Chapter Text
A large part of Tobirama wasn't sure how he'd ended up in this situation. He did, of course, know logically what had happened. But even knowing the series of events that led up to him carrying an Uchiha child through the woods didn’t erase the fact that he felt rather out of his comfort zone doing so.
The bandits the Senju clan had been hired to dispatch just so happened to be either bloodline thieves or slavers. Likely both. Regardless, there were a half dozen iron cages belted into wagons when he approached the camp. Twenty people distributed amongst them. It could certainly be said that Tobirama was not fond of slavers or bloodline thieves. He in fact like most shinobi despised them. Being a sensor and feeling what the victims went through turned it from a professional dislike to something personal.
Needless to say, when he descended on the camp he did not leave any of them alive.
He freed the majority of the captives, all civilians, leaving them to take care of themselves and scatter with grateful nods and tears. After assuring that they knew the way to the nearest village of course.
But one cage, much smaller and covered in chakra dampening seals, was a different story. Tobirama had opened the cage and a small head of dark hair was curled up in the corner.
The rest of the captives had been adults. One had a spark of chakra that may have been potential but untrained. The rest had the low levels associated with non-shinobi.
The boy inside that cage - and the chakra dampening seals had been warning, though cheaply and poorly made as they were they were certainly there in enough quantity to do a great deal - had the spark of chakra that was beginning to be nurtured. Judging by his age (he could be no more than six, maybe seven) Tobirama could assume he was a shinobi clan child just beginning to be taught his clan’s jutsu.
(Even when young children were sent to war, chakra systems themselves didn't begin to produce enough chakra for jutsu until they were five to ten years old, with the occasional exception. It was why Tobirama wanted children off the battlefield. To not be sent to die without even the tools to protect themselves.)
Despite knowing he was a shinobi child Tobirama still hadn't been quite expecting to turn the boy around by the shoulder - gently, gently - and see Uchiha onyx eyes staring back at him. The boy had hiccuped, eyes flashing red with a hint of Sharingan, and then burst into tears.
Getting him out of the cage had been surprisingly easy. Tobirama had merely held a hand out and the boy barreled his way out of the iron bars and into Tobirama's leg.
A short (and careful) interrogation revealed the boy to be Uchiha Kagami. He'd been taken when his aunt was out herb gathering and they'd been ambushed. Kagami didn't know if his aunt was alive.
Tobirama could not in good conscience leave a revealed-to-be five year old to wander the wilds until rescue came. He also did not want to leave a shinobi child amongst the few civilians who lingered, stealing supplies from the dead slavers.
His conscience was helped by the line of thought in the back of his head that pointed out that if the Uchiha found out a child of theirs had been taken by bandits, a Senju had killed the bandits, and then the child did not make it home? There would be consequences to pay. Hashirama and Madara had put much effort into stopping child hunting. Bringing harm to an Uchiha child - even by lack of action rather than doing the deed himself - could be a major threat to the uneasy, unofficial ceasefire that their clans had wormed their way into over the years of younger leadership.
So, his firm moral judgement backed up by politically supported logic, Tobirama had offered to take Kagami home. Kagami accepted, snottily, even though he seemed to know just who his rescuer was. Calling him ‘Demon-san’ was a large clue. Perhaps he was simply that desperate. Or maybe it was a child’s hampered logic that made him trust in Tobirama despite their clans being (nominally) at war.
So now Tobirama was here, traveling through the land of Fire with a five year old clinging to his back as he jumped through the trees.
Kagami was a quiet child. How much of it was his personality and how much was the trauma of being kidnapped Tobirama could not say. He clung to Tobirama's back with little complaint, shivering every now and then. His chakra trembled constantly in what Tobirama recognized as shock. It was distracting him, making him feel nauseous from the constant tremble against his chakra as he jumped. He didn't want to stop to reassure the boy yet. He would prefer they only stop for the night once well out of range of the bandit camp.
To his surprise, the chakra against his back eventually calmed and slumped against his own in a way most couldn't. Pressed up against him purposefully, seeking comfort, intentionally restraining its tremble from before. Because Kagami took notice that his trembling had been bothering him.
Kagami was a sensor as well, it seemed. No wonder his chakra seemed to be a bit of an early bloomer.
Tobirama had met other sensors. None as powerful as himself, or with his range, but he'd met others before. All of them kept themselves fairly ‘tucked in’ and restrained as a matter of course. Out of politeness. It was difficult to exist as a sensor with your senses actively expanded without feeling like you were horribly intruding on everyone's privacy. Tobirama, as powerful as he was, couldn't quite do that. His chakra sense did not stay within such small confines. They simply could not.
It had earned him sympathetic winces from the other sensors as they realized his predicament. Tobirama, whether he intended to or not, was constantly open to the world. He coped by finding a few chakra signatures - his brother, his cousin, his brother's shiny new wife - and latching onto them. It made it easier to tune out the rest if he was constantly paying attention to specific signatures over the masses. (He asked, first, and Hashirama often would ask for moments alone or of privacy, though Touka did not and refused to even during her… intimate relations. Tobirama sighed and tactfully turned his attention far away from her during such moments.)
Kagami was nothing like the other sensors he'd met before. Perhaps because he was so young and completely untrained. His chakra had yet to be sculpted and molded into proper techniques. His sensing was more akin to wild flailing and instinctual motion. His range was abysmal, only a few feet in any direction because he’d never even tried to stretch it before.
He met Tobirama's chakra with his own and they spoke. Pressed against each other, Tobirama's much, much bigger pool of chakra enveloped Kagami's. But Kagami informed him it wasn't frightening like many sensors claimed- instead his chakra melted with relief and sadness. He had been scared and alone and his sensing had been cut off for the first time he could remember - his chakra must have come in very early, perhaps nearly as early as Tobirama's prodigious and traumatizing two - and Kagami had been unintentionally tortured by the complete isolation. His growing mind had in fact grown up with his sensor abilities wide open and he had not been overwhelmed with it due to the shorter range; he'd embraced it and never known it any different.
The chakra seals over the cage had blinded and deafened him in a way Kagami had never been. Tobirama's chakra, cool and overwhelming, was the perfect balm to Kagami's frayed nerves.
This was all conveyed not with words, but with the constant press of chakra against each other. No thoughts, but two sensors of such talent and nature could apparently convey quite a lot by fluctuations of emotion and chakra alone. Tobirama couldn't help but feel curious about how Kagami's sensing would change and grow as he aged. It was unfortunate they would not be able to interact and experiment once the boy was returned home.
Eventually Kagami grew tired, drowsy with the drop of adrenaline and hormones from crying. Tobirama assured him he would be safe and slowed down a bit to even his pace so the boy could get some rest.
He did not expect the very slight press of a wire under his foot and the following explosive that went off next to his head.
Typically explosives used by shinobi were explosive seals charged with chakra. As a sensor Tobirama did not fall for them. He could always sense the slight - very slight - presence of the chakra pressed to them and summarily avoid them.
The shinobi working in concert with the bandits - Tobirama absently put together as he fell from the trees - must be rather old fashioned, to stick to devices and powders that worked without a trace of chakra.
He swung Kagami off his back and curled around the suddenly woken boy to protect him, tiny body fragile against his chest.
Tobirama hit the ground. Hard. He'd been about twenty feet above the ground when the explosive had gone off. Still moving with forward momentum from his run, he kept going forward as he fell and clipped a tree with his right shoulder.
He couldn't stop the grunt that was forced from him. Which meant by the time he hit the ground he didn't have any air to lose, landing on his back against foliage and stunned completely breathless.
The air wouldn't come. He laid there motionless, chest frozen, body in shock. The pain had hit from the moment the explosive had gone off, but Tobirama's mind had numbed it with the surprise. Instinct screamed to run and move but an explosive had gone off next to his head and he couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything, was frozen with the shock of pain in his head and neck followed by the shoulder hitting a tree and then landing on his back.
Frantic chakra, pressing against him, hands to his chest.
He gasped for breath. The pain exploded in his head most of all, vision blooming with light flashes and ears thundering with no sound but his own heartbeat. Tobirama was certain he let out a pained groan, wheezed from between his lips. But he couldn't hear it. He tested it- tried to ask Kagami if he was okay. His throat hummed but he couldn't hear anything beyond a muffled thumping. His own heartbeat.
Kagami's burningcoals chakra was damped and sharp, teary and worried, panicked. Tobirama did his best to focus past the pain and soothe his chakra over him. The boy didn't seem too hurt. A bit sore, but not severely injured beyond bumps and bruises. Just scared. He would need a proper inspection to know for sure.
Carefully he rolled over onto his left side, unable to stop the grunts of pain. His back screamed at him with bruising and what might be a rock jammed through the plates of his armor and his right shoulder was most definitely either cracked, bruised, dislocated, or a mixture.
He was lucky he'd landed in a mess of shrubs and bushes. His landing would have been much worse on hard dirt.
Kagami protested him staggering to his feet. Tobirama pressed on him the urgency of moving now. If the bandits - none of which had been shinobi and none of which had explosives - were working with shinobi that hadn't been present when he attacked their base, they could be on their tail. And now Tobirama was injured, blind, deaf, and very much so slowed down by it.
Kagami worried, fretting, but accepted his position being carried in Tobirama's arms as he began to stagger along. Chakra sensing came in handy once more. Being able to sense the shadows of chakra from trees and plants - albeit very weakly, the Senju's mokuton had still manifested in him within his sensing - meant that Tobirama wasn't tripping over every tree root and bush in his path.
He checked their surroundings, Kagami's chakra alongside his own and observing faithfully. He showed the boy how to stretch and perceive more. Kagami came to a limit fairly quickly but Tobirama merely patted him and focused on their surroundings.
He couldn't sense anyone else for the next five miles in all directions. A trap, then, left by someone familiar with shinobi passing through the trees. Tobirama still did not want to be anywhere nearby when the owner came back to check on their surprise.
Staggering through the trees it was. He lasted about an hour before the pain became too much and he had to rest.
Rest in this case meaning: he fell to his knees and the jolt of his body jarring against the earth made him black out in pain for a moment.
Tobirama set Kagami down, trying to speak.
We need a camp. He said, voice hopefully quiet but still above a whisper. He was rather guessing what his volume was. Hidden. Safe. He pressed his left hand up to Kagami's head, pressed against the boy’s cheek. His head was so small against his palm- he could cup the entire side of his curled head. Do you know how to set up a camp?
Kagami nodded, very slowly, and his chakra was reserved but cautiously hopeful. Good. He had basic survival training.
I can't see or hear. Tobirama could not have said whether his voice trembled or not. I will need your help. Can you find us a safe place to camp? No fires. They could not risk it.
Kagami nodded again with a growing determination.
Tobirama tried to stand. His legs trembled and his head swam. His balance was truly off kilter from the damage to his ears. Some sort of sound was beginning to filter back in on his right side but the left remained totally muffled. His vision wasn't any better. It remained black with a faint sense of light. He could perhaps point to the sun… but only with the assistance of the sunlight warming his skin.
Kagami pressed tiny hands to his shoulders, head shaking. His jaw moved and vibrated as he spoke but Tobirama couldn't begin to guess what he said. He felt determined though.
The boy pulled away, chakra pushing Tobirama to stay. He couldn't exactly protest. It was perhaps better for Kagami to not see this next part. The boy’s chakra ran off, searching, sharp.
Once he was beyond Kagami's ability to sense, a maybe ten foot radius at present, Tobirama shakily ran his left hand over his face. His right arm wouldn't lift high enough.
He tried to be light with his fingers but still he gasped in pain as his fingers brushed over burned skin. Second degree. Fortunately it didn't seem to be third degree. Not a very powerful explosive, simply positioned to hit a shinobi in a vulnerable place.
He was lucky. It had been an explosive device without additional shrapnel added. Likely it would have killed him if it had been otherwise, even with his happuri protecting his temple. The metal seemed soot stained but unbroken. It had likely protected his eyes from total harm.
Further investigation revealed a shard of metal was stuck at the corner of it. That would have torn into the meat of his cheek and possibly lodged in his cheekbone. A dent lay over his temple. He shuddered at the close call. His face guard had most assuredly saved his life.
His ear was a lost cause. The outer shell was a burnt lump. It was possible his hearing was simply lost from the concussive force, but Tobirama was not going to worry about the future just yet. He had to worry about the here and now.
Such as not bleeding out from the tearing, cracked, burnt skin pouring blood from the left side of his head. And possibly resetting his shoulder.
Given time to assess, Tobirama could now say his shoulder was dislocated and deeply bruised down to the bones. But not broken. The muscles and tendons were horribly tender and stretched, but nothing was cracked. Thankfully.
Tobirama was ambidextrous. He'd been born left handed and while they weren't as superstitious as civilians, shinobi still didn't trust in that. So he'd been raised to use both hands equally. This was very useful when his right arm refused to move above a certain point.
Firstly, he flooded his head with chakra. While he was more than proficient in iryojutsu, healing head wounds was delicate work and not to be done on yourself. Especially something so finicky as the eyes.
Burns were also tricky business. Delicate tissue on the face was hard to regrow and infection was nearly guaranteed if you did not thoroughly clean and abrade the area. Which Tobirama knew he could not do to himself without passing out a minute in.
But he could flood his body with chakra to stabilize and hopefully stave off infection, of which was an extreme risk with burns of any nature.
The best he could do for himself right now without risking assuredly blinding himself was to pull out his medical kit and soak a rag in his shaking hand with a sterilizing concoction. Tobirama swallowed dryly before pressing it in its entirety to the burnt skin on his face because he knew he didn't have the willpower to do it in small doses. The world went black with blinding, stinging pain.
He loosely remembered falling over, bracing himself with his left arm to avoid faceplanting, and vomiting.
He came back to consciousness to Kagami shaking his good arm, laying on his back again and staring up sightlessly. Kagami seemed sad but urgent, pushing Tobirama up to his feet. He didn't seem to have faceplanted into dirt or his own waste, which was good.
He did his best, wobbling and swaying now that the original adrenaline from the explosion was gone. Tobirama followed Kagami's careful guidance - including around several rocks and boulders he couldn't sense - to end up squeezing underneath an overhang. He didn't know where they were, but chakra sprouted everywhere around them. Someplace hidden, he hoped.
Kagami pressed something to his hand. The wet rag, sharp with the smell of alcohol. He then moved the rag to his own chest, chakra burgeoning with a question. Curiosity. Confidence.
He was asking if Tobirama wanted him to clean his wound. Tobirama's throat tightened. He clearly did not have the constitution necessary to clean it himself, even provisionally. If he did not disinfect the burns now they would get infected without a doubt. An infection on his head would be near lethal with the amount of space the burn covered.
Tobirama nodded jerkily, holding a hand up to wait. He pulled out his travel pack and prepared. His sleeping bag, laid out and ready across the tiny space, not enough for his legs to stretch out but enough to lay down with some cramping. Tobirama set his sword as far aside as he could to not reach for it on instinct. He pulled his chest armor off.
With some very creative and agonizing wiggling, pausing every other minute to breathe through the pain, he pulled his right arm into the sleeve of his jumpsuit enough to tie it and use it as a makeshift immobilizing sling.
Tobirama laid down on his back with nothing better to do, with the burns primarily being across the left side of his face and his right shoulder being dislocated. It hurt to lay on his very, very bruised back but there was just no other way to do it.
Briefly he considered why he was even allowing a five year old to tend to his severe wounds. But Kagami's chakra exuded confident competence, even if nervous and scared. The act of first aid was familiar to the boy.
He'd been out herb gathering with his aunt. Perhaps he'd been raised by an apothecary or healer to be so used to wounds so close. Every shinobi child was used to injury, but burns such as this were not common around children.
Then again, Kagami was an Uchiha. Perhaps their children grew used to burns the way Senju were used to holding their breath and bruises from earth jutsu.
He was meandering. Allowing his thoughts to unfocus and wander off in his head. He blamed what might be a minor concussion.
Disinfect it. Tobirama said as carefully as he could. Do not stop until it has been well cleaned. No matter what sounds I make. He hoped he was not too loud. Moving his face to speak tugged on burnt skin and hurt and he struggled to speak above a whisper. Do you understand?
Kagami nodded into Tobirama's hand again. He had more confidence than Tobirama would have hoped to have at that age.
Tobirama held his left hand to his side, grasping the sleeping bag underneath him. Kagami descended with the jar of disinfecting poultice and a rag.
He would like to say he had not screamed. Just grit his teeth and stayed still as a log, determined to not react. But truthfully Tobirama didn't remember what happened next beyond a fuzzy recollection of blinding pain.
When he woke, his face was wrapped surprisingly well in the bandages from his medical pouch. He shifted with a groan.
Kagami's burningcoals chakra was curled into his side, tender and concerned and scared and-
Tobirama soothed his chakra over him. He smelled the disinfectant on the bandages. Felt the stinging throb of a well cleaned injury. The boy had done a better job than Tobirama would have managed by himself in such a painful place.
Kagami cried against his side. Without meaning to, Tobirama's hand drifted up to run through the boy’s long, messy hair. He assured the boy as best he could through his chakra and the pain weighing him down.
There were rations in his pack. They would be fine for a while yet. While they couldn't stay here for very long, Tobirama couldn't deny the fact that he wasn't going to be moving for a few days. At least until some of his hearing or sight came back.
And so Tobirama slept. He woke sporadically, senses spread far and wide to look for threats. Kagami stayed by his side, seeming content to lay there without moving.
It was maybe a day later that Tobirama started, sitting up despite the pain in his back. He could sense multiple chakra signatures approaching. None of them were familiar. Or friendly.
“We need to leave.” Sage bless, he could almost hear a whisper of his words. His left ear remained stubbornly silent. But a ringing had begun in his right that he could almost hear past.
His vision was still not working. But Tobirama's eyesight had always been poor. And he wasn’t letting himself think of the implications of losing his sight permanently right now, so his wayward, vague thoughts could shut up.
Kagami jumped to alertness at his words. All they had to do was reroll Tobirama's bedroll and move. But before they could, Kagami stopped him with a tug on his chakra. Tobirama could hear him- but he couldn't quite make out the words. He told him so while trying to not let his frustration build.
Kagami tugged at him physically until he could fiddle with Tobirama's bandages. He left the left side alone, but pulled the bandages apart on his right side. Tobirama stayed as still as he could despite the pain of burned skin being tugged at.
Then he blinked, squinting. He… could see. Not well. But there was… something. Blurry, indistinct shapes. He was beyond relieved.
Tobirama thanked Kagami and picked him up in his left arm. He was still weakened from his injuries, but they needed to move much faster than a five year old could on foot.