[Fic] This Valley Between Us Won't Keep Me Away

[math_is_magic]

 Title: This Valley Between Us Won't Keep Me Away

Summary: Madara loves his youngest brother, Sasuke, dearly enough to fight the world for him, even if that love isn't returned.

(Sasuke just can't deal with losing his whole world again.)

Notes: Huge thanks to Silver Queen and Pepperdoken for being my writing buddies and challenging me to put words to a page. Also, to Wafflelate for helping me develop Shikaki as an OC.

XxXxX

Madara loves his brothers.

That is, in Madara’s mind, his defining trait. Or at least his driving trait. Day by day, he gets more powerful, which means more people have to listen to him… and fewer people want to. But that doesn’t matter. Power is the means to an end — protecting his little brothers — and those outside of his family needn’t matter to Madara. They don’t. He doesn’t need the love or admiration of the rest of his clan. He has his little brothers.

Which is why it hurts Madara so much that his youngest brother seems to hate him.

 

Sasuke is the baby of the family, the youngest of Tajima’s six boys. There’s a large gap between him and Madara in age, meaning Sasuke wasn’t even born when their first brother died, and was only a baby when their third brother, Katsumi, died.

There are nights, when Madara is most stressed, that his guilt doesn’t just haunt him, but torments him. He failed their brothers, yes. There isn’t a moment he doesn’t regret that. But some nights it goes further. He’s sure Sasuke blames him for that. That Sasuke has grown from infancy, knowing Madara only as a failure, and that’s why his youngest brother — one of Madara’s two remaining family members in this whole world — doesn’t love him.

That’s not the only reason Madara is able to blame himself for Sasuke’s unhappiness. Sometimes, he’s sure that he secretly terrifies his brother, the same way he’s beginning to terrify their cousins just by existing. This feels especially likely after Sasuke has turned down an offer to train with Madara, again, or Madara has caught glimpses of disgust in his brother’s eyes when Madara spars with Izuna.

Other times, Madara is sure that it’s his upbringing. Mother died the same night as Katsumi, and Father was always busy running the clan. Madara took charge of raising Sasuke, even though he didn’t know how to raise children, and is painfully awkward at most social interactions that don’t involve hitting. Madara failed his brother, somehow, ruined his childhood enough to make Sasuke permanently unhappy and aloof.

Izuna tells Madara it’s not his fault, but then, Izuna blames himself for Sasuke’s misery, which is complete nonsense, so Madara isn’t able to take those reassurances very seriously.

By the time he takes the clan headship (too young, he’s too young to lose his father, to take on this burden, but he’s held back too many tears for his family to even feel this newest weight on his shoulders), Madara has resigned himself to never earning Sasuke’s smile, much less his love. That doesn’t mean Madara doesn’t love his little brother in return though.

Sasuke looks just like a younger Izuna, and Madara has to stomp down hard on his instincts to coo over how cute he is, or to fuss over him to make him happier; Sasuke has shown again and again that such actions only drive them further apart. Moreover, Madara’s little brother is smart. He’ll surpass Madara one day, he’s sure, between Sasuke’s natural talent and his bright mind which devours the clan library, leading him to innovations that leave ninja four times his age in awe. Sasuke freely shares those innovations too, at least with those of his age and younger. Madara is so proud of Sasuke’s brilliance, and his giving nature, despite his aloofness. Sasuke is driven to improve things, and Madara can’t help but compare that to his own drive. Sasuke is going places, Madara is sure, as long as he can keep the young boy alive to get there.

It’s his biggest fear, losing Sasuke, and even as clan head, with both he and Izuna pushing themselves to the edge to hold back the Senju, Madara is only able to give the children of the clan the slightest bit more leeway than he had at their age, slightly delaying their entry into the field, and reserving safer missions for them at first.

He hopes it is enough. He needs it to be enough.

XxXxX

It’s not enough.

XxXxX

Madara and Izuna both fret, when they finally have to send Sasuke on his first long term mission. They’re able to send him with a team, in the opposite direction from Senju lands. It’s as safe as they can make him.

The team returns home short one member. Sasuke disappeared. He was last seen trying to weedle information out of a kunoichi his age during the supply exchange in a nearby town. Her teammates must have realized he was an Uchiha, and kidnapped him. Sasuke’s teammates didn’t hear the rumors about the Iburi lurking in the area until after they had already allowed him to go off on his own. That dastardly clan of bloodline thieves must have taken him, and disappeared, as they always do.

Madara doesn’t care that no one has been able to track down the Iburi clan’s base in living memory. He tears out of the Uchiha compound towards the last place his baby brother was seen without more thought than to order Izuna to take charge of the clan; he needs his other brother to stay safe.

XxXxX

Madara feels himself freeze; a man kneels at the other end of his shadow, hands folded in a seal. The only reason he doesn’t push back with chakra and kill the man right this instant is because the first words out of the man’s mouth are “Where is my sister?” quickly followed up with, “What did you do to her?”

There’s a subtle crack in his voice that makes Madara take a moment to actually look at his captor before retaliating.

Madara sees anger, a deep killing intent… and how it covers for a deeper, all-encompassing fear. This man is truly worried for his younger sibling Madara knows. Knows too intimately’ he’s been there before. Three times. He won’t let this fourth one end in tragedy.

But that doesn’t mean he has to hurt this big brother too.

“Nothing, unless you’re the ones who took my little brother.” Madara is sympathetic, but that line ends where his brother’s peril starts, so the last bit of that sentence comes out with bit of a growl.

“My sister’s teammates returned to our clan compound without her,” the man — the Nara, he must be, with a technique like that — says. “They say she snuck away from them, intending to interrogate an Uchiha boy they had come across. They didn’t think it was safe, but she was insistent… she tricked them, to go talk to him alone.”

“My brother was on a mission. It was just a simple delivery pick up. It shouldn’t have been dangerous, as his first long mission… but he never came home. I was on my way to look for him when I… ran into you.”

Madara flares his chakra, easily breaking free from the shadow paralysis, but otherwise making no offensive moves. He doesn’t want to fight this man, but he wanted to show that he could, easily, if moved against.

The Nara doesn’t attack, despite the fury in his eyes. Madara doesn’t press that issue. He knows from experience with Sasuke that a brilliant opponent is far more dangerous than a powerful one, and the Nara are nothing if not brilliant. This is not a man Madara wants standing between him and Sasuke’s safety.

“I don’t care whose fault this mess is. I don’t care about the histories between our clans. Our siblings are gone, neither of us did it, and we’re they’re only hope. All I want is to bring my brother home safely. If we work together, we have a better chance of saving both our siblings…”

The Nara thinks, just for a moment, and visibly slumps when he fails to come up with a counter to Madara’s logic.  

“You’re right. I want my sister, and I don’t want to have to fight you. And you brother is almost certainly in the same place. We’re both better off working together.”

XxXxX

Shikaki is very, very glad he moved too fast — stupidly fast, really, and very unlike him — for Chouki to realize his plan before he slipped out of the compound following the debrief of Shikako’s teammates. His sensible Akimichi teammate would certainly never have agreed to work with Uchiha Madara  of all people. It’s stupid. It’s reckless.

It might be a stroke of luck that lets him save his sister.

Shikaki is brilliant, the smartest Nara in a generation, before his sister was born, but that brilliance means he can’t delude himself into thinking his brains alone were enough to single-handedly take on an unknown clan.

When he suspected the Uchiha, it had been easier; the Uchiha are emotional, easily goaded over their loved ones and their precious eyes. He only needed to be smart, and take his own hostage, and force an exchange. As far as they would know, Shikako has no bloodline, no special worth to the Uchiha beyond Shikaki and his mother’s own sentimentality, and the Akimichi’s pride. He knew where their lands were, could have tracked their patrols to find a good target, then played on their sentimentality instead.

And then Uchiha-fucking-Madara himself had come barreling towards him when he was only halfway there — not that Shikaki had realized it until after he had already captured the absolute powerhouse of a man in his shadow.

It was stupid, reckless, more than enough evidence that he’s not thinking things through properly right now… but it had worked out fine, so Shikaki shoves any self recriminations away. He could use the muscle to take on whoever had Shikako. His sister had snuck off to meet up with a suspected Uchiha boy. If the boy hadn’t taken her, then obviously they must have been taken together. It only makes sense to aim Madara at their joint foes, and go steal his sister away to safety in the commotion.

But that’s for later. First, they actually have to find their siblings. Madara’s plan to scope out the village is the logical one, but the chance of there being a trail that was missed by both of their siblings teams is unlikely. They will have to resort to more extreme methods, to have any chance of locating their siblings.

That’s another advantage of teaming up with Madara that Shikaki will use to justify his actions in hindsight. There are certain things Shikaki can do with a powerful ally at his back, if Shikaki can trust him that far. Which Shikaki shouldn’t. But.

Shikaki can’t think of any reason for Madara’s compliance not to be genuine. The man is too powerful to need to play at missing his own sibling for Shikaki’s sake. So Shikaki trusts him, at least for the moment, while their goals are aligned. Trusts him far more than he will ever tell his teammates or family when he returns home, lest he lose his clan headship because the others won’t follow someone who does something so stupid as to let Uchiha-fucking-Madara watch his back when he’s at his most vulnerable.

So. He finds a clearing near the town where Shikako disappeared, where Madara confirms Sasuke was last seen. He asks Madara to watch his back, while he burns chakra on summoning, and burns time meditating.

It is difficult, and dangerous, and useless in combat, but eventually, Shikaki manages to slip into Sage mode. The world springs to life around him, even earth beneath his feet shining with natural energy as much as any plant or animal.

Madara’s chakra is overwhelming like this, but Shikaki breathes, and pushes through it; Shikako has explained her hypersensitivity to him before. How she sees and processes the world, how she pushes through the overstimulation. Shikaki calls up her old words, settling his new senses until he can breathe, until he can see, until he can search. The world begins to make sense around him, and finally, finally, Shikaki can see the comet’s tail of chakra marking where his sister has been. He narrows his senses, sacrificing sight for distance, following the remnants of her chakra trail for miles, until it disappears into the ground. With some effort, he follows it into the earth, and finds himself in a cave network, plain, forgettable shinobi filling the halls.

The Iburi. A small clan in the Northeastern corner of the Land of Fire, hated by nearly everyone in the region as much as the Uchiha hate the Senju because of what they are. Bloodline Thieves.

The Iburi have broken families in just about every clan without even competing for missions, stealing women and children, looking for the exact right combination of genes for… something. No one knows what. Generations of secrecy leave them ghosts in the shinobi world. Boogeymen, used to frighten children with a fate worse than death, and to explain to them why mom or big sister won’t be coming home. The Iburi take hostages, but they don’t ransome them back. They don’t deal with any other clans, else someone might have been able to find their compound by now.

Well, now Shikaki knows how they’ve managed to survive all this time with such a target on their back. Who would think to look underground?

A Nara Sage would, Shikaki thinks, when he’s motivated to save his sister.

And he will save her. He’s the smartest Nara of his generation, and he has the power of Uchiha fucking Madara on his side. Doing something that has never been done before — rescuing hostages from the Iburi, alive — is surely feasible. He just needs to think on it.

Shikaki pushes his realizations to the back of his brain to focus again on the surroundings fo the chakra he followed. There are too many ninja in the large cave complex, and Shikako’s starlight is too muted to pick out. That’s okay. This will get them close enough. Shikaki pulls back out of the ground, and throws his strength into widening his senses again, trying to spot a memorable landmark to guide them to this place in person.

He just manages to get a glimpse of an oddly shaped cliff before the information overload overwhelms him.

He loses control of his sage mode, loses sight of the bright natural energy in the world. In a blink, it’s all gone, and he sees only darkness. A few more blinks and he realizes that is literal; he was out of it so long that it has grown dark outside, only a glimmer of moonlight available to help him see.

“Well?” Madara growls politely scraping his sandals in the dirt so Shikaki can get a sense of where he is.

“I found them. It’s the Iburi. It took… more than I expect. I can lead you there in the morning, once I’ve rested, once there’s light-”

Apparently, Madara is done being polite; he makes no indication he is approaching until Shikaki finds himself hoisted up by the arm, and slung onto the man’s back.

“Tell me where to go,” Madara orders. Shikaki bites back his protests when he catches the faintest shimmer of read in the corner of his eyes. Sharingan.

Well, if Madara thought he could do this, moving out sooner is better than later.

“Start by going west,” Shikaki orders. Madara moves as soon as he gives a direction. “There’s a creek near here that will be our marker to turn north…”

XxXxX

The sting of Chakra exhaustion is faded by the next morning. Shikaki forces Madara to make a short stop, about a thirty minutes run from where he pinged the compound to be. It’s frustrating. Anxiety burbles under his skin. But they need to regroup. To rest and scout and plan. A lot of problems are solved by “throw Madara at them,” but they will still need a little more finesse to ensure their siblings don’t get caught in the crossfire.  Luckily, Shikaki has had all night to plan, he’s confident they can pull this off, with just a little time…

Shikaki shares his plan with Madara, and accepts the man’s questions and suggestions with grace; the Uchiha Clan Head isn’t entirely without brains, it seems, and he’s certainly not holding back from Shikaki any tricks that might be useful. It’s a good plan, considering the circumstances. Better than even just Shikaki’s on its own.

He’s confident it will work, right up until the point where the earth in front of them splits open, and they’re thrown back, hard, by a wall of flames.

Shikaki coughs, lungs screaming for air, as the smoke and dust begin to settle. He he eventually manages a few gulps, enough to stop his brain from screaming so that he can focus on trying to stand back up. His brain understands what just happened, that his sister is-

But his emotions aren’t ready for that. Not his little sister. The brilliant, lively girl with a bright future ahead of her, the apple of their mother’s eye, even as her mischief drove her and Shikaki practically to drink. His sister is too much… too good… too alive… to be gone like this.

Shikaki’s hands card through the ash, trying to find enough purchase to stand up, to go scout, to do something, anything, to prove his gut that his sister couldn’t be dead right, and his stupid brain wrong.

He makes it to his knees before he realizes that Madara’s grief is manifesting in a very, very different way than Shikaki’s grief is.

The other man is sitting on his knees, staring at the rubble before them in horror. Blood is running down his face, not from a head wounds like Shikaki initially assumes, but directly from his eyes, which are now more black than red. The ninja in Shikaki files this information away to consider later. The brother in him feels only horror… and satisfaction. Madara’s chakra is building, thick and visibly black in his rage.

With a wordless scream of agony, Madara launches himself up and forward, fists and chakra blindly assaulting the rubble before them. A few bodies are turned up by the fervor, and Shikaki wonders if they were still alive before Madara’s rampage. It’s a distant kind of wonder; he doesn’t care that these Iburi ninja are dead, he’s merely relieved he doesn’t have to make himself stand up so he can kill them himself.

Madara runs out of things to destroy before he runs out of anger, and Shikaki’s satisfaction peters out as Madara wheels on him. He seems to have remembered that Shikaki is the one that made them stop, that Shikaki was the dead weight that kept them from arrive even just a few minutes sooner to be able to save their siblings…

Shikaki doesn’t even try to dodge as Madara lunges at him, he’d rather die before the pain of grief can sink in.

Madara never reaches him.

A dark blur pops out of the shadows, barreling into Madara and knocking him back. The shadows that spit the blur out then move, surrounding Madara, peeling off the ground to physically tie Madara down.

“What the fuck?” A familiar voice says from the shadow, and Shikaki is too stunned not to respond automatically, no matter how silly the reflex.

“Language!”

Madara has stopped struggling, and the shadows binding him relax in kind. A face swirls out of the darkness, settling into human shape just so Shikaki can see how annoyed she is as she responds. “Seriously? You almost died, and you’re worried about me cursing?”

“I almost died? You almost died!”

“I was on my way home with Sasuke when we felt Madara freak out over here. We rushed back once I felt your chakra here too. Good thing. You weren’t even trying to dodge! Or use your shadow. What the fu-reak. What the freak, Shikaki? Actually, don’t answer that. I need to go see if Sasuke needs a rescue first.”

Shikaki turns his attention back to his temporary-ally-and-almost-murderer.

Chakra still whips around Madara so thick it’s almost physical, but the killing edge of it is gone. Madara doesn’t seem to be aware of any of that. His focus is only for the young boy in his arms, the one he has completely enveloped with his own body, clinging so tight Shikaki wonders if the boy can breathe.

Shikako approaches the pair, clearly ready to fight Madara herself if need be (Shikaki similarly readies himself to fight, he hasn’t even processed losing her once, he’s not letting this mad Uchiha threaten her again). The boy in Madara’s grasp — Sasuke — wiggles one hand free enough to gesture to Shikako. Whatever it meant, Shikako backs off, letting the two Uchiha hug as long as they need. She also, wisely, doesn’t protest when Shikaki manages to get up and drag her into a hug of his own. She even hugs back without out a struggle, after a moment, and lets him hold her as long as he needs. It’s probably as close to an apology as he’s going to get, since whatever she’s been up to, she doesn’t seem to think she’s done anything wrong.

XxXxX

It is a long time before Madara lets go of Sasuke. Not as long as he wants, but far longer than he deserves; his little brother was unendingly patient with Madara’s embrace, considering how little he normally tolerates Madara. And that was before Madara had failed his baby brother so badly again.

Madara doesn’t know how long it’s been. The sun is high now, arcing back down to the horizon, so it’s past noon at least. But Madara’s memories of the past few hours are hazy still. He’s not even entirely sure he remembers what time it was when the explosion went off, when he thought he lost-

Well, not much makes sense right now, except that Sasuke is here, and seemingly safe and healthy. Not happy; he’s never happy in Madara’s presence, but. Content enough not bring up Madara’s failure right away. Sasuke has always been kind like that, even to Madara most of the time. But even that generosity is running out, and Madara is forced to release Sasuke as the boy starts to squirm in his arms. It’s time to take him home, anyways, to the safety of the compound.

His vision is blurring, a bit, and his body aches, but he’s still strong enough for that, at least. Even if it kills him, running for a third day straight without rest. Sasuke is alive, and it’s time for Madara to pull himself together and get him back to safety.

He manages to stand and take three steps before he blinks, and his face is full of dirt. He blinks again, and he’s facing the sky. Sasuke is at his side, holding the hand of an unknown girl about his age. They’re staring down Shikaki. Madara blinks, and Shikaki’s face is close now. There are hands around his shoulders.

“Guess it’s my turn, then,” the Nara man says, hauling Madara up onto his back. He blinks one last time, sees Sasuke’s back as they follow the children through the trees, sees his little brother alive and… laughing? With an unknown girl at his side? Madara thinks that’s strange, as much as he can think anything right now. Sasuke is safe.

Madara’s eyes close, and he knows no more.

XxXxX

The trip that took them a day and a half out takes them three days returning. Shikaki can’t carry Madara nearly as long as Madara carried him, and there’s no urgency anymore anyways, so they stop to rest often. Madara wakes up from his chakra exhaustions the next morning, and is well enough to run under his own power by lunch. The following two days go no faster, though, and Madara swears Sasuke and Shikaki’s sister — Shikako — are purposefully slowing them down. It puts Madara on edge, he wanted to have Sasuke back in the safety of the clan compound yesterday — but he’s too relieved that Sasuke is safe and tolerating him to push the issue too hard.

By the time they are approaching the town where this whole mishap started, Madara is sure the kids were stalling. They round on their elders brothers a few miles out from where the two families should split apart. Their faces are set, as they stare down their clan heads. It would be adorable, if Madara wasn’t nervous about how utterly serious Sasuke looks. Whatever Sasuke wants, he will not be budging an inch on it.

“We want you two to make peace between our clans,” Sasuke says.

“At least enough that we can keep seeing each other. We’re not going to be separated again,” Shikako adds.

To be honest, Madara is more than willing; Izuna will hate it, but Sasuke has never asked Madara for anything before, and if he can give Sasuke was Madara was forced to give up, all those years ago… It will never happen though. Not without a fight Madara’s not sure he’s capable of putting up.

The kids seem to sense Madara’s weakness, as their stares fall on Shikaki with enough weight that Madara swears the man physically slouches.

“The others will never agree to that. The Yamanaka will want to check my head just for suggesting it!”

Shikako pouts at Shikaki, and Sasuke looks at Madara with a plea in his eyes, and Madara senses danger rising. Her eyes are bigger than Sasuke’s, and likely just as effective on Shikaki as Sasuke’s are on him.

“But Anija…. He’s my Wall.”

She says it with the same weight and tone that an Uchiha would say-

“Mada-ni, she’s my Person.”

-that.

Later, he can say that he was just thrown off by Sasuke finally calling him brother. Or play off being overindulgent because he’s just happy Sasuke is alive and smiling. And those things are part of it. Madara is weak to his little brothers. But it’s not all.

It’s because, he watches Sasuke and this Nara girl look at each other like they hung the moon, like they’re the only ones in the whole wide world that could possibly understand each other. And Madara knows that feeling. Knows the pain of giving it up. And can appreciate how far things have come. Because he can give his brother this, like their father never could.

“I suppose, Nara, that this means we have some logistics to work out.”

Shikaki looks at him dubiously, but a quick glance at his sister cuts off any ‘No’ that might have been forming in his throat.

“…I suppose we do.”

Sasuke beams.

XxXxX

Additional notes:

 Concept of Akimichi "Walls" from greenkangaroo's "The Wall."

 

This doesn't totally sit right with me. This really would be better for a setting like the DoS forums; I had the idea for particular scenes and emotions and scenarios, then did my best to tie them together. It leaves the emotional arcs kind of incomplete, but at least starts them on a path, I think?

At any rate, I don't think it's my best work, and I didn't even really revise it, but it's the first real, complete thing I've put out in over a year, and I'm proud of that. Hopefully someone will get something out of it (or better yet, be inspired by the premise to write a better version of it). If nothing else, hopefully this will break the ice and I can finally start/finish some other things I've been wanting to do.

 

Comments

[linnypants]

Math this was amazing

I love them both teaching their family. Sasuke especially I can see stealing a lot of teaching ideas from Shikako, which is adorbs.

Also I'm emotional about Naruto having his clan :'D

[math_is_magic]

Thank you!

Naruto is definitely with the Uzumaki and is just. Drowning in family. He's very happy, and he'll be his usual happy, determined self when the time comes for him to get out of Uzu an go make All The Friends (new and old) and make people stop being done and killing each other.

Sasuke and Shikako totally steal ideas from each other happily, and it's FASCINATING to watch from the outside. They're os in sync. I love them so.

[vagabonddawn]

This is really sweet. I love the glimpses of Sasuke enjoying teaching the younger shinobi and actually enjoying having a family while being a terrifying Team Seven Ninja.

Also I enjoy that Shikaki's plan amounts to 'throw Madara at the problem'.

[math_is_magic]

Any Nara worth their salt would realize in 0.2 seconds flat that "Throw Madara at the Problem" is almost certainly the most effective, least effort way to get anything like this done. He doesn't even have to work hard to manipulate him!

[schneefink]

I love outsider PoV on time travel, and this was great :D The Shikaki/Madara team-up was also fun, I enjoyed this.

Love it

[gingerspark]

Madara's POV was amazing, poor thing. Can't figure out what he's done because it's in the future. I really liked how you wrote him, he was so devoted to his brothers.

I liked Shikaki too, he was his own person but very Nara. Love how he switches from 'will fight madara' to 'throw madara at the problem', it's brilliant.

Sasuke and Shikako were so cute! Did they get kidnapped on purpose to fuck up the Iburi? Madara an Shikaki are going to have a difficult few years reigning them in aren't they?

Re: Love it

[math_is_magic]

Thank you so much!

-Madara's pov was really hard, so I'm glad you liked it. You've hit the nail on the head with his problem. He's sure he did something wrong, but he has no clue what, so it's just thi nebulous guilt and self blame warring with his other worldview; that he's great and his biggest mistakes have just been not being powerful enough, so if he can have All The Power things will be fine. Or. Something. I lost where I was going with that as I was typing, but yeah. I see Madara, especially here Madara's internal confidence but also insecurity is. Hard.

-Shikaki is waaaay too smart not to realize that Madara os very easily ruled by his feelings, which happen to line up with Shikaki's goals, so he doesn't even really have to Manipulate Madara. Just. Give him a plan and watch it get taken care of.

-They absolutely got kidnapped on purpose. Even in these new child bodies, those two are OP. The Iburi interrupted the reunion they sneaked off from their teams to have, and made them mad. Then they realized that their attackers were Iburi and were like. Eh, might as well let this happen. It's easier than tracking them down, and a clan of bloodline thieves really needs to go.

Madara and Shikaki are going to end up bonding a LOT over their siblings' mischief. Early gray hair and all that. But at least like. The WCE version of being overprotective more closely aligns with Team 7's version of "protect by getting and helping others get Stronk" than, say, Shikamaru's "Try to tie them down at home" feelings, so the tension there should be. Somewhat less.