April Wordcount Tracking

Total April Wordcount: 8204 words

Posted: There's a place I've seen where the soul burns clean, Chapter 7: Nocturne (self-indulgent Naruto Izuna Lives AU featuring plot-device characters getting fleshed out some because if Kishimoto won't tell us then I will make it up myself so there)

IN PROGRESS:

There's a place I've seen where the soul burns clean: 8204 words

(oops all one fic!)


>Sneak Peek< 

Madara had learned since then. He had said he’d let the ceasefire expire if Haruka didn’t live up to her word, yes, but that was on the assumption that he’d have a formal truce offer from Hashirama by then, at least. It had seemed like a safe bet at the time, with Senju Butsuma long since out of the way (and good riddance). Based on Izuna’s analysis, Tobirama seemed either loyal enough to follow where his clan head led or at least too smart to move against him openly, so he could likely also be dismissed as a potential rabble-rouser.

 

Madara would take his brother’s insight over the pet theories of the rest of their spy network put together, anyway. And to be fair, their intel on the internal dynamics of the Senju main family was spotty at best, so Izuna’s semi-regular personal contact with the Senju’s so-called demon gave him a better perspective than most. Madara was aware a number of his shinobi still insisted that Hashirama was a puppet ruler who Tobirama would someday depose so he could rule openly and wreak bloody terror on all enemies of the Senju, for example.

 

He usually managed not to snicker when any of them tried to win him over.

 

(That theory relied too much on Hashirama being as stupid as he acted.)

 

He may have changed over the years, as Izuna often reminded him (unnecessarily) at great length and volume, but Madara knew what it was to be isolated by power that still was never enough to keep his most precious people safe. Hashirama dealt with it by playing the fool, the same way he did when they were brats splashing in the river. It was obvious to anyone who had seen him like that.

 

Aside from Madara, that group probably included Senju Tobirama and very few others.

 

It made for a valuable object lesson in how confirmation bias impaired information gathering, and a joke he couldn’t share with anyone.

 

“...Nii-san?”

 

Madara shook himself and looked over to find Izuna leaning back on his hands, head cocked and a measuring look on his face as he looked him over. “Nothing.”