Notes: Happy Birthday, Tajima (28/03). A teensy gift for @writhingbeneathyou 🎈
A hair's width from striking, the shinobi halts. Weakly opens its mouth. Gurgles.
The forest floor trembles, briefly, as meat and armour topple with all the grace and velocity of a stone slide. The silence that follows is absent of any divine, or primal, acknowledgement. A life ends; life goes on.
Tajima slowly turns his head. Glances down. Unhurriedly exhales a lungful of smoke as he studies the particularly heinous polearm buried snugly in the unmarked shinobi's skull. Distantly, Tajima registers a rhythmic pounding in his throat.
Fear is a foreign emotion. Why be afraid? Eat it. Digest it. Let it nourish caution and rage.
"Hello, Senju Butsuma. Friend of yours?"
The Senju clan is adept at woodland camouflage. It is essential to draw them out of the trees by whatever means necessary when fighting en masse. A cursory glance on either side of Tajima reveals nothing out of place. Nothing out of the ordinary. No beady eyes gleaming from the canopy or balding bushes. Had the killing blow not given his new adversary's position away, Tajima would be in trouble.
Somehow, he had not noticed the shinobi trailing his would-be assassin.
A gravelly voice sounds behind him. "Uchiha."
It is almost impossible to tell where exactly it is coming from. Judging by the slight left tilt of the oozing corpse... perhaps from his right.
"That is me," Tajima says graciously. He ashes his pipe and brushes a bur from his trailing sleeve.
They have rarely fought face to face, for one reason or another, but he has heard a fair few rumours about Senju Butsuma over the years. They had both survived the culling years, and additionally survived to take leadership of their respective clans by force. No easy feat. Tajima had won his place fairly by Uchiha tradition; Butsuma had ruthlessly murdered his father while his back was turned.
What an unfortunately amusing position Tajima finds himself in.
"Did we interrupt your stroll? I apologise. I'll be on my way now. Feel free to scavenge this fellow. I won't take up any more of your—" Tajima side-steps a kunai "—time. That was rude. I just said I would be on my way."
He's faster than I remember.
"Did you?" Tajima returns politely, with the grating tone of condescension one would gift a child.
"I have offered several by now and I fear that I am running out."
"You talk too much," Butsuma snarls. "Turn around."
"Interesting strategy," Tajima drawls, and turns casually on his heel to instantly scan the trees with his Sharingan.
There: crouching amongst the bushes is Senju Butsuma. His cheeks are hollow and his eyes sunken.
Last harvest had never come.
"What is it that you desire from me, Senju Butsuma?" Tajima asks pleasantly, spreading his hands. They tremble faintly with hunger beneath trailing sleeves. "I am dying to know."
"A collaboration. You will be paid handsomely."
Few things surprise Tajima after twenty years on this bleak plane. This forces him back a step, fraying sandals whispering on packed dirt. A scroll is hurled between them and he leaps back a dozen paces.
"It's all there," Butsuma bites out.
Tajima studies the scroll for a long moment before deciding it is probably benign and approaching. It is a commission, as suspected.
An extremely lucrative assassination of the Fūma clan head.
"Now, Senju Butsuma, you must be aware that our clans have a rich history of friendship."
"No-one has to know," Butsuma says stonily.
Tajima slowly drops his eyes back to the scroll.
"You expect me to help you."
"Let's not waste time, Uchiha. We are suffering and the Uchiha will starve to death long before the Senju do. Collaborating on this mission will grant a ceasefire of one night, beginning when you accept these terms and ending when we have collected the fee. I will not speak of this to a soul, and I suspect you will not either if you want to remain bosom buddies with the Fūma."
"Why me?" Tajima asks plainly. He can guess, of course, but he wants to hear Senju Butsuma beg.
"You have intimate knowledge of their clan grounds, you are nearly as powerful as me and you are motivated by greed."
He raises an eyebrow. "Nearly?"
"You are conserving your strength. You would have killed that buzzing mosquito immediately if not. You would have noticed me hours ago. Agree to my terms and I will give you an advance."
A coin lands at Tajima's feet. A ryō coin, faintly dented and legitimate.
Just the sight of it makes him swallow hard. Like all businesses, some years are better than others and it has been a terrible year for business. Some clans had abandoned their ancestral homes to travel north and east. Somewhat of an overreaction, in Tajima's opinion.
Butsuma does not look pleased when Tajima looks up beneath singed lashes. He looks... unwell. It suits him.
"How many children have you now, O Lord Senju?" Tajima asks conversationally, hooking the coin with the edge of his sandal and flipping it into his palm. "How many wives?"
Butsuma trains a second spear on him. A clear and rather amusing warning.
Tajima's daughter is already two. The second child is due to be born. His wife had told him not to come home without something for the baby to eat unless he was to offer himself for soup. How is he to refuse such a fortuitous deal?
"Ah, well, I suppose when needs must," Tajima says modestly. Fūma's dear wife, the natural and embittered heir to the clan, has been poisoning him for months and will be delighted not to be implicated in his gruesome end. In fact, Butsuma has no need to enlist support in battle against a sick man.
But he does not need to know that.
"We have a deal, Senju Butsuma."
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