Embrace

Utsusemi was trapped between the two of them. She could clearly feel the warmth of Tobirama's chest and the taut lines of Hashirama's muscles. Should I activate Six Paths Mode?

But for this kind of horseplay... Utsusemi's thoughts ground to a halt for once.

"Brother... that's enough!" Tobirama's suppressed growl erupted with the explosive crack of Chakra.

Through her Tenseigan, Utsusemi saw his pupils contract.

An almost panicked expression appeared on the normally composed Tobirama Senju's face.

Itama desperately tried to pry his eldest brother's fingers apart, his small hands looking especially helpless against Hashirama's thick arm.

"Let go of Sister!" Like a kitten with its fur standing on end, he clung to his eldest brother's arm and bit him.

But the drunkard's unconscious, monstrous strength sent him crashing into Tobirama's back, making him another filling in the sandwich.

Hashirama Senju's embrace tightened further. Utsusemi's vision was filled by Tobirama's chest muscles beneath his ninja uniform, and she could even see his mesh undershirt clearly.

Tobirama released his grip on the back of her head, but she found herself trapped in an even softer cage of muscle.

The narrow space between their muscular bodies left her no room even to shake her head.

Her Tenseigan faithfully converted the sensation into visual information, rendering even the contours of their muscle fibers clearly in her mind.

Her Tenseigan began to blur as her body temperature soared. Her oxygen-starved chest heaved violently, and her nails scraped open the skin of Tobirama's shoulders and arms as she clawed at him.

Eight long streaks of blood bloomed across his pale skin like an eerie design.

Black spots gradually encroached on her vision, and the pounding of her heart drowned out Itama's shouts and curses.

Hashirama Senju's drunken murmur of "I'm so happy" mingled with the crackling of Chakra into a roar, until a shockwave forcibly separated the three of them.

In the instant she became weightless, an arm smelling of gunpowder locked around her waist.

Utsusemi fell onto Tobirama, gasping for breath, her nails carving four bloody marks into the back of his hand, where veins stood out.

He abruptly wrenched free of that lean, strong wrist. It was unclear whether the force was meant to reject her support or suppress his runaway heartbeat.

"How rude!" Utsusemi shot forward with the Body Flicker Technique, grabbed the fallen Hashirama by the collar, and delivered a crisp slap that cut through the night.

Utsusemi staggered into the corridor, carrying the scent of alcohol with her. Itama hurried after her, and when he saw that even her neck was crimson, he cried out, "Sister!"

Moonlight shone like water on the reddened corners of her eyes. The vivid color looked less like traces of tears than scars left by Fire Style burns.

From a distance came the muffled sounds of Tobirama beating his elder brother, mixed with Hashirama's indistinct apologies, lending the moonlit night an added touch of absurdity and agitation.

Utsusemi fled back to her room in a panic, and Itama quickly sent the entangled brothers away. Her figure vanished in an instant into the elevator lobby of the Spacetime Tower, while the sound of Itama's restless pacing echoed through the corridor.

Utsusemi tossed and turned, ultimately spending the whole night awake. At dawn, she returned to the villa with dark circles under her eyes.

Hashirama Senju knelt in the courtyard with bruised cheekbones, dust rising in a soft flurry as he prostrated himself.

Utsusemi peered through the crack in the door and saw the scene, hearing his broken apology: "Forgive me... I shouldn't have offended you because I drank too much!"

Utsusemi sighed. "Get up. I forgive you. I overreacted."

In a modern person's eyes, an accidental embrace was hardly unusual.

In formal social etiquette, hugs were a common greeting, let alone such a chaotic embrace.

"Ask before you hug me next time." She opened her arms and drew Hashirama into an embrace. With their chests pressed together, their hearts beat at different rhythms.

His pounded like war drums before battle; hers was steady as a temple bell at dawn.

What truly made her tremble was not physical contact, but the breach of her safe social distance.

If she allowed herself to accept ninja destined to die in battle, her heart would eventually be like unfired pottery in a torrential downpour, splitting apart before the Tenseigan's emotions could burn it.

When Hashirama Senju's hand brushed over her back, taut as a bowstring, Utsusemi buried her damp face in the crook of his neck.

She wrapped her arms around this towering tree, feeling the warmth of one of her own kind after so long.

The attraction between Flower Release and Wood Release was instinctive, like vines winding around a tree trunk, like flowers growing toward the sun.

She had rejected this closeness, but now she could no longer resist it.

Perhaps one day this seed of suffering would sprout and tear apart her fragile soul.

But for now, Utsusemi chose to let this embrace convey genuine warmth.

"Forgive me." Hashirama wrapped his arms around the flower in his embrace. Instinct made him want to protect and cherish Utsusemi.

Alcohol had merely deepened his desire for closeness, including closeness with his dearest younger brother.

Utsusemi raised her head and looked over Hashirama's shoulder at Tobirama, who stood not far away. She apologized to him softly. "About last night... I'm truly sorry."

Her gaze swept over the almost vanished marks on the side of his neck, left by her nails when she lost control.

The silver-haired ninja's Adam's apple bobbed half an inch before he forcibly stilled it. He merely gave a stiff nod. "It's all right. It was all my brother's fault. You were just struggling because you were suffocating."

He didn't say that when he saw Utsusemi, the scratches he had rinsed repeatedly until they turned pale last night began to burn faintly.

Utsusemi took Tobirama's hand and carefully examined the places she had scratched the night before. Only faint marks remained now; there was no need even to use Medical Ninjutsu.

"Let me see the injuries on your shoulders and arms..." Utsusemi had only just raised her hand when Tobirama abruptly leaned back as though facing a formidable enemy.

"There's no need!" Hashirama stepped between them at just the right moment. "Tobirama went back and took another bath. He washed for half an hour, so the wounds are already clean."

He laughed heartily and deliberately nudged Tobirama in the ribs with his elbow. "Don't you know how quickly the Senju Clan recovers? Little injuries like these..."

Before he could finish, an icy glare cut him off.

"Brother, shut up!" Tobirama turned his face away, the tips of his ears turning faintly red. His cold snort sounded less like anger than an embarrassment he couldn't put into words.

Hashirama Senju took the blow, bending over dejectedly with a gloomy, despondent expression.

"All right, let's put this matter behind us," Utsusemi said, smoothing things over in the hope that everyone would forget last night's awkwardness.

That very day, Utsusemi took the initiative to help with Tobirama's Flying Thunder God experiments.

She took the dimensional transition parameters Tobirama had given her back to the Spacetime Tower and had the computer calculate the data overnight, finally presenting the calibrated data on printed sheets.

When Tobirama Senju received the stack of printed calculations, he no longer pressed her about where they had come from.

His usually stern face relaxed for once. Those numbers precisely resolved the undeciphered spatial paradox.

As a return gift for his birthday present, Utsusemi carefully prepared a special gift: a complete set of basic laboratory equipment.

She arranged gleaming test tubes neatly in a wooden crate, each wrapped in shock-absorbing cotton, with droppers, beakers, and glass stirring rods alongside them.

The lower layer of the crate held more precise instruments, a graduated scale and several sets of dissection tools. Tucked into the innermost part were a few blank laboratory notebooks.

The ice between them had melted. The formulas densely covering the data sheets expressed it more clearly than any words.

Their wariness and estrangement had come to an end.