Hour 7: Liminal Spaces And The Crossing Thereof

Hour 7: Liminal Spaces and the Crossing Thereof

Summary: The Senju Ghost had started haunting the Uchiha settlement, and they were eager to put a stop to it. So eager in fact, that they were willing to offer up Madara as a ghostbride.

Author: @titaniafaeriequeen Rating: Mature Fandom: Naruto Relationship: Uchiha Madara/Senju Tobirama Other Tags: fluff, ghost marriage, sort of, misunderstandings, demisexual Madara, Uchiha Izuna lives Word Count: 7,802 (complete)

Testing his newest invention, Tobirama had eventually moved further away from the Senju settlement, pushing to find the limits of its range. It was during this that an unprecedented opportunity had presented itself—Uchiha Madara was rapidly moving towards his location. Who better to pit himself against to test both the endurance, and whether or not the Sharingan could spot it? Tobirama could not really think of anyone else, except perhaps Uchiha Izuna, although the younger Uchiha was, at least by Tobirama’s estimate, a fraction or two below Madara in skill.

Tobirama waited until Madara burst into the clearing, then he set off in a panicked rush. Minus the actual panic. And with the addition of an injury to his leg that he didn’t actually have. Feigning being hurt and exhausted, he made sure to not move any faster than that Madara quickly gained on him. Then, as if he had come to the realization that he would not manage to outpace the Uchiha, he stopped on a branch, leaning heavily on one leg, brandishing a kunai in one hand, and moving the other through a long series of hand seals. Madara crashed into him before he could finish the jutsu.

Read the rest on AO3.

Hour 6: Monsoon

Summary: With an unseasonably late monsoon sweeping through the compound, the Uchiha are too busy to light the bonfire at the end of Obon that would light their ancestors' path back to the Pure Lands. One unfortunate accident later, and the bonfire is late for sure.

But Izuna has some concerns about the ghosts of his ancestors getting lost - or, worse, staying here with him. While he's alive.

Author: Dawen Rating: General Fandom: Naruto Relationship: Uchiha Izuna & Family Other Tags: Warring Clans Era (Naruto), Canon Compliant, Uchiha Clan-Centric, Obon, Ghosts, Natural Disasters, Rescue Mission, Angst with a Happy Ending, Kid Izuna, in which two clan civilians are Rescued from a Flood, paying proper homage to your ancestors, calamities which seem so much more severe when you're like ten Word Count: 1,853

Izuna took a moment to wring his hair out, water flowing in a steady stream to puddle on the engawa before dripping through the cracks between the boards. The urgent tasks were done – elders and young children taken up to the healing ward, which was built on high ground specifically so that the injured wouldn’t need to be rescued during monsoons. Their food stores were secured. Most of their livestock had been taken from the pastures; the chickens had fled to their coops, which teams of shinobi had raised to be a bit higher when the rain started. Izuna’s job, checking on the civilians under evacuation and offering help to anyone who could benefit from a touch of chakra to get through a waterfall’s worth of rain, was nearly done. He’d just finished checking this house; the family had already evacuated.

One last family to check on. With a sigh, he braced himself and ran into the rain again, suppressing a flinch at the heavy drum of incessant water on his armor.

Read the rest on AO3.

And remember: To be continued, under next year’s Lamplight…

GIGANTIC SHOUTOUT to @meeceisme whose freaking incredible Lilo&Stitch!founders comics (here and here) compelled me to draw this (I NEEDED to see the crayon drawing of Stitch!Madara, and then I desperately needed to see Tobirama add his peer review).

anyway... this is canon, right?

hashirama & butsuma grave ficlet

I was in a hashirama mood over the weekend, kinda wanted an epilogue ish thing for a fic I'm not gonna write

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"Honourable father," Hashirama greets as he lights the incense and sticks it standing in the tray before the name tablet. He claps his hands together and bows. 

"Hope you're well," he says conversationally as he settles into his seat on the floor cushion to watch the stick of incense burn down. "I tried to get Tobirama to come with me, but he… actually I think it's better if I don't repeat what he said." 

The rising smoke curls around the name tablet. SENJU BUTSUMA the gold lettering declares. 

"You've got three granddaughters now. They're in Uzushio right now— Mito's mother insisted they visit once Mito and the baby were fit to travel, and she adores them so much she won't let them come back just yet— that's why it's just me."

"The village with the Uchiha is going well. Hikaku-san has really settled in and he's a great clan head. Mission death rate is down even more than anticipated with their three-man team system. Illness-related death is record-low as well. Income per capita doubled and peace is. Really good. It's really, really good. There are some things here and there I'd change if I could but overall it's more than I ever dreamed."

His fingers fiddle with the hem of his sleeve, a habit which had gotten him scolded in childhood, which only reappears here in the ancestral shrine.

"I wish you could have seen it," Hashirama concludes as the red ember of the incense stick burns out.

"You always were an angry man, so no doubt you would have found something to be unhappy about, but I still wish you could have seen what all your son's useless dreaming amounted to." 

He stands.

"Anyways, I can't stay," he explains apologetically. "Village to run, clan to lead, all that. It's busy work. I'll be back next year hopefully." 

He bows and steps backwards out of the shrine. 

"Until then, father," he says, and he closes the doors. 

Hour #5: What Once was Lost

Summary: Decades of service to the powers that be have shown Tobirama that there is irrefutable power in belief. Author: @writhingbeneathyou

Rating: Teen And Up Fandom: Naruto Relationship: Ōtsutsuki Indra/Senju Tobirama Characters: Senju Tobirama, Ōtsutsuki Indra Other Tags: Uchiha patron god!Indra Word Count: 5,175

Decades of service to the powers that be have shown Tobirama that there is irrefutable power in belief. 

Regardless of where that belief is anchored—be it in a god, a dogma, or even something so simple as love in its basest state—what matters is that the hearts in which it resides beat with conviction. All of that devotion, all of those resonations of what it is to be human, seep into the walls of holy places over time and leave behind impressions of something bigger than the self. Something pure, prevailing, and alive .

Tajima’s teachings thrum through him with a power all their own as Tobirama allows the echoes of his step-father’s sagacity to guide his path. He stares up into the shafts of light streaming down through the canopy and simply listens for a time. The forest around him is warm and humid even in the dead of winter, not a sound to be heard through the molasses the air has become—a miasma thick enough to drown. A warning. Even the sun on his face seems to lack both temperature and substance, as if it can’t quite reach through to caress Tobirama’s cheeks properly. 

Blinking slowly, he stretches his senses though the ominous wall of wards and feels for the flow of chakra beneath his bare feet, hoping for a hint as to the direction of this power’s source. Read the rest on AO3!

IT BEGINS