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" - why would he do this?!"
Izuna nods along to show he's listening even as he paints his lips a deep red, tracking his rival in the mirror as she paces back and forth over the tatami behind him like a caged tiger.
"And in the middle of the market, no less!" Tobirama throws her hands up in mingled bewilderment and exasperation, the furthest thing from the person he got used to facing across the battlefield, a man so determined to win that he barely seemed human, even to the Sharingan.
That he'd never realised she was a woman, even after replaying all his memories of her, was shocking, and it made him wonder if she'd developed some kind of jutsu to deceive his eyes. But no, it's simply that her gender was so irrelevant to the way she conceived of herself - he didn't see it because she wasn't a woman in those moments.
She was a sword.
And that's all she believed she was.
Indeed she barely conceives of herself as a woman now, purposefully disregarding it in order to forge herself into a better weapon. He honestly believes that if she could discard it entirely, she would.
And that would be a pity.
Tobirama is a person, each and every aspect of her of value, and it pains him to see her disdain whole parts of herself. It would be different if those parts did not resonate with her, of course, if they pained her and she wished them gone, but she doesn't.
She merely doesn't see a use for them, which is a tragic waste.
He tried to show her that femininity could be weaponised, first by his own example and then by assisting her more directly, but to no avail.
That left him without a plan, but nii-san has thankfully been more than willing to take up that mantle.
"Did you take it?" Izuna enquires, raising his eyebrows at her reflection in the mirror before him.
"He didn't give me a choice but to take it." She growls like a tiger too, and Izuna suppresses a smile. "I thought he was giving me a mission scroll, but he just put it in my hand instead and left."
Which, while not exactly traditional, was very smart on nii-san's part, since Tobirama would only have tried to return it to him if he'd stayed. Such a reaction, while instinctive, would have looked like an explicit rejection to everyone watching, forbidding nii-san from approaching her again, which would be the worst possible outcome.
If Tobirama is going to break his brother's heart, Izuna wants it to be with full knowledge and understanding of what she's doing.
"And do you know what it is?" Izuna turns around, knowing this is a conversation they must have face to face, eye to eye.
"A necklace," Tobirama holds it out, a pendant on a fine gold chain, and Izuna puts his hands behind his back to show he won't touch it. She doesn't miss the movement either, perceptive as always in everything except matters of the heart. "Izuna. This isn't like all the rest, is it."
"It is similar to the other gifts he's given you." Her words were not a question, but he answers as if they were. "But it's also more."
"... how much more." She lifts it up, staring into the heart of it where a thread of nii-san's chakra twists upon itself.
"Made by his own hand, out of his own fire, it's a piece of him." Izuna says it plainly, exactly as she prefers. "Given into your keeping."
"What?" She jerks, expression suddenly horrified, and holds it as far away from her as she can. "I can't take this!"
"You can, if you choose to." Izuna doesn't soften his words at all, not when they are for his rival who prizes truth. "I showed you before, didn't I? When we made that bet, and I asked nii-san to look at you... I knew he was already in love with you."
Her eyes snap to him, shocked, and he knows it's time to confess all.
"He'd been trying to court you for months, even as you didn't seem to see it, and I wanted to show you the effect you had on him in a way you couldn't brush aside or deny." And it had worked too well, that was the worst of it, sending Tobirama fleeing from nii-san, from the truth she didn't want to see. "What you hold in your hand is his heart, given to you to cherish or discard... but it will always be yours."
"He won't...?" She hesitates, uncharacteristically uncertain in this as she is nowhere else in her life. "I know your elders would prefer he marry within your clan."
"My brother burns hot but also constant," Izuna nods at the pendant ruefully. "He doesn't change easily... and in this, not at all."
"Izuna." She closes her hand over it slowly and he knows her answer is already given. "I don't know how to be a wife."
"But that's the beauty of it," he reaches out, cradling her hands in his own. "You don't need to know, because nii-san loves you just as you are."
"But someone will need to be the lady of the clan," she frowns, trying to work out a puzzle he already has the answers to. "And I don't have the skills to fill the role."
"Someone already is the lady of the clan." Izuna smiles at her, showing all of his teeth. "And isn't that a good thing for both of us?"
"Yes." She lets out a bark of laughter before folding him close, nii-san's chakra nestled between them. "Thank you, Izuna."
"Anytime, Tobirama." He tucks his head under her chin, listening to her heart beat in time with his own. “Anytime."