#uchi-madara
#98 [prev ] << >> [ next ]
Tobirama shakes his head in response, handing the previously ogled bottle to Madara before vaguely attempting to mimic washing himself with his hands. He does that by rubbing his hands together and then pretends to wash his face and arms.
“No. Wash yourself, you are still filthy.”
There is no other way of conveying this across and Tobirama downright refuses to help Madara with more washing than necessary. Surely the tengu does know how to do that, right?
And even if not, he must learn how to do these things himself — Tobirama will not aid him in that, not now, not ever. If he wants Madara to learn anything at all, it has to be without any interjections other than outside guidance from ‘afar’.
Unfortunately, for Madara that might mean more suffering than until now, especially because now he has to actually do things he should have known how to do a long time ago. And that is not something that Tobirama is any good with, especially since he is not equipped to handle the teaching of that degree. Social interactions are not his forté.
“I’ll leave you alone to do that, just call for me when you are done with that. I’ll help with the rinsing.”
And with that, Tobirama leaves, waving his hand in the direction of both Madara and the clone. It’s unclear whether it is a gesture of dismissal for Madara or a beckoning for his clone but the clone still steps from around the tub and follows Tobirama out of the bathroom, leaving Madara alone.
Once Tobirama is pointed out the core of the problem, he carefully combs through the mess of strands to find what is causing the new spurt of blood to trickle into the water. The fact that it is just a dislodged feather temporarily allows him to feel relieved. As brutal as the damage seems, it is not as serious as he thought it would be. The feather will eventually grow back and judging by Madara’s reaction, the tengu hardly even knows about it aside from some form of discomfort.
“I see,” Tobirama lets Madara know verbally that he has acknowledged his words, carefully pulling the feather out completely. It will be much better for Madara to be rid of it and additionally, it will prevent the area from getting inflamed. It comes at the cost of some additional pain but he hopes that Madara will not react too violently to it.
After all, there is still a lot left to do.
As Tobirama’s access to appropriate ‘hair’-care supplies is limited, he uses what he can, including Hashirama’s odd herbal concoctions that are supposed to help the caked dirt and tangling (and hopefully not cause further irritation where the suds may accidentally go over a wound or two).
When it comes to additional tools, though, Tobirama has to scrutinise whatever supplies Hashirama had dragged in with him. None look too appealing, oddly crooked and with teeth of varying distances, undoubtedly Hashirama-made as well, judging by the attempt at polishing of his Mokuton wood. The distant hum of chakra underneath the combs’ surfaces alone is telling, but Tobirama can only feel it once he lays his hands on the combs properly.
The rest of the work passes relatively slowly and in silence. Both Tobiramas work in tandem, switching between washing, pouring liquid, and combing through Madara’s hair and wings.
The water has to be changed once or twice, less and less filthy each time until Madara’s plumage is clean enough to not stain the water anymore, and his wounds have temporarily closed and have started to scab over.
“You can wash yourself, right?” Tobirama, the clone, huffs from the side in an almost irritated manner, straightening his back, while the real Tobirama seems to be taking a minute off. He too straightens his back, wincing quietly at the leftover strain and dull ache of being bet over the tub for too long. Carefully, he lifts his arm and rotates his shoulder until it cracks and slots itself back into its socket.
He’ll definitely demand a compensation after.
This is where the fun starts.
Both of the Tobiramas move to take their place on either of Madara’s sides, simply watching as the water allows just about everything to come out of Madara’s hair. Tobirama surely does look a bit baffled at the sheer amount of random things, weaponry included, especially since he would have thought that Hashirama had managed to remove it all.
How is Madara even able to hold so many things in his hair and wings? That’s what Tobirama would like to know because it complicates his job even further.
“How indeed,” his clone supplies before bending down a bit to begin the long and tedious work of simply removing every piece of alien material from Madara’s hair and wings, no matter is organic or not. He needs to be rid of these things before they can even proceed to clean him up.
Tobirama himself soon joins, carding his hands through Madara’s other wing to shake out (or alternatively pull out by force) any stray weapons or twigs, or any other object he might find.
The water slowly turns deep muddy brown and then almost black and Tobirama has to eventually let the water out and replace it with clean water in order to get somewhere with the session. Especially since the longer Madara sits in filthy water, the filthier he will get as well.
(Simultaneously he suspects that this will not be the last time he is forced to change the water.)
While he is busy doing that and while his clone fishes out all the material filth and debris from the bathtub, a quick look over Madara’s side allows him to notice the trail of blood coming from somewhere around Madara’s shoulder.
“….are you hurt anywhere? Do you..feel any pain?”
