AC_D4: The Red Flame (Part 2)

For Day 4 of my 2018's Advent Calendar, it's the secong chapter of my newest Uchiha-centric AU.

Here's Part 1, in case you missed it.
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Walking away from the obsidian sculpture, showed Harry that he was in a different place if not time. Instead of the pond that had surrounded the obsidian sculpture's small patch of land, there was only solid ground with coarse grass.

Harry was just thankful that he didn't have to depend on Madara to jump over the water to reach the other side.

In the dark, Madara led the way through a thick cluster of trees with sure steps.

And unlike Harry, Madara didn't falter when a large shadow dropped down from the tree and straightened to the looming figure of an armoured man.

“Madara-sama?” the man said, red eyes visible in the darkness and fixed on Harry.

With a commanding edge in his voice that brooked no arguments, Madara said, “You need to pay more attention to the newcomers from our distant properties. It won't look good if a guard like you can't recognize your own clan members.”

The man scanned Harry once with red eyes, but turned to Madara and bowed. “My apologies for the disturbance, Madara-sama.”

Madara walked away.

Harry gaped at the exchange, even as the guard disappeared back into the trees without a sound. Left without any other option, Harry followed Madara into the clan property.

Instead of the dark and abandoned houses he had walked past before with Sakura, tents and half-built houses were clustered around big trees. Clothes swaying on washing lines, crackling fires, and the general clutter of people living there made the property feel very different. Harry couldn't help turning his head from one side to the other to take in all the details.

“Things are bound to look different since construction takes time,” Madara said. “There must be many more houses in your time.”

“There are,” Harry said. It wasn't a lie. There were many houses on the Uchiha property. They were just empty and abandoned, and had been for years.

“Good,” Madara said, satisfaction rife in his low voice as he entered a large house. Though well-lit with lanterns and decorated with the Uchiha clan emblems, the house was empty.

“Why did that guard just agree with what you said? It's obvious I'm not from around here,” Harry said as he followed Madara into the empty house.

“Why would he disagree with his clan head?”

Though the 'clan head' thing explained Madara's attitude, it didn't stop Harry from asking, “Why did you tell him I was a clan member?”

“It's a good cover story,” Madara said, as he walked deeper into the house. “No one will question it, because you'll be returning to your time soon.” Correctly interpreting Harry's ensuing silence as disbelief, Madara added, “I will solve this before it becomes a real issue.”

“With more eye bleeding?” Harry asked in a wry tone.

“That gave me some ideas on how to deal with this,” Madara said, opening the door to a relatively dark room.

“Anything you want to share?” Harry asked.

“No.” Madara lit a lantern, showing a short shelf filled with scrolls and books. “Take a scroll and be useful.”

“Can you read after all that eye bleeding?” Harry asked.

“My eyes are fine.”

“They were bleeding,”

“And they are fine now,” Madara reiterated.

Harry signed but turned to the scrolls and roughly bound books. “Is this your personal library?”

“This is the all of the clan's written material,” Madara said.

“That's,” Harry barely counted more than thirty individual items. “Are these storage scrolls?”

“They're not,” Madara said.

“We're not going to find any answers in them.”

Madara raised an eyebrow. “You've read all these items, then?”

“No, but...”

“Get reading,” Madara said in an ominous tone.

Harry rolled his eyes and grabbed a scroll bound with a red seal. The seal shape resembled what the red-eyed kid had evoked to allow Harry entry into the Uchiha compound.

When Madara didn't warn him away from the scroll or point him to another, Harry prodded the seal with an experimental flare his chakra. The scroll unravelled to reveal rough text cramped together on the scroll.

“This looks like some sort of philosophy about chakra?”

“It is,” Madara said as he grabbed another scroll that he flicked open with a hand covered in bright chakra.

Hours passed in silence with Harry squinting at more scrolls with even duller content. When he looked up and found the sun creeping in through the windows, Harry decided he's had enough reading.

Harry stood, contemplated whether to say something to Madara. Surrounded by a messy pile of scrolls and books, Madara was about to finish the last of the scrolls left to read. Deciding against disturbing the older man, Harry padded out of the room and searched for a kitchen.

Harry was almost done cooking some eggs when Madara appeared.

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Harry said, “You didn't find anything, did you?”

The morning light highlighted the dark bags under Madara's eyes. “We just need to do a closer reading.”

“Or,” Harry said. “We could try the village library.”

Madara tilted his head. “The village has a library?”

“Of course it does! Where else would people go to get reference material?”

“And anyone can go to the library?” Madara asked.

“Anyone can go in, but some sections are only accessible if you're a ninja.”

“What do you go there to read?”

“Recently, laws and other boring bureaucratic stuff.” Harry sighed in realization. “The village library doesn't exist yet.”

“Many things won't exist yet. Clans are still settling and trying to build so that clan members from distant outposts and safe houses can at least visit.”

Harry frowned. “So not all the Uchiha are in Konoha.”

“Every clan waiting for people to come and at least see the village before deciding where they'll stay.”

“They're not going to stay in Konoha?” Harry asked in confusion.

“If they all relocate to the village, then the outposts and properties outside the village would fall into disrepair.” Madara frowned at Harry. “Have you never visited the outside properties?”

Harry shrugged. “I actually only came to Konoha recently.”

Madara stared at him for a moment. “That explains your accent.”

“What accent?” Harry frowned, suddenly self-conscious. Did he have an accent? No one had ever mentioned that he had a noticeable accent before.

“Unless that's just how people in the future sound like.” Madara said with a thoughtful look at Harry. “Either way, there's no village library for you to look around in. And even if there was, I doubt there would be anything about time travel.”

“You can't be sure of that,” Harry retorted

Madara raised a brow. “Who do you think would have that sort of knowledge in this village?”

Harry grasped for a name. “The Nara are pretty smart.”

Madara scoffed. “Those deer herders?”

Harry frowned at the older man. “What do you have against them being deer herders? Those deer are a source of their medicines, you know.”

Unable to mask his curiosity, Madara asked, “You have a lot of contact with them?”

“I play shogi with Nara-san sometimes,” Harry said with a shrug.

“Nara-san?” Madara narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

Harry shrugged. “Shikamaru's father.”

“Don't they give the Shika name to the clan head and his heir?”

“They do?”

“You play shogi with a clan head?” Madara asked. “Why?”

“Because he asked,” Harry said. “Though I don't know why he keeps wanting to play when I lose all the time.” Seeing Madara's frown, Harry said, “No one can win a game against the Nara.”

Madara scoffed again.

“Have you ever played a game with the Nara?”

“The Uchiha defeated the Nara alliance with the Yamanaka and Akimichi multiple times,” Madara stated.

Harry frowned. “So you've never actually played shogi with them.”

“You think they'll have know anything that can help you?” Madara said, sidestepping the topic of shogi. “If they had that kind of knowledge, they would have been a formidable enemy.”

“You didn't find anything in your reading,” Harry pointed out. “So we need to try other options.”

“What other options?” Madara asked with a look of disbelief. “No one can know about where you really came from. Or how you came to be here.”

“I don't know how I came here.”

“Who would you ask for help?” Madara asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

Harry thought about it for a moment. “Probably the monks at the Temple of Fire.”

“Temple of Fire?”

“The temple with the big Tengu statues?” Harry explained.

“I've heard of the places where monks gather. You've spent time there?”

“Not too long. But it left an impression.” Harry shrugged. With a cautious look, he asked, “Are we going to re-read everything?”

“I've read everything before. There's no way I would have collected them without reading them.”

“Then why did we spend the entire night reading?” Harry asked in disbelief.

“To make sure that there was nothing that could help,” Madara said. “Leaving Konoha to go the Temple of Fire, wherever that is, is not possible now. With Hashirama's upcoming wedding, I need to remain in Konoha to show Uchiha support.”

“You don't need to come with me.”

Madara stared at him. “You think you'll survive a trip there by yourself?” Before Harry could answer, he continued, “With the scattered war-torn clans that are itching to gain revenge on anything associated with the Uchiha or the Senju?”

Harry frowned.

Madara took Harry's silence as understanding. “It is too dangerous to travel when things are still so unsettled. Hashirama's marriage will bring some much needed stability.”

Harry couldn't help asking, “Is he marrying Uzumaki Mito?”

Madara nodded. “Good to know that the marriage actually happens.”

“What's so important about him marrying her?” Harry asked.

“The Uzumaki name holds power,” Madara said.

“What kind of power?” Harry asked.

“The power this village needs to stabilize,” Madara said. “It's a wonder that Hashirama managed to get a marriage with the Uzumaki, even if they are distantly related. Either way, his wife will be more useful than him in the long term.” Before Harry could ask any more about the Uzumaki, Madara said, “I'll take another look at the monument. Maybe daylight will bring answers.” Madara narrowed his eyes, twitched and closed his red-rimmed eyes with a grimace. “A night time look might be better. No chance of onlookers to see more than they should.”

Harry frowned. “Wait, are you... you can't change your eyes?”

“I can,” Madara bit out. There was a split second flicker of red in his black eyes before Madara grit his teeth with a muffled grunt.

“You need a medical professional to look at your eyes,” Harry said. “Without them, we won't get any answers from the monument.”

“You can't do anything?” Madara prompted.

“I don't heal,” Harry said with a firm tone.

A muscle twitched in Madara's jaw. “Hiding your abilities prevents you from going back to your time.”

“I don't have any proper healing abilities. I don't have the ability to do anything more than stop the bleeding. Anything more than that and I'd just make your eyes melt.”

Madara twitched back with a frown, as though unsure if Harry was just exaggerating to avoid doing something he wanted. “Then we will have to wait.”

“You really don't know anyone with healing abilities?” Harry asked.

“I know someone outside the clan,” Madara said. “But I won't allow him any access to my eyes even if he could do something about them.”

“How long will we need to wait for your eyes to recover?”

“I don't know,” Madara admitted. “This is the first time a monument has made my eyes bleed.”

“I'll go to the monument,” Harry said. “Examine it myself for answers.”

“Poking it?” Madara asked.

“It's better than doing nothing.”

“Many of the clan visit the monument during the day time,” Madara warned him.

“Why don't you take some herbal medicine for your eyes?”

“You know how to make something that would target the eyes?” Madara asked.

Though he knew potions meant to work on eyes specifically, Harry said, “Nothing that I could make here, but there are people who make herbal medicines.”

“You're talking about the Nara,” Madara said. At least, he had been listening to Harry. “You think they would willingly hand me medicine? They won't even let me on their property.”

“Have you actually tried?”

“Even if they did, why would they have something that could help my eyes. They don't have any eye-related battle techniques,” Madara pointed out.

“Do the Uchiha have any medicines targeted to eyes?” Harry asked.

“Not yet, obviously,” Madara said.

“If you're not going to use any medical route, then we'll just have to research the monument itself,” Harry said. “Where did you get the obsidian?”

“From a volcano,” Madara said.

“Was it a special volcano?”

“What is a special volcano?”

Harry sighed. “Okay, forget about that. Will you at least tell me what you saw when you looked at it with your eyes?”

“It had chakra,” Madara said. Seeing Harry's confusion, he added, “It's not supposed to have chakra.”

“I'm pretty sure it's also not supposed to pull someone back in time,” Harry said.

Madara pursed his lips and stood from the table. “Fine, we'll go with your suggestion.”

Harry frowned in suspicion. “Which one?”

“We'll go to the Nara, and when they refuse us entry, we will go with my suggestion,” Madara said.

Again Harry asked, “Which one?”

“That we wait for my eyes to return to normal no matter how long it takes,” Madara said.

Harry huffed as he stacked their dirty dishes in the kitchen. “I thought you didn't want anyone to see me.”

“No one will argue against my cover story for you,” Madara said.

“Won't I need paperwork or something?” Harry asked.

“What makes you think a village that is still setting up will have a proper bureaucratic process?” Madara asked as he opened the door and motioned for Harry to follow.

“Fair enough,” Harry admitted as he followed the older man out of the house.

Under the early morning sunshine, there were Uchiha of all ages walking around the property.

Madara ignored the deep bows aimed his way, but Harry couldn't ignore the fleeting red-eyes glances that assessed him and then went on their way.

“There's one of the group that you would have come here with,” Madara said, pointing to a curly-haired child standing alone and looking up into a tree. “Kagami,” Madara called out.

The boy turned in surprise but his puffy eyes widened as he saw Madara. He ran to them and bowed low when he stopped a few feet away from them. “Uchiha-sama.”

“You came to Konoha with your clansmen,” Madara said without any preamble. He gestured at Harry, “this is one of them.”

Kagami looked at Harry with a long searching look with plain black eyes.

Harry twitched. Was Madara actually expecting a child to stick to a cover story?

“Yes, Madara-sama,” Kagami agreed with a nod.

“There,” Madara told Harry, as though having they child's agreement was all that Harry needed as his cover story. “Let's go.”

“You didn't even tell him my name!” Harry said in exasperation. Before Madara could argue, Harry knelt down in front of the boy with a smile. “Nice to meet you Kagami, I'm Harii.”

“Harii-sama,” Kagami bowed.

Harry twitched and shook his head, “None of that, I'm just Harii.”

Kagami glanced between Harry and Madara. Whatever Madara did, Kagami just nodded at Harry with another cautious look.

Before Harry could say anything else, Madara said, “There, introductions all done. Let's go.”

“I'll see you later Kagami,” Harry said, as he turned away from the boy and followed after Madara. When they were a few feet away from the boy, Harry said, “He looks like he's going to climb that tree without supervision.”

“It's good to let children explore.”

“He could fall and break an arm, or worse,” Harry pointed out, chancing a glance back at the boy, whose face was turned up to the tree once more.

“He's an Uchiha,” Madara said as they passed some more armoured guards who stood beside a half-built wooden gate. “He knows how to climb trees properly.”

The guards bowed to Madara but didn't even spare Harry a glance.

Madara turned to the right, walking forward with purpose.

Harry didn't follow. Instead he called out, “Do you even know where the Nara clan property is?”

Madara paused and then glanced back at Harry.

“Unbelievable,” Harry muttered as he took the lead in the other direction.

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Yes, I'm back to my comfort zone in writing- just tons of dialogue with not enough description. But I just felt the urge to make these two talk about everything.

Next time in this AU- the Nara clan. Are they as annoying as the Nara in the future? Will they let these two on their property? Will Madara finally see a medical professional about his eyes? I'm not sure- I haven't decided on anything yet.

Polar