Treating Izuna

Night fell, and moonlight illuminated the Senju Clan Compound. Utsusemi hurried through the corridor. "Izuna's condition can't wait. I need to examine him tonight and work out a treatment plan tomorrow."

Tobirama Senju leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded. "The Uchiha Clan Compound is heavily guarded at night. It's too dangerous for you to go alone."

Utsusemi insisted, "His symptoms are severe. I have to give him a preliminary examination tonight."

She pulled a travel permit bearing the Uchiha Clan Crest from her robes. "Madara gave me this, so I'll be fine!"

Hashirama Senju's eyes were full of reluctance. "At least have dinner first..."

Utsusemi smiled faintly and shook her head. "Remember telling me about the promise you and Madara made by the Naka River? That summer, you exchanged pebbles carved with your clan crests at the edge of a cliff..."

She took Hashirama's callused hands in hers and smiled radiantly. "An alliance between the two clans, a village where children wouldn't have to go to war, where you could protect your younger brothers. I'll use these hands to do everything I can to help you make that wish come true."

Hashirama Senju's eyes grew hot, but Tobirama suddenly seized his older brother's trembling arms from behind. "Control yourself! Brother, don't let her talk you out of your senses again."

Utsusemi protested, "Those were words straight from my heart. How was I sweet-talking him?"

Tobirama Senju looked at the reddened corners of his brother's eyes. "Precisely because you meant them, it's even harder for him to control himself."

When Hashirama Senju composed himself and insisted on seeing her off, Utsusemi politely declined. "Your appearance in Uchiha territory would cause a commotion. It's better if I go alone."

The compromise was for the brothers to escort her to the bank of the Naka River. Madara Uchiha had long been waiting on the opposite bank, his Sharingan glowing faintly in the dark.

As Utsusemi stepped across the stones in the stream, Madara Uchiha reached out and took her medicine case.

The two clan leaders' gazes briefly met beneath the moon, as though their eyes had met across the smoke of countless battlefields.

When Madara Uchiha ushered Utsusemi into a secret chamber in the clan compound, the three barriers he had set up flickered as his guest entered.

"Is Izuna all right?" Madara's voice betrayed anxiety he had suppressed for a long time.

Utsusemi set her medicine case on the tatami, which was marked with a sealing array. "Izuna's external injuries have healed, but as for his blind eyes..."

She proposed a bold treatment plan that required the pair of blind Mangekyō Sharingan Madara had replaced.

The plan was to cultivate them using Yin-Yang Release, attempt to restore them to life, and then transplant them into Izuna.

Utsusemi's voice was utterly calm. "Since you were able to use Izuna's eyes, he should be able to use yours."

She unrolled a scroll she carried with her, densely covered in experimental data. "The biggest problem now is the curse of blood relatives devouring one another within his body."

The curse, which originated a thousand years ago, clung to him like a disease in his bones, forcing Izuna to remain in the Spacetime Tower, where his body's time was completely stopped.

Once he left the barrier, his cells would age a hundred times faster, and he would be on the brink of death in three hours.

Utsusemi brought Izuna out of the Spacetime Tower's infirmary. The young man appeared in the secret chamber, dressed in a plain kimono, a complex mixture of faint medicinal fragrance and the smell of blood seeping from beneath his bandages.

"Brother..." Izuna's call made Madara's breath catch.

The voice was thousands of times more real than the image on the tablet, with the distinctive, slightly rising ending he remembered.

Madara Uchiha rushed forward and pulled his younger brother into his embrace with trembling arms.

Izuna's cold fingers touched the back of his neck, his signal for comforting Madara.

These past days, he had only been able to see Izuna on the tablet. Now, the real sensation of touching him nearly made Madara choke up.

As they embraced, he could clearly feel Izuna's protruding shoulder blades. His once-agile body was now as thin as a sheet of paper.

The two embraced for a long time before separating. Izuna's memory still rested at the point just after their last video call. He reached out blindly to touch Madara's face. "Brother, you've lost weight."

When Madara Uchiha asked if he was hungry, Izuna shook his head. As far as he could tell, only an hour had passed since he had enjoyed some refreshments; he had no idea a week had gone by in the outside world.

Candlelight flickered in the closed Japanese-style room, casting the brothers' embracing shadows onto a scroll covered in Sealing Jutsu formulas.

Madara Uchiha's fingers dug deep into the fabric over Izuna's back, as though he wanted to draw his brother into his own flesh and blood.

He could clearly feel the flow of Izuna's Chakra growing increasingly chaotic, like holding an hourglass that was leaking sand.

Utsusemi sat cross-legged at a low table three paces away, a secret scroll resting on her lap.

Madara Uchiha was unwilling to release Izuna from his arms. He could clearly feel his brother's body gradually losing warmth, and even his faint breaths cut at Madara's heart like a blunt knife.

Two hours later, Izuna suddenly began coughing violently, his thin chest trembling like a worn-out bellows.

Madara frantically wiped the cold sweat from his brother's forehead, his voice hoarse and strained. "Utsusemi! Hurry, look at him..."

Utsusemi calmly said, "This still isn't Izuna's limit. I need to observe how much he can withstand. Once he reaches his limit, I'll enter Six Paths Mode and treat him. You can witness the entire process yourself."

Madara Uchiha's heart felt as though it were being cut apart, but he was powerless and could only hold Izuna tighter.

Izuna instead forced himself to make playful remarks to comfort his brother, until blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. Madara's Chakra burst out of control.

He immediately lost all composure, nearly forgetting that this was only a treatment test.

Utsusemi checked the time. Only two and a half hours had passed.

She reassured Madara and asked him to endure a little longer. "I need data from the critical point. Hold on for another half hour."

Madara Uchiha counted the time through gritted teeth. When the clock reached two hours and fifty minutes, in the final ten minutes as Izuna neared shock,

his knees slammed into the floor, and he pressed his forehead against the bedrail, letting out an animal-like whimper. He could no longer bear to watch his brother suffer.

The heartbreaking bond between the brothers moved Utsusemi, and she entered Six Paths Mode ahead of time.

Before Madara Uchiha's astonished eyes, Utsusemi underwent an astonishing transformation.

All color vanished from her long, jet-black hair in an instant. Mysterious black Tomoe patterns gradually appeared on her pure white robe, moving across the fabric like living things.

The iridescent shawl over her shoulders fluttered without wind, and nine pitch-black Truth-Seeking Orbs circled her like planets, radiating a suffocating surge of Chakra.

The power, vast as the sea, caused the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan to activate on its own, its pattern spinning wildly in his scarlet pupils.

"She's even stronger than last time..." Madara Uchiha's breath caught, and he forced out a disbelieving whisper.

The gravely injured Izuna was cowed by such power. He curled up in a corner, trembling like a frightened cub, yet also like a dying beast trying to make one last struggle.

Driven by instinct, he tore off his bloodstained bandages, revealing the unsettling empty sockets where the Sharingan, the pride of the Uchiha, should have been.

Under the terrifying pressure, Madara Uchiha heard his own bones creak under the strain.

But he stared fixedly at the light dancing on Utsusemi's fingertips.

"Don't move!" Her voice carried a divine resonance beyond the mortal realm, every syllable seeming to reverberate directly in the depths of the soul.

The instant those cold fingers touched Izuna, the young man's broken body instinctively tried to flee, only to be held fast by an invisible force field and dragged into Utsusemi's hands.

Madara Uchiha clenched his teeth and suppressed the urge to attack. The pressure, arising from deep within his bloodline, awakened his most primal instincts as a warrior.

The unprecedented pressure made Madara, who had once been defeated by her, tremble all over.

It was not fear, but boiling excitement and fighting spirit.

He desperately wanted to fight Utsusemi again as she was now, to use Susanoo's blade to measure the depth of Six Paths power.

But reason told him that Utsusemi's sole purpose in entering this form was to save Izuna.

Contradictory flames burned in his Sharingan, and in the end he chose to suppress every impulse in accordance with a ninja's highest creed.

A ninja must endure pain ordinary people cannot endure and bear burdens mortals cannot bear.

The treatment plan, like dancing on the edge of a blade, contained three precise steps: Yin-Yang Release treatment in Six Paths Mode.

The dose of Natural Energy infused had to be controlled as though adjusting a precision instrument; the slightest mistake would cause the entire body to petrify.

Suppressing the curse's backlash was even more critical. Any oversight would cause his Chakra to run completely rampant.

As Chakra flowed through Utsusemi's palms, Izuna's spine suddenly arched backward.

His white kimono, soaked through with sweat, tore as he convulsed violently. The cries of pain rising in his throat were forcibly swallowed into breathy sounds, and his ten fingers gouged several bloody furrows into the tatami.

He bit through his lips while suppressing his voice, and the self-inflicted wounds healed repeatedly in the green light of healing.

Izuna's facial muscles simultaneously displayed a strange fusion of painful spasms and near-death pleasure.

When the fifteen-minute treatment at his limit ended, Utsusemi left Six Paths Mode.

He slumped like a marionette drained of all strength, yet a satisfied smile lingered at the corner of his mouth.

Fluid mixed with blood and sweat pooled in small puddles on the tatami, reflecting his dazed face.

It held the relief of surviving a calamity, and the lingering daze after surrendering to an extreme experience.

Madara Uchiha laid his palm on his brother's heaving back and stroked it gently.

It was the comforting gesture Izuna had always asked his older brother to make when they practiced with Shuriken as children.

A minute later, Izuna's breathing finally steadied, and he regained consciousness, returning to the state he had been in just after the seal was lifted.

That false health. But Madara knew better than anyone that this calm was like the surface of the sea before a storm.

As he lifted the frighteningly light body into his arms, Madara Uchiha noticed Izuna's tightly clenched right fist.

He pried open the stiff fingers, revealing an amulet wrinkled from sweat, the very one he had entrusted to a Ninja Hawk to bring his brother after their last video call.

The edge of the paper charm still bore the jagged marks Izuna had deliberately burned into it, the "absolutely safe" signal they had agreed on as children.

As soon as Uchiha Izuna's body showed signs of improvement, Madara couldn't wait to take him to the clan compound's hot spring to recuperate.

He massaged his brother's shoulders and neck and asked softly, "How did your treatment go this week?"

Uchiha Izuna leaned against his brother and smiled weakly. "I only received two basic treatments this week and soaked in the hot spring..."

He suddenly began coughing violently, and Madara immediately wrapped his thin body in a large bath towel. "You were awake for less than three hours in total..."

Uchiha Izuna added between breaths, "Whenever Utsusemi woke me, it was for a video call with you, Brother."

Madara Uchiha noticed a sly curve at the corner of his brother's mouth as he spoke. "Was a Six Paths Mode treatment like today's... your first?"

Uchiha Izuna suddenly shivered slightly. The experience of near-death and ecstasy intertwined during the treatment was indeed unprecedented, a first in his life.

His Adam's apple bobbed, and he admitted softly, "Yes."

He swallowed with difficulty. The state of recovery he had experienced after receiving a full treatment like today's was indeed a first since the curse had taken effect.

Uchiha Izuna interrupted Madara's further questions with a cough. "I'm fine. The sulfur fumes just caught in my throat."

He awkwardly turned the topic to the alliance with the Senju. Though Izuna was resistant to the alliance, he approved of the proposed truce.

Madara Uchiha stroked his brother's wet hair and explained, "Utsusemi is leading the alliance. It isn't us bowing to the Senju."

At the mention of Utsusemi, all resistance vanished from Izuna's eyes. "Then there's no problem, as long as it isn't the Senju!"

As they left the hot spring, Madara found Utsusemi curled up beneath the corridor eaves, taking a nap. The night dew had soaked through her haori.

Remembering how tired she was from traveling day and night to reach the Uchiha, Madara took off his outer robe and gently covered her with it.

Utsusemi suddenly opened her eyes like an alert cat and immediately pushed herself upright. "Can we go see the stone tablet now?"

Utsusemi proposed sending Izuna back outside of time for the moment. Madara clenched his hand tightly, then finally nodded heavily.

Uchiha Izuna gave a gentle smile and softly reassured him, "When the day comes that the curse is lifted, we'll never be separated again."

He turned a meaningful gaze toward Utsusemi, but she was busy with the effects of her Hand Seals and paid it no attention. Izuna's figure gradually disappeared, returning to the infirmary in the Spacetime Tower.