A/N: Welcome to another round of "Googala2-and-I-have-weird-conspiracy-theories!" This one involves the weird, illicit practices of the Uchiha clan, the subtle irony of everything to do with Itachi, ever, and my fascination with writing from the perspective of minor female characters. It is beginning to become a habit.
Contrived from the interesting observation made by me that Sasuke and Itachi do not look very much like Fugaku, and are unusually powerful.
Canon-ness: I kept as close as I could, but refused to make Madara old. So he's young and pretty as he should be. Dammit, Kishi, you don't just design a character like that and give him wrinkles! Sheesh.
When her husband first brings up the idea, Mikoto is appalled.
Whatever her secret opinions on her clan and her village, she has always been a faithful wife. She will, everyone is sure, be a good mother too, at some point.
That, of course, is the trouble.
Fugaku looks at her from across the kitchen table, his stolid face impassive as usual, desperation in his dark eyes.
"At this point, Mikoto, there is no other choice," he says quietly. He is quieter in her company; and, she likes to imagine, more expressive.
She stares at him in shock.
"No other choice? This should not even be a choice. The honor of our clan…"
"Is subordinate to the necessity for power. You know this. You have studied our history as thoroughly as I have."
She bows her head. It grates on her, roils in her stomach like sour milk or poison, but her husband is entirely correct. They need power, they need stability, and Mikoto is above all else an Uchiha woman. She knows her duty well.
For almost seventy years, members of her clan have murdered their siblings and married their cousins, searching for the perfect sharingan, the perfect genetic inheritance for their children; the perfect method of acquiring strength.
She knows that sometimes they married closer than cousin; there were siblings left alive after the feuds, usually, and Uchiha are trained to value their own brand of beauty above all others. There are well-kept secrets in Konoha; more than one might think.
Murder, incest, ambition; they litter her clan's past. Mikoto was aware when she became Fugaku's wife that she would have to deal with dissenters and corruption.
But this… this she had not expected.
"We have no other choice," her husband says again, with a little more desperation, a little less stolidity.
Mikoto nods.
When he has left the house, she runs into the bedroom and sits on her neatly made bed with her knees clutched close to her chest, fingers clenching and unclenching, not knowing whether to laugh at the absurdity of it all or cry as she has not done since childhood, abandoned and undone.
Fugaku waits. He is a man unaccustomed to dealing with other's feelings; he can only observe Mikoto with the weary patience of a born stoic, and hope that she recovers.
A week passes. When he deems that her emotional reaction is under control, Fugaku quietly gives his wife the instructions she will need. He has made arrangements. Discreetly, of course; this is a matter of the utmost secrecy.
There are directions to a place outside Konoha; a cave hidden from even the most inquisitive passing shinobi with a complex net of genjutsu. There are transmitted methods, attainable only to a wielder of the sharingan, on how to pass by these traps. And there is a name, whispered by her husband with a kind of awe, spoken in darkness.
When she hears it, Mikoto gasps despite herself. Thoughts race through her head- why, what, how, how, but she regains control. These are the instructions, and she will follow them as befits a loyal wife.
She leaves at night, under the black firmament of a new-moon sky. Over the river and through the woods she goes, into the dark, on foot. Mikoto leaves no trace of her passing; she is a skilled jonin of Konoha, after all; she knows how not to leave tracks.
Her eyes are scarlet kaleidoscopes with flower-petal crescents nesting in their depths like some deadly calligraphy. Her raven hair is tied back tonight in a stern bun; there is no place for impractical beauty in the underbrush. She moves with care, each movement a memorized step, and at last she sees the cave mouth under a tall tree, as it had been described.
A figure stands beside the opening; not particularly tall, but slim and strong; she can see that, although she cannot see the person's face.
Then the mask is removed, lowered by a graceful hand, and a quiet voice says,
"Mikoto Uchiha. I have been expecting you."
In the early hours of the morning, under the gray sky of ripening dawn, she comes home. Fugaku is waiting for her in their bedroom; stern as usual, uncompromising.
Mikoto is very tired; too tired to cope with her husband's questioning silence, too tired even to meet his gaze. She merely falls into bed in a heap of pale skin and tangled hair, and closes her eyes to the world.
As she falls asleep, her husband's whisper falls repeated on her ear; "There was no other choice."
Nine months later, Mikoto Uchiha gives birth to a healthy baby boy. Her clan is pleased, and watches with fascinated detachment to see if the newborn will grow up to be more powerful than they are.
Her husband causes gossip among the citizens of Konoha; he does not visit his wife for three days after the birth, and when he arrives at last he does not hold the child. He merely looks at the boy and the exhausted mother with his usual unfathomable gaze, and leaves the room in a slight hurry.
Mikoto sings softly to her child in the dark of night when they cannot sleep, and thinks to herself that Itachi will grow up without a father. Fugaku will be his teacher, his clan leader, his trainer, but never a parent.
She wishes it could have been different. Of course she wishes that. But it was the only option. The only option. She gave birth to a son for the sake of her husband, because it was all that she could do.
Four years later.
Konoha is reeling from the aftermath of the Third Great Shinobi World War. The fourth Hokage is dead, every inhabitant of the village has lost at least one relative along with countless friends, and Mikoto no longer knows her son.
Every child in the Five Nations has seen more death than they should have, now. But Itachi has not recovered. He is silent, increasingly passive; he rarely speaks. The boy comes to his mother in the dark, asking for songs, asking for no more nightmares. She longs to comfort him, but Fugaku refuses to allow it.
"He isn't the only one who suffers," her husband says. "He is lucky. He lived. Let the boy be grateful for that and stop his crying."
By day, Itachi has begun to train under the direction of Fugaku. Tiny hands which only recently grew large enough to catch Mikoto's wrist between thumb and forefinger must learn to grasp a kunai. Already, the remaining elite among the Uchiha clan watch for the arrival of Itachi's sharingan.
Mikoto does not protest openly, but she mourns. She mourns for the dead; for Kushina, her friend, for Minato, her Hokage, for every person dead among the hundred slaughtered by the war and the kyuubi. But most of all she mourns for her son, who is so silent. She mourns for the love without conditions which she offers and he is unfulfilled by; she mourns for the fact that Fugaku has no hopes for Itachi, only expectations for the prodigy.
Mikoto mourns for the choices which had to be made. She wants her child back, her baby; her comfort. She loves Itachi, but he is a boy with shadows on his soul and he flinches at her touch.
Finally, she makes a choice of her own.
Again it is dark; again the moon is dead and no light falls upon the trees save that of the distant stars.
And again, after a long run and a dance through illusion with eyes of fire, Mikoto reaches the cave under the tree. Again the slender figure with the spiraling, deeply carved mask waits for her. She is unsurprised. The person before her is a true master of the shinobi world; he is always aware of any attempts to pass by his boundaries.
But this time is a little different, after all. Fugaku does not know that she has left; she gave him sleeping drugs in his after-dinner sake; they will last the night. This time, the journey is not a necessity. This time, she has come of her own free will.
"Lord Madara" she says, with a bow of her head.
Such beautiful fingers the man has, she thinks, almost distractedly, as he lowers the mask. Mikoto remembers those fingers, those hands. She cannot help but remember.
She remembers his face, too; a pale, sylvan face framed by masses of black, black hair which curls about the man in tendrils like a possessive, sentient lion's mane.
Madara Uchiha, father of her clan, co-founder of Konoha, looks much as he does in the single portrait still in possessed by Fugaku's family that she saw as a child, a likeness painted when he was barely nineteen. There are a few more lines beneath his eyes; a harsher line to his mouth; but in appearance Madara is younger than her husband.
Mikoto does not know how he did it; what power he wields with those strangely ornate sharingan eyes he has. She does not know why he is here, or how he has lived so long, or how he is alive at all, since he should be long dead, buried seventy years ago at the Valley of the End. He is a mystery; an enigma. He is all the hope she has.
"Lady Mikoto," he says, formal, although he must remember as well as she what their last meeting entailed. "Why are you here?"
"I want… I want another child."
There is no visible reaction, save for the slight arch of an eyebrow.
"Itachi is alive and healthy, is he not?"
"Yes."
"He is progressing in his training?"
"Yes, but-"
"And you are still married to your husband, lady Mikoto. I would have heard if you were not. You have one child with my genetic gifts; why do you need another?"
She looks him in the face and is reminded of a mirror. They are truly very similar in appearance; she is an Uchiha woman of the purest bloodline, and he- well, he started the whole mess. Madara is the pinnacle of their family lineage, although she knows that there is hope for Itachi to surpass him, when the boy grows older. Mikoto has a secret opinion that the most powerful men of the Uchiha have always been too androgynously beautiful for their own good.
"Fugaku told me," Madara says calmly, "That his sole reason for wanting me to father your child was to ensure the optimum genetics. I did not question him further; power has motivated many of our clan to do terrible things, over the years. Is there something else I should know?"
Mikoto takes a breath. Slow and shuddering.
"Lord Madara… the bloodline of the clan in this age is… a little too pure. Fugaku's father and grandfather were both married to their sisters, the tradition is not uncommon, and there have been complications. My husband… cannot have children. We are sure of this. But he is leader of the clan; I was married to him solely because we are both accomplished users of the sharingan. His disgrace would be absolute if the clan discovered that he could not father an heir. So… he sent me to you."
Madara nods.
"I see. These are dark days indeed for the Uchiha."
For a moment, there is the hint of a sneer at the corner of the ancient shinobi's mouth. Then it is gone, and Mikoto is not sure what she saw.
"Why are you here?" he asks her again. She takes a moment to respond. They are both still and silent for the span of a minute; porcelain figures under the starlight with eyes darker than the sky.
Madara's hair rustles with the breath of a faint breeze, and Mikoto's- loose and long tonight, shining like satin- brushes across her face.
He does not love her. She knows this. He is probably not even particularly attracted to her personally- Mikoto has guessed that. She has studied the secrets of Konoha and knows that the first Hokage had unconventional means of cementing an alliance- and Madara has carried his love/hatred for the Senju far past the man's death, long ago.
And there was a name in the night last time- a boy's name, slipping from his lips like a sigh. Not Hashirama's name. She looked it up, later, among the records of her clan, and nearly laughed at the irony of it. "Izuna" was his younger brother. Oh, how little her clan has changed, over the years.
Madara's heart, hardened with the decades, is in the custody of two dead men. And she does not love him- oh no, although Mikoto cannot deny his beauty. Time has taught her painful lessons too. The only person she loves in the world now is her son, Itachi- and the dream of the child who has yet to be conceived.
"I want a child because I no longer have one" she says to Madara in the dark. "They have robbed me of Itachi. Fugaku wants his sacrificial genius to offer up in the name of power. I can only protect our son for so long- then they will try to use him. It has already begun. But Fugaku will pay no heed to a second child- I would like a girl, but even a boy will be of no interest to him. I need another child, Lord Madara. I need someone for myself."
He considers her for a long moment, with eyes that have seen the dawn of the shinobi world and the slow decline of his clan.
"As you wish," he says at last. "As you wish."
Nine months later, Mikoto Uchiha gives birth to a healthy baby boy. This time, the clan pays less heed; a second son is a second son, and Itachi is doing so well.
Fugaku did not speak to her for a month after he discovered she was pregnant. He still does not understand, but now he has decided that he does not care. He may have some jealous idea about her being in love with Madara. Mikoto is unconcerned, to be honest.
She has her Sasuke. Her beautiful boy. And when she sees how Itachi loves him; how they love each other; she wonders if maybe her younger, unbroken son might be the key to Itachi's humanity; the balance on the scales.
Itachi was shown war too early, and asked to bear too much of a burden after that. Mikoto hopes that Sasuke will never have to witness such death. She hopes that his brother will protect him from war and grief, although the hope, she thinks, may not be possible.
Almost eight years later, Mikoto lies in a pool of her own blood on the floor of her house, murdered beside her husband, and two ninja leave Konoha's Uchiha district in the dead of night, under a full moon.
The taller of them is a man with wild dark hair and a carved mask; he walks with assurance, untroubled and faintly amused.
The shorter of the pair is a boy who cannot be more than thirteen. He wears a bloodstained ANBU uniform; blood also coats his hands and mats his long ponytail of hair. His face is calm, but he shakes slightly all over; a faint tremor, like the aftermath of an earthquake.
"You killed your family?" Madara asks, as though he were inquiring about the weather.
"Yes," says Itachi shortly. "All but Sasuke."
Madara nods his head. He seems untroubled by the information.
"It is a pity…" he begins, and then stops.
Itachi is too wrapped up in his own head and his own terrible grief to pay much attention, but when Madara finishes the sentence at last his eyes dart upward to the older man's masked face.
"What do you mean, 'It is a pity your mother had to die?' You hated the clan."
Madara nods, thoughtful but still faintly amused. They walk through trees now; Konoha is falling away.
"I did hate them. They were a worthless bunch of inbred, power-hungry fools who had lost their will to truly rebel. But your mother… She was a skilled shinobi. A competent jonin. She got past some of my best genjutsu once, you know."
He shakes his head.
"It does not matter. Death is death. You will come back for Sasuke, some day?"
Itachi shrugs; there is a little twitch at the end of the movement; a faint shake. He has not yet begun to deal with his deeds, with his choice.
"Perhaps. He can grow strong, first. He can grow strong hating me."
Madara turns his head to look at the bloodstained boy as they walk.
"The village will not thank you for it, you know," he says. "They will never thank you. They will delight in making you a byword for sociopathic madness."
"It does not matter if they thank me," says the young man, his voice expressionless; his eyes shattered kaleidoscopes, red as wine-drenched roses. "It does not matter. I did it for them. That is enough."
Madara, although his face is hidden, smiles a slow smile under the mask where Itachi cannot see.
"Sacrificial genius," he murmurs, so soft that only he can hear. "What a clan I built. What a clan I murdered. But she was a good woman, nonetheless…"