Chapter Text
Uchiha Hikaku does not want to be here. He does not want to be in the Senju compound, but moreover he does not want to be anywhere in the same country as the glittering blue eyes looking at him right now. Even without activating his sharingan he can see the power in them; when he had looked with his sharingan, he had briefly, irrationally wondered if he could have been looking at rinnegan. What else, after all, held such power? But no, here he is looking an entirely novel doujutsu in the eye, and hoping that its bearer does not unleash it on all of them.
The Hyuuga head beside him is the only one who understands his current pain, he is sure, because she has looked with her own doujutsu as well. Hikaku wonders what she has seen. He wonders if the sight is as terrifying to her as it is to him. But as much as he does not want to be here, as much as he does not want to be anywhere near this strange man, when Gojo Satoru announces his intention to leave, Hikaku exchanges a look with Hyuuga. A moment of profound understanding passes between the pair of them, the heads of the doujutsu clans, that they cannot allow this man, the bearer of an unknown and powerful ocular technique, to escape their grasp. Not without trying--something. And so he says,
"Wait."
Gojo stops, hovering on his toes, balanced like some perching bird. He turns those eyes, doujutsu still burning in them, on Hikaku, arches an eyebrow, and drawls out,
"Ye~s?"
Hikaku is a hard man, the veteran of decades of war, a survivor of the same, and there is nowhere, nowhere at all, that he has ever wanted to be less than this place, right now. And Gojo knows it. Hikaku can see it in the sardonic microtwitch of his eyebrow, in the there-and-gone curl of his lip, of the way his head is angled so minutely that nobody without a doujutsu would ever have eyes sharp enough to spot it.
"I believe that we have had a misunderstanding," Hikaku says. "Please, there is no reason to leave. I am sure that my esteemed colleagues will agree that it is better to start over, than to continue this argument."
"Sure," Gojo says. "Better. Or I could just leave."
"I agree with Uchiha," Senju Tobirama speaks up, much to Hikaku's surprise. Then again, as surprising as it is for the Senju to ever agree with an Uchiha on any point, it is perhaps less so for this specific instance; Tobirama had, after all, given chase the first time Gojo had left, and even managed to convince him to return. An effort that the collective elders and clan heads of Konoha seem determined to squander.
"Can you see whatever it is this stranger is talking about, Uchiha?" Sarutobi Sasuke asks, frowning a little.
"No," Hikaku admits. "I cannot see that far."
"Nor can I," Shizuka puts in beside him. "The moon is very, very distant. But I do believe that he can see that far."
"Well then maybe someone should get closer to the moon, and have a look," comes the lazy drawl of Nara Shion, the clan's representative in this affair. One dark eyebrow rises in Hikaku's direction. "Your clan has bird summons, right?"
"If it's anything like the moon back home, your moon is hundreds of thousands of kilometres away," Gojo comments. "Orbiting the planet through the cold, airless void of space." He describes a circle around his head. "You know, how the air gets thinner when you go up a mountain? It doesn't stop! It just keeps going, until there's nothing at all!"
"Thanks, sensei," Nara says, with no little sarcasm. "But you have no way of knowing if that's true here, do you?"
"Actually, I do," Gojo says, with alarming mildness. Nara gestures for him to carry on; around half the people present fail to keep themselves from leaning forward with interest. With an exaggeratedly put upon pout, Gojo tilts his head to look out the window again, very obviously eyeing up the moon with his doujutsu.
"Huh," he says after a moment. "It's actually closer. A lot closer. Which means it's smaller," he muses. "But it's still a huge seal to contain something...." He sighs, and flops back into his chair. "I guess I can't in good conscience just swan off without doing something about it. Sorry, not sorry, but you're stuck with me." He grins at all of them, and it's not a very nice grin.
A loud clap echoes through the room, and everyone turns to look at Senju Hashirama, who is also grinning. It's a very nice smile, if you don't know any better.
"Well then! That's settled. And now, it's time for everyone to go. Home. You will of course be kept updated on the Exorcise The Moon operation, but for now, we have things to work on. Shion, Hikaku, Shizuka, if you would stay back?"
Hikaku nods; what else can he do? He remains in his seat, and watches while Hashirama oppresses the entire group with the weight of his chakra, chivvying them up and out the door, with Tobirama escorting them all to enusre that they actually do leave.
Thanks to his experience with Madara-sama's own chakra, Hikaku is able to stay relaxed under the weight. Shizuka barely flinches; her pride as a Hyuuga will allow nothing less. Nara lays her head down, and just doesn't seem to care.
Gojo doesn't even seem to notice as far as Hikaku can see. Not even his microexpressions reveal any awareness of the weight of Hashirama's chakra, and that, more than anything else he has seen, scares him. Because he knows that Gojo must be aware of Hashirama's overwhelming chakra. Even chakra-blind civilians can't help but notice it. It's just a fact of being around the man. But Gojo? Pays it as much mind as he does the air.
What is he?
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Hashirama says, once the others have finally all been herded out, and Tobirama has returned. The younger Senju brother takes up a guard post by the door, arms crossed and a frown on his face.
“Of course, Hokage-sama,” Shizuka answers, with a precisely proper inclination of her head.
Somehow, Gojo spins his chair.
“So,” he says. “You two really can’t see the thing in the moon?” he asks. Just to be sure, Hikaku activates his sharingan, and looks up out the window, where the moon hangs, desperately trying to ignore the warped, fractal mess of energy that makes up Gojo, and looks. He really looks. And…
“Nothing,” he says. “Just the same moon as always.”
Beside him, Shizuka has done the same thing with her byakugan, and affirms his statement.
“It is too far, even for me,” she admits. It is a great admission for her; she can see the farthest of any in her clan.
Gojo hums thoughtfully.
“What about the energy threads out that way?” he asks, pointing. “They’re only a couple hundred miles away, and they connect to the moon.”
Again, they both look, but once again they have to shake their heads.
“Again, that’s too far,” Shizuka says. “Something that far will be well below the curve of the horizon; you should not be able to see that far.” There is a note of accusation in her voice; Hikaku doesn’t miss it, and neither does Gojo.
“I guess my eyes are just better than yours,” he says flatly, looking her dead in the eye. “But really, it’s so big I don’t know how even normal eyes can miss it.”
His pupils constrict, and dilate, and constrict again, as he stares beyond the horizon at what only he can see.
“All right. What’s your effective range?” he asks.
“Five kilometres,” Shizuka replies, using Tobirama’s new measure for distance. Hikaku has to admit that it is much more… sensible than the traditional system of measures, but a part of him can’t help but almost… resent it. In some ways, it’s one more piece of Senju culture replacing what they have always known and—
And he cuts that train of thought right off. There is no place for it in Konohagakure, where they all work together and contribute to the whole. They all benefit from the Senju’s intellect and creativity.
“Mine is roughly the same,” Hikaku says. Gojo nods and taps his chin thoughtfully, before turning to Hashirama.
“What do you think? I could bring them closer, they could see for themselves,” he says. “Not to the moon, there’s no air there, but the other thing connected to it,” he clarifies, raising a finger pointedly.
“You can, um…” The Hokage hesitates.
“Teleport,” Gojo supplies.
“Teleport with other people?” Hashirama asks.
“Of course,” Gojo replies. Because of course he can; Hikaku isn’t even surprised at this point.
“Bring me as well,” Tobirama states, before his brother can reply.
"Good idea," Hashirama agrees, and looks expectantly to Hikaku and Shizuka.
"Very well," Hikaku agrees. "I am prepared to leave immediately." It's an old habit from the war days, and one he is--for obvious reasons--loathe to break.
"I, too, am prepared," Shizuka replies, looking nothing of the sort in her silk kimono. But Hikaku knows better than to underestimate the Hyuuga. Gojo grins, and it's a little nicer than his other smiles have been so far.
"Great! Then let's go." He rocks to his feet--Hikaku is not entirely certain that he's standing on the floor--and gestures for them to come close. They do, and Hikaku stiffens (and sees Shizuka do the same) when the taller man slings an arm around each of them. "You to~o~" he sing-songs, much to Tobirama's very evident disgust. But he does cross the room, and at his brother's nod, stand close enough for Gojo to grab onto him.
"Be right ba~ck!" Gojo says. It's enough warning for Hikaku to activate his sharingan, but. That does not help. He sees something, but he cannot even begin to comprehend it beyond some impression of compression and bending in directions that don't actually exist, and then--
And then.
They are standing in a cave.
And across the space of it from them, looking just as flummoxed as Hikaku feels, is the last person Hikaku ever thought he would see alive again:
Uchiha Madara, in the flesh.