Konoha Province
Location: House Uchiha's domains.
" Mother?"
The lady of the house, Mikoto, was gathering tomatoes in the fields plantations. The Uchiha lord,Fugaku, didn't like that she went to the meadows alone to collect the tomates, he thought it was dangerous aside from being beneath for a lady of such status, but she ignored his remarks and went anyway.
" Mm-mm? Yes?" She said as she held a basket with her one hand and the other, she grabbed the fresh tomatoes.
" Can I ask you something?"
" Of course Sasuke!"
" Why keep Father postponing my warrior initiation rite?" Sasuke asked,firmly as Mikoto stopped, astonished with such a straightforward question coming from her youngest son, Sasuke, who was considered by her and by Itachi the baby of the family.
The passage rites are often followed in long tiresome rituals at coming-of-age ceremonies. And Sasuke didn't do any of it.
" I am almost 18 years old."
" Your father knows what is the best for you."
" Hn." Buffed Sasuke.
While Itachi was their golden son, Sasuke was their…..well…second…son. Mikoto had an idea why her husband didn't initiate him to the warriors's ways, despite the fact that she knew her younger cub longed to become a warrior.
" I will talk with your father."
Sasuke only blinked, casting an indifferent stare at the basket full of tomates.
Mikoto was worried for Sasuke sometimes, actually, most of the time, for one just didn't know what was happening in the aloof boy's mind.
You just didn't know what he was going to do or say.
Mikoto watched her son, with smiling eyes of black as the twilight as he went close to her, grabbing a tomate from the basket, before walking away.
Sasuke wasn't fit for a knight's life like Itachi was.
After Sasuke went away, Lady Mikoto returned from the bucolic fields of red and green shortly after heading straight to the kitchen, where all of the cook and servants bowed to the lady of the house, as she entered it.
" Oh my lady. Here let me help you!" An old cook with no teeth volunteered to help, not giving lady Mikoto enough time to respond, because the old cook was already clutching the basket and resting it on the marble cooking table full of raw meat and vegetables.
Suddenly out of the blue, everything became silent, no one dared to open their mouth: Lord Fugaku was there, near the kitchen entrance with a very very disapproving look on his face.
With just one single click with his hands, the message was given. Everybody else left the kitchen area heading to the courtyard of the great Uchiha manor.
" For Susanoo's sake, must you do this ridiculous thing with your hands!"
Fugaku hesitated a little bit before responding to her. She never cursed, she was a proper lady highborn and he was an ogre, despite being blueblood too.
Mikoto only cursed when she was really mad.
Fugaku snorted: " We have been married for almost 30 years and you still disobey me."
" It is a wife's duty to disobey her husband." Laughed Mikoto, for she knew that to get under his skin, she had to play brutal.
" No it is not." Gruffed her husband.
" The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn her head any way she wants, as an ancient proverb says."
" This proverb is wrong. It is not safe for you, my lady, to wander off the fields and hills. At least call for me when you plan on going because I am your husband and as the man of the family I vowed to protect you from any exposed danger."
Mikoto went over to her husband, placing her hands on his neck, smiling: "Love of my life, everything is fine now, I am here, am I not?"
" Yes." Fugaku looked away, flushed.
" Oh by the way I have something of extreme importance to tell you. Our wolfling wants to start his passage of rite. He thinks he is too old. He knows, Fugaku. He is aware that we keep postponing it."
" Sasuke is just not fit for the warrior's ways of life . He is…too…I don't know, Mikoto. We can send him to that wizard, Orochimaru, that lives secluded in the misty mountains, where he can learn the ancient magic. Or what about sending him to the capital where he can be initiated in the ways of the priesthood and serve the Gods? What about Sasuke becoming a scholar in the Hyuuga Academia?"
" Fugaku, we are not sending him to Senju's landing. A hawk is not fit to live in a zoo."
Senju's landing was not warm nor welcoming to Uchihasons.
" I worry for our boy." Fugaku took his wife's delicate hands with his roughed ones.
" My dear, I understand that Sasuke is too much of a…."
" A silk-stocking type of gentleperson. Such a refined lad with such…such.."
" Pureness. A child of the sun."
" More of a child of the moon." Snorted Fugaku. " It's just…when I look at him, I see you, your smile, your eyes, your hair. He is just not fit to be a knight like Itachi or I."
" Well, Why don't we ask the Gods to give our son a chance to prove himself?"
" Mikoto, are you serious?"
" A change of heart would be be good for both of us."
" I trust your judgment."
" Trust my female intuition."
" Father !!! " Itachi thundered over to them, fast like a cheetah. " Senju Calvary approaches our lands."
Senju men. They never came to Uchiha's domains to pay their respects. Not that Fugaku cared about it, but they only contacted the Uchiha House when the Devil was on the loose or if it was troubling times for the Senju House and for the other weaker houses of Konoha Province.
To be continued…….
