Chapter Text
Senju Tobirama—he was Hatake Tobira, now, he had to ensure that he remembered that—finally remembered who he was when he was just a few months old. He theorized that it was the fact that his hippocampus had finally developed enough to hold his memories of his past life. He was missing some things, but that was easily explained due to his underdeveloped hippocampus, which couldn’t handle everything yet.
When he realized this, the first thing he thought to do was take stock of his body. His chakra reserves were pitiful, he couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t even crawl. As someone who’d prided himself on his independence, this was just about the worst thing he could imagine happening to him.
Therefore, as soon as possible, Tobirama—Tobira, he was Tobira—sought to fix this. His mother looked to be a Hatake when she held him up a foot away from her face. She had the signature silver hair and elongated canines, and she even had the Hatake tattoos that were the mark of a Hatake sensor, tattoos he had given himself once he’d realized he was one. The clan, when he was still Tobirama and not Tobira, had revered sensors, nomadic as they were. No matter the range, they were important to them. Small-range kept track of the pack, and large-range scouted for enemies. Tobira had decided to go for a two-in-one with his tattoos and also imbued them with seals to help him manage his albinism in his past life.
He was horrified to have to go through the usual growing pains of being a baby—and, worse, be aware of them. The first time he realized that he couldn’t control his bowel movements, he’d screamed bloody murder for hours on end, not soothed even with the fresh diaper his exhausted father had put on him. Breastfeeding had made him uncomfortable enough that he refused to latch, and thankfully his mother suggested buying a pump and bottle-feeding him instead.
This era also seemed to have medical advancements far beyond his own time, and his poor eyes would be treated with regular chakra therapy over the next few years, which allowed them to be a pale blue color rather than the red they were in his past life. His father, who also had the distinctive Hatake look, cooed at how, in the right light, it made them look like pure chakra. Or normal chakra, at least. Not the Hatake white chakra. They were also optimistic, from what he could gather despite his infuriatingly short attention span, that they’d be able to prevent other complications like photophobia, nystagmus, and strabismus.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t help with his sensitive skin, but he already made seals for that once before and could easily do it again.
Once his hands would obey his commands, that is.
Tobira was ahead on all of the average developmental milestones. They were easy to bypass when he already knew how to do everything and merely had to retrain his muscles to do what he wanted them to.
By the time he was almost a year and a half old, he was as independent as he could get by this age, and it was also the point where his parents realized he was a sensor. Granted, that was partially his fault because he kept staring at where the small flare of chakra was developing in his mother’s uterus.
His mother placed a hand on his head, a wide grin on her face. “You’re just like Mommy, aren’t you?” She knelt and winked, holding a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell Daddy just yet, okay?”
Tobira just nodded and kept staring at that flare of chakra.
Tobira probably should have predicted this, he mused as he stood upside-down on the ceiling, both of his parents flitting about beneath him, a bit of panic in their eyes. His mother’s stomach had grown quite large, and she often complained that Tobira was never this big, nor was he so abusive toward her bladder. She shouldn’t be getting this worked up. Tobira, like the responsible son he was, calmly walked back down the wall.
His mother gave him a flick to his nose, making him scrunch it up as his father fluttered about nervously. Honestly, Tobira felt worse about how worried his father was than his mother, who was now giving him a smirk over his father’s shoulder. However, his father quickly calmed and ruffled his hair, giving him a proud smile.
“You’re going to be an excellent shinobi.” And Tobira didn’t want to admit that he felt a deep pride at being told he was doing well by someone under half his actual age. But he was, and Tobira wasn’t generally in the habit of lying to himself. It made for poor performance elsewhere. Maybe if Butsuma had been more the type to praise good behavior rather than punish the bad, he wouldn’t have had to feel this way.
“T’ank you.” Tobira pouted as the words came out wrong. His mother chuckled, a soft smile on her face. An interesting thing to witness. He was always told that his red tattoos made him look too sharp, and made any of his smiles look threatening. Maybe that could be different in this lifetime. Even if he quietly hoped that his sibling wasn’t born a sensor. He didn’t want them to potentially face the same scathing remarks he’d received, even from his own clan.
He was going to have a brother. Another younger brother. Another brother that he had to protect. Another way to fail to do so.
Tobira lay with his head on his mother’s ever-growing stomach. It was a sure way to calm him down when his parents noticed him growing anxious. They didn’t understand why he grew nervous, and Tobira didn’t have the ability to say the words yet, but they noticed that he would focus on his brother during those times.
His father stroked a hand through his hair. “You’re going to be a good big brother. You already care so much about him. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you straining your senses.”
Tobira clenched his hands in his mother’s shirt. It was a nice sentiment, but he’d failed before despite hearing those words. Before, it was his mother who said them. Now, it was his father. Maybe that slight change would ensure he wouldn’t fail this time.
His mother’s hand fell onto his back. “It’ll be fine, Tobira. Your baby brother is going to be a Hatake, and we all know that Hatake protect their pack.”
That was true. It was a revelation to realize that, in this period, not even two generations later, the Hatake were all but absent in Konoha. He’d held out hope that, perhaps, they’d simply returned to their nomadic lifestyle, but that hope was crushed as soon as he caught a glimpse of the clan family tree. The Hatake had always been a small clan, but Tobira was still saddened by the loss, nonetheless.
Tobira nodded to what his mother said, feeling his brother move about in the womb. He swore that the first chance he got, he was going give them a hiraishin marker to carry around. Maybe even get it tattooed on him. That was the first thing he did with it in the first life, after all.
“Name?”
His mother snorted, “Go ahead, dear. Tell him.”
His father sported a bright blush, and Tobira lamented the Hatake and their pale skin. “Hatake Kakashi.”
Tobira hoped that his father could see how unimpressed he was despite the baby fat that he possessed. And, based on how his mother cackled, he would assume that it was quite obvious.
“You’re quite mean for a toddler,” his father grumbled. Tobira supposed he could cut his father some slack. After all, his name was Sakumo. He was bound to follow a similar pattern with his children. Tobira was only different thanks to his mother, who argued that Senju Tobirama was half Hatake, and thus they also had a claim to the name. Truly, she’d only gone to Tsunade as a courtesy.
“You mean smart,” his mother teased. She pushed Tobira’s hair off his forehead to place a kiss there. “Smart and a sensor just like Mommy. And you’re going to be a strong one.” She was always so ecstatic that Tobira was a sensor. Eager to teach him all of the Hatake secrets. Any other toddler wouldn’t understand a single thing she said.
His father laughed, ruffling his hair. “That he is. He’ll have to get his tattoos when he’s older.” Tobira was also eager for that, though he knew that the earliest he could get them was 10. Thankfully, the Hatake had long developed a method that allowed the tattoos to change with the child’s body, meaning they didn’t have to be touched up as he grew.
“And we’ll need to get you started on some chakra control exercises, soon.” His mother rubbed absentminded circles on her stomach. “I remember my sensing being painful at times since there was no one actually to teach me how to control it.”
His father immediately started fussing over her, repositioning the pillows and taking her empty cup to the kitchen to refill it.
She chuckled, “Isn’t he just the sweetest?”
Tobira thought about it before nodding slowly. He slotted steady, honest Sakumo right in alongside his memories of dramatic, optimistic Hashirama, kind, gentle, Itama, and fierce, protective Kawarama. He stared again at the area where he could sense his brother’s chakra.
He wondered what his little brother of this life would be like.
Tobira was not allowed in the room where his mother was giving birth. The nurse that had ushered him away tried to give him a lollipop as a distraction, and he supposed it would work for any other child.
Unfortunately, he still couldn’t hear anything in the room beyond, silencing seals—and he was a bit dismayed at the lack of quality in a village that claimed an allegiance with Uzushio—doing their job. However, he could still track the chakra through the walls, monitoring what amounted to his little brother’s life force.
It was due to this that he realized too late that, even as his brother’s chakra strengthened, brightening as it became his own and not reliant on their mother, his mother’s weakened. Tobira wiggled from his chair, trying to run to the room, but was swept up by a nurse.
“Now, now. Where do you think you’re going, little man?”
Tobira had never hated being a child more in that moment, as his second mother faded before his very eyes. The nurses and the doctor fluttered about her, their chakra wild with panic even as he knew they were hiding it. His father’s chakra flickered rapidly, and he watched as his brother responded to the panic around him, his chakra mimicking their patterns.
And then his mother’s chakra was gone, and his father’s dimmed with grief. The door slid open, and his father found Tobira struggling in a nurse’s grasp, limbs easily pinned in place. His face, arranged into an expression that vaguely resembled calm, crumpled as he realized that Tobira had felt everything.
“Oh, Tobira…” With his other arm—one busy holding Kakashi—his father scooped him up. Tobira didn’t know what to do when he began sobbing into his hair, too-small arms coming up to wrap around his neck. Tobira vaguely recognized that tears were streaming down his face, even if he didn’t let any sounds escape. It would’ve been nice to have a mother that didn’t die giving birth to a brother. He would’ve liked to have her teach him more about his sensing. He wanted her to be there when he got his tattoos. All things that his first mother missed out on for the same reason.
Maybe Tobira was doomed to relive the same thing over and over again.
His gaze fell to Kakashi, who was still squirming and screaming as loud as his little lungs could handle.
What happened to Itama and Kawarama would not happen to him. Tobira would rather slaughter everything in his path, staining his hands redder than they ever were during the war with the Uchiha, before letting that happen.
Not die. Never die. He knew what that felt like, too—to lose an older brother too soon.
It was then that Tobira decided that Hatake Kakashi, his baby brother, would always be his priority. There would be no getting killed in a pointless fight or slaughtered to get at either Tobira or Sakumo.
Tobira, ignoring his own tears, reached out to let Kakashi wrap one small hand around his own.
They both continued crying, but that was okay. Tobira would always be there to ensure Kakashi was allowed to do so, even if that meant Tobira wasn’t.