#ie: even if izuna dies and hikaku spreads the technique around its not likely many people will be able to use it and use it properly

[domoz]

Girl help i keep Hikaku posting instead of writing the fics I need to.

In this one, Tobirama takes a gamble:

No good sense has brought them here, just Madara's grief and rage.

Hikaku cant begrudge the man that after what's happened to his brother, but in this moment he wishes it had manifested another way. A battle with the Senju is nothing new, but in all of his perfect memory he can never quite remember things being this chaotic.

Hashirama is tearing up the landscape just to match Madara, who in his fury is trying to break past his usual opponent to go after Tobirama.

Tobirama, who without Izuna there to stop him, is currently beating Hikaku to a pulp.

This guy is on another level, he thinks breathlessly. He'd always known that, in theory. Izuna had been one of the best, after all and Tobirama had always matched him (until he surpassed him).

In practice, the only thing keeping Hikaku alive is the sharigan's ability to predict movements and whatever it is that's stopping the Senju from using whatever technique it was that injured Izuna.

He stopped trying to block the water dragons after the first and has gone from disrupting their paths with boulders to trying to shred them apart with pebbles as he's grown more exhausted. It hardly slows them, but it's kept him from being completely swept away so far, and if that keeps him alive than that's what he'll do.

That's what he's just done (ending up soaked, but still on his feet) when Tobirama pauses, landing on a high branch a decent enough distance away that even Hikaku might have a chance to avoid whatever he throws at him.

From his perch, Tobirama tilts his head, looking over Hikaku with a considering gaze.

"You have excellent chakra control." He says after a moment, "Even better than Izuna's."

Hikaku blinks, but he does not un-tense, remembering Izuna's many rants about how Tobirama liked to play games with his opponents -- to let them think they’ve won, until they haven't.

Hikaku does not think himself anywhere close to winning, but every moment they aren't actively fighting is another moment he hasn't died.

"It's hardly worth comparing us." Hikaku frowns, "And pointless. He still lives."

"For how long? Days? If that." Tobirama purses his lips, a tiny thing that Hikaku would have missed from this distance if his sharingan weren't still activated, "No, I don't think there's much time left at all."

Hikaku has no idea how he knows that, but he isn't wrong. The gut wound he'd left Izuna with has been festering. He wouldn't be surprised to return to the compound to find him dead already. What kind of sick taunt is this?

As he talks, Tobirama starts making hand signs -- a long string of them, and not a jutsu Hikaku recognizes. His breath catches and he readies himself, prepared to run from whatever devastation this is going to bring -- but when he finishes the only result he can see is a pale green glow coating the Senju's palm.

Tobirama raises his hand, touches it to a cut on his cheek where a bit of rubble had caught him. When he draws it away, the wound is gone.

A technique that can heal injuries with chakra. When he realizes what he's just been allowed to see -- what he's just been allowed to copy with his sharingan -- Hikaku nearly staggers under the weight of it.

His next thought is 'I'm going to die'. Because surely, surely, there's no way Tobirama Senju is going to allow him to walk away with the knowledge he's just been given.

There's a piercing two toned whistle, a bright white flare high in the sky. Retreat called, on both sides. And contrary to everything, to all rational thought, Tobirama does not leap forward, does not cut his throat or snap his spine, but turns, gives Hikaku a long glance, and follows the rest of the Senju in their retreat.

It takes Hikaku a long moment to unfreeze. To go regroup with his clan, mind whirling.

It must be a trap, but what use is there to lay one for a man already as good as dead? If this was some ploy to give false hope, then why pick him, when he could just keep what had happened to himself?

His clansmen are all silent as they return from the battlefield, Hikaku most of all.

I don't think there's much time left at all. That's what Tobirama had said. But time for what?

Hikaku is not a fool -- he does not try to use what he's learned on Izuna, or even on himself and the many cuts and bruises he's come home with. When everyone else goes off to see their own hurts treated, to see their loved ones, when Madara goes straight from the battlefield to go sit by his brother, Hikaku slips away from them all.

The main house has a koi pond, and though the landscaping leaves much to be desired after years of Madara and Izuna using it for their sibling rivalries, it still holds fish. Hikaku mentally apologizes to the late Lady Uchiha as he grabs a koi by the tail and yanks it out of the water, but he thinks, if this works, he will be forgiven.

He waits for the fish to stop thrashing before he makes a cut down it's side; nothing too deep, nothing it couldn't survive on it's own. He lets his sharingan spin, calls up the memory of the hand signs, the way Tobirama's chakra had been stripped of its element, how it had condensed thicker than he'd ever seen.

It only takes him a few moments to understand why Tobirama had made a comment on his chakra control. It's difficult -- more than any technique he's ever tried. But… Not impossible.

If he had more time, he thinks he'd be able to get it to work. As it is…

Hikaku is not optimistic. But he will try.

He lets the koi back into the pool as, for the first two hours he focuses only on the chakra -- cleaning it, folding it in on itself over and over and over again. He gets his hands to glow green once before he pulls the koi out of the water again.

There's a delicate balance, he learns. He very nearly overloads the fish's chakra coils before he understands what he's meant to be doing. The information the jutsu gives him is nearly incomprehensible, but there's a feeling to it. The cut feels like metal in the back of his mouth -- and it wants to heal, its already trying to, all he has to do is help it along. To hold his chakra on the bits that make his ears ring (and nowhere else, or the chakra will burn healthy flesh) until they've knitted themselves together again.

He thinks he's starting to get the idea when he released the koi back into the water -- cut gone but side covered in chakra burns. The chakra is giving a place for the scar tissue to form sooner than it should, or something like it. Hikaku shakes his head. It's interesting, but the theory will come later when he's got less important things to think about.

A chill has fallen as the sun has gone down, but Hikaku finds himself wiping his brow from the exertion of it all. If he could, he would rest, would at least find another animal to test on, but… Time.

He's not ready for Izuna quite yet, though. Hikaku goes home, throws together the most nourishing food he can in as short a time as he can manage, and tries to heal himself.

It's easier and harder than the fish; humans being the more complicated animal. Hikaku ends up getting a lot more feedback he has no idea what to do with -- but he can tell when he's coming close to hurting himself, too. That probably won't be true, when he tries this on another person. To avoid that he needs more control, and more than anything else, a hell of a lot more practice.

By midnight, Hikaku has managed to heal a bruise that had been starting to bloom on his thigh. Nothing, compared to the wound Izuna has, but he did it.

He feels dizzy when he tries to stand up, to walk over to the main house. Hikaku curses, but it seems like his body has made up its mind for him. Sleep is the best thing for stamina, after all, and he's not certain how much longer his control will hold out without rest. If he's too late, he still knows he's tried his hardest.

He's asleep nearly as fast as his head touches the futon, for all of four hours before anxiety has him rising right before the sun.

Well, he's a shinobi, he's done more on less. He eats old rice, drinks tea that's hardly had time to steep, and walks across the compound in the pre-dawn twilight to try and perform a miracle.

Madara is awake when he steps inside -- hunched over, face in his hands, looking like he's aged about ten years since Hikaku saw him last. For a heart-stopping moment, Hikaku fears that he was too late after all.

"He asked me to take his eyes." Madara says in lieu of a greeting, voice muffled.

Hikaku grimaces. The mangekyo is as horrifying as it is powerful, but if Izuna is asking that, it means…

He's given up. He's conceded that he's going to die. Hikaku has even less time than he'd thought.

"…Is he awake right now?" Hikaku feels breathless, like he's walking on a wire.

"He was when I left him." Replies Madara, voice rough. For him to have left Izuna's side while his brother was still awake, they must have argued. Probably about the eyes.

Hikaku nods, turns to walk to the room where Izuna's sickbed is without asking any more. He won't explain, not yet, won't give false hope. Explanations can come after, right now he's just got to try.

Izuna doesn't react to his entrance -- he's still breathing, but asleep or unconscious. Just as well, Hikaku thinks wryly, pulling the chair he knows Madara has spent hours in to give him better access to the wound on Izuna's side, He'll be less distracting like this.

He's changed this wound before, and when Hikaku pulls the bandages off its still as ugly as it was the day Izuna got it, the blood clotted and dark. It doesn't smell, at least. Hikaku has no idea how this jutsu handles infections.

One bracing breath is all he allows himself before making the handsigns, pulling the chakra to his hands. It's easier after rest, but harder, for the nerves.

Izuna twitches as Hikaku places his hands over the wound, as the back of his throat fills with the taste of copper. His entire attention focuses down to his hands, to the skin and muscle under them, to threading his chakra back and forth and pulling things back to how they should be.

"H'kaku?" He hears after a while. Izuna's voice, but he doesn't look, even as the man goes tense beneath him. He seems to understand that whatever Hikaku is doing, it needs concentration.

It could only have been minutes, or it could have been days by the time Hikaku's chakra starts to waver. He dismisses the technique, not wanting to undo his work. He hasn't done nearly as much as he'd wanted to but he thinks… He thinks he might have stopped the downward spiral, at least.

"Hikaku." Izuna's voice again. When he looks up, Hikaku's vision goes white with spots. He's sweating with exertion, he realizes, and now that he's dropped the jutsu his hands are shaking so badly he doesn't think he'll be able to form the hand signs again.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder. When his vision finally stops spinning Madara and Izuna are both staring at him with wide eyes.

This is the most lucid he's seen Izuna in over a week.

"Hikaku." Madara is the one who speaks this time, sounding breathless, "What was that?"

 "I think…" Hikaku gasps, "That was Tobirama Senju's way of asking for peace."

#oops! no writing tag #naruto blog for naruto things #hikaku uchiha #tobirama senju #not. tagging the uchiha brothers their roles are too minor. but they ARE here #youve seen tobirama and hashirama heal izuna #now get ready for THIS #i like to think tobirama did some research before he just gave that technique away #and also some risk assessment. he knows it was not likely to work #but he also knows not many people would be able to figure out that technique from just what hikaku saw #ie: even if izuna dies and hikaku spreads the technique around its not likely many people will be able to use it and use it properly #hikaku certainly isn't doing it very efficiently! #but i think tobirama would be impressed that he figured it out from what little bit he saw. and then. heh. you know. #oneshot