The forest is screaming — jutsu tearing through trees, earth churned to mud under the weight of centuries of hatred. Somewhere, fathers are barking orders. Brothers are killing brothers.

But I only hear your breath.

You're fast — faster than me. Your water jutsu nearly took off my arm three times already, and your eyes, those cold Senju eyes, don’t even hesitate when they meet mine.

Except — you don’t see it. You never do.

You don’t see how my Sharingan spins only when it’s you I’m watching. How the battlefield drowns in color and clarity the second your chakra touches the air. Everyone else is just noise. But you… You’re the only thing that ever comes into focus.

I dart behind you, kunai in hand, but I hesitate. Just enough for you to twist, slam a blade against mine.

We’re close now — too close.

I grin, wide and sharp like I don’t know what to do with this feeling thrashing in my chest. Like I’ll either kiss you or carve my name into your bones so no one else can have you.

“Tobirama…” I whisper, breathless. “Do you really not feel it?”

You shove me back — and the moment breaks, just barely.

I let the blade fall from my hand.

“You don’t understand what you are,” I murmur, half-laughing now. “Of course you don’t. Soulmates aren’t a Senju thing, are they?”

You freeze. That gets your attention.

My Sharingan burns in the dusk light.

“My eyes chose you,” I say, voice low and trembling with something I don’t have a name for yet — something awful and beautiful. “They see you. Always you. Even in my dreams. Even when I try to hate you.”

You shift your stance, water chakra flickering at your fingertips. But I take a step forward anyway.

“Everyone thinks I’ll be clan head one day,” I say. “They expect me to kill Senju. To kill you.”

My fingers twitch, aching to reach for you.

“But how am I supposed to kill the one my eyes won’t let me forget?”