It had taken about ten minutes of putting pressure on Akio to get him to crack.
Her youngest brother had never been great at keeping secrets, let alone telling Akane no when she looked at him with teary eyes. It may have been emotional manipulation-but Akane had the right to know just what kind of trouble her family was getting into without her.
Finding out that her fiancée and older brother had killed twelve elders for setting her up was terrifying. That they were getting away with it mostly because the assasination had been targeted at Tajima's political enemies and ultimately benefited the man helped calm some of her anxiety, but not as much as Akane wished it did. Tajima Uchiha was not exactly known to be understanding of those who didn't showcase their obedience to his whims, and Naoya had developed the perverse glee of going against him.
Hopefully that little fact was still a secret.
Akio insisted Cho said the only reason they were punished at all was because they did it without running it past the clan head first. It wasn't even a terrible punishment all things considered. Naoya had even managed to negotiate it down to doing a lot of missions for free instead of being temporarily exiled the way Madara had been.
They were getting away with it. She tried to focus on that part and not why they were being punished in the first place. It behooved Tajima Uchiha to have Akane betrothed to his son, and even if she couldn't quite figure out the reason for it, she had to live with the consequences of that choice. Akane didn't like what it said about her position in the clan.
She had always understood she didn't have the backing to support her position. She had basically built her power base in the clan from the ground up-she wasn't popular among anyone who had never needed her assistance. It wasn't news that the lack of Sharingan didn't make her a great candidate in the mind of most Lineage shinobi regardless. But she had never thought they would go so far as to try to take her life.
Akane was an asset to the clan.
Uchiha warriors had never been as well equipped or well fed as they were now because of her efforts. They'd even begun to fill up grain silos with stored grain in case of a famine. Something that would have reaped the lives of countless Uchiha otherwise. Akane had made concrete positive changes in the clan-and she had been made to pay for it with her life.
The thought made her stomach sink.
Even now the Tsukiyomi and Izanagi Lineages were trying to run a rumor campaign and credit the dead elders with the creation of her artifact. As things were shaking out, pretty much a solid eighty percent of the non-lineage shinobi believed Akane had been the one to create it, and almost every lineage shinobi was parroting the party line. She chose to ignore it and focus on moving forward, she'd take the supposed shame of trying to take credit for the elder's sacrifice gladly if it meant her brother's rather treasonous actions got swept under the rug-but that didn't help the bad taste in her mouth in the least.
It wasn't that she believed the entire Lineage Uchiha were some monolith that were working against her. She wasn't that arrogant. But was it really so much to ask for them to just not stand in her way?
Akane was working out, pushing herself back to warrior readiness mostly against the healer's advice. But she needed the distraction. Especially when she got caught off guard by the occasional painful spasms that didn't seem to be going anywhere.
Akane could walk again.
She could move her body and limbs under her own power. It was a miracle almost as big as her continued existence. Moreover, she had been a Kunochi for years. She was hardly a stranger to pain, unforgiving as the spasms were-Akane could power through them.
It was just preferable not to. It was better when she could lie in bed. Easier to breathe through them when she wasn't trying to hold herself up or still through them. It helped them pass quicker.
Considering that the alternative to her current condition was being a limp noodle in significantly more pain or dead, living with the occasional spasms that didn't seem to be going anywhere didn't seem so bad. It didn't mean Akane was happy that she was set to live the rest of her possibly still short life with them, or that she'd given up on finding a way out of them, but her current condition wouldn't stop her from being a shinobi or truly hinder her in the field, so Akane was working hard to reach her previous level of athleticism.
Part of that was taking as much of the newly available holy water in the healing halls whenever she had the chance.
Akane had been joking when she first referred to it that way, but Aiko had rolled with it and now every healer took a shift in which they just focused on churning out as much of the stuff as possible whilst in prayer. They were leaning heavily into the religious aspects of the artifacts' existence.
So far they had established it cured all types of fevers, colds, infections, and enough shoved at a slow and weak enough poison could mitigate it entirely. That didn't stop the healers from shoving it down the throat of every patient in the clan and hoping for the best.
There was another long term poison case in the clan that was actually more lucky than she had been. Genji Uchiha had been rendered completely blind by a poison in Mist country and had recovered his vision entirely after three months of daily doses of holy water. Akane tried not to be bitter, but the man had basically become a one man proselytizing machine. He was single handedly responsible for every man, woman, and child in the clan having consumed the holy water at least once. He'd taken upon himself to deliver it from house to house.
Akane had been more interested in finding the limits of her creation. Like the discovery that it lost all effect after exactly twenty eight days, or one moon cycle-but would otherwise work consistently. The cleansing strength was also growing in a way that was notable every couple of months but was otherwise indistinguishable from day to day. The holy water didn't actively heal injuries or anything. But it did help keep wounds from getting infected, seemed to increase the speed of scabbing over wounds in the first place, and even seemed to reduce pain, although Akane felt the last effect might just be a placebo. Genji would not shut up about the miraculous effects of holy water and the clan at large did seem to treat it as an all in one miracle drug.
Genji was also the person who most hounded Akane about the details about the artifact creation. Something else she didn't appreciate, but could hardly condemn the man for. There were already whispers of other artifacts, especially amongst the camp that belived she had been the one responsible for its creation.
It was a nice thought, but one Akane didn't really know what to do with.
She tried to meditate on it.
Akane lay in her semi-permanent residence in the healing halls. She'd lit a candle at her bedside and tamped it down as small as she could, until it was more ember than flame. Then she breathed with it.
She thought back to that day-how certain she'd been when she'd had no reason to be sure at all. The galaxy of souls floating in their shrine.
The not quite heat of souls.
That was what she was thinking about when she felt it again. The golden bone fire of her own soul. The others in the healing halls. The bonefired that represented every Uchiha in the clan where clear to her beyond her closed eyes-including one quietly meandering it's way to the window of the healing halls closest to her bed.
Akane knew what was happening before she understood it consciously, moving out of the way of the knife making its way towards where her head had just been.
The assassin, a fellow Uchiha, and proof that the forces against her in the clan where still quite determined to take her life, snapped to her bedside.
The candle she'd been idly smothering flared suddenly and hot, twinged blue. Catching her intrepid assassin off guard and making the man scream, being burned alive as he was.
Akane cut her flame when her assassin passed out from the pain.
Daiki was the first to find his way to her room-the screams having clued in every other shinobi patient to the attempt on her life.
Akane felt so tired.
She let Daiki, her old squad captain and Naoya's best friend, someone she could trust not to betray her, sweep her up into a hug as her night finished going to shit.
There was no way she would be able to stay in the healing halls after. It would be a small miracle if she could talk her brothers out of a full time protection detail.
"They're going to pay for this," Daiki promised, squeezing her firmly the way she'd used to whine to him to hug her properly as a much younger child. Akane snuggled into his embrace. She'd trained him well, he was even trying to comfort her verbally these days, but the thought didn't bring her much comfort at all.
Her clan was turning against her for a stupid position she'd never wanted in the first place. She'd been careful not to burn the face of her assailant, and recognized one of Madaras cousins, a distant member of the Amaterasu.
Akane couldn't keep excusing the Lineages attempts on her life. She wasn't a saint, she'd long resolved to survive out of spite, but the true driving force that kept her going was her family, her friends, everyone that needed her to make the clan a better place.
The clan wouldn't be better off if it went through a civil war. She didn't want to turn the regular troops against the Lineage shinobi. They were one clan. They were supposed to be better than this.
Akane would have vengeance, but her revenge wouldn't cripple the Uchiha. It would simply make the elders and whoever else kept making the attempts on her life wish she'd simply killed them instead.
It would also center other people's happiness above those of the main line.
Including her own.
Aside from outliving Tajima Uchiha, Akane planned not to marry within the Uchiha clan at all. She didn't plan to move or anything-but Naoyas move of bringing home a civilian to 'marry' was brilliant.
Ideally Akane could hold out until Konoha was a real thing and meet a more impressive baby daddy, but she sure as shit was not making Madara any babies.
Hopefully her chosen partner also wouldn't fall in love with one of her siblings at first sight and seduce them before a wedding ever took place. Emiko had been surprisingly smooth and honest about everything, but that situation could have headed south very quickly. It helped that she had never made her brother any romantic promises.
Aiko was so much happier with her than Akane had ever seen her before. Her family was also surprisingly cool about it. Even their mom. Her sister in law had slotted into their family seamlessly-a bond that had only strengthened once the couple adopted Akemi's twins.
If it wasn't for her powder blue hair in a sea of black, Emiko would have blended right in.
As it was-only Akanes' clout in the Clan kept most of the rumors about her benign. It didn't help that Emiko wouldn't ever get pregnant, considering she wasn't actually married to Naoya or sleeping with him. The more stiff and traditional crowd was already outraged Emiko had a job. That she wouldn't be making Uchiha babies for her brother would only keep stirring the pot.
Not that Akane cared really. It was just something Akane knew because understanding general sentiments regarding anything to do with her family was a survival tactic her mother had taught well.
So all things considered, as tuned in as Akane was in regards to the clan runout mill-she was of course one of the first to find out her clan head had kicked the bucket.
It probably shouldn't have been such a breath of relief-but Akane had known they would never have peace while Tajima lived. The odds still weren't stacked in their favor, Madara would not take news of his fathers passing well-but at least they had a shot.
Akane had done more with less.
X
Akane: I am revolved enough to not make the clan pay in blood for vengeance
Akanes squad, armed to the teeth: we ride at dawn
I just realized I've been posting once a week for five months y'all. Since July 2022-I am so incredibly proud of myself, low key didn't think I'd get this far just with my constant struggles to be consistent lol, but shout outs to me!! Definitely a personal record.
Next up is Akira, the unsung hero of Akanes previous rescue and one of my favorite characters.
That aside, who's ready to start working on peace? Akane certainly is.
Thank you to Ray888's for the lovely fanart that is now on the cover of this fic!