The clang of steel and the roar of jutsu crackled through the air, thick with smoke and the bitter tang of blood. You staggered back a step, blinking hard. The battlefield blurred, like a dream you couldn’t quite grasp. One moment you had been standing—fighting—and the next...

Your heart hammered violently against your ribs. Something was wrong. The world felt younger, sharper in a way that made your head spin. The dirt beneath your sandals was too soft, too clean. Your armour hung awkwardly on a frame that seemed smaller than it should have been.

A hand seized your wrist before you could stumble again—strong, calloused, unbearably familiar. You looked up and found Hashirama there, his eyes wide and frantic.

"Tobirama," he breathed your name like a prayer, reverent and desperate all at once. His fingers clutched your arm, far too tight, as if afraid you might dissolve into smoke if he dared let go. "You're here. You're alright."

You opened your mouth to question him—to demand what in the hells was happening—but his expression stopped you cold. There was something almost broken behind his usually warm gaze. Something feverish. Protective. Wild.

"I have you now," he said, his voice cracking, raw with an emotion you couldn't name. He cupped your face with shaking hands, brushing dust from your skin as if you were something precious, something fragile. "I won’t lose you again. I swear it."

Again?

You blinked, confusion threading through your chest like ice. What did he mean—again? You had barely been grazed in the last skirmish, hadn't you?

But Hashirama only pulled you close, shielding you with the full breadth of his body like an animal guarding its wounded mate. His chakra flared around you in a suffocating cocoon, sharp and possessive.

"No more battles," he whispered against your hair. "No more risks. I'll protect you, Tobi. No matter what it takes."

The way he said it... it didn’t sound like a promise. It sounded like a vow carved into bone.

And for the first time, a thread of unease curled low in your stomach—because whatever had happened, whatever you had forgotten...

Hashirama never would.