The room was beautiful—gold and velvet, silk and perfume—a dream designed just for you. But no matter how soft the bed, no matter how warm the air, the weight of invisible chains pressed against your chest.

Hashirama stood at the door, smiling. Not the open, boyish smile you remembered from your youth—but something darker. Something that had been forged the moment time cracked and bent at his desperate hands.

You knew it now. You weren’t just back in the past. He had brought you here. He had ripped you both backward through time the moment your blood stained the battlefield—and he had sworn, deep in the marrow of his bones, he would never fail you again.

“Tobi,” he murmured, stepping closer, voice low and soothing. “My little brother. My everything.” His hand brushed your cheek, thumb tracing the skin just below your eye, lingering there as if to wipe away invisible bruises you no longer bore.

You pulled at the silk binds on your wrists—tied tight to the bedposts, gentle against your skin, but impossibly strong. There would be no escape. Hashirama had made sure of that.

"You’re safe now," he whispered, like a sacred vow. "No one will ever hurt you again."

You shivered beneath his touch. You knew what he had done. What he would do, for you.

You had barely opened your eyes in this new past before your father—the man whose hand had carved scars into your back and heart—was gone. Snuffed out by Hashirama's wrath, by a hand that had once only known how to heal.

Hashirama had smiled when he told you. Smiled like it was just another act of love.

"I saw it all, Tobi," he had said, voice trembling with rage and adoration. "Every time you stepped in. Every time you took the punishments meant for me. Every scar he left... I saw it. I felt it. Never again."

Now, he knelt beside your bed, his hands smoothing the blankets around you as if wrapping a precious relic. His eyes—once warm, now burning with something more—never left your face.

"You’re mine to protect," he said, soft but firm. "Mine to love. Mine to keep."

His fingers toyed with the silk ropes binding you, stroking them like one might stroke a beloved pet. You could feel the madness in his touch. The reverence. The terrifying certainty.

"You don’t have to worry about anything anymore," Hashirama whispered, pressing his forehead against yours. "I’ll give you everything you need. You don’t need to think. You don’t need to fear. Just stay here. With me."

His voice dropped lower, a tender threat hidden beneath the affection. "No one will ever take you away again. Not even you."

You swallowed hard as he kissed your forehead, his breath warm against your skin, his fingers tightening around your wrists—gentle, but unmovable.

"Every breath you take, every heartbeat, belongs to me now," he murmured. "You’re mine, Tobi. Mine to keep. Mine to love."

The room around you shimmered like a dream—but the dream had teeth, and they were sunk deep into your soul.

In his mind, this was how it was supposed to be. You were safe. You were cherished. You were his—completely.

And no force in this life—or any other—would ever change that.