Bondage
Homusubi watches Izuna leave, the Drowning Breath bound and biddable at her side with a baby cradled against his chest. He wouldn't have believed it without seeing it, but apparently Tajima's sharp-eyed wild-child has tamed the Senju she caught and carried home. Watching the killer of so many kin get paraded around the clan compound like a performing bear is extremely satisfying, if also a bit insensitive. But then again, that's Izuna for you; all her father's sharp edges, wielded by a hand gentle enough to make anybody's eyes cross wondering where she got that from.
"Oh, he's got your measure all right, Tajima-kun!" Karifuri sniggers, taking full advantage of the familiarity afforded him by being the Outguard Head's older brother-in-law. "Brought little Kei-chan along then wouldn't let you cuddle, Izuna-bi aiding and abetting; whatcha do to piss her off this time?"
"Sent her off on a mission yesterday, when he agreed she'd be retiring today," Senior Lieutenant Tsuyoshi says mildly, flicking a prematurely grey strand of hair out of his face.
"That was fucking stupid, 'Jima," Armour-smith Tarumae says flatly, looking up from her game of Go against Miune, who is putting up a better fight than Iwasaku managed earlier. "Senju boy's got leopard blood and leopards are Cat-kin; he'll hold a grudge until the end of time and make your life hell with a smile while denying it's to spite you, even if Izuna-bi lets it go tomorrow." Like she generally does; sharp as death as she can be, Izuna refuses to hold grudges. She says holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for your enemy to die of it. Izuna's never been one for seething silently if she's in the mood to retaliate, nor the sort to delay vengeance if it can be carried out instantly.
"Speaking from experience, Tarumae?" Karifuri asks wickedly, then hurriedly catches the Go stone flicked at his face.
"There was that one time," Squad Mentor Tsukiyo says dryly, lips twitching as her friend and age-mate glares at her.
"I apologised to Momo-san for that!" Tarumae snaps, jabbing a finger.
"She did stop knocking your teacups off the shelves eventually," Iwasaku agrees with aplomb. Tarumae hisses at him and snaps down another Go stone; Miune winces across the goban, trying to salvage more than Iwasaku was allowed to.
Tajima doesn't answer any of them; he's watching Asane-san. Asane-san was Tajima's Mentor, back before Tajima was Outguard Head; the man's been retired for longer than Izuna's been alive, but he's no less sharp for that.
Asane-san's taking his time over the Go game he was playing against the Drowning Breath, examining all the ways the Senju was losing with a leisurely eye. Homusubi wanders a little closer; it's a poorly-played board, all unfinished gambits and a critical lack of long-term planning sabotaging the Senju's play. Typical Senju, for all that the Drowning Breath has the quickest hand and most dangerous mind out of all those still living; they only match the Uchiha through sheer brute force, which cannot be brought to bear on the Go board.
"What am I missing, Mentor?" Tajima asks, tone dry but fond as he nods to Tsuyoshi, who begins putting the stones on the board between them back into their bowls, their game completed.
"Try not to antagonise your son-in-law too much, Tajima-sama," Asane-san says mildly, smiling knowingly at the Outguard Head. "He's green still but he's a quick learner; not afraid to give ground in order to reach his objective, either."
A sore loser, Homusubi interprets; that he knew already. Though the Drowning Breath doesn't seem to consider Izuna's victory and capture of him to count as 'losing' exactly; probably because he's enjoying himself enough in her bed to consider it as coming out ahead regardless of the bindings around his chakra and soul.
He's not seen the seals for himself, but Izuna's nothing if not ruthlessly efficient in achieving her goals, no matter how peculiar her methods can look at times. To keep the Drowning Breath in her bed he needs to be bound well enough for Tajima to agree he's not going to cause trouble, and the Outguard Head's standards are unrelentingly high; Izuna knows this, and that her father doesn't make exceptions. She wanted a Senju concubine and she's got one; the Drowning Breath isn't going anywhere, not now and not ever.
After enough time he might forget he ever wanted to.
"Hn." Tajima stands and walks closer, leaning over to study the board more closely. Asane-san smiles, small and secretive:
"You learn a lot from a man when you play Go, Tajima-sama."
"A game, Homusubi?" Tsuyoshi asks idly from behind him.
"Why not?" It will pass the time, and now the Drowning Breath is gone he's not feeling his neck prickle at the man's chakra, smooth and deceptive as undertow.
Keika picks her moment carefully and corners Yagura by the well at the back of the Clan Hall; she has much more free time now the clan's warriors aren't constantly skirmishing with the Uchiha, so she served tea to Tokonoma-ji, using up the last of the water in the kitchen without replacing it, then waited for her uncle's new right hand to come out to refill the jars so he can make tea for Tokyōma-kun.
"Yagura." She uses no honorifics; she's noticed something lately, now her workload has lessened and she's no longer devoting every spare moment to preparing for the next wave of dying kinsmen to be dragged back from the brink, and wants to find out if she's right.
Her uncle's new Right Hand freezes briefly, then ducks his head politely. "O-Keika-san."
He does not make eye contact, and there is a hint more colour around his ears and cheekbones than there was before he realised she was there. So maybe there is something to Sōka-chan's teasing after all.
Keika knows she's not pretty; Hashirama has more of their mother's looks than she does, has the softness of her jaw and cheekbones, the smoothness of her hair, the warmth of her smile, the gentle amber of her eyes. Instead Keika has Butsuma's squarer jaw and sharply protruding cheekbones, Butsuma's black eyes and –if she is honest with herself– much of his temper. But that temper is shared with Ōka-ba, so Keika minds it less than the unfortunate nature of her face. It would be a handsome enough face on a man, but she is not a man.
She was born with her mother's golden hair, but as she aged it reddened so now it is the colour of a fiery sunset rather than a soft dawn. It makes her look more like Ōka-ba, whose hair is as much red as brown, and who also has Keika's square jaw although her features are softer. It helps to know that the severity of her features and the width of her jaw both come from the grandfather she never got to meet; most of her other aunts and uncles take very much after Obaasan in looks, even though only Tanka-ba has hair in true Uzumaki scarlet.
And yet here is Yagura, who apparently believes her to be more pleasant to look at than any of her sweeter-faced cousins. It's rather unlikely.
That's not what she ambushed him here for though.
"It wasn't Shitomi-san who killed Butsuma-san, was it." She does not ask; she knows it wasn't Shitomi, who probably never had an original thought in his life and never questioned the duty laid before him. Butsuma could have ordered Shitomi's nieces killed and he'd have found some way to justify it, like he justified his sons' deaths on the battlefield far too young.
Butsuma was not a role model to be emulated in the treatment of one's children; most of the clan do actually recognise that. Shitomi however would only have raised a blade against his clan head if violently hallucinating, which the state of the room afterwards did not support as a theory. Nor did the testing of his blood, to see if more poisons than the obvious had been used on him.
Yagura stays still, the large water jar from the clan hall's kitchen resting against his hip, his eyes on the cracked, overgrown flagstones around the well and pump as though they are the most interesting thing in the world. Which is answer enough.
"I thought as much; you did it, and you had help," Keika says, resting her hands on her hips, "otherwise it wouldn't have been anywhere near as tidy. No, I'm not asking who; I disowned him, he was going to get the clan killed and I don't care. But you did it; what were you expecting to get out of it?" She's genuinely curious, because Yagura definitely wasn't conspiring with Tokonoma-ji, so the best he could have hoped for was getting executed for murder. He used his own signature weapon on Shitomi, for Buddha's sake!
"My sister's life," Yagura says quietly, setting the water jar down on the ground and finally looking her in the eye. "My nephews' lives. Your life. A future for the Senju beyond a mass grave and a footnote in the Daimyo's records."
"Nothing for yourself."
"I do not mind dying, O-Keika-san. Not if it means those dear to me will live."
"You count me as one of those dear to you?"
Yagura's eyes instantly drop to the water jar, shoulders tensing; he does not answer, which is also an answer.
"Yagura, look at me." He straightens, eyes focusing somewhere in the vicinity of her chin; it will have to do. "I don't understand why." Why her? Why has he not said anything?
The warrior swallows. "O-Keika-san is… most admirable, in her dedication to her principles," he mutters unevenly, "and, and, very beautiful." That last admission is barely a whisper.
"Yagura I wear either plain medical gear or my mother's old kimono, none of which suit me. I am not beautiful." Yes, her general shape is not so different from her mother's, but she is a full head shorter; the clothes therefore to not drape as flatteringly and they do not suit her colouring. Yes she is fashionably lacking in curves, but she is by no means slender; she is as stocky as her farmer grandmother was, her mother's mother who married a warrior of the main family however removed from the ruling line.
She is a medic, not the wife of a clan head who will spend his earnings on fine and flattering silks to enhance her loveliness. But her mother's kimono are good quality and should not be wasted, so she wears them.
"O-Keika-san is beautiful," Yagura insists mulishly, eyes still fixed on her chin; no, her mouth. "Fine clothing does not confer beauty."
Part of her wants to laugh. Another part is pointing out that she's very unlikely to get a better offer than this, because a man who thinks a woman looks delightful even when dressed in formless medical scrubs is definitely in love.
Yagura is kind. He is kind to Tokyōma-kun and always has been, despite the uncertainty of her teenage cousin's status; he is also kind to medics and vassals and widows and orphans. She has not thought of marriage until now –has not had the time or the energy– but she would like to marry a kind man.
Her lips twitch into a smile; Keika watches Yagura swallow nervously, the knot in his throat bobbing.
"If that is how you feel, Yagura," she says, light and ever so slightly playful as she lingers over his name, "why have you never said anything? Do you not want to do more than admire me from afar?"
"I–" Yagura drags his eyes up to meet hers "–O-Keika-san? You, I?"
"Please speak clearly, Yagura." She is definitely teasing now, Keika recognises internally, but she can't quite bring herself to stop. This is who she is; she's not going to change that.
Her flustered suitor takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. "O-Keika-san," he says determinedly, holding her gaze, "I would be most honoured if you would permit me to court you."
"You have my permission," Keika agrees lightly, rather charmed that he managed to actually get the words out, "but please drop the 'O'; I would rather be addressed by name by those close to me."
"Keika-san?" Yagura manages, looking distinctly desperate to maintain some degree of mannerly recognition despite it being far more usual in-clan to drop honorifics altogether.
Keika can't help grinning at his hunted expression. "You know, the only person in-clan that Butsuma consistently called 'san' was my mother. And only after he married her." According to Ōka-ba, at least.
Yagura blushes vibrant scarlet from hairline to collarbones and covers his face with both hands. Keika laughs, feeling lighter than she has in years. Oh, he's adorable and she never noticed before now. She'll have to start making up for lost time.
"You should probably fill up the water jar, Yagura-san," she teases, "My cousin still does not have his tea."
The warrior glares at her, rueful, flustered and softly wondering, but does pick up the jar and set it under the pump, then work the handle to bring up the water. Keika watches him for a little while, seeing that effortless but well-restrained strength in a new light for the first time, then steps closer.
"Can I help Keika-san?" Yagura asks, pausing to push some loose hair out of his face.
"Come by the Healing Hall later, Yagura-san?" She asks, feeling suddenly a little shy. "We could eat dinner together."
He blinks at her, eyes so wide and dazed she almost reaches out to check him for a concussion. "Yes! I will!" He manages after a slightly long pause. "Have a good afternoon, Keika-san!"
"I will," Keika agrees, then gives in to mischief and leans in to quickly kiss his cheek as he bends down to pick up the full jar. She times it perfectly; Yagura stares at her for several seconds, then hauls the full jar up into his arms and retreats at speed back to the door of the kitchen garden, his ears still bright pink.
He is adorable. Keika returns to the Healing Hall with a spring in her step and a surprisingly light heart; it seems that the ceasefire has brought her something good after all, in the midst of all the losses.
Tōka had been there when this was decided, but evidently she'd been too worn down by the negotiation process to properly process what it meant. But now the rains are over and the clan needs to get on with their half of the building project.
"No we will not have Hashirama grow the hall!" she snaps, slamming her palm down on the table and interrupting the ongoing disagreement. "For one, it's cheap, for two, it's disrespectful to host shinobi guests in a chakra construct when we legally designate those as 'temporary dwellings' and three, Aburame kikaichū eat chakra. Expecting them to host in a building that is made with chakra would be taken as a ploy to distract them." Never mind that it would put the Uchiha Clan's backs up, expecting them to put themselves at ease while surrounded by her blockhead cousin's chakra.
She is very grateful to her little brother, for finding out the 'temporary dwellings' detail.
"So we build it the slow way," Tousan says, quelling all possible protest. "So next is the matter of design."
"As a building intended for hosting noble guests, it needs to have shōji and fusuma," Obaasan says firmly, "and tatami for sitting on."
"Which is all very well to say," Kaasan points out, "but is there anybody in the clan capable of making shōji, let alone fusuma? Not just the panels, but the fittings so they stand straight and move smoothly?"
There is a pause.
"Hire somebody," Yagura says firmly. "We can at least make the tatami, though we will have to buy more silk for the trimmings."
"So we have a tatami maker," Tōka picks up, nodding gratefully at Yagura for his suggestion, "and we hire a shōji craftsman. But what about the building's actual shape and design? Because we have to make a good impression, but we also should try to play our strengths or else our work is going to look tacky and cheap."
"I will carve the ranma to go over the partitions," Tousan says; "Hashirama's experimental foray into growing various luxury woods is going well, so we can afford to buy finer hardwoods for the internal fittings."
"I don't think we can hope to compete with the Uchiha in terms of internal decoration," Tōka admits ruefully, remembering the fabulously intricate fusuma of the Diplomatic Quarters, intended for the admiration of guests as much as the distraction of prisoners, "but if we go in the opposite direction, maybe?" Simplicity would be more easily achieved.
"Fashionably rustic?" Kaasan suggests. "Like those little tea huts nobles have in their grand gardens."
Tōka has seen quite a few of those; they ape the homes of farmers and fishermen, but with larger windows and entirely free of the clutter of habitation. "A tea hall, then? With several entrances, so as not to get into the sticky matter of precedence and also ensure that nobody feels slighted over not getting the seat of honour." She turns over one of the scraps of paper on the desk and sketches out a rectangle, adds doors on both the narrow ends and on one of the sides. "A central door for the Aburame, who are technically hosting as mediators, facing a large tokonoma so they get the seat of honour. Then doors on each side for Uchiha and Senju, so despite each side having a door at their back it's a guarded door." She adds internal partitions. "Two reception areas as well, for washing and preparing tea and storing food and whatever else."
Kaasan takes the sketch off her and moves it into the middle of the table, so everybody can see it.
"Unconventional," Obaasan states, "but it will let the clan play their strengths; most of the external walls can be fixed with large windows in, and we will only need fittings for moveable panels in a few places. Three at most: for the divisions between the main hall and the waiting areas, and for the front entrance." She adds a little square by the doorway on the long side of the rectangle; a genkan.
"And a suitably large overhanging roof, to protect the kake-shōji and katabiki-shōji, seeing as we'll have to fit them with washi rather than cotton or silk gauze," Tokyōma adds.
"The Uzumaki could supply us with float glass, clear or frosted," Obaasan suggests.
Everybody pauses to consider this.
"Glass makes it trickier to use a stove, doesn't it?" Tōka asks. She's never inhabited a building with glass windows herself, but she listened to Tobirama talking at length about his stay in Uzushio, where they use quite a lot of glass.
"Reduces privacy as well, if it's clear," Kaasan muses, "but it is also very fashionable."
"If we were building a residence, I would agree that glass was an excellent idea," Tousan decides eventually, "but we are building a negotiation hall, so offering a view of the outside is somewhat pointless."
"They would cut out the noise from the river though," Tōka points out. "We're going to have to build fairly close after all, and we should probably add a bridge in deference to the fact that it's entirely possible not everybody the Aburame bring with them will be shinobi trained."
"Us or the Uchiha? It's their land and they are technically hosting," her little brother counters.
"I will write and ask if the Uchiha will be building a bridge," Tousan says firmly, quelling the argument before it can get off the ground; Tōka narrows her eyes at Tokyōma, who sticks his tongue out at her. "But if we want glass katabiki-shōji for the front wall, we will have to hire an Uzumaki as well as a local craftsman; glass shōji require metal fittings, for their weight."
"I have a niece who is a glazier," Obaasan says firmly; "don't worry about that side of things, I will arrange it."
"So," Tōka summarises, taking her sketch back, "half-height glass windows on either side of the genkan, which will have shōji connecting to the main building and be bracketed by walls, and half-height paper windows bracketing a large tokonoma along the hall's back wall, and fusuma at either end leading to matching antechambers."
"How will the antechambers be furnished?" Kaasan asks. "More teahouse style?"
"That does seem wise," Tousan agrees. "Plain walls, half-height windows with paper panels and a kōshi door, the raised floor starting a little way inside, to create a space for shoes."
"Kōshi lattice over the outside of the glass and paper windows as well, for a uniform look?" Tokyōma suggests.
"A good thought," Obaasan agrees, "and tatami only in the main hall; we will have to provide guest slippers for using in the antechambers."
Tōka remembers her slippers left behind in the Diplomatic Quarters, but does not mention them; for all she knows they have been handed on to somebody else or burned by Izuna in a fit of pique. Actually that's last one's unlikely, but she probably isn't going to get them back either way.
"Boards for the external walls?" She asks.
"Boards and plaster, I think; exclusively plaster on the internal walls between the pillars, but boards outside up to the window-line and plaster above it," Tousan decides. "We're trying to lean into the rustic look, so we should commit."
"So a fancy kumiko design on the kōshi, rather than the usual straight battens?" Kaasan asks. "We should probably pick something auspicious."
"The clan has enough capable woodworkers to see to that, although the trick will be ensuring that everything matches," Tousan muses. "So, the question that remains is: cedar or cypress?"
"Cedar grows faster," Tōka says flatly, "and the trees are bigger. We're going to have to cut down a lot of mature trees for this, so let's at least pick ones that will recover quickly without Hashirama having to do more than get the seeds started." More prosaically, a lot of the Uchiha compound is built from cypress –the Diplomatic Quarters included– so she'd rather avoid it. Yes the scent of hinoki is pleasant and the wood is highly rot-resistant, but it now has uncomfortable connotations for her.
Tobirama's sense of smell is even better than hers; she hopes this isn't giving him problems too.
"Sugi it is then," her father agrees. "Tōka, will you supervise this?"
"Of course, Otousan." Because it is her design, partly her idea, and more prosaically because since becoming Clan Heir she is now one of the few people who can tell Hashirama 'no' and have it stick. Because her blockhead cousin will want to get involved in this, and be pouty when she tells him he can't because his chakra is undiplomatic.
Hashi will have to settle for carrying a quarter of the clan's current income on his broad shoulders, with their new commercial plantation of tamanu trees for the Uzumaki ship-builders and camphor laurel for incense and medicine. The south end of the compound now smells pervasively of camphor, but the process for extracting it from wood chippings is simple and the money is good, especially since they are leaving the local market alone entirely and selling mostly to merchants in Rain, to be traded into Earth and Wind or further west.
Tōka is trying not to think what the Uzumaki are going to do with their ship-building boom. That's not her business. On an entirely unrelated note, she doesn't like Water Country pirates at all and they have everything coming to them, the ones who are actually young bored nobility raiding the coastline for fun in particular.
"Best to start right away," Kaasan counsels her; "you can measure out the foundation and uproot the trees that are in the way, and with the river being high from the rains you can judge how far back from the bank is sensible. We want the building to last, after all." With all the effort and money they're sinking into it, it had better last.
"Who should I take for this part?" Tōka asks. Construction is very much not her field.
"Kazuya-san; I'll introduce you," Yagura offers, standing. "I'd suggest somebody with a feel for Earth as well, but you have that."
Her elemental ninjutsu is passable, yes; she mostly uses it for sensing vibrations underfoot, as Uchiha genjutsu do not mask those. Possibly because they're unaware of them; she's not about to mention it and lose her advantage though.
Chigi lets himself be dragged along in Tobirama's wake as his former commander leaves the shiny new meeting hall at his wife's side, wearing a kimono fancier than Chigi's ever seen on any client's wife or mistress, tied with an obi that hangs to his calves like he's a maiko not a blooded warrior.
Shurō might have let the pretty gauzy silks fool him, but Chigi knows better; Tobirama has a whisper of chakra moving under his skin and he's put on muscle since he was taken captive. He may have married Izuna to keep Tōka alive, but the way he moves and how he looks at his captor says he's enjoying himself far more than a prisoner ought.
As a husband himself, Chigi can accept that being married to somebody you love is highly enjoyable. It's just a surprise to find out that Izuna is what Tobirama is into; Chigi hadn't thought his squad leader liked anybody that much.
The interesting thing is that his commander looks at home in the sumptuous silks, elaborately braided hair knotted high on his head, a furled fan in his hand and shaded by a pretty blue paper umbrella. It reminds Chigi of the leopards, sprawled sleepily over the floor cushions in Tobirama's old house, permitting the façade of domestication because being fed and pampered is comfortable, but no less utterly wild than when running through the snow on the hunt.
No less likely to claw your face off on a whim, either.
Arriving at the water's edge with a good view of the bridge, Izuna produces a blanket out of nowhere, then a rolled-up tatami and a box. Tobirama evidently recognises the box, as he unfurls his fan in order to eyeball his wife judgementally over the top of it.
Izuna smiles, utterly impervious. "I thought you might like to host for a less scornful audience, Takara."
She keeps calling the commander that; calling him precious and calling him property in the same breath. It seems strangely well-received though; Tobirama's expression lightens, the fan is flicked closed again and threaded through his obi cords, the umbrella is handed off to Izuna and Chigi's commander settles himself gracefully on the tatami, flicking the hanging tails of his obi as he sits with a well-practiced movement so they trail behind him across the blanket without creasing.
Tobirama then looks up to meet his eyes with a small but demanding smile, glancing onwards to Keimi-san and then to Shurō and Un-san, who is here mainly because she's Maki's aunt and Maki is desperate for details of how their commander is doing. "Please sit," he says, tone polite and utterly unyielding, "and I will serve tea."
They sit as Tobirama unpacks the box, revealing tea utensils; this is a formal tea then. However there is no brazier, and after filling the iron pot Tobirama casually hands it to his wife, who obligingly heats it between her hands as he sets out plates with daifuku, then individual tea bowls. Thankfully Keimi-san recognised what was going on and settled in the position of first guest, otherwise they'd all be sunk in the depths of ignorance; Chigi has never done more than watch tea ceremonies before, and that was only twice, on different bodyguarding missions several years apart.
The plates are glazed white with olivine green rims and undersides, and the small tea bowls Tobirama confidently and comfortably whisks the thin tea in have black glazed insides and rims contrasting olivine green outsides, each bowl with a subtle and irregular carved pattern on the outside that the glaze has settled into. The tea is handed out, one bowl at a time, and as Chigi accepts his he realises it is not a carving in the side of his cup but a small child's hand, imprinted in the clay while it was soft, the thicker glaze filling the indentation highlighting the lines of the palm and the delicate whorls of the skin over the fingers.
The other side of his cup has two more subtle indents, one round, the other a cluster, doubtless the thumb and fingertips of this child's other hand as they picked up the bowl. Such a whimsical and intensely personal decoration for formal tea-ware; Chigi wonders how old these bowls are, and whether the child who decorated them so earnestly and artlessly is even still alive.
Maybe he will take his children to a potter while the negotiations are ongoing, and commission everyday teacups marked with the imprints of their hands under the glaze. Tiny handprints that will not fade, a precious memory preserved for as long as the cups last.
It is very fancy tea. The daifuku is comfortingly mundane in comparison, if with a slightly unusual flavour in the coating around the anko filling. Then once the ceremony is over Keimi-san opens up conversation:
"Perhaps you could stay here while Izuna-sama escorts Tōka-san around the guest house the Uchiha have built, Tobirama-kun; it would be good to catch up properly and everybody back on Uzushio is very keen to hear how you're getting on."
Tobirama smiles, but he also shakes his head. "Perhaps you could come over the bridge to the Uchiha side, Keimi-ba, and we could talk there instead."
"Why not on this side, Tobira-kun?" Keimi-san asks, smile fond but eyes sharp and shrewd. Chigi would like to know the answer to that as well.
"Off Uchiha land I can't leave my wife's reach, Keimi-ba."
He says it so simply, so lightly, as though it's not an indication of how tightly Izuna has leashed him; how unrelentingly harsh the fuuinjutsu binding him is, that he cannot leave his wife regardless of whether he wants to or not. Chigi realises he has clenched his teeth and deliberately loosens his jaw; raging will not help his commander.
The Uzumaki glassmaker turns to smile at Izuna, who is indeed sitting within arm's reach of Tobirama, but so casually Chigi hadn't really noticed it. That is not how you're supposed to sit for a tea ceremony, he remembers belatedly, even if only thin tea is being served.
"Surely you can agree he'd be safe with us, Izuna-sama? It's not like he's going to run off."
Izuna meets the redhead's gaze with an unyielding smile. "That would be neglecting my duty to him, Keimi-san; I cannot guarantee his safety off Uchiha land. The Uchiha and the Senju are not at peace, and so Tobirama-san is as much a prisoner of war as he is my spouse; I cannot relinquish him to his kin without risking the Senju would then choose to turn away from the peace process."
Keimi-san does not follow that leading comment, focusing instead on an earlier point that Izuna had neatly skimmed over:
"You married a prisoner of war, Izuna-sama? And are keeping him as such?"
"I could only marry him because he is a prisoner of war, Keimi-san," Izuna says mildly. "I took him prisoner for that very reason, and under clan law I cannot release him without facing severe penalties."
"But he's here, off Uchiha land," Shurō points out.
Izuna smiles, sly as any leopard with blood on their whiskers. "And he cannot leave my reach, Shurō-san."
"Surely you can grant a little flexibility, Izuna-sama," Keimi-san persists.
"Oba-san, no," Tobirama interrupts before Izuna can reply; "I don't particularly want my Lord-Wife fiddling with the fuuinjutsu she is binding me with."
"Not even to loosen the noose, Tobira-kun?"
"No." Tobirama is adamant, tone and chakra in complete accord. "It's not Containment or even Binding, Keimi-ba; Izuna is an Invocation Master."
That means nothing at all to Chigi, but Keimi-san goes grey. "Tobira-kun, nephew, surely not?"
"Did Obaasan not tell you?" Tobirama's smirk is tired and lopsided. "She has seen them. She did not think much of my chances. As they are at present I can do much; I would not gamble that against my odds of a longer leash."
'Them,' not 'it;' multiple seals, and in a style even an Uzumaki considers dangerous. Tobirama is well and truly stuck then. No wonder he is behaving himself so placidly; all he can do is wait and enjoy the benefits offered him by his marriage, while hoping for greater freedoms granted at some nebulous point in the future.
"You are so determined to bring the Senju to account that you would harness a god?" Keimi-san whispers, no longer grey but still pale and strained around the edges. Izuna recoils.
"Keimi-san, one does not bind a kami; not ever, not if one wishes to go on living."
"You are an Invocation Master, Izuna-sama; do not argue semantics with me!"
"Semantics matter, Keimi-san," Izuna retorts, fingers flexing over the handle of the swan-printed round fan in her lap, "especially in fuuinjutsu! And I say: one does not harness a kami. Safer to saddle the sea and bridle the wind, and who knows where that would take you?"
"And yet you use the power of the divine in your seals."
"I do not use," Izuna repeats, slightly testy: "I request; I entreaty; and occasionally I align myself with the kami in question, shaping the seal to suit the preferences of the one whose assistance I seek rather than to my own desires. I do not think of what I want, but rather of what could be given." She smiles, eyes hard and lips sharp. "Uchiha are priests before we are warriors, Keimi-san; we are practiced in the ways of kami. So many of my kin would not wear their prayers on their faces were it not so."
Chigi cares not at all that the Uchiha are priests; karma is yet to strike him down for killing them, after all. It does not change the fact that Izuna has entangled a god in her bindings on Tobirama, then bound him to her through mortal laws for good measure.
"Those are seals?" Tobirama asks, turning to examine Naka-san's sharingan tattoos more attentively.
"Some of them could possibly be considered such," Izuna concedes, "but as I said, they are prayers first and foremost. That the kami invoked do in fact answer those prayers says more about the sincerity of the requests than the potency of the ink or any binding inherent in the design."
Tobirama turns back to his wife, reaching out and tracing his fingers along the magatama necklace snaking across her face, under her left eye, up the bridge of her nose and over the other eyebrow. "Is this a prayer, then?"
"It's several different things," Izuna says lightly, smiling at her concubine. "Firstly it's Amaterasu's necklace, which as you know was a highly contentious piece of jewellery."
"Susano-o birthed five gods from it," Tobirama says with the confidence of one who has already studied for this test and scored very highly on it too.
"He did indeed! Ame-no-Oshihomimi, Ame-no-Hohi, Amatsuhikone, Ikutsuhikone, and Kumano-no-Kusubi," Izuna says cheerfully. "Which incidentally set off the whole sibling spat that led to the 'hide in a cave' thing Amaterasu did later."
"Context," Tobirama muses, smirking fondly. "What else is it, Lord-Wife?"
"Secondly, it does indeed have a few additional effects," Izuna admits, "because none of you warriors ever looked at my eyes but you did look at the tattoo."
"That is how you kept on snaring me with genjutsu, isn't it," Tobirama says with a sigh, shoulders sagging. "I should have guessed; creating affinity between the magatama of the tattoo and the ones on your sharingan?"
Chigi also feels slightly stupid; Izuna's genjutsu prowess was always a little baffling with how persistently she was able to deceive people despite none of them ever looking her in the eye. Finding out that it was fuuinjutsu-enhanced is somewhat terrifying in retrospect.
"A good guess! Not the full effect, obviously," Izuna concedes with a smile, "but it did give me an edge."
"And what else?" Tobirama asks. "I know there's more; that's only one effect and you said 'a few'."
She laughs. "Leave me some secrets, Takara!"
"I will have to tease them out of you later then," Tobirama muses, visibly looking forward to it already.
"Maybe," Izuna demurs, lifting up her fan so as to smirk at Tobirama over the top of it, the paper curve covering her mouth and nose but not hiding the gleeful creases in the corners of her eyes. "Or maybe my spouse could guess what other properties my tattoo could have, based on what he already knows."
Tobirama is instantly distracted by the puzzle; that much hasn't changed, clearly. He stares into the middle distance, absently fanning himself, as Izuna packs away the tea things, then lets himself be coaxed up onto his feet so she can pack up the tatami and blanket as well.
Chigi also puts his sandals back on and stands, as does Keimi-san; Izuna has given them a lot to think about.
"Is it to do with the kami who were birthed from the necklace? Do they impart specific properties upon it?" Tobirama asks as Izuna puts up the umbrella again and they set out towards the bridge, where the other Uchiha are waiting with Tōka and the rest of their thrown-together patrol group. No vassals, but then again that's kind-of expected.
"That's a very good guess," Izuna says, which is not a 'no' but also not a 'yes' either. "It does in fact let me do some interesting things with bears, but only if there are bears already."
Chigi has no idea what the previously mentioned kami have to do with bears and is honestly afraid to ask. Even though his commander is laughing and leaning in to kiss his wife's cheek; Izuna has already proven to be extremely bad for his peace of mind and he honestly understood less than half that conversation about gods and seals. Enough to be wary of even trying to rescue Tobirama, even with Uzumaki assistance.
"Is there a rice effect?" Case in point; Chigi has no idea what Tobirama's talking about right now.
"Well you do keep asking where I keep my mochi…"
Tobirama laughs again; well, at least Chigi can assure Maki and Koenma that their commander is happy, despite the distinctly unfavourable circumstances. That's something.
He also has Un-san to help him answer all of Maki's inevitable questions, which is a relief. Shurō has never been one for subtleties.