Soul-bound

8. Blade against blade

I went to our meeting spot.

This time, I had no hope that he would show up. I was looking out on the orange sun, slowly setting, torturing myself by thinking about how happy I'd been only one week ago.

So my heart jumped when I felt a presence behind me, and I jerked and turned around.

It was Tobirama.

I had expected to be disappointed that it wasn't him, but found I wasn't. Tobirama's presence, that had always been so hostile, was now soft, and I believed he was exactly what I needed in this moment.

He stood a way away from me, frowning. I humoured myself by imagining that he was trying to decide whether I trusted him or not; whether or not he was wasting his time.

"He feels unreal, you know?" I said. He came and sat beside me. He immediately leaned his head on my shoulder. I leaned my head on his head. Our thing. "Like he never existed."

"I know", Tobirama said. "I feel the same with Izuna."

I didn't say anything, but inside, I was smiling. Izuna was crazy about Tobirama. I figured it would only be a matter of time before he figured himself out.

Suddenly, Tobirama reached his hand out and took mine, entwined our fingers.

"I'm sorry", he said. "I saw how my brother behaved towards you. I don't know what has happened between you, but I saw how hard it was for you and I'm sorry."

I sighed, shuffled closer to the large, white-haired albino next to me. Who knew he'd had this softness to him all along? Or maybe, this softness was a new feature.

"Do you want to train with me?" he suddenly asked me. "Take our mind off things?"

I did want to train with him.

We created something beautiful together then, a frenzy of fire and water and locked-up emotions being released, all at once. There was heat and coldness. There was smoke created by the two elements meeting. And there was loss and hurt and love.

I managed to get close to him, close enough to draw my sword, and we found ourselves locked together, blade against blade, panting of exhaustion.

Then, with a grunt, Tobirama moved.

We battled beautifully, me entirely without my bloodline eyes until finally, I had him down on his back, my sword against his throat. He was panting, looking up at me with a face that said he meant it. He meant all of it.

"Use your eyes on me, Uchiha", he said.

I gaped at him.

"Do it!!"

I did.

"Tobirama..."

"What do you see?"

I dropped my sword. The sound it created when landing on the rocky ground was a beautiful melody. I placed my hands on his arms, slid them out along them until they reached his hands. I took them, braided our fingers together, locked him up against the ground.

"I see you."

Izuna was laying in my bed when I came home. It was unusual, but it did happen, and always meant he needed to talk.

I smiled.

But that smile died as soon as he looked up at me, and I saw he had been crying.

Izuna... You beautiful, sensitive soul. I wish I could take some of the pain away, so that you could look upon the world with less of it.

"What happened?" I asked without approaching him; he didn't always appreciate physical contact.

"I saw you and Tobirama."

Oh...

"Izuna..."

"Don't apologise!" he immediately said, so worried to be a burden. "You've done nothing wrong! But I..." He dried his tears on his sleeve. "It was hard to see. And I need to talk to someone about why. And since you're my best friend..."

My heart melted. I went to him them, and took him into my arms.

I helped Izuna de-tangle his complicated feelings for Tobirama well into the night. But I didn't reveal I knew Tobirama had feelings for him as well.

I didn't want to take away the pleasure of finding out himself. 

Time passed. We became twenty-one, Hashirama and I, then twenty-two, then twenty-three.

And the coldness between us remained the same. Or, rather, the coldness from him directed at me. I tried to invite him to talk to me several times. I even sent an invitation in paper-form to come visit me in my new house, where I now lived on my own. But I got no response, ever.

I never understood what had happened, and that pained me almost more than being without my former best friend. Had I not been to his satisfaction? Had he found someone else? Had I made him upset?

But however much I thought about it, I didn't understand it. He had always been the talkative type, always wanting to find solutions. Not anymore.

When Hashirama turned twenty-four, he became the clan leader of the Senju. On twenty-fourth of December, when I turned twenty-four, I was made clan leader of the Uchiha. People of our clans had not noticed the hostility between us, and put a lot of hope in us to fix the never-ending war between the two clans. But how would we do that if we never talk?

It was Izuna, my beloved little brother, my universe, that would finally force me to speak to my former best friend, on a day I hurt myself very, very badly.