Under the lamplight

Night fell. Inside the tent Hagoromo had assigned to Izuna, an oil lamp sat in the corner, its faint flame casting a dim yellow halo on the canvas walls.

Izuna sat beneath the lamp, holding a scroll of intelligence, his brow slightly furrowed.

The lamplight flickered, illuminating the contours of his profile.

Shōgatsu had already briefed him on the Senju Clan's position, which Sarutobi Sasuke had brought.

Everything else was negotiable.

Reparations, the duration of the ceasefire, prisoner exchanges, border demarcation-all of these could be hashed out slowly at the negotiating table. With the Uchiha backing them, the Hagoromo would not be forced to sign an unequal treaty.

There was only one point on which the Hagoromo Clan could not yield: a disputed tract of land in the southwest.

This year, the Daimyo's father's cousin had rebelled. The Senju had helped the Daimyo take three cities in succession, reclaiming the territory held by his rebellious relative.

The Daimyo had been delighted and rewarded the Senju with Cloudfield, which they had long coveted.

That land was important to the Senju.

As long as they held it, they would have an open passage to the northwest, allowing them to take missions farther north and expand their territory.

Yet the land was just as important to the Hagoromo.

It was territory the Daimyo's great-grandfather had granted to the Hagoromo. The source of the irrigation canals for the Hagoromo Farmland lay within it.

They could never let someone else control their water supply-it was the clan's lifeline.

Especially not the Senju, with whom they had long been at odds.

Izuna tapped the low table twice with his fingers.

Hashirama Senju's proposal was for both sides to compromise and sign an agreement to share the land.

The Hagoromo would station personnel to guard the water source, while the Senju would have unhindered passage through the territory.

As Izuna read the proposal, a cold smile touched his lips.

Hashirama Senju was still so naive.

The blood feud between the Senju and the Hagoromo ran no less deep than the one between the Senju and the Uchiha.

If they signed this agreement, those Senju who harbored resentment toward the Hagoromo would surely use the passage to sabotage the water source.

And the Hagoromo would surely lay deadly traps all along the route, waiting for the Senju to step into them.

In the end, neither side would have any peace.

War would return again and again.

Izuna set down the intelligence and rubbed the space between his brows.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the little bald boy curled up in the corner of the tent stir.

Covered by Izuna's outer robe, he had curled into a tiny ball and remained quiet all afternoon, only occasionally letting out a muffled murmur as he turned over.

Now his brows drew together, and his eyelashes fluttered.

The little bastard was waking up.

Setsuna's consciousness surfaced from the haze.

He struggled to open his impossibly heavy eyelids. His whole body hurt-the aftereffects of fighting Madara Uchiha had yet to fade, and his body, with its level-three stamina, had been drained completely.

If this were a game, I'd be clean after a nap, he thought. Instead, mud and sweat are stuck all over me. Now that they've dried, my skin feels tight, and I'm uncomfortable everywhere.

He struggled to sit up, and Izuna's outer robe slid off him.

"Awake?" Izuna pointed at the table. "Hurry up and eat."

Several brown rice balls sat on the table. They had been exposed to the wind for nearly an hour, and their surfaces had already hardened and dried.

Setsuna rose expressionlessly, swayed his way over to the table, picked up a rice ball, and stuffed it into his mouth.

His face was blank, his eyes unfocused. Clearly, he was not fully awake yet.

Watching his absentminded state, Izuna's lips curved slightly. He softened his voice and asked, "You really resented Madara giving you a dressing-down today, didn't you?"

Setsuna stopped chewing for a moment, then answered quietly, "...Yeah."

Izuna sighed.

The flame danced between them, casting shifting light and shadow across Izuna's profile.

"To every clan, children are the future. They're its lifeblood. Even when they reach the age to go onto the battlefield, they start with relatively safe support duties. Attacking a clan's children means declaring war on the entire shinobi clan."

Setsuna chewed his rice ball and answered, "Yeah."

Izuna changed tack, his voice growing low. "Actually... it wasn't that long ago. Just a little over ten years ago, the major shinobi clans attacked other clans' young children without any restraint. Madara's and my older brother, and our two younger brothers, died in those days."

At last, Setsuna reacted. He lifted his head.

Izuna's gaze settled on the dancing flame, his voice steady:

"When I was eight, I faced Tobirama Senju in direct combat for the first time at the Naka River. Back then, neither my father nor Butsuma Senju gave much thought to second sons like us."

"While the second Senju son and I were locked in battle, they each sent a blade flying at our vital points. In their eyes, sacrificing their own second son to kill the other's was a good trade."

The flame flickered. Setsuna watched him quietly.

Izuna gave a short laugh. "If my brother and Hashirama Senju hadn't intervened at the same time, there would have been no future for Uchiha Izuna or Tobirama Senju. We would both have died at eight."

He looked at Setsuna. "So after my brother and Hashirama became the heads of their respective clans, their first prohibition was this: no killing the young children of any clan."

Setsuna fell silent for a moment, then said, "That was an incredible decision."

Izuna nodded. "It was."

He blinked, a slight curve forming at the corner of his mouth. "Do you know what Tobirama Senju hates us for most?"

Setsuna tilted his head and thought for a moment. "Extremism? Or madness?"

Izuna shook his head. His eyes stared straight ahead, seemingly unfocused.

"Tobirama Senju's youngest brother, Itama Senju, was surrounded and attacked by five adult Uchiha when he was six."

Setsuna's eyes widened.

"The Senju Clan's ability to recover kept that child from dying easily. As long as his chakra hadn't run out, his body would keep repairing itself."

"What was normally an advantage for the Senju Clan became a curse in that moment. They tortured him over and over, mentally and physically. He struggled for a long time, and only breathed his last when his chakra ran out."

Izuna lowered his head, the loose strands over his forehead hiding his eyes.

"So I can understand why Tobirama Senju hates us so much. Because our loved ones were tortured to death by them just the same."

He drew a deep breath. When he lifted his head again, he had reined in all those complicated emotions, leaving only a calm tempered by time.

"So in a sense, banning the killing of young children really has eased the hatred between our two clans over these past ten-odd years."

Setsuna stared blankly at Izuna.

He remembered what Madara Uchiha had said that day-"This tells every shinobi clan that they can attack Uchiha children."

At the time, he had thought it was merely a strategic warning, a reprimand delivered from the moral high ground.

But now, in Izuna's calm account, those dry principles meant, "We lived through it, so we don't want to live through it again."

For the first time, he truly understood the rule against attacking young children.

Madara Uchiha had lost his older brother when he was six, then lost two younger brothers in succession. Hashirama Senju had likewise lost two younger brothers.

The two men who stood at the pinnacle of the shinobi world had both stained their hands with the blood of the other's clansmen, yet on this matter, they had reached an understanding.

Without consulting each other, they had said-this ends here. At least for the children, this ends here.

Izuna coughed, shook off the mood, and waved the document in his hand.

"Want to look at the intelligence?"

Setsuna's eyes lit up, but then he slumped back into his seat as if giving up, rested his chin on the tabletop, and said in a muffled voice:

"I'm a nobody whose words carry no weight. How could I deserve to read intelligence? Lord Madara will just call me stupid again."

The words had barely left his mouth when Izuna reached over and pinched his cheek.

"You put on women's clothes, and now you really think you're some young lady who needs a personal invitation?" Izuna said in mock anger. "Get over here."

Setsuna rolled his eyes and swallowed the last bite of his rice ball.

He shuffled closer to Izuna, snatched the intelligence from him, and began skimming it rapidly by the light of the oil lamp.