Chapter Text
He is weak. In the end he is weak. In the end all his solemn promises of honour and duty and to the safety of his clan mean nothing. The trap is prepared. Hiraishin has been developed. The intention is to either mortally wound Uchiha Izuna so his brother can use the promise of healing to coerce Uchiha Madara into accepting that long longed for peace, or to simply kill the man, to remove him— and the very real threat he poses— from the battlefield for good.
It is a plan he has come up with on his own. A plan he has not even discussed with Hashirama. How can he? His brother seems to misunderstand him more often than not these days. His brother can’t seem to see that he, too, longs for peace. For an end of this. The blood. The killing. Standing opposite the man he— No. He does not want to think of that.
Except he must. He must because that is the reason it all comes to nothing. His plan.
He is ready, he is, even as his heart wavers. He has set himself on this course and he is stubborn. Until the last moment he reminds himself of his stubbornness. The White Demon, set in his ways. Uncompromising. Heartless.
Except he is not.
In the end he is not. He is not heartless. He cannot bring himself to put his blade through the man who has held his heart since they were little more than children. In the end, at the last second, the weakness comes over him and he turns his blade. Lets the flat of it skim across the man’s ribs instead of letting the edge bite deep.
He takes a kunai to his own ribs for his trouble, through the gaps of his armour, blood spilling, lung punctured. There, in that moment, Izuna remains a better shinobi that he. Dark eyes remain fixed on his face. Hate is all he sees with his chakra enhanced, chakra aided, vision.
His red eyes are as weak as the rest of him, no matter how hard he has worked to make his entirety strong.
He survives. He uses Hiraishin to retreat and Hashirama, beloved older brother, must sense something is wrong, as he abandons Madara to rush to his side with a bellow of Tobi! to heal him, to let him live— even though in that moment he is not sure he wants to. In that moment he is drowning in his own shame. Sick with it. Sick at himself.
Later there are questions, what happened, to which he gives no real answer. A moment of inattention, that was all. He cannot tell the truth. Hashirama would not understand— and not just because it seems like his brother forgot how to understand him the day he led their father to the river, to where his brother met with Uchiha Madara. As if the world shifted, and when it righted itself he and Hasirama no longer spoke the same language, but one so similar it took him a long, long time to realise the meaning of the familiar words had changed. For his brother at least— No. Hashirama would not understand, because no one would understand. Not unless he admitted some shameful, disgustingly shameful, truths— and even then.
No. No one would understand.
He had gone to his bed that night sure his weakness had damned him, damned his entire clan to death and destruction, gone to bed in the knowledge that every death from that day onwards could be laid at no other door than his own.
There have been so many deaths. He feels them, all of them, as they happen— no matter whose death they are, Senju, Uchiha, other. The curse of being such a strong sensor. It’s nauseating. Even to this day it sometimes feels like it is him dying. Sometimes it makes him want to scream— but he bites it back, bites all of it back, and goes on. There is no time for him to break. It would be selfish. Inefficient. If he could live through his mother’s death, then the death of Kawarama, then Itama— It would be unfilial, faithless, of him to collapse at the death of some strange Uchiha.
Living is hard. The hardest thing he has ever had to do— but he does it. He makes this sacrifice for the good of the only brother he has left.
He is so weak though.
Sometimes he thinks he would die on the spot if others knew the kind of man he really was. He knows he is not— liked. Mistrusted, at best, for his unnatural nature by most of the clan— Touka a rare, precious, exception— but even then, even with the mistrust, the lingering sense there is something wrong about him, tainted and unholy and cursed, he at least has their respect as a shinobi. He is at least respected for his strength. His appearance of untouchableness gives him a place and a role and duty and some semblance of a life.
He is not untouchable, though. He is not untouched.
The first time—
A mistake. Or perhaps he had something to prove.
When he was old enough, not so many months after Itama’s death, his father had arranged for him to have the honeypot training that all shinobi other than the clan heir were given— for it would be too shameful for Hashirama, the one who would one day lead the Senju, to be known to ever have debased himself in such a way for a man’s pleasure, no matter what ends it was to achieve— Except, of course— It had not gone well.
His father had given his training over to a cousin, Senju Akima, as it would be inappropriate for the man to take on the burden himself, considering their close blood relation— or perhaps it was just that his father would have to touch him, lay hands on him, and Butsuma rarely wished to do so, often not even to punish him. No. His father would often employ other hands, most often cousin Akima’s, when he had misbehaved. As if by touching him Butsuma would absorb a little more of the curse his birth had laid on their family.
He has never liked being touched, aside from by those he is closest to, his mother— before she died— and his brothers— before all but Hashirama died— Touka, sometimes. He is uneasy with strangers. He is uneasy with anyone he has not spent much time with. He is uneasy with what people want from him. He knows he is not doing it right— the amorphous it that encompasses the entirety of existing—he knows he is being a disappointment, disconcerting, unpleasant to be around— though he does not understand what he is doing wrong.
Still. He had wanted to be good. To be useful. To prove his worth as he had only ever been able to prove his worth, as a shinobi. One of the best his clan had ever produced. Talented in every field he put his mind to— bar one.
The conclusion had been that he was unfit for honeypot missions. His looks, his disposition— that no man of normal desires would want such a creature. Unfeeling, stone-faced even when being touched. The most use he could ever be put to was in the seduction of men who liked to hurt, who wanted the challenge of seeing tears rising in his expressionless eyes. There had been some discussion then, but it was ultimately deemed too undignified to let him go on such missions, especially as he may end up clan head if both Hashirama and their father died before a suitable heir could be acquired.
Butsuma was having no luck with his concubines. The few pregnancies that came to term had ended in stillbirths or the baby dying within the fist few weeks of life. Cursed he had heard other Senju whisper, their eyes inevitably falling on his pale form.
In truth he had not wanted to go on honeypot missions, the idea had terrified and disgusted him, especially after cousin Akima’s training, but being told he would never be assigned one and then told it was because he was, by his very nature, completely undesirable, had hurt in a way he could not express or undertand. Not back then. Made worse by the eagerness with which Hashirama had agreed.
He was undesirable.
So, a couple of years later, when it seemed he would have to find a way around the Uchiha set to guard the target of the assassination mission he had been sent on, and one of those Uchiha was Izuna— already with a reputation as a lusty thing, even at just fifteen— some foolish impulse had struck to prove both his father and cousin Akima wrong. He had not lied to himself. He had not tried to convince himself he was desirable— only that he was so talented a shinobi that surely he could find some way to pretend.
Stupid, on reflection. Very, very stupid.
There were so many ways it could have gone wrong.
Not in the least is that Izuna could have rejected him on sight, as all he had done was change his colouring and hide the red markings that had appeared on his body as he hit puberty.
The target had been a wealthy man, a local landowner who had borrowed very, very heavily from some very, very dubious people when he was in financial difficulty, and then refused to pay it back once his finances had reverted to their previous good state. He was to be made an example of. It would have been easy to sneak into the mansion and do the deed— if the man had not hired the Uchiha to guard himself.
He still could have found a way around them, but he had seen Izuna in the town— bored, he’d thought, looking as if he was looking for a distraction but pretending he was patrolling if anyone asked— and for a moment had been struck— even back then the other was very handsome, though in that same sulky way he is now— and the mission as he’d set it for himself had seemed too easy, all of a sudden, without any real risk, had contained in itself nothing to prove himself, unless he—
He had come to the other by the well in the town in the guise of a peasant boy, hair and eyes black, skin a glowing, golden tan— a surprisingly complex transformation jutsu he had developed himself, with the specific intent to make it so sharingan could not see through it. This the first time he would ever test it as he approached and pretended that all he was after was a drink of water. Water that Izuna had seemed all too thrilled to fetch for him, the other watching attentively as he drank— and to this day he cannot quite believe the eagerness with which the Uchiha had taken him up on the offer conveyed with his awkward, blushing flirtation.
Maybe it was just that he had been smaller then. He had not yet had the growth spurts that have shaped him as he is now. No, he was small, delicate almost, his eyes looking almost large in a face with still enough of the plumpness of youth it hid the angular sharpness he has grown into. There may have been enough softness to the look of him back then that Izuna saw something appealing— but then, the man is notoriously unpicky in his lovers. Yes. That must be it. He doubts it was anything particular to him, himself. He was never a pretty child. He knows that. He knew that even before cousin Akima told him so. Told him how ugly and unappealing he was.
At the time he had told himself it didn’t matter. He was a shinobi, he was a weapon, a weapon for their clan, a weapon to stop any more small coffins being lowered into the unforgiving ground. Weapons did not need beauty. Weapons needed functionality. So functional is what he had made himself, stripping away as much that was unnecessary that he could bare to part with— and then a little more. A little more as a reminder.
A few months after that damning meeting when he had been told he was unsuited for honeypot missions all that was purely ornamental was gone from his life, down to the very last inkstone.
Izuna had taken him back to the mansion— which is what he had wanted— but instead of letting him roam around it freely— too much to hope for— the boy had led him to a little room well away from where he could sense the target sitting and drinking sake, served to him by a woman, as another woman played the shamisen, and yet another woman danced for him.
There had been a moment, just a moment, in which he had contemplated attacking Izuna, overpowering him, then sneaking through the mansion to complete his objective— but the boy had kissed him, suddenly, unexpectedly, and something went wrong inside of him.
It had been gentle. It had been so long since someone had touched him gently. He had wanted so much more of it.
More of it he got. All of it he got. His virginity— assailed but ultimately not conquered by cousin Akima once it became clear it would be a waste of the man’s time— taken by the Uchiha with such sweetness, gentleness, tenderness that he is sure it cemented that wrong thing inside of him in place ever after. It bred a weakness he has never been able to overcome.
To be kissed. To be touched. To be able to pretend, just for a moment, that he is loved.
Yes. Weakness.
He had allowed himself to be so caught up in it, so distracted— or perhaps allowed is the wrong word. His senses had become enthralled in Izuna. Totally enthralled. As if the man was the only thing in existence. So enthralled he couldn’t even sense to the corners of the room, let alone to where one of those women serving the target took a kunai and drove it through the man’s neck, then killed the other two and escaped before any Uchiha were any the wiser.
To look into an Uchiha’s eyes— Which he had done as he lay on the futon beneath Izuna. This thing, forbidden, to be feared his entire life— and he had done it. Stared up into eyes as black as jet as they turned red, tomoe spinning, feeling his own helplessness and vulnerability— both in the physical reality of what was happening to him, and in how easy it would be for Izuna to overpower him with the sharingan— and it had been—
He cannot allow himself to be weak. To be vulnerable. He cannot— Sweet though the feeling had been.
Has been, every time he has weakened and chased it after.
They had finished, the act had been completed, but he had not wanted to get out from underneath Izuna, and it seemed the other no more wished to climb off him, so they had been holding each other, kissing occasionally. He had been so caught up in the enormity of what was happening to him that the arrival of another Uchiha, a man, angry, furious at Izuna for abandoning his station to go chase some worthless piece of peasant ass had startled him, made him squeak in surprise and cling to the boy on top of him as if he needed Izuna to protect him. As if he had so forgotten all his training in that moment that he had all but become a normal person, nothing more than a boy, surprised in the arms of his lover.
After a quick, quiet conversation between the two Uchiha that he would not have heard or understood if he was not a sensor and a shinobi, Izuna had helped him to his feet and ushered him out of the mansion with the promise to come and find him later, pressing a final, gentle kiss to his lips as the boy gently lifted the haori marked with Uchiha mon from his shoulders and shrugged it back on. His sound of fear, the way his body had tensed and clung to Izuna, his momentary very real confusion as to what was happening, must have been enough to convince the Uchiha he had nothing to do with the death of the man that hired them.
While the two Uchiha had been talking he had reached out, had checked that what he heard was true, that the man really was dead. It had been a surprise, to find the body. Usually he can’t ignore any death— animal, as well as human— that happens within his range, but when he had been caught up in Izuna— Izuna who had sprung to his feet, naked, and stood between him and the interloping Uchiha. Izuna who had acted to protect him in his moment of weakness—
Of course the boy didn’t know who he was, what it meant— What it meant to him. It meant something. All of it meant something.
The woman, the rival shinobi, who had succeeded where he had been too distracted and failed, had set fire to the town as she fled, using the terror and confusion to conceal her escape from the pursuing Uchiha. He had stayed, even as he knew his father would be angry, stayed to rescue and help those he could without resorting to suiton, or any other technique that would reveal who he was. If he was caught the Uchiha would think he was allied with the mystery nin. If he was caught Izuna would think it had all been a trap. If he was caught it was very likely he would end up like Kawarama and Itama. Like so many of their clan.
In the end, as much done as he could, he had left the town, dismissing his disguise as he did, and gone home— intending to put it all behind himself.
Guilt and shame had gone with him, made worse in the face of his father’s anger, the rod Butsuma had ordered cousin Akima to bring down on his back again and again in punishment for allowing a rival to complete the contract the Senju had taken, the loss of the payment that should have been theirs.
He almost couldn’t feel it, the strikes, the bruises rising, the skin splitting in places. His mind had been elsewhere, part of him still in bed with Izuna, the rest condemning him for how much he wished it was so.
The Uchiha clan had killed his brothers, killed cousins, uncles, generations of Senju. Izuna had killed Senju himself— though the boy had not killed Kawarama or Itama, had lost brothers to Senju child hunting squads just as he had to those sent by the Uchiha.
Still.
Still, it lingered with him.
Still, he found himself fascinated.
He paid more attention to Izuna from that day onwards, watching him on the battlefield, eating up rumours about him, reaching out and sensing for his formidable chakra, hot and bright, burning like white flame.
He both liked and disliked what he found. He liked the boy, but he did not like the way the boy reacted to him.
Izuna seemed to hate him, hate him, shouting taunts across the battlefield, calling him the White Demon, making scathing comments on his looks, his evident lack of a soul, as well as his lack of prowess as a shinobi. It had angered him—
Hurt him.
Yes, hurt was probably a better word. He was hurt by it.
He had done his duty though, met the boy blade to blade, distracted that formidable warrior from turning his blade or his jutsu against the rest of the clan. Each time it had felt like it chipped away a little at his soul, though at first he had not understood why. He had not understood how deeply the other had made it beneath his porcelain cold skin.
He had thought, now that he was touched, that he would find himself wanting it again, from others. He had not felt desire before then, had not really felt it until the moment Izuna had first kissed him, but he had been convinced that whatever this particular strangeness in him was it must have left as his virginity did. It did not, though.
He looked, at other boys, at girls, at full grown men, at women. He looked amongst the Senju, he looked amongst the civilians, he even looked at the Uchiha forces, waiting to feel— something. Some stirring. Some want— and the closest he could find was an acknowledgement in his heart that he likes the way the Uchiha look, he likes the way their chakra feels, that Madara and the one he thinks may be called Hikaku are some of the best-looking men he has ever seen— though neither compare to Izuna. No desire ever came though. He remained cold and untouchable— except when faced with Izuna.
Izuna the exception.
Izuna he still desires. Still loves— and that was the feeling, and he felt stupid for how long it’d taken him to work that out.
Izuna he has gone to, again and again, over the years, always in disguise— his transformation techniques getting more and more advanced, able to change his shape as well as his colouring, even, eventually, to change his sex, so he can go to Izuna in the body of a woman, as he knows the other has no preference for one over the other. He feels no shame in doing it, though he knows he should. That a man should feel shame. It’d taken him an embarrassingly long time to work out that men and women had any biological difference, that gender roles hadn’t been a choice, either made or imposed, and their life shaped from there. Before he had worked it out he had assumed his father had decided he was male, as male children were higher status for some strange reason, and that when his father died he could think about it properly and make his own choice. He has always been odd. The fact that he only wants to go to bed with Izuna is just more of that oddness.
He hadn’t meant to do it ever again. The second time was— It was simply that a few months after the first time he had seen Izuna in a town they were both spending the night in on their way to their disparate missions, and— Temptation had struck. He had given himself light brown hair the second time, black eyes— again— and lighter, but still pleasantly golden, skin. None of his natural corpse-paleness.
Once more Izuna had taken the bait, the sullen misery that had hung around the boy when he first spotted him disappearing under the eagerness to flirt. To take him to bed.
It had been the same as the first time, and the fact it was, that the first time was not a fluke— Well.
To be touched with tenderness. Izuna is always a tender, gentle, considerate lover, no matter what form he comes to him in.
Maybe it was this second time he was truly lost. A bad habit reinforced, him allowing himself bad training. Still. Still— since then, when things— become too much— he has sought Izuna out. Sought some kind of relief in his bed, in his gentleness, his tender touches. Izuna remains unpicky, lusty, eager to take almost anyone willing who walks by to bed, so it has always been easy. Too easy. So easy it has become something like an addiction.
Anything to balm the restlessness growing in him by the year. The ache. The dissatisfaction. The grief that makes it sometimes so easy to imagine following after Kawarama and Itama. He hopes they forgive him his transgression, even though he knows they won’t. He knows that no amount of incense lit in their honour, no amount of apologies whispered between chapped lips on nights he cannot sleep because he has too much to do— always too much to do— will make up for the fact he has chosen to climb into the bed of one of those that killed them again and again— but he is not sure he will see the Pure Lands when he dies, not with what he is, so it is likely he never would have seen them again to face their judgement anyway.
Their judgement for bedding Uchiha Izuna must surely be nothing to their judgement when he cannot even make himself mortally wound the man. Not like that. Not when the danger of Izuna’s death is too great— that was supposed to be the point, but it’s a point he cannot make. A point he does, in the end, shy away from. As if an injury to Izuna would be an injury to himself.
It’s silly. He has never seen even a hint that Izuna has held back, but he has, for all these years— even in the end.
He doesn’t know what to do, that night after he turns his blade, after he has been healed from the wretched, life-threatening injury Izuna gave him in turn. He feels more restless than ever. He lights incense for Kawarama, for Itama, apologies spilling from his lips as it feels shame spills from his every pore— but he finds no stillness there, no peace, so he goes to his lab. He goes over pages and pages of notes, jutsu and seals in development, then plans for the village, for infrastructure, for administration, damning himself for losing the last real chance he thought they had for seeing it all come true.
When Uchiha Tajima had died he had believed, just for a moment, just caught up in Hashirama’s excitement, faith in Madara, that it would be the end, there could be peace— but no real time had passed before that hope had burst and he’d been left scrabbling, desperately formulating a plan, wanting it all to mean something.
He wants peace, desperately, but he does not know if he believes in it, believes it can come to pass—
Which makes it all the stranger when Hashirama appears at his door the next morning, him still awake, still unsettled, and nervously places a letter from Uchiha Madara down on his quickly cleared desk. A letter containing an offer of peace if a mutually satisfactory treaty can be drawn up.
Peace.