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All things considered, he’d gotten off pretty easy. The experiments he’d conducted over the years in his never ending thirst for more knowledge, more progress, had led to some pretty devastating results on occasion. Not every trial was a success. Not every idea was a good one. Since the idea he’d pulled out of his ass this time had only been about half formed and under-researched Tobirama supposed he could be only grateful that it hadn’t ended with his corpse being strewn about the landscape in several pieces, his last moments full of pain and despair.
Under better circumstances he might have even been inclined to celebrate the success of something he’d always assumed would be impossible. Time travel; to think that he had accomplished such a feat boggled the mind even without taking in to consideration how little chakra had been left in his coils, how desperately sloppy his signs had been. He didn’t imagine many would blame him for experiencing a touch of panic with the Gold and Silver Brothers bearing down on him cloaked in the Kyuubi’s chakra and thirsting for his blood. With no other options left, his body tired and old and broken, Tobirama had gone with the first desperate plan that leapt to mind, a half-forgotten idea he never did get around to properly researching.
Looking deeper in to the spontaneous modifications he’d made to the hiraishin would have to wait, however, until he figured out exactly how far through time he had fallen and where he’d landed. The layout of the forest around him looked strangely familiar, like a path he had walked a thousand times before that had changed since last he saw it. Was this the past or the future? Should he know this place?
Such questions could probably be answered by the small body watching him intently from some bushes to his left. Tobirama very carefully did not look round, certain the presence was a child who thought themselves well hidden - and from anyone else they would have been. Whoever this child was they had excellent chakra dampening abilities already. If he were any less of a sensor Tobirama would never have known he was not alone here what with how tightly that small chakra had been pulled in and smothered. He was quite impressed, actually. Knowing he was under surveillance but secure in knowing there was no one else around for at least a mile in any direction, he allowed himself a few moments to simply breathe, to accept the loss of things he might never get back to. Jumping through time once had been a risk. There was no guarantee he would ever be able to recreate what he’d done in a moment of need. Only when he was sure his emotions were settled enough that he could soldier on as he had all his life did Tobirama stand and clear his throat.
“Can you tell me where I am, young one?” He asked. The bushes twitched.
“How did you know I was here?” a small, grumpy voice asked.
Tobirama looked over and resisted the urge to smile. “I always know where everyone is,” he boasted. It was only a slight exaggeration. “Will you answer my question?”
“Why should I? You could be a spy or a missing nin or something. A shinobi should never give information to the enemy!”
Reaching up to trace the shape of his brow, Tobirama already missed the happuri that must have been knocked off at some point. Without it he supposed it would be a little harder to identify himself as a Leaf shinobi but depending on where he had ended up that might turn out to be a good thing. One never knew what sort of grudges might exist in the future or what information he would need to hide from the past.
“I would appreciate it if you at least tell me what year it is, then, young shinobi.”
“Got your head knocked around, huh?” With a quiet snort of derision as though passing judgment on him somehow, the bushes parted to make way for an utterly tiny figure to stroll out.
Messy silver hair and dark eyes both drooped over top of a thin mask clinging to the bottom half of his face, the same color as the Leaf headband he wore on his tiny little head. Despite being clearly decked out for battle his clothing was of a cut Tobirama had never seen before and by his stature he could be no more than five years old. Which was ridiculous. Clearly he must have travelled to an entirely different universe because there was no way any iteration of the village his brother had built, present or future, would ever allow children of this age to become shinobi. Putting a stop to child soldiers was the entire reason they had founded Konohagakure in the first place.
Judging by the pride in the boy’s stance, however, mentioning any of these thoughts was not likely to make him any friends. Best to be polite. Later he could figure out who was responsible for this so he could express his very sharp displeasure to the correct channels.
“I see that you are also a shinobi of the Leaf,” he noted instead. “You show excellent caution. How would you like me to prove that I am a citizen?” That was the right question, he could tell by the minute straightening of thin shoulders. Concealing his indulgent smile took effort as he watched the boy preen with self importance.
“How many brothers did the first Hokage have? Anyone who took history in our village should know that.”
“Four,” Tobirama answered.
The calm in his tone thankfully hid the way his mind had already begun to spin. So he had travelled to the future, it seemed. Not only that but he had travelled so far ahead that his own time had been lost to history books and myths for young children to use as trivia to test a stranger’s identity. Just thinking about it reeled him so terribly he couldn’t even spare a moment to be amused at the disappointed pout that followed his answer.
“Hmph. Guess you’re really not an enemy. Konoha is that way.” The child lifted one arm to point west. “It’s still several miles out. You’re not likely to run in to anyone but patrols this close to home so I would recommend travelling at an easy pace if you’ve got a concussion.”
“You have my thanks. What is your name, young one?”
With a startled look as though he’d never encountered someone who didn’t know his name, the boy answered, “Hatake Kakashi.”
“It’s good to meet you, Kakashi-kun.”
“Right. Whatever, old man.”
“Old...man?”
Before he could even think about any lectures on propriety or respecting one’s elders the boy had already turned around and dashed away through the trees. It was only then that Tobirama finally took notice of the travel dust on his clothing, the dots of blood splashed on the sides of his sandals. Despite his age Kakashi was clearly only just returning from a mission of some sort in which it was very probable that he had taken a life and yet neither his bearing nor his voice betrayed any sort of trauma from such an act. This was not the boy’s first kill.
And that was troubling.
His viewpoint on the situation did not improve in the slightest after he made his way to the village to discover who exactly was in charge and in how many ways his once beloved student had failed him. In the moments before what he thought was his death, only hours before in his mind, he had chosen Sarutobi Hiruzen as his successor because he believed the young man to be a true student of the teachings he’d done his best to impart on the next generation. To be proven wrong so harshly was a blow that he wrapped around his heart to deal with another time. Nearly half a century in to the future and somehow possessed of a body some three decades younger than he’d been only the day before, Tobirama had quite enough to come to terms with already. Time travel was mind-bending on its own as a concept even without all these unforeseen consequences.
It took hours in conference with an ancient man who claimed to be Saru and yet seemed an entirely different person before at last his old student dismissed him with the air of someone attempting to sweep undesirable filth under the rug. Then to add insult to injury the Sandaime Hokage who did not deserve to be such added a parting shot like an afterthought.
“Many years have passed since last you were here and many more things have changed. You’ll need someone to act as a guide, of course. I have the perfect man in mind. To the east of the old Senju district there is a house that sits alone on a street; you’ll find a man named Sakumo there. Tell him I sent you.” Tobirama watched those faded eyes turn away from him, back to paperwork that his own time as Nidaime had taught him could always wait, and hoped that there was something better in this future to convince him to stay.
Leading the village had taught him a number of other things as well. He knew exactly the sort of waves it would make if the ANBU following behind him as he left the tower did not see him go straight to this glorified minder as he’d been oh so subtly instructed. For now it was best he keep a low profile. To make life easier on the ANBU only following orders he made sure to keep himself in plain sight and not simply reach for any of the numerous hiraishin markers he could still feel pulling at him from all over the village. New structures may have sprung up as the population expanded but the foundation remained the same. He could still find his way around just fine.
The last thing he expected to see as he turned on to the street with only one lonely house built on its long dirt stretch was little Kakashi hopping down from a newby rooftop, stopping to turn and look at him with sleepy curiosity in his eyes.
“What are you doing here old man?”
“Your words are as accurate as they are wrong,” Tobirama grumbled at him, taking heart in the confused tilt of a small head. “I am looking for a man named Sakumo.” He was unprepared for the boy to light up with a fierce pride.
“Tosan! Come with me!”
Kakashi leapt forward to grab him by the hand and began pulling him towards the house while Tobirama thanked whatever good fortune allowed him to continue crossing paths with this intriguing little tyke. Together they ghosted in through the front door, not even stopping to kick off their shoes, pattering down the hallways with a surprising lack of noise. Even here in his own home Kakashi was an exemplary shinobi.
Another crime that Tobirama would need to carve out of Hiruzen’s unworthy hide.
When the boy threw open a door that looked much like any other in the house things happened so quickly that Tobirama found himself reacting almost before he had properly taken any of it in. Distantly he registered the room as a study of some sort, automatically cataloguing his surroundings as he would in any unfamiliar territory. His eyes caught the flash of steel at the same time his ears twitched at the horrified gasp from Kakashi’s mouth and Tobirama was flashing across the room to stop the blade in Sakumo’s hand before the door had finished sliding open.
Dark eyes stared back at him with equal parts despair and surprise. Tobirama could see a hundred thoughts racing across the other man’s face as he very gently guided the blade down until shaking fingers released it to clatter against the ground. He kicked it aside without breaking eye contact.
“Nidaime…?”
“Tosan! Are you okay!? Was it a jutsu!? Did someone put you in a genjutsu or something!?” Kakashi hurtled in to the room and threw himself against his father’s chest for the briefest of hugs before pulling away to inspect him head to toe, assessing him for injuries.
“I’m- no, I was not in a- Kakashi, who is this?”
Distracting the boy from what he’d been about to do, that was a smart move. Regret was already there in the lines of his face, gratitude that he had been interrupted, all the signs of a man who did not truly wish to die. Tobirama wondered if there was blackmail at play here or something else but at the moment he supposed it was none of his business. Not yet, anyway. His brother had been the more infamous people person but he’d always been able to ingratiate himself with the people he needed to impress. Sniffing out whatever had driven this man to such a low could wait until later.
Explaining who he was and how he had come to be here was enough of a distraction that both Kakashi and his father seemed to forget entirely about the blade Sakumo had been about to sink in to his own belly before he was interrupted just in time. Answering their questions took hours, asking his own took several more. Sakumo was startled to hear that he had been chosen as Tobirama’s guide, though the surprise in his voice carried a peculiar tone that Tobirama couldn’t quite put his finger on, and he accepted the duty with a strange kind of relief in his eyes. Blackmail was already looking to be the less likely motivator behind what he’d almost done. A close eye would be needed to watch this one.
Luckily, without the duties he had left behind in his own natural time Tobirama was entirely free to watch as closely as he liked. When offered a place to stay in the Hatake household he accepted easily. If it came with the added benefit of making Hiruzen’s teeth grind so hard he could practically hear it across the village, well, he had always enjoyed that old killing two birds with one stone philosophy.
Making a new life here in this village that was so much the same and yet so different as well was easier than Tobirama would have thought. He spent his days dragging Sakumo from one end of town to the other, asking endless questions only for each reply to spawn a dozen new ones, more and more grateful as time went on and his companion responded with nothing but patience. Tobirama watched more than just the man at his side, however. Any shinobi worth their salt maintained situational awareness no matter where they were and even here in the place where he should be safest his eyes and ears were always open. He saw the way people moved to the other side of the street to avoid brushing up against Sakumo, heard the voices that murmured dark thoughts about their own comrade. He saw the narrow glares and heard the curses.
But most of all he saw the way Sakumo quietly flinched away from it all. In the many weeks since he’d been in the man’s company Tobirama had gotten to know Sakumo quite well, enough to build a healthy doubt that whatever put a wedge between this man and the rest of the village had likely not been a purposeful act. At least not on his part. No one who deliberately alienated those around them would cower away from the results like a dog with its tail between its legs. As the days passed and the two of them got to know each other, grew to trust each other, Tobirama did what he could to hold his patience, waiting for the day it would be more appropriate and less of a nosey attack to ask his questions. Watching Sakumo do his best to pretend he didn’t exist in public while also trying not to let his son see him act with shame was almost physically painful. It was something he could not allow to go on.
A man as good as the one who housed and cared for him did not deserve to be tucked away and forgotten about, let alone rejected by those who should have venerated him.
The time for questions came after Tobirama had been living here in the future for nearly five months, any thoughts of returning to his own era long abandoned. Whether it was he himself or the way he lived his life that changed the most was indiscernible. Once he had been a political leader tasked with guiding the village and sleeping barely four hours a night as he tried to carry the weight of his brother’s dreams alone. Now he rose late each morning to enjoy a lazy meal with two sleepy Hatakes and spent his days in leisure. Conversation between him and Sakumo flowed as easily as the river and assisting in Kakashi’s training was as delightful as teaching him how to relax and play. Exploring the village, learning the many ways technology had advanced, and slowly reintegrating himself with the gossip chains, all of these helped the days fly by.
Of course, that wasn’t to say that leisure was all he’d concentrated on. A few months was more than enough time to make a nuisance of himself for the ones he now renounced as his students. The men that Hiruzen and Danzo had grown up to be were not the boys he once trained with such loving care. But that was not what he wanted to spend this second chance at life worrying about, not when he would much rather concentrate on the way Sakumo’s hair turned from silver to gold in the morning light, how Kakashi could express so many emotions with only his eyes and lie with a rarely seen smile, the sound of Sakumo’s quiet rasping laugh when one was lucky enough to earn it. For a lifetime he had watched others around him building families and only now that he had an approximation of the same for his own did he understand the joy of it, only now did he understand how his brother could have been so consistently distracted with thoughts of his beloved wife. For how little time he spent apart from Sakumo it was embarrassing how often his thoughts strayed back to the man.
Lounging on the engawa and sipping perfectly brewed tea, Tobirama looked over at the figure beside him without turning his head. Half a dozen sets of paws bounded from one end of the courtyard to the other as Kakashi chased a number of his recently acquired summons with stern words about bathtime. It was a more peaceful afternoon than he thought he would ever see, one Tobirama was loath to disturb in any way, yet the curiosity that had been gnawing at him for months now had reached a boiling point at last, unignorable any longer.
“May I ask you something?” he murmured, sliding his eyes forward again to afford his companion the privacy of not having his emotions studied like an experiment.
“You ask a hundred questions a day,” Sakumo retorted.
“And you answer them all.”
“Indeed I do; not sure why you think this one might be any different.”
One corner of his mouth quirked with a brief smile before it faded away again. “Kakashi may not see it - the unsuspecting eyes of youth - but I do. What happened to drive you away from your own people?”
“Ah.” Sakumo sighed and even without looking at him one could practically feel the way he shrank in to himself.
Wanting to provide comfort but knowing he was terrible at such things, Tobirama’s hands wrung together in his lap as he debated whether or not to reach out. If he were his brother he would have thought nothing of taking Sakumo’s hand in his own for a gentle reassuring squeeze. But he was not his brother. The very mental image of them holding hands threatened to turn his cheeks to fire even if he knew the only intentions behind such a gesture would be those of friendship and comfort.
Thrown forward in to the future for a second chance at life and still he had the urge to flee at the slightest hint of his own beating heart. He was doomed to be hopeless, it seemed. At least when it came to emotions.
“It must have been about a year ago now,” his friend began with halting syllables. “My team and I were sent on a mission which might very well have ended the war if we were successful. If I had been less foolish.”
“Hard to imagine you ever treating a mission foolishly,” Tobirama said.
“Kind words, though I don’t know if I deserve them. We all swore our loyalty to this village, vowed to do whatever became necessary, but when my team got in to a tight spot I chose to abandon the mission like some genin still wet behind the ears. I disobeyed my orders and in doing so I lost the respect of those who thought they knew me. How could I accept any other missions after that when none of my teammates could trust me to do the job I was sent to do?” Sakumo’s profile tucked in to itself in the corner of Tobirama’s eye. “If I had only continued with the mission...well. I suppose there’s no use wishing to change the things we can’t.”
Something like rage stirred in Tobirama’s breast like an animal waking with hunger in its teeth. “You’ve been ostracized for saving your teammates from death?”
“For failing perhaps the most important mission of my life,” the other corrected him.
“They owe you their lives!”
With a sigh Sakumo shook his head. “How can we know that? It’s entirely possible that they could have survived without my intervention. I could have failed this village for nothing.”
Tobirama had never whipped his entire body around so fast.
“You failed nothing!” he snapped. Sakumo blinked at him in shock.
“I abandoned my mission-”
“No, you chose to protect the lives of your comrades. That is not failure. That is admirable. Am I to understand that the people of this village treat you like some unwanted half-breed cur because you chose to value them!?”
“Saying it like that certainly makes it sound quite pretty,” Sakumo allowed. “It’s just-”
Tobirama cut him off again without even waiting to hear whatever ridiculous point he was about to get wrong. “I won’t hear it! How dare they! If there is anyone who has been failed it is you! Your actions are exactly the sort of thing my brother dreamed of when he first conceived of Konohagakure, back before that name ever existed, when this land was nothing but untamed forest and blood-soaked loam. When he shook Uchiha Madara’s hand they promised that no more children had to die and that every able bodied fighter would give their last breath to protect each other because that is what makes a village!”
Hot tea spilled across the tatami mats as Tobirama surged to his feet, pacing along the ground just beyond the engawa. Sakumo remained on the ledge with fingers curled tightly around his own cup and watched but said nothing. Barks and yips cut the silence that might have fallen, clouds of dust drifting through the air to make a haze between them and the boy Tobirama had come to see as more precious than his own students had been to him. Like a son, if he could ever be as bold as to say so.
Rage burned hot on his tongue, disappointment like a heavy black cloud in his belly. Never in his life had he been glad his last remaining sibling was already dead but now - well. It was good, he thought, that Hashirama would never be cursed to see the pale shadow his dreams had faded to.
Spinning back around sent the sleeves of his yukata snapping out around him. This time there was no hesitation when he reached out to frame his hands around Sakumo’s, feeling the warmth of the tea leaching through pale cold fingers, cradling them with all the support he could never properly offer with words alone. Dark eyes watched him in shock as he stepped forward. Some small part of his mind noted that standing below the ledge of the engawa put him at just the perfect height to bend his neck, creating a small pocket of privacy where the rest of the world did not exist for the moments in which they held each other's gaze.
“I have lived two lives and never known a man better than you,” he whispered. “If it takes the rest of my time here on this earth I swear I will help you believe in all the wonderful things that you deserve.”
“You...know what I was about to do. That day. How can you say these things to a coward like me?”
“A true coward would have run from danger. Not towards it as you did.”
Sakumo looked away, though his eyes came back shortly as though drawn by some inevitable force. “I’m glad you came here to us. Whatever god sent you must have known that you were needed. I...if you hadn’t come Kakashi would be without a father.”
“May I ask - you do not have to answer - even at the time it seemed to me that you didn’t truly want to end your own life. What put you on that path?”
“It just seemed like the only option left at the time. My honor was gone, my comrades no longer trusted me to watch their backs, and Kakashi was still so young. He would come home from the academy talking about all the things he’d learned and how much he looked forward to fighting for Konoha someday and then he came home with his genin headband and I just didn’t want him to grow up with my failures staining the way that others looked at him.”
Breathing felt strangely difficult but Tobirama refused to look away. “You bring to your son, and to all of us, the greatest honor. It is I who should be thanking the gods for sending me to your side. I’m glad that I have this chance to know what a happy life feels like as my brother once had.”
“Ah, but your brother was a married man,” Sakumo murmured. “Surely a wife and a child at home cannot compare.” Such words were a chance he was terrified yet only too happy to take.
“Do I not have you and Kakashi?” Tobirama asked.
“M-me?”
Considering how pale the both of their natural complexions were, it was very probable that the color he could see rising on Sakumo’s cheeks was matched perfectly on his own. Tobirama had never been very prone to blushing. Emotions had always been the sole exception to that, the one true foil he’d never entirely been able to overcome. He never expected to find himself in a situation where he didn’t mind this most embarrassing of weaknesses until he was treated to the sight of Hatake Sakumo blushing like a young maiden. Seeing that was absolutely worth doing the same himself.
He waited patiently for a minute or two and when his first advance was not rejected in any obvious way he felt emboldened to make another, stroking his thumbs across the back of his friend’s hands. The electric feeling in his veins as he watched Sakumo try to suppress a shiver could only be described as triumph.
“I would give many things for the chance to show you how much you mean to me,” he said.
“You have always had strange tastes,” Sakumo retorted. It was a good sign if he was able to crack a joke, although a straight answer would have been preferable. Tobirama supposed he would probably have more luck with a straight question.
“Would you allow me to court you? Perhaps it’s my pride talking but if there is anyone who could help you understand just how worthy of a man you are I think it would be me.”
“Aye, it would be you.” Taking in a shaky breath, the other man swallowed after before finally nodding very slowly. “I don’t feel as though a man like you should be wasting your time on a man like me but I suppose that’s the point you’re trying to make. Kakashi will be fine on his own for an evening; would, ah, would you care to join me for dinner? We could go to that place you like in the market.”
Tobirama had never felt so light without accidentally inhaling the fumes of his own experiments. Every nerve ending in his body tingled in a way he simply did not have the time to pay closer attention to at the moment, not when gravity seemed to be pulling him closer and closer to the quiet smile he’d been falling in love with since the day they met. When their lips met it was soft, barely a brush of skin, not hesitant but unhurried. Sakumo never seemed to be hurried by much. Yet even that small display of affection was enough for Tobirama to wonder if it was possible to expire of sheer happiness.
For the brief moments that it lasted their first kiss was unequivocally one of the best things to ever happen in either of his lives; he still couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but laugh as Kakashi’s voice rang out across the courtyard.
“Gross! Ew! Pakkun, they’re kissing! Make them stop!”
“We may have to wait until privacy is more available to continue this conversation,” Tobirama murmured.
“Pakkun will bite you if you don’t stop!” Kakashi shouted, immediately backed up by a series of sharp barks. The rest of his pack seemed content to stand and wag their tags while they watched the humans interacting.
Sakumo took a long moment to look away towards his son, smile growing only wider. “Will he? That wouldn’t be very nice of him.”
Nodding imperiously, Kakashi scrambled across the yard to push Tobirama aside and crawl up in to his father’s lap, curling as tightly as his growing body would allow. It was adorable enough that Tobirama supposed he really didn’t mind being put off for a while just at the moment that he obtained everything he could have ever wanted. If a little patience was all it took to feel those lips against his own again that was a sacrifice he was very willing to make.
“We can discuss this in more detail later,” he said, knowing that his friend was smart enough to read between the lines. The long overdue blossoming of their relationship was not the only thing they needed to talk about.
“Of course,” Sakumo agreed.
“For now”-Tobirama dropped a hand on to Kakashi’s head and ruffled the silver hair only a few shades of from his own-“how would you like to help me plan a village coup, pup?”
“Tobirama!”
Putting one hand against his chest to profess honesty, he blinked with as much innocence as he could muster. “It’s only a training exercise, of course. Just to see how his studies are coming along. I would obviously never think to depose the ones in charge and reform the entire village back to the original concept it was meant for.”
His friend - partner, now, in every sense of the word - lifted one eyebrow without saying anything.
“I would start by gaining their trust, I think,” Kakashi mused, oblivious to the conversations his elders had been having. When his father heaved a deep sigh he looked confused.
Tobirama could only turn his head away to smile in to the distance, watching clouds of dust swirl and dance in the afternoon breeze. It had taken dying and not dying and leaping through time but at long last he had found the future his precious sibling always dreamed of for him, for everyone. He’d found happiness; he found peace. The first thing he intended to do with this newfound dream was to enjoy it.
After that, well, it was only right of him to pursue Hashirama’s visions of the future and share his happiness with the others in this beloved village. When he met his brother in the afterlife he wanted to carry with him stories of a life lived to the fullest, a family that loved him every day, and courage enough to be better in the future than he had in the past.