place in your clan. On my honor,” he says, the traditional words he should have responded with earlier, but hadn’t because he’d had no reason.
Madara’s eyes widen. “What…”
“We’re about five hours’ run from the compound, correct?” he asks, picking apart the knots of the marriage rope as he talks.
“Yes,” Madara says. “At top speed.”
“Which you can’t maintain while carrying me,” Tobirama replies, the rope finally falling away from Madara’s wrist, Madara looking startled as it does. “I can get us an hour away if you let me do a jutsu. You’re…” he stops himself, takes a deep breath, then continues. “We’re about to get attacked in forty five minutes or so. I sensed a squad moving in.”
Madara looks at him with horror, before he almost unconsciously turns to start running again.
“Madara!” Tobirama barks. “I can get us closer, remember. I promised on my honor to accept - you promised on your honor to accept me - will you let me do a jutsu?”
He’s almost ridiculously glad that he had the forethought to carve a Hiraishin marker into a tree off the main path to the Uchiha compound as Junji slept, their last rest before he’d dropped the child off, the closest to enemy territory he’d felt comfortable stopping.
It’s ironic, he’d thought of it as a strategic advantage for the Senju. Now, it might save a lot of Uchiha lives.
“How does it…” Madara asks, before shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He stares at Tobirama, uncertain, and Tobirama holds out an arm for him to take.
“I’ll see that you burn if you betray us,” Madara says, voice low, but he steps closer and links their arms, leaving Tobirama’s hands free for hand signals.
Madara takes a moment, once they arrive, to gather himself - the Hiraishin is disorienting, especially the first time - before he pulls a wad of fabric out of his pack, tossing it at Tobirama.
“Put that on,” he says. “And keep up.” And then he’s gone.
Tobirama shakes out the fabric, realizing exactly what it is. An Uchiha mantle. Well, he’s an Uchiha now. He’d staked his honor on it. He pulls it over his head and takes off after Madara, running flat out towards the compound.