Hand Over Hand Over Hand

It starts like this:

Madara kneels on the zabuton across from him, hands neatly folded in his lap. Hikaku hasn't needed to meet with his clan head so formally for many years, now, but if there was ever an occasion that called for it…

"I'm sure you've already figured out what I've asked you here for." Madara says. He's smiling, but its tired. Wry. "But it's only fair to do this the right way."

He turns to face Izuna who is lounging to Hikaku's side, leaning back on his arms, looking for all the world like he doesn't care where he is. He's being horribly rude, but Hikaku doesn't think for a second that Madara will punish him, or that he's even considered bringing it up.

"Izuna. I'm to be married soon." Madara says, "And I find it prudent to take a beta into my household to keep things in order. I offer that position to you. Do you accept?"

"Fuck no." Replies Izuna tartly. "And fuck you for asking."

He's Madara's family. The right of first refusal is his, but Hikaku can't imagine anyone being surprised that he's used it. Madara shakes his head, looking more amused than upset.

"Is it so wrong for me to want my beloved little brother to stay with me?"

"It is when you're asking him to live with a Senju." Izuna curls his lip, "Besides maybe I'm looking forward to having a little privacy for once. Some of us have to use our personalities to get people into bed."

Technically, Madara's mate will be an Uchiha by the time he's to move in, but Hikaku doesn't voice that out loud. For all that Izuna and the Tobirama have managed to wrangle their relationship into something that didn't involve killing each other over the peace talks, what they have between them now is anything but polite. Madara may not like it, but Izuna moving out probably really is safer for everyone involved.

Hikaku can't help the way his lips twitch at the way Madara blanches at his brother.

"Don't talk to me about what you do in bed." He pleads, face going red. Focusing on that, instead of getting into another fight over how this arrangement has nothing to do with instincts and everything to do with politics.

"Oh isn't nice, is it? Having to think about who your brother is fucking?" Izuna snipes back, "Because that's pretty much what you just asked me to do."

Because one of the duties of a house beta is to ensure the mated pair has everything they need for their heats and ruts. Some families are able to do it without it being awkward, but Izuna and Madara are not a part of one.

"I know I just --" Madara hides his face with his hand, "I had to ask. And I have. So you're dismissed now."

He waves a hand and Izuna rolls to his feet in a smooth motion. He shoots Hikaku a pitying look before sliding out of the room -- to go pack his things.

Madara heaves a great sigh, rubs a gloved hand over his face. It's been a common sight in the past few weeks; between the arrangement itself, the wedding planning, and his own clan's reticence, Madara has been worn thin -- but he's an indomitable man, and now that his old dream of peace is in his grasp he clearly has no intention of letting go.

Hikaku has been trying to help, where he can. Despite his own conflicting feelings on the marriage, he can see even from here just how good peace will be, and if this what it takes to keep it…

Well, it wasn't as though he ever stood a chance to begin with. And Madara seems intent on going through with this no matter anyone's reservations.

"Hikaku-san." And Even though Hikaku has known -- hoped -- this was coming, Madara's gaze settling on him makes his heart start to speed with nerves, "I find myself to soon be in need of a beta to help manage my household, and can think of no better option than you."

Madara inclines his head, "Would you do me the honor of accepting?"

Hikaku lets out a breath that does not shake and bows low, "The honor is mine, Madara-sama."

In truth, there was no other answer he could have given. Functionally, Madara is asking him to do many the duties he has done for years officially, with all the extra prestige and responsibility that entails. There will be some extra things, not least of which is helping taking care of Madara's future mate, but…

Sometimes, betas in the position he's in get the chance to be exceptionally close with the members of their household. Hikaku does not hold much hope for it -- Madara has had years to act on anything he might feel for Hikaku, if he were so inclined -- but he could hardly pass up the opportunity. All that aside from the way it will bring peace of mind to him and his mother, of course.

As he always does when it comes to Madara, Hikaku will take what he can get.

It starts like this:

Peace comes as something of a surprise to everyone.

The summer has stretched long and hot and, unusually for Fire Country, dry.

And It's called Fire Country for a reason.

Patrols are looking for the start of a wildfire as much as they are enemy movement, and when the alarm sounds not for an incursion, but for smoke spotted Hikaku drops what he's doing and heads for the compound gates. He may be no more exited to fight a wildfire than any other shinobi, but as one of the very few Uchiha with a chakra nature that does not actively stoke flames, his placement on the fire response unit is only sensible.

Izuna stays back. He always grumbles at having to play defense, but he's got no room to argue because his abilities with everything not fire and lightning are rather lacking, while Madara leads the squad, gunbai in hand. If they get there quickly, if the fire isn't too big, there's a chance he'll be able to smother it with a well executed fuuton, if not chakra alone. That doesn't seem likely though, not with the way the smoke is billowing thick and dark, or the way the air itself seems to grow darker the closer they get.

Forests like the ones they live in are made to be burnt every couple of years, but this one hasn't been for far too long. This patch must have somehow escaped the fires that would frequently crop up after battle which means there's quite a lot of stockpiled fuel. Hikaku can already feel the heat rising and they're not in range to do anything yet. It may be best to make a firebreak -- topple some trees, raise as much stone as they can. It will hurt them tactically in this area, but having the compound burn to foundations will be worse.

Hikaku opens his mouth to suggest as much when Madara curses and suddenly changes course.

Enemy. He signs back to them. Hold.

Hikaku sees them when he gets an angle: a group of Senju, headed by one Tobirama, on the other side of the river -- or riverbed, as it were, because the Naka has also been affected by the drought and all that's left of it in the heat is a bare trickle over muddy rocks. They tense as Madara lands in front of them -- squad out of eyeshot, though Hikaku knows they’ve more than likely been spotted. Hands go to weapons but they do not yet draw them.

"Senju, I will not have you threatening the border during a time of crisis." Madara growls at them. Leave or I will make you leave is implied.

Tobirama pulls his hand away from his sword and crosses his arms.

"We are not threatening the border." He says, and then, before Madara can get incensed over it, "Hashirama believes this will become a crown fire."

The tension in Madara's spine only grows more taut, but he does not strike.

"And?"

"And if that should happen, it will no doubt spread to our territory as well." Tobirama appears to be taking great pains to have no inflection in his voice, which Hikaku is certain Madara is only finds more patronizing, "If it gets to that point, even we will struggle to contain the fire."

A feat considering how many earth and water users are among the Senju, to say nothing to Tobirama's own suiton mastery.

"So." Says Tobirama, "I am here asking for a truce, on behalf of Hashirama. Until the threat of wildfire has passed, neither clan is to attack the other."

Madara goes still in the way that makes it impossible to tell if he is about to do something impossibly brilliant or violent.

"…You are allowed only near the fires." Madara says, "And only on this side of the river for as long as it takes to subdue them. We will allow you to retreat freely afterwards."

A few of Hikaku's clanmates tense, but thankfully most of it seems to be out of calculation rather than disagreement.

This wildfire, even if it does spread to Senju territory, will hurt the Uchiha much more than it will them if left unchecked -- with the mokuton at play the Senju clan head may well be able to regrow the forest as soon as it's burned. There's likely a scheme behind it, because they're shinobi, and there always is, but not having to rebuild the compound would be worth the risk. And Madara and Hashirama have never engaged in the mutually assured destruction that their fathers did.

It's good that they haven't brought Izuna, Hikaku thinks as the Senju squad crosses the riverbed. He would probably be so suspicious so as not to allow this at all. Madara will at least let them put out the fires before ordering an attack.

Tobirama and the Senju with him move forward and Madara signals them again, to hold and watch. They subdue the flames with a few flashy suiton, and a doton, here and there. Flames that would have taken the Uchiha squad minutes to fight are doused by a single sweeping wave. It does not take long, and though the Senju are clearly nervous to work with so many sharingan watching them, they still do. This patch of forest has been reduced to nothing more but damp ashes and charcoal, but nobody's compound is going to burn today.

The flames are out before it's even been an hour, and when Tobirama signs to the squad with him it is not to attack or spring some trap, but what they all recognize as the Senju sign for retreat.

"We will leave you to turn over the ashes." Tobirama says, "As not to overstay our welcome."

Tobirama faces Madara as his squad gathers behind him. Stands between them and the Uchiha -- covering their retreat as they move to cross the river the exact same way they arrived, exactly as he would if this were a battle. Madara does not signal them to attack, but offers a single nod to Tobirama before he, too, turns to leave.

"Make sure to look for anything they might have left behind." Madara says to them once the Senju have disappeared back into the forest on their side of the river. Traps he means, but though Hikaku spends the rest of the afternoon searching and making sure no embers remain to start the fire again, he finds nothing, and neither does anyone else.

Madara looks thoughtful that evening, into the next day, and even into the next battle.

There's a certain bend in the river where most of the battles between their two clans take place. It's not too large, and tactically not very important, but the Senju claim that the river is the border, while the Uchiha have memory of the river's course shifting over time and claim that it's theirs. Every time a Senju gets spotted on that bit of land, like clockwork, the Uchiha elders start baying for blood, and, knowing what's coming the Senju always meet them ready to fight.

This time, when Madara and Hashirama see each other across the battlefield, he raises a hand, and the other clan head pauses.

"I didn't think you were the kind to break a truce, Hashirama."

The God of Shinobi stills.

"I'm not." He says, "But I have to know what the truce is in order not to break it."

"Did you not send your brother to our lands?" Madara asks, "We agreed, until the threat of wildfire as passed, neither clan is to attack the other."

He had clearly been talking about that particular fire, but Madara isn't wrong. It still hasn't rained, and a fight here will inevitably cause another. On this side of the river, it might hurt the Senju more than the Uchiha, or it might just as well become the crown fire Hashirama had feared and spread back onto the Uchiha as well.

With the way the wind is blowing, Hikaku fears the latter. And privately he thinks that if the Senju really did put out the fire that threatened them earlier in the season in good faith, it's only fair for the Uchiha to not start another one.

A battlefield's worth of sharingan memorize Hashirama's sharp intake of breath, his eyes widening in surprise.

"You're right." Hashirama agrees, "My apologies. This can wait until later."

For the first time in what might be generations, the Senju and the Uchiha retreat from each other without a fight.

There isn't too much grumbling, considering. On the whole, the clan is very aware of the dangers fire can pose.

The real surprise comes the battle after that.

It's that same damnable patch of land, but it's rained since the last time, more than once. Yet Madara still says, "Is there not still a threat of wildfire, Hashirama? A single bolt of lighting could still set the forest ablaze."

Hikaku watches as, Izuna, standing at Madara's shoulder, scoffs. As emotions flicker across Hashirama's face, and as Tobirama, at his own brother's shoulder is the one who speaks, saying, "By that definition, we are always under threat of wildfire."

"So we are." Agrees Madara, "In which case, don't you think it's best we agree which definition we're using?"

They leave that day again without fighting, with something that is not so much a ceasefire as it is an agreement for no one to cross the line in the sand.

Izuna is tense and nervous, convinced that the Senju will break it.

"They may." Madara agrees easily, "And we will be ready for it."

But summer fades into a long autumn, and then into winter, and they do not. Madara, for his part keeps the clan busy. It's easy enough to convince the Uchiha that, temporary though this reprieve may be, it's a perfect time to stockpile resources that constantly run low during the fighting, and to make repairs long neglected. And though Izuna stays paranoid, leading constant patrols to keep an eye on the Senju he does not catch them breaking the truce. The specter of constant fighting and death starts to fade, and though they remember it more than most, the Uchiha begin to stop expecting this peace to fail, and start hoping that it wont.

"It's something like a test" Madara admits to Hikaku over a glass of shochu on one of those autumn evenings -- an indulgence he has not allowed himself since he was a teenager -- "Partly to see if Hashirama can keep control of his own clan and be patient. And partly, to see if I can."

There are a thousand questions swirling in Hikaku's head -- he's long suspected that Madara did not want to continue the fighting the way Tajima had, but why now, and why like this? What changed his mind about trying, when for so long he had been so outspoken about striking down those who would threaten his family? He doesn't ask any of them, though, but instead says, "Well, I hope this sticks."

He's never once voiced how tired the constant fighting has made him before-- that being something close to treason until recently -- and technically he still hasn't, but he thinks Madara might have heard him anyways, the way he grins at Hikaku with crooked teeth.

 If Madara notices the flush on Hikaku's cheeks, he'll likely just blame it on the alcohol.

It's very nearly summer again when Izuna returns home from a mission, looking disgruntled but uninjured. Hikaku is in Madara's office, going over accounts from years gone, trying to see where the money has been pulled from over time so this extra they have now can be put back where it's been lacking.

"Report?" Madara asks with a raised eyebrow. The mission was to retrieve a sculpture as it was being transported, something that might have been easy or have had a whole mess of complications.

"Mission success." Izuna says, and then, "Encountered Senju. Tobirama was guarding."

That has Madara jolting to sit up straight -- he does not have to ask Izuna to elaborate, though it takes the younger brother a moment to gather his thoughts.

"…We didn't fight." Izuna says at length, mouth taut in a way that says he would have preferred they had. "He claimed the statue was already a counterfeit, and it would be easier to get another than fight over it." And this mission was only to retrieve the statue from the caravan, not verify its authenticity. "He let me take it. It wasn't trapped, and the client was happy with it."

Madara and Izuna both sigh, but for very different reasons. Of the few ceasefires their ancestors have managed to cobble together, they were often ended over things like this. If any two people would be the ones to break this one, it would be Tobirama and Izuna. And yet, they hadn't.

"…I still don't think we should trust them, aniki."

"We don't have to." Madara replies, "But consider that if we get them to agree to something formal, we can take them to task for breaking it."

And Madara seems confident that they will agree. Considering how well things have gone so far, Hikaku is inclined to believe him.

Izuna makes a noise of protest, but does not actually do so with words. He tips his head back and closes his eyes. When he does speak, it's to say, "We can't let them hold anything over us."

Madara chuckles, but it’s a sound of relief more than it is anything else.

"Of course not." Madara agrees, "Which means you'd better help me draft the first letter."

It starts like this:

Hashirama is clearly trying to reign his chakra in, but anxiety still has the grass around his feet sprouting up to knee height. He's said his goodbyes to Tobirama -- many and loudly. Had cried all through the ceremony that had been held on Senju lands. Not the crocodile tears Madara has told him the man usually cries, but ones of genuine distress. Hikaku half suspects the only reason he doesn't start off after the procession to the Uchiha compound is his wife's hand on his elbow.

That had been the agreement -- a Senju traditional ceremony in their compound, and an Uchiha ceremony in theirs. If they had been civilian clans, or even under a little less pressure, the procession would have been more like a parade. As it is, Hikaku follows just behind Madara, Izuna at his shoulder, at a pace far too quick to be considered polite or formal.

They move silently -- bride and groom, honor guard, and hidden extra guard alike. All Uchiha, because as of the end of the Senju ceremony, Tobirama has officially been handed over to them.

He's not technically an Uchiha until their ceremony is finished, though, and Madara had been forced to make compromises between who he knew would be trustworthy and who would be actually good a good guard. News of the treaty and future alliance has no doubt spread, and a strike at Tobirama and Madara, foolish as that idea would be, would be a very decisive way for worried parties to stop that potential problem before it began. Despite that, half of Hikaku's attention is on his own clan, and likely will be for the foreseeable future.

Tobirama, for all that he is still in a shiromuku, is keeping up with the pace admirably. From behind, Hikaku can't tell if he is even nervous, though he certainly must be. This has to be the most vulnerability Tobirama has ever shown in front of his erstwhile enemies.

Hikaku can't bring himself to be bitter towards the man. Madara hadn't chosen Hikaku, but he hadn't exactly chosen Tobirama either. Everyone loses, for the net gain of peace -- such is the nature of compromise.

They slow as they reach the river. This year, rain has been abundant, and the Naka flows a little fast, though not enough to be a danger to anyone who can properly mold their chakra to walk on it.

In front of him, Madara leans his head towards Tobirama and says something too low to be overheard. Tobirama shakes his head, and they continue across the river as though it wasn't an obstacle at all.

Hikaku wonders if Madara offered to carry Tobirama. In Uchiha tradition it would be proper for him to be carried, if not to the compound, then at least to the house. If that is going to happen, it will be after the Uchiha ceremony, but Hikaku has his doubts.

Tobirama may never allow such a thing.

It starts like this:

Shimeji Kazuya, distant cousin and representative of the daimyo in these proceedings, is a man who Hikaku suspects was exhausted by politics long before he was forced to deal with a bunch of shinobi.

They'd worked out as much of a treaty as they could manage before getting to this point, as a matter of course. Getting civilians involved in shinobi matters is asking for trouble, which is a belief that is proven correct almost immediately.

After greetings are given and gifts are exchanged, both sides settle on opposite sides of the pavilion. The very first thing that Shimeji says to them is, "While his Lordship is delighted that his vassals are pursing peace with each other, he worries that this attempt will be as unstable as those tried previously, and insists that in order for him to enforce this treaty some action is taken by the clans in order to ensure that agreements are abided by."

Yes, Hikaku had found those attempts while helping Madara look for some precedent for how to write this current treaty, but the last one had been over a hundred and fifty years old. They had been hoping the daimyo would not have found most of those records, because, embarrassingly, the Uchiha were very frequently the ones to break those treaties. They'd covered that up, of course, but within their own records, it's clear.

Perfect memory of the people who killed your loved ones makes it hard. But they're trying.

Given that Hikaku does not technically have any formal relation to the Uchiha main house, he is relegated to standing guard along the back wall, not allowed to open his mouth unless specifically asked to advise, which he does not think is going to happen in front of company. He cannot see Madara or Izuna's faces, nor the expressions of the cousins who sit behind them, but he has the perfect view of every twitch that passes through the Senju delegation. Hashirama gives a solemn nod, but interestingly, it is Tobirama who's brows furrow like he's just realized something.

Hikaku isn't sure if the Senju were aware of those failed past treaties or not, but Madara has gone into this meeting fully aware that it was a likely ask. Seeing as how the Uchiha do not marry nor foster their children out… They haven't spoken the words out loud yet. There is still a shred of hope in Hikaku's heart that it won't come to that. After all, Hashirama is already mated, and Tobirama may very well be incompatible, his orientation being the mystery that it is. Not even Izuna knows -- though he's adamant that he's not a beta.

He hadn't realized the Senju main line was quite that small though -- just the two of them. Which is a joke he might save for later; the men themselves are giants.

An answer isn't demanded yet, though it remains a specter over the proceedings as they continue.

The main things that they haven't been able to work out were the border -- which Hikaku suspects is going to be defaulted back to the river, what both sides owe to each other for the deaths of civilians, and what to do in cases where the clans are pitted against each other on missions, a topic on which a civilian perspective will be useless. That hasn't happened since the incident with Tobirama and Izuna last summer, but Madara has been getting increasingly careful with which missions he accepts.

The formality of the talks only makes them more exhausting. It takes nearly a month before the issue of the border is decided in exactly the way Hikaku had predicted -- a concession to the Senju over the next point: How much a widow should be paid, and how many each side has left behind.

It's not just the main house that's small, Hikaku learns. The Senju who come to the battlefield are all monsters because they have to be, when faced with such overwhelming numbers.

Which is to say that the Uchiha have far more families that have survived their main providers than the Senju do, thanks in large part to the population difference. Which explained why their initial figure had been so low -- nearly low enough to offend and end negotiations right there. They knew and were trying not to go bankrupt. The figure they do have to pay still isn't pretty, but allowed to be paid over a matter of years which should further discourage the breaking of the treaty from the Uchiha side, at least.

When the topic of missions is brought up, Hashirama quickly derails the conversation with his grand idea for a greater alliance -- one where the clans share missions and can assign the best suited individual, while at the same time making sure that they don’t end up in competing situations. No one stops him before he spirals into talking about a village, where all the clans of Fire Country could live under one banner and not have to fight each other any longer.

It's a lovely pipe dream, Hikaku can admit. One stopped by the way Shimeji says, "It is an interesting solution, Senju-dono. One I will bring up to his Lordship. But he is unlikely to agree until he knows even this treaty is a certainty. Have you given it any more thought?"

"Ah -- Well…" Hashirama's smile does not budge an inch, but he has gone stiff as a board, "I have, but I wanted to clarify… I was reasonably certain that the Uchiha don't practice arranged marriages?"

Hikaku feels the brief prickle of Izuna's chakra as his temper swells before he tamps it down. Typically, they don't. If they wanted to, it would be very easy for the Senju to frame the Uchiha's insistence on mating for love and protecting their bloodline as a refusal to adhere to the daimyo's request.

Madara is deceptively calm when he replies, "There are records of such things. However, we do not marry out."

Hashirama's smile fades to something small, and a crease appears between his eyebrows. That seems to have unbalanced him more than anything so far. He's struck speechless in fact, so much so that Tobirama leans forward to take his elbow and get permission to speak.

Hashirama nods, but he looks pained to do it.

Tobirama squares his shoulders and faces the Uchiha delegation. "That being the case, I think it best to inform you that we believe that the only reasonable answer to the daimyo's request is marriage, and that the only omega in the Senju main house is me."

The challenge behind those words is clear: are there any Uchiha even willing to marry the Senju Ghost?

Well, that's one mystery solved, Hikaku thinks, chagrined.

That evening Izuna tries to argue that they shouldn't do it, but if they have to, it should be him. Madara wont hear it. He says he won't force a marriage on Izuna, that this peace is his responsibility, and that the daimyo is likely to look more favorably on the traditional match between an alpha and an omega, besides.

Reading between the lines, Hikaku suspects that Madara isn't certain that Izuna won't try to kill Tobirama and vice versa. Possibly even on accident, considering their long history and ingrained instincts with each other.

Hikaku keeps his thoughts to himself -- both on the subject of the arranged marriage (which he does not like, but Madara has clearly already made up his mind, and has never changed it when Hikaku has attempted to try) and on that of Tobirama.

For as long as genjutsu has existed, shinobi have been in the business of obfuscating their gender, primary and secondary alike. Tobirama did not have to offer himself if he did not want peace to be seen through. But he had.

He wonders if the rest of the clan will see it the way he does.

It starts like this:

"My brother has expressed that he has no interest in a long courting period, so as not to slow down the peace process." Hashirama tells them, looking terribly morose, "But I am insisting on at least a few meetings before things are settled."

He does brighten considerably when Madara reveals that he is offering to marry Tobirama himself, which is… Something. It may be that he's pleased at the prestige Madara is offering, or…

Madara's meetings with Hashirama as a child is not something the clan knows about. It's not something Hikaku is supposed to know about, but Izuna's rants on his brother's sympathy for the enemy are not exactly subtle. Nor was the way the two of them greeted each other what was supposed to be the very first time they faced each other on the battlefield. Plus, while not quite yet Madara's friend at the time, HIkaku remembers how when they were younger the clan heir was suddenly given some incredibly tedious punishments with no reason given as to why.

He's reasonably certain that Madara hasn't kept up any communication with the Senju clan head, which makes Hashirama's reaction more than a little odd, but better the enemy you know, he supposes.

"What do you suppose is an appropriate first gift?" Madara muses as they prepare for the first meeting, "The traditional Uchiha ones probably won't cut it for this."

The  first gift is something to signify 'warmth'. Most Uchiha craftsmen work with metal and ceramic, so it usually ends up being something like a pot or a kettle to go over a hearth. A few historical tales have shinobi inventing new fire jutsu for their lovers, which, while fitting, would likely not go over well.

"…Maybe a blanket?" Hikaku considers, "Or a coat? A nice enough one would work, and suiton natured people tend to run cold…"

Hikaku blinks. "…He is water natured, isn't he?" Tobirama is rather famed for being able to do every type of elemental release, after all. They both turn to look at Izuna who is glaring.

"Oh, now you want to listen to me?" He huffs, "Tobirama is a shinobi before anything else. The only gift he'll appreciate is one that helps him kill us better."

"It's not that I disagree with you." Madara replies, dry as dust, "But that's not exactly helpful outoto. Giving weapons when the point is that we're doing this for peace is not wise."

Izuna rolls his eyes, "I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Yeah he's good with suiton, but it's not like I've ever held him down and tested his affinity for it."

The three of them fall silent for a long moment.

"…A weapon that doesn't look like a weapon? To show that we don’t underestimate him even when he is acting peacefully?" Hikaku offers. Madara looks thoughtful, but given that they're all Uchiha, their thoughts all immediately run to --

"A first gift is a little early for a war fan, I think." Madara says after a moment. A fan is usually the final courtship gift, sometimes even given during the wedding itself. Shinobi, of course, tend to opt for a tessen or a gunbai.

"Oh for fuck's sake." Hisses Izuna, "Just give him a stack of sealing paper so he can blow all our heads off easier."

"…He does know funinjutsu, doesn't he?" Madara muses. Izuna throws his hands up and stalks out of the room.

It's because it's personal that Izuna gets so upset. Hikaku has already heard him admit -- albeit, miserably and through gritted teeth -- that he does want peace, and is even willing to try for it; he just doesn't want it to have anything to do with marriage or Tobirama. Madara may want his brother's support, but he's not willing to push for it which is… Probably wise, in this case. Hikaku will try and pick up the slack.

"He's not wrong." Hikaku points out a moment after Izuna has disappeared, "Seals can be used for violence, but they don't have to be. I'm given to understand that Uchiha ink is considered high quality for things like that as well." Something about the purity of the charcoal that goes into it. All Hikaku knows on that subject is that its that its cheaper to buy ink outclan.

Madara tips his head back and closes his eyes to think.

"If we manage to avoid letting the Aburame know that this is something we need in a rush, we might be able to get away with some chakra neutral paper without having to pay out the nose for it." And even if they do have to, there actually is a little money to spare for something like that, at the moment,  "And… Hn. A pen, maybe? Uchiha steel."

"That could work." Hikaku agrees. It's not exactly warmth, but this isn't exactly normal Uchiha courting, either.

Madara blinks his eyes open to look at Hikaku, sharingian still slowly spinning from whatever memory he had just recalled.

"It should probably be fancy. Do you mind if I put you in charge of commissioning that? Since you actually have an eye for aesthetics."

…Admit that he enjoys painting as a hobby once, and his clan head has never let it go since. Hikaku bows his head to hide his faint smile.

"Of course."

Hikaku makes it a point to be on the guard for the 'courting' meetings as well, few as they are. As does Senju Touka, who is probably the shinobi that Hikaku has personally encountered the most on the battlefield. She coolly ignores him, and he does likewise.

(Never let it be said that Uchiha are immune to genjutsu. The things that woman can do with sound alone are terrifying.)

Seeing Tobirama like this is… disconcerting. The armor and fur have been replaced with a formal kimono -- a tasteful one even, but it doesn't do much to soften the man. Tobirama sits perfectly formally and keeps his expression unreadable. It takes him until introductions are finished before Hikaku picks out what it is that has him so off center. The armor and the larger silhouette offered by the fur were a sort of defense, just as Tobirama's careful control over his expression is now.

Hikaku can catch the occasional hint of Tobirama's scent from where he stands in the hallway -- it's not the usual sweet florals of an omega, but something more like a breeze from the ocean. Hikaku is certain he's never smelled it before. It's likely the first time Tobirama has not blocked it before leaving the Senju compound.

That control is the only defense Tobirama has left, ignoring any hidden weapons of course.

"I have a gift, to prove my commitment to this arrangement." Madara says, as softly as Hikaku has ever heard. Madara slides an enamel box across the tatami -- it is already a lovely piece itself, with art of Owatasumi as a dragon twisting through the ocean waves. Fitting, and an heirloom that they'd not actually had to pay anyone for.

No one does the disservice of complaining when Tobirama looks the box over critically like he's searching for a trap. They're shinobi, he should look, that's just good sense. When he slides open the lid, Tobirama's control slips, just for a moment. His hands go still and his eyes widen just a fraction -- more than enough for any Uchiha to notice, as is the faint exhale as he wrestles his control back.

Tobirama runs his fingers over the bottle of ink and the paper, but they linger on the pen. It's such a smell gesture, and Hikaku ultimately had so little to do in it's creation -- had only drawn up the pattern of waves that was now etched on the barrel -- that it should not make him feel warm with pride, but it does.

"This is a thoughtful gift. More than sufficient. Thank you." Tobirama bows his head, "I have prepared a gift for you as well."

Tobirama offers his own box, this one much smaller and carved out of wood. Madara, too, checks it over, and when he opens it, there is a note and a handful of little brown medicine balls inside. Madara, who is not bothering to conceal his emotions, looks baffled.

"Chakra replenishing pills." Tobirama explains without prompting, "An improved version. And the formula to make more. They're less sickening, and even overdoing it does much less damage to the coils than what is traditionally used."

That… Is big, actually. The Uchiha try not to use replenishing pills if they can help it, because the coils around their eyes can easily be damaged by getting the dose wrong. It's also quite telling. Madara had gotten a gift for Tobirama, because that's who he was marrying, while Tobirama had gotten a gift for a clan. It probably wont buy him any good will, but the reasoning makes sense.

…Did Tobirama make that formula himself?

"Yes this is… Good." Madara says evenly. Hikaku can only catch his shock after having known him so long, "Very good. Thank you."

That evening, after they've retired back to their rooms, Hikaku finds Madara smoking his pipe on the engawa.

"You couldn't see it from your angle, could you?" Madara asks without prompting. "He looked me in the eye the whole time. Made a point of it."

"Huh." Is all Hikaku can think to say to that. Is that trust or distrust? "What do you think that means?"

Madara exhales a breath of smoke.

"I don’t know."

It starts like this:

When Madara finds him after the fact, he looks horribly flustered in a way Hikaku hasn't seen in years and years. There's a the edge of a bite mark peeking out from the collar of his robe -- a mating bite, must be, seeing as how it's already stopped bleeding.

Which means that they've mated. Hikaku decides not to think on that too hard.

"I… Need to talk to the elders now. " Madara says, gesturing uselessly at himself. At the bite mark. "Prove to them that it's done. And I might... Go for a walk as well. Could you…?"

Oh, this is just making Hikaku feel bad. He's not sure he's ever seen Madara this uncertain.

"I'll take care of Tobirama." He promises. Had promised, back when Madara had given him this duty.

Assuming Tobirama allows himself to be taken care of, of course.

"Thank you." Madara's shoulders fall in relief, "Really, Hikaku."

"It's no trouble." Hikaku offers a smile that feels weak, but earns him one in return, "Good luck."

Hikaku feels his own anxiety grow as Madara leaves, as he walks across the house to the room where Tobirama --

Hikaku forces himself to pause, and pats at his face until he can force himself to stop blushing. Tobirama and Madara had done their duty to ensure peace would last, which was the important part. He stops outside the room, knocks on the door frame.

"Are you well Tobirama-sama?" He asks, softly, but certain the man can hear him. "May I enter?"

Hikaku can hear the sound of cloth shifting, but the silence that stretches afterwards is heavy.

"I am" Tobirama's voice eventually responds tonelessly, "You may."

Hikaku slides open the door to a sight that is somehow familiar. Tobirama kneels in center of the floor, perfectly formal and unreadable. The light in the room is dim, the futon is still spread out to the side, and there is no formal kimono. Instead, Tobirama has changed out his wedding attire for a yukata in Uchiha blue. The mating bite on his neck is larger, more visible.

Lonely. Hikaku thinks, startling himself, When he looks like that, he looks lonely.

"There is a private bathhouse attached to the building. I can show you, if it pleases you."

Red eyes study him for a long moment, but don’t meet his own like they supposedly did Madara's.

"…It does." Tobirama replies after a moment. Pushes himself to his feet with an almost imperceptible shakiness. Between that and the smell (sweat and Madara's anxious smoke being most of it)… Yes, they definitely consummated. Tobirama is even sore, which --

Which means a hot bath will be nice. Hikaku forcibly quashes down his thoughts about anything more. Tobirama moves soundlessly behind him as he leads the way, and Hikaku forces himself not to look back. That small self defense is something he can let pass without comment.

It's nerve-wracking, for such a short walk, but that's all it is. No words are exchanged they enter the room, as Hikaku kneels to start heating the water, as as he forces his eyes away from Tobirama and the obvious bruises forming on his hips as he undresses.

Tobirama sinks into the water with a soft exhale, and its undeniable that at least some of the tension leaves him, now that Hikaku can see it gone. He's about to take his own leave when, head leaned back on the edge of the tub to regard him, Tobirama speaks.

"You have questions." He says. Hikaku glances at him. Tobirama's body language would make him think that he doesn’t care at all about the situation he's in. He's a good actor, Hikaku can admit that after all he's seen, but to act as though he's alright with being questioned now?

Perhaps it's a different sort of defense mechanism. One Hikaku won't pretend to understand.

"I do." He agrees. Why do this? Why go this far? Do you get anything out of this? Who is this for, why are you alone? "But I can wait to ask them another time."

Hikaku bows his head.

"Please, feel free to call me if you need anything."

Tobirama does not.

It starts like this:

"One thing before we go." Madara says, at the tail end of another one of the meetings between him and Tobirama, "Given the sort of marriage this is, I thought it fitting to enlist… Additional help. A beta." He gestures at the wall for Hikaku, who steps forwards and bows.

"I'm not certain if you've ever been acquainted, but this is Hikaku."

'Acquainted', what a nice way to put it.

"…Not personally, but I have heard stories." A thread of faint amusement can be heard in Tobirama's voice. Which means he's probably heard every embarrassing thing he's ever done in front of Senju Touka.

"I look forward to taking care of you." Is what Hikaku says instead of vocalizing any of that. When he looks up, he is being regarded with a heavy gaze. Tobirama's undivided attention makes something sit funny in Hikaku's chest.

"Might I ask if you plan on bringing anyone along with you?" Madara asks, either barreling through the tension on purpose or entirely heedless of it. It would be Tobirama's right to do so, though whatever beta Tobirama picked would have to be brave indeed --

"Ah." Tobirama says, "No, I'm not."

It starts like this:

For all that Tobirama is now the mate of their clan head, most of the Uchiha look at him with distrust at the very best, and often in ways that are worse. It quickly becomes clear, as they settle into a new routine, that Madara hasn't the first clue how to interact with his new mate. Has no idea how to bridge the gap between them personally, much less between Tobirama and the rest of the clan.

Tobirama is not a man who shows that he's concerned with any of it, but were Hikaku in his place he knows he'd be an anxious mess. And the more he sees of Tobirama, the more he believes that he is a man more human than he wants to let himself appear.

Hikaku sees that no one else is going to reach out a hand. What else is it but his duty to offer his own?

The sun has set by the time Madara wanders his way back home, the early spring warmth giving way to a biting chill as the sun sets. He does not let himself look tired in sight of the rest of the clan, but the moment he's past the doors, out of sight of the guards he'd had to put on his own home for his clan's peace of mind, Madara's entire being begins to radiate tension.

Tobirama had called for Hikaku once, when he had finished bathing, so that Hikaku could show him where he was going to sleep. Not that he thinks Tobirama will be, but he's in his own rooms, now. It's private enough that Madara might be comfortable enough for --

"Tea?" Hikaku offers.

"Sake?" Madara counters, with a plaintive look that would be far more suited to Izuna's face.

"That bad?" Hikaku asks, even as he pushes himself to his feet to go find a bottle. Madara collapses to the ground across from where Hikaku had been sitting with a thump.

"Omuya spent twenty minutes chewing me out for not bringing Tobirama with me so they could make sure I bit him too. As if I would have forgotten." Madara heaves a sigh that edges into a growl at the end and goes quiet. When Hikaku glances back, he finds Madara staring hard at the hallway that leads to the room where Tobirama had retired to. He shakes his head, catches Hikaku's eye. "How is he?"

There is no worry to his voice, just a demand. Madara is not asking after Tobirama's health.

Hikaku turns back to the cabinet in front of him, fixes his gaze on the bottle he's grabbed as he thinks.

He could answer fine and he wouldn't be wrong. Tobirama had not let slip that he was unhappy, just as he hadn't during the meetings before the marriage. But isn't that even more concerning?

"About as well as could be expected." Is what he finally says, "I showed him to the bathhouse, and then his room. He didn't ask me for anything." He stands, takes a moment to make sure that the dish and cups are clean from dust, and stands, "How are you?"

Madara, after all, had left in a state Hikaku had never seen from him before. He grimaces.

"Fine. I--" Madara scowls, "I don't know if I could explain it to you. Pour me a drink already."

Hikaku suppresses a sigh. Usually, when Madara says something like that, its not that he can't explain it, just that he doesn't want to. And more often than not, its something to do with his biology as an alpha. That subject, more than any other, raises all of Madara's defenses high. Considering what his job entails now, Hikaku really should pressure for a better answer, but he doesn't. With Madara, trying is not only fruitless, it will probably lead to someone getting angry. He carefully forms a jutsu to heat the sake and pours them both a cup instead.

Hikaku watches as Madara drinks and lets his eyes slide closed. With chakra stores like his this wont even be enough to get Madara tipsy, but the sake has a clean taste and the ritual of drinking it is enough to drain the tension from him, bit by bit. The only sound between them is the soft clink of ceramic every time he moves to refill Madara's cup -- Hikaku's tolerance isn't quite so high, so he's savoring his.

"Even though it's him I thought…" Madara speaks softly, without prompting, "I didn't think it would be easy, but with things like that instincts are supposed to help things along. But he…" Madara falls silent for a long moment, gaze falling back on the path the where Tobirama is resting, yet still distant.

"Why do you think he agreed to this, if he trusts us so little?" Madara puts into words the question that has been plaguing Hikaku all evening. If they harmed him, especially so soon, the treaty would be broken. If Tobirama believed they would do that, then why come here at all?

Hikaku hums in consideration. Shinobi are paranoid creatures, so for them the obvious conclusion would be -- "I'm sure Izuna thinks he's infiltrating to clan to betray as all later?"

Madara snorts, "He's mentioned something like that, yes." Madara shakes his head, takes another drink, "But if he's planning to betray us, then he's planning to betray the peace and his own brother as well."

And if that were his plan, why do it in a way that puts his life in the hands of his enemies? That restricts so much of his freedom? Madara, who believes in brotherhood above nearly anything else, may be naive in believing Tobirama would be willing to do this for his... Or he may be correct. Too many questions, but now that Tobirama is here, they might just have the time to unravel them.

"I think…" Hikaku replies after a moment, "It might be best to wait and see."

Dawn arrives, bright and chilly. Hikaku didn't sleep easy -- everything else didn't help, but honestly, he still finds the fact that he's living in what used to be Izuna's room weird -- and he knows no one else did either. Madara's eye-bags never go away, but they're darker than usual, and his hair isn't standing up at odd angles like it does when he sleeps on it.

He probably spent the night watching Tobirama with his chakra sensing to me sure he didn't get up to anything. Tobirama might have been doing the same thing back, if the polite minute he waits for him and Madara to be up and about is any indication. He makes no effort to hide his presence as he steps into the room, eyes sweeping over to take in the rice and tea that has been set out for a simple ochazuke breakfast.

Hikaku had made the tea himself, and checked the leaves, but the rice and pickles were brought over before dawn from the communal kitchen. While it's not likely that anyone in the clan would try to poison Madara in an attempt to get at Tobirama, it's not an idea they can neglect, either. Hundreds of years of attempted and broken peace treaties have taught them this much, at least. They've both silently checked for poison before Tobirama arrived -- he's certainly already more than aware of his precarious position, no need to rub it in.

Tobirama kneels at the chabudai, posture perfect, greets them with a soft "good morning" and a bow of his head, but his expression is not the perfectly blank mask he's tended to wear before now. Rather, there is a faint frown tugging just at the corner of his lips.

Uncertainty. And its fair, because Hikaku and Madara both match it. What now?

Focus on the immediate. The matter of breakfast.

Hikaku has never served a meal to Madara before, but when he reaches out to start making a bowl he meets his clan head's eye and holds it. Madara doesn't care for formal meals at home and as a shinobi tends to insist on serving himself regardless, but right now, relying on the rules of etiquette will make things smoother.

Madara is served first, and will eat first. He trusts the food, and he trusts Hikaku, and Tobirama would be rude not to do likewise.

Hikaku pours the tea, Madara claps his hands together without enough force for it to make a real sound.

"Thank you for the meal." He says. Lifts up his chopsticks and eats.

Tobirama watches for a long moment, and when he doesn't move, Hikaku starts to eat as well. Which is rude, but meant to encourage.  Maybe it works, or maybe Tobirama comes to some other conclusion of his own, because he lifts his bowl close to his face and starts eating a moment later.

No one speaks as they eat, tension slowly coiling.

Madara finishes first, and even though he isn't done, Tobirama sets his bowl down to look at him. He does meet Madara's gaze, if only for a moment, before lowering his head deferentially. A perfect act, if not one that's completely baffling.

"Was everything in your rooms to your liking?" Madara asks, tone carefully light.

"It was comfortable." Tobirama responds, which is not an answer, "May I ask what duties are expected of me?"

Hikaku suppresses a wince. Tobirama must be the type who prefers to rip off the bandage, getting right into the troublesome topics first thing in the morning.

"I think we're going to have to play that by ear." Madara huffs, "What duties would the Lady Senju be expected to fulfil?"

Tobirama narrows his eyes, clearly unimpressed at the transparent dig for information, but he does answer, "Any work done in support of the clan and to ease the pressure on the clan head is acceptable by Senju standards. My mother mainly took charge of training and deploying our kunoichi."

Madara blinks at that, once, twice, "I hope you'll understand why that's not going to happen."

Questions of loyalty aside, Uchiha train their kunoichi much differently from most clans. Their women and omegas are encouraged to be good at genjutsu, not seduction.

"I do." Tobirama says without a hint of hurt -- or anything else for that matter. The silence after his response drags on for a horrible few seconds.

"…If I could?" Hikaku asks, tongue sticking in his mouth. Madara stares as him for a moment before remembering that they are acting formally at the moment, that he's supposed to give Hikaku permission to speak, and nodding.

"Tobirama-sama." Now Hikaku bows his head to him, "What of the duties you did yourself before coming here? Are there any you particularly enjoyed?"

Now that they know that Tobirama was not only the only other member of the Senju main line, but it's only omega as well, it's not at all a stretch to assume he had taken up some of those duties himself, at least before Hashirama had gotten married.

"I did whatever my clan head asked of me." In Tobirama's voice, so faint it might be imagined, is amusement, "Mostly paperwork."

"…Sounds about right." Sighs Madara. His amusement is more obvious, though Hikaku hasn't entirely grasped what's caused it. Some in-joke about Hashirama, he supposes. His mind had gone somewhere else -- like, if Tobirama did so much paperwork, how much of the peace treaty passed through his hands?

But the levity of the moment fades as quickly as the conversation, Tobirama's other words settling in, too.

Whatever my clan head asked of me. Again, Tobirama is putting his fate in Madara's hands. With trust still being an issue, Tobirama will not be given the chance to do paperwork, either.

"Hn. Well… You've only just arrived." Madara says at length, "So for now, your duty is to get along with your new clan mates."

"Very well." Replies Tobirama, bowing his head again.

From his angle Madara isn't able to see the expression that passes over Tobirama's face, but from where he's sitting, Hikaku can.

It looks like discontent.

Madara excuses himself from breakfast not long after. Peace has made the vast majority of missions coming into the clan less dangerous, but also less lucrative, and sorting through which ones are worth the effort tends to take him most of the mornings. Before he goes, he fixes Hikaku with a meaningful look.

Keep an eye on him.

Of course he will.

Hikaku gathers up the dishes, but before he can set them out to be taken away, Tobirama asks, "The food. Does it come from a communal kitchen, or are there other servants that don't stay in the house?"

There's something hard in his voice -- because I could not be trusted near them, it asks.

Well in this case Tobirama's fears, if that's what they are, are unfounded.

"We have a communal kitchen." Hikaku shares, and surely there is no harm in telling Tobirama something he will easily be able to figure out for himself, "Most of the homes near the center of the compound will eat at the meal hall. Those who live further out usually cook for themselves" And the clan head gets his meals delivered, which will be obvious if it wasn't already.

"I see." Tobirama's eyes linger on the bowls in Hikaku's hands, "In that case, in the spirit of getting along, perhaps I could return the dishes myself."

It's… Not a bad excuse to be out an about, though whether actually going out is wise is another topic entirely. But Hikaku has no intention of keeping Tobirama confined to the house, so he says, "Allow me to show you the way."

It's not a question. Tobirama won't be moving around without an escort for a while, if he ever will again. Tobirama knows it too, the way he nods without hesitation.

It's still quite early, but most Uchiha tend to rise with the sun, so the compound is already bustling -- until it isn't. Silence falls like a wave over Hikaku's kinsman and he forces himself not to linger on the eyes that rest on him and the way he's casually trailing behind the source of everyone's unease.

Many of the people up and about at the moment are craftsmen, not able to recognize Tobirama on sight -- but the man's looks are distinctive, even if he's traded out the fur mantle and happuri for another yukata in Uchiha blue. Their reactions are shock, recognition, fear; their children go quiet and hide behind legs, watching the stranger with innocent incomprehension. The few shinobi that are moving about -- those who haven't been following the two of them from the beginning, go tense, and wary, sharingan spinning to life and hands drifting towards weapons.

But, Hikaku realizes with a twisted sort of irony, no one's first reaction on seeing him is to attack. He's always been too dangerous of an enemy for that, and for as long as he can remember the orders for engaging with him have been go get Izuna.

Someone probably will, assuming he's not watching already.

Tobirama catalogs all of those reactions and walks on without hesitation, bowls balanced in one hand. He does not pause when his looks back at Hikaku -- his nose, not his eyes. Just… Baffling -- in an unspoken question.

"The largest building." He answers with a nod towards the building in question, low enough not to be heard by anyone else, but well aware that his lips are being read, "The one with the red noren. Since you're returning dishes, we can go around the back."

Tobirama's response is a slight nod, trajectory changed without a trace of hesitation in his steps. For some reason, the thought that stirs to the front of Hikaku's mind is 'that's got to be tiring'.

Three quarters of the way across the widest road in the compound, nearly where they're trying to go, there's a sudden commotion. A scuffle, a thud, a shout that's suddenly muffled as two people fly out from around a corner, one gripping the other by the shoulders and trying to hold them back.

One is Jun, who is on the guard that's shadowing Tobirama. The other, Hikaku realizes with a pang, is Asahi, red faced, teary eyed, furious.

Hikaku knows him, has stepped in to teach him on a few occasions because he's better then most his age with doton and shurikenjutsu.

Almost three years ago now, his older brother was found dead on a mission, on a mud covered battlefield. Drowned on dry land.

Tobirama had caused such deaths before. It was easy to attribute the death of that squad to the Senju Ghost, to tell Asahi that it had taken the strongest, scariest Senju to take down his family. And Asahi is young, not even old enough to have ever gone out onto the battlefield, but that might only make the sting of what's happened worse. He's never had the chance to take revenge, and if peace holds, he never will.

The young boy wrenches his face out of Jun's grip. It would be easy for the older shinobi to silence him again, but he doesn’t.

"Let! Me! Go!" He crows, the smell in the air going from agitated-bitter to acrid, "Why are you defending a monster?"

Tobirama does stop now, if only because the two are directly in his path. He doesn't look troubled by this development, though at this point Hikaku would be surprised if he did.

He needs to de-escalate, and Hikaku thinks the boy respects him enough to listen, but when he opens his mouth to try, Asahi's wrath filled gaze snaps to him, spinning and red. Enough to make him pause.

He didn't have that before. Hikaku doesn't know if Asahi manifested his sharingan for the first time just now, but he can't have had it for long. The first memories you keep with your sharingan are important. What he says next is important --

"He's killed us!" Asahi howls, voice breaking, "So many of us! and he's walking around free?"

"Asahi --" Hikaku starts, but all reproach does is make the boy does is bare his teeth and get louder.

"Defend yourself! Apologize! Stop just standing there!"

All Tobirama does is tilt his head, but it still sends a wave of tension across the onlookers.

"Would any Uchiha apologize for doing their duty?" Tobirama asks. Someone in the crowd scoffs -- they wouldn't, just like Tobirama wont, but to offer so little sympathy to one so young--

"Asahi." Hikaku breaks in, stern, but gentle, he hopes, "He's here so that no here will have to lose their brother to a Senju ever again."

A complicated expression flickers across Tobirama's face, seen, but unreadable, before it settles back into neutrality. His eyes drift from the scene in front of him back to Hikaku, and though he's seemingly still speaking to Asahi, his are fixed on him when he says, "The desires of an individual need to be considered carefully before placing them over the desires of the clan."

Ah. Hikaku wishes he could draw some kind of conclusion from that -- As it is, it's not a bad sentiment, but one that Asahi will likely not listen to, coming from Tobirama.

Also, a not insignificant portion of the clan share Asahi's opinion.

But for now their words are enough to have the boy falling silent, even as Tobirama steps his way around him to continue on. Confident that there are more than enough eyes on him at the moment, Hikaku lingers behind. He drops a hand on Asahi's head, which keeps the boy there as surely as Jun's arms did, even as the tattooed shinobi lets him go.

"I know it's not easy." Hikaku says softly, meeting those still-spinning eyes, "And no one's asking you to let it go. But please, try to keep in mind that pain you're feeling is what we're trying to stop."

Asahi snaps his face away and down, and Hikaku sighs and takes his hand back, heart twisting. Hopefully something in that stuck, even if the boy has no idea of the politics of the whole situation. He looks up at Jun with a wry smile.

"Keep him out of trouble?" He asks.

Jun's eyes flick down the road, land on Tobirama's back, "I could ask the same of you."

Which is dismissal enough, as is the way Jun leads Asahi away by the shoulder.

It only takes a few long strides to catch up to Tobirama. Neither of them comment on what's just happened. If Asahi is the worst or the last of it, he's sure they would both be pleased.

"There" Is the next thing he says as they come to the back of the building. There are rows of ovens out here, mostly open to the air. The smell of cooking food drifts out into the compound, and people dart about, on some errand or another. A young woman holding a bucket steps out onto the road where the two of them stand -- a kitchen apprentice, civilian, Hikaku isn't sure if he remembers her name -- only to freeze when she notices Tobirama.

A bellow of, "What, are you struck by the beauty of nature? Get going!" and sends her scurrying away, faced ducked down and flushed. The voice's owner appears behind a moment later -- the head of the kitchen Ami-obaa herself  drying her scarred old hands with a washcloth.

She's a retired kunoichi, someone somehow managing to convince her way back when -- for she's more than twice, maybe even three times Hikaku's age -- that the loss of an eye and the birth of her children were a good enough reason to step back from the battlefield and serve the clan in other ways.

(Two of those children, and two of her grandchildren have died, at least half, Hikaku knows, at Senju hands).

Madara trusts her immensely, enough to eat whatever food she shoves under his nose, and Hikaku trusts Madara, which means he trusts Ami as well at least in matters of food.

In matters of not saying anything embarrassing, however, he has no trust in her at all.

"Tobirama-sama." He starts "This is Ami-obaa-san. She's the head of the kitchen."

"A pleasure to meet you." Tobirama says, sounding nothing but genuine, if bland.

" Were you in charge of breakfast this morning?" Hikaku asks, in an effort to have some control over where this conversation might be headed.

"I was." She says with a smirk and a too shallow bow -- but she doesn't bow particularly deeply to Madara, either, usually claiming an aching back, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Tobirama-sama. I see you have something of mine?"

"I do."

He holds out the bowls and she takes them, neither of them so much as pausing because that would be akin to showing fear.

"How dutiful. And polite!" She chortles, "Maybe you'll finally be able to hammer some manners into Madara-sama's head, eh?"

Tobirama's eyebrows go up a fraction. "I'll keep that in mind, if it should please you." Which is about as diplomatic as a response as could be had, in this situation.

Ami barks out another laugh.

"It would!" She says, and then, "I can't help but notice none of my useless clan mates here bothered to ask your favorite food. If I'm cooking for you, I've got to know!"

Tobirama's lips part but no sound comes out. He seems at a genuine loss for words at such a simple question. And -- They don't know. It hadn't been real courting. Hikaku has no idea about even little preferences like that, and he knows Madara doesn't either.

"Unadon." Tobrama blurts in the most blatant break from decorum Hikaku has seen from him so far. Tobirama's lips thin, continues much more sedate, "But I know it's not an easy thing to prepare. There is no need to trouble yourself."

"Oh, I won't be troubling myself." There's  sparkle in her eye that Hikaku isn't sure is playful or malicious, "But if you don't mind, I've got to start getting lunch ready."

"Feel free. But… Would you mind if I observed?" Tobirama holds up a hand, slow enough that it's clearly not an attack, "I've only seen cooking on this scale done for festivals and the like. I'd be interested in seeing the logistics in doing such a thing every day."

Ami stares at him for a beat too long before shrugging and saying, "Well, if that's the sort of thing that interests you, feel free."

So, they do. Ami runs a such tight ship that even with Tobirama watching them work does not slow. And he does seem to be actually interested, red eyes focused here on the ovens, and there, where someone is walking with an armload of steam baskets, and over there, where someone's just arrived with a handcart of eggs. Hikaku has been on kitchen duty before, nothing that's happening is anything special. It shouldn't be special to Tobirama, even with his self-proclaimed lack of knowledge, and Hikaku spends his time trying to figure out what he's looking for.

Tobirama watches silently for nearly half an hour before, leaning back, and quietly asking "The food the main house receives is the same as everyone's else, yes?"

And oh, Hikaku feels like a fool for not realizing immediately. Hadn't they tested their food for poison just this morning? Risk assessment. How easy is it to kill me? Given a chance to explore the compound of an recent enemy, that was the first thing Tobirama had done.

Well, he's certainly practical, but Hikaku knew that already.

"Yes." Hikaku replies. "Unless we asks for something specific. But Madara-sama isn't picky, so he usually doesn't."

That seems to be enough to sate Tobirama, for now. He nods.

"I'm fine to return now, unless you had any other business to attend to."

"Me?" Hikaku knows his shock is poorly hidden. This might not have been his ideal way to spend a morning, but he's known for a while now that there was no sense in him making other plans,  "No, we can go back to the house if you wish."

A nod, a step back. Hikaku calls out, "Thank you for the hospitality, Ami-obaa-san!" because if he lets Tobirama do it he fears things might get strange again.

"You'll help, next time you're here!" She calls back. Looks up from where she's leaning over another oven and winks at Tobirama, who's cheek twitches.

There are no incidents on the way home, but Hikaku leaves unsure if the head of the kitchen intends to cause trouble for Tobirama or Madara.

The house is silent on their return, the guard that's followed them back making themselves almost too obvious from the lack of movement. Tobirama stops on the engawa, turns to look out at the garden, at the koi pond, at the few bit of green that have managed to sprout this early in spring. His thoughts are as inscrutable as always, but when he turns his attention on Hikaku, it comes with a question.

"Is there," He asks, "Anything for me to read?"

Is there anything I am allowed to read?

Of course there is, the Uchiha have a large library of copied material among other things, which he suspects Tobirama knows -- but it's the conspicuous lack of boundary pushing that sets Hikaku uneasy again.

"Of course." He replies, reminding himself that Tobirama hasn't even been here a full day yet, "Is there a particular subject you're interested in?"

"…I will leave the specifics to your judgement." Tobirama responds after a beat, "But something that might help me better understand my new clan mates, if possible."

He's not quite parroting Madara's words from earlier this morning, but they might be what inspired the request. And there's that thought again, why go that far, if you don't mean it?

"I'm sure I can find something." Is what he says, still holding his questions behind his tongue, "Please, give me a moment."

There are a number of options that spring to his mind, the first, unhelpfully, being those old accounts from clan heads past on why their versions of peace did not hold. As enlightening as those were…

Definitely not something he should let Tobirama see.

No, the sensible thing to do would be to find some story or history that every Uchiha is familiar with, one of the ones they use to teach children lessons about the world. Hopefully, Tobirama will read it and see that they are not so different after all. Or else, he will see that they are very different, which may be just as enlightening.  Hikaku has certainly learned some strange things about the Senju clan throughout all of this -- who buries their dead?

Madara is in still in his office when Hikaku slides in, frowning down at a letter on fancy parchment. He looks up so quickly as Hikaku walks in one that could almost mistake him for being startled, but Hikaku's practiced eye can see the stress in the way he holds himself.

"Trouble already?" Madara asks, falsely mild. If he hasn't heard about what happened with Asahi already, Hikaku will be sorely surprised.

"Nothing that hasn't been dealt with already." It's not really his place to speak to the boy what happened, but Hikaku might still try. "And nothing we didn't expect. Though… we might be served unadon in the near future."

He relates to Madara what happened in the kitchens as he searches the shelves, Madara's ashy stressed scent slowly mellows as Hikaku drones on -- the immediate future is not what he's concerned with at the moment -- and he feels suddenly hyper-aware of the trust Madara is putting in him, to trust his judgement like this. He only wishes he was more certain his own judgement was right.

The book he's looking for does not really belong in the office of a shinobi, but for some reason Tajima kept it here, and Madara never saw fit to move it. All of the text in it is handwritten, and there are scattered illustrations done in shaky freehand. It's clearly a someone's first attempt at copying a text with a sharingan, though who's attempt and why it was made is a mystery to him.

"Do you think Tobirama would enjoy The Tales of Amaterasu-Omikami?" He asks as he finally finds the plain-spined book on top of a shelf.

"…I really don't think so, no." Madara shoots him an incredulous look, "He really doesn't seem like the religious type."

But they don't actually know that, and more relevant, it's this or Hikaku making a trip out to the archives to find a festival-play script of some past Uchiha war hero that doesn’t reveal any clan secrets.

Oh, they'll have to consider what to do about that when summer hits.

He'll probably end up going anyways. The book he's about to hand over isn't a long one.

He pauses as he turns to go, hand on the fusuma.

"Do you need help with anything?" He asks. Madara heaves a sigh.

"I'll get your opinions on a few things once I've put more thought into them myself." He waves Hikaku off, "I can handle my own work in the meantime."

Tobirama is investigating the irori when Hikaku returns, though what would possibly be interesting about that, Hikaku has no idea. He accepts the book with a quiet "thank you" and a nod, and sits right there by the hearth to start reading without another word.

That's how Tobirama spends the afternoon. Hikaku finds himself strangely off balance -- he normally keeps himself busy, and while he technically could leave Tobirama to his own devices, it does not feel right to do so. In end end, he decides to make more tea, finally asking a question, if one that's rather inane.

"Is there a type of tea you prefer?"

Tobirama does not blurt out an answer this time, just glances up for a moment, then shakes his head before returning to his reading.

…Sencha it is.

Right around the time he finishes, Madara leaves his office.

"Sending out squads." He grunts as he passes through. He's leaving just before lunch, and Hikaku would never call Madara a coward, but he does shake his head when he notices his clan head passing the teen carrying an armful of bento towards him.

Lunch is steamed buns with bamboo shoot filling. Tobirama does check it for poison -- not obviously, but it's a hard thing to hide. They eat in silence, Tobirama still dutifully reading. Quickly, too, Hikaku will probably have to make that trip to the archives tomorrow, if not sooner.

If he had spent the day with Madara or Izuna like this, Hikaku would have thought of it as a nice, lazy afternoon. But with Tobirama, he just feels wrong-footed. It might be easier if he let himself think of this as a sort of mission, but Hikaku purposefully does not let himself fall into that mindset. This is not a mission, this is -- probably -- the rest of his life.

Hikaku resorts to his own reading as the day wears on -- trade missives from their allies that Madara has let sit at the bottom of the paperwork pile for too long already. It's nothing that should be too dangerous if it gets seen, and Tobirama doesn't even try. Eventually, the omega sets aside his own reading and appears to meditate.

He almost wishes Tobirama would go out into a training field and do something, just so Hikaku has something to focus on besides the endless stream of questions he's trying to be patient about.

Madara returns as the sky is starting to go orange with sunset, more food balanced in one hand. Back in time for dinner, though the scowl and the set of his shoulders is telling. Madara may not be very approachable, but the Uchiha clan has ways to make its opinions known. At his approach, the two of them rouse themselves from their spots and go to wait at the chabudai.

"I'm home." Madara calls as he ducks through the door, more habit than anything. Tobirama's eyes flick towards him, lips parted, like he's unsure if he's meant to reply or not.

"Welcome home." Hikaku calls in his stead.

Madara pads into the room silently, pauses when he enters. He glances at Hikaku but his gaze lingers heavy on Tobirama, who is looking right back.

"Did your day go well?" Madara asks.

A pause. Consideration.

"It did." Tobirama replies.

The truth of that statement is impossible to discern, and Madara does not push for a clearer answer -- nor does he bring up Asahi or put himself at risk of having to apologize for his clansmen's behavior. He simply nods, crosses the room, and evidently already tired of the formality that they'd tried at breakfast, sets the boxes down and begins serving himself. It's soba, but the meat and vegetables are a bit thin, this early in the spring.

The three of them eat without a word passing between them. As happened in the morning, Madara finishes first and sets down his dish, and though Tobirama hasn't yet he follows immediately after. Surprisingly, the omega is the one who speaks first.

"Who would I talk to if I were looking to procure an ichimegasa?"

"Is that something the Senju do?" Madara asks immediately, furrow to his brow. It seems unlikely, the long veil is something in fashion with civilian nobility; shinobi care far less about protecting their so-called virtue. But the way his expression shifts from questioning to realization, it's clear that Madara spoke before thinking too deeply, likely coming to the same conclusion Hikaku does after a few moments of thought.

The Senju don't ask their women and omegas to hide their faces or else they likely would have heard of it before now -- Tobirama is asking because, where he is, right now, a barrier between himself and the eyes on him will be useful. Not even for himself -- he can't imagine Tobirama will at all enjoy the decreased range of vision -- but for the clan. To not have to see Tobirama Senju, The Ghost, Scourge of the Uchiha, when they look at him, but instead a reminder that he is Madara's wife. Normally one should not have to wear such a thing in their own clan compound but… Well. Needs must.

"They do not." Tobirama says, all but confirming it.

Madara thinks for another moment longer, frown deepening, but if he finds an objection to this, Hikaku thinks it will only be because he did not think of it first.

"We must have one stored somewhere." He says at length. And he probably does, if not from a past Lady Uchiha who was more civilian-minded, then leftover from some high-rank assassination where it helped someone get close to their target, "And if we don't they are easy enough to make."

He doesn't even have to look at Hikaku for him to respond, "I'll look into it after dinner."

"Appreciated." Tobirama bows his head. Then, he hesitates.

"Would it also be possible," He asks, "To obtain some incense and a burner?"

…In the same vein, burning a strong smelling incense is something high-born omegas do to hide their own scent. But Tobirama has been completely blocking his until recently, and unlike the sight of him his scent is unlikely to get any adverse reactions.

But it's a reasonable request, and though Madara stares at Tobirama for a long moment before answering, he does eventually say, "I don't see why not."

There's nothing Tobirama can do with an incense burner that he can't do with a jutsu, after all. It is an extension of trust, however tenuous, for Madara to not question it.

"Thank you." Tobirama says, and he bows deeper, this time. It's enough to seem almost genuine.

Hikaku does in fact find an ichimegasa stored in the attic, among other clothes that he reminds himself to get properly tailored to Tobirama -- if Madara is invited to the Daimyo's court, Tobirama will be nearly required to go with him, and it would not do to have him dressed in anything but the Uchiha clan's finest. But, that's for later. For now, he smooths out the fabric of the veil, sees that it's whole and entirely too fancy for something that is meant to conceal someone's identity -- someone had managed to stitch tiny mitsudomoe into the hems --  and brings it down to Tobirama, who checks it over thoroughly before wearing it out the next morning.

The days afterwards go something like this:

They eat a quiet breakfast. Tobirama takes the dishes back to the kitchens, and Hikaku follows. Afterwards, he asks to be guided to some place in the compound -- Hikaku's choice, with the reasoning being that he should see everything, eventually, with the fact that he would never be permitted to do so on his own unspoken. Hikaku finds places to go -- to the public bathhouses, to the temple built at the highest part of the compound, to the fields of vassals as they prepare for planting, on the side of the compound he doubts a living Senju has ever seen.  He wonders if Tobirama has noticed the places Hikaku isn't taking him yet, the buildings shrouded in generations worth of genjutsu that only a sharingan can pierce.

There are no other incidents. In fact, the two of them are not approached again by anyone at all.

Tobirama gives each location his full focus, sometimes spending hours examining every last detail -- he'd paid particular attention to the farmland -- yet never sharing his conclusions. Hikaku can't decide whether or not it's suspicious; it's entirely likely that he's taking the excuse to spend as much time doing something as he can, for once they go back for lunch he spends the rest of the day reading whatever book Hikaku hands him. Madara will arrive in time for dinner, but conversation is strained and stilted, if it is there at all. Afterwards, Tobirama will bathe in private, and either continue reading or disappear into his rooms for the rest of the night.

Hikaku still has other duties to attend to throughout the day, but he finds that the empty routine is quickly growing stale. He can't imagine what it must be like for Tobirama, who all their information suggests was always working.

Nothing about this has helped him get a better picture of the man, either. If he were willing to believe in the surface level, than Tobirama would come across as unfailingly polite, if reserved. He keeps up the facade well. If they didn't have more information on him from before -- if Izuna hadn't been fighting him for years -- Hikaku might eventually begin to believe it. But they do, and because they do Hikaku can see the hairline cracks in the personality Tobirama is using as a defense.

He doesn't know how to begin to see beneath it, is not sure that he should even try, and if he should, then perhaps not so soon. But if Tobirama is meant to stay here, if peace is meant to last, surely he can't keep that up forever?

…Well, maybe he can. And maybe it would be safer if he did. But curiosity itches Hikaku's tongue in every moment of quiet between them, which is most of them. And so, one of those days, just after lunch and before Tobirama begins reading -- he's moved onto a scroll about clan laws, now, which is incredibly dry but also appears to actually interest him -- Hikaku kneels next to him where he sits on the engawa.

"Would you mind," He asks, even though he maybe shouldn't, "If I asked you a few questions, Tobirama-sama?"

Tobirama does not often let Hikaku catch his eyes lingering on him, but he does now, giving Hikaku the same focus as he has every other part of the Uchiha clan. Hikaku is too well trained to let it show, but the look makes nerves flutter in the bottom of his stomach.

Tobirama leans back, regarding Hikaku coolly, but ultimately his response is a steady, "Feel free."

It's not exactly encouraging, nor does it promise an honest answer. Better to test the waters with a less important question.

"Well, first… I have to admit, I'm curious about what Senju Touka might have told you about me."

That prompts Tobirama to raise one eyebrow -- no doubt he sees what Hikaku is trying to do, here, but it's not enough to make him defensive, quite yet.

"…You were a frequent topic of complaint, for her." He responds after a moment. And then, "You broke both of her ankles. Twice."

Had he? A simple, but effective earth technique, and so one he uses frequently, is to soften the ground beneath his enemy's feet when they don’t expect it. He knows that he's caused more than his share of sprains and twists, but not breaks. He blinks.

"She's quite good at walking that off, then. I hadn't even realized." He says, knowing he's failed to completly scrub the sarcasm from his voice.

"She is." Tobirama agrees. There's a twitch at the corner of his mouth, the hint of a smile. Of fondness. He likes Touka, and he… He probably misses her. Tobirama may very well be homesick.

But if that's true, if he is…

Senju Touka is an alpha, as far as he can tell -- not that his assumptions on that front mean much of anything, considering he'd thought the same about Tobirama -- and wouldn't have been an option to join Tobirama in coming here. But there must have been someone…

"I…" He does not mean to hesitate, but Hikaku does not exactly think kindly of her. He may have broken her ankles, but she's given him scars and nightmares of his own, "I hope she is adjusting well to peace."

"She might be doing better than you're imagining." Again, the twitch of a lip, which Tobirama turns and faces the garden to hide, "She's close to Hashirama, after all."

And had Hashirama not welcomed the idea of peace with such open arms, it likely would not have happened.

"You are as well." Hikaku points out, struggling for a way to phrase what he means politely. Tobirama is Hashirama's brother, and yet no one can quite make themselves believe that Tobirama wants the same as him, "I don't believe I've taken the time to thank you, yet."

A glance, a raised eyebrow. For what? The look asks. Hikaku suppresses a sigh.

"It can't have been easy to agree to this marriage, or to try living your life among former enemies. But without it, I don't believe peace would have been possible." He says, "So, thank you."

Tobirama looks at him fully again, an unreadable look on his face. His scent doesn't help clarify things. It's been growing stronger, Hikaku thinks, but he cannot pick more out of it than salt water even this close.

"Ease was never a factor." He says, "I have a duty to uphold this peace now, and I have no intention to falter."

If that's true, it's the most enlightening thing Tobirama has revealed about his motivations so far. But before Hikaku can ask further, Tobirama continues, "I know that there are those in both clans, and beyond, who would see what we have unraveled. Those who are willing to set aside old hurts are few and far between."

Red eyes finally meet Hikaku's own and he has to suppress a shiver at the weight of that gaze. This is a test he's certain, but has it always been? Will it always be? He hasn't done anything to raise Tobirama's suspicions, as far as he knows. But that in itself is probably enough to have Tobirama on edge, in these circumstances. And in this case, there is no reason to give Tobirama anything but the truth.

"But they do still exist." Hikaku counters, "And some may not have hurts as deep as you're assuming."

He takes a steadying breath. There is no harm in offering this part of himself, much as the idea of doing so might make his palms itch.

"My closest friends have always been Madara-sama and his brother." He says, "And all the members of my family who would have gone out to fight the Senju died doing so before you would have ever taken to the battlefield. You have killed people I've known, but not in a way that's ever been personal." He's worried terribly after Izuna, yes, and felt grief over his lost clansmen, but his mother has never been in danger, and with that bit of distance it had been much easier to view the feud between the clans as something that brought more misery than pride. It is with an aching honesty that he admits quietly, "I am of the belief than an opinion formed of an enemy should not be the same as an opinion formed of a man. And if the war never restarts, I will be glad for it."

Tobirama does not react for a long moment, then he leans back, considering.

"I suppose if that's how you feel, then Madara-sama made a wise choice in bringing you into his household."

Wise? Probably not, considering the dubious reasons that made Hikaku agree, not that he'll be sharing that with Tobirama. Instead he calms himself and asks the question that has been plaguing him since before Tobirama even arrived.

"I appreciate the kind words." He says, "But would it not have been wise for you bring someone as well?"

Tobirama looks away again with an expression that makes Hikaku think that, had he not caught himself, Tobirama would have rolled his eyes.

"I am more than capable of taking care of myself, and always have been." He sighs almost imperceptibly, "And not everyone is so adept at occupying themselves as I am. It would have been pointless to take resources from the clan and bring them here."

Somehow, the answer is both vague and layered. It is at once a complaint of the lack of freedom Tobirama has, another resolution of his commitment to duty, admittance that there was no one he trusted enough to bring, or if there was, that he didn't value his own comfort and safety enough to deem it worth doing. Again, assuming any of it is the truth -- though Hikaku wants to believe that it is.

"Well, I hope you don't mind being under my care too much." Hikaku answers after a moment. He knows Tobirama did not have a choice in that either, "After all, that is my duty."

Tobirama hums in response, non-committal, but not hostile, either. But though the conversation stalls there the silence between them does not feel uncomfortable, for once.

Perhaps that’s the reward that comes from making an attempt at understanding.

Izuna is conspicuously absent, until he isn't.

Hikaku has run so short on ideas for places that he knows are safe to show Tobirama that this morning they've ended up at one of the fields their shinobi use to spar and train. It's nothing more than a few upright posts and some packed dirt, everything worn down and scarred from constant use. There's truly not much to see, but Hikaku suspects that somehow Tobirama will find plenty to look at here, regardless.

When they arrive, Izuna is waiting. He's leaning back on one of the posts, sweat beading on his brow like he really had been using it to train. Tobirama pauses at the scrubby bushes that ring the area. He does not tense, but as Izuna pushes himself straight and walks towards them he pulls in a breath and holds it.

Hikaku knows that Izuna has been warned against starting anything, and he knows it wont to stop him, if that's what he wants to do. He's been assuming that Izuna has been avoiding the main house up until now for that very reason, but now he's here, and though he's not otherwise dressed for battle he keeps a hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Izuna may want to, but Hikaku has to trust that Izuna wont start a fight. The time to break peace without consequences already passed ages ago.

"Strange, isn't it?" Says Izuna once he reaches the place where dirt gives way to grass, just close enough that no one has to raise their voice to be heard. He tilts his head to one side like a particularly imperious cat, "I can't even greet you as a Senju anymore."

Tobirama twitches. It may be that Izuna has found a weakness and dug in his nails, or it may just be that Tobirama doesn't like that Izuna is the one pointing it out. Hikaku knows Izuna well enough to read the faux-casual posture as a cover for agitation. There's a very real chanceTobirama knows it, too.

"Is it?" Tobirama responds coolly. "You were at the wedding ceremony if I recall. Both of them, in fact."

"I guess I was." Says Izuna idly, "Not that they were good ones. Still, worked out well for you, didn't it? Two ceremonies was all it took for you to be able wander around our home as you please."

There's a set to his jaw, and he doesn’t so much as glance at Hikaku, but Hikaku gets the idea that he's just upset with him for enabling that.

….He should try to calm things down, but that's hard when it comes to Izuna. Nothing he can think of short of promising to lock Tobirama away for the rest of his life would placate him.

"With the intention of making it my home as well." Tobirama counters icily. "Unless you've forgotten why I'm here."

"Right, peace." Izuna says sarcasm dripping from a sickly sweet smile, "Because you cared so much about that when gaining your reputation for having no mercy, didn't you?"

Tobirama bares his teeth in something between a sneer and a snarl, the tiny jerk of his shoulders moving the veil just enough to reveal his expression. It occurs to Hikaku that Izuna has already gotten Tobirama to be more animated in a few words than he's ever seen him before.

"That was duty. Now this is."

Izuna takes a dangerous step forward, and reflex has Hikaku moving too, getting between them, raising his hands, his own adrenaline spiking.

He's ignored.

"So Hashirama ordered you to play at being a helpless civilian hime and sniff around our compound, then? I didn't think he had it in him."

"My brother's greatest desire has always been peace, and now he has handed that dream to me." Tobirama leans in, fists clenched, but unlike Izuna there's no weapon between his fingers, "I will not break his trust, and if you do then perhaps it will serve as a realization that his dream cannot be achieved."

Izuna narrows his eyes and leans back.

"So you're saying." He says slowly, "That you don’t believe in peace, but that you're here to try and make it work anyways? No, that's too idealistic for you. I don't buy it."

"Don't put words in my mouth." Tobirama releases a hissing breath and forcibly relaxes his stance, though his voice remains tight and the scent of brine peeks through the smell of the sandalwood incense he's taken to burning, "And don't act as though the only reason this peace came about isn't because the Uchiha felt in control of it the entire time. To me, peace is not something to be believed in, it either is, or it isn't. As long as it's here, I'll do my best to keep it that way."

…For all of those words, Tobirama has still managed to avoid saying how he feels about peace, though the fact that he views it as something the Uchiha control is telling, maybe.

"Hn." Is all Izuna responds with, the weight of all his disbelief packed into one syllable.

Then he shakes his head.

"Whatever." he says, "You know I'll be watching. Are you finally done pretending like you're not a shinobi, yet?"

"I'm not pretending to be anything." Tobirama remarks acidly. A pause, a breath, "If this is your way of asking for a spar…"

He seems like he's really considering it, and Hikaku finally finds enough words to plead, "Please don't."

They both finally look at him, and Hikaku spares a brief prayer for patience that he has to explain this at all. He knows that both of them must know, but apparently Tobirama has a temper, and Izuna likely doesn't care.

"If anyone sees the two of you fighting without any warning, they're going to assume the worst."

Izuna's wrinkles his nose.

"So you really did come out here just to look around." He turns his head, tossing his ponytail over one shoulder dramatically, "Well, if you want to let yourself get rusty, don't let me stop you, honorable brother."

He walks away, and once he's disappeared past the first line of buildings, Tobirama surprises him by saying, "That could have gone worse."

"It could have." Hikaku agrees faintly. He'd let himself get to complacent, he thinks, had already forgotten that many still see Tobirama as an enemy rather than a grudging ally.

 As for what Izuna will do in the future… Hopefully nothing too dramatic. As long as Tobirama acts in accordance with what he's said.

"…You are free to use the training fields yourself if you wish." He adds after a moment, "I didn't intend to give you the impression otherwise. Just -- ah. Be mindful."

The tilt of the hat and swish of the veil gives the impression that Tobirama is tilting his head at him.

"Perhaps later." He says.

When he can make a single hand sign without sending the compound into high alert, perhaps he just might.

Madara hasn't gotten into the sake again since the night Tobirama arrived, but ever since his mate has retired for the evening he's been eyeing the tansu where it's stored like he wants to.

Dinner had been quiet after everyone had given thanks for their meal, but Madara kept glancing at Tobirama, dark eyes intent with something. He never said a word, and Tobirama hadn't reacted despite the way the smell of smoke built and built and overwhelmed nearly everything else.

It's likely just Madara getting too into his own head. Hikaku has seen it before, and the subject of his thoughts tonight is obvious. When said subject is out of sight, Hikaku moves to begin clearing the table and asks, "Did Izuna talk to you?"

"Izuna?" Madara blinks up at him, seeming genuinely taken aback, "Not today, no. I assume he would have if he thought something was actually wrong."

"…Ah. I thought he might have put you in a mood, is all." Hikaku admits. Madara shoots him an unimpressed look, as if to say 'I'm not in a mood' even though he clearly is.

"No, not Izuna." He says, "Just a lot of little things."

Fingers drum on the table, and Madara's eyes drift, as they do more and more often now, in the direction of Tobirama's rooms.

"How long do you figure it should take a shinobi to get settled in when living with a former enemy?" He asks

"Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you about that." Hikaku admits. The thought has been in the back of his head for a while now, but when Tobirama had brought up duty again he known the conversation would have to come soon. "I think it's about time you give him something to do."

"Do you now?" Madara teases, glancing at Hikaku from the corner of his eye, "Half a month and you think you're able to get a read on him?"

"No." Hikaku refutes rolling his eyes, "But I have spent most of every day with him since he's arrived here, and I've noticed a few things."

He doesn't say it to chastise Madara for the way he's been all but avoiding his mate, but his words do anyways; the glimmer in Madara's eye is swiftly replaced with a frown.

"He's very dutiful, from what I can see so far." Hikaku persists, "And probably feels useless without a purpose beyond just existing, so having a job do to might help  him settle. And -- well. If he stays idle for too long he'll probably find something to do on his own."

"Idle hands make work for others." Madara unhappily quotes a phrase that Hikaku can remember Tajima using on more than one occasion, "No, that all seems right. But Hikaku, what can I trust him with that the clan will accept? That won't be taken as an insult? That won't show off how we don't trust him, or the Senju, or the peace?"

Hikaku's lips part for a long moment before he presses them together uselessly. He'd only thought the political implications as far as keeping the clan happy, not as a balancing act that needed to assuage the Senju as well. But Madara isn't wrong.

What can they allow Tobirama to do? The few ideas he'd started to form no longer seem workable with that angle to consider.

Madara reaches up to rub at his eyes -- something he only lets himself do when he's really and truly tired. And how had Hikaku missed that happening? He'd been focusing so much on Tobirama when Madara needed his support as well, and now here he was with hardly anything to offer.

Hikaku glances away, lets the guilt squirm in his stomach for only a moment before steeling himself and straightening his shoulders.

"I think Tobirama-san is smart enough to see the same things you do. If he plans to cause problems, it won't be this early, and if he's personally insulted by whatever duties you allow him, he won't raise a fuss about it." And if he does, then they'll know how he feels about peace, after all. "If he agrees to play along, the perception of the Senju can be controlled," and if he does not, then this will be impossible, anyways, "which just leaves the clan. We'll think of something Madara-sama, I promise."

Madara leans back to look at him fully, a smile that Hikaku hopes is fond pulling at the corner of his lips.

"Always get so formal when you're fired up." He says, with a soft huff of a chuckle, "But I see your point. Let's think of something."

In the end, something comes to them.

They head to bed that night with a few tentative ideas, most of which Hikaku will have to follow up on to see what the clan thinks of.

Hikaku shows Tobirama to the plum orchard the next morning -- they're at the tail end of blooming, and every stir of wind sends petals cascading around and to the ground. Tobirama's scrutiny is as intense as ever, and Hikaku watches him, idly wondering about the oft-repeated phrase of Senju having 'tree-blood'. The idea of bringing the mokuton into the Uchiha bloodline had helped sell the idea to more than a few of the elders, but the Senju had never once raised it as a concern.

Hikaku lets himself sigh as a gust sends down a shower of petals. It seems he only ever gains more questions.

That afternoon, they're settling in to eat lunch, when Madara slams open the door, open scroll held right in front of his face.

"I cannot decide if your brother is brilliant, or a fool." He announces, tossing his weight down to join them at the table.

Seeing as how Hikaku has no siblings, he glances at Tobirama, who's only tell for his confusion is the way his eyebrows have jumped high.

"He's frequently both." Tobirama replies after a beat, "What has he done?"

Madara lowers the scroll, sharingan still slowly spinning from where he'd been recording it's contents. Tobirama goes entirely still at the sight, and it only now occurs to Hikaku that he's likely never seen it used for anything but battle, and certainly never so casually. With his eyes still active Madara is certain to have noticed, but he chooses not to comment.

"If you recall there were points in the treaty negotiations where your brother would go off and wax poetic about his dreams of a shinobi village. Well, apparently, he took the fact that no one told him it wasn't going to happen and decided that it damn well was, because that thrice-damned bark-for-brains got it in his head to go and propose the idea to the daimyo." He tosses the scroll down for them to see as emphasis, sounding furious and baffled all at once, "And he thinks it's a great idea!"

"Well, what daimyo wouldn't want unprecedented control over his most powerful shinobi clans?" Tobirama deadpans. And then, with a slight frown, "…It would not take much more than a token protest on your part to stop the idea at this stage."

Madara crosses his arms, sharingan fading to black as he looks away with a scowl.

"…I never said the idea itself was a bad one," Madara huffs, "but the way he's going about it is going to end in disaster. He could have warned me. Now I've got to rush and figure out a way bring this up to the elders before we get called into court or something just as asinine."

With the perceived threat gone, Tobirama's shoulders slowly inch down.

"Allow me to apologize on my brother's behalf." He says a slight tilt of his head, "He frequently gets ahead of himself. If you would allow it, I could write him and remind him that a collaborative project requires communication."

Madara blinks, slowly turning to face his wife. His expression is inscrutable, even to Hikaku.

"You were never forbidden from writing to your family."

Tobirama bows his head. A nod of acknowledgement that does nothing to reveal whether he knew that already or not.

It's not enough for Madara, who chokes off a low growl before it becomes a real sound.

"You are not a prisoner here, and making one of yourself will not help to build the trust we need to make this peace permanent."

Tobirama's expression remains cool as he looks up.

"And yet to misstep so early on would doom it before it could truly begin. There are already those who are worried about the information I've gained just by being in the compound. I saw no need to stress things further by giving an opportunity to be accused of passing that information along." He gives a light shrug, "However if we're to come together in an entirely new village, not having an open line of communication will be impossible, and much of the information I could share would be worthless, besides."

Madara deflates a bit, but he still argues back, "I'm sure Hashirama would like to have heard if you were setting in well, at least."

"I'm sure he would." Tobirama agrees, "And he will, now."

When he does write the letter later that afternoon Tobirama spares exactly one line to say "I am settling in as well as could be hoped for" and most of the rest of his space tearing into Hashirama for moving forward on his plan without proper forethought, for leaving his allies unprepared, for over-promising on an idea that may not even be possible.

"However" He adds at the end "I have left some notes that should be of some use when it comes to the physical practicalities of actually building a village. They are filled under your name in the cabinet my lab. I left Mito with the key to access them and trust her to keep you from getting ahead of yourself again.

Regards,
Uchiha Tobirama."

When Tobirama hands him the letter, Hikaku finds his eyes lingering on that part more than any other -- Madara's do too, when he reads it (They are, after all, taking Tobirama's security concerns seriously). Any lingering doubts he might have had about Tobirama wanting peace to fail are wiped away with a few strokes of ink, because above all else, Tobirama seems like a man who does not like waste his efforts. There would be no reason to plan for something he only intends to sabotage himself -- yet in the same letter,he claims that it might not even be possible. Were those notes a part of his own dream, or something done to indulge his brother's?

Hikaku knows he still doesn't know Tobirama, but he suspects that if he asked the man himself he would say that his own feelings didn't matter. That it was duty, in some way or another.

But Tobirama is only a man, Hikaku thinks, and a man's entire life cannot only be duty.

For all that Tobirama's routine does not change much, it does start to feel markedly more productive.

Hikaku still walks with him in the mornings, though having shown Tobirama everywhere interesting and safe already, the omega picks his own path. It's more meandering; with the opportunity to pick his own distractions Tobirama's attention is drawn to everything from livestock to architecture and, more than anything else, people. On the rare occasion that his presence doesn't disturb those he's observing, he seems content to stand back and watch for hours.

"I wonder." Hikaku muses one morning, not really expecting an answer, but slowly gaining confidence in speaking to the man. "Are you seeing similarities? Or differences?"

Tobirama glances back at him.

"Both." He answers.

They return for lunch. Tobirama reads, and reads voraciously. He no longer accepts whatever Hikaku hands him, but instead requests books on specific subjects: Imperial land laws and tax codes. Maps for elevation and watersheds and clan borders. The sort of things you'd research if you thought you were going to be creating a new village.

(Hikaku can hardly imagine it. Peace is one thing, and he's quite enjoying it, but asking both sides to live close to each other and keep that peace seems near impossible. But if Madara wants it, if Hashirama wants it, if Tobirama works for it, if he works for it, maybe impossible doesn't matter.)

His work ethic is frankly a bit terrifying, though Hikaku supposes that's to be expected. If Madara isn't there for lunch Tobirama will work straight through the meal, reading and scribbling down notes with one hand and feeding himself with the other, spreading books and scrolls across the entire room. And Madara isn't present often, because he's visiting the elders he'll need to convince to support this new path forward, trying to convince the people who will be against it the most to give it a chance. He may very well be spending most of that time with his own brother.

But when Madara is there, Tobirama is surprisingly demure about it all. Madara will ask what he's been doing, and Tobirama will answer "Reading." Madara will ask, "Reading what?" and Tobirama will give the titles and subjects, but not any conclusions he's drawn.

It's not an attempt to hide information. It can't be, Not when Hikaku is the one bringing him the books, or when he takes his notes openly and easy to be read. For some reason Tobirama will not volunteer his observations unless asked, and Madara is so clearly growing frustrated with having to ask.

"It's like he's expecting us not to care." Madara complains one day, then scowls, because that may very well be exactly the problem. "How can I build trust with someone who so completely refuses to give it?"

"With time." Hikaku reminds him gently. It's not even been that long, it would be more surprising if Tobirama did start to warm up to them so soon, but no one has ever accused Madara of being a patient man, "Opportunities will come. You just have to make sure to take advantage of them when they do."

Hikaku tries to take them too, when he sees them.

Peace has created spaces for things Hikaku hasn't had time for in years. He'd gone through his belongings when he'd moved them to the main house, but now he takes the chance the truly dust them off. One evening he re-reads a thin poetry book -- the first thing he'd ever bought with his own money, though he told everyone that it had been a fuma shuriken that he'd later lost on a battlefield. One evening, he sits in the garden and does breathing exercises that he's shown to others but can't remember the last time he's done himself.

One evening, he pulls out an inkstone and brush, quietly sits next to Tobirama as he reads, and paints the view from the engawa. The garden and it's koi pond, the buildings of the compound, the trees and the mountains behind them all; if his efforts turn out well, he might gift it to Izuna as a not-quite apology for taking his space here.

Tobirama is reading -- Hikaku recognizes it's the bound report he'd him brought this morning, an old report on the security of the capital city, of all things -- but his attention seems to be drawn more and more to the lines and washes of ink he's carefully laying out as the sun sinks low in the sky.  Hikaku is beginning to suspect that the key to getting Tobirama to open up may very well lie in appealing to his curiosity, because it doesn't takes long before Tobirama says, "I would have thought such a skill would not be considered useful in a clan with the ability to perfectly recall what they see."

Hikaku glances up at him, a wry pull to his lips, "Actually, I was introduced to this hobby to train my sharingan. But that's not why I still do it."

Tobirama tilts his head and leans closer, ever so slightly. Examining the Hikaku's work, but really, showing his interest. Hikaku considers his explanation for a moment.

"Determining what's important to look at when your eyes can see every detail doesn't come naturally to everybody." He settles on, "Learning to look at things in broad stokes helps. And… Well, I do it because I enjoy it, Tobirama-sama, not because it's useful."

Tobirama purses his lips at that, looking as perplexed as Hikaku has ever seen him.

"…I see." He says after a beat.

Spirits, Hikaku thinks, does this man have a single hobby?

Best not think on that too hard, he decides, because he might not, or if he does it will only be because it has a result he's deemed 'useful.' Hikaku understands the urge, truly, he does -- it's why he's not touched his ink and brush in years -- but to live like that forever that sounds exhausting.

(It had been exhausting. The war had to end before Hikaku could take a moment to just breathe).

He moves his arm slowly, deliberately, and paints the bend of a branch that hangs over the koi pond.

"I'm not trying to capture a perfect likeness of the world when I do this," Hikaku says softly, "But an idealized one. And there's space to think of such things, now that there's peace."

"So there is." Tobirama agrees, just as quiet.

They don't speak again, but though Tobirama's book remains open on his lap, he does not turn another page for the rest of the evening.

Two days later, Madara arrives for dinner with two scrolls under his arm.

"The daimyo." He announces dourly, "Has invited us to join him at his summer court to discuss the future."

Tobirama nods. It's come sooner than they expected, but it's not a surprise.

"And Hashirama --" Madara fumes, "--Has a whole lot to say, and not a bit of it practical."

He all but throws the larger of the two scrolls on the table, and Tobirama picks it up to scan over. When Hikaku gets the chance to read it later, he'll agree with Madara's assessment. Hashirama's dream of a village is apparently not only for the Senju and Uchiha, but for all the shinobi in the land of fire, to live in peace with each other and not have to compete for missions, with no mention of how to convince them, or who will govern them, or where such a village would even be.

Tobirama does not look surprised at the contents in the least.

"I've made a list of some laws and precedents you may want to leverage in order to ensure the daimyo does not take much more control than he has already." He says after a moment, "And since Hashirama has neglected to mention it, I have another list of sites worth surveying to see if they are suitable locations to build. That will be worth bringing up early, since if its not immediately near either compound the daimyo will have to grant us the right to build there."

Madara is openly staring, and Hikaku ducks his face into his mantle to hide a smile at the sight of it. He thinks he might understand -- Tobirama will offer information when he's asked, or when he thinks it is most useful, but not before. It might be a habit born from being a shinobi, or from having an older brother and clan head who appears to be very distractible. Both, maybe.

"Right." Madara gathers himself after a moment, "Well. Let's see it, then."

They all work well into the night, writing the first draft of a formal proposal, Tobirama's studies and quiet interjections laying a surprisingly easy groundwork to build off of. None of them will be going to court for a while yet, but they'll have to come up with a version that the clan, and Hashirama and his clan can agree with before they arrive. A united front will be important if they want to keep any leverage.

A lifetime of instincts has them all waking up with sunrise the next morning, regardless of their fatigue. As usual, Tobirama gives them a few minutes before entering this room himself.

The moment he does, Madara's head snaps up. It's a quick movement, and the way he stares at Tobirama is almost animal. Instinctual, Hikaku's mind supplies, and so he quietly takes a deep breath of his own.

Mostly, the room is full of Madara's overpowering campfire scent, but Tobirama's is stronger than normal, enough so that Hikaku can pick up the tang of salt. But it's nothing too extreme, nothing he couldn't chalk up to a shift in emotions. Alarm at Madara's reaction, perhaps.

"You're in pre-heat." Madara blurts.

Ah. Or that.

Hikaku curses internally. He hadn't asked when Tobirama thought this might happen, but he should have. Being prepared for this is a large part of the reason why he's here.

Tobirama's lips part, then close as he glances down at himself, seeming just as shocked as Madara is at the revelation.

"Apologies." He says, tense. "It's earlier than usual. I did not realize."

But they probably should have expected this. Tobirama is so non-typical for an omega it's often easy to forget that he is one, but he's been living under the same roof as the alpha who he'd mated and consummated with. Personal feelings for each other aside, that would wreak havoc on anyone's biology.

Madara breaths in to say something, pausing for a long moment as his expression going tight around the eyes.

"How do you want to handle it?" He asks, voice carefully controlled, though Hikaku can see the way his hands have balled into fists where they rest on his thighs.

There's a brief flash of surprise across Tobirama's face, one so small it would likely be missed by someone who's not an Uchiha, but it's there. Almost like he hadn't been expected to be asked.

"I… Understand I'm expected to bear your heirs." Tobirama says after what feels like an age, "But if it is an option, I would prefer to wait until the future is more certain." With his head bowed, the next thing he says is so quiet it could almost have been imagined, "Into a village, should it be built."

Until he knows they wont be born right back into another war. Until he can go through the experience closer to people who he can trust, and not just surrounded by those he's given himself over to.

Madara lets out a slow breath (breathes in through his mouth, Hikaku notices, but Tobirama's scent still seems so mild, to him).

"That does seem sensible." He agrees. "In that case, I think it's best if Hikaku takes care of you."

Hikaku looks up, sharing a brief a look of incredulity with Tobirama. When they both turn to Madara, color crawls up his face until all the visible skin is tinted puce. What Madara is asking for isn't unheard of, but for a newly mated couple's first heat…

"I'm not ordering you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable." Madara clarifies gruffly, shoulders coming up like he can hide his face entirely behind his hair. "Either of you. Use your best judgement! But if we're trying to avoid that, it shouldn't be me."

"…Right." Hikaku says, suddenly feeling dizzy. He's not actually ever experienced an unrelated omega's heat firsthand. He's heard plenty of stories, but all they're serving to do in this moment is leave him feeling woefully under-prepared.

But. He thinks with sudden clarity. Tobirama is hardly the kind of omega you hear about in stories. In cases like these it's best to just…

"Well then. Tobirama-sama." He clears his throat and tries to fight off his own rising blush, "How do you want me to help?"

Tobrama's eyes slowly track from Madara back to Hikaku, and he suddenly remembers Tobirama's statement from weeks ago. "I am more than capable of taking care of myself, and always have been." He had probably meant that in this context, too, so maybe...

"Boil some water for tea and bring it to my rooms." Tobirama says after a moment, dashing Hikaku's hopes. Tobirama hesitates where he stands in the doorway, and the silence stretches so long that it must mean that he wants to say something more, but some pride or embarrassment is stopping him.

Hikaku has already given in that he's not going to get out with his pride unscathed, so he forces a smile and asks, "Would it be helpful for me to bring something that smells…" He nods at Madara who is coiled so tightly it looks painful. Like an alpha, he means, like Madara, like your mate.

Tobirama nods stiffly.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt." He says a moment later, like he's only just realized he hasn't spoken yet.

Something about answer that makes Madara tense impossibly further, but he takes another measured breath, nods, and pulls off his hanten jacket in a jerky movement. He blinks down at it for a long moment before leaning down to nuzzle his face into the fabric. Hikaku politely pretends not to notice the way Tobirama watches with rapt attention.

Seeing as how Tobirama is across the room and how Madara appears to be entirely resistant to getting any closer, he hands the garment to Hikaku, who fights to keep himself from making a face as he folds it over an arm.

It would be a wildly inappropriate time to laugh. Still, the urge is there, bubbling hysterically behind pinched lips.

Tobirama clears his throat.

"That should be fine." He says. "You may also wish to bring a book."

He turns and flees back to his rooms before Hikaku can ask for clarification.

Hikaku sighs and turns to look at Madara. Now that Tobirama is gone his expression has pulled into something that looks almost ill.

"Madara-sama?" He asks.

Madara doesn't move, besides flexing his fingers. Madara's scent has turned to choking smoke and ash so thick it almost makes Hikaku cough.

"I--" Madara tries, "He wasn't-- He's my mate." Then, all in a rush, "He's my mate, he's about to be in heat, and there wasn't a hint of interest in him."

That wasn't what the body language Hikaku just saw implied, but Madara is clearly smelling something that Hikaku can't. He wants to reach out to try and offer some comfort, but Madara looks like he's about to vibrate out of his skin and he knows it would probably only lead to him being snapped at for trying.

"He probably still thinks of you as a stranger." Hikaku tries. It's the best explanation he can come up with that isn't a direct insult to either man. That Madara isn't insisting Tobirama do his marital duty when things are still so tense between them will only be a good thing in the long run, he thinks, even if Madara's instincts don't agree with that right now.

"He's my mate." Madara snaps back with a growl. Then he drops his head and shakes it, a long breath hissing through his teeth before rolling his shoulders back and standing. "I'm going to patrol the border."

"Stay safe." Hikaku replies with a tired smile. It's for the best that Madara get away for the moment, and guarding his territory is one of the best ways to get his instincts under control that Hikaku knows. Madara glances down at him, a expression complicated.

"Good luck." He says, before he too disappears out the door.

Now alone, Hikaku groans and lets his head fall against the table.

This is what you signed up for. He reminds himself. You knew this could happen.

The possibility had been there, true, but he'd not thought it would be so soon or unexpected. Tobirama --

He hopes that this does not ruin whatever understanding he's been forming with the man. He gives himself a few more seconds, then pushes himself to his feet to go boil some water for tea. It feels like kettle starts to hiss entirely too quickly, and he's forced to grab a book from the stack Tobirama has been reading through more-or-less at random.

Hikaku scowls at himself. Trained shinobi and here he is getting nervous over the possibility of helping an omega through their heat. Tobirama is the omega in question, so he supposes some slack could be allowed, but still. He's done stranger, much worse things on missions.

It would be easier, he thinks, if this was a mission.

Tea tray balanced on one hand, Madara's hanten and a book under the other -- and he's still got no clue about that, but Tobirama suggested it and he's just --

He's just here to help. That's all.

It's awkward to rap on the door, but Hikaku manages it, and also to push it open when after a moment Tobirama calls, "Come in."

The pale man is kneeling in the center of the room,  tins of dried leaves opened and their contents mixed together in another bowl.

"You can set the tray here." Tobirama gestures in front of him, "And-- hm. You may as well put on the coat."

Hikaku does not allow himself to make a sound at that, but he knows his face must be burning scarlet. He really, really hopes that Tobirama isn't going to ask him to pretend to be Madara. Still, he pulls the over-large garment over his shoulders and shakily falls to his knees to kneel across from Tobirama.

This… is not how he'd imagined he might end up with Madara's clothes on. Not by any stretch.

The herbal smell of whatever mixture Tobirama has put together is strong; it too almost overpowers the sea-salt scent of what must be the omega's pre-heat smell, and it only grows stronger when he opens the teapot and dumps it in to steep.

"I would offer you some, but I can reliably inform you that it tastes abysmal." Tobirama says without inflection. Hikaku blinks.

"Ah. Is it medicinal?"

Tobirama nods. "It helps shorten heats and lessens their symptoms, among other things."

Oh, well that's…

Different clans have different methods for such things, and this must be the Senju way. Some of the weight constricting his chest lessens. However this goes, he can at least take some relief in knowing it won't be as bad as it could have been.

Hikaku forces himself not to fidget as the tea steeps. He wants to ask if Tobirama needs anything else. If he is, in fact, capable of taking care of himself, but he doesn't dare imply that he'd rather be anywhere else. This is his duty, after all, and he strongly suspects that if Tobirama does need help, he wont ask for it.

Tobirama reaches out and pours himself a cup of tea without giving Hikaku the chance to do it for him. He downs in one go like shot of alcohol.

"My heats are quite mild." Tobirama says at last, He blinks, and now that he's looking, Hikaku can see that his movements have gone just a little sluggish. "With this, I'm often able to ignore them entirely, except for how they cause others to behave. Though the fact that its come early may hint that something has changed, I don’t anticipate anything too extreme."

"…Alright" Says Hikaku, forcing himself to swallow around a dry throat, "How do you want me to help?"

"Hm. Just sit on the futon, for now." Tobirama gestures, and Hikaku mechanically moves to follow, moving the pillow to the side and kneeling where it used to be.

The futon has a few extra blankets on it, but not the huge amount of material he'd expect from a nest. Maybe this is all a utilitarian man like Tobirama needs?

Tobirama watches him, head tilted in that curious way of his.

"Stay like that." He says. So Hikaku does -- stays frozen in place to Tobirama pulls himself closer in one smooth movement, eyes scanning over him consideringly, and oh, how that makes Hikaku's heart pick up with nerves, much as he wishes it didn't. He'd thought that maybe Tobirama would be the type to view this as a thing to just get done with and out of the way, but if he wants -- more, Hikaku will try.

Tobirama leans forward, all but draping himself over Hikaku's lap. One arm loops around his waist, and the omega turns his face bury it where the fabric of the hanten has bunched up near one of his thighs. He shifts about. Gets comfortable. Sighs.

…Huh.

"Does Madara truly trust you this much? Or are you one of those betas who has no mating instincts at all?" Tobirama's voice drifts up, muffled by fabric.

"I would like to say both." Hikaku replies, heartbeat slowly settling, "But no, I don't feel the urge to do anything from scent alone."

Some betas do have the ability to read scents, and some even have the ability to scent themselves, but Hikaku is not one of them.

"…Convenient." Tobirama mutters into the fabric, "To not be ruled by ones urges."

"Not always." Hikaku says, "I can't tell what a stranger is feeling from scent alone, and often don't get the full context of conversations."

"You also can't be fooled and manipulated with a sense you don't have." Tobirama turns, peering up at Hikaku from his lap, "And I assume you don't have to spend so much time indulging your bodily urges just to function."

"I… don't." Hikaku agrees. The heat in his cheeks feels like it might become a permanent fixture, at this rate.

"Hm." Is all Tobirama has to say in response to that, and then, "If you wish to pet my hair, feel free. Otherwise, I am going to nap."

"Oh." Says Hikaku blankly. "Alright."

For the moment, at least, there is no grinding or biting or leaking like Hikaku has heard often accompanies heats. Maybe if he doesn't draw attention to it, there wont be.

Tobirama huffs, rolls over to more firmly bury his face in the hanten, forcibly evens out his breathing like a shinobi trying to catch sleep on a mission, and that seems to be the end of it.

Pet his hair? Hikaku thinks a little hysterically, once he feels like he can breathe again. Some omegas can get through their heats with only the presence of someone trusted around, and that must be the kind Tobirama is and he'd --

He'd let Hikaku do it. He could have taken the hanten and sent Hikaku away after he'd brought tea, but he did not. He cannot possibly be trusted, not to this point but -- well. What other option is there for Tobirama, even if all he wants is a warm body near him while he sleeps? Him and Madara, and Madara doesn't seem to even trust himself, at the moment, so really only him.

…It's still a little flattering. And more than a little surreal.

Hikaku stares down at the figure in his lap for entirely too long to be appropriate, but Tobirama seems to have meant it when he said he was going to nap. His clan head's mate, who not so long ago was considered one of his clans worst enemies, is sleeping on his legs.

...He looks surprisingly young, like this. Tobirama always holds himself so severely that he seems like the oldest one the the room, but face slackened in sleep, Hikaku is reminded that he's younger than Madara by a few years.

He's pretty, Hikaku thinks idly. It's the sort of thing he can see Madara preening over. A pretty mate, who's strong and cunning to boot -- if only they actually liked each other.

Time and patience, he thinks with a slight shake of his head. They might not, in the end, but they almost can't now. Not yet.

Tobirama is apparently content to lay like that for hours, which Hikaku supposes, is why he recommended he bring a book. The one he'd grabbed is a ledger of another clan's rice harvests and taxes, but looking for anything interesting in that feels better than sitting with his own thoughts. His legs starts to cramp, eventually, but Hikaku doesn't dare move -- this is well within the realm of discomfort he can handle, and much less than he thought he'd be feeling today.

It must have been almost three hours when Tobirama rolls off of his legs and blinks up blearily at him.

"If you're invested in helping, you could consider telling Madara to stop stalking back and forth outside." He looks and sounds annoyed, voice still slurred with sleep.

Madara was --?

Well, he had been doing it unobtrusively to anyone but one of the best sensors in the world. To have finished a patrol of Uchiha lands in three hours, though… Hikaku hadn't thought him so eager to return.

He takes a moment to stretch out his legs before making for the door. When he slides it open, he's immediately hit by the smell -- not just a campfire but with a strong overlaying spice. He hadn't recognized the change in Tobirama's smell, but Hikaku has known Madara long enough to know what he smells like going into a rut.

He should have predicted this, too. After all, Madara's new mate had gone into heat right in front of him.

Madara freezes from where he's clearly been pacing the corridor, eyes zeroing in first on Hikaku and then on the open door behind him.

This, at least, Hikaku has an idea of how to deal with.

"Hold on a moment." He says. Closes the door.

"Tobirama-sama." He turns to the omega, who has been watching with half lidded eyes, "May I borrow one of the blankets you've been lying on?"

"Mm?" Tobirama hums, "Ah. I see."

When he pulls the blanket out from under himself, Tobirama, too, nuzzles his face into it before holding it out to Hikaku. He's decidedly less ashamed about the whole ordeal, though whether that's because he's currently in heat, or just because he's a shameless man, Hikaku can't say.

"Thank you." He says, and doesn't bother folding the blanket, because the moment he opens the door again and holds it out to Madara, the man snatches it from him, eyes blown wide.

"Do you need anything else, Madara-sama?" He asks.

Madara doesn't even seem capable of mustering words right now. He shakes his head, and retreats down the hallway without turning his back. When he finally ducks into his own room, all Hikaku can do is shake his head and fight back a fond smile.

It's a bit like introducing two cats to each other, he thinks dryly. But it can be done.

Hikaku dreams.

An unfortunate side effect of the sharingan is the way the dreaming mind will bleed into the memories it's captured. Vivid nightmares are common. Oftentimes, distinguishing between dream and reality is more difficult than recognizing a genjutsu, and mistaking a dream for a memory isn't uncommon if care isn't taken to separate the two on wakening.

He's had this one before. Madara towers in front of him, heat radiating off him like he's just come from battle and there's still fire in his chest. His eyes are sharingan red, looking at him with a single-minded intensity, and he wears this self-satisfied smirk, like he knows he's just won something, or he's about to.

He stalks towards Hikaku like the self-assured predator he is. Hikaku takes a step back, but it's a game. He knows it's only a matter of time until he's been caught and cornered, until his back hits the wall or the floor or --

This time, his back hits something solid, and just a little warm. The air is knocked out of him, and he twists to see. His back rests on a solidly built chest, he has to crane his neck to see its owner's face. Tobirama pins him with red eyes, expression unreadable as usual, except for the way he tilts his head, the way he does when he's found something curious. The moment of distraction allows Madara to catch up, to press close until Hikaku is pinned between them, completely breathless.

There are no words between them, their breath, warm on his skin, and the friction of bodies pressed together, and --

Maybe it's for the best that Hikaku wakes up before it goes any further.

It only takes him a few moments to pull the the dream apart from reality. He's alone, in his own futon, in a room that is his, but still mostly unfamiliar. His entire body feels too warm, he groans and turns to hide his face in his bedding, though there's no one there to see his reaction.

Logically, he knows why his dreams took such a turn. His instincts, dulled as they may be compared to an alpha or omega, do still exist. Of course they would react to a day with an omega in heat laying sprawled in his lap, same as they do -- and did -- to catching the spicy scent of Madara's rut.

It's just instincts and hormones, he reasons. Just a dream. Nothing he hasn't suffered through before.

Nothing he won't have to suffer through again.

He's had dreams comparatively much worse than this, but he still managed to look Madara in the eye afterwards. He's practically an expert at it by now, and his feelings on Tobirama are vastly different from the ones he has for Madara. It will be easy to keep him none the wiser.

And now he's woken up earlier than normal. Hikaku rouses himself, washes with unheated water, and then goes to make tea for breakfast. He's not on his own for long before Madara silently joins him, and as usual Tobirama appears a minute after.

Everyone has been staunchly refusing to acknowledge the awkward tension that's been in the house since Tobirama's heat ended.

Hikaku is certain he's not imagining it, despite how everyone is acting more-or-less the same. In fact, it's in the way nothing changes that he sees the problem; Tobirama has just been as vulnerable in front of them as he's ever been, and nothing has come of it. Madara does not reach out, though it's clear to Hikaku that he knows he needs to, Tobirama defaults right back to his tight self-control, and Hikaku is left unsure how to start building something between them. If they're really going to try and build a village together, they're going to need something there. At least he thinks so.

Just a single conversation , he silently pleads over the wordless breakfast, just one thing in common, that's all you need!   But if he's going to lead them to that, he has to know what Tobirama even likes , and despite everything he's still not sure. He doesn't think they'll manage to form any connection over the fact that Tobirama likes unadon, not at the stage they're at right now.

"…You ought to start making a list of things to research when we go to the capitol." Is Madara's awkward way of announcing his departure today, "If we're building a village from scratch there's no reason not to make it modern."

It's not bad advice, and Tobirama nods in silent agreement, but Hikaku suspects he was already planning to, if he doesn't have one already. As far as conversations go it's… Well, it's better than nothing.

"On that note," He adds, as Madara turns to leave, "We ought to let the tailor get started on something for you to wear to court now, so it will be ready by the time we go. If you have time today?"

Tobirama hesitates for a moment, and his lips part like he's about to protest before he pulls himself back into stiff formality and he nods. Hikaku makes sure his expression does not falter either, though he wants to sigh. Even if he could activate his sharingan without alarming Tobirama, he's not sure that it would do anything to help him read his expression; he'd be better off using it to steal a Yamanaka technique to read his mind instead.

"I'll let Tsuki-san know to expect us later today, then."

Tobirama only nods again in response, and though Hikaku waits for a long moment afterwards, he does not voice any complaint. Which should be expected, by now, so Hikaku steels himself and adds, "If you have any concerns, please feel free to let me know."

Tobirama frowns at that, but this one is not fleeting like the last. He’s nearly given up hope for a response when Tobirama says, "…I don't like the idea of having new clothes made for me. But I understand the need for it."

"Ah." Hikaku blinks, "Is there… A particular reason you don't?"

"The clothes that I brought and have already been given are more than sufficient for most things, and normally I would consider having more made a waste of time and resources." Tobirama’s mouth pulls to the side as he slowly turns his piercing gaze from his meal and onto Hikaku. He is reminded, very suddenly, of the dream he woke up from, and swallows it down, stomach clenching uncomfortably. "But I understand that my circumstances are now different than they once were, and with that comes a change in expectations. The things I would have worn to court as the Senju heir would not be acceptable as Lady Uchiha."

No, they wouldn't be. The Senju aren't a noble clan, and so there are restrictions on the sorts of things they can wear to court -- well made as their clothes are, there are some colors, patterns, even fabrics that they simply aren't allowed. Ones that the Uchiha are , and for Tobirama to arrive wearing anything less would likely send a statement that they do not want to.

Reading between the lines, Tobirama has never had the lessons on etiquette that noble clans must adhere to, nor has he likely ever seen the ceremonies that the Senju would have been excluded from. He will likely be able to pick up on such things quickly, but there is no reason to force him to, and no reason to risk any embarrassment.

"I think I understand." Hikaku responds, just as carefully as Tobirama raised the concern in the first place, "And while I don't imagine the clothes are negotiable, I might be able to get you some reading about why they must be worn." If not that, he's certain he can find a guide on the rules and manners of court, because there's one that gets passed around to anyone who needs to go undercover. "And while I haven't been to court as much more than an observer, I can tell you about what I've seen there. If you'd like."

Tobirama's eyebrows tick up, and for a brief moment there is visible surprise on his face before his whole expression softens into a look Hikaku has never seen there before. He doesn't know what it means.

"Yes," Tobirama says, "I would appreciate that." Then he stands. By the time he's upright, the expression is gone. "It sounds like we have a lot of work to do today then, so let's go."

By noon Tobirama is halfway through the guidebook Hikaku brought him, and he has a list of questions nearly as long as the text he's read. Hikaku has tried to answer what he can, but Tobirama seems intent on asking about edge cases he's never seen, nor even considered, and there is a whole section dedicated to omegas, a topic on which Hikaku has no insight at all.

"…There is a seal I can use to grow out my hair faster if need be." Tobirama muses, tapping his pen on the red line on his chin, "But I imagine the styles here are probably out of date, with how fast those sorts of things tend to cycle."

"Shinobi clans have more leeway anyways." Hikaku points out.

"And Madara will be there as well." Tobirama says, though it seems like it's more to himself than to Hikaku. The words make him pause -- Does Tobirama think that Madara has the final say over how he should wear his hair? Or is he acknowledging that it's what the nobles in court will assume?

"…I suppose we'll have to ask him his thoughts." Hikaku replies, tentatively. "But that will come later. We ought to prepare to visit Tsuki-san."

Tobirama sighs softly, but he sets down his pen and sets to straightening his robes and finding his hat.

The rest of the clan are used enough to the sight of Tobirama now that business hardly slows as he walks by, even if people do still give him a wide berth. Hikaku leads him to a building on the very end of the main street, bundle of expensive cloth firmly secured in his arms.

They are greeted by the sight of a tiny waif of a woman pushing a taller, kunoichi with scar covered hands into the street. They're bickering, though it seems lighthearted, until the kunoichi -- ah, that's Ran -- looks up to see Tobirama approaching.

"You didn't tell me he was your client." She says, suddenly bone-stiff. The smaller woman -- Tsuki -- swats at the kunochi's hip, eyes narrowed.

"And why do you think that is? Don't cause any trouble."

" I'm not going to cause trouble." Here, in the safety of the compound, most shinobi don't use scent blockers. An acrid, almost acidic, scent rises in the air as the Ran's hands curl into fists. It's strong enough to make Hikaku want to wrinkle his nose, though it garners no reaction from Tobirama at all.

"No, you're not. And he's not either. And you know how I know?" Tsuki now properly jabs the kunoichi in the side, prompting her to glance at the smaller woman,  betrayed, "Because I'm a tailor . If the fighting is going to restart, it won't be over me ."

"But--"

"No buts. Now get gone for at least a few hours or I'll rip the seams out of your battle coat."

With the way Ran blanches, that's not an idle threat.

"If something happens…"

"Then I'm sure you'll be the first to know." Tsuki says, bland, "Now go ."

And Ran does go, though not without a scathing backwards glance at Tobirama and Hikaku both. Tsuki turns to greet them with a deep bow. Her expression does not warm.

"Apologies, Tobirama-sama. Hikaku-san. My sister worries too much."

"It is of no consequence" Tobirama bows shallowly in return, and Hikaku matches him, "Thank you for seeing us."

She turns and leads them into her workshop, watching them both with a carefully placid expression as they remove their sandals and Tobirama sets his veil to the side. Behind her, the room is controlled chaos. Bolts of fabric are folded on one bench and stretched out over another. Uchiha battle coats in all stages of assembly litter the room. Despite the assurances she made to her sister, Tsuki would not be the worst person to target if someone was looking to weaken the Uchiha; since her mother passed last year, she's now the only one in the compound who currently remembers the process of fireproofing and painting their armored coats in its entirety. 

The gaggle of apprentices that are learning after her are all conspicuously absent, today.

She gestures to the largest table in the center of the room, it's clear of projects, but there are spots in the grain that have been stained with indigo dye and Hikaku can't help but hesitate before laying out the clothes he's brought with him. It's not the most expensive thing he's ever held, but it's probably close, and though it's not a delicate garment he's still careful as he smooths out the layers.

The robes are thick brocade, the outer coat a black kosode, the phoenix pattern on it only subtly raised and lighter than the base fabric. The obi has golden thread woven through it, and one of the inner, red layers is embroidered with magatama so small that they can only be truly appreciated with a sharingan. It’s a beautiful garment fit for the head omega a noble clan; the last Lady Uchiha was known for her good taste. She was also smaller than Tobirama, by two heads, at least .

"Oh, I remember when Obaa-san made this," Tsuki says on a wistful sigh. "The obi is long enough to be used, and I can probably let out some fabric and get an outer robe out of this but the rest…" She clicks her tongue. "Well. Let me get your measurements first, then we'll see. Raise your arms."

Tobirama goes entirely, carefully, still for a moment before complying as Tsuki steps closer, measuring tape in hand. Red eyes flicker from her hands to the pins in her hair, and Hikaku is certain Tobirama stops breathing entirely as the tailor reaches out to wrap the ribbon around his chest. His thought process is obvious -- she could use any one of those as a tool to harm him. Though Tsuki has never been to a battlefield she knows how to defend herself, and she has at least enough chakra to use the grand fireball. As far as Tobirama is concerned, she's as dangerous as any blooded shinobi.

"You know." Tsuki says conversationally, sharingan flickering briefly on and off to record the measurement she's taken, before dropping the ribbon to Tobirama's waist. His hands clench, one of them half forming a sign, before he forces it to relax in the next moment. Hikaku finds his own body readying to move, though he thinks that if Tobirama does something it will not have been on purpose. Tsuki, he's less certain about. "I used to be married. We had two sons."

"…I'm sorry for your loss." Tobirama says, nothing in his voice betraying the tight hold he’s keeping on his body.

"My husband died when the dam they were defending suddenly burst. We always thought it was Senju interference." She carries on without waiting for comment, sharingan flickering on and off again before stepping around him to measure the width of his back. "The year the Senju convinced the Nara to stop trading with us, one of my sons died of sickness." The flicker of her sharingan. Now she measures wrist to wrist. "My other son was hurt so badly by a Senju patrol on his first mission that he hasn't been able to walk without aid since. Are you sorry?"

Tobirama likely did not do all of the things Tsuki has named, but his reputation is enough that he could have. Despite the pressure on the back of his neck -- Tsuki is measuring his height, now, from the top of his shoulders -- Tobirama responds immediately with, "I did what I was ordered, and what I believed necessary to secure the future of my clan at the time. But I am sorry that circumstances required me to do such things."

Tsuki does not react. She takes a step back and around to his front, and looks him over, then turns to a shelf and starts to open drawers and sort through bolts of fabric. Tobirama's arms slowly drift down before he drops them altogether.

"Does the red of the markings on your face stay consistent?"

"…It does."

Ran may have been right to worry for her sister's safety. Despite how obviously wound up Tobirama still is, Tsuki steps fearlessly back into his space and holds up a swatch of red silk next to his cheek.

"You could maybe get away with a paling purple, but, hmm… No, it ought to be indigo." She mumbles to herself. Then, louder, "Let me put pins in for your under robe, and then you can go."

The process is no less nerve-wracking than the measurements, but Tobirama remains just as still as he did before as fabric is draped over him and sewing needles stuck as close to him as they can go without piercing skin. Tsuki's sharingan flickers on and off a few more times, but she doesn't seem to have anything else to add, and neither does Tobirama. Hikaku suspects trying to break the tension would hurt more than it would help, at this point.

She pulls the beginnings of the robe off of his shoulders in under ten minutes and sets it next to the one Hikaku had brought in.

"That's all I need." Tsuki bows. "And thank you, Tobirama-sama."

Hikaku blinks, and Tobirama flinches ever so slightly. She does not sound sarcastic.

Tsuki looks up and offers both of them a brittle smile.

"Please understand that thanks only lasts for as long as no one else dies. If the war starts over again, I'll come after you with these very needles."

Hikaku's eyebrows go up at her audacity, but Tobirama's  nods gravely, as though he hadn't expected anything less than a threat on his life.

"I'll do my best." He says. He bows, deeper than he had when they arrived.

"Oh, and Hikaku-san." She adds, before they can start making their way out, "Could you please remind Madara-sama to send his montsuki over for me to clean and repair? I know he got in a fight the last time he wore it."

"I will." Hikaku bows, the tension in his body giving way to a sort of exhausted amusement. "And… Thank you, Tsuki-san."

…For many things, it turns out.

"If you don't have a gift for me, I'm not even opening the door for you!" Izuna's voice comes from inside, before Hikaku can even raise his hand to knock.

He raps on the door anyway, and hefts the bottle he's brought along when it opens and Izuna appears in the crack, squinting meaningfully. He lights up at the sight -- it's umeshu, from the same brewer that Tajima used to buy from when he went into court; the cheaper stuff he drank himself, not the fancy gifts he presented the daimyo, and by extension, the kind he hid under the floorboards that Izuna and Madara got drunk on the first time they had tasted alcohol.

Madara got sick, Tajima forced him to train through it as punishment, and he's all but forbidden plum wine from the house ever since. Hikaku knows Izuna still has a fondness for the stuff -- he'd been planning to give it as a birthday gift, but he hadn't anticipated a need to apologize for all but supplanting Izuna from his previous life at the time, either. Nor did he think he'd be trying to learn about the man who was his rival and worst enemy for any reason other than having to fight him.

"…Good enough." Izuna sniffs. He steps back from the door, leaving Hikaku to find his own way in.

The house he'd ended up picking out was one of the smaller ones that rests along the edge of the compound's inner wall. They aren't usually permanent homes, favored only by those who don't have or don't want to stay with their immediate family. Hikaku winces, hiding it by turning his face to the ground as he removes his shoes. Izuna could have easily gone to live with his aunt or his cousins. He hadn't.

Izuna is leaning on a chabudai that looks like he somehow smuggled out of storage in the main house, cheek pillowed on one fist. He raises his eyebrows when he notices the scroll case Hikaku is carrying under one arm.

"What kind of horrible paperwork needs that much wine to bribe me into doing it?"

"I'll have you know that it's a housewarming gift." Hikaku replies, though he offers the bottle first, feeling less confident on how it will be received now that he's confirmed just how far removed Izuna is keeping himself from his brother. He can't actually avoid handing it over now that it's been brought up, and he keeps his attention to pouring them glasses as Izuna pulls open the case and unrolls the painting Hikaku made for him.

"…You don't have to keep it." Hikaku says quietly, knowing he'll recognize the view "I don't want to seem like I'm rubbing it in."

He risks a glance at Izuna, whose lips are pinched, but his shoulders droop drop a moment later. He reaches for a glass and taking a long savoring sip before he speaks.

"I might be mad if I thought you had a single mean spirited bone in your body" He gestures around the bare room "I probably will hang it up, just not… Here ."

Not while he's busy trying to prove whatever point he's trying to make to Madara. Hikaku nods and lets himself feel relieved, knowing that it could have gone over much worse had Izuna been in a different mood. Izuna finishes the rest of his cup in a long draught, then idly turns the empty glass in his fingers as he considers Hikaku with a serious look on his face.

"I guess the Senju isn't making too much trouble if you have time to paint again." He says. He sets his cup down and Hikaku pours him more wine.

Hikaku resists the urge to point out that Tobirama is no longer a Senju. It would only lead to a pointless argument, and it would turn the topic away from what he's here to talk about anyways.

"He really hasn't been. He's very…Contained." He lets himself worry at the hem of his sleeve. "Hard to get a read on."

Even when he was supposedly at his most vulnerable. Tobirama had given up relatively little about himself during his heat, other than that he seemed not to enjoy it.

"Oh, no kidding? " Izuna snorts.

"I never doubted you on that." Hikaku raises his hands in mock defense. Anyone who could go toe to toe with a sharingan wielder whose name isn't Hashirama Senju has to be hard to read just to survive , "I just hadn't expected it to extend so far off the battlefield. He's been here nearly two months and I still have no idea about what he thinks about this whole situation."

Izuna hums a vague agreement.

"Well, I have a theory about that. Or, well… Otou-san did." He swirls his wine around, pauses to take another long sip. "He would joke about how we should keep tabs on Tobirama because it seemed like he followed orders so exactly that we could probably figure out what the whole clan's orders were just from watching him.

Thing is, though, I don't think it was that much of a joke. I mean it's not like that would have worked as an actual plan , but everything I've ever seen about him makes me think he's not the kind of guy to question orders."

Hikaku purses his lips as he considers. He'd bet that Tobirama does question orders, because he seems to question just about everything, but maybe he follows them anyways. If the Senju clan head ordered him not to cause trouble… 

"You think he's following orders to play nice?"

Or more likely, he's following orders to try and make peace if all the work he's put into the village his brother is trying for is any indication. Tobirama treating his marriage like a mission does make a certain amount of sense…

Izuna nods decisively, "Either his tree-brained brother ordered him to find some way to kill all of us, or he ordered him to try and be all peaceful and he's going to follow that order until he finally snaps."

There was a time that Hikaku might have been convinced by that argument, but after everything he's observed his gut tells him otherwise. His intuition isn't enough to form a proper argument, but Izuna must read something in his face, because he scowls.

"We killed his brothers. He's not going to forgive that."

Hikaku nods and looks away. He might not, but it's not as though revenge and forgiveness are the only options. "…He did say something the first day he was here about putting the desires of the clan over those of the self."

Izuna rolls his eyes, cheeks a little rosy, "Anyone can say words, Hikaku-kun."

"I guess I should just be glad you're giving him a chance to prove them then."

"Yeah, you should." Izuna sniffs, "Now shut up about Tobirama, I don't want to think about that bastard anymore."

If experience has taught Hikaku anything, Izuna will bring him up at least three more times before the evening is out, so he plays along.

"Sure, sure." He says, "I was meaning to ask you about the last time you went to court, anyways…"

The next morning, after Tobirama returns his dishes, he turns around to head right back to the main house instead of finding a place to stop and watch the clan as he usually does. His reasoning is as inscrutable as always and Hikaku is half-considering that, if Tobirama plans to read and research all day, to see if he can find time to slip away to a training field and find a sparring partner when Tobirama stops dead in his tracks.

There's a yelp, and Hikaku bounds forward to get a better vantage point to find --

Six year old Kagami on his backside, right where the small alley he was probably running through opens up into the street. He didn't touch Tobirama, and chances are that he fell trying to stop himself from doing so.

The young boy stares up at Tobirama with comically wide eyes before scrambling to his feet in a mess of limbs and bowing at the waist, exactly the way his mother must have taught him.

"Please forgive me, o-yurei-sama, this one wasn't paying attention to where he was going!"

Hikaku freezes, though he doesn't allow for any other tell. O-yurei-sama . Honorable ghost . Kagami has somehow gotten one of Tobirama's battlefield monikers confused for a proper form of address, and while a moment ago he hadn't been overly worried about Tobirama's reaction, now he holds his breath. He would be within his rights for wanting to punish the boy, honest as a mistake as it may have been.

The silence holds for a long moment, glass-fragile, and Kagami starts to fidget before Tobirama says, "…You may wish to save that title for your ancestors, little one. You may call me Tobirama."

"Oh." Kagami blinks owlishly. "Then, Sorry Tobirama-sama."

And that should be it, Tobirama should maybe give him a warning about being more careful and dismiss the child, but he does not. Instead, he crouches down to Kagami's level and moves the veil aside so they can see each other.

"I can tell that something about the idea troubles you."

Kagami needs no more provocation to start speaking as fast as his little tongue will allow.

"I just thought -- everyone calls you yurei or oni and I thought oni sounded mean, so I thought it'd be better to call you yurei , but you're Madara-sama's wife, so I had to make sure you sounded important. But I was wrong?"

"Mm." The corner of Tobirama's lip twitches up ever so faintly, and Hikaku silently lets out a breath, now bitingly curious to see how this goes. "Do you know why they call me those names?"

Kagami's brows scrunch together.

"…Because you're scary?"

Hikaku winces internally. The frankness of children is funny until it isn't, but Tobirama still shows no hint of annoyance. Instead of chastising the boy he says, "Something like that."

And then, patiently, he explains. How he earned those titles for his skills as a shinobi. How, until he came here, he used those skills against the people Kagami considers family. How, now that they aren't fighting anymore, it would be unwise to remind others of when they did. He speaks frankly and does not soften the truth of the situation as he patiently answers all of even the most seemingly unrelated of Kagami's questions. He is a very dangerous shinobi. He started training when he was about the age Kagami is now. He came here on his own , and last, most tellingly, though Hikaku already believes in his own conclusion at this point, he does not want to have to fight again.

Kagami seems to take his words very seriously, nodding along until Tobirama asks a question of his own.

"And is there a reason you were in such a hurry this morning?"

Kagami blinks once, then bursts out with, "Okaa-san asked me to get eggs!"

"Well, best not keep her waiting then." Tobirama stands again and watches, bemused, as Kagami bows a few more times and scurries away in another direction entirely. He glances at Hikaku very briefly before letting the veil fall back, but there's a subtle crinkle at the corner of his eyes, like he might be suppressing a smile.

Hikaku dutifully trails after Tobirama as he continues to make his way home, slightly boggled. He's been slowly readjusting his view of Tobirama for even longer than he's been here, but that small interaction was so far from his expectations that he doesn't know what to make of it.

It has also given him the beginnings of an idea.

He does get away for the rest of the morning to do his usual conditioning, and he even finds a sparring partner in the form of Ryuuji, who is technically Hikaku's senior by two days and likes to joke about how ' talented my precious kouhai is' as though Hikaku hasn't outranked him for over half of their lives. The fight goes as it usually does -- Hikaku lands the first blow, and shortly after the first match, but the second one drags for much longer than he usually allows. He does eventually get Ryuuji on the ground, and the omega yields, only to immediately roll to his feet with a laugh and proclaim, "That was a good one. I don't think I've made you sweat that much in a while, Hika-kun."

He's smiling wide as he says it, brushing dust off his clothes as he does, but it only takes a moment for the smile to dim around the edges.

"Well, I guess you've been pretty distracted recently. You wanna go again?"

If Hikaku were the kind of person who burned off stress that way, it would be a kind offer, but it only makes him shake his head "I probably should get back for lunch." He says, and hesitates for a bare moment. He would like to explain that he's not distracted for the reason Ryuuji probably assumes, that he's more concerned over finding a way to integrate Tobirama into the clan more than he is worried that he'll try to destroy it.

"Things haven't been so bad, really." Is the woefully inadequate explanation he comes up with, right as he turns to leave. "But thank you for the spar."

Ryuuji snorts, mirth returning. "Any time."

He waves Hikaku off, muttering to himself about overly formal juniors . Safely faced away from him, Hikaku rolls his eyes.

He takes his time walking back to the house, enjoying the cool spring breeze and new spring growth and the fact that no one's life is at risk if he spends a little time doing so. Lunch is already waiting by the time he returns, though Tobirama hasn't moved from whatever he's working on to pick it up from where it's been placed by the door.

Hikaku doesn't announce himself as he enters and takes off his sandals, and he half expects Tobirama to ignore him entirely, but when he steps into the room, red eyes flick up from a scroll of notes and follow him as  he makes is way across the room and sets two of the bento boxes on the table.

"I think I'll eat on the engawa today, if you'd like to join me." He says softly. Tobirama considers him for a long moment, and then he nods, moving to organize the chaos of books he'd accumulated over the morning. Hikaku slides open the shoji, turning over the wording for what he wants to say next as he settles to face the garden, where azalea bushes have started to bloom in brilliant red and white. Tobirama joins him only a moment later, leaving the door open behind him and sitting stiff and straight backed compared to the hunch he'd been in moment's prior.

They open their lunchboxes without another word passing between them. Recently, there have been mushrooms in every meal.

"I thought you did well with Kagami, today." He says when the quiet starts to stretch into awkwardness.

Tobirama casts him a sideways look.

"Kagami. The child from this morning?"

Oh. No he hadn't introduced himself, had he? Hikaku stifles a chuckle.

"Yes, that's the one. Do you have experience with children?"

"…Some." Tobirama admits after a beat, "I would look after and teach a few of them, on the rare occasion that I had the time."

His gaze grows distant, and his lips remain parted like he might add something more but he shakes it off after a moment. Behind them, cloth rustles, and when Hikaku glances back, he finds Madara securing his own lunch. He sits at the table inside and doesn't greet them, apparently content to eavesdrop on their conversation in peace, or maybe just unsure how to join it, since Tobirama is one of the participants.

Hikaku turns back to Tobirama and hums in contemplation.

"Well it made me realize… I know we've decided it would be a bad idea for you to work with the kunoichi, but I think there's no harm in letting you teach children, especially if you already have experience with it."

Tobirama's answer is a thoughtful frown, and so Hikaku rushes to defend his reasoning, "Anyone worried about you sabotaging their education would only have to look at them to be proven wrong, and they have other teachers and their parents to make doubly certain. I think being seen doing it would only make things easier, in the long run."

Plus, while teaching children isn't demeaning work by any means, many active shinobi consider it as such. Some of the complaints allowing Tobirama to do so might cause will be silenced because of the belief that Tobirama is above such things, and is thus lowering himself to do so. And if Madara, whose opinion is the only one that could really stop this, disagreed, Hikaku is certain he would have spoken up by now.

Tobirama tilts his head in deliberation.

"It's a sensible idea. I'm not opposed to it. We can even lean on the fact that I'm an omega, which should do a lot of work in getting people to believe that I mean children no harm…"

Hikaku lowers the bite of food he'd been about to take. The way he'd phrased it…

"…Do you mean to say you don't have that instinct?" He tries for a light tone, trying not to offend. The nurturing instinct of omegas is a well known phenomenon after all, and while it's easy to forget that Tobirama is one, Hikaku had assumed that whatever surprise skill he has in dealing with children had stemmed, at least in part, from that.

Tobirama rolls his eyes.

"No, the fact that I don't want to hurt children has nothing to do with my gender, in fact." He says, his voice flat and yet it still gives the distinct impression of sarcasm, "Nor does my willingness or ability to teach them." He pauses. Sighs, and shakes his head, "In my experience, people will decide any action they find illogical as the result of some instinct. If, for instance, I was an alpha, we could say that training children to defend themselves helps satisfy some protective urge of mine. And yet the actions would be the same."

…What an incredibly utilitarian way of viewing things. Hikaku can’t even say that truly surprised by it, really.

"But the intentions behind actions are important." He argues, now setting down his chopsticks entirely. Tobirama only shrugs.

"Perhaps. But it's impossible to know someone's intentions from their gender alone, and instincts are not so straightforward as they are often assumed to be."

"But surely they can give a good framework for what can be expected?"

"Maybe for an average person. But I believe it's bad practice for any shinobi to rely on assumptions like that."

Hikaku puzzles at the thought. Logically, he thinks Tobirama is likely correct, at least when it comes to things done on missions. It seems like such a depressing way to view relationships , but then…  Maybe the ones he's forming right now are suspect to begin with.

"So if you say… Met someone for the first time, and you had some instinctual reaction towards them, and they towards you, you would ignore it?"

Tobirama frown returns, this one edging closer to displeasure.

"The way someone reacts to their own instincts can be useful information, but in my opinion they have very little objective value on their own."

"…I suppose that seems wise." Hikaku agrees after a moment. He lets the conversation lapse there, knowing he has no personal experience with the subject to base any argument on. Tobirama turns his focus back to his food and Hikaku risks a another brief glance backwards.

Madara's dark eyes are fixed on Tobirama's back, still black, but nearly burning with the intensity. He doesn't acknowledge Hikaku, but he wasn’t expecting him to anyways-- he's just given him a lot to think about, after all.