The Senju camp had quieted after the long day's missions, yet a simmering tension lingered beneath the surface—one not caused by enemies beyond the forest, but by the dissonance festering within.
Tobirama stood alone at the edge of the camp, where the trees thickened and the watchfires didn't reach. The forest here was dense, shadowed, and silent—just how he preferred it. Behind him, the low hum of the clan's chatter and laughter drifted through the trees. But none of it reached him. None of it mattered. Not anymore.
He stared out at the woods, arms crossed behind his back, face still and unreadable. His senses were sharp, as always, but not attuned to threats from beyond. They were turned inward—toward the storm brewing in his mind.
Itama.
His little brother had returned from the dead like some phantom of the past—scarred, altered, and cloaked in secrets. And Hashirama, in his boundless optimism, had welcomed him back without reservation. Tobirama couldn't.
Didn't.
Wouldn't.
---
Tobirama remembered the boy Itama had been—bright-eyed, stubborn, clumsy with his ninjutsu but always eager to please. He remembered the day they buried a bloodied cloth, all that had remained of him after the ambush. He remembered how Hashirama wept for hours, and how he had stood still, hands clenched, mouth tight, vowing that he would never be so weak again.
Now the boy they'd mourned walked the camp like a ghost dressed in flesh. And Tobirama had seen it—how differently he moved, how he deflected questions with precision, how his chakra shifted when he thought no one was watching.
Rogue techniques.
Foreign discipline.
And something else… subtle, but unnatural.
---
Tobirama had started withdrawing the day after their last council meeting. While Hashirama and Itama reconnected—laughing by the river, training together like old times—Tobirama retreated deeper into himself.
He took his meals alone. He avoided shared training grounds. He slipped out of camp at dawn and returned long after nightfall. Even his reports, once meticulous and delivered in person, were now left folded on Hashirama's desk without a word.
Only the elders noticed, and even they hesitated to confront him.
Tobirama wasn't cold in the way the average shinobi was. His detachment came with a sharpness that cut deeper than anger—a mind honed to calculate betrayal before it bloomed, to preempt danger not with emotion, but with logic.
And logic told him something was wrong with Itama.
---
One night, Hashirama approached him. The campfires were low, and most of the clan slept. Tobirama was outside the perimeter again, kneeling by a stream, washing blood from his forearm after a solo patrol skirmish.
"You're avoiding him," Hashirama said plainly.
Tobirama didn't look up. "I'm watching."
"There's nothing to watch. He's our brother."
Tobirama wrung out the cloth slowly. "He disappeared for months. Reappears with no wounds, no proper explanation, and skills he never had before."
"He's been through something we don't understand," Hashirama replied. "That doesn't make him a threat."
"It makes him unknown," Tobirama snapped, finally rising to meet his brother's gaze. "Unknowns get people killed."
Hashirama's jaw tightened. "You think I'm being naive."
"I think you're blinded by hope," Tobirama replied, voice low. "You want to believe the war hasn't changed us. That we're still the same boys who sat under trees talking about peace. But it has changed us. And if you won't face that, you'll be the reason we fall."
There was a moment of silence.
Then Hashirama said, "I trust him. Because I believe he still trusts us."
Tobirama turned away. "Then you're a fool."
With that, he vanished into the trees.
---
From that night on, Tobirama stopped speaking to Hashirama altogether. In strategy meetings, he stood silent unless directly addressed. In battles, he worked efficiently but wordlessly, coordinating through signals and hand signs. And with Itama, he didn't speak at all.
Itama noticed, of course.
The coldness wasn't subtle. Tobirama no longer acknowledged him in passing. When their paths crossed during training sessions, Tobirama left without a word. When assignments were passed out, Tobirama ensured his name was never paired with Itama's.
At first, Itama told himself it was just caution. Tobirama had always been skeptical. But as days stretched into weeks, the truth settled in.
Tobirama didn't just distrust him.
He had cut himself off entirely.
---
One evening, Itama found him on the cliffside above the camp, standing where the stars met the treetops. Tobirama didn't move as he approached.
"You can keep spying on me, if that's what you want," Itama said calmly. "But at least say something."
Still silence.
"I don't expect you to believe me. But I came back because I chose to. Not because I had to."
Tobirama remained still.
"I didn't ask for your trust," Itama continued. "But I hoped I hadn't lost my brother."
Tobirama's voice, when it came, was like steel scraping stone. "You want a brother? Be one."
Then he walked away.
---
That night, Tobirama sat alone in his quarters, a single oil lamp casting sharp shadows on the wooden walls. Unrolled before him were detailed chakra diagrams—Itama's recent movements, battle forms, and sudden chakra growth. He marked them meticulously, comparing them to old records.
The wood chakra… it stirred in the youngest Senju like a buried ember awakening. But it was wild, incomplete, and wrong in its manifestation.
Hashirama's ability had been a miracle.
But Itama's?
Tobirama didn't know what it was.
And until he understood it, he would stay alone.
Trust no one.
Not even his own blood.
Not until the truth came to light.