War-torn

A/N: Revisions have been postponed until further notice. Rewriting is a bit difficult, given the amount of work I have ongoing, if any of you remember over troubled waters or knowing thy enemy, both now deleted, they're attempts of writing a new story when they're really just branches of this one.

Anyway, later this year sounds like a fun time to revise this. Thanks for reading.

The hermit told her he could bring her back fifteen years into the past. The hermit actually brings her back fifty-five.

All she wanted was to find a sword.

"Tatsumaki."

He expected this. In some part at the back of his head, he did. Pursuit has always been an option, but now it seems only a possibility. If pursuit had been considered from early on, then they should have been on their way almost immediately, but no. A number of fighters were injured, but none were killed. It's quite surprising actually, that they would assault this village with only no goal but to gauge their numbers, their strength. That isn't normal for bandits. But then again, an Uchiha among them isn't normal either.

And now, there's this idea to pursue them too many hours too late. It's an impossible task, a task that would steer them away from their actual mission for too long, a task that would take too much time and effort to accomplish… if he didn't agree to it.

And Tatsumaki knows this. He knows this, that's why he's smiling in the doorway.

"Tobirama-sama."

Tatsumaki knows this, that having a sensor-type as accomplished and as skillful as Tobirama would make this otherwise impossible feat attainable. The bandits couldn't have gone too far; they hadn't gotten anything yet, anyway. The fighters from the village are injured, probably scared out of their wits. They're no match for shinobi and samurai, after all. They're just farmers and merchants trying to eek out a living after the war. And if they were to pursue them… Well, he can't really blame any of them for refusing to join them.

The samurai stands silent in the room, gauging the situation, weighing her options. Is she regretting what she said? Does she think she should do this alone? Could she do it alone? For all her presumed might in battle, what happened earlier told him otherwise. She is susceptible to genjutsu, perhaps even untrained in it. Going in alone would be a death sentence for her, and yet… Why should he be so concerned about her actions anyway? She brought this upon herself.

"There are shinobi within their ranks, Tatsumaki-dono." She mutters, "Uchiha."

Ah, so she is familiar with them after all. Perhaps she had had encounters with their kind in her time? If that was so, then…

"We need to blind them."

Them. Her use of the word suggests that there are others, more vagrants from the Uchiha clan that banded together with these bandits to make a life of their own. They detest the Senju authority, perhaps these vagrants would even dare to follow Madara, take vengeance against the Senju, and take over Konohagakure by force.

"Shinobi with skill in dojutsu would be difficult to face head-on, even in the cover of darkness or smoke." She continues, saying it with such calmness that one would be inclined to think she already had several encounters with such shinobi. "But the eyes are vulnerable, even sand or dust would be enough to render them useless."

To him, she sounds like she's rambling. She has no real strategy besides aim directly for the eyes, a real tactless strategy that even a child could come up with. And yet, Tatsumaki seems to believe in it, thinking that it's even possible something so ludicrous could work.

But Tobirama has no such patience to hear anything more from her.

"Your point being?"

It's his curt tone that halts her and forces her to shut her mouth.

"Do you think they are children?" He chides, "Too foolish to even consider that?"

He rejects the idea of her speaking from experience.

"Tobirama-sama, I think–"

The way Tatsumaki jumps to the defense of such an idea sickens him. His hard gaze shifts to him.

"Leave us, Tatsumaki."

And that in itself is enough of a warning. The man stammers before quickly making his exit, leaving her to bear the brunt of Tobirama's frustration.

As he expected, she does not meet his eyes, but she doesn't look to the ground either. Instead, she looks past him and buries her gaze into the wall of the hut. And he knows why she's doing this, to make it seem as if she is meeting his gaze, this is what Hashirama did when they were younger after all, when they were being scolded by their elders.

So stands directly in front of her, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"You were told not to speak out of turn," he phrases it as if he were scolding a child, "and you gave me your word."

She feels humiliated by it, by the way he dices the sentence and speaks in hard syllables, a simmering anger threatening to boil over and burn her. She hasn't felt like this for a while, not since she was a child bearing the title of Amakuni heir, with all her instructors and elders watching her every move. What right does he have to speak to her this way? This was better than sulking about the failure she was hours before, better than doing absolutely nothing with the knowledge that–

She couldn't possibly tell him about that, could she?

"You have no right." He tells this to her again. "You know nothing."

And something in her wants to tell him of her knowledge. This village won't remain. The people here will disappear. There will be nothing to remember it by. But what good would knowledge of that do? Would he then opt for them to leave, seeing that whatever she was suggesting might be an exercise in futility? Can she do nothing for these people here? Should she have done nothing instead?

"And yet you speak as if you do."

So he's caught her. Maybe. She feels a lump in her throat. It's difficult to swallow. It's difficult to breathe. She can't breathe with him right there, ready to gut her where she stands.

"How arrogant your kind is." He spits this out, an insult more than anything. "You would jeopardize innocents just for your honor."

And perhaps this is one fatal flaw of the samurai. Loyalty above honor, and honor above all else. The lives of these people are inconsequential. In the grand scheme of things, they don't matter. This village is just one of the many who hadn't survived to her time, just one of the many that flourished when it had, and vanished when it did. There's nothing special about this place, and there's nothing tying her to this, really.

She could just leave this place to the hands of fate. She doesn't know what would happen if she didn't, anyway. But the shinobi before her doesn't falter. He continues staring her down, as if he could get an answer with his eyes alone.

He huffs. "And now you've bitten off your tongue. You might as well spit it out."

In a normal situation, she would have laughed at this, thinking how he's quick to be impatient, but now she finds it extremely difficult to do so. For one thing, she knows his resorting to sarcasm means that he's given up on her, that rather than resort to violence, he simply has no more energy to waste on her. So does he pity her, then? Does he only think of her as a naïve child who exists to be lectured? Do the gods think of her this way?

Do they, really? So would this be the reason this man in front of her is her… companion for this journey?

"If I do tell you, will you believe me?"

So she does not falter either.

"A promise is still a promise, no matter how long it has been."

She tells this to the hermit when he does not say anything else. She has given up on the offensive, instead she makes conversation. The hermit asks questions, tells her things, and so she does the same.

"Time is fathomless." The hermit continues for her. "It flows, more freely than a river, and yet it holds within its grasp eternity."

He is speaking in metaphors now, and perhaps this is his real language, the language of the gods. Perhaps he shall reveal his true self to her, now, this powerful being who controls the flow of time. She wonders if the world outside the island continues, or if it has stopped frozen, or perhaps it is the other way around, time on this island has been frozen still while the rest of the world moves on.

"The promises you speak of are merely grains in the river of time."

The hermit moves his sleeve as if mimicking a pitcher, and out flows pale, white sand.

"It will flow along time, with only the end in mind."

He moves his sleeve, scattering the sand across the ground.

"You think time scatters it, moves it further and further away from its destination."

Sand gets into her hair and her clothes, but she doesn't dust it off. Instead she watches in awe at the sight. It was as if the hermit was manipulating the sand itself, much like…

No, she doesn't dare remember that sight.

"But time is a vast river, too wide to imagine, too deep to discover."

The hermit stops and the last grains of sand exit his sleeve.

"Time flows on."

He stomps a single foot on the ground and the grains float into the air.

"It must. It will."

He moves his body, backward and forward, like a wave in the sea, and the grains follow him.

"Time flows. And it carries everything with it."

He stomps again, and the grains rush around her, whirling and swirling like a hurricane. She is forced to close her eyes, cover her mouth and nose. It feels like it's biting into her skin, delivering tiny cuts and pinpricks, but she doesn't say a word of it.

"But like the rivers, time cannot go backwards."

The rushing grains stop and fall around her. The dust clears, and she sees the true appearance of the hermit for the first time. He is pale and glows like the moon, his beard is longer, his hair is too. His tattered, muddy robes are now golden and made of what might be the finest of silk. And he floats, magical mysterious deity he is.

She's too shocked to say anything. Her lower jaw hangs loose from her face.

"You will swim against the tide." He speaks, his voice now echoing inside the cave. "For there is no boat that will carry you."

He moves his arms again, flowy sleeves and sand following suit.

"You are…" Her words catch in her throat. "You are a god."

The hermit chuckles, letting the sand swirl around her.

"You neither ask for my name nor for my reasons."

She could, she hasn't really heard of a god of time living on this island.

"Why would you allow me this?" She finally asks.

"Because I am curious." The sand begins enveloping her.

Then, darkness.

"And I am terribly bored."

Until now, she doesn't know what god could manipulate time so freely and seemingly allow her to do as she pleased. Now she thinks she had just been fooled, made into a deity's plaything to alleviate his boredom. But then again, being someone's "toy" isn't something entirely new to her, is it?

So she has to get out, get out of this place and move things along. Surely the god wouldn't enjoy her being in one place for too long, would he? And surely, if such a god exists, then Murai would too. Should too. And when she get Murai, she… She will have kept her promise.

And then?

"If I do tell you, will you believe me?"

The man in front of her is a stranger, a shinobi she hasn't heard of, and the god had chosen him to be her companion. But what for? As a test? To deter her or distract her? To make things more difficult for her and consequently more enjoyable for him? Or is this shinobi an unfortunate victim as well? Someone who has caught the eyes of the gods? Do they think this is entertaining? When he would rather kill her or leave her to die…

Yes.

He could have left her to die.

He has no responsibility for my survival, anyway, so…

She decides it's a question for another time.

"Tell me?" He scoffs. "What else are you lying about?"

This is going to be difficult.

"This village," she hesitates, "during my time, this place…"

She doesn't know how to phrase it properly.

"It doesn't survive."

So she settled with the cruelest, most insensitive way possible.

She feels her eyes wanting to shut instinctively, but forces them open, her eyelids fluttering before she settles with staring at the floor. She thinks he will hit her, knows that he will, and doesn't make herself brace for it. If anything, she deserves it, telling such a baffling thing to him all of a sudden.

He's already so frustrated and angry with her that nothing she says could make things between them more worse than they already are.

But the shock doesn't come, and yet she doesn't look up. He might only be deciding which fist to hit her with, or perhaps even which foot or knee.

Three second pass, four, five… She wishes he would do something already.

And what he does surprises her, so much that she jolts at the sound of his voice.

"It doesn't survive." He echoes, voice suddenly gone soft and almost ashamed.

Does he feel embarrassed? Worried? Was he actually prepared for something else?

She looks up at him cautiously and sees him clenching and unclenching his fist.

So he was prepared to hit her.

But then there's the hesitation in his movements, an abrupt pause that could only be the product of surprise. He wasn't expecting her to say that, and she wasn't expecting him to react this way.

She thinks the gods must be whistling and howling, this situation must be hilarious.

"And you are sure?" He questions her, returning to his steady tone.

No, she isn't.

"The history I was taught told little of the shinobi." She begins carefully, "So I am not sure–"

"Then why tell me this?" He cuts her off.

Of course.

Why should she say such a thing at the most crucial of times when she wasn't even sure of it in the first place? Then again, she could lie about it and tell him she was, but he'd find out eventually. And that wouldn't be the best ending for either of them.

But does he believe it?

That's the more important question now. Does he take her word for it? Does he recognize truth in what she's saying? Or is he at least open to the seeming possibilities she presents to him, the future she lives in? The possibility that it may be his future as well? The possibility that his could be different? That they could change it?

Wait. "They"? Since when was there a "they"?

"It is a possibility." was her simple, straightforward answer.

Just a possibility.

"And you intend to have it remain a possibility." He completes the idea for her.

I do.

So he does recognize some good in her. The thought wants to make her smile. He is beginning to trust her, even if only a little.

"Why?"

She only half-expected him to ask. Surely he would assume the same thing she's thinking. Lives would be spared, people can live on, this village can prosper. His own village could even benefit from this. The answers are obvious enough, so why does he still ask her?

"You think it would benefit you?"

She understands his reasoning. Preventing the destruction of this village would allow her to gain a foothold in this place. She would be recognized here, but that's not what she wants. She just wants to do good by these people, follow the path she took when she ventured on this journey in the first place.

Wait.

Was she doing this just because she felt obligated to?

"I…"

Because she entertained the idea of the gods making her play along, that everything that led up to this point was just because of the gods? That everything she does is only because something similar has happened before?

"No."

That's not it, is it?

"Then I should see no point."

His response confused her. Would one's own selfishness be more reasonable? Was acting out of goodwill so uncommon, even during this age? But his use of the word "should" is a curious thing. Is he considering the same thing she is? That they have this unspoken obligation to act for the good of all people? Have they the same set of morals, then?

"No point at all in risking your life for an uncertainty."

His logic makes sense, more so than hers. There really is no point in wasting time in this place just to satisfy an urge. This is just a stopover, just another village in the many that they will come across. They have no ties to it, and the situation earlier was just… It happens. Bandits and vagrants all scurrying for a semblance of victory.

He could let her do away with her life, anyway, let her do whatever she wants. He is not responsible if she lives or dies.

And yet…

There's something nagging at her from the inside, this small idea that he wouldn't, that he would actually want to make sure she survives and succeeds.

If she were any younger, she might even blush.

But she doesn't. She won't.

"But if those bandits are stopped," she pushes the conversation too far forward, it's almost a different topic entirely, "then it would be best for many others."

Objectively, it is, no matter how much of a temporary solution it might seem to be. Stop the bandits here, and they will likely be stopping many other raids and attacks rom taking place, if only those by this group. He might see the good in that. Politically, that would mean that his village, him being the representative, would have eradicated this terrorist group. More people will hear about it, enemies and allies alike. More supplied would come in More opponents would opt not to antagonize them.

It's a win-win situation.

"Optimistically." He mutters under his breath, as if he was ashamed to say it, "There is some sense to that."

She might not be able to secure the survival of this village, but at least she can make it last a little longer. Maybe.

"Tatsumaki." He calls out, and the man appears immediately.

"Gather the fighters. I will discuss something with them."

"Of course, Tobirama-sama!" Tatsumaki sounds almost excited, dashing away as quick as he appeared.

The pale-haired shinobi sighs, not defeated or tired, just…

He's disappointed?

"You haven't fought an Uchiha before, have you?"

She has no reason to lie to him now, and he knows this.

"No."

She had only heard stories.

"No one in this village has." He stated, "I am the only one."

She doesn't know what to do with what he said. Was it a warning? Was he telling her just because?

"So you will listen to me."

His gaze is steady, quiet. His tone, calm. His very presence is solid, firm, a quiet strength in its entirety. And it's this aura radiating off of him that tells her he has fought Uchiha, that he has survived, that he has won. It's the same aura that tells her he is more of a leader than she could ever hope to become.

"I will." She assures him, tone polite and respectful.

Perhaps the gods want her to learn from him.

"So obedient you've become."

The voice echoes again in her head.

But Tobirama's voice is louder, clearer, "And you will not say anything else, to Tatsumaki or the others."

"Only on your word." She repeats, but more to remind herself than to reassure him.

Perhaps the gods want her to remember his voice instead.

A/N: That's it? Well, for now.

Anyway, spoiler, y'all ever thought of a romance with this rigid man?

It's indeed gonna be a long, tiring journey, so gimme so feedback for the way. Thanks for reading and until the next chapter.