"I'm trying to stop the bleeding."
He knew better than to think that reviving himself with Izanagi would be a scrupulous affair. Since reviving, his mind could only cycle back and again to the words Hashirama had said, feeling more than just his heart be viscerally stabbed. The dream they’d had--it hadn’t amounted to much, had it? The place they dreamed would finally be the resting place to the centuries of war between them only served to be another battleground, the place he knew would spell his clan’s end and it was his fault for being too pigheaded to listen to his brother before his death. For believing that the dreams of children could somehow hold weight in their world.
Madara dragged himself from his fugue state when he realized that Kakuzu was near, feeling the intangible sensation of his threads stitching closed the liaisons that had opened in spite of the recovery that ought to have happened. Gods above, he didn’t deserve this man. In spite of the stoic demeanor the Taki-nin often possessed, through the roar of the waterfall of the passages behind the waterfall erected from their battle, the fine haze of its mist dampening their features while its roar sublimated whatever mortal aches had resulted.
The Uchiha sighed when Kakuzu’s work had finished, the faint sting of its contact riddling his body with disconnected sensations, remembering the it was... alive, in the functional sense of the word. But he was a ghost, now. A Seimei risen from the dead, and Kakuzu... was like him. Its with softness in those deep browns that Madara touched the immortal’s face, smiling softly, dazedly. All before he nuzzled into his neck, sighing as he pressed yearningly against Kakuzu’s pulse.
“Sorry for the trouble,” he murmured, loud enough for only the man to hear.
