A/N: Re-uploading in compliance with 's guidelines (thank you to MrGoodyTwoShoes of Critics United, who clued me in about second person fics not being allowed here). If you'd like to read the original, I'll be posting a link to that on my profile. A thousand thanks to my baby sister who proofread this for me after I made the changes.

This has also been lying around for ages. 625 completely destroyed it: but that's what I get for hesitating. I really like Tobirama. He gets so much hate.

The Destructors

Character(s): Tobirama, Hashirama, Madara, Izuna

Pairings: none

Word Count: 4,610

Warnings: Language

Dedication: For my siblings.

It is really only because Itama is sick, and Tobirama is bored, that he follows. A flash of black hair by the window, caught in an inadvertent glance upward, and he abandons his shougi board, ducking low and using chakra to keep his footfalls as silent as possible.

Later he will wonder at his furtiveness; Hashirama often left the compound, they all did, and it was not as though it was forbidden. Butsuma Senju was a formidable commander, but a negligent parent.

Hashirama makes his way through the trees, easily, as if traversing a much-travelled path, and Tobirama wonders what destination he has in mind as he flits from shadow to shadow after his brother, keeping his chakra levels as low as possible. Hashirama has already begun to develop the sensing abilities that will, in the future, make him an opponent feared by many.

But Tobirama does not know this – all he knows is that if Hashirama catches a waft of his chakra – which he is so attuned to – he will stop in an instant and demand to know why Tobirama is skulking about, like a rat in the shadows. There is no artifice in Hashirama: he is the brother that has always been open, trusting – naïve, even – intelligent yes, almost frighteningly so, but utterly guileless, and Tobirama is often afraid that someone will slip a knife between the spines of his brother's back while shaking his hand. There is no artifice in him – but sometimes Tobirama feels as though the Fates have added the share that should have been his brother's to his, and there are days he wants to scrub the deceitful skin off his body and the lies off his slandering tongue.

Meanwhile, he keeps his inclination to manipulate firmly under check, because he is always afraid of waking up one day and seeing a despicable face gazing back at him in the looking-glass.

Ahead of him, Hashirama picks up speed, almost a blur, and Tobirama does so too, cautiously, trying to keep a suitable distance between them. From the general direction Hashirama is heading, Tobirama assumes he is heading for the Nakano River, and that he means to stop there.

He is empty-handed, no fishing rod or net or any equipment of the sort, so he can't be meaning to fish – and besides, he is moving too quickly for someone on a fishing trip. Unless he has his gear at the river – or is meeting someone there – and Tobirama shakes this last thought from his mind. Who would Hashirama be going to see that he wouldn't tell him – or Itama – about?

Hashirama's hakama flutter in the wind, and the spaces between the trees widen, leading up to the river bank. Tobirama advances as far as he dares, and then climbs a tree, one with large, firm branches that will make for a good vantage point. His brother appears from the underbrush, stepping out by the river, and as Tobirama's eyes focus, he sees there is another figure there, a boy, by the looks of it, and close to Hashirama's age.

His dark, unruly hair is a similar shade to Hashirama's own, but his skin is so pale it is almost incandescent in the brilliant sunlight. He turns and grins at Hashirama, and Tobirama flattens himself against a branch, edging closer. The bark is rough against his hakama, and as he begins to sit up, his head brushes against a spray of leaves overhead.

"Ssh, not so loud, or they'll hear you," a voice hisses, and only years of shinobi training keeps Tobirama from toppling out of the tree. He starts, and looks to his left, where another boy is crouched on the branch next to his. He is also dark haired and pale-skinned, his face thrown into the shadow of the foliage he is nestled in, and his black eyes are narrowed with irritation. The resemblance between him and the boy on the river bank is so uncanny Tobirama fights the urge to laugh. He is not the only one creeping after his brother, it seems. Something of his amusement shows on his face, and his companion's eyes narrow further.

"What's so funny?" he asks, and Tobirama shakes his head, pressing his lips together to keep back the laughter.

"Thanks for the warning," he says instead, "Uchiha."

Because they must be, the two of them, with that dark unruly hair and that pale skin and those black eyes set far back in their heads ringed with shadow. Tobirama has fought enough of their clansmen to recognize an Uchiha when he sees one. How can he not, when he has two eyes and neither are blind?

It is his turn to start, with a sharp intake of breath, but when Tobirama remains still, and makes no move to draw any weapons he may be hiding, he relaxes, ever-so-slightly.

"Izuna," Izuna tells Tobirama, because it's not a taboo to give out your first name and Tobirama knows his last already, "it's Izuna." He casts a look down at the river bank, where Hashirama is holding a flat rock between his fingers and showing the other boy how to angle his wrist properly, "and that's my brother, Madara."

"I know," Tobirama says, "you look so much alike even an idiot could tell." He fixes his eyes on Madara, who flicks the stone over the water. It skips once, twice, thrice, four times, and sinks, a single hop away from the opposite bank. He lets out a howl of frustration and Hashirama laughs and pats his shoulder comfortingly.

"I'm Tobirama," he says, "and that's my brother, Hashirama."

Izuna nods as he wraps his arms around his knees, drawing them to his chin. "I figured," he says, then looks sideways at Tobirama. "You're Senju, aren't you."

It isn't a question, and Tobirama raises his eyebrows a little, impressed. "However did you know?" After all, the Senju aren't like the Uchiha. There's a lot more genetic diversity, for one thing – more skin tones and hair color and eye shape – and there really isn't a clan jutsu, either – and neither Hashirama nor Tobirama are carrying their katana, so it's not like the tsuba gave them away.

Izuna shrugs, a careless up-and-down movement of his shoulders, narrow enough to be a girl's. They make Tobirama feel sturdy in comparison, and both he and Hashirama are slightly built, especially for Senju.

"I've been coming here a while now," Izuna says. "Your brother is very skilled," and Tobirama feels a rush of pride for Hashirama, even as apprehension claws at his insides, "obviously a shinobi, with enormous chakra reserves," the apprehension mounts higher, "and you recognized me for an Uchiha immediately. The rest just fell into place."

"You're obviously very clever," Tobirama says thoughtfully, and Izuna smiles suddenly, lighting up his face, increasing his resemblance to his brother, but there's a quirk to it, an irony, that isn't there in Madara's open faced grin. A shout of laughter drifts up from the river bank, where Madara has succeeded in pulling Hashirama into the water and Hashirama is coughing and in hysterics at the same time.

"No," Izuna says, "just not stupid."

There are many coming-together-s after that.

"You know," Tobirama tells Izuna, glancing at where he is stretched out, slivers of bark catching on his shirt, Tobirama's binoculars pressed to his eyes, "we're probably going to end up meeting on a battlefield."

Izuna lowers the binoculars. They dangle from the strap around his neck as he turns his head in Tobirama's direction, dark Uchiha eyes focusing on his red ones.

Below, Hashirama lectures Madara on the merits of improving his chakra control, while Madara lazily flings dirt clods at him. Hashirama dodges with languid grace.

"I know," Izuna says, "And when we do I am going to try and kill you."

Tobirama's mouth curls into a smile and he laughs despite himself. "Sure," he says, as matter-of-fact as Izuna is, "I'm probably going to try and kill you too."

Izuna peers at Tobirama over the binoculars as if he has given him a massive compliment, and then his eyes harden.

"As long as we're not lying to each other, Senju-san," Izuna says, his ironic smile in place, and Tobirama shakes his head and leans back against the tree trunk and closes his eyes.

They are several hundred feet above the ground and if Izuna leaned over the slightest bit and pushed Tobirama he'd fall and break his neck.

But it's okay, because Tobirama isn't lying to Izuna or to himself. They both know.

Tobirama hears an outraged cry and a thud as Madara tackles Hashirama and Izuna's exasperated snort. A cool breeze ruffles his hair.

And everything is okay.

Izuna is subdued as he swings himself onto his customary branch – or more subdued than usual.

"My father is suspicious," is his announcement once he is settled. Tobirama nods. Unsurprising, considering what he knows.

"So is mine," Tobirama tells him. It has been three weeks since Itama was killed. Sometimes Tobirama looks at Izuna's face and wonders if he was there, a part of the raid that killed his younger brother. And then he remembers the comforting hand Izuna placed on his shoulder – the first physical contact between the two of them – and Madara running his fingers over Hashirama's hair as Tobirama's brother cried into his friend's shoulder. He remembers the sudden flare of jealousy that sparked within him: Hashirama never cried in front of him.

"If he asked you," Izuna says, "would you tell him?" He is dangling one foot off the branch, the other set firmly against it, chin resting on knee.

"Of course," Tobirama says without hesitation. "Wouldn't you?"

Izuna blows his cheeks out, looking down at the river bank. Hashirama and Madara are bent over a sketch in the sand, a broken-off stick in Hashirama's hand, two dark heads so close they could belong to brothers.

"Yes," he answers, "I would."

Madara seizes the stick from Hashirama and scribbles something onto the sketch. If Tobirama squints, he can make out buildings, and a squiggle that looks as though it is meant to be a gate.

"Do you think," he says pensively, and Izuna looks at him, "an alliance could stop this fighting?"

"No," Izuna's reply is immediate, unhesitant. "There's no trust between shinobi, and even if there was, people aren't just going to make peace and leave all their loved ones remain unavenged."

"Oh," Tobirama says. He didn't agree with Hashirama in the beginning, either (his brother is so naïve), but he's come to understand the logic behind his arguments, and the fact that Izuna sounds so uncompromising piques him. He didn't even give the thought a chance. "No trust?"

"No trust," Izuna affirms, systematically destroying a leaf. "Look at those two," he jerks his chin at Madara and Hashirama crouched in the sand. "Neither of them knows who the other is. And even if they do, they don't want to confirm their suspicions – because then they'd lose everything they've got here."

He opens his fist and lets the fragments of the leaf fall to the ground. Tobirama watches them as far as he can follow.

"But – " he begins, and Izuna fixes his eyes on him, a corner of his mouth lifting into a parody of a smile.

"But what?" he says, "I wouldn't hesitate to put a knife in your back, Senju-san, and you know it."

Tobirama lifts his chin. "Then why haven't you?" he asks. "Better yet, why tell me?"

Izuna runs spidery fingers through his hair, sighing. "I don't know," he says, "maybe because I find there's still something left I have to learn."

Tobirama bites the inside of his cheek.

"You've lost a brother too, Senju-san," Izuna says. "Tomorrow, if you were to come face-to-face with his killer, would you be able to let him go? That is what you would have to do if there were a treaty between your clan and his killer's. As long as there is blood crying for vengeance, there can be no alliances, Tobirama." He pronounces the name strangely, as if it is a foreign word, and Tobirama realizes this is the first time Izuna has called him by it.

"Then we are caught in a circle of hatred," he says softly, "isn't that right?"

"I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," Izuna tells him, almost sadly, "and you shouldn't trust me either." His eyes are bottomless. Tobirama turns away.

Hashirama pulls a line through Madara's last scribble, blotting it out.

"An alliance," Hashirama says. "It is the only way." He is sitting upright in his futon, his face thrown into shadow by the flickering candlelight. Tobirama turns over beneath his sheets, looking up at his brother. The futon on the other side is empty, the blanket neatly rolled up.

"Do you really believe that?" He breathes.

Hashirama pulls his knees up to his chest, a faraway look in his dark eyes. "Yes," he says, barely a whisper, "yes, I do."

Several mornings later, he is walking back from the training ground when his father's voice stops him in his tracks.

"Tobirama," he says, and Tobirama turns to see him standing on the steps to the house. Butsuma beckons him in and he approaches, tension tightening his spine and stiffening his neck. He follows Butsuma into the room, sliding his geta off at the door and stepping onto the tatami mats. Butsuma slides the fusuma panels shut behind them.

"You are going to follow your brother the next time he leaves the compound," Butsuma says without preamble. "And report to me the moment you get back. I'll be expecting you."

Tobirama nods silently, and wonders if he will comment on his numerous absences as well. However, Butsuma waves a dismissive hand and he tells himself it didn't matter.

He is the second son, and therefore invisible.

"What are you going to tell him?" Izuna asks, although Tobirama knows he knows the answer (and Izuna knows that he knows).

"The truth," Tobirama replies, "as you will."

"Funny," Izuna remarks, "how they had the same idea at the same time."

Tobirama shrugs. "I'm surprised it took them this long."

Izuna lays a palm flat against Tobirama's back. "The next time I see you," he begins, and stops. His fingers are hot. He leans against Tobirama, elbow against his ribs, the side of his face pressed against the other boy's shoulder. His cheek is cold.

Tobirama submits his report.

Everything is a blur.

Hashirama does not speak to him for a long, long time.

"Give in, Madara!" Hashirama's voice is hoarse with overuse and the acrid smoke that has plunged the field into near darkness. "You don't have to do this!"

Tobirama resists the urge to roll his eyes and widens his stance as the two figures in the smokescreen grow more distinct.

"You always did like making me repeat myself," Madara says as he emerges from the smog. His blade is encrusted with blood. His gunbai is set across his shoulders, the chain entwined securely about his hand. Izuna is just behind him, leaning on his own sword like a landowner surveying a new field. Tobirama wonders if he is allowed to give in to his impulse to laugh. He wonders if anyone knows the madman that lives beneath his skin.

Madara rushes in, weaving hand signs too quickly for Tobirama's – limited – eyes to follow. Hashirama pulls a whiplash from the ground. The battle begins anew. Tobirama holds his ground.

"Why?" asks Hashirama, and he sounds as broken as he looks, sitting there with his back to his brother, hair spilling forward to cover his face. Tobirama presses his palm, glowing with healing chakra, to the split skin across it. Hashirama would have healed himself, had he still had chakra left. Tobirama struggles to keep the chakra flow constant. He is exhausted.

"Because I didn't know what else to do," he says, and hates himself for the lie, because the decision was one he made consciously.

"You could have come to me – we could have talked about it – worked something out –"

"How was I supposed to know?" Tobirama tells him, and bites back the bile rising in his throat, "and even if I did – what would you have accomplished, Hashirama? Two kids – barely proper ninja – what could you have done – "

"I could have tried!" he shouts suddenly, and a spasm flashes across his back and he curls over, coughing. There is blood on the tatami mat and suddenly Tobirama hates himself more than he has ever hated himself before.

He presses his hand against his brother's chest, enveloped in chakra, Hashirama's lungs knitting themselves together beneath Tobirama's fingers.

"I'm sorry," Tobirama starts to say, but his brother cuts him off, raising a hand to his cheek and resting his fingers, calloused and damp, against Tobirama's jaw.

"I'm sorry," Hashirama says, "I shouldn't have shouted. I'm sorry. I just wish – "

Tobirama closes his eyes, briefly, and opens them again. The last of Hashirama's injuries are healed and Tobirama's chakra sputters out and he collapses, exhaustion settling in his marrow. Hashirama kneels beside him and draws an arm across his shoulders tugging his brother to him. Tobirama rests his cheek against his knee and Hashirama runs his hands through the roughened strands of his brother's hair.

For a moment Tobirama pretends they are little kids again, nine and five, and he is still his brother's entire world – and then Hashirama speaks.

"If you knew him," he says "you would understand. There's so much potential there, Tobi – if we had him with us we could fix this world – I know it sounds naïve – but it's possible. I know it is."

Tobirama thinks back to sunlit afternoons and the two of them hurling water at each other (Hashirama cheating with ninjustu) and the dappled pattern across Izuna's hair as he leaned back against the tree trunk, scowling furiously at the sight of his brother so uninhibited. "He's not supposed to be like this," he said, sounding so petulant Tobirama had to laugh.

And the look on Madara's face as he stood in front of his father and Izuna, black eyes spinning into the Sharingan, and loudly declared he'd never have anything to do with them again.

Naïve, Tobirama thinks, both of us are so naïve.

"Maybe if I did," he says, "I might." And this is another lie, because he did know. But unlike Hashirama, he never had any expectations, because he had no pretenses.

Things always end in a stalemate, the four of them burning chakra till there's none left to burn and then collapsing, the two more able carrying the two less able off the ground.

Tobirama hates stalemates, but more than that he hates the dead look in Izuna's eyes as he looks at him, spinning tomoe against the red morphing into the Mangekyo, the murderous rage on Madara's eyes when he stares at Hashirama over their blades – and it is that look that makes Tobirama want to pull Hashirama away from them – to run from the battle when he's never been one to run away from anything.

Because during these moments he realizes things won't end till one of them kills the other – till they've gutted Tobirama and pulled Hashirama's soul from his body – and then what kind of a world would that be, Tobirama thinks, one without his brother?

It is a mistake, really, when it happens. He is hardly paying attention to Izuna at all, focused instead on Hashirama barely keeping Madara back with the moukoton – Hashirama doesn't have the energy today – it was a mistake, coming across them - and Izuna slashes at him – "I'm your opponent!" he nearly howls, a far cry from the composed boy who sat across Tobirama on a tree branch and made the leaves rustle when he laughed – and Tobirama turns instinctively to avoid the blow, a graceful dancer's move because if it had hit him he would have been a goner and the counterattack is unconscious, reflexive, really, because he never would have used the technique otherwise – he didn't mean it when he said "I'm going to try and kill you too," how could he have, when he did know him and he did understand but it doesn't matter because his katana comes down with brutal force and suddenly Izuna is lying on the ground and there is so much blood and then Madara is there and he is screaming and Tobirama's head is pounding as though someone is driving nails into his skull and there's a loud keening sort of noise – a scream, really – and with a start he realize that it is him.

And he wonders if anyone else can see the madman breaking free from underneath his skin.

Hashirama carries him home. His face is pressed into his brother's hair. The silky strands are rough against his skin. He smells blood.

"He had the Mangekyo," he tells Hashirama when he is lucid again. "It was a fair fight. He had the Mangekyo."

"I know," Hashirama reassures him. "I know. I know." He presses a hand to Tobirama's forehead and his hand is cold – because Tobirama is so hot he is burning up. "It was you or him," Hashirama says, "I'm glad it wasn't you."

He looks at the window, a faraway look in his dark eyes. "I wonder how he is," he says, and Tobirama doesn't know if he means Madara or Izuna. And then he realizes it doesn't matter.

"He died," Madara hurls at him. He's never heard so much pain and accusation and anger and bitterness in anyone's voice, and he wonders if Hashirama would sound the same if he died. He pushes the thought from his mind and focuses on Madara – and finds that he can't. Izuna's face looks out at him from his brother's, desperation twisting his features into something unrecognizable. "You killed him! You fucking dog – you killed him – " and he rushes Tobirama, a blur of movement and the only thing in focus are his eyes, a freakish fusion of his and Izuna's and almost wearily, Tobirama draws his katana.

He is tired, and he wants to say this: I'm tired, I want to stop, let's stop – but the madman hums beneath his skin and there's no one around who'll listen.

He feels Hashirama tense beside him, and then the world is a blur.

The aftermath is Hashirama sinking to his knees in the middle of the battlefield, the tips of his long dark hair wet with blood. He is trembling, and Tobirama is trembling too, deep shudders wracking his body till he wonders if he is going to start falling apart. The world is colored black and gray and red, shards of broken glass coming together in some sort of sick mosaic and as he watches Hashirama doubles over, forehead against knees. Pathetic, Tobirama thinks, to look so utterly defeated. Rage, like an overflowing geyser, bubbles up within him.

"So is that it?" Tobirama shouts. "Does this – he – mean so much to you that you're going to throw your life away for him?" His voice is loud and hoarse and utterly alien to his ears. This is not his voice, pounding against his eardrums with the force of a tsunami. He does not shout. He does not scream. "What use is that? What is the point if you die – what sort of alliance is that?" The last word cracks.

He has been killing since he was six years old.

"I'm not going to throw my life away," Hashirama says, and his voice is so soft- a mere breath of words – that if Tobirama were not so attuned to it – to him, his brother, his life, his soul, his heart – he wouldn't have caught the words.

It is as though his brother has opened a pit beneath his feet: a yawning chasm as far and wide as he can see – and infinitely bottomless. His knees give away, then, and he falls, gracelessly, to the ground.

He has never given much thought to dying.

"Oh," he says, "oh," and he reaches for his sword belt with shaky fingers and a sob constricts his throat.

Hashirama turns and looks at him, blurry through the film of tears coating Tobirama's eyes, and he sees Hashirama's eyes widen, broken lines through cracked glass.

"What are you doing?" Hashirama bites out, suddenly too close, and his hand closes over Tobirama's sword hilt and draws the blade away from his exposed navel. "What the hell are you doing, Tobirama?"

"Me or him," Tobirama says, his breath coming in shallow gasps, and he doesn't know why he feels so strongly about this, but he does, "your alliance – with me out of the way –" Hashirama's fist crashes into his face so hard he sees stars and then he stands over him, Tobirama's gentle brother, his face contorted with rage –

And Hashirama's hands close over Tobirama's collar and he shakes him till his teeth rattle in his head.

"Say that again," Hashirama dares, "say that again – I'll kill you myself – do you hear me – I'll – "

And suddenly his mouth twists and a sob rips its way out through his throat and his forehead drops onto Tobirama's shoulder.

"You fucking brat," he says, and Tobirama's shirt is damp with his tears, "you fucking brat what gave you the idea – "

For a moment, Tobirama is so startled he nearly forgets to breathe, the old childish jealousy pressing against his mind – that Hashirama would cry in front of Madara and not him –

He lifts a hand, hesitantly, and brings it down on Hashirama's hair, mud-streaked and filthy, but his fingers still catch against the strands.

He blinks against the tears in his eyes but they fall, wearing lines down his face.

It seems an eon passes by before either of them speak.

"I understand," he says, finally, voice gravelly as though from years of disuse, "why he asked that of you." His lips are gummy and he runs his tongue over them. Hashirama's eyes are bloodshot. His cheek is red with the imprint of Tobirama's collarbone. "And if it were me," Tobirama says, looking down at his brother's head, "I wouldn't have made a request at all."

Hashirama's mouth twitches upward in a mockery of a smile. "It looks as though I owe him, then," he rasps, "and it's not a debt I'll be able to repay easily."

Tobirama looks at his discarded katana, lying several yards away.

"Yes," he says. "Yes, it does seem that way."

Later, when they ask how it happened, and the treaty was signed, Tobirama will say truthfully that he does not know.

At the time, he stands on the banks of the Nakano River, Hashirama next to him, a small smile upturning his lips. His long dark hair quivers in the wind.

Madara stands across from them. His weight is balanced awkwardly on the tips of his feet, like an animal ready to flee at the slightest provocation.

Hashirama holds a hand out to him, palm outward, a silent plea in his dark eyes. Madara looks at him for a long moment. He takes a step forward, and he seems to relax, lifting his chin, his lips curving unsteadily upward.

Tobirama fixes his eyes at a point behind Madara's shoulder and he imagines Izuna there: and he can see him smiling that slightly ironic smile. His eyes are a clear black with no hint of red and a cool breeze ruffles Tobirama's hair.

Beneath his skin, the madman bids him goodbye.

And everything is okay.

(There is an art to falling apart.)

Thank you for reading.