Chapter Text
"It's a sacrilege," Madara had pointed out to the gathered elders. "It tramples the laws of hospitality and spits in the face of every god or spirit boasting of even a single piddly road shrine in this country."
He'd said it mildly, controlled into bland stillness, because he could tell their minds were made up, and they'd had all the barely-blooded warriors riled up already anyway. The young idiots would go raiding with or without Madara, with or without their clan head's approval and leadership. In their heads they would just come back once it was done and accept the punishment for having done it -- a fair enough price, for rut-muddled idiots and their desperate littermates.
"The sacrilege will already have been accomplished," Elder Yoritomo had replied piously. "The young ones do not propose to attack the mikos-to-be on pilgrimage, of course not, that would be bestial! But if the Fūma clan has already attacked and, ah, potentially defiled them... It would be a mercy to still take them into our walls. Why, think, a shrine maiden crawling home in disgrace, heavy with a shinobi's bastard get. What respectable civilian household would take them back?"
'Potentially' indeed. Hah. Wait until their clothes were torn a bit, 'rescue' them, take your prize; and then who could tell later on that the deed hadn't already been done anyway.
And of course it had nothing to do with the fact that to be a shrine maiden you had to have quite a bit more chakra than an average civilian. And often no obvious bloodline to get in the way of the sharingan, or be accused of bloodline theft later on when the litter was old enough for the battlefield.
A lot of those omega maidens were probably shinobi-sired, anyway. Offered to the gods as a respectable way to get a misbegotten child out of the household. But still.
Madara had given deep, pleasant consideration to the thought of burning the council house down. Then he'd given a curt nod, turned on his heels without a word lest vile swearing make it out, and gone to head up the party of idiots, to make sure at least some of them would make it back alive.
Them and their war brides.
--
Five alphas, eight assorted betas. Usually disciplined, even as young as they still were, but the thought of potential wives (potential families to fill the holes left in torn-apart litters) had left them fractious and eager for bloodshed, edging on a rut. Madara had to lay hands on one of his own people to settle them all down when after hours on the road all they found of the pilgrim train was a couple of dead Fūma bastards and abandoned shuriken, some omega-scented veils caught onto branches.
"Now tell me again what you said."
"All my apologies, Madara-sama, it -- nothing worth repeating. I beg your forgiveness."
Madara shoved Setsuko and her newly broken arm at her littermate, eyes burning red; the rest of them subsisted, eyes averted and throats subtly bared, and finally started milling around the site of the attack to look for clues. Suddenly they remembered their training. 'Che.
Izuna was turning over a corpse, ignoring the display; Madara joined him, jaw tight, waited for a handful of seconds. Couldn't make himself wait any longer than that. "Well?"
"Shuriken to the throat. It was an ambush." Sighing, his little brother straightened up, sneaked him a wincing look. "Was this why you didn't want to come?"
Madara would have loved to pretend it was; he almost did, just to avoid having that argument again, then sighed shortly through his nose. "No. Obviously they would have an escort, but I didn't expect it to be good enough to fend off that clan." A frown, scanning the scene. "At least not so thoroughly. Smaller shrines usually don't have that kind of money." He could see only one body that might have been a civilian bodyguard; and no dead priests, no chaperoning beta siblings, no maiden omegas.
The shuriken in the Fūma corpse was embedded halfway through her vertebra. A precision slice with a great deal of power to the throw and probably an edge of chakra along the metal for added penetration. Not the easiest with normal metal.
"So then why--"
"Because!" he snapped, throwing a hand in the air, "How the hell is it any better to take unwilling broodmares of dubious quality to refill our ranks next generation when we could make alliances with strong clans and have support right now?!"
Izuna sighed pointedly, restraining himself from a dubious glare only because they were surrounded by agitated alphas and he was too smart to make Madara look challengeable right now. "Sovereignty of our--"
"Shut it. We're moving out."
The alphas growled quietly between them as they gathered again, but subsided as they started moving silently through the trees. Madara led the pack, from the dryness of the blood already knowing that they were too late. The great shrine at Tomoshibi was not going to be raided by a mere fourteen ninja, even if they were Uchiha. The remaining Fūma might have managed to cut off the best escape routes and force the travelers to slow down before they could get to safety, but that wasn't a sure bet; the tracks went into the tangled woods and the giant shuriken they favored didn't do well with so much shrubbery...
Either way, he couldn't make everyone go home anymore, not even knowing their first goal was good as ruined. If the escorts were that good, then the Uchiha needed to know everything they could find out about them. It wasn't just a raid now, it was a mission.
--
"Niisan."
Hidden in the fork of a tree, Madara let his eyes travel across broken branches, raked earth, and the bare shiver of leaves and grass against the direction of the wind. "I see it."
Madara's people were gaining; really close now. Because the Fūma had stopped giving chase and were now going in cautious circles, borderline beating every shadow to flush out a prey gone to ground.
They hadn't found it yet. Had to be shinobi.
He signaled to detach half of his people, sent them to circle wide and seek out the Fūma's outside perimeter -- the waiting net -- and started ghosting after the Fūma hunters into it.
"Omegas?" Izuna breathed as he followed in his footsteps exactly.
"Long gone. That's the escort playing hare." He made a faint grimace of distaste; Izuna repressed a smile. Neither one of them needed to have the conversation that went with it. 'It's over now; those sore losers!' 'As if you would have let the escort go, niisan (sore loser yourself.)'
His people were going to be in a right mood. Good thing there were enemy nin to destroy. As for the escort themselves... Hm. Madara would have to see what clan they were from before he could decide if he was going to allow them to escape with their lives. The Fūma would have attacked the pilgrims more cautiously in the first place if the guards had been obvious or numerous, so... Discreet, efficient, a small-but-high-level team? That was dangerous.
But they weren't in Uchiha territory. He might be able to afford mercy.
Bird whistles from his team -- fifteen enemies making up the net, and at least ten searching the woods, in prudent teams of two... Damn. That was almost twice the size of his own squad. He'd give his people good odds of killing them all, but only if they managed to surprise them all, and even then he might lose three or four. Not something he was going to order here; it really wasn't worth the risk.
Izuna was better than him at stealth, but less likely to break free if all of them turned on him at once, finding him at their center. Madara signaled him away, to send the others the message to keep hidden. The entire second of delay before his younger brother went hinted clearly at his displeasure. Oh well.
(He always felt briefly guilty whenever he benefited from the fact that Izuna had not been raised to share the decision-making power with him, but to defer and enforce instead. They were supposed to work differently now but the early dynamic had long set.
On the other hand, if they had been the same age Izuna would never have tolerated being coddled, and Madara found he rather enjoyed it, so.)
--
A shallow ridge ran through the woods, the gap swallowed by bushes. The Fūma nin made sure to check it thoroughly, and totally ignored the genjutsu-blurred hollow under the gnarled roots of an old tree stump.
The root hollow was another ruse. Heh. The escort hadn't been stupid enough to box themselves in; they'd found a gap between the branches of a massive tree a short distance away, the kind of place you would build the first platform of your treehouse, wide and stable. Obscured by branches and dead leaves, hair and clothes streaked with dried mud and moss, and with the evening coming they -- he? Only one? -- was borderline invisible, as long he didn't move.
Standing with his feet planted on two forking branches at the man's back, Madara watched the minute shift of his breathing, the way his hair moved. He still wore a maiden's kimono, long fluttering sleeves tied back, and rolled-up, quite unmaidenly pants underneath unveiling bare legs up to the knee. The sandals themselves had been long lost. The man sprawled face down in the gap, watching two pairs of Fūma meet up underneath him and snarl their frustration at each other.
"--can't have gotten far, Hinako was sure she'd hit him--"
"Gotta have holed up somewhere--"
"--be mewling for it soon, we just have to listen--"
... Oh.
No wonder the Fūma hadn't noticed the ninja bodyguard in the middle of the procession.
Under mud-and-moss, the scent of the escort rose clean, unmuddled to his nose -- omega.
Omega rapidly approaching his heat.
"--Gonna fucking dose him until he's a brainless, drooling sack of--"
The omega slipped a hand into his obi -- shuriken, Madara thought, or kunai -- and froze entirely. His head twitched minutely toward Madara, probably both wanting to turn around and not wanting to provoke a violent response. Madara took a step closer, politely letting his sandal brush the wood. Sank into a crouch. Under them the four Fūma bastards were still snarling quietly, milling around the trees.
Definitely going into heat. The smell didn't lie.
Definitely not a natural heat. Never mind that the Fūma had been talking about drugs; what kind of omega shinobi ever left the safety of their clan without having taken their ginger root tea? Madara didn't even like to forgo his own tea, and he wasn't at risk of going home to his brother pregnant.
(He was going to beat up his batch of morons so damned hard when they got home and simmered down from their rut, and then he was going to drown them in the stuff. Or get them castrated, either or.)
"Shh," he breathed. The nape of the omega's neck was bared under a tiny ponytail, short pale hair combed back and kept in place with a dozen small pins; a few strands had escaped, tickling at the bare skin just over the stiff collar of his kimono. A muscled neck; a strong back under unassuming cotton, gone stiff as steel. "No need to get their attention with a fight."
From the back at least the other shinobi was well-shaped, though Madara wished the sun hadn't gone down quite so fast under the leaves; most colors had been leached out in the shade. And the sharingan was unmatched in matters of seeing movement, but the man barely breathed, a hand still tucked behind him to get at whatever weapon he had stuffed behind the knot of his obi.
"Alone?" the man whispered back, turning his head a bare half-inch farther, unveiling the curve of his high cheekbone. Madara snorted, smiled.
"No."
If the omega thought he could overpower him and run, he had another think coming. Not that Madara wished to call his subordinates to him; after that complete debacle he would be damned to hell before he rewarded them with an omega in heat.
A faint twitch in that shoulder -- Madara was on the man before he could finish bringing up his shuriken. Entirely silent, he landed in a crouch astride the small of his back, the weapon-holding hand snatched and twisted back, Madara's other hand closing tight on the back of his neck.
Then he almost died of a raiton-induced heart attack, because that omega in long maiden sleeves could apparently form his seals one-handed.
A heave under him like a bucking horse; he tightened his grip on his neck and his wrist, twisting it up between the man's shoulder blades--
"Hey, didn't you hear something weird over there?"
The raiton. Fuck.
They both froze, waiting for the Fūma nin to investigate, Madara cursing himself and cursing the omega under him for setting off a jutsu that emitted light and made a buzzing noise at twilight in the woods. "Did you want to get caught?" he couldn't help hissing right into his ear, even as he hit another kunai out of the other man's free hand before it could get embedded in his thigh.
(Weak grip, unnervingly good aim. Huh.)
The omega hissed between his teeth in offense. It should have been no contest -- four angry shinobi who were already graphically plotting his rape on one side, a single, polite shinobi on the other side, the best course of action so obviously to wait until they were gone at least before trying anything else. The readiness in his body, though -- Madara knew some omegas reacted to their heats with increased aggressiveness, but...
Another kunai. Oh, he was going to take that obi right off if it kept endlessly supplying weapons. Growling quietly, he slipped his hand to the front of the omega's throat, and set his teeth right on his nape, giving a good warning nip. Pinning him down bodily, knowing he was being quite unfair, that -- ah, this quiet, strangled gasp, that desperate swallow right against his palm, the aborted roll of those hips back into him.
Very unfair, but he was a shinobi. He dug his teeth a little deeper in before he released.
The skin was unbroken, but surely to bruise in the shape of his teeth. He... Damn. He probably ought to up the dosage on his teas. He wasn't... His body wasn't reacting.
But his mind. Huh.
The man under him trembled -- only for a second but Madara was pressing down on top of him with the whole length of his body; he noticed. There was no way he could have missed it.
"Shush," he tried, feeling strange -- some kind of intellectual curiosity, like he wanted to roll his hips back down just to see what happened, some kind of -- the omega smelled heavy, spicy and meaty and wet, and what if Madara's teeth left another overlapping bruise on that nape at the edge of the kimono -- "Shh, it's alright, just be quiet--"
The omega threw his head back to try to hit Madara's nose -- missed, but barely -- craned his head to glare over his shoulder and the rice powder on his cheek had smudged to expose a long dark slash.
Frozen in shock, Madara could only stare down as Senju Tobirama, the white demon of the Senju, his old friend's beloved beta littermate, snarled back at him.
--
Madara had been robbed by life, but all the children who grew through this war were, sooner or later. Madara had been robbed of his normal life and his normal littermates (Kijitora, Sabi) and would never marry the proper way. He was an alpha without beta siblings to bind their eventual omega-and-beta wives into a harmonious union, to raise the numerous children he would sire, to make a real family.
He'd refused to butt in on Izuna and Anaguma's litter-of-two, proud and devastatingly alone through his early teenage years, but then child hunters had made it moot and now he and Izuna had no one but each other left. Brothers of two separate litters -- different ages, different temperaments and goals, different inheritances -- Izuna's litter had never been raised to rule as his had been, only to support, to assist from the shadows.
Madara still remembered practicing the little tasks of fatherhood on him and Anaguma, and the third babe who hadn't lived to her third month to be named. They were not equals; they would never be.
Hashirama had been the same as Madara. A special secret he'd shared with Madara when nobody else knew, that Madara had kept ever since, even after they were found out and the friendship killed off. Tobirama was younger, another lone survivor, lone beta sewn raggedly back onto Hashirama's litter to make something almost approaching a strong, healthy set.
A lone omega could not be expected to lead a clan, after all. No trusted advisors, no comfort, no flesh of his flesh to help tend to children, born in threes, in fives, in more. Madara had heard the rumors that Hashirama had been born single, not even a stillborn sib to share a womb with -- and nobody he knew believed them, but confirming Tobirama's true age would have given them too much weight. Unnatural, cursed.
Confirming Tobirama's true sex would make it so much worse.
Two reproductive siblings in the same litter was an aberration. A sign of degeneracy, of calamity to come. Like a child with two faces--
"Get off me, Uchiha."
Tobirama wasn't angry or drug-addled enough to meet his eyes, but he still aimed his glare as close as he could get away with. Dangerously still under Madara, teeth unveiled, and still smelling so wet.
What the hell had Hashirama been thinking, he distantly wondered, still staring, still reeling. Had they planned to wed the Uzumaki set without telling them? Or -- or did the Uzumaki already know, and were planning to pass off Tobirama's children as... as, oh, the Sage preserve them, two reproductive siblings in the same marriage.
Not as disturbing as if they had been alpha and omega, with a chance to breed, but omegas in heat were known to get -- ah, friendly with their own sex, if they couldn't find anything else, and--
"I don't care if the whole Fūma clan attacks us at once. I will see you dead."
How many people were there in the Uzumaki set? Could they even handle two omegas at once? What if they had to -- what if they shared a heat?
What if Hashirama and his own blood-related baby brother shared a heat.
"Madara!"
-- Oh. He was -- leaning a bit close. He just -- that scent, that impossible scent. Izuna would have told him if he'd caught it on the battlefield, sweating hard with effort and often drenched by suiton after suiton. Today's job had been entrapment. Maybe it was fake! Hah. Yes. Maybe that.
Probably that.
He fisted a hand in the tiny puff of a ponytail, dislodging hairpins, forced the Senju's head forward and down, and leaned in to breathe his scent on his tongue.
He had half a second to swear vilely in his mind, and then he had to throw himself to the side and off the Senju to avoid getting gutted like a fish. Tobirama was off like a shot, plunging between the branches.
It was animal instinct to throw himself after him, even more than it was well-trained reflex. The gap between the trees was empty of Fūma nin, but Tobirama's landing was not subtle, and neither was Madara's, a half-second (too far) after him.
A dodge around a tree, a fast hop over the ridge, and Tobirama was braking with both heels so hard Madara almost crashed into his back. The pair of Fūma nin coming at them raised their weapons, teeth bared, mouths open to call for help --
Two headless corpses, silent.
Madara's first boggled instinct was that somehow, entirely bypassing the sharingan's ability to track his every twitch, the Senju had done it. Then his little brother popped up behind the still-falling corpses, grinning and sword bared.
The grin fell off faster than the bodies did.
"--Senju?"
Tobirama threw himself straight at Izuna. Madara threw himself at his back. Tobirama had visibly decided he would only escape if at least one of them was maimed or worse, and that -- no.
A last-second, impossible dodge; a whirl that almost, almost made it under Izuna's guard, and Izuna's hand caught a grip in the shoulder of his kimono, fouling his momentum; and then Madara landed on the Senju's back again.
Then they had a few, very agitated seconds trying to pin his too-clever hands down. It reminded Madara of nothing so much as trying to catch a cat's paws without getting clawed to ribbons.
Forcing one hand and then another behind his back, securing them with wire -- the back of one hand to the opposite elbow, tying them with the thumb and middle and ring fingers pulled back to prevent hand signs. The Senju fought under them, face twisted in a silent snarl, arched and kicked with frantic rage -- bit at Izuna's wrist once, denting his wrist guard. In the end, though...
In the end, Madara sat astride his waist and held firm onto his tied arms as Izuna proceeded to frisk him with the weirdest look on his face.
"What the hell was that, Senju?" he whispered meanly as he went, eyebrows knit in displeasure. "You getting spoiled and lazy on easy missions now? You'd have had a better chance actually throwing yourself into my arms -- at least I'd have been surprised."
Three more throwing stars, a brace of kunai and a dozen explosive tags pulled out of his obi later, Madara was no closer to deciding what he was going to do.
The Senju were enemies, but this wasn't one of their battlefields. The mission Tobirama had been running interfered with nothing save the selfish desires of Madara's young clanspeople. Desires Madara had been wishing would be thwarted.
Tobirama was second strongest in his clan, and most lethal bar none.
Hashirama would hurt.
"Let go."
"Sure! I'll get right onto that, right after I give a fuck -- okay, how many explosive tags do you even need?"
Hashirama would hurt. They weren't friends any longer, Madara had severed that bond himself when he chose to side with his father, his last remaining brother.
The demon of the Senju was Hashirama's last remaining brother. The only one that saved him from being alone, without siblings and without prospects other than becoming some litter's concubine -- no, he was a clan head, he would never quite be reduced to that, not officially at least. But in an arranged marriage wasn't it even more important not to be alone and under siege in your own home, without any allies of your own blood to keep from becoming nothing but a figurehead, an outsider's puppet --
If he let Tobirama go then every Uchiha that Tobirama killed afterwards would be on Madara's hands.
If he didn't let him go...
"Izuna. Take a corpse, lay a false trail."
"Mm," his little brother agreed, straightening up with one of Tobirama's kunai in hand. "They're already moving out, but not fast. I'll--"
He went still. Raised the kunai to his face, sniffed. Made the strangest face...
"Don't say it," Madara said softly. "Just--"
Go, he almost got to say, and then Hachirō and his three beta littermates ghosted up through the bushes to join them, Hachirō already sniffing at the air with his sharingan scanning the woods almost feverishly.
Never mind. Never fucking mind. There went his last occasion to keep this under wraps.
Under him Senju Tobirama was a block of warm ivory in the shape of a man. Madara caught himself before he could rub his gloved thumb soothingly along the man's bared forearm. Weakening his grip in order to comfort an enemy was just ridiculous; the scent must be getting to him. The scent must have been getting to him for a while now, being so torn over his decision.
"Hachirō," Izuna ordered, smoothly stepping in his way, and lobbed one of the detached heads at him by the hair. "Take a head, go lay a false trail. Shichiko, find Naohime's party and tell them to come support us here. Brother?"
"--Omega?" Hachirō choked out, cradling the skull against his chest like he hadn't even noticed what it was. Madara narrowed his eyes in warning.
"Your superior gave you an order, shinobi. Move."
He didn't go until Madara actually growled.
The last two betas stayed behind -- staring for another few baffled seconds and then moving around the space to find the best way to support Madara and Izuna without getting in their way if the Senju broke free.
Tobirama snarled quietly and started trying to set his toes to grip a hold on the ground. Izuna walked up along his flank and casually kicked his feet aside.
"I've got more wire," he offered blandly, staring at Madara like he wanted to reach through his eyes and straight into his brain; figuratively for now, but probably literally at some point if that failed to give him the answers he wanted.
"Mm. Maybe rope." He wasn't untying the Senju anytime soon; wire was good for forcing a captive to stillness but muscles got tired eventually, had to loosen, and wire would eventually cut through skin and muscles until it found bone. Never mind what would happen if the Senju kept struggling -- which he would, because, one, much too stubborn, and two, the drugged heat he was in would have him desperate to find relief soon.
"I don't have rope!" Izuna proclaimed mock-cheerfully, and made a point of patting his kimono. "Jūrō-kun?"
The beta indeed produced a roll of -- was that silk rope.
Of fucking course. They'd been hunting for brides.
Izuna snatched it out of his hand, face pinched in disapproval, and turned pointedly away. "Hogtie?"
... Heels to ass seemed like a good idea; undoing the current arm tie a dubious one. He made a face. "Ankle to ankle, knee to knee?"
"He'll kick like a mule. Or we could do that and then hogtie..."
"I'll even sit still so you can tie a pretty diamond pattern in the ropes," Senju spat out, and managed to shift his leg aside far enough to brace a knee and try to roll Madara off him. Madara's stance was wide enough that he barely shifted, though.
"You would look pretty," Izuna replied, falsey cheerful. "Big rangy thing like you. Oh, hey, here's an even better idea. Rope handles!"
He leaned down to give the wires around Tobirama's upper arms a tug.
Madara growled, thoughtlessly annoyed. Izuna paused to stare at him. Like... Like.
His tea was still working. He hadn't tried to run off the other two betas, Hachirō's sibs. He wasn't dragging the Senju in some secluded cave or hollow. He wasn't even hard -- or not much.
Damn it.
Hissing his embarrassed annoyance between clenched teeth, Madara reached back and snatched up one of Tobirama's ankles, forced his knee to fold. The man snarled and kicked under him like a rabid dog, trying to throw him off; in the end Madara had to let his tied wrists go to wrap an arm around his throat and choke him half-swooned. Even then he growled, strangled and barely conscious.
Tobirama stirred as they finished up the first leg. Madara thought about tying them both. A single finger free was dangerous, with this man. A whole leg at his disposal? He might well crush someone's throat with a kick, choke them between his knees.
They'd have to come pretty close, though. Meaning that they would likely be trying something and therefore be asking for it... But he didn't want his people to die, no matter what.
They should have tied Tobirama's legs together first, so that his heels pressed against his crotch from the back and there could be no access. Madara realized with a sense of rising dread that tying his legs separately only made it easier to get between them.
He was going to have to hurt one of his people again, wasn't he.
"Niisan?"
Too late for the second leg; the Senju was awake in full again. Pale face flushed with fever or rage, panting harshly and teeth bared. Madara knew he would bite if given the chance, and not just to warn people off; he would fully commit to taking chunks of flesh with him.
"We did go looking for omegas," Izuna pointed out under his breath, staring down at his personal enemy.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me you want Senju Tobirama for a wife," Madara replied just as quietly, a brief spark of amusement blooming at the shocked horror on his baby brother's face.
"Give me a second," Izuna protested. "I'm still working through him being a breeder. How the hell did you hide that, Senju?"
Tobirama only answered with a silent sneer, his already narrow eyes gone to knife-slits. Izuna leaned down, voice going honeyed, purring.
"On the other hand, the children would be terrifying. Hey, this is starting to sound pretty good."
The spike of killing intent had Madara's eyes switch into the mangekyō without a single moment of thought. Tobirama didn't move an inch, but the cold rage already radiating from him went impossibly icy.
Madara tapped his knuckles against the back of the man's head, not even hard enough to do more than startle. Then he glared tiredly at his little brother and wished he could do the same to him, but it would look bad if they showed dissent. "You're not the one who'd have to fuck them into him."
"... And now I'm picturing it, ugh, never mind," Izuna -- lied? Madara blinked at him, stared, but his brother only shrugged airily and stood back up. "Ah, there's the signal. They're coming back. What's the plan?"
Madara... still didn't have one. If it had been just him --
It wasn't. And he'd already made that choice. Family first, then clan. Never mind anything else.
A minute or so later he and his trussed-up prey were surrounded by Uchiha alphas and their siblings, a dozen pairs of burning eyes, ravenous and incensed. Old enough to mate and more than old enough to kill; young enough to be complete idiots about it. Elder Yoritomo's great-nephew Daichi especially looked on the edge of a frenzy. He should have been adopted into his cousins' slightly older litter a long time ago, but clan politics... Madara should have ordered it anyway; unbalanced as he was, the only reason Daichi-kun hadn't yet found his death on the battlefield was that he was also possessed of the luck of the damned.
He would order him away now if he thought for one second that the teenager would obey.
"Establish a perimeter," Madara ordered the group as a whole, before they could get too focused. "Fūma all gone?"
The reluctant reply came from Setsuko, still cradling her broken arm, her lone beta brother pressed against her shoulder. "Yes, Madara-sama. I sent off a few summons to follow them to make sure. Ah... Madara-sama?"
Sighing through his nose, Madara made a show of sitting up straight, still straddling the Senju's hips, his gloved hand appearing casual as it kept hold of the bare, wire-bound arms.
"What."
"It's..."
She didn't finish, shifting her weight from foot to foot like an untutored child, kneading at her injured arm over the splint. The other alphas looked less hesitant than she was, bodies leaning forward and greedy hunger and sparking rage in every twitch of their faces.
Izuna shifted his weight slightly, gathering as much attention as he could. (The betas looked his way, but the alphas were down to the last one attempting to stare Madara's captive down.) "Yes, this is the real Senju Tobirama," he drawled. "Yes, the scent is really his. Yes, he's going into heat -- the Fūma tagged him. If anyone else has rope, hand it over, he won't stay caught ten minutes in these. Otherwise, please follow your orders. "
Under Madara the Senju was fever-hot, but dangerously still, too -- watchful, waiting for an opening, not half dazed enough for the smell he let out. Would nothing cut through the cursed man's damn poise?
Ugh.
--
A damn good thing it was, that the Fūma were long since out of hearing.
So far there were two camps amongst Madara's people; one wanted to have the whole fourteen of them take turns on the Senju, and then drag him back to the clan to be bred and bred until one of his pregnancies did him in.
The other one wanted the whole fourteen of them to take turns on the Senju, and then slit his throat right here in the forest.
The first of them who decided they might as well start in on the part they all agreed on and sort out the rest afterwards burst into Madara's space with hands reaching down for Madara's prey, and fell back howling, clutching his new palm-wide, second-degree burn.
"I'll kill you," Madara heard himself say. Oh, he was standing up. Bad. What if Tobirama escaped?
But he glanced down and Tobirama wasn't moving anymore than anyone else in the clearing; only craning his head back to stare.
"Niisan, your point's made," Izuna said, and his knees -- were they trembling a little? Everyone else had taken three steps back, or fallen. Huh. "Killing intent? Reel back a tiny bit?"
... He reeled it back. Not very much.
"None of you caught the omega," he rasped, something incandescent caught in his chest. "None of you touch the omega."
Fear and offense mixed on all of their faces, but for Setsuko and her sibling, apparently well-cooled down by the earlier broken arm; they shared a speaking glance.
"Madara-sama, that's... That's for concubines and wives, are you...?"
Madara stared. Was horribly tempted to lie, say yes.
He'd never liked to let his clanspeople indulge their baser, more cruel instincts; but he'd had his hands full stopping child-killing squads as it was. Forbidding any of the forms of battlefield rape? The hazy border between rape as a torture method like any others and rape as pointless humiliating revenge on a too-wily, now-captured enemy made it too easy for his people to nod their heads and do whatever they wanted behind his back. Everyone knew he didn't approve, but he didn't have the footing yet to force the issue.
But to do it right in front of his face, to an enemy before whom none of them would do anything but die--
Aah, that was the problem. Senju Tobirama terrified them, so they wanted him not merely dead, but ground into the mud and destroyed body and soul.
"What will happen," he said, forcefully slow, "if one of you breeds him, and he escapes right back to the Senju compound, that we have never been able to breach, with a litter of sharingan-bearing children."
A brief pause, flickers of hesitation. Mission children were the shame of other clans. No Uchiha worthy of the name would impregnate an outsider and allow them to whelp away from them.
"So we kill him before he--"
"Don't make me fucking laugh," Izuna interrupted; Madara almost blinked, almost broke eye contact with Daichi and his spittle and wildly spinning sharingan. There had been a surprising amount of venom in his little brother's voice.
"He's the reason our brides are gone!" Daichi snarled back. "Make him pay with his cunt!"
"I heard you on that, but you talk of killing him? Hah."
As the others clamored in agreement, Naohime pushed forward, her pretty little nose wrinkled in disgusted, eager hate. "Izuna-sama, you know he needs to die, so why--!"
"I know he needs to die because he's the most vicious, treacherous viper of them all, and you're going to tell me you'll get between his legs and live long enough to even wet your prick?" He scoffed, arms crossed; tossed his head with more annoyance than anger. "Next time tell me you want to trade spots on the battlefield, we'll see how long you last. I might not even be able to count down fast enough."
Naohime stiffened in offense, growled high-pitched and rolling. Izuna stared her down, looking perfectly composed.
"I agree with my elder brother. The only thing you'll do trying to fuck him will be to give him an opening to exploit. None of you are anywhere near good enough."
"Flattered," the Senju said from the ground where he still lay, a cheek resting on the damp leaves underneath. "If you could come to a decision soon, however--"
The effect his mocking tone had on the gathered alphas was -- Madara dropped down on one knee, right in his spine, painfully pinning him. The man gasped and flinched minutely as Madara ground down, teeth clenched to smother any sounds of pain.
"I don't know why you think it's smart to rile them up, Senju," Madara growled quietly, "but let me remind you, Izuna and I are certainly good enough to handle you."
Tobirama snarled at him over his shoulder, a brief flash of feral, unreasoning defiance; Madara snatched up a hold on his bound arms, certain that the man was about to cut himself to ribbons straining stupidly against them. But Tobirama went stiff and still, breathing forcefully through his nose.
Around them the Uchihas were all in battle stances, teeth and weapons bared, breathing hard in fury and lust. Izuna's hand was on his wakizashi. At least he hadn't drawn.
Izuna glanced up to meet Madara's eyes. He looked weary, and frustrated -- with Madara, with Tobirama, with the whole situation. Madara knew they didn't agree on what needed to be done in so many things, especially regarding the Senju clan as a whole, and even more regarding Hashirama and his...
Not his littermate.
"Okay, let's list our choices and their varied consequences," Izuna said, forcibly patient. "Omega in heat, alphas in rut, two problems that could well cancel each other!"
Hachirō and Naohime shifted from foot to foot hopefully. Izuna speared them with a bored, don't-even look.
"Potential personal issues: one, the demon will kill you in the middle of sex if you're not fucking him well enough, straight after sex if you slipped up with something he might use to escape, and some months after sex if he's still alive by that point, as he will track you down and get you when you've totally forgotten your life was forfeit the second you missed your chance to finish him off."
"So we secure him better," Naohime pointed out, tone gone forcefully calm and cultured, eyes greedy as they roamed over what she could see of Tobirama past Madara's own body. "The kimono might hide more weapons or just make him hard to grab, too, so take that away as well. He is not invincible, nobody is. I am not insulting your prowess as his rival, Izuna-sama, but I am saying that right now, we've got him. It's not an inevitability that he'll escape!"
"Potential issues for the clan," Madara interrupted. "One, bloodline theft. The Senju hate us and this one most of all. Even outside of forcing us and the children to become kin-killers, there is no way Uchiha-sired children will be treated well amongst them. There will be no breeding."
Daichi stepped forward once again, face twisted into a sneer; actually crouched down to meet Madara's eyes straight on, sharingan spinning and haunches tense, ready to pounce. "He's got other holes."
Madara understood Daichi, was the thing. All seven of his parents had died off in the year following the birth of his litter and then Senju child hunters had killed every single one of his littermates when none of them were old enough to toddle. The closest familial bond he had left was a single elder using him like a chess piece. The boy was sixteen and wanted to die, preferably bringing down a dozen Senju with him.
He understood, so he hit him with the palm of his hand and not his fist. The heavy slap to the face took the boy off his feet, shocking and unmistakable. Not a challenge to fight, alpha to alpha, but an older relative putting a brat back in his place.
An insult, to a blooded shinobi, but one he would be glad to sort out afterwards.
"Madara-sama," someone gasped -- he didn't see who, but he glared around anyway, jaw clenched tight.
"I tire of your attitudes," he growled. "I think I've made too many allowances letting you think it was a discussion, or that your hormones were in any way an acceptable excuse for the lack of discipline. None of you are touching my prisoner. Now set up a perimeter and wait for your orders."
Tense silence until everyone else had -- slowly, one by one -- moved away. And then it wasn't Izuna who broke the silence, it was Tobirama, which was worse -- only underlining the fact that he had witnessed this whole embarrassing debacle, and no doubt noted down every single point of contention and possible faultline to use against them later on.
"Your prisoner," was all he said, and tonelessly, but Madara flushed an ugly red anyway.
"I'm leaning toward political hostage," he said brusquely to his brother, ignoring the man. "Izuna?"
Izuna stared at him in silence for long enough that Madara started to feel uncomfortable; then he snorted, crossed his arms again. "Quick death, deep grave. No revenge if nobody knows."
Madara gave the woods around them a pointed look. A dozen of their own imbeciles knew, and they would brag of it. That ship had sailed.
"Niisan... If he sets foot inside our compound, he is never walking out. One of the elders will try something."
"If they go behind my back on this I will kill them myself! There are so many concessions we could get--"
Tobirama growled under him, chest-deep; Madara felt the man's sides shudder against his bracing knees.
"You're not -- not using me. Not against my brother, not against my clan. Fuck off."
... Was he breathing hard? Oh, damn.
Madara thought about carrying him back home as he rode out the effects of the drug. Several hours racing around spreading his heat scent through the countryside, more and more desperate as nobody took him up on it (unless his idiots went completely brainless and jumped Madara from the back, which he would not put past them at this point.) Thought about bringing him inside the Uchiha compound while still heated up, the terrifying demon of the Senju twisting and whimpering in his restraints.
The Elders would...
Ugh.
"Why couldn't you dodge the drug," he muttered peevishly. "Aren't you supposed to be good at this? Izuna, there's a hollow under an old tree stump that way. Take my travel scroll--"
"Ugh," Izuna unconsciously echoed him, and leaned in to fish the scroll out of the back of his belt. "Do I have to? He could just nest with leaves. I can't believe the first nest I'm gonna build in my life is for Senju fucking Tobirama."
Madara flushed. "Not a full nest, what the hell! I want a blanket between his ropes and sharp rocks on the ground, what in hell made you think--"
Izuna gave him a hard, accusing stare, and snorted, turning his back pointedly. Scroll in hand, he stomped off, and then Marada was alone with his captive, barring the handful of beta guards still patrolling nearby and pretending tensely they noticed nothing.
If Tobirama tried to escape, it would be now.
"You won't be bred," he said anyway, as cold as he could. "I won't allow it. Do not try to entice any of them."
Tobirama laughed, short and harsh. "Do I need to?"
He raised his hips under Madara; his upper lip curled in disdain.
He didn't make contact with Madara's crotch, not with Madara sitting so high across his buttocks, but he didn't need to; the cloth shifting with their movements briefly pulled taut between his legs, tightening on the heavy line of Madara's prick. Madara's face caught on fire.
"Seems you're enticing yourself just fine."
If Tobirama knew then Madara had probably -- he must have touched him with -- with. Argh. "Another word and I'm gagging you!" he snapped through a spike of mortification.
He closed a fist on the back of the Senju's hair, pulled Tobirama's upper body half off the ground, and slipped a loop of rope around his upper body over the wires, making short work of tightening the whole affair. Arms doubly secured, he hauled him into a seated position by his upper arms, wrapped together under his shoulder blades, and slipped another length of rope around his throat from behind, passing it under the tied arms, knotting it there once, and keeping it going down to tie the other end to the ankle they'd managed to secure to his thigh.
"Will you bend your other leg yourself or do I have to force you?"
No response, only a nasty glare. The man's usually pale cheeks were flushed with fever, and his mouth -- fuller than usual, but twisted in a sneer.
"Oh well. Force it is."
... Like trying to force-feed a feral cat her medicine. The Senju had a single leg free and his spine forced straight, unable to bend forward lest he choke himself out, and still he twisted like a snake, flopping onto his side and then onto his back. He bit, and kicked high at Madara's chin, snatching at Madara's pants with his two free fingers to trip him, gathering chakra in his mouth for -- something Madara was not going to like, so he cheated, once again, dropped his whole weight between the man's legs to keep Tobirama from snaking aside and dodging the hand coming for his throat.
Back forcefully arched across his own arms, Tobirama's whole front was pressed against Madara's. His kimono pulled askew, unveiling too much of his breastbone. Madara pressed against his throat until the chakra guttered out, grinding down ruthlessly with his hips.
The small, close-mouthed whine Tobirama made, vibrating against his palm...
Ah. Damn.
He didn't let up.
"Madara," the Senju said -- moaned, gasped, something in between. The sudden fire in Madara's guts wanted him to lean down, bite his name off these lips -- keep rubbing against his crotch just to pull out more sounds from that throat for Madara to swallow. Unfocused red eyes danced over his face, glanced across Madara's own eyes a couple times and he could have caught him in a genjutsu then but -- well. That was how he knew the man was sufficiently distracted, wasn't it?
He lifted up, flipped him onto his side; bound the other leg, kicking in startled betrayal far too late to be of use.
It wasn't like Madara was interested in the Senju for himself. It was just the smell of his heat; the knowledge that he was dear to someone Madara had once held dear in turn. The animal sense of alpha pride when that unassailable fortress of a man went shivery and hazy-eyed under him. Senju Tobirama himself was nothing but an ice-blooded, lethal inconvenience.
He threw him across his shoulder and stood, and went to the hollow under the tree.