retrograde wist

5

"——can't——-serious———considering———!"

"———peace———Senju——-end——Izuna!"

Izuna stormed out in fury.

Madara didn't chase him.

Sensing his ire, his kinsmen made themselves scarce as he marched through the compound and down the path.

"Tch."

Making peace with the Senju?

What was Madara thinking?

The mere thought of it made his blood boil.

His chakra flittered dangerously in his rage, much like an uncontrollable flame and he struggled to suppress it.

Izuna prided himself in his control.

He could not lose control.

He must not lose control.

Nothing good ever came of losing control. If his control slipped, even for a moment, he would spiral.

He needed calm down. He could sense the distress of his kin. His chakra was choking them. He knew that his killing intent was second only in potency to his elder brother. Because of that both he and Madara had to passively suppress their chakra. Their chakra was too thick—-too dense—-if they didn't.

He had to calm down.

He had to regain control.

But Madara's words replayed like an omen in his mind, echoing eerily like bells in his ears. Funeral bells. He couldn't calm down. He couldn't restraint his chakra. It swelled and grew like an untameable forest fire.

Nothing good would ever come from making peace with the Senju.

Why couldn't Madara see that?

Izuna heard a whimper.

He froze.

"Ko-chan?"

His chakra recoiled at the sound, flattening so rapidly that one could barely sense it anymore.

What he saw wracked him with guilt.

She was hunched over in the middle of the road—-her body trembling more than a leaf in the wind. Sweat and tears dripped down her face and stung her crimson eyes.

"Ko-chan," he breathed, "oh, oh. Little one, I'm so sorry."

He reached for her shoulder. She flinched away. Her tomoe spun defensively. An inadvertent reaction to the hostility in his chakra.

She looked at him like he was her enemy.

Terrified eyes.

Ashen face.

She looked at him as though she didn't see him. She stared at him without any recognition of who he was.

Like she saw someone else.

Like she was watching death come for her and could not move in her petrification.

"Ko-ch——!"

A kunai whizzed passed, slicing his cheek.

Missed.

Her arm was outstretched and trembling, sharingan fixated on him like a prey prepared to fight for their life.

Had her arm been steady, Izuna realized, she would've had his head instead.

And then she blinked, red fading into black.

She ran.

::

She thought she was dreaming.

She thought she was in another one of her nightmares.

Itachi was there right behind her and she was going to die.

Again.

She always died in her dreams.

This dream felt real.

It felt like she was going to die.

She was going to die.

But this was a dream. In her dreams she doesn't die mid-question. She dies fighting. Fighting like a proper shinobi. She dies like an ANBU and with dignity.

She didn't remember shaking this much in her dreams.

Regardless of her pathetic state, she was still Uchiha Yumeko—-one of the greatest ANBU Black Operatives to have ever served Konohagakure. She was still fearsome.

She threw a kunai with her skillful but trembling arm. The shaking led the kunai off-course and it grazed Itachi's cheek instead of piercing through his skull.

Her sharingan was active.

And then, almost as though coming out of a terrible genjutsu, she awakened—-lucidity returning and horror dawning upon her.

That wasn't Itachi.

That was Izuna-sama.

She had just thrown a kunai at Uchiha Izuna.

Treason—-no matter the where or when—-was a crime punishable by death.

Death.

It seemed she had run from one death right into the arms of another.

She wasn't ready to die.

She fled from the compound, away from the stronghold. The watch-guards were no match for her ANBU stealth and she slipped passed them under the cloak of night.

She just—-

She just wanted to go home.

::

Madara was prepared for Izuna's ire and sharp tongue.

Izuna had stormed out in a mess.

He dreaded Izuna's return.

It would be a thousand times worse.

Izuna would be absolutely vicious and unrelenting with his words. He'd tear into every flaw in this plan, dissecting it piece by piece with cold-clinical logic just so that he could show him how stupid it was. He'd wedge his argument into the cracks of his heart and remind him of all the loved ones slaughtered by Senju hands.

Madara was ready for it though.

He knew every point Izuna would make. Almost as though he had memorized the script by heart. He did know them by heart. He knew them because they were the same arguments he'd told himself long ago when he had first learned of Hashirama's heritage.

He had prepared for the verbal spar.

He had readied himself for Izuna to return in anger.

He hadn't prepared for Izuna to return in tears.

"She's gone!" Izuna exclaimed, voice bordering hysterical. "She's gone and it's my fault!"

"What happened?" He asked calmly. Izuna was the calm one usually. The one who kept him calm. This frenzied version of his brother was rare.

"Ko-chan is gone!"