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“They call you the God of Shinobi,” the foreign ninja said. “But I will show you there is no such thing!”
“Not this again.” Hashirama absently signed for his Mokuton. “I’m getting really tired of all these attempts on my life.”
“I’ll fight him for you, if you like.” Madara took a deep breath and hollered. “Hey! Boy! Where are you from?”
“In the name of the Village hidden by Waterfalls, prepare to die!”
“Great!” Madara signed for a Fireball. “Now I know where to send your corpse.”
“Where is that village, anyway?” Hashirama wondered from the sidelines.
“Dunno,” Madara swiftly abandoned jutsu in favour of some more satisfying hand-to-hand combat. “Sounds wet. Rain?”
“Whirlpool is in Fire Country,” Hashirama reminded him.
“We annexed Whirlpool from Water,” Madara’s downcut slammed the ninja into the ground, and he placed his foot firmly on the man’s head, choking his attempts to speak. “That’s why you married that woman in the first place. Are you really that stupid?”
“For the last time, don’t call Mito ‘that woman’–”
Abruptly, a sea of black threads exploded out beneath Madara’s foot, racing up his leg.
“Fuck!” Madara tried to leap away, but the black wires pierced his calves and thighs, slamming him to the ground. “Katon!” They seemed imperious to heat as well as cold steel, and were quickly burying deeper into his muscles, squirming up from the inside. “Motherfucker!”
“Mokuton!” Hashirama’s Wood Style rose up from the ground and wrapped tightly around the fallen ninja, squeezing, tighter, tighter, sucking chakra and air indiscriminately. “Let him go, or die,” Hashirama said coldly.
“Piece of shit,” Madara ripped the now-lifeless wires out. “I had him!” He tried to get on his feet and would have collapsed had Hashirama not caught him, one arm around his back.
Hashirama smiled fondly down at him.“I believe you."
Madara headbutted him.
“OW!”
He half-stumbled over to the fallen ninja, and viciously kicked at his exposed head with his shredded leg. “Fuuuck! God damn it!” He signed for a Great Fireball. “Die, you little shi–”
“Uchiha, wait!”
"What the--"
Of course it had to be that odious Tobirama, who had appeared out of nowhere without even a whisper of a displacement technique, gripping Madara’s wrists to keep him from signing. “Don’t kill him just yet! Brother, let him go.”
Madara ripped his wrists out of that hold, spitting. “Mercy, from you, Senju?”
“Never.” Tobirama’s smile was chilling. “He’s got an interesting bloodline limit, that’s all.”
Hashirama rubbed his chin and sighed deeply. “I really don’t want to know. Hey, Madara. D’you wanna get a drink?”
“Tch. Whatever.” Madara shook his bleeding leg and hid a grimace. “Sake?”
“I know just the place!”
Tobirama squatted down beside the half-crushed shinobi and checked his pulse. Still alive. Good.
“You’re from Waterfall?” he said, conversationally.
“You can torture me all you want,” the fallen ninja rasped wetly. “I won’t say anything.”
“Oh, don’t be mistaken,” the white-haired devil said. “This isn’t an interrogation.” He flashed a scalpel. “This is an experiment.”
--
It took him a month to carve out the secrets of the ninja’s body. It took him another three to get bored of him.
--
“Hey, Saru,” Tobirama said. “Would you do me a favour?”
The boy perked up immediately. “Of course, sensei!”
“Could you get rid of the test subject downstairs?” Tobirama gestured vaguely. “I’m done with it.”
“Of course, sir,” Hiruzen said. He was so very rarely allowed into his sensei’s research laboratory, it was really an honour, even if it was merely to play maid.
He very quickly regretted it.
“O-oy! Danzo!” he whispered-yelled. “Come down here and help me!”
“What?” Danzo poked his head through the door. “We’re not allowed down there!”
“Sensei told me to get rid of it.” Hiruzen gestured at the bloody mess that he stood six feet away from. “But it’s still moving!”
“Shit! Seriously!?”
Danzo and Hiruzen stared at the arm and leg and torso and fingertips that were twitching, despite being entirely separated from one another. Danzo gagged, and Hiruzen slapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t!” he said frantically. “Not here.”
Danzo swallowed. “Right,” he said. “Um. Let’s. Put them all in bags.”
“Good idea,” Hiruzen said. “I’ll get a broom.”
Together, they managed to gather up the pieces and lug them laboriously up the stairs, across the room, out the door, and into the backyard.
“Should we bury them?” Danzo said.
“No,” Hiruzen said. “Sensei hates it when I do that.”
Danzo eyed him enviously. “Sensei asks you to do a lot, doesn’t he?”
“Maybe he’d start asking you more if you had half of Saru’s initiative.”
“Tobirama-sensei!” the two boys stood ramrod straight.
“Sorry, sir,” Danzo said. “I’ll. Um. Be more proactive. May I help you?”
“That’s a good start,” Tobirama said, and placed a hand on each boy’s head. “I’ve actually changed my mind. I want to send this man back home.”
It’s a man? Danzo thought dubiously.
“That’s oddly kind of you,” Hiruzen said. “If I may say so. Sir.”
“It’s not kindness,” Tobirama said mildly, revealing a rather large scroll. “It’s strategy.”
“Oh, I get it! It’s a message, isn’t it!” Danzo pitched his voice down in imitation of his sensei. “Don’t fuck with the Leaf.”
“Don’t fuck with my brother,” Hiruzen said, below his breath.
“Hmph. Something like that.” Tobirama handed them both inking pens. “Now, show me how well you’ve mastered the storage seal.”
They sent the vivisected man back to Waterfall alongside a letter. Senju Hashirama had been thinking of gifting them the Seven Tailed beast, but with this assassination attempt, they would now solely part with it for a steep price. Should they not take it, then Senju Tobirama would personally eviscerate every man, woman and child belonging to Rain, and leave them stitched alive with the very selfsame chakra thread technique that he’d torn from their elite ninja’s body.
The four elders of the Village Hidden behind Waterfalls were thoroughly displeased with that notice, but they had no choice. They emptied their coffers to spare them that threat. For his failure, they imprisoned Kakuzu below ground, and tortured his seemingly undying body, one cut for every ryo they’d cost him.
(He went a little mad for money, after.)
Senju Hashirama was delighted that Waterfall took the offer, unaware of the reasons behind the village’s acquiescence. “We’re one step closer to world peace!” he said excitedly.
Tobirama gave an oily smile. “It is as you say, brother.”
“Oh,” Danzo said quietly. “I see now. Strategy.”