Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Beta'd by drowsyivy and UmbreonGurl. Next update: Wednesday.
"So you have spoken to Hisa-chan, then?" His father glances up at him over the rim of his teacup. "And she has agreed to marry you?"
"She has agreed." He pauses for a moment, taking in the thought of it.
A lifetime with the brilliant, bold woman he has come to know.
But there is still more he must tell his parents.
Slowly, he sinks to his knees, careful to not jostle his still tender side. "Chichi-ue, Haha-ue, your most unfilial child has something else he wants to tell you both."
"Izuna-kun?" There is a slight tremor in Haha-ue's voice. "Izuna-kun, why are you on your knees?"
"I…" he starts and knows that it is not filial, not right, against all the natural orders of things — but if this is what it means to grow, to change, and perhaps to seek a happiness he did not believe to be possible in this life, then that is the price he bears. "I thank you both," he says, and though somber, though sad, knows that it is the path he has chosen, and so must walk it. "For having raised me and loved me, whether in success or in failure, though I am unfilial, I will never forget it."
His side throbs, but he continues. "Chichi-ue, I am asking that you grant me permission to leave home." To leave our name.
It will disappoint them, he knows.
But not asking will disappoint them more.
An Uchiha chooses his path and walks it proudly, without regret or shame.
Even if that path means he will no longer be an Uchiha.
"Have you thought it through?" Chichi-ue asks. "You will always be our son, but—"
Leaving is easy. Returning is hard.
"I have." Nearly a year and half ago now, he'd sat in this courtyard, plucking at strings and composing verses under the light of the moon.
He should've realized by then that he was already lost.
"Then you go with our blessing." This is Haha-ue, sad but steadfast. "For you will always be our son." She bends to lift him, hands steady on his elbows. "You will be filial to Kawaguchi-san. For if he agrees, he will be your father." Her eyes search his face. "And you will not cause strife in his house."
"I will remember what I have been taught." It will be difficult, honoring ancestors that he was not raised to know, kneeling for a man who did not raise him.
But women do it all the time.
His mother does it and has done it for longer than he has been alive.
His mother does it, and so can he.
He bows again, deeply once to Haha-ue and once to Chichi-ue. "Thank you both." This debt of gratitude will never be forgotten.
He will have to go see Kawaguchi-san.
"Uchiha-san," the old fox greets him warmly when he arrives, gesturing for him to sit. "What brings you here?"
He does not sit, for that would be rude.
He and Kawaguchi-san will no longer be nominally equals in very short order.
The son does not sit when the father is standing.
"Kawaguchi-san," he says and knows that while his offer is good on the surface, Hisa's father is not guaranteed to accept it. "There is something I would like to ask you."
A normal man would accept this marriage offer, even if it means sending his daughter to live in a different region far away, if only because that puts him in close proximity to power almost unimaginable by merchant standards.
Or even by baronic standards.
Or government ministry standards.
But Kawaguchi-san is eccentric and ambitious, though he hides it well.
Ambitious, but would never use a daughter as a bargain for personal gain.
"Well, go on, then." Kawaguchi-san gestures again for him to sit, but he uses the chair as a way to get on his knees instead.
"I asked Hisa if she would marry me today." He sinks forward, pressing his forehead to the floor. "She has said yes, and Uchiha-sama has given me permission to leave." He keeps his gaze on the floor, unable to think of gauging Kawaguchi-san's reaction. "Kiku-sama said—"
There are hands on his arms, tugging him upwards, at least until he's no longer looking at the floor. "You needn't be so formal with me, Izuna-kun." Kawaguchi-san sighs. "I will be your gifu. I need nothing more from you than that."
He is somehow bodily pulled upwards and deposited in a chair. He had not expected that strength from the man before him, for he has such a cultured and scholarly facade.
Kawaguchi-san sits, dark eyes extremely amused. "Now, isn't that so much more comfortable?"
"I—" Is he being obtuse on purpose because he is refusing me, or did he not understand what I was saying? "I spoke to Uchiha-sama," he says again, this time more steadily and more in control of himself. "And if gifu-san will not mind, I would be honored to take your name."
Kawaguchi-san observes him for a long moment, before adjusting his wide sleeve with a hand. "Izuna-kun, forgive me for being blunt, but I do not believe you will like it here half so much without the ability to leave again when you so choose."
The words strike him, meant not in cruelty but in fairness, and he bows his head. "You're right. I am out of place here. I am hardly civilian even without a blade, and I am surely not what you hoped for in a son-in-law—" He has very little business sense, and he is shinobi, which are both strikes against him in the old fox's book. "But I am willing to learn, and she will always come first to me."
"And she has agreed to this?"
He'd spent a happy half hour in her study, trading words that they'd never been able to exchange properly before. He'd been called second young master, and for that half hour, he'd seen a life and future spread out before him, more lovely than he'd ever dreamed of before.
"Kimei too." He adds because he thinks it would help.
Hisa's most faithful and constant guardian is the handmaid at her side.
Kawaguchi-san chuckles at this. "Who am I to say that my judgement is better than Kimei's?"
He'd expected more argument than this, and that must've shown on his face.
"Who am I to stand in the way of young lovers?" There is something distant here that he does not entirely know how to place. Still, Kawaguchi-san continues. "That would make me a hypocrite, would it not?"
"I don't understand." Protesting this match is not unreasonable, even though he has given his word that he will not be dissatisfied here, among people unlike where he has come from.
"I have not Hiwara Toyomatsu's temperament, I'm afraid." Kawaguchi-san picks up his teacup, holding his sleeve in his right hand. "The first time I proposed, my late father-in-law had me kneeling outside his study for three days and two nights before he would let me inside his study."
"Three days?" And no one thought to move him? He knows about the Hiwara merchant household only by hearsay and by the sad excuse of a man who had struck Hisa, but it would seem that a generation ago, they'd been much different.
"And two nights." Kawaguchi-san laughs at his shock. "I'm afraid that all our efforts to preserve your life would be for naught if I had half his obstinacy."
He is struck by the barb — made so slyly and so much like Hisa — that he laughs as well, mirth overflowing at the ridiculousness of it, that the man before him could ever be so autocratic and unyielding, and together, they make a pleasant afternoon of it, speaking of the future.
"What would you prefer that I call you, Madara-san?"
The wedding has been approved of now, so there is much less formality between Anija and Hisa, who will soon become relatives, and he pauses by the doorway, taking in for a moment, the scene of his older brother sitting down to tea with Hisa.
"You could call me Anija, as Izuna does?"
Which is why he sees the moment her face shutters closed even if nothing about her expression has changed at all. She goes through the motions of her embroidery, her smile has not moved a fraction, but her expression has closed. "I do not believe that will be entirely proper, Madara-san."
He remembers, with a bitter and painful clarity the only time he stood in the Kawaguchi shrine, wooden tablets illuminated by candles, and finally understood what Hisa meant.
"Anija," he steps in, "that is a name for someone else."
No one can replace one brother with another, and while it is true that Anija and Hisa will be siblings after he and Hisa are wed, it does not mean that his anija will be hers.
"Oh," his brother nods, abashed. "My apologies. You could always call me Madara-nii? No one has done that before."
Hisa smiles. "I'd like that."
And the waters settle.
That evening, they sit on the walkway in her courtyard, looking up at the moon, a pot of tea by her left side.
He sprawls out, his head on her lap, counting the pinpricks on her hands. "Such a labor of love you've created for the wedding," he muses, looking more at her hands than the moon above them.
"I will only see you wear them once in this lifetime," she says, her brilliant eyes cast upwards towards the moon, lashes long against the porcelain pallor of her face. A corner of her mouth tilts up in a slightly crooked smile. "Shouldn't it be lovely?"
"If it pleases you," he has counted seven pricks on her left hand and reaches over to also gently cradle the right, "I will wear it often when we are at home, even though it will be dreadfully silly."
She laughs at this, giggling without bothering to cover her mouth. "What," she asks, eyes alight with amusement, "you'll pretend we're getting married every day?"
"What?" His heart sings. "Like that will make it lose its shine?"
"No," she taps the tip of his nose, "it won't, but all of our neighbors will believe I've married a lunatic."
He makes a face at her. "So what if they think I'm a lunatic? If I get to show off your work, I certainly won't care if they think I've gone insane in my joy."
She sighs and shakes her head, though she is still amused with him. "Oh, would we all have your shamelessness, Izuna."
He pouts. "But it seems a little bit of a waste to let something so beautiful be worn for only a day."
"You haven't even seen it yet," her hand lingers, warm against his face, and she glances down at him. "How do you know it's not horribly ugly?"
"Somehow, I do not believe that anything you make would ever end up being ugly." It has been years since she had first invited him to a party with nobles for leisure and then proceeded to turn out a whole new wardrobe for him after realizing that he'd been ashamed to show up in his working outfit.
Those same working outfits have been passed onto other cousins who worked in the mines or the forges, especially, since a good number of them are not badly worn and have quite a number of years of life left to them yet.
His new outfits do not have the Uchiwa on them.
"Flatterer." She chastises him with a fond tone and even fonder eyes.
"I mean every word I say." For years, he has been silent, toeing the line of propriety. Now, that line has been drawn somewhere very far away from compliments and sweet words.
"Mmm." Her eyes are still drawn upwards, towards the moon. "Do you suppose Chang'e is looking down on us now?"
The immortal woman in the moon palace with her regrets and her pet rabbit is a strange person to think of in these happy times.
"Why would she be watching us?"
Her face turns pensive at this. "Long ago, she drank the elixir meant for two and stayed on the moon so that she could be close to earth." He knows this story, but he is content to let her talk. "And it is said that we eat mooncakes at Mid Autumn because Houyi loved and missed her. I think she must be sad there," Hisa continues, "because she is a sentimental person as well, with her face turned towards the earth, so maybe she is watching us in our happiness."
The idea that a sad moon immortal is watching them be happy is actually quite distressing to him, and he tells her so.
Hisa laughs, and they continue like this for another half stick of incense, drinking tea and looking up at the moon.
He doesn't fall asleep in her lap, but it is a near thing, already drowsy by the time he bids her goodnight and retreats.
Some time in the near future, he will not have to leave.
It takes time to arrange the wedding, not the least because it will be a wedding unlike anything his family has seen in generations.
His father's only sister had died tragically of illness before her engagement had ever become marriage, and his father had no daughters, so his parents had not planned for a wedding where one of their children would be leaving their household.
"Are you sure you don't want to bring more with you?" Miyuki-nee bustles in while he is packing, Kurega-kun following after her, holding a book of sayings to recite when she has a spare moment. "Izuna-kun, this isn't like when you were working and coming back every few months to visit."
There's no longer white in his sister-in-law's hair, which surprises him, but three years of mourning for Togaku-nii is gone and past now, the sharp sting of his own shame having eased at least a little.
He had not been there, and he had wanted to be, but it has eased enough to let him breathe.
How funny it is that he'd left to guard merchant caravans because he could not bear Miyuki-nee and Haha-ue's hollow eyes, and had thought that they blamed him for not being there, and now that he can finally breathe again, he is going away.
This time, for good.
"I don't have too much I need to bring." He smiles, carefully folding up a green linen handkerchief and stuffing it into his pack. "And I don't own too much that can't be repurposed into being useful for someone else."
He will bring a few coils of wire, a sturdy knife, and several books that he cherishes more than he can bear to part with, but it is not as if he will need his clothing racks, all of his former traveling clothes, his bedding, furniture or the room decor.
He and Hisa had spoken, and he will be moving into her courtyard and bedroom in short order after the wedding, which means that she will make space for the belongings he chooses to bring, but it won't have to be much.
"Oh Izuna-kun," Miyuki-nee pauses, looking up at his face, dark eyes suddenly filled with tears. "I will miss you."
He opens his arms for a hug. "I'll miss you too, Miyu-nee."
Long ago, when he'd been no more than eleven or twelve, Togaku-nii had gotten married, and they'd had a sister for the first time. He'd thought it wouldn't be the last, even though Myoko-nii's death had been recent enough to hurt, but then Kuro-nii had also died, and Anija had never really looked at any girls, so now it is him getting married and going away instead.
It will be the first time he's done something before Anija has.
The feeling's new.
This makes Kurega-kun clamor for a hug as well, and he makes sure to press a kiss to his second nephew's forehead, and squishes Kurega-kun's cheeks together though that makes the boy wriggle. "I know a little girl, maybe only a year or so older than you. When I get married," he thrills over the words said out loud yet again — when I get married to Hisa — "she will be your auntie, and maybe you can come over to visit and play."
Kurega-kun wrinkles his nose at him. "Izuna-ji, I'll miss you. Can't you stay?"
"Well," he tossles Kurega-kun's hair. "It is not as if I will never come back to visit again."
It won't be the same, because he will call somewhere else home, and will only be a guest visiting relations, but he will be back to visit because Shunan isn't as far away as the moon.
Maybe, at heart, the world will be kind enough to let him stay an Uchiha at heart even if not in name.
The morning that he leaves his childhood home for the last time, dressed in the red and black of a groom — Hisa had made and had the outfit sent over to him — Haha-ue cries on him on his way out of the gate. "If I do not hear from you in a week, I will fear that you have fallen down a well or into the pond."
"I will still have chakra." He pats Haha-ue's back and knows it is only because he is her youngest child and that his dramatics often worry her. "And the crows. I will write often and lengthily."
At the gate, Chichi-ue coughs into his hand. "Just like you wrote while you were away on business?"
For a brief moment, he remembers the brief, rather terse messages he'd sent home every week while guarding the caravans along with the biweekly note of his earnings, in which he'd tried to obscure such details like how many men he's killed and who he's caught the notice of now, and is drenched in shame.
"I will write much more lengthily and with much greater clarity when I am settled."
This still does not really satisfy Chichi-ue, but either they leave now and set a brisk pace towards Shunan, or they delay and likely miss the auspicious hour.
The rest of the trip is made mostly in silence.
He swings himself onto a horse at the gate of the guest house Chichi-ue had rented in the city for the marriage on the morning of their wedding day, Hikaku holding the bridle for him. Shinobi do not typically ride horses, but for the sake of tradition, the groom ought to ride one on his way to bring back the bride.
Anija has gone up ahead to the Kawaguchi front door to bother him with riddles. Haha-ue should be in the front hall welcoming guests with Kawaguchi-san, but Chichi-ue is here with him, nominally to give him away.
Theirs will be an unconventional wedding because it will be hosted in the Kawaguchi household, the estate opened for guests of all ranks and social class. Hisa had sent a fan as well, for covering his face modestly for when they bow and the Taoist priest says the wedding vows, mostly as a joke, but in a fit of why not, he has tucked it into his waistband for later.
"Are you ready?" Chichi-ue asks.
He throws open his wide red sleeves embroidered with golden clouds and black spider lilies, throws his head back and laughs. "I am ready to be a bride."
Chichi-ue snorts at that, but leaves to mount his own horse.
Behind him, the horns start playing, entourage fanning out behind him. Hikaku proudly hoists a banner declaring the wedding details, and surely, this is the best day of his life.
Anija and a good number of cousins are leading the crowd of guests meant to test the groom. "Izuna!" Anija shouts, eyes crinkled with laughter in a way that he does not think he has seen before. "The good people here want to see the groom win the bride!"
"I don't know," he answers, still seated on the horse, though he is tensed to leap off whenever. "Given the situation, maybe we should call the bride out here to win the groom!"
"If that's the case, it wouldn't be a show, would it?" Lord Fusamoto is leaning against the main gate, next to one of the long tails of the red silk drapery, the golden word for fortune painted upon it. "Come now, Madara-san," he continues, seemingly leisurely, though his gray eyes hold a flash of wicked amusement. "We've got to test him somehow today before we can let him in."
Anija twirls a kunai around on his finger, spinning and thinking. "What is eternal, but no more than a month old at a time?"
He remembers for a moment, in his mind's eye, Hisa standing before her tapestry of Chang'e. Upwards towards… "The moon."
Anija makes a face at him. "I follow you for a thousand miles and do not miss home. I fear no fire or water, no snow or rain. I neither eat nor drink, but I vanish as the sun falls west."
What follows for a lifetime and yet does not miss home?
What vanishes with the sun?
"A shadow."
Anija makes another face. "Lord Fusamoto, why don't you try stopping him?"
Lord Fusamoto laughs from his place by the door frame, snapping open his fan and thinking about it. "A thousand kilometers meets a thousand gold."
Ah, character riddles then.
Such word games are commonly played by the noble elite.
Technically, he is also one of the noble elite, but he had learned to read from common novels, not moral texts, which makes these sorts of games less fun.
A thousand gold — in the south, that is what they say about a man's daughters.
A daughter is worth a thousand gold pieces.
A thousand kilometers, however…
The horse beneath him shifts and dances as he slides off. A thousand kilometers is the phrase for a good horse.
A horse and a daughter—
The character for "Mother."
Lord Fusamoto laughs, delighted. "One plus one."
By the events of the day, another riddle, not a math problem.
Two characters for one, one symbol for addition, the character for "King."
"The field on the heart!"
The character for field atop the heart… "To miss." He pushes forward, laughing. "How many are you going to make me do? At this rate we'll miss the auspicious hour!"
The cousins part for him, rushing in like the river water.
He meets Hisa where she stands under the plum trees in the front courtyard, her back to the main gate, eyes tilted up towards the plum flowers. "Ready?" he asks, a hand on her elbow.
There is a soft fragrance here, faint with the blush of winter.
"A moment," she says, eyes still following the line of a sprig of plum flowers. "Haha-ue never much liked plums."
On the surface, it seems unconnected, but for as long as he'd known her, Hisa has been close mouthed about the sort of person her mother was. But then, her mother had died, and she had not been there. In the end, that is a mark whose weight he well knows.
She must look like that distant woman whose name he'd read off of a memorial tablet — his future mother-in-law, buried for over thirteen years now — but she is so much like her father in all other respects that it is sometimes hard to tell what her mother has left her but grief and those brilliant blue eyes.
"But you like them." The first handkerchief she'd pulled out to wipe his face all those years ago had been pink, embroidered with plums. "They're your favorite."
The first outfit she'd made him just past that new years had also featured plums.
At heart, she liked plum flowers.
"They are." She concedes this without fanfare. "I was just thinking of her today, is all."
What daughter wouldn't think of her mother on her wedding day?
His hands find her shoulders, and he gives them a squeeze. "She would be happy, I think, to see you so radiant."
For as long as he's known her, there'd been a shadow on Hisa's face, sometimes lighter, sometimes very dark indeed.
But today, he does not see it.
There is only joy.
Hisa smiles. "I think she would be happy to know that my future is secured." She reaches up, fingers brushing the lowest hanging of the plum blossoms for the barest of moments, pink-purple against the pale blue sky. "She would've liked to have known you, too. Madam Kawaguchi was an unconventional woman."
He laughs. "Surely not as unconventional as you?"
She'd gotten into a carriage to visit a brothel the first time they'd gone out, driven them to Yanai after the house had caught fire, raised a ruckus when he'd been injured, enough that even now, the Senju finances have not recovered.
He has a hard time imagining anyone more unconventional.
"Oh, much." She turns to him properly, a crooked smile tugging at her lips. "So scandalous, you would not believe all the stories."
She loops her arm through his. "But it is our wedding day today. We ought to go in for the ceremony, no?"
And on that point, he is wholly in agreement.
"First Bow!" The priest had cast an odd glance at him when he arrived, walking in with his face hidden behind a round fan and an unveiled bride without a fan on her, but the priest had rallied, said the usual blessings and rites, and now the time for bows has come. "Heaven and Earth!"
They bow together, one for the gods above, one for the underworld below. Between Heaven and Hell, there will be no other.
"Second Bow!" They turn to where Chichi-ue and Haha-ue sit with Kawaguchi-san, Hiwara-san's memorial tablet on the table beside Kawaguchi-san. "The Ancestral Altar!"
One bow for their parents, who had loved and raised them, and he commits to thinking of Kawaguchi-san as his gifu.
They may never be entirely father and son, and he may never quite fit the model of an ideal son-in-law, but he owes it to his gifu to try, in all ways.
"Third Bow!" Here, the priest is beaming. Clearly, this is his favorite part of the wedding ceremony. "Husband and Wife!"
He takes one step away and turns towards Hisa, as she takes a step away and turns towards him.
They bow, this time to each other — he, having cast away his fan, she, golden phoenixes in her hair twinkling.
A lifetime of commitment.
A lifetime of promises.
It all hangs in the air now, in one unbroken moment, perfect in its clarity, pressed close to the heart.
"Tea will now be presented."
Kimei steps forward with three cups of tea on a tray.
Hisa takes the first and offers it to Chichi-ue, wrists slender and straight against the deep red of her wide sleeves. "Your daughter-in-law offers Gifu-san this cup of tea as proof of her sincerity."
Chichi-ue accepts the gaiwan and takes a sip. "In all joys and in all sorrows, remember to trust each other." He'd told Chichi-ue, perhaps more briefly than he ought to have, about all the moments that he has blundered and they'd missed each other's meanings in the dark.
It is this that Chichi-ue advises them on now.
Hisa curtsies, replies, "I will keep Gifu-san's words close to my heart," and turns once more to the tea tray.
The second cup is for Haha-ue, who accepts it with a smile and takes a sip. "In all good times and in all bad, remember that your strength comes from within."
Hisa curtsies again. "I thank Shuutome-san for her wise words. They will be remembered."
That leaves the last cup, which he offers to Hisa's father with a bow. "Your son-in-law offers Gifu-san this cup of tea as proof of his conviction to filiality."
The old fox holds his gaze for a moment, takes a sip, and then says with a straight face, "Remember, lapis lazuli is a rich man's stone, and it deserves that equal price." This draws a string of chuckles from the gathered guests, and he sets the gaiwan down on the table next to Hiwara-san's memorial tablet with a soft but distinctive click. "Welcome to our household, Izuna-kun."
Their procession proceeds to the bridal suite, where Hisa's handmaids toss nuts at them in private, one of which Hisa catches between her teeth and laughs about, and the matchmaker offers them a pair of shears.
He offers them to Hisa first, and she leans forward, searching for a lock of his hair that she could reasonably pull from his topknot and cut.
That done, she offers the shears to him, and he does the same for her hair with considerably more difficulty. Countess Asukabe had lent her a wedding crown fit for a countess, and he hardly has any desire to send the whole hairstyle crashing down, but he manages.
The matchmaker ties the two locks of cut hair together with a length of silk thread cord in a double coin knot for fortune and good future, and it is placed away into a box to the cheers of the handmaids, Aka dabbing at her tears with a handkerchief.
He turns to Hisa for a moment, delighted in the smile on her face, her eyes brighter than the azure and lapis lazuli set in the wrought gold of her phoenix crown.
She meets his gaze, not the least bit coy.
"Let's not stand in celebration," Lord Fusamoto calls from his place outside the door among the guests. "Come! The groom needs to get drunk before the sun sets."
He is pulled out into the crowd by the men, loses Hisa entirely when she links arms with Countess Asukabe, and is hustled off with the women to celebrate properly.
That night, he is not particularly tipsy by the time he is packed off back towards the bridal suite, but only because utilizing chakra makes it much easier to avoid getting drunk. It might be cheating, but since his sword was melted and since he chose this new path in life, his chakra is mostly only good for such parlor tricks and little amusements.
Hisa is already there when he arrives, carefully taking off the finery of the day, Kimei brushing any dust from the phoenix crown and rearranging it on a tray to be taken back to Countess Asukabe.
"You look beautiful." He wraps his arms around her from behind, chin resting on her shoulder.
"I look tired," she says, but there is a smile in her voice. "The last time this household has ever had so many guests was when Chichi-ue was getting married again, and I think we may have surpassed his total with the number of your cousins who came to wish us well."
Many years ago, then.
He hums. "It was a lovely day."
He is not very familiar with Chiba Natsu-san, though apparently she and Anija had become friends during his extended period of bed rest — which he refuses to believe was his deathbed — which is odd, because he has been in this household quite often for the past three years and only met Chiba-san a handful of times, compared to Anija who has only lingered here for a span of less than month altogether.
"It was," she agrees.
Kimei finishes rearranging the phoenix crown for when it will have to be returned the next morning and casts an unreadable glance at Hisa who returns the look with one of her own before leaving.
And now they are alone, in the red draped room.
"What do you say," he muses, "we go out and look at the moon?"
"And not stay inside on our wedding night?" She glances at him, a wicked light in her eyes. "How scandalous, husband."
They look at each other, for a moment, completely serious before bursting into abrupt and easy laughter.
A.N. Hello! We return with the wedding interlude, which forms the bridge between Silk and it's sequel, which I have named 'A Measure of Steel'. I'm really excited, so the update's a little bit early today lol.
This fic is completely written! So we have another five weeks of updates to go!
Life is just beginning for these two, and I have so much excitement for what's to come.
~Tav (Leaf)