"Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes"- Bhaddekaratta Sutta-

Part 1

It was under great internal mental protest that Yuuko dressed in one of her finest, most expensive, outfits for her venture to the Uchiha compound. She was finding she was wearing such outfits far more then she had ever thought possible when her mother had first bought them for her. At the rate she was going, Yuuko was going to wear them out far before her casual clothes.

Struggling to force thick buttons through the tight loops, Yuuko's thoughts were dreary.

She was no fool.

She could see exactly what she had somehow become: a figurehead representing the Hagoromo's approval. She was being placed before different clans as some kind of offering, an indication of the clans swaying will.

She was unsure why exactly she had become the pawn in this game. Running a brush through her wild hair, Yuuko supposed it was because she had underestimated just how unique she was within her clan. Her close family had never shown any surprise or discomfort with the speeds at which she 'learned' and so she had never worried much about it.

After her decision to learn what she could from Nao and Jun, in appropriate settings, things had been better at home. Now with one invitation it all had come crashing down again.

When her mother had learned of the accepted invitation to the Uchiha compound she had gone very still. Hayato had spilled the beans at dinner with a grim frown and sharp eyes. Takeko's gaze had drilled into her husband's head but Tsubasa had calmly remained eating. Pushing food around with her chopsticks, Yuuko couldn't help but reminisce for a minuet on how familiar this awkward tension was, the echoes of a different family with different but no less tense problems- there was a brief ache in her chest that she tried to push away.

She forced a deep breath in through her nose and slowly out her mouth.

As if to spite her efforts, her thoughts flickered to Nao. There was no doubt Nao was going to be irritated to learn that Yuuko would be unable to visit today- and probably more incensed too that there was a possibility Yuuko was going to be forced to spend future days with the Uchihas as well. Nao was a pushy child, Yuuko had learned, with a strong desire to keep Yuuko's attention for themselves.

And this was not helping.

She was frustrated, she acknowledged. But what was done was done and she must try and face it with dignity and composure.

It was obvious to her that her family was splintered on what they thought was best for the future of the clan. 'To stay or not to stay' as it were.

Her mother was fairly clearly against a continued alliance with the Uchiha and her brother, for reasons unclear, was siding with her. Tsubasa on the other hand seemed to have been tirelessly working to change her mother's mind. (Presumably his loyalties had something to do with having a close childhood friend with the Uchiha).

All indications pointed that Shizutori was backing her mother's team (or her mother was backing Shizutoris?)

At least that was what Yuuko believed as she headed down stairs to suddenly be faced with her clan head again.

Yuuko frowned at the sight of her father and clan leader sitting together in the kitchen.

Dressed in a draped, dark red and gold kimono like some kind of prince, he sat cross legged. As she trudged toward them Yuuko could see he had even gone so far as to wear kohl eye liner, although he had abandoned the lipstick for the day.

Eyes never leaving her fathers, Yuuko watched Shizutori's smile widen just an inch.

"Yuuko! Come say hello!" He called jovially as though he was the one who lived with her and her father was the visiting stranger.

"Hello Shizutori-sama" She said instead, her father giving her a brief welcoming nod as she came closer, trying to puzzle out his reason for being in their house.

He had already spurned the Uchiha twice now and his escorting to and from the Aburame had made Yuuko confident she knew where he stood on the political lines. But here he was, presumably to escort her to the Uchihas, and she really wished she didn't have to consider all these things.

"Where's mother?" Yuuko enquired as she cast her eyes about the otherwise empty kitchen.

Trained ninja that he was, Tsubasa had no reaction other than to scrunch his eyebrows ever so slightly. But it was not he who answered but Shizutori, who stood with a flourish, "Takeko-chan is out training with your spirited older brother. And I, of course, am here to chaperon you off to the illustrious Uchiha compound. My you are getting popular aren't you, Yuuko-chan?"

Disliking the pleasant grin and dark eyes on his face, Yuuko grimaced.

And without much further ado they were off.

The short trip was quiet on Yuuko's part, heart hammering as her thoughts swirled around what was to come. Shizutori in contrast was so perfectly content that he began humming an old Hagoromo folk tune. They passed through the Uchiha gates untroubled with little more than respectful nods tossed their way by a few guards.

Time is always a strange thing when you are trying to avoid something, so Yuuko was not surprised that the walk seemed to end much faster than the last time she had made this trip.

Shizutori stood behind her as she knocked on the large front door. For one fleeting moment she thought that no one was home and that she would be able to turn right around and go home.

Then the door opened.

"Yuuko-chan! Come in please! Thank you for coming!"

With the posh attitudes of the Uchiha, Yuuko had almost been expecting a servant to answer the door. But no, it was Mikoto who answered the knock, dressed in slightly less formal clothes then the last time she had seen the woman, with a kind expression on her face. As the Uchiha matriarch gestured her inside with a slender hand, Yuuko was disheartened to realize that she immediately distrusted that look.

Stepping forward Yuuko gave the woman credit; she didn't seem at all fazed by being confronted unexpectedly with the head of the Hagoromo clan. Mikoto Uchiha's face remained patient and pleasant even when being unexpectedly accosted with Shizutori.

(This whole thing had to be some kind of slight too, didn't it? Yuuko was sure that clan heads were supposed to give some kind of forewarning pending official visits so as to allow those they visited at least the opportunity to uphold propriety. But then maybe the fact he had bothered to escort her out weighted his rudeness? )

"Shizutori-san" She greeted with a modest bow, "Thank you for escorting Yuuko-chan. My son is excited to have someone to spend the day with."

Hovering awkwardly just inside the house Yuuko couldn't help but doubt that.

Many shinobi avoided direct eye contact with Uchiha members by looking at the bridges of their noses or the gap between their eyebrows, Shizutori did neither. He stared straight into Mikoto's eyes with an off putting smile.

"Ah I have grown quite fond of little Yuuko, Mikoto-chan." He said with a wave of a hand, eyes unnaturally sharp he continued languidly, "I can always spare a moment for her."

Showing no response to the presumptuous suffix, Mikoto effortlessly replied "That is reassuring to hear" with a vague apologetic and solemn veneer of one offering condolences, "Clan leaders such as you and I have so many promises to uphold in these trying times. It is good to know our allies' value family like the Uchiha do."

How had she ended up in this position, Yuuko wondered as she watched the two dangerous shinobi play a terrifying verbal game she didn't entirely understand.

Something in Mikoto's response seemed to have hit a nerve, because Shizutori's eyes did a complex shudder where they seemed to widen and narrow at the same time. He stared at Mikoto just a touch longer and harder then was acceptable before flickering his gaze down to her instead.

"I will see you later this evening, Yuuko-chan" he told her.

Really? He was picking her up too? He had never done that with any of her visits to the Aburame.

"We will take good care of her." Mikoto told the man honestly to which he grinned again.

When he said, "I'm sure" It sounded like a promise.

With that he flicked a hand through his hair and turned gracefully on his heels.

Yuuko watched him go until the door Mikoto was closing vanished him from view.

"This was Yuuko-chan" She said gently. Her smile, perhaps, a tad more genuine as she led the girl towards the kitchen.

However, Mikoto's beautiful smiles did nothing to elevate the oppressive atmosphere of her home. As on her previous visit, the house just didn't look – lived in. There was no dust, no well-worn floors or banisters, no twinkling of wind chime bells. For all Yuuko's own house was big it had never felt big or empty the way this house did.

There, seated straight-backed at the table, was the Uchiha heir. Yuuko swallowed uneasily and wished she could find reassurance in Mikoto's presence.

Mikoto pushed her gently toward the table and stepped off to the side.

As she pulled herself up onto one of the hard seats and caught the young boys eyes again, Yuuko felt a wave of shame pull over her.

She was being unusually dark.

With great effort she tried to clear her head of the negativity. Her unfortunate circumstance and stress were not Itachi Uchiha's fault. His presence would not make her uncomfortable if she had not been born with supposed foreknowledge of something he may or may not become. And it was also not her place to judge him or anyone else for such things.

(Her attempts were marginally successful because only in the back of her mind did she feel like she has stepped into a room with a person who found people to be expendable and genocide to be, if not an easy solution, then at last a viable one.)

Yuuko clenched her toes and picked at her fingers under the table, pushing a stained smile to her face. His pale face watched her banally with slow even blinks of his dark overly large eyes. Things fell into prickly silence until Mikoto returned to the table. Walking along the opposite side of the table from Yuuko, she passed Itachi and ran a hand along his back as she made her way to a seat.

Her other hand carried small ceramic bowls, a few horse hair brushes, and rice paper.

"Have you ever done shuǐmò painting Yuuko-chan? It's one of Itachi's and my favorite things to do." She asked, setting down the bowls and distributing sheets of paper.

Yuuko shook her head, glancing from the eerily still Itachi to his mother. She supposed she should be grateful the woman had had something like this planed and hadn't abandoned the two of them for hours of empty sitting until this whole thing was done.

(Stop that! Be positive!)

"No, Uchiha- -sama, but I have been studying calligraphy." She replied, stumbling only for the briefest moment over what suffix she should add to Mikoto's name.

The woman graced her with a lovely smile as she handed over a thick brush, larger than the usual brushes Yuuko used for writing, and a small bowl of black ink. Itachi picked up a brush as well, eyes bouncing between them as they conversed.

"The basics of the two arts are similar so you shouldn't have too much trouble picking it up. If you like we can all do one together."

Before Yuuko even completes her nod of agreement Itachi spoke for the first time that day-

"A crow"

Confused for a moment as she watched Itachi smooth out his paper and dip his brush in ink, it took her a few seconds to realize that his words were- well not a suggestion, but a decision on what they would all be painting.

The Uchiha matriarch touched her sons shoulder briefly with what was perhaps her truest smile of the day. "Itachi has a bit of a fondness for crows," she laughed gently "What do you think, Yuuko-chan?"

The little Hagoromo watched as Itachi pulled himself towards the edge of his chair, dipped brush hovering, poised over the ink in waiting and realized- Itachi Uchiha was excited to draw calligraphy crows.

She felt herself nod again, "Sure."

A sigh that was half relief and half resignation left her as Mikoto began taking them through the steps of creating the ink watercolor painting.

("Hold you brush like you have an egg in your palm- yes, just like that. Just the same as when you are doing calligraphy." "Slow even stoke, Push down and drag the brush down in a small arc and up. Wonderful job. Now for the feet you want less water-")

Itachi grew impatient following steps he already knew about half way through his mother's instructions and plowed ahead, his brush flying across the page in a graceful and controlled manner. Yuuko ignored this and focused on the instructions she had- taking everything slow and systematic until she had completed her very first shuǐmò crow.

It was a bit of a lopsided thing, ink a little dryer then it should have been in some places, but over she would call it a success.

Even upside down and cross the table, Itachi's painting was striking. A flock of crows filled a grant gnarled tree- an empty forest done in in the faintest ink behind it. His name ran down the side in a show of beautiful calligraphy skill.

"Excuse me a moment you two." Mikoto sighed, pulling back her chair without a whisper of wood on floor and disappearing back in the direction of the front entrance.

The silence in her absence was awkward- at least it was for Yuuko. Itachi sat as still as ever, eyes turned in the direction his mother had gone.

"Where is you little brother?" Yuuko asked in a soft voice and immediately regretted it when the boys head snapped to her.

He didn't seem angry, not that she knew what an angry Itachi looked like when he kept his facial muscles so still, but she was certainly uncomfortable with his scrutiny. Yuuko resisted the urge to fidget under his gaze and fiddled with her bamboo brush instead, rolling in between her fingers slowly.

"Sasuke is napping. "

Man he had a deep voice for a kid. Perhaps her judgment was off because her own voice was still high pitched (the childish sound of her own voice was so ingrained by now she could no longer remember what her voice had sounded like before, only that she knew it had been a deeper more sultry sounds. An Alto all her life.)

"Oh. huh- of course."

Yuuko kept her eyes focused on the slowly turning brush. Felt the smooth edges of the wood, watched the horse hair tip weep slowly side to side as it spun.

When she wasn't forced to look into his eyes or watch his marble face she could more clearly think. Each breath in and out felt like an accomplishment.

In the silence her mind wandered. One would think that Itachi's love for his brother would be something she could praise, one tether that would make the boy less frightening, but that wasn't so. In her mind, Itachi was a boy of deep obsession. His love was a possessive, fanatical, compulsive thing. It almost couldn't be called 'love' in her own mind because it was so terrifying a thing- his devotion to both his village and his brother was far more horrific to her then they were admirable. He was almost the definition of 'over attachment'- or at least, he had been in the manga.

The sound of footsteps broke the stillness and both of the children turned their heads to see another boy accompanying Mikoto back into the kitchen. He was slightly older then Itachi, with black charcoal hair that had a slightly curly feathered quality that reminded her of her own family (perhaps his branch of the family was married into the Hagoromo in some way?). He had no headband but what definitely appeared to be a scabbard was buckled across his back.

Mikoto was smiling cheerfully, looking incredibly pleased as the older boy grinned at the two of them. Yuuko curled her feet in her shoes, set the brush down on the side of the ink well, and leaned back from the table.

"Itach-kun! How is my favorite little cousin?"

…Itach-kun?

Yuuko watched with wide eyes as the boy bounced right up to Itachi Uchiha, threw an arm around his neck, and pulled the boy close in a half hug. The displeased expression, (dare she call it a pout?), that crossed his face, made him look more childlike than anything else she had yet seen.

But after brushing off the boys arm with annoyed flick of his hand, the Uchiha heir's shoulders sat a little less tense then they had before.

"Shisui, what are you doing here?"

Ignoring his cousin, the one forename Shisui turned his sights on her.

Mikoto bustled up to the table, collecting inkwells, cups of water, and the spare paper. When she questioningly reached for her sons painting he grasped the edged with the slightest shake of his head. As she turned to put things away she leaned close to her son.

"Hey little Hagoromo sis! Long time no see!"

Yuuko cocked her head in slight confusion. They had met before?

"Huh, I guess with that look you don't remember me?" The boy asked, rubbing a hand through his hair in a sheepish manner. "Well, I guess it was a while ago…"

"My apologies…" Yuuko began nervously but the boy shook his head, grinning again.

"No worries, Hagoromo sis! This time I'll be sure to leave a lasting impression!"

Things trailed off awkwardly again.

But it seemed the boy called Shisui was better at managing such things then she was because he clapped his hands together in a determined manner.

"I know! Why don't we all go throw some shuriken?"

Itachi shifted ever so slightly in interest, his eyes going from Yuuko to his cousin's enthusiastic face. Yuuko tried to think of a polite way to say 'absolutely not.'

"It's a little chilly for that today, Shisui-kun" Mikoto called from doorway, this time she carried a wooden box in her arms. While not untrue this was such a flimsy excuse that it was certainly not her true reasoning. Still, Yuuko was not inclined to argue if the woman was getting her out of an even more awkward situation.

"I was thinking you all might enjoy a game of majong?" Mikoto said, indicating the box in her hands.

"Sure! That's a great idea Aunt Mikoto!" Shisui smiled and pulled up the seat next to Yuuko.

Why next to me? Actually, what are you even doing here if this was supposed to be some formal thing? Did I even have to wear this stuffy dress?

"Have you ever played before?"

For a moment Yuuko thought it was Shisui who had asked but no, Itachi was staring at her, waiting patiently for an answer.

"A few times. It's…been a while since I have played."

A life time in fact.

She only began to hope that the rules were the same as she remembered when the pieces were being set up. They weren't of course because nothing was ever so simple.

Things really settled in once the three began playing. Itachi was mostly silent but he was engaged in the game and Shisui was chatty enough to keep something of a conversation going. (She learned for example that Shisui was actually attending academy and in return she shared just the vaguest knowledge of some of the things she was studying from Ayaha.)

Mikoto brought over snacks sometime after their third round.

Once she had finished sorting out what rules were different- Yuuko took to the game like a duck to water.

She won one game and then another and another.

Four wins in a row and Shisui was jokingly teasing her about cheating and Itachi was giving her open but truly curious glances.

Time passed more quickly then she would have thought possible and it didn't feel like long before Mikoto told her that Shizutori had come to collect her. Itachi began neatly fitting the blocks back into their box.

By the door, as Yuuko put on her boots, The Hagoromo clan leader eyed Shisui and Mikoto with that ever strange smile of his. He said nothing about the other boy's presence though and simply gave a flash of teeth to his smile as he bid the Uchiha farewell.

"I hope you had a good time, Yuuko-chan. I hope you can come around again sometime soon." Mikoto said as she handed the girl her neatly folded painting to take home.

Itachi graced her with a solemn and respectful bow but his decorum was somewhat undercut by Shisui pulling his cousin into a half hug again as he called goodbye to her too.

Her feet dragged the whole way home. The adrenaline that had been pumping through her most of the morning had worn away and she was ready for an early bed. Shizutori left her at her front door with a grin and an elegant toss of his hair. Then he had the gall to jump from the ground straight up unto the roof of her house before flashing away.

Inside she found her brother sitting on the bottom steps of the stairs examining his hands. He clenched them and then stretched the fingers wide in an attempt to alleviate their aching. His short handled maul war hammers, huge, heavy things that hand been gifted to him from Takeko, were stuck to the floor before him.

Chewing on her lip a moment, Yuuko removed her shoes and went to join him on the steps. They sat together for a quiet moment, the only sound that of the houses soft creaks and moans. "How was practice?" She probed gently.

Her brother signed softly, shaking his head in a dejected manner with a twisted smile of doubt on his face. Watching his face carefully, she leaned against his arm and ignored the way the thick fabric of her outfit pulled uncomfortably.

After a moment he put an arm around her and they sat that way for a few more moments before getting up to start dinner.

Things continued on in that manner for almost another month. Yuuko's time stretched thin; balancing visits between the Aburame and the Uchiha as well as her sessions with Ayaha.

She had been right in her assumption that Nao would be less than pleased to now have to share Yuuko's time with someone else. To make up for this, Nao began stuffing their 'play dates' with as many things to as possible. Thankfully Nao had always been the busy but easily assuaged sort so Yuuko didn't have to do much but trot among after the little Aburame, listen attentively, and put in half way decent effort into any of these planned activities.

Her visits with the Uchiha grew ever so slightly more relaxed. Yuuko was thankful to say that Shisui joined every 'play date' she attended and his cheerful attitude kept things from growing too tense. Things were still a little uncomfortable between her and Itachi but at least both of her parents seemed satisfied for the moment that she was spending time with both clans.

Home again after a day spent learning the art of bee keeping from Nao and thoroughly exhausted, Yuuko shucked off her clothes into a pile and changed into her large sleeping dress. She tucked her feet into big thick socks (her feet were always freezing) and clambered into bed.

She dreamed of nothing.

And as the sun's rays crested back over the horizon at dawn- the world exploded into red.

Ok, so this is extremely raw. I finally finished and I just had to get it out so I am sure I will need to go back and edit. I just wanted to get something out for all of you who have been waiting.

A huge thank you to everyone who reviewed, I don't know if I would have been able to push through the troubles I had with this chapter without them. It's a huge motivator to know that people actually might want to see more of this.

Side note: Mikoto is totally devious. She was doing all kinds of stuff behind the scenes here. Also we get illusions of things in the political/personal history with Shizutori because Mikoto totally knows things.

Also side note: Majong (sometimes spelled Mahjong) is a real game. Originating in China I believe it also has Korean and Japanese versions. Having personally played it, I can say I am pretty bad at it. When I win, I win on pure luck.

Hope you enjoyed this pain in the ass of a chapter. Let me know what you all think! I will try and have the next one out sooner!