Saviour

Prologue

"Why are you so hot-tempered?" He looked up at me with large eyes.

I laughed darkly at this.

"No, really, why? You're a water-style user. You shouldn't be."

I sighed, then opened my arms and pulled him to my chest. He fit his chin snuggly in my jugular notch. I let him rest.

"It's because you boil that water within me with your fire and cause a storm on it with your wind", I purred. "Your fire makes the water within me hot, your wind makes it raging. And it affects my temper."

He sighed contentedly, closed his eyes, leaned more of his body weight on me. He trusted me so completely, it made my heart ache. Despite everything, he trusted me with his life in my hands.

I leaned my lips to the top of his head, planted a kiss there, planted a promise there.

"But don't worry. I will never, ever hurt you."

We stood opposite each other, panting. I was tired. So. Tired. But I couldn't stop. Anger coursed through my blood as I looked at the man in front of me.

"Izuna..."

How many Senju had his bloody clan killed? And Izuna, in particular. He was basically a killing machine, slicing through Senju in his wake wherever he went on the battlefield. He must be eliminated. I must...

He suddenly charged towards me. Hehh... He won't get anywhere with that... But just before he reached me, I realised that of course, of course Izuna would know that, too, of course he would have something else up his sleeve. And he did; he activated his Sharingan, trapping me in a genjutsu so powerful it made the millisecond it lasted feel like days, and just when I came back, he kicked me in my abdomen, sending me crashing backwards. That sneaky bastard... It would've been easier for him to just kick me while I was in the genjutsu, but he didn't because he wanted me to feel it. He wanted me to come back to feel him kick me. Uchihas were fucking sadistic. When I landed, I directly formed the one hand sign I needed for my Water Dragon Bullet Technique, which Izuna quickly evaporated with Katon, creating a heavy mist.

And I saw my opening.

I threw a bunch of kunai as a distraction, knowing Izuna could dodge them using his Sharingan. Then I lifted my katana and launched myself at him with my Flying Raijin Slice.

I felt the blade bore through the soft flesh of Izuna's stomach. I could feel the shift of tension in my hand holding the katana as it sliced through skin and fat and muscle and organs, all in turn, and then in the same again as it came out through his back. It was so incredibly satisfying, it made my mouth water. Finally... Finally the number of Senju who lost their lives wouldn't be so high...

I landed a good distance away from Izuna and turned around. He stood still, slumped over, his back towards me. And I saw him jerk in a coughing fit, and blood splutter on the ground beside him.

"Hehh..."

And then his knees buckled under him, and he started falling

And in a heartbeat, he was there to catch him.

In the blink of an eye, he'd grabbed Izuna's arm and his waist, preventing him from falling.

"Izuna!!"

He turned around to me. I had expected anger, fury, hatred radiating from his eyes, but there was none. I had expected him to scream and sputter at me, but that didn't happen, either. Instead, he looked at me with more despair that I had ever seen in any human being, ever. He looked completely soul-crushed.

"Help him!!" he screamed, looking at me. "Please..." Tears welled up in his eyes.

At that, Hashirama landed on the opposite side of them from me.

"Madara..."

Madara twisted his head to face my brother. "Stay back!!" he sputtered. "Or I swear, I will kill you!"

"Madara, calm down. I'm done. I'm done with the killing."

They continued arguing back and forth, but I didn't hear it. My vision was dimmed, the sounds around me muffled, everything covered in a white blanket. "Help him!!" Madara's cry drilled itself into my brain, over and over. Slowly, my ability to think came back. I did it for the greater good, I thought. I killed one man to spare the lives of hundred Senjus.

But I couldn't convince myself. Something was happening to my heart, usually frozen over. The ice cracked, allowing something warm to trickle down and reach it. Madara's love from
Izuna...Was it so great that destroying it would be like destroying hundreds of Senju? Was the love between them infinite, so that nothing could make up for destroying it?

The surroundings started to come back to me; the rusty red, dusty ground, the cloudy summer sky.

And the last thing I saw was Madara making a great leap, taking his dying little brother away with him.

Leaving me alone with my guilt.