Author's Note: This was originally a one-shot, but I decided that it might as well be a part of these drabbles. :P

Never Underestimate Naruto

~o0O0o~

Cursed Blood

~o0O0o~

Chapter 14

Tajima looked out the window to see his youngest—a boy of five—hurling shuriken at the trunk of an ancient pine, noting with satisfaction how every projectile seemed to hit dead-center of the targets carved into the bark. He marveled to see such skill in one so young.

By his side, an elder breathed in long and deep. "The old blood runs strong in him."

"Yes," he murmured, watching as metal death-stars homed in on their immobile prey. "Indeed it does."

Later that day, his wife sat by his side, resting her head against his shoulder.

"I'm worried about him," she said. He knew exactly who she meant.

He shifted in place and looked up at the ceiling, eyes roving over wooden beams. "There is nothing to worry about."

His wife pressed in closer to him, nearly burying her head into his chest. "He's lost three brothers," she said, the words partially muffled by his clothes. "That must be weighing on him, even if he doesn't show it."

"He'll be fine."

A pause. Tajima could feel his wife's hands fisting around the edges of his shirt as her body tensed.

"How do you know?" she eventually asked.

He didn't hesitate. "He's my son. That's how I know."

"Yo, Tobirama."

"Yo, Izuna."

It passed by in a blur, and before Tajima knew it, his son had officially severed ties with the Senju boy.

He wasn't expecting Madara's eyes to turn red.

'That Senju . . . Was he really so important to you?'

But regardless, this was a big step. In his loss, Madara found strength, and that was all that mattered.

Yet, Tajima could not shake a feeling of unease when he saw the crimson eyes.

Six months. That was all it had taken for Madara to completely unlock his eyes.

The sheer talent required was unheard of. Most people took years to advance the Sharingan, and some never even got past the first few stages.

It really was true, Tajima decided one day. The old blood still ran strong.

In the middle of all the fighting and killing people who were far too young to die, Madara learned how to dance.

His eyes showed him how to move, how to respond. His body did the rest with effortless grace.

The dance with death became an obsession.

It was a decade later, and Tajima watched as Madara and Izuna stood over the bodies of men they once called their friends.

His sense of dread deepened when their eyes twisted, becoming something he'd never once seen before, but only read about in his clan's secret tablet.

'Is that the Mangekyou?'

He wisely stepped down from leadership in the following week.

Over the next few years, the battles between the Uchiha and the Senju became more violent, allowing fewer and fewer to stumble away with their lives.

During one of these encounters, Madara squared off against Tobirama (mostly because Hashirama was mysteriously absent).

They locked blades, and Tobirama hissed, "How are those cursed eyes serving you?"

That was the first time he summoned his Susano'o.

It was also the first time in his entire life that his vision went blurry. It terrified him.

Madara's hatred was always just an ember, kept small and contained, but still burning, reigned in by a self-control that saints would envy.

When Izuna was cut down by Tobirama, it erupted with his fury. But he was helpless and his brother was dying, so he left without a fight, silently grateful that Hashirama had let him.

That fury went numb with an icy rage when his little brother gave him his eyes so he could see again. He was seeing with his own brother's eyes.

Mangekyou became eternal, and his rage and his power combined. As one grew so too did the other until there was nowhere left to direct it all but out.

And so, he attacked the Senju one last time.

He trusted Hashirama.

He would never trust Tobirama.

It was obvious to him that if left to Tobirama, the Uchiha would cease to be. He appealed to his clan to leave while they could, while they were still alive, but they had grown tired and weary of the bloodshed and they chose Konoha over him.

They made their choice.

So he left alone.

If there was one thing that Madara still loved, it was fighting with Hashirama. There was a thrill in it that nothing else could replicate. A dance with death so intense that a single misstep could mean the end.

It was exhilarating.

And it ended with his defeat.

But that did not matter. He had what he wanted. Hashirama's cells would be the key to limitless power. All he needed now was time.

Decade after decade passed and Madara endured. He was old and his body was becoming weak, but his eyes were bright and saw all.

To prolong his life he'd combined his blood with Hashirama's, borrowing the inherent vitality and strength. When his eyes changed again, Madara lamented that he was too old to use them to their fullest potential.

Rinnegan, the eyes of legend. The eyes in the stone tablet.

A new plan was formed when he summoned the corpse of a demon from the moon.

Madara stared down at the half-dead boy that Zetsu had plucked out of a collapsed cave.

He didn't look like much, but he was young, and they young were easily manipulated. And when the boy woke he proved Madara right.

So Madara allowed him to live, to heal. And then he let him go to watch the woman he loved die.

All according to plan.

The boy came back a shadow of himself, and Madara knew that he finally had someone to help him. He allowed himself to die, and consigned himself to waiting for as long as necessary at the crossroads of the afterlife.

It was only a matter of time now.

It came as a surprise to Madara when he was revived with the Edo Tensei and not the Rinne Tensei. Yet, it had it's uses. He'd been resurrected in his prime, he was allowed limitless chakra, and he could use self-destructive jutsu without fear.

Two meteors and thousands of dead shinobi later, he found the boy he'd so successfully broken atop the newly risen Juubi.

He was so close he could taste it.

He'd done it! He'd finally done it!

He was alive again, and the Juubi was his at last. It struggled against him, thrashing to break his hold over it, but it was no match for his Rinnegan. The Tailed-Beasts were truly made to serve those with the blessed eyes.

When a third eye opened in his forehead, he did not question its strangeness but welcomed its new power. With no small measure of satisfaction he cast the world into eternal slumber by using his technique on the moon itself.

That was when a demon tore herself free from his body.

Madara watched from the next life as the last Uchiha worked with his teammates to crush the demon who would rule the world.

He'd failed spectacularly. He was in control one moment, then—no, that wasn't right. He was never in control, was he? Not once in his life.

He had inherited Indra's way of thinking, the ideology of using power to strive towards peace. Since that fateful moment when he turned his back on Hashirama, his mind had never truly been his own. Added to that was the fact that Black Zetsu had artfully used him in a grand scheme to revive the demon woman.

Not once had he been in control—it was always another.

Tobirama had once said that his clan bore a Curse of Hatred. But perhaps it was more than that. The sharingan was a bloodline born of stolen power, blood forever haunted by the transmigrating chakra of the Firstborn.

Cursed blood.

Cursed Fate.

~o0O0o~

Author's Note: A bit of a weak ending. I'll probably edit it later. Probably.