Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto...
IMPORTANT NOTE: My flash-drive was stolen and I don't have Internet on my home computer, so my updates will be very, very slow and irregular. (As if they weren't enough already…)
Author's Note: Well, before you read the chapter I just wanted to tell you that my friends and I put Muki through the Mary Sue Test. Can you guess what she scored!….19. Yes, Sotaki Muki scored a 19 and I swear my mouth dropped. I could have sworn she would've scored a 30 or a 40 AT THE LEAST! I had to take it twice just to make sure I had the numbers right and hadn't missed any questions.
Wicked Hearts
Chapter Ten: Likewise...
After a two month long trip to the western territories to reestablish her contract with the clans she'd made alliances with there, Muki had finally made it to the gates of her village.
The joy she felt when she looked down into the smiling faces of the people she'd sworn to protect would be short lived though, for there was one face she did not see.
A very important one.
News had swept swiftly through the Sotaki village that a high-ranking member of the counsel had not been present to greet their leader at the gate when she returned. So as expected, a shinobi was sent to discover the whereabouts of the missing elder.
A well-trusted shinobi.
Muki paced her room in hurried steps, a look of complete devastation across her grief stricken features. She was tense and her teeth had managed to break the skin of the finger she was nervously biting.
Where was Tyuko?
Her mind was racing frantically for an answer and her heart lurched in her chest at the thought of losing one of her people. The blood from her newly inflicted wound tasted bitter, for it had mixed with the trace amount of poison that had managed to get under her nails the night she had been with the Uchiha leader, but she ignored it.
Kun watched with expressionless black eyes as his leader continued to walk about the room in aimless anxiety, the monotonous features of his face unreadable. His heart was in a very different predicament however.
He knew what was to come.
He knew what had had to be done.
The shinobi who entered the room kneeled before his leader, his eyes downcast. "Elder Tyuko Sotaki has been found dead Lady Sotaki." It was Tiamaru who was to give his leader the news. "I am most sorry for the loss." He wasn't sincere though, for Tiamaru was all too aware of why the man was dead.
His and Kun's eyes locked briefly, an understanding. Muki missed the exchange, but even had she seen it, she wouldn't have known what to make of it.
The sound of a strained choke, then another.
Kun immediately turned to Muki, only to find her standing rigidly still in the center of the room, the shuddering of her shoulders her only visible movement. Her face was pulled into an expression of unparalleled shock.
Kun's eyes slimmed at the sight, knowing what was about to happen.
It killed him to know this couldn't have been avoided.
Muki's eyes widened, beginning to shine distinctively at the rims, and her lips tightened into a thin line, quivering with the effort to hold them steady.
Muki's greatest weakness...
Tiamaru took his leave as the sound of his leader hitting the floor echoed through the halls and the hurried steps of Kun rushing to her side quickly followed. Then came a heart-wrenching scream.
The first of many to come.
Ah yes. Patience was a trait of any good shinobi.
Now Madara was not the most patient of men, but when necessary, he was indeed renowned for his talents of waiting.
But this…
"Uchiha Madara-sama?" A small, round man inquired of the Uchiha with his shrill accent, visibly flinching when the intense red eyes glanced at him with cold indifference. The heavy man cleared his throat before continuing with an almost sickening enthusiasm. "We've heard that you are in league with the Sotaki." The overbearing smell of foreign tobacco hit Madara full on as the man leaned in a bit as if to tell a secret. "I heard their clan leader is a woman. Is she beautiful?"
Madara's shoulders had tensed at the reminder; his jaw taut and his eyes flickered with some unspeakable emotion that could have been something akin to hatred. None of which was visible on his features. He was silent.
All to be seen was cool apathy.
The bulky man, blissfully unaware of the Uchiha leader's distain, continued on with his annotations, beginning to explain useless rumors of the clan Madara already knew about. When Madara only raised a thin brow at the remarks, the man misinterpreted the gesture as the go ahead to continue.
Madara's expression remained impassive throughout the entirety of the other man's blabbing of the Sotaki's prowess and exceptional reputation throughout the great clans of the lands. He even endured the scent of heavily manufactured soap and sweat, which nearly burned his nostrils. He even managed to remain stoic when a small stream of brown colored spit escaped the other's unrelenting mouth and landed unceremoniously on the front of the man's robe.
Yes, Madara remained in control, but only because he knew that was what had to be done for his plan to come to fruition.
Oh, what he must endure.
At any other time in the past, Madara would have lashed out at the nauseating man for such offense. However, even as the image of the man's tongue being cut from his mouth entered his mind, he was consumed by an even more profound vision…
The taunting visual of that Sotaki bitch mocking him for his shortcomings should he fail.
He'd never allow the bitch the satisfaction of learning of such failure of any kind on his part. He would much rather burn this entire fortress to the ground before he'd allowed such reports to reach her ears, and with connections like hers, it wouldn't take long for her to receive the news.
Madara had come to learn that her power…
Lay within the power of her allies and her ability to keep their loyalty.
"Oh yes!" The man had yet to cease his babbling, and Madara paid him little mind. "I've also heard it told that they are actually foreign to these lands." Madara's eyes bore down on the smaller man then, new interest in the topic evident even to this unusually dense individual.
What did he just say about the Sotaki?
"Foreign?" Madara was not known for having many words to tell, but he never needed many to communicate his thoughts with even the dullest of people.
"Yes." The man immediately perked up at the perceptible approval the much-admired man seemed to have taken in his knowledge. "It is said that they originally resided in lands far from here, across the sea. I don't know how far, but it must be a ways out there. Where they come from exactly, no one knows, but there are rumors as to why they decided to come here." Madara listened in silence.
Why couldn't the man just get to the point?
Indeed, the man talked too much, but Madara tolerated it for the sake of his goal and the new information he was acquiring. He even tolerated the spit that once again escaped his mouth and landed on the table. "I'm not exactly sure what to believe, but I heard that their leader was actually the daughter of a powerful emperor who exiled her." His shrill voice had heightened in emphasis and then lowered dramatically and moved right up to Madara's comfort zone. "For falling in love with the son of his enemy." Madara had to restrain from strangling the other and managed to hold back as the other pulled away in expiration. "Then she and the son eloped and took a division of the man's army with them."
It was all lies, and Madara knew that.
Had there been any truth behind those assumptions, the Sotaki soldiers would be following under Kun, not Muki. And it was obvious Muki was the one who held the greatest sway over the Sotaki's military.
So this man had yet again become useless to him.
Losing interest in what the other was saying, Madara went back to plotting his next move on the pathetic little land he was currently staying at…and revenge against the obnoxious, waste of air of a man beside him for clandestinely convincing the Feudal Lord to significantly lower the price he'd pay the Uchiha to go to war for him.
He'd pummel the useless little man into the ground.
Hitorio Sampachi…
That was the name of the Land of Lilies Feudal lord's closest advisor and dearest friend, a man now heading towards the executioner's deadly embrace under the conviction of murdering the Feudal Lord's son, and the very man whom Madara had talked to no more than a week earlier.
It had all been very simple once the plan had been set in motion.
First, Madara had won the trust of Hitorio Sampachi and then surreptitiously kidnapped the Feudal Lord's son from his bedchambers.
The Feudal lord had been suspicious of the Uchiha about the disappearance of his son, but had no evidence with which to accuse the clan outright.
After chaos had flooded the palace since the heir to the throne had gone missing, the Uchiha had managed to secretly insight a riot among the oppressed peasants, with a slip of information about the sudden unstable conditions of the ruling family.
Having come to the land in secrecy, no one but the Lord and his posse knew of the Uchiha's stay, and the Uchiha easily put down the peasant rebellion.
Many farmers had been killed in the process and not one advisor noticed that the homes of the dead had been looted, as detached from the general public as they were.
The feudal lord was in the Uchiha's debt, but the Uchiha leader refused to be given reward for their efforts. The Uchiha had gotten more from their plunder than what the Feudal lord was offering them anyway.
It appeared to the people in the high courts of the Land of Lilies that the Uchiha were truly virtuous men.
The Uchiha had further managed to win over the trust of not only Hitorio and the Lord's advisers, but the Feudal lord as well. But with his son still missing, the Feudal lord was ready to behead anyone who so much as acted suspicious in connection with the crime.
Everyone in the land was desperate to find the culprit/s before they themselves became subject to their Lord's anger, and the punishment that would follow.
That was what Madara had been counting on.
Madara convinced Hitorio that he knew the location of the missing heir from reports they'd gotten and that he should share in the reward of his return. Being as susceptible as he was, Hitorio believed in the Uchiha's words and followed without question, sure that he would receive his just reward from the noble Uchiha leader.
Little had Hitorio known that the other of the Lord's advisors, who had also followed him underground to the chambers the air was supposedly being held in, as assurance of his innocence, were actually Uchiha shinobi in disguise…And that the same message of the discovered location of the Feudal Lord's son had been sent to the Feudal Lord himself.
He had not seen the sickly smile that graced the Uchiha leader's smooth lips.
It had been dark down in the chambers. Hitorio had not questioned it when Madara placed a dagger in his hand and given him the honor of freeing young heir himself as any noble hero would. He did not see the knowing glint in the Uchiha's arrogant eyes. Nor had he noticed the sudden absence of the Uchiha and other advisors who had accompanied him down there.
When the light suddenly shone upon him just moments later, he had been standing alone, next to a corpse whose neck had recently been slit, with a bloodied dagger in his hand.
Needless to say, the dagger he'd been holding was a weapon specifically designed by the very clan the Uchiha had been arranging negotiations with the Feudal lord to wage war against.
So not only was Hitorio a murderer now, but a traitor as well.
It only took a few assured words from cruel lips and one unwavering accusation to throw the Lord to near madness and unbending wrath. Blind fury.
…The Feudal lord was willing to pay the Uchiha anything to get revenge on the clan who'd allegedly ordered his son's assassination.
Madara looked up as Hitorio was dragged across the courtyard, gagged and struggling against his captors. His bulk swayed to and fro as he attempted to pull away from the two guards dragging him to the executioner's block. Madara found the sight unpleasantly distasteful but amusing at the same time.
Revenge.
The Uchiha leader's impassive expression never swayed as Hitorio was forced to his knees before the black hooded executioner, his head being shoved onto the small, steel table in the center of the courtyard.
Heartless.
A secret smirk crossed over Madara's face as the katana blade was lifted high above the executioner's head, poised to end Hitorio's life. Its blade shining in the sunlight, and hilt steady.
Tears were streaming down Hitorio's face in the shame and bitter injustice of it all, salty liquid sliding from his blood-shot eyes and across his bruised skin to pool on the table below him.
The Uchiha's smooth lips curled further in dark amusement.
The Uchiha had won.
A faint, chilling wind graced the scorched land as cold fingers gripped the katana blade.
The blade came down, a flash of blinding silver in the sunlight, and not a sound was heard. A quick, soundless death that would pass through the memories of those attending as the years passed.
Finally, the silence Madara had been waiting for.
Madara was…
Pleased.
There are times in the lives of leaders that they must realize that their clans are not the only people to inhabit the piece of soil fondly referred to as earth.
In life, no one will have the answer to everything and no one can always rely on force to take what is needed to save themselves.
There are times in life when one cannot fight the effect of change on their own, and needs someone by their side that can protect them from their own faults.
That is why alliances are formed.
-Sotaki Muki
Without the support of the clan one cannot hold power, for true power is only as valid as the support of those who follow under you.
Without a powerful leader to lead the clan there is no stability within it for outsiders will always threaten that clan's purity, and thereby, its existence.
Associations with other clans are an undeniable necessity, but one must never forget that it is the clan that comes foremost.
That is why leaders are chosen.
-Uchiha Madara
To see that which must be done, clarity is the key to understanding, but one cannot rip the clouds away from the sky.
Time is a precious concept that allows for the understanding of the importance of it when it's passed from the body.
Time is only so patient as to come around once, and when it comes, one must be able to understand it.
That is why one must understand time.
-Uchiha Izuna
The blood and the flesh of ones body is no more important than the weapon one uses to protect those one follows.
It is the undying loyalty to a cause and its leader that must never be questioned by the lips of their subordinates.
It is in the service to that cause that one is truly given the reason to fulfill their leader's unspoken desires and ensure their own purpose.
That is why loyalty to the leader's cause is essential.
-Sotaki Kun
Author's Note
Madara is so twisted sometimes. What more has to be said? It would seem that Muki is not as almighty as she may appear. So what do you think about Muki's weakness in contrast to Madara's strengths? Please review…
Note to all those waiting for lemons: There will be some later in the story, but I might drop a few scenes here and there just to torment everyone. However, be warned that I am a yaoi fan and am not against putting such things in this story, given its nature as you'll find out soon enough. LOL!