Cho never met her first father. He'd left her mother widowed and pregnant with only his elderly mother in the family. Cho's second father-the only man she'd ever known in the role, had married her mother anyway-and promised to raise Cho as his own.
It was a promise he'd kept, even when Cho's mother had died giving birth to her first and only son. Her father had never treated her any differently. Cho had only been five then. Two years younger than her brother had been when he'd died on the battlefield.
It was hard sometimes, to look at everything they had accomplished, and not be bitter that they hadn't managed it before her younger brother had learned the grand fireball jutsu and become a warrior of the clan. It was a silly, useless thought.
Her brother's death had been a year before the Senju assasination that had them fleeing their former home. One year, almost to the day, that Akane had been added to the warrior ranks and the changes to the clan began.
She had been so young then, a waif even compared to many warriors youger her than her.
But there had been a strength to her even then. This small little girl that made it back-burned, bruised, and battered, but she always made it back to the clan. It was inspiring. The murmurs about other women wanting to join the war efforts had never quieted after Akane was conscripted. Some of the louder and more skilled ones had quietly become Kunochi-but Cho wasn't supposed to know about that.
Akane was a survivor.
She would always make it back from her missions. So Cho had to make sure everything was in place for the next plan, the next improvement that couldn't save Cho's little brother, but might save her little sister's husband, or Cho's, or their children.
Akane would be the clan Matriarch. She would usher in an era of equality. Everyone would have a roof over their head and enough to eat-even if they didn't have a Sharingan in the family. Akane could be trusted to care for everyone in the clan. She'd done it since she was a child. For no accolades, or reward, it had honestly given her more trouble than anything, but she never seemed to mind.
Akane cared.
She was the best of them. So she would make her way back from every mission she took-sometime hurt, but always, always alive.
Cho had to believe in that. The same way she believed her father would make it back from every mission that took him from her, she believed her friend would make it back.
She ignored all of the systems Akane had religiously set in place in case she didn't. She ignored the letter Akane had handed her so she could keep their work going should the worst happen.
They were simply routine precautions, just reasonable things on the bottom of Cho's to-do list. At best precautions if Akane was ever hurt bad enough she would take more time than they had allotted for such things. Nothing truly final would happen to the best person Cho had ever known.
The gods couldn't be that cruel. Cho ignored everything about her own life that had long proven otherwise.
Akane was different.
She had to be.
Especially once her father got hurt and Akane had found a way for him to keep going.
Cho had long pledged her life to Akane and her cause, but that simple fact that Akane had brought the light back into her fathers eyes had cemented something beyond words.
She had to do more, do better, she had to prove to Akane that she was worthy of all of her care and consideration, of all of the efforts she'd made on Cho's behalf. Chi had to work hard, or she wouldn't be worthy of her friendship and trust.
Cho had initially approached her for such selfish reasons, she couldn't help but be ashamed of that after the fact. She hadn't been the only one-but that still didn't make Cho feel much better about it. Especially because she still did want to marry into Akanes' family.
Her step mother had been the one to push her to befriend Akane. Like many other women of a lower Lineage-she hoped that proximity to the future clan Matriarch might net Cho a better marriage.
Her step mother had no idea that Cho wasn't of her fathers bloodline, so she had always been very careful to treat her as well as she did her own daughters. Naturally she had to encourage Cho to do her best to land the best marriage she could. She could then treat it as incidental that the marriage could benefit their family.
Cho had been ambitious. If she had to suck up to the future clan matriarch for benefits, she'd thought she might as well marry into Akanes family and make sure she was entitled to more than she gave everyone else. Becoming her sister in law was clearly the easiest way to ensure that happened.
Her intial target had been Naoya. He was much older than her of course, but he was unmarried at the time and the idea was to marry a Sharingan warrior at the end of the day. She'd thought of Akio as the more likely result, but a second choice nonetheless. Her father was a senior warrior-she knew a husband who both earned that title and carried their clan bloodline limit, would have an even better chance at survival. She was an Uchiha, pragmatism always came before affection when choosing a husband.
When Naoya brought over a wife, she'd put the idea to bed. It had briefly resurfaced when she realized who Emiko was actually married to-but she hadn't truly cared anymore by then. The thought of two women marrying each other had confused her for a while, but then she remembered how important Emiko was to their efforts to feed the clan and decided with some finality that it was none of her business.
By the time the Glass houses had come up, Cho had been sold on making the clan a better place and marrying into Akanes family had seemed superfluous.
She'd noticed Akios crush on her, of course. Cho may not have had the gift of the Sharingan, but anyone with a working pair of eyes could have figured it out. The way he, a trained warrior, would fumble anything he had in his hands whenever she walked into a room was vaguely gratifying. But Cho had long chosen having a career of her own over marriage by then.
She wasn't one to waste her time with unnecessary things, and Akane had already proven herself as someone who rewarded effort. Cho's position among all of her hanger ons spoke for itself. She hadn't needed a good husband once she could support herself. Her stepmother would never dream of throwing her out when Cho brought so much money home. Even more than her father-some days.
Besides-she'd been making a difference.
Cho had grown up during war time. Hunger had been a far too intimate friend growing up. She knew the pain of working through the day, ignoring her rumbling stomach even as she watched her brother eat twice the amount of food on her plate.
It warmed her heart to see that didn't have to be the case anymore. There were non-lineage children with baby fat now. There were kids that had the energy to play shinobi instead of poking at the ground in loose semi circles or flicking pebbles at each other. She'd recently walked into an incredibly intricate game of hand slapping Akane had begun once that had taken a life of its own in the clan. She'd had to force the beaming smile of her face lest she damaged her carefully crafter level headed and calm reputation.
Cho knew hunger well, it was something she only wished on the Senju.
There had been months in the winter when her family could only eat rice. She had known to be grateful. Especially after her mother died. Her father could have turned her away any time. He could have decided her small bowl of food would have been better saved for his wife or his biological children.
He never had. Cho was determined to be filial to him. Not just out of gratitude-but because he was the only father she'd ever known, and he had more than lived up to the title. Cho knew plenty of other girls whose fathers were only seen at the diner table and funerals. Cho's father had always checked in before he left for missions, and hugged her tight when he made it back. He's been the one to insist she learn the grand fireball jutsu and taught her personally long before Akane turned it into a fad among non lineage daughters.
Her father, even aside from her new sisters and the little brother her stepmother had recently brought into the world, was the person she loved most. It was why she'd changed her mind about marrying Akio.
When her father lost his leg Cho had seen the light leave his eyes. Having a job, a way to still support his family brought it back. But before that Akio had showed up to her home, just when her father was freshly discharged and set rope and kunai around the house so her father could easily make his way around without his leg.
Making his own way to the dinner table had been the first time she'd spotted a wan smile on his face since he'd been told he could no longer serve as a shinobi. It was the most thoughtful thing a man had ever done for her. Cho had decided she would want to marry him after all there and then. Once Akane got her father a job, it was just a matter of being worthy of joining the family of her best friend.
Cho had taken to her duties with a vengeance. She rose with the sun every day. Checked in with even the lowest of managers, checked and double checked that all their enterprises ran smoothly and even subjected herself to tea with Ayumi Uchiha to ensure she had her fingers on the pulse of the clan.
It was useful to know who was cheating on who, what elder had recently made a cop they were trying to cover up, and most importantly; what the lineages thought of Akane.
Usually, tea with Ayumi Uchiha was a polite, bloodless thing. Cho far too loyal to Akane to approve of a mother that spurned her, but far too practical not to take every dreg of information the woman deigned to pass along. She steeped herself before each one and was sure to never make mistakes, but it was difficult to be civil to someone who made the life of her leader so difficult. Sometimes Akira Uchiha was invited along.
Those were her preferred tea sessions, Akira was clever in a way Cho wasn't. He could put together information faster, and ask questions she wouldn't think of. Young as he was, Akira was clearly well suited to the grey areas of information gathering in a way Cho, with her more linear thinking, simply wasn't.
The tea sessions became more frequent after Akanes accident. As useful as it was to have full time access to her best friend for their movement, Cho found she quite hated the sight of her best friend laid out on a hospital bed.
Ayumi had looked down at her imperiously when she shared the sentiment.
"The longer she's off the field the less likely she is to die," the woman had said, the soft downturn of her mouth managed to imply Cho was an idiot for not figuring that out.
She'd clenched her hands then, she didn't like Ayumi or her hypocrisy, and it was hard to keep that to herself when Ayumi made comments that made it sound like she cared so much about her daughter when she ignored her every day.
"Akane wants to help the clan in every way-that includes the battlefield," Cho had huffed, instead of expressing the much rider sentiment in her heart.
But there was no other way. Akane, always pushing the clan to be better, was pushing past systems that had been in place for centuries. And unlike the unhappy elders in charge of the general forces-the Lineage shinobi were pushing back.
Ayumi's information was invaluable then. She had no idea what her sources were. But within the three months it took Akane to heal, Cho learned more about the Lasting Embers gossip, feuds, and secrets than she doubted their very Lineage head knew about. It was imperative for redirecting anyone working against Akane. It was exhausting.
But her efforts soon bore fruit. Cho could go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that the clan orphans, a status only her fathers love had saved her from, had more options than ever. They could become gardeners, glassblowers, blacksmiths, and now healers too. A profession that even had a preference for women.
The soft glow of satisfaction came to a very dead end when Akira shook her awake desperately.
It was the first time Cho was on the Blackfoot of a calculation. Too late to do anything as Akira claimed to have overheard his mother and a Tsukuyomi elder speaking in a roundabout way of assuring Akanes' end.
They rushed over to her home immediately. It didn't take Ayumi long to work out what the plan had been. How there were well documented clans that used deadly poisons in the area Akane had been sent to. Even the Lineage shinobi that accompanied her, the very reason Akane had taken the mission, trying to broaden her network into the Lineages at last, were all considered expendable.
There wasn't one Sharingan user among them. A clear sign that something was wrong in retrospect. Painfully late retrospect. Their only lucky break they had was that Naoya had been home, it didn't take long for him to confirm the area Akane was headed to and head off at a run.
Naoya was a great shinobi-one of the best in the clan. He would bring Akane back. He would.
Cho had to believe that. So she would-Akane was alive until she saw a corpse. She hadn't failed her best friend, her sister in all but blood, until it was too late to make things up to her.
Naoya would bring her back.
And he did. It had cost him an eye, a painful price to pay for any shinobi, let alone an Uchiha, but she knew Naoya well enough to know it was a price he paid gladly.
He brought Akane back. They all rushed into her hospital room-even Ayumi. She leaned over her daughter as she brushed her hair out of her face with wet eyes and whispered apologies.
Cho's own eyes were flooded with grateful tears as she and Akira held on to eachother.
Akane was alive.
Unconscious, but alive.
Cho had been well on her way to being happy and relieved until the healer explained why her friend was unconscious. And what the poison had done to her.
"We only have two documented cases of this poison use," Rika, the only one they trusted to treat her, as they had the most life destroying blackmail on her, began slowly. "None of them survived it-but before it took their lives, it destroyed their ability to control their limbs. It's already very impressive Akane managed to survive at all-you might want to brace yourselves for having a full time patient."
"As long as she's alive-we'll figure something out," Naoya said with determination. He hadn't let go of Akane since he brought her in. Even as she lay in the bed, he held her hand.
Akane was alive-Cho tried to cling to that. She might get better, no one had ever survived the poison she had lived through-they would find a way. The thoughts felt flimsy in her head. Rika had brought the two files the clan had on the poison with her. Cho read through it mechanically.
She didn't want them to make sense. She hated what the words would mean.
"Congratulations," Cho heard herself say, as if from far away. "You got what you wanted."
Ayumi Uchiha flinched like she'd been struck. Cho watched her tremble without an ounce of sympathy.
"Not like this," The older woman whispered into the eerie stillness of Alkanes sickbed. "Never like this."
"And yet this is how you got it," Cho said mercilessly.
It was deeply, deeply unkind. Cruel in a way she'd never known her to be capable of. Cho knew she was lashing out, venting the hate in her heart for sauna shinobi long dead on Akanes mother instead. But no one knew if Akane would ever walk, let alone move under her own power, again. The world was already such a cruel place-what difference would her own cruelty make anyway?
X
Believe it or not Cho is genuinely the person most bitter about how Ayumi treats Akane. She was raised with the grace of a parent that chose her and does not in anyway understand what the fuck goes through Ayumi's head that has her turning away from her daughter-let alone someone as lovely as Akane.
Also yeah imma word of god it now; Akane is never getting a Sharingan. I feel like it would just undo a lot of her 'Sharingan-less Uchiha are people too' efforts. It's also a nice way of keeping me from going all Mary Sue and takes away the temptation of coming up with a lot of my own Sharingan nonsense. Maybe in another fic, someday.
Conversely Sharingan nonsense is how Akane made it back from the dead this time around. Bet your ass Naoya got his whole Magenkyo and Izanagied the hell out of his baby sitter.
Homeboy told death not today-Akanes coming home with me.
But coming back from the dead doesn't magically remove those awful poison side effects sooooooo on the next episode of war is hell, (the secret and significantly more accurate name for this fic); attempting recovery, more clan building and are there actually consequences for the matriarch that tried to kill the next one in line? We shall see.