Archive of Our Own ^beta

Vertigo was the least of Tobirama’s problems when he realized he hadn’t arrived anywhere near his Hiraishin marker.

Normally this would set off alarms in his head; because how could he miscalculate a technique he had been using for over a decade at this point?

But it didn’t, because this was technically the first time he used this version of the technique. He forwent a test trial beforehand, since the only way to test it was to use it, which was how he approached most of his new techniques.

(This was why Anija always fretted over him when his experiments blew up.)

The main problem, aside from the slight dizziness, was that he didn’t recognize the area. He needed to take stock of his surroundings first.

How he got here wasn’t the mystery. It was quite simple, actually. An error, obviously, but not unexpected.

This all stemmed from his trip to Uzushio. It was a long trip which he took by himself–because let's face it, no one would be able to keep up with him, so why bother traveling with othes–and along the way he left Hiraishin markers for his trip back. It would be faster to get home that way, he resolved.

His trip was for a somewhat simple matter; Mito was pregnant again, but now she had a Demon Fox sealed inside her, so they needed to be prepared for when she gave birth. They didn’t know what complications or dangers would come with it, since she was literally the first Jinnchuriki. If there was anyone who could prepare them, it was the Uzumaki.

That had been the reason for the trip, which bore fruit with more knowledge of Fuinjutsu that Tobirama absorbed right up. While there, he discussed the formulas he had created with the Hiraishin, which Ashina was happy to review. The Uzukage proposed an alter to the formula to adjust for distance, theorizing with a slight modification to the equation, coupled with more chakra, he should be able to forgo traveling to each marker on his journey back, and skip to the one near the village.

Tobirama was happy to test it. Which was what he did, and this was the result.

Standing in the middle of an unknown forest at an unknown distance to his village. He could be in a completely different country for all he knew.

He started with spreading his sensory chakra as far as he could til he could reach the closest point of civilization; whether that be civilian or shinobi. What he found was…odd.

He immediately clocked Senju territory, though he was too far to register the individuals outside of their distinct signatures. Then he clocked the Uchiha, which again, same issue as the last. What troubled him was their location.

Which was in two different directions.

This was a problem.

Either way, he wouldn’t know exactly where he found himself til he went to investigate, so off he headed towards the middle point he figured was the Naka River.

Because if the Naka River was the middle point, then he shouldn’t be worried about ‘where’ he was, but ‘when’.

And wasn’t that a thought. Possible time travel. He was already creating formulas in his head for Jutsu that could traverse time as he sped towards the source he assumed would be the middle point between the two clans.

He shook that thought away as he traveled. Time travel was a tricky thing, his Hiraishin already operated with a space-time element that took him months to perfect (with many failed attempts, again, because he used them in battle the first time), but there were worse consequences to messing with time than merely getting stuck between two solid objects, (yes, it happened, no he didn’t die, yes there were explosions involved, please Anija will you stop badgering) like the possibility of changing it. There were so many things that could go wrong, and if Tobirama was right about how far back he came, then he needed to tread lightly and make sure he didn’t change anything. No meeting his younger self, no stopping bad things from happening, no talking to anyone from his past. Until he got a better grasp of the accident that made this happen, he needed to keep his hands to himself.

But when he landed in a clearing by the Naka River, he failed to notice the tiny chakra signature until he saw the small child training there.

(This is what he gets for not focusing while he’s formulating more Jutsu to create.)

The child, a tiny Uchiha child, whirled around with his tiny sword pointed straight at him like he was ready to attack. Tobirama wanted to chuckle at the effort and congratulate the boy on his instincts, but he was punched in the face with realization of who this child was the second he saw those black eyes and heated glare.

Uchiha Izuna.

A child Uchiha Izuna. Maybe seven, or eight years old. He was around the age they first met when they clashed on this very same river. Tobirama would never forget that day.

Tobirama would never forget Izuna. For all the years he had been dead, struck down by Tobirama’s own blade. The blade he didn’t realize his hand instinctively grabbed for when he realized who he was looking at.

All his thoughts went to that last battle. The shock on the other man’s face when he realized he had been dealt a killing blow. The look of hatred he shot back at them when he refused Hashirama’s help. The next time he saw Madara, revealing Tobirama’s life-long rival and enemy had died of his wounds. The wounds Tobirama gave him.

Tobirama doesn’t lose sleep over it. He knew it was something that was going to come to a head. It was just as likely that Izuna would have killed him the same; only Tobirama did first. They were at war, and he doesn’t regret what he had to do to end it.

He regrets that it had to come to that. He might not blame himself for what happened when everything went downhill with Madara, knowing that it was culminating since Izuna’s death. He blames the Senju and the Uchiha for leading them to war to begin with. Izuna was just one of the casualties of that war.

Tobirama would have thought, if he came face to face with Izuna, child or otherwise, he would have some kind of ‘emotion’ attached. Anger? Hatred? Worry? None, actually. To him, this was just a child standing before him, ready to defend himself against an unknown enemy.

A child that was visibly terrified.

The boy’s chakra didn’t need to tell Tobirama how he was feeling, his forming tears and shaky legs were obvious enough. The child was too scared to move, and for a second Tobirama didn’t know why he should be, till he remembered he had grabbed for his sword.

And that Tobirama was an adult Senju. A Senju in the Warring States Era. A Senju, by all accounts, who would have slaughtered the child without thought. Because if Izuna was this young, then the Uchiha and Senju were still murdering children.

Izuna’s eyes spun red when the tears began to fall, but he never moved from his spot. He stood straight, angry, and ready to defend himself as useless as that would be. It was a trait Tobirama had admired, one he knew he had exuded himself. One thing they shared, that made them respect each other in the face of being mortal enemies.

But Tobirama wasn’t that Senju. He wasn’t that person. He hadn’t been since before he was even an adult himself. If Hashirama hadn’t forbidden children from entering the battlefield, Tobirama would have fought for it. He wasn’t about to go against that principle.

Not even for Izuna.

He slowly removed his hand from the sword on his hilt, careful not to spook the child. He relaxed his stance and neutralized his expressions, before waving for the child to leave. “Run along, little Uchiha.”

At first the boy didn’t move. His single tomoe Sharingan was spinning wildly in fear, making Tobirama want to instinctively look away; but he knew more about the Doujutsu now than he had back then, and while an Uchiha could do a lot with a single tomoe, locking someone in a genjutsu (especially at that age) was not one of them.

(In fact, he couldn’t remember when Izuna first used his Sharingan on him. He thought they had been older, but apparently Izuna had it a lot longer than he knew.)

Tobirama waited patiently for the boy to muster up the courage to finally move. Izuna took one step back, watching him as intently as he could, then another. To anyone else, they would have lost patience and told the boy to get going, but Tobirama was always sympathetic to children, and a young Izuna was no different.

Tobirama runs through a mental list of things that could possibly change with the brief encounter. Izuna might think of him as a relative to his younger self, but he takes on too much of his mother's Hatake traits to be concerned. Even in Senju gear. He takes a deep breath, the rippling effect is minimal, there shouldn't be too much of a change.

Finally, the boy turned and ran, probably as fast as his little legs and tiny chakra reserves would let him. Tobirama waited till he felt the small chakra signature disappear, then pulled out his Hiraishin tag to figure out what went wrong.

–

The second time he teleported through time, he felt like his body collided with an unstoppable force that split his consciousness in two and reassembled itself again.

It was enough to make him throw up. And while it shouldn’t be surprising that jumping through time would cause the physical body to react in this sort of way, it was concerning that it hadn’t last time.

Something was different, and he didn’t like the implications.

Once he took enough deep breaths to keep himself from heaving what was left in his stomach, he focused some of his Iryo-Ninjutsu on his head to calm the migraine that was forming. Once the nausea subsided, he took stock of his surroundings again.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he found his Hiraishin marker on the tree next to him, then gathered his wits and headed back to the village. He would ponder the side effects of the time travel adjustment when he was in his lab later.

(Tobirama had left a Hiraishin marker outside the village barrier so it wouldn’t disturb the seals when he came back. The barrier would recognize him just the same, but with the chakra output he used with the Hiraishin, it could cause it to be unstable and possibly punch a hole in it that could let enemies find the village. He was a cautionary person when it came to protecting those he loved.)

Not necessarily for himself, given how many injuries he’s sustained from failed Jutsu, but this wasn’t about him.

However, he only had one split second to abruptly stop his run before he was sliced in half from someone coming down on him from above. He instinctively jumped back to distance himself, which was the right decision because the enemy reacted accordingly with another slash that would have gutted him. When he put enough distance between them, he only had a brief moment to see that the one who attacked him was an ANBU.

An ANBU he had never seen before with a black cat mask he didn’t recognize. He knew all of his ANBU, he had created the division himself after all, and appointed Touka as his Lead Captain. They took on unassuming animal masks with distinctive marks, but no one had a straight up black mask. There were a couple of white markings on the forehead, but otherwise it was a solid color.

Whoever this was, they were skilled enough to hide their chakra from him, and that was a feat in itself.

He didn’t have time to run through the list of ANBU in his head, or even say anything at all before Black Cat had flipped up and drove his sword down onto Tobirama’s head. He could only react with his own sword to parry, knocking the ANBU away from him with as much force as he could. He was able to throw them quite a distance–the ANBU looked relatively small in frame–but they used their agility to gracefully land like they had floated down from the air. He was very impressed, but since his life was on the line, he didn’t have time to do anything but defend himself.

Which was all he managed to do when the ANBU attacked again, swinging again and again to keep Tobirama from having time to adjust for an offensive stance to charge with, til he was able to get one of his Hiraishin markers and throw it behind them.

Instead, the ANBU pulled out their own kunai and knocked the marker off course to keep it from landing behind them. Tobirama cursed; this meant they knew his tactics. He teleported anyway to give himself distance, but had to dodge by just a hair as the ANBU was already on him trying to cut his head off. He pulled his sword up to meet the other’s, and knocked it out of their hand.

Tobirama’s eyes widen when Black Cat makes a familiar hand sign and two clones popped up to their aid. He responds with his own clone summons, and the six of them meet head long in battle.

The three ANBU changed tactics and aimed for Tobirama’s swords, effectively disarming him for a second before he switched to taijutsu defense. Tobirama gathered chakra in his stomach and shot a stream of water at the three assailants, effectively dispersing them so he had time to regroup.

He didn’t have time to regroup, as he had to duck from a stream of fire coming from the other.

It was a hint though, this ANBU had a fire affinity, and very few shinobi outside of the Uchiha had fire affinity, and there were no Uchiha in the ANBU. He gave them the responsibility of the Konoha Police, they didn’t need to take on potentially suicidal missions when their strengths could be used to protect Konoha from within. Who gave this person clearance? He was going to have words with Touka after this.

If he survived.

Tobirama aimed another stream of water at Black Cat, but they dodged by jumping up and twisting in the air, throwing kunai at Tobirama’s clones and dispelling them. With the smoke and steam fogging the air, Tobirama could barely keep track of their movement without being able to sense their chakra, and was caught off guard with a powerful kick to his back, sending him flying at a distance someone that small shouldn’t have the strength to throw. Tobirama regained his footing just to dodge another stream of fire.

When he rolls away, he is bombarded by the Black Cat clones who both reserve no self preservation skills as Tobirama stabs them in the face, but realizes the point was to use the smoke to blind him before he gets thrown to the ground. He throws a kunai at their face, but they simply tilt their head to dodge, and suddenly Tobirama is having flashbacks to a very intense battle that ended a seventeen year long rivalry as he is pinned down with a kunai to his throat.

The smoke clears and they’re both breathing heavy. Black Cat has him pinned to the ground with his own weight and straddling his waist, but Tobirama can’t make a move if he doesn’t want his throat slit.

Tobirama wants to ask what the hell is going on, but doesn’t really get a chance before the ANBU chuckles and drops their hand so the kunai is no longer threatening to draw blood. They pull off their mask, and Tobirama’s blood runs cold at the face of Uchiha Izuna smirking down at him.

What Izuna says, though, instead of some kind of threat or demand for surrender is, “That’s 82 to 81! Better pick up your game, Babe, or I’m gonna win.”

Tobirama has to wonder, how the hell did things change so much with a short encounter?