Competition
Somewhere out there, there is a monster that was born of Mikoto's own hatred.
She is not a spiteful woman—nobody would ever believe she was a spiteful woman—but she has always, in some small amount, hated her husband.
She married Fugaku to bring honor to her family; she hadn't been born of Uchiha blood and her mother had always envied the power and respect that the prestigious clan molded and commanded.
Her seventeenth birthday was a day that she would remember always. It was then that her parents had informed her, matter-of-factly, that she would be marrying Uchiha Fugaku, a dull and boring man who had no significant special attacks and who had only just begun to master the fire element.
His hair was graying, even then.
As a child, she had imagined her husband would be handsome, and if not handsome, she had at least expected he be a gentleman.
But Fugaku was neither of the two.
Their wedding was small and unnervingly quiet. Every member of her immediate family had attended the ceremony, all falling silent in spite of the few Uchiha who had bothered to show. It had been decided by their parents that they birth an heir during their honeymoon.
Against her own selfish wishes, she lay on her back and let the man do what he must, an act that would be the beginning, the creation, of their first son together.
There was no love in the equation, no tenderness in the way he touched her.
When the child was born, it was indeed the son they had hoped for, and he did not cry. He looked up at her with dark eyes, questioning her, and at the time she had not wondered or gave second thought to the fact that his eyes were open…already.
She was not allowed to hold him at first, not for two days, because the nurses who fussed over him were not sated with his blank expressions, not satisfied, because he didn't coo and smile at them, or blow bubbles and giggle like any normal infant should.
The doctors let her see him only briefly, as they were still searching for a problem with the boy, but a little while was enough. It didn't take long for her to examine his little fingers, fingers that curled around her own in a grip surprisingly fierce for one so young. (He had nearly broken something.)
It was for this reason, this unbridled strength and…and betrayal that she chose to name him Itachi…weasel. How dare he be rough with the woman who had birthed him? That silly boy.
Silly, silly, boy. Already she loved him, but perhaps not in the way a mother should love her child. At this point she loved him like an owner would love their lapdog.
After all, she didn't know whether she could wholly love a child with Uchiha blood coursing through his vessel.
Fugaku barely gave notice to Itachi when he finally came to see his wife in the hospital room. He paused in the doorway when he saw the tiny bundle in Mikoto's arms, almost as if surprised, but then he crossed the threshold into her room and closed the door with a soft click behind him.
He crossed the room in careful, calculated steps, stopping short a couple feet from her bed.
"There were no complications, I expect?" He asked monotonously, as if he hadn't heard firsthand from the doctors that his son had been cleared of any 'severe birth defects'.
She shook her head, content to let him remain at a distance. "No, none." She confirmed quietly.
After a moment, she shifted her attention to Itachi, who had narrowed his eyes at the man. It took a bit of restraint on Mikoto's behalf not to smile; at least Itachi had inherited her state of mind.
An awkward silence began to fall into place before Fugaku said, "I see," purely for the sake of saying something.
It was odd that he said anything at all.
His gaze rested on Itachi, who had drawn himself closer to the warmth of the woman holding him, as if somehow realizing that she would protect him from this newcomer, or perhaps because he felt he should be the one doing the protecting.
In an almost imperceptible movement, Fugaku's hands shook.
It was then that he realized Itachi was pitted against him, and realized that love would not be given a chance at all. He would make the child mind when it was older, but never would he love the thing. It would be a tool, one to be tossed aside as easily as a dirtied kunai.
It was in that same instant that Mikoto realized what Itachi's birth meant: she now held power over her husband that he could not imagine, power that to this day, Mikoto herself barely dares to imagine.
By now, she has birthed two sons.
She sits pounding a rice mixture into perfect circles, treats to be eaten by her sons when they return from the training grounds. She makes only three of the little rice cakes, two for Itachi and one for little Sasuke, who has only recently made his debut as a proud shinobi.
Humming, she wraps the treats up in a silk square of material, saving them for later. She wipes her hands on her apron and goes to sit in the parlor, waiting and doing nothing but.
Hours later when Itachi slips through the door in a dangerous grace, his mother stands in worry; there is blood flecking his ANBU vest, blood staining the otherwise invincible appearance of a thirteen year old boy.
The second and youngest boy trails along behind Itachi meekly, his face pale as he peeks out at her from behind Itachi's leg.
"Itachi-kun," She sighs, shaking her head, "I hope that blood isn't yours."
He speaks with a delicate tone, a voice that would assure her no matter what his words. There's something about the way he talks that makes her feel comfortable in the presence of a killer.
"No, mother, it is not." He says mutely.
She smiles lightly, glancing down at Sasuke. "And how was Sasuke-chan today, is he improving?"
Itachi nods, if only to please the toddler gripping his pant leg. Mikoto kisses him on the cheek, a greeting meant for Fugaku but given instead to her oldest son.
She still doesn't love him the way a mother should love their child, but she has long since learned that he is more than a pet. If ever she were to call him a pet, she's sure he would kill her.
When she pulls away from the gesture, he pulls her back, kissing her too, on the lips. It's not a kiss one would normally give a relative.
The darkness in his eyes traps her when he lets go, because his gaze is so like Fugaku's and yet at the same time, so different. He does not love her. Neither of the men do, not in the way they should.
But Itachi is a creature that she nursed at her breast, a creature that lives and breathes and curses Mikoto—every movement revolves around Mikoto, because he was born from her hatred and raised to continue it—and so there is a strange trust between the two that Fugaku could never understand, one that perhaps Sasuke too does not understand.
Said toddler looks up at the two of them, mother and son, and he furrows his brow because somehow he knows that this is wrong. Mikoto leans down to lift him, and her warm embrace sends any worries he had away, because this was the woman that had nurtured him, and somehow this is now all right.
Itachi smiles a wicked sort of smile, and Mikoto purses her lips happily.
This is how Fugaku finds them, with Itachi gripping his wife's elbows and with Sasuke held up between the two.
He stares only for a few seconds, turning away and striding down the hall in swift steps, feigning as if he had not just seen such an illicit entanglement. Once in a different room, he frowns and runs his fingers hurriedly through his hair, and sits on the bed that he and his wife occupy at night, and he swears.
He swears because there is a pile of kunai at the foot of their bed, and he realizes with a pang in his stomach that perhaps Itachi will not be so easy to toss aside, not like a weapon.
He swears even more upon the realization that though Itachi is not a weapon, he has caused him more harm than any weapon is capable of inflicting.
Fin.