damnfooltalk | September Wordcount Tracking

Better late than never, amirite? (iamrite)

Total September Wordcount: 7216 words

Posted: There’s a place I’ve seen where the soul burns clean, chapter 2

IN PROGRESS:

There’s a place I’ve seen where the soul burns clean: 2,549 words
A Loving Insurrection (MitoHashiMada pwp oneshot): 4,667 words

Sneak Peeks:

>There's a place I've seen where the soul burns clean<

Izuna scowled up at him. “Well? I know what happened while I was getting stabbed. I was there.”

Madara clearly didn’t appreciate the reminder, but relented anyway, voice clipped as he gave Izuna another lukewarm glare. “Your squad tried to cover your retreat, but he tried to follow you when you ran. They wouldn’t have been able to stop him, so I intervened.”

Intervened was such a tepid word for what it looked like whenever his elder brother was done. “The tree let you disengage?”

Analyzing that was better than dwelling on the fact that he ran because he could tell he was a dead man and was determined to make his death count, but instead of honoring that, his squad had immediately tried to waste the opening he gave them.

He could still feel the airless don’t follow me that he had spat through the blood in his mouth, still see the stricken faces of his squad as he turned to draw the Senju after him. Izuna unclenched his jaw when gritting his teeth began to send bolts of pain from his teeth to his eyes, the flavor of the pain so bright that he couldn’t hear Madara over its shrill fizzing.

Madara was speaking when Izuna’s senses reconstituted themselves from that useless soup, but Izuna found he had missed less of the conversation than he would have thought. Madara’s eyes were heavy on him and he raised his eyebrows pointedly as Izuna focused on him again, earning himself another offended glare. Of course his nii-san noticed and waited out most of the flare. He wasn’t even upset by the consideration, not really, but being irritable at Madara was better than being irritable at himself for needing it. (He was going to do both anyway. Of course he was.)

>A Loving Insurrection<

“That creature beneath the old shrine is lying to you, by the way."

Madara’s vision shifted into cut-glass clarity before he had even consciously processed the words. “How long has Hashirama had you following me?”

Mito looked up at him, gaze settling on the lower half of his face, steel in her expression. “He does not know. He told me that he had felt something amiss in his mokuton-sense, and I took it upon myself to investigate.”

“And you expect me to believe that you didn’t immediately report whatever you witnessed.” Madara’s voice came out flat in his ears. He had been resigned to – not leaving immediately, necessarily, but preparing for it tonight, making sure that he and any Uchiha with an ounce of self-preservation had a way out of this village that was the corpse of his shared dream. Now it seemed that the option to leave on his own terms was rapidly spiraling out of reach.

He could defeat Mito in combat, without question. Doing so without raising an alarm, when she had clearly planned and prepared specifically for confronting him? Unlikely.

He moved to brush Mito aside and she latched onto his wrist, small hand nevertheless gripping like iron as she leaned in with no thought to propriety and hissed up into his face, "I expect you to be suspicious and unreasonable, but you have never been stupid, Madara. I didn't intercept you to argue in the street. You are being deceived. Follow me and I can prove it."

"And with Hashirama itching to be rid of me, I'm supposed to believe that you of all people are going to this length to keep me in the village," Madara parried, the words burning his tongue.

"Like you, my husband is being a fool, and I will not stand for it."

The words brought Madara back enough to gain some perspective, realizing with a start that his focus had narrowed down to the woman spitting defiance at him without a thought to how their standoff must look to any outside observer. With her face flushed and her body searing a hot line against his, even through his coat, all Madara could think to retort was, "So you do remember that you have a husband."

She drew back in response, settling her weight back on her feet and leaning out of his breathing space, but without any indication that she was stung by his unsubtle accusation. There was a light in her black eyes that gave Madara the distinct impression that she was laughing at him, in fact.