Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
The darkness takes him over,
The sickness pulls him in;
His eyes-a blown out candle
I wish to go with him.
Sometimes I see a flicker
A light that shone from them;
I hold him to me tightly,
Before he's gone again.
-Lang Leav, Saving You
She decides that Hokage, whatever the term really means to Madara-sama, hurts him deeply. Thus, it would be much easier to not speak of the word at all to him. She should forget all about it. Yet still, the concept plagues her as she finishes dinner preparations, and goes to seek out Izuna to remind him that dinner is ready.
Sometimes, he forgets.
Sometimes, the coolness of the evening reminds him of the morning. He does not keep regular hours much at all. Sometimes, Kanae wonders how exactly he and Madara-sama had survived before her. Madara-sama despises mornings, and Izuna doesn't keep time.
"Izuna-kun?" She finds him on the porch, his face turned toward the sun.
For all of Madara-sama's storminess, Izuna is always serene. There is an acceptance that is not resignation to Uchiha Izuna. His strength is not overt, not brash, or flashy, but it is the kind that wears down mountains.
He is as enduring as the yellow dust blowing in the wind.
"Neesan?" He rises to his feet, and moves in the direction of her voice with unerring accuracy. "How is Niisan?"
So he'd heard then, of Madara-sama's unfortunate episode of drunkenness.
"He is asleep." She should have expected him to have heard. Izuna always knows what is going on inside the house, and he reads his elder brother on most matters like a needle pointing north. The only thing that he never seems to allude to is Madara-sama's love for Senju Hashirama, but perhaps he knows about that too and just doesn't wish to speak to her about it.
It would be...awkward.
"He is being unfair to you, is what he's being." He grouses as they head into the house, his hand on her arm. "Niisan is always going to be block-headed."
And they are just so similar that she has to giggle. How could they not be brothers in any life? That expression is the exact same as Madara-sama's. "Izuna-kun." And suddenly she is struck by how melancholy he seems through his serenity. "What do you do, most days?"
She had breakfast with him. Sometimes he'd follow her about the house, and they'd talk, but for the most part-Uchiha Izuna seems to float through life, quiet, unassuming, background. She does not want him to be background, but he is frightfully good at making himself invisible. Sometimes she forgets him, and she does not like the idea that she'd forget one of her brothers even if it is only for half an hour.
"Not particularly much." He huffs. "Niisan thinks that I will be irreparably damaged should I take any sort of trip."
It grates on you then. Izuna is twenty-two. Five years her senior, and yet, his freedom seems to be limited to that of the house, where he knows the placement of every object, and Madara-sama can trust him not to get anything more than a scraped knee.
"But you came to Uzu." It seems strange, that for a brother as overprotective as Madara-sama to let him travel to a foreign country, but not beyond his own doorstep.
"We had a fight about it." Izuna sighs, and she slides the door open. "I had to guilt and threaten him, and even then, I won only because he was afraid of what the Senju might do to me in his absence."
"But he is good friends with Hashirama-san." He'd built a city with Senju Hashirama. He loves Senju Hashirama. It is unconscionably strange to her, that he could love someone, but not trust them with the life of his own brother.
"And Senju Tobirama nearly killed him." Izuna frowns, and runs his hand down the table, until he finds the bowl of rice, and the chopsticks that she'd set out for him. "I wouldn't trust them either."
The revelation cuts her further. Senju Tobirama nearly killed her husband. One of those scars that she'd traced belonged to the sword or kunai of Senju Tobirama.
That there is even a village at all seems to defy all logic.
"I see." She slides a bowl of soup over to Izuna, who sits across from her, and tries to keep her voice light. I have revised my plans. I will take everything that Senju Tobirama finds joy in, and then kill him. She cannot do that.
Senju Tobirama finds joy in his elder brother. Hashirama-san cannot be killed because then Neesan would be sad. She considers her options. I will have to learn what it is that he wants most. He can live a life in misery.
"Izuna-kun?"
"Hmm?" The man opposite her sets his soup spoon down.
"What is Hokage?" And why does Madara-sama want it so much?
"It is the leader of this village." Izuna sounds-a little sardonic-his mouth twisted in a wry smile. "And that is to be decided by a vote among the villagers."
She considers what she knows of Konoha, and how Madara-sama feels about the village. The idea of Hokage creates more questions than it answers. Why does he want to lead a village that only gives him pain?
It is not as if this place gives him much happiness. But it is what he wants, so she will do her best to aid him somehow. She knows quite well, that given a vote at the moment, Madara-sama would certainly not become Hokage. She also knows that he certainly knows this, but does not accept it half as well as he thinks he does.
She is resigned to see him break again when the title goes to Senju Hashirama.
The heart does not want rational things after all.
She has finished several shirts now, and she has gotten fascinatingly good at the chakra imbibing process. Soon, she will have worked through all of Madara-sama's wardrobe, and she will feel much better whenever he leaves the house.
It may only be into the village and not outside of it, and certainly he can take care of himself, but she would rather not risk it.
Madara-sama is not a morning person, and given no incentive to awaken, he will sleep until noon. On the days that he has no urgent meetings, she is careful to allow him his indulgences.
For the most part, it does not seem that he has many. He does not smoke, and ever since the one day he'd nearly killed himself, he does not drink. He does not visit houses of ill repute, though, she allows that this is perhaps because of Senju Hashirama more than his current marital status.
He allows himself fairly few luxuries, so she is careful not to wake him.
It is unfortunate, then, that Hashirama decides he really must enter the house early one morning.
"Mada!" He is very loud. She doesn't know why he needs to be so loud. For all the time that she has known him, he has been boisterously loud, which is the exact opposite of Neesan on most days.
"Madara-sama's busy." It is likely that Madara-sama has been awakened by Hashirama already, but she knows he would hardly like to have his current indulgence be laid bare to the public. Thus, he is busy, and will see Hashirama at a later, more reasonable hour.
"But Kanae-chan...he's supposed to be working with me!" Hashirama leans forward, and pats her shoulder with a hand, wide brown eyes in some semblance of exaggerated concern."Is he sick? Oh my Kami, is he dying? I have to see him!"
She is not entirely sure that such a man like Senju Hashirama ought logically exist in the world. If Madara-sama survived war with a heart covered in scars and permanent fatigue, there is no way that Senju Hashirama ought to have survived by just being stupid.
Therefore he must not be stupid. But he wears this mask so well it is easy to believe it.
"No, Hashirama-san, he is not dying. He's just busy." She'll give him every impression that she believes it then. It is only fair. But she will never believe it.
"But he never avoids seeing me!"Perhaps that is because he loves you, and therefore allows you far more than any other. "There is no situation where Madara is too busy to see me! He has to talk to me. I'm about to go out of my mind, and oh Kami, I'm going to be a father, and what am I going to do? How do I cope? I can't even raise a piglet, how do I raise a child?" His voice rises in pitch and volume.
It really does seem like Hashirama is having a mental breakdown. What she recognizes though, is that Senju Hashirama is fundamentally selfish.
Who else would claim that there is no situation where a friend would be too busy to see him?
Kanae is halfway certain that Madara-sama has never denied him anything, and Hashirama believes that he never will be denied.
She is not sure she likes what that means about Neesan's relationship with the man.
"Hashirama-san, I'm sure you won't kill your child." Doubtful, but Neesan surely has better sense-oh, who am I kidding? Neesan married him. It's official. Neesan has no sense whatsoever when it comes to my dear brother-in-law.
"You sound so certain, Kanae-chan." And now he sounds depressed. That would not do in the slightest.
The Uchiha Clan is full of gossips, not the least of which included Taiko-kun, who spread rumors about everything from her beauty to how Madara-sama is going soft. That the Senju Clan head is worried about killing his own child by accident isn't exactly something that needs to be told over and over. She'd rather not have her nephew or niece killed accidentally, even in stories.
"Hashirama-san, Madara-sama isn't going to be much help. He doesn't know what to do with children either." The clan children are much friendlier to him these days, because they have ascertained that he will not eat them even if he glares and hns and crosses his arms.
That such a thing crossed their minds means that Madara-sama is by no means good with small children, and therefore would be of no help to Hashirama.
"But why won't he even come to talk to me? Is he angry with me again? What did I do to make him angry?" If at all possible, the man before her becomes even more depressed.
"Why are you standing outside of Madra-sama's house shrieking like a teenage girl being denied the object of her admirations?" He sounds worse than Chihaya-chan mooning over Niisama, privately of course, because Chihaya-chan acknowledges that Niisama doesn't care for most people. "You'll wake him up at this rate."
"He's asleep?" And now finally Hashirama is serious. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I'll wait for him to wake up."
It seems that she would have to wake Madara-sama after all.
She heads back in.
She wants to pause and giggle at the sight of him in the morning light. He has the pillow over his head. But he wouldn't appreciate her amusement, especially not so early, so she does not."Madara-sama? Hashirama-san is here to see you. Did you want to see him?"
He rolls over. "Hn." This hn means not particularly. Unfortunately she does not think that Hashirama will wait. Madara-sama should know this very well.
"I'll armor you then? If you manage to roll out of bed that is." She has to hide a laugh. He looks so disgruntled, like a schoolboy being told that he must not be late.
It is funny seeing a grown man, who is by all other accounts fully functional, in such a state.
"I can get out of bed." He mutters, as he climbs to his feet, steady and nimble as a cat that at the moment, he chooses to be. "And I most certainly do not roll."
She erases her scratches from his back, with a careful attention to detail. It would not do to let others see it, because it is one thing for the clan to joke that Madara-sama bows to his wife, it is another entirely for the village to see him wearing injuries that make their bed look like a battlefield.
"You shouldn't let me keep doing this to you, Madara-sama." She can only imagine the rumors then. Would they think him weak? Would they think he treats her unfairly, and that she must defend herself? They do come up with the strangest of stories, that even acts of love may be perversions. Not, that this is an act of love. You fool no one, granddaughter. You love him. "Even if you seem to find it fun at the time, you could be called to battle at any time, no?"
That and she worries, worries that they would be a problem in more ways than to his reputation.
"They wouldn't hinder me." He mutters, as he throws on a haori, and leans over to lace his shoes. "And you get rid of them in the morning anyway."
He sounds like he rather wishes that she didn't, as if he likes these injuries, and she can't quite wrap her mind around it.
Strange that a man who cares so much for pride, would abandon it so readily.
She hums mindlessly as she leans up to pull his hair out from under his breastplate. "Is there a reason you keep your hair long?" Izuna did not, and a few other Uchiha did, but she assumes that it is for personal reasons.
"Pride." He tells her, and he somehow manages to sound smug about it like he is commenting on how terribly wonderful his hair is.
She laughs. "So it is like Niisama's braid then." She adjusts his shoulder guards, and steps back. "He wears the braid past his hips because it suits his pride." She takes the comb from the dresser next to them, and works through a few of the tangles he'd acquired during the night. He leans back, eyes half-lidded, preening. "Then, the Tori people of the Mountains of the Moon only cut their hair when they lose." She is thinking of Niisama a little more today.
Normally she spares few thoughts for him over the course of the day, and only at night does she wonder if perhaps she should have written a letter for the Terrible Twins to give to him, should they be able to find him.
"He doesn't lose then?" Madara-sama sounds interested. Perhaps he should be dissuaded from challenging Niisama to a spar.
Niisama doesn't understand the concept of sparring particularly well.
"Niisama has never lost." She says, mind turning to the conflicts in the western mountains. There were rebels out there, challenging Niisama's right to rule. "And he won't lose now."
Niisama may be hanyou to their full-blooded youkai, but he is strong and fierce, and she does not think that he will lose, cannot imagine a world where he is not undefeated.
"Hn." Madara turns. "The Uchiha have no such rules."
She blinks. "I know they don't. I do speak to your clansmen, you know."
Sometimes, he says the strangest things.
"They call you Kanae-hime." A pause stretches between them as she tries to decipher what he means by this question. "Why?" He prompts after a moment or so of silence.
She prods his cheek with a finger. "Because I am the wife of a fearsome and dark warrior of great renown." He raises an eyebrow at this, as if he is trying to tell her that idle flattery doesn't get her anywhere. He would not appreciate it, but she laughs anyway. He is so funny, and so expressive. "Madara-sama!" He slings her over his shoulder quite unexpectedly and spins her around the room, until she can do nothing but laugh.
"Mmmm." Hashirama hums from the door. "You have a nice laugh, Kanae-chan."
Madara-sama freezes like he's been doused with in sea in winter. "Why did you disturb me at an ungodly hour of the morning?" He speaks brusquely, but he doesn't mean it. "Also, why are you wandering around in my house?"
"Because...Mada..." Hashirama drags out each of the syllables as though he is no older than a pouting child. Strangely enough, she does not find this particularly amusing. "Ineedyoutotellmewhattodowithmylife. IamaboutogoinsaneandIhavenoideawhattodowithmyself."
Kanae is not entirely sure that she knows what he's saying, but Madara-sama seems to have a good idea. "Then do nothing and go insane." Madara-sama crosses his arms over his chest, and levels a fierce glare in Hashirama's direction. "I can't believe you woke me up to ask me about this."
"Kanae-chan!" Hashirama wails. "Look at how mean he is to me." He leans forward to sob on her shoulder. She wonders why exactly he thinks she'll be of any help to him. "I'm going to kill your nephew because I don't know the first thing about babies and it will be terrible, and then Mito is going to kill me and I'll be dead and buried and I don't even think Mada will come to my funeral."
She takes a deep breath, and counts to ten. She ought not harm him unduly even if he seems to grate through every one of her nerves. "Hashirama-san, have you had breakfast yet?" She pushes him away.
He brightens unbearably quickly. "No, I haven't."
"Then you might want to eat breakfast here." She adjusts Hashirama's collar so that it is no longer haphazard, straightens the shoulders of his haori, and brushes a few motes of dust off of the front, and wonders for perhaps the millionth time, what Neesan sees in him particularly. "Neesan might find your natural state of disheveled cute, Hashirama-san, but I don't. You're a grown man, Hashirama-san, act like it."
If he is going to eat breakfast here, then she will have to get more food ready.
The last thing she hears is Hashirama's uncomfortable whisper "Your wife is scary, Mada."
She does not wait for a response.
She leaves Madara-sama and her sister's husband to talk about whatever they are supposed to be talking about in the kitchen, and returns to her sewing on the porch.
"Kanae-hime?" It's Setsuna-san, who insists on being called merely Setsuna by his clan head's wife.
"Yes, Setsuna?" She does her best to call him what he wants to be called. If this is the respect he wishes to show, then woe betide her to not let him show it.
He is after all, quite a serious and devotedly loyal man.
He offers her a single sheet of paper folded into quadrants. "A child from the village gave this to me. It's addressed to you."
Her heart thuds in her chest. That bold, black ink calligraphy of her name is unmistakable. No one else would ever write so beautifully, no one ever has, and no one ever will again. "Did the child leave already? Did they say who'd given this to them?" How far away is he?
Setsuna-san frowns. "No. Is it dangerous?" He looks like he almost regrets giving her the sheet now. "Because don't worry, we'll never let anything happen to you. Madara-sama wouldn't stand for it."
She almost laughs. Madara-sama would be able to do absolutely nothing to Niisama, and the very idea that she has to be protected from Niisama is so alien that it might as well have dropped from the moon. "No, no, of course not Setsuna." He does not seem convinced, so she opens the silky sheet and shows him the single character written in the center. "Niisama is just telling me that he is coming to visit, that's all."
He'd written 'home.' She should expect his homecoming, today, if she is being told so in the morning.
Setsuna-san does not seem entirely at ease. "I should tell Madara-sama that we should prepare for guests then."
"No." She sets a hand on his arm, and prevents him from going in. Madara-sama and Hashirama ought not be disturbed. "It is alright, I do not believe that Niisama will stay long." Niisama never really does, and he is two months ahead of the wind this time.
He will not stay long at all, perhaps for dinner, nothing more.
"Why isn't he here yet?" Setsuna-san peers about, as if expecting Niisama to jump out of the bushes. "If he is your brother, why is he sending you single word notes and expecting you to interpret them instead of coming to see you himself?"
"I don't think he's in the city yet." The child is either not a child but instead one of of Ilya-atawa no Sumire's people, or the child was merely a child promised sweets. Either way, Niisama should still be a few hours away from the city especially if he is attempting not to disrupt all of human civilization with wings that could block out the sun. Or he is playing music for a teahouse in the village. It is hard to tell with Niisama. "He sends advance notice of his visits quite often, even at sea."
Niisama sends advanced notice, especially when he makes an unscheduled visit.
And he'd written 'home' which may be a symbol of his irritation. Not that he'd be irritated that she's gotten married, given that he doesn't really understand the concept much at all, despite years and years of seeing his own father married.
His mother's people don't believe much in the concept, or the idea of bastards, simply because all children are treasured whether or not their parents were serious life partners or not. There are no such things as bastards among the Tori people.
The word rolls off of his skin like water should anyone choose to use it. Most words do.
There are few children in the Wing City, or so Niisama has always said, and they are always treasured.
She half suspects that he is irritated only because she has forced him to change his habits, and he dislikes deviating from them for anything less than the sky falling on his head. He might not even do it then. He'd likely decide to fight the sky for insulting him, and win.
Or perhaps he has simply missed her too dearly, and decided that this month would be better for a visit. She has no idea.
"What exactly is your honored brother, Kanae-hime?" Setsuna-san looks...concerned.
She has been staring off into space for a while now, she admits. It might be worrying. "He is a hanyou of great renown." She tells him, quite seriously because it is true. "And my eldest brother, so if you see him please treat him with great respect."
It is unlike Niisama to take casual offense to be called untoward names, or being rudely assaulted since he actually quite enjoys fighting, but he does tend to forget in the heat of the moment, that chopping the hands off of a human, along with other maiming injuries, is rather...permanent. That they do not, as he assumes when he forgets himself, grow back.
He forgets largely because chopping off his hands would be no more than a mild annoyance, taking a few years to regrow, but hardly permanently disfiguring.
"And please, on no account, challenge him to any sort of fight." Niisama has been taught that the men and women of Uzu do not grow their limbs back, but she can't entirely trust him not to forget again, since this is not Uzu.
That and most people take offense to being handless.
The back door slams, and Madara-sama is seen hurrying down the dusty road with his gunbai in tow. Setsuna-san sighs. "I will tell everyone that should they see a strange man in the district today, to not challenge him to a fight."
"That would be greatly appreciated, Setsuna." She smiles and him, and considers going after Madara-sama. It would be pointless, she decides.
It seems that he is in a rage, and Hashirama provoked him to it. She will wait for the flames to cool.
Hashirama takes his leave apologetically, stating something or other about building plans and grain shipments. She doesn't really believe him, but she lets him go, because Neesan wouldn't like it if she damaged him.
Two hours later, shamisen music floats through the city like a spring dream. It is a faint sound in the beginning, but she hears it anyway.
Niisama is here.
She rises to bring the tea set she'd prepared out. Niisama has travelled a long way, and he happens to like tea. Maybe she still holds out hope that she can appease him if he really is irritated. She arranges the tea set on a tray beside her, and sits back down to wait.
The music is louder now, closer, although it still has all the haunting qualities of all of Niisama's music.
She keeps on with her sewing.
The door blows open, without a hand touching it, and Niisama strides in, his feet barely touching the ground. Even in his human form, Niisama keeps his avian lightness, and moves as though he is flying.
She doesn't raise her head, but the music shifts into a discernible tune. Love Song of the West Sea. He's here because he's missed me then.
"Ever since you left, I've forgotten what warmth felt like, lost love, waiting on the long road down the mountain, listening to the wind blow." This was her favorite song, back when she'd been twelve or so, sitting by the sea, waiting for Niisama to come home.
He'd sang it for her quite often, and played it on any instrument anyone would be willing to lend to him.
He sings for her now. "I cannot see the edge of the night. The wind cuts me like knives. I will not see the west sea return to blue. Cannot see the sea from the skies." And then he waits for her to respond.
"Love Song of the West Sea." She bows to him. "The musician is very talented." He preens, but it's only a little bit of a light in his eyes. Behind him, Madara-sama stands in the doorway. Niisama bows to her, and she knows that his mood is good today. He wouldn't bow so easily, especially when there is a stranger to see otherwise. "The musician lives to please the princess." And he is willing to play games as well.
He is a dramatic brother at the best of times, like most of her other brothers. Today is a dramatic day.
"Would the musician like tea for his long road?" She gestures to the tea set beside her, on the low table. She'd set it out for him earlier, back when she thought that he might need to be cajoled into a good mood.
"If the princess is offering, this one will gladly accept." He steps forward, and she allows herself to drink the sight in. He has been away for half a year.
She pours him a cup, and offers it to him with both hands. "You look well." He looks a little thinner, a little more worn than his usual grace and beauty. Border duty has weighed on him then, though he'd sent Chichi letters to the contrary.
But his braid is uncut. He has not lost.
"You have changed your address." So that is what he is irritated with then. She'd made him deviate from his habitual rituals.
"Kanae! Ste-" So Madara-sama has seen Niisama's hands, and decided that he must be dangerous. The concern is touching.
Niisama turns, and Madara-sama freezes, like a rabbit before a fox. Not exactly.
It is as if he is trying to determine if Niisama is a threat.
That is not a rabbit.
"And, who might you be?" Niisama is not interested in Madara-sama then. That and he has not realized that this is Uchiha Madara, his own brother-in-law.
She will have to correct that. "Niisama," She murmurs. "That is my husband, and you are not allowed to harm him."
"Oh?" Niisama does not seem convinced. He'd always told her that he'd imagined her partner to be a whale or a blue bassoon or something equally inhuman. Let it be known that Uchiha Madara is very much a man.
"Niisama!" You will be nice to him. You are not allowed to hurt him.
When he turns back to her, he looks very fond. "Very well, Lovely Girl, I will not harm him. I will allow it." His joy seems to drive away all of the wear on his features. He looks as young as ever, just as much her brother as always. "One hug. No more."
She buries her face in his haori, and breaths in the scent of the sea, of brine and salt that still lingers on him wherever he goes. "You're early, Niisama." The sea air is gone from her own clothing now, even the ones at the very bottom of her pack.
She has missed the smell of salt, but she's missed her eldest brother more.
He runs a clawed hand through her hair, and she tugs his braid once. You have been winning. You will keep winning. "You changed your address." He whispers it quietly against her hair, and kisses her temple "And you made yourself terribly difficult to find." There's an edge of displeasure humming beneath the surface. She doubts that she was so hard to find. Not for someone of his means.
You have only to fly a little bit further to see me, Niisama. Why else are you frustrated?
"I meant to write to you, but I didn't know where you would be." She lets go, but reluctantly, because Niisama will hardly tolerate her clinging to him like a limpet and rubbing her face in his clothing so that she can breathe in the scent of salt. He sets his head in her lap, and curls possessively around her feet, a habit as old as time itself. "How did you learn about my marriage?"
"Habiki." She might have suspected that Niisama learned of the news from his closest friend and rival.
But she doesn't want to think of Habiki-san right now. "Madara-sama, come meet my brother." She pokes Niisama, half as good hearted fun, and half as a reminder. "You promised not to harm him."
He sighs. "Yes, I did."
Madara-sama pauses, and she knows that it is not because he is afraid, but because he is trying to understand why Niisama would act the way he does.
He has forgotten then, that Niisama is not a man, and not bound to the shame and sorrow of being one. It doesn't bother Niisama to sit at her feet like a little boy in public, because the Tori people would not find it at all strange for a boy to sit at the feet of his sister, and preen in her presence. Niisama, for all of his thirty-five years, is still very much a child in the eyes of the Tori.
"I will not eat you." Niisama seems to think Madara-sama doesn't move out of fear though, and is trying his best to reassure him. It is just as bad as most of Niisama's reassurances. I will not eat you is not something that you say to a man to convince him that you are harmless, Niisama.
She attempts to choke back a giggle, but she's sure it still sounds like a snort.
"I didn't think you would." Madara-sama straightens his shoulders and steps forward, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
Oh, he is frustrated then.
She will have to watch the exchange carefully.
Niisama laughs, and rises, holding out a hand. "I like you, Fire Breather." There is an attempt at a pleasant smile on his face. It doesn't serve as a good predictor of how likely he is to eat the man in front of him though. When Niisama smiles, he shows more teeth than is polite. "Bloodlust does not freeze you long, and you do not run." She really does have to talk to him about how to talk to proud men.
Most men from Uzu have gotten used to how...odd their eldest prince is, but Madara-sama hasn't.
Madara-sama takes the offered hand with a smile of his own. "She tells me you have never lost." And they are now trying to outdo each other.
She wonders if they'd ever stop.
Niisama laughs, and she knows he is delighted. She doubts he's met a man so interesting to him as Madara-sama in years. "You should not fight me, Fire Breather. I will not take my sister away." And then he does the unthinkable. He baits a dare."You may call me Kyoya."
"Then I am Uchiha Madara, Kyoya." And Madara-sama takes him up on it, and Niisama is more delighted than ever. She can see it in the line of his shoulders, in the twitch of his feathers, the eager set of his smile. Niisama finds her husband absolutely fascinating.
It is clear that no one is dying today, which means she can afford to go out into the village and make friends with all the children. She'd always been good at winning over children, and to win them over, would be to lead their parents as well. "I'm running out of thread, is there something particular that you want to eat tonight, Madara-sama, Niisama?''
"I am not staying for dinner, Lovely Girl." Her mood falls. You barely just arrived, but you're leaving again? She'd really caused him anxiety then, enough that he would visit her two months before the turn of the wind. "I will see you when the wind turns."
"No, not really." Madara-sama says, still entirely distracted by Niisama's presence.
She takes one last look at Niisama. She does not know exactly when he will return to her. "May the wind under your wings never falter." Keep safe and be well. Remember that you are both a prince of Uzu and of the Tori. You do not lose.
He bows to her, a hand over his heart. "And may your heart always guide you to the course that is true." Remember that we are your family. Keep safe and be well, littlest sister.
She nods once, and goes.
It is late that evening. The room is lit by seals and Madara-sama becomes so relaxed that his eyes are half shut while she washes his hair. "Did Niisama threaten you?" She isn't entirely sure, even though Niisama had seemed so delighted, that he could resist needling her very human husband.
Niisama delights in being as irritating as possible to strangers no matter how he baits them with his given name. For all intents and purposes, he might as well be a magpie, attracted to bright and shiny things.
Madara-sama has the capacity to burn like the sun. She is sure Niisama has taken note, and considered all the possibilities. Including the one where he takes Madara-sama to his mother's city to meet Lady Biwa, or just simply kidnapping him forever like a new and shiny toy.
"Not in so many words." Madara-sama sounds disgruntled. Perhaps he is supposed to be, he does still have his pride after all, and she is quite sure that even if Niisama hasn't really tried to hurt it, that it has been bruised quite a bit.
He sinks down further into the water, and she finishes rinsing everything except the top of his head. "I won't tell you that he wasn't trying to offend you." Knowing Niisama, he could not resist. It would have been too fun for him to say such things. "I mean, he probably was, knowing him."
"The water is too hot." Madara-sama changes the subject. "Why do I feel like I am an ingredient in tomorrow's breakfast?"
She giggles and helps him with the seal. "Madara-sama, no one is going to eat you." Niisama was trying to assure you, and I don't think you understood.
He sinks further. "Why do you even like him?" And now he sounds annoyed, possessively perhaps.
She considers how to best rinse the top of his head. Perhaps she should just cup some water with her hands and dump it over him? "Because he's Niisama?" It is difficult to describe the childhood that she has spent with Niisama, and how that has shaped both of them. "Because he will eventually get around to doing everything that I ask of him?"
Niisama will do anything that I ask. There's no one else in the world who will do that without even asking why.
"He is decidedly discomfiting." Madara-sama is silent for a beat."Hashirama told me, that your sister said-" And she has to pay attention again.
"I love you?" She sighs, and considers screaming. Neesan, I did not need you to say something to Hashirama and then have Madara-sama be confused again. But she doesn't think screaming would help. "I knew this was going to come back and hurt me later." She really should have thought it through, but Neesan would hardly have accepted any other version of the events. "I told Neesan that because she wouldn't understand why I am here otherwise."
He stiffens, and suddenly his half asleep and almost jovial mood is gone.
"Madara-sama?" She wants to brush his hair back from his face, wants to look him in the eye, but his fatigue is back.
Heavier and worse than ever.
He sits up. "You can leave. I'll do it myself."
"I don't want to." She really doesn't. She pushes him back down into the water, to where he'd been just moments earlier, and wishes that she can make him as happy as he was then. "Madara-sama, your mind has gone to dark places again." She whispers the next words in his ear. "Tell me about them?"
"They sold you, and now you are obligated." So it is that, again.
It is his guilt speaking. He thinks that she does this because she has to. How little he knows. She does this because she wants to, because she likes it when he is happy.
"I sold myself, and I am not obligated." She wraps an arm around his neck, her hand resting lightly over his heart. "Who do you think it was, that gave Chichi the idea?" She is here because she does like him.
He ought to know that.
"You did? You wanted to end up here?" And his quiet astonishment conspires to break her heart. How little do you expect of the world?
"It was that or be married off to Senju Tobirama." He hates Tobirama. She knows that perfectly well, but-
"Never." The sheer amount of possession in his voice is a surprise. She raises an eyebrow at him. "I am better." And that is just too funny, but also just too sad.
He is such a man of contradictions, so unsure and yet so confident.
"Yes." And his fatigue is gone now. "Besides." She whispers in his ear. "If I dislike you so much, I could just boil you in the tub, yes?"
He blushes, she sees it rise on his neck, and it is not the heat of the water. And then an instant later he drenches her. "Maybe I'll boil you in the tub."
She pulls back and wipes a hand over her face, and in a vain attempt, tries to straighten her hair. Madara-sama!
He laughs until his sides ache, and it is deep and lovely. He is a man who so rarely laughs. "Come here. I'll wash your hair."
"You just want to spend more time playing with it." He will never admit why he is so fascinated with her hair. He tells her that it gives him headaches and that he doesn't care for it, but he runs his hands through it with the slightest provocation. "Isn't it supposed to be headache red?"
He pulls the corners of her mouth up until they are smiling once more, and that he takes the liberty to do so means that his mood has fully recovered. "I am going to relish the fact that Senju Tobirama will never touch it."
"I don't think he's fascinated, Madara-sama." As far as she knows, Senju Tobirama cares not a whit for her, despite Madara-sama's sudden descent into jealousy.
"He better not be." Madara-sama mutters crossly as he pulls all the pins from her hair, and raises the bar of soap. "I'll kill him."
And the peaceful silence that falls between them is entirely pleasant.
A.N. And I proofread this a million times, but I have no idea if I got everything. Either way, meeting Niisama from Kanae's perspective is always good. (That and Setsuna's reactions to Niisama is also great. He's just so...concerned.)
Thank you so much to LittleMissSugarLess, stubs1101, Scarease (I feel like Madara would indoctrinate his kids to hate Tobirama on principle.), ItsNotLikeILoveYou and fernandfeather for reviewing!
And everyone who favorited and followed.
~Tavina.
