Tobirama had a different mother to all of his siblings.

Hashirama's mother was 8 years older than Butsuma, and he died giving birth to Hashirama. Tobirama never met him, and he was the love of Butsuma's life. Butsuma spent the days of his birthdays and his death anniversaries alone, drinking bitterly to his memory as melancholy and grief gripped him harshly. Butsuma had loved him when he was alive, and he loved him now. Tobirama made himself scarce during these days. Hashirama did not.

(Tobirama was sure Butsuma didn't want to love him anymore. It hurt him too much to even think of it. Time did not heal his wounds.)

Tobirama didn't blame him too much.

Tobirama's mother, though, was a respectable daughter of a Senju Elder.

It wasn't the best time for a 5 year old Hashirama, considering Hashirama's mother married Butsuma when he was 15 and Butsuma was 7 so his mother wasn't of a high status (and boy it made Tobirama so uncomfortable but honestly he was already dead so Tobirama couldn't say anything), and thus Tobirama's mother made it a point to shove it into a 5 year old child's face every chance she got that she was a proper woman and Hashirama's mother was trans and therefore an unproper woman (He wasn't even a woman so technically it was true but it was meant in a wrong way so) what the actual fuck—

Tobirama's mother was a bit of a bitch to Hashirama. (Understatement of the century.)

(It was to consolidate her power, because she didn't give birth to the first heir. She needed to secure her own interests at the bottom of the hierarchy.)

And then she gave birth to Tobirama, easily the worst thing to ever happen to her.

Tobirama could go on and on about how sexist and transphobic environments affected morals and mindsets of men and women alike, but Tobirama would often just say that his mother was never the gentle type, that she was a fierce warrior, that she had died to give him life. That was all he could say out loud, because Tobirama was alive only by merit of Clan Laws that had "All are innocent at birth" written into stone.

(Really, tetanus only gave his father an excuse to be rid of his mother, and Tobirama was never meant to live through the night. But he had, and Butsuma respected that.)

And by the time Tobirama was in a secure position, it had already become habit to talk like he didn't want to be unfilial, because he had grown to a point where it gave him no pleasure to harm her memory.

(Easily outliving his mother.)

Albinism was apparently the final straw to break the camel's back, since Butsuma actually loved Hashirama and didn't appreciate his new wife acting like a bitch, so Tobirama's mother thought it was definitely her own child's fault she was being executed.

(Butsuma hated her, that was what he felt, not annoyance, but hatred. It still curled down his restrained chakra like a poisonous whip. That was why she died, that was why Tobirama was never in line of heirship.)

Yes, Tobirama's unique condition — namely, natural sensing ability and empathy — made it perfectly clear to his infantile self. And because he lacked any case of amnesia, which was highly impossible because people would go insane but Tobirama hadn't gone insane yet and he could still recall every blurred detail of the woman who had died only weeks after his birth.

Whatsit called? Hyper-something, hyperthymesia?

(It wasn't his fault it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't—)

(Believing that his father was protecting his brother was easier than getting his mother executed because he was born wrong.)

He had only seen her once, and it was as her chakra had shrivelled up as she stared hollowly at his palewhitewhitewhitelikesnow complexion, she had laughed as she hummed a choked off tune to his underdeveloped ears.

She had dragged a rusted nail down his face, and that was the last he'd seen of her.

The resulting fever and the sickness that would accompany him forever until the day he died reassured him of the memory's validity.

Despite it all, Tobirama had to talk of his mother like she had hung the stars by virtue of giving birth to him. It was a sacrifice, yes, but Tobirama thought that once she tried to kill him using tetanus, he could be free to resent her.

(He was lucky he made it out alive, with light permanent damage on his chakra coils and chakra hypersensitivity, not completely crippled, not dead.)

(He deserved that anyway.)

So, his mother was a sensitive topic for Tobirama and Hashirama, but certainly not for Butsuma. He still split venom at her memory like hatred was worthless.

(He had always known, hadn't he? What child would harm their own child without cause? Was it fair to her?)

(It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to Butsuma, it wasn't fair to Hashirama, it wasn't fair to his mothe— Sorana. It wasn't fair to Senju Sorana, who had been named after the southern skies.)

(Because she was a child, 16 years and too vicious for her own good.)

(Tobirama didn't think life had been fair to anyone for a very, very long time.)

The Senju were a clan built on order, founded by law, and believed that discipline was what made a man. Any compromise, and the foundations of the clan itself would crumble with it.

The eldest legitimate son will always be heir. The other sons will always be their aide, the eldest daughter will always marry out, the youngest daughters are the only ones that were acquiescent to the Head's mercy.

Everything was written down in black and white-yellowing paper, and there was nothing anyone wanted to do.

(And if Tobirama was honest, neither did he.)

"Does it ever occur to you that your insecurities are so potent even a 5 year old child can put it into words when you can't?" Tobirama was certainly not going to take Butsuma's bullshit lying down, but maybe getting slapped halfway to hell was a little too harsh for a 5 year old child (in body, but it would be harsher for a 27 year old's pride, wouldn't it?).

Tobirama opened his mouth, to say shit that would probably piss Butsuma off even more, but he hesitated, and backed down.

(Look, everyone had that one moment where you fantasised of saying stupid shit to your parents that discipline you for being the brat you were.)

He got the first sentence out because Butsuma hit Hashirama (how dare he how dare he hit Hashirama for something he couldn't control it wasn't his fault) and Tobirama decided that talking in a conversational tone while his father was laying it onto a 10 year old child was a good idea.

It was not, in fact, a good idea. He should have known better.

(That was worse than Hashirama getting beaten, because now they could use Tobirama as leverage.)

Tobirama's face still burned from the slap. It pulsed in a way that burned, and Tobirama thought he had a higher pain resistance than that. He thought he passed the "tearing up when getting hurt" stage a long time ago. Maybe not.

Or maybe it was just because Tobirama rememebered so clearly the lenience Butsuma had offered him when he was just learning how to walk, reluctant hands allowing his searching fingers to cling on with a caution that spoke of how afraid he was to crush his hands.

Butsuma could argue he was afraid he would lose an asset to the Senju all he wanted: Tobirama knew.

Tobirama knew the lenience came from love for all those that shared his blood.

(Faint, twisted, strangling, but still love.)

If Butsuma let it go, Butsuma had nothing left.

Tobirama wouldn't let him.

(And Butsuma had still named him Senju Tobirama, hadn't he?)

So apparently it's Warring States, and Tobirama never realised what it entailed.

Look, the ancient, stinking, unsanitary shithole of a toilet could be accepted, the lack of toilet paper was easily amended with fine paper or a soft suiton, but god, Warring States.

Hashirama is 10. They were trying to hoist a servant girl 5 years older onto him.

Oh fuck, please don't.

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

Tobirama was panicking inside and suddenly he looked at Hashirama who thinks this is normal and not totally ew and nononononono he's not thinking of a ten year old having sex what the fuck—

(But Hashirama didn't want it. He didn't. Tobirama would know better than anyone.)

Tobirama was so close, so close to ripping someone's throat out. With his teeth. Or chopsticks. He wasn't picky. A lot of training supplies suffered abuse. His knuckles weren't bruised, because Tobirama knew better, but his hands always ached something like dark satisfaction those days.

(Look, being the clan prodigy wasn't profitable for Hashirama, who hadn't activated his Kekkei Genkai yet. Tobirama couldn't be too good, it was practically written in the Clan Laws.)

Hashirama was 10.

Hashirama was 10 and the girl was 15 and they are too young too young and her womb was scarred over so much it was impossible for pregnancy because they beat her lower stomach and healed her up again and beat her with a pole and healed her up again and she thinks it's an honor she thinks she thinks nonononononononono—

Tobirama retched silently, still standing up straight and perfectly composed, but his throat moved violently up and down and there was nothing he could do nothing nothing nothing he could do.

Oh my god it is an teenager and a child but the adults are nononononononononono—

Tobirama went to Butsuma, because he was 5 and Butsuma was, Butsuma—

The only one who could do anything.

He could, he could, oh god what could Butsuma do the girl was already scarred irreparably oh my god.

Girl, girl, woman, she was already a woman because she already had her period for several years, beaten to an inch of her life, seeing it as an honor, because she was a pretty slave, she was given to the Senju by one of their vassals, and she was desperate for any scrap of chance or luck.

And she was young and too old, too old.

Made him sick.

Butsuma looked at him with those eyes of his, eyes that weren't dark enough for black but not light enough for grey either, placid and empty, and Tobirama looked, looked, and knew that his father didn't think anything was wrong.

Butsuma had been hanging on for a long while, now.

He looked better than usual. Less angry.

Tobirama hated it.

"Why are you happy about this?" Butsuma's youngest son said, tiny bandaged fingers scraping down as they fisted, dragging an (already fading) reddened scratch down his palms.

But Butsuma wasn't happy, he was hollow and tired and Tobirama felt it, knew it as well as he knew the individual strands of hair dangled in front of his sight as his mother drug a nail down his face. It is fact, it is truth, and Butsuma hadn't been happy for a very long while. (Not outside of the battlefield, no.)

It's quiet. His own voice was quiet, his futile gagging is straining it, the cold feeling on his nape was stopping any substantial volume, and his fingers were too numb. Butsuma looked at him.

Looked at him, at his eyes, at his hair, and his palepalepale skin, and Butsuma blinked. And then he looked down at his work, and Tobirama swallowed roughly, biting his tongue because he knew the problem now, but he couldn't do anything nothingnothingnothingdon'tignoreme—

"Otō-sama." Tobirama raised his sleeved (because they were a Royal Clan, with land and vassals) arms, up to his forehead as he bowed, "Please excuse this son."

The father in question didn't nod, but he didn't snap out a harsh refusal either, so Tobirama took advantage of it, of course he did. He walked over to behind the desk, candle flickering with the wind that he purposely stirred as he moved.

Tobirama waited.

Butsuma was slow, has always been slow on nights like these, where he is empty and silent, so out of his element of hostility he looked his age for once in his life.

25.

He was 25.

His husband was 15 when he married him.

(And that was the only one that had mattered, because he had two children with two different people, and he had only loved the man in the wrong body.)

(Butsuma never understood how Tobirama could set his murder of his mother aside, because he was not a bastard, he was Senju, of the Main Line through and though, but Butsuma had his mother executed with the excuse "infidelity". Tobirama is 5 and too wise for his age, not like Hashirama, Tobirama is hollow and wise and far wiser than him.)

(Tobirama had said to him, if only to give him the peace of mind, that his mother had made her choice to kill him, and that was all there was to dragging a rusty nail onto her infant son's face, wasn't it? And it wasn't his fault the girl almost crippled the boy, it wasn't his fault the girl fell into despair, and Tobirama did not blame him for his choice of hatred.)

(Tobirama never insinuated, once, that he had killed his wife. Because he hadn't. The girl that had been executed was not his wife. He only ever had a husband.)

(Tobirama never forced him to admit it.)

Tobirama looked at his chest, not his eyes, not his face, but his chest. It was a chest. That was all there was to it, but Tobirama looked at it like it was the vast, clear skies of early summer mornings. Summer mornings laid winded and dazed on the grass, given a moment to breathe after a harsh defeat.

(Early summer mornings had been spent staring out a bus window, blinking slowly as the familiar streets passed, content.)

He waited.

Butsuma didn't move.

They spent almost half an hour like that, candle flickering as it cast dancing lights across the desk, warming the icy tones of Tobirama's skin, warming the cool eyes of a man that was too young for children then, too young for parenthood even now.

(Butsuma was 14 when his first son was born, and he was 15 when his father died. Tobirama once outlived both these ages.)

Butsuma wasn't happy about giving his eldest son a servant girl, but giving his eldest son a gift was all he knew to do.

A gift he thought Hashirama could appreciate. Butsuma had appreciated it when he had been given his own.

(Tobirama wanted to argue that sexual servants were not gifts, but Butsuma was Butsuma and he had never known anything else.)

(It is no use to argue.)

Tobirama lifted his right hand, reaching so slow, very slowly across the distance between them, upupup until his fingertips barely brushed against his father's jaw, and Tobirama waited waitedwaited but Butsuma wasn't there.

(Wide, soft ruby-fire-blood, and Butsuma was suddenly punched metaphorically in the gut, out of breath, out of luck. Butsuma finally noticed the blooming bruise on the boy's cheek, too harsh to be within reasonable strength for discipline. It was ugly, splotching, and Butsuma's sight focused on the puffy rims of two eyes too wise to be young, too untainted to be old, and suddenly Butsuma saw red.)

"..." Butsuma swallowed, and suddenly he was theretherethere and Tobirama was flying halfway across the room as the instinctive backhand barely missed his bruised cheek. Butsuma froze, and his eyes aren't hollow anymore, and they fillfillfilled with embarrassment and shame, and Tobirama averted his eyes to the floor, straightening.

(He had struck out at the injured cheek like a cur, acting out of instinct instead of his remaining vestiges of rationality. Butsuma forgot that those eyes belonged to a child too young for the harshness he was.)

(Butsuma felt the shame rise up again.)

(He thought to himself, guiltily, that he wouldn't have struck the child if the boy had behaved. But then the same shame drowned those thoughts out, because Tobirama was a child and he was too young to know how to behave around Butsuma, because Butsuma was just like his father before him.)

Butsuma was there, like a cornered animal, resorting to violence because of fear and he was terrified of the child that never avoided him, never gave him power that burnedburnedburned like the fires of the Uchiha, stifling it by giving it no more fuel, no more space, and Butsuma was angry about being afraid of a child.

Tobirama knew he was not the cause of Butsuma's fear (the fear the coiled across the distance between them) because Tobirama knew how shame and guilt can consummate their wretched union to produce anger and insecurity, Tobirama knew exactly what Butsuma was afraid of.

Tobirama was 5. Butsuma was 25.

(Butsuma was afraid of himself.)

Butsuma was suddenly so angry. It was all perfect before Tobirama came into the room, seeking him out, questioning his happiness and bringing it all crashing down, and Butsuma finally realises he cannot imagine a life without his youngest son, just like he could not fathom a day without his eldest.

(And there came anger like a poison, Tobirama blinked slowly, And here comes shame to pull anger into his marriage bed.)

Butsuma could not justify it to himself, could not justify his anger, could not justify his aggression towards a child that was 5 years old, but there was no one but the child to stop him from doing it anyway.

The child was his from the beginning, Butsuma had known ever since he opened his eyes to see the ruby vibrant iris and the blue sclera, knew the paleness and the white hair were not product of infidelity, not product of rape nor other horrible things like that, but the mother was already gone and she had been stubborn until the end, refusing to admit to her "crime" or say that her child had been an albino, because the girl was young, so young, and she said nothing as she died, a vicious angry angry grin on her pretty face.

She had been one year older than the girl that would serve his eldest son.

Proud girl, stubborn girl, cruel girl.

Not his wife.

He had detested her, ridiculed her every choice with barbs that pulled awfully on young skin, fighting her attempts to claw back, never bothered to sleep in the same room more than was required, and she came into his life like lightning, and she had faded before he could blink. He was 19, she was 15, they were close in age, but they never acted like it.

Butsuma hated her.

Cruel girl, young girl, stubborn stubborn stubborn girl who died trusting she would be given fairness owed to her, but Butsuma hated her. Her crash of thunder was only starting, impossibly loud and condensed into a form of an albino child she had tried to kill in infancy.

Butsuma hated her.

"Stupid, stupid girl." He echoed, tightening his hand around his brush, and Tobirama was back at his side again, eyes so wise looking up at him like he was the early summer morning sky.

"Obstinate, mulish, stubborn, stupid girl." Butsuma said, and Tobirama was reaching up again, and Butsuma didn't do anything this time.

Two had died for him, given him two sons, and Butsuma—

(One for love, one in spite, one for his child, one for herself, and Butsuma could never do anything right, could he?)

(Butsuma was just like his father before him, wasn't he?)

"Stupid, stupid girl."

(Isn't it ironic, for all that he hated the Uchiha, Butsuma the one to kill all his wives?)

Butsuma had the girl given to one of the elder's grandsons.

Tobirama found it to be the most unsurprising thing that day.

("Stubborn, stupid girl," Butsuma had said, eyes so exhausted and chakra curling into itself like a chastised dog, "Stupid, stupid girl.")

(And Tobirama curled up into his broad, broad chest, eyes closed.)