Mito seems to take her quick progress in fūinjutsu as a personal challenge. They've begun sparring exclusively with fūinjutsu techniques to train and even as a child, Izuna is quite confident she never felt so incompetent.
"Once more," Mito orders.
"You've said that enough times, I'm beginning to worry you don't know its meaning."
"Once more," she repeats.
When they finish, she doesn't bother to leave the ground where she'd landed, only rolls onto her back to stare at the woman beside her.
"Just how deep does the Uzumaki chakra run?" Mito looks exactly as put together as she had when they'd started. When she laughs, there's no pretence it's at anything other than Izuna's own expense.
"You'll have to push much further than that to find out."
"Unbelievable."
"I'm sure if we allowed any other jutsu—"
"Please, no. No pity. My ego cannot stand it. Though, if you could lie to my brother and tell him I won at least one round?" Madara had spent the first half-hour of their training heckling her loudly from the sidelines.
"I would never deprive him of the pleasure."
"Perhaps you could train him, too, but with less refinement—"
"You'd like for me to train him to lose to you?" Mito is grinning and Izuna can tell if ever there comes a time when they have the hours to waste, it might be worth pursuing.
"Just assure him he's doing well, prodigiously so. Then, watch his face as I wipe the floor with him, would that not be great fun? You were his friend first, so you should know he deserves it."
"Mmm, perhaps."
They regroup and take their meal inside. The hour is passed discussing arrangements for the main family of the Uzumaki clan to arrive only a few days after Izuna is due to return home.
Mito is rarely effusive, but Izuna knows her well enough now to read her excitement and tries to imagine what it might be like to have come so far to marry. She carries the challenge well, but it must be lonely and she finds herself wanting badly for their visit to go well so that the memories of it have no reason to spoil when Mito looks back on them.
"You might take a moment to soothe your husband," Mito has leant in close to speak into her ear, voice carrying the tone but not quite the levity of a joke. "I'm beginning to worry my cousin may not survive the night." When she finds Tobirama's face across the room, his expression lends a concerning amount of credibility to Mito's caution.
It will be the last night they host the Uzumaki, almost a fortnight since she's returned home, and they have all drank just short of too much. If pressed, she would insist she's only been good company, a gracious host, but to herself, she can admit she's allowed herself to enjoy having the attention of someone who makes her laugh.
She would never do anything to shame her husband or jeopardize how stable an impression their village's leadership gives, nor has she any patience for infidelities, but she hasn't discouraged his attentions as stringently as she could have, has perhaps laughed too readily at his teasing in the presence of her husband. It's nothing most people would notice, but Tobirama's sense of propriety, she's found, makes him more sensitive to these things than most.
He excuses himself from the room, not the first of their party to do so, but far from the last, and she drains the last of her drink to follow after him.
"Tobirama," she calls, he's already a fair few paces down the hall.
"Have you remembered you have a husband?" He doesn't turn to her, doesn't stop, and his voice is sullen. She has to bite her lip to keep from laughing as she wonders how much he's had to drink, to sound so openly petulant as he does, or whether she's just grown so accustomed to finding it in his voice.
"Don't be like that, it was hardly—" He turns on his heel and she's thankful she's held her face. He looks outraged.
"You mock me after you spend days acting like—"
"Are we truly to have this conversation again?" The sharpness of her own voice is a surprise to herself, but it stops him in his tracks and she observes him as he breathes, visibly working to relax himself.
"No, we are not." She watches as he gathers himself, but the heaviness of his expression never diminishes. "It is not so easy to spend days watching another man make your wife laugh as you never have." Every word is carefully spoken. She folds her hands against the inexplicable urge to touch his face.
"Well," she begins, next words a gamble with the mood he's in, "that's only because my husband is not funny." His face twists and she can't help herself as mirth pulls her smile wide at his expense. "Tobirama, I was joking. You really are in dire need of better humour."
"I'm so pleased even you amuse yourself." He turns to leave and she catches his arm. He stares where she touches him.
"I'm sorry. I'm being unkind." When he finally pulls his eyes away from where she holds him in place, the fight seems to have left him.
"You're only adding balance between us."
"A gracious way to view it."
"I am trying."
"I know."
Silence falls between them and the moment stretches. It seems, for a while, as though neither of them knows what to do next.
"Would you walk home with me?" It's somewhat awkward when he holds his arm out for her, as though he's imitating behaviour he's never experienced for himself. She feels equally off-balance when she takes it and realizes aside from when she grabbed him a moment ago, it's the first they've touched like this. Voluntary, casual, without sparring as an excuse or obligation to force their hands.
The silence they walk home in is a comfortable one. The night is soothing, Izuna feels precisely inebriated enough that the weight between them has eased. Only the softest cool sweeps through the breeze and there's a clear sky overhead, it feels like anything they might say would only ruin it.
As they walk, she considers the man next to her and who he's held himself to be since they spoke honestly for the first time since their marriage. He's kept his word and hasn't tried to have her, hasn't pressed the topic of children or lost his patience with her lack of willingness. They argue most of all at work, but the air feels lighter between them at home without secrets to weigh it down. A few days ago, she'd run out of mercury and she hasn't gone back for more.
As they reach their home, he catches her wrist lightly before she can slip away.
"Izuna," something carries his voice—not quite nerves, but not far from.
"Yes?"
"I do not want you to feel deprived by our marriage."
"What do you mean?"
"If you wanted to seek your pleasure—" She pulls her wrist from his grasp asthe sudden sweep of anger makes her blood run hot. The nerve—all the times he's called her a whore—
"If you even dare suggest I stray, after—"
"No," he cuts in, assuring. The balance of his voice irritates her. "I only meant that if you ever want for anything, you should ask me—
"Haven't you sworn not to touch me?"
"I did. I do. I won't take my own pleasure, I won't touch more than you ask. It's only an offer, Izuna, not a request."
"Aren't you charitable?" It comes out sour and as he pulls away, face falling, it's clear he feels he's ruined something. She feels unsettlingly similar. "I was teasing. Please, you complain that I flirt with other men but look what I've been given to work with at home."
"You were flirting?" She can't imagine what possesses her to speak the words that follow.
"I was teasing you. Flirting might be up for consideration when you handle teasing better."
Lying on her own futon, in her own room, Izuna cannot seem to banish his offer from her mind.
Perhaps it's the drink, making everything inside of her feel a little more liquid that lends itself to the easy wandering of her mind, or perhaps she's only driven by her own curiosity. In violence, they know each other's bodies so well. Perhaps better than any other. In this, though—she can't deny her interest.
Most days, it feels impossible to separate the context that ties them together from anything else she might think of him but like this, barriers broken by sweet wine and several days of good company to ease her mind, she tries to think of him objectively.
He's rigid, stern-faced in a way that suits him well. Not particularly approachable, but handsome, she can admit. Everything he does shows his predisposition to be irritatingly proficient at whatever he tries, a quality which may not prove to be a poor one if invited to put his mind to her pleasure.
Imagining as much feels as though she's betrayed herself in some way. The truth of it is that she may have, but they are married and when Izuna is at her most honest with herself, she knows she does not want to spend the rest of her life lonely and devoid of affection. She can and she will if he forces her, if he remains intolerable, but she is beginning to allow the truth that what's done is done to settle beneath her skin and she won't force herself into misery if he does not push her in that direction.
Tobirama has not always been good to her, has hurt her, even, but he's never lied to her. Each time he's sworn himself to something, he's honoured it. She trusts him to stop if he's sworn that he will, though that trust in itself makes her more nervous than the thought of what he could do if he breaks it.
She tries to satisfy herself enough to put a stop to the direction of her thoughts, but she cannot seem to escape the knowledge that she wouldn't have to walk twelve meters to have his hands on her. A handful of minutes and a lacklustre climax passed, she gives in to her own wants.
"Izuna, is everything alright?" His room is lit by candlelight, she can see he's sat up reading over some documents or other. They've all fallen a bit behind in their work since the Uzumaki arrived.
"Is your offer still open?" Her lips curl over the word 'offer', unable to take it entirely seriously even as she accepts. He wastes no time at all in receiving her.
Soft heat between her thighs sends a shiver up her spine as she feels his breath against her skin. It's a mercy, she thinks, that he cannot see the way her knuckles go white over the wooden support beam behind her as he rests her thigh over his shoulder. He sets her nerves on fire as he leans in close to run his tongue along the seam of her.
No time is spent teasing, kissing at her thighs or lingering to look like she's heard women whisper and tease each other about and learned to expect. She doesn't know that it's something she wouldn't want, but she'd trust him less if he did it. Instead, he runs his tongue over her just enough to part her lips and pushes it flat and heavy over the quick swell of her nerves, massaging her where she's already gone slick.
Knowing him, she knows—feels—what he's doing. The thought is enough she might be driven insane as he looks for the rhythm that makes her go tense, makes her breath come quick. He's studying her, even now. A part of her is mortified, how clear-headed is he? But—it hardly matters, she reminds herself. He offered, and she's here to seek her own pleasure and he is—for better or for worse—no small help, just as promised.
Dense heat swells beneath her skin, pushing out hard from her abdomen as he drags his tongue down through the slick crease of her. When his tongue stiffens and enters her, she can't hide the noise that escapes her lungs without her will.
It's almost unbearable—the intimacy of it, not just the way it feels, not very deep but so strange the feeling of it couldn't be mistaken for anything else, but the scrape of his stubble across her skin where she's spread open over his mouth. The way his breath heats her already fevered flesh.
He has her on the edge, teetering but not quite able to tip.
"More, I need more," please, is left on the tip of her tongue. Even now, she won't beg him. This isn't that. She groans when he pulls away and she feels the build of pressure inside of her immediately lessen.
"I need my hands," his voice is rough, "may I—"
"Yes." She hopes her tone carries all of the urgency she can't bring herself to put to words so he might hear it clearly.
He uses one hand to hold her open and she's hardly given a moment to spare over the embarrassment of him seeing her so exposed before he closes his mouth over the swell of her nerves to tease and slips two fingers inside of her.
They curl inwards and she wonders where he learned this so well or whether it's just another infuriating preternatural talent as his fingers find the textured pad of flesh that pulls her insides tight. The depth of sensation has the wave inside of her spiking enough to crest, washing thick and sweet out through her veins while she digs her heel into his back and moans out his name.
He pushes her through it, doesn't relent, mouth working over her nerves as his fingers curl inside of her. Massaging at her from the inside out with a pace that drives any thoughts of pushing him away out of her mind. Another swell of pleasure has already begun to build under her skin before the pins and needles of the last have entirely abated.
When she buries one of her hands in his hair, her knuckles still ache from how hard she'd held the wood through her climax and the low noise he makes is felt against her skin. She's lost track of the noises he's wrung out of her, and it pleases her to hear one from him in return.
Following her intuition, she tightens her grip and tugs, revelling in the way he shifts keenly under her, pushing forward and losing some of his finesse, like he's too hungry for the taste of her satisfaction to keep his composure. She keeps her grip over his hair and lets herself relax against his mouth. Head tipping back as she grinds forward into him and he digs bruises into her hips.
She uses the leg slung over his shoulder for leverage and allows her other thigh to fall further open. It's something she knows she'll burn with embarrassment over when she looks back on it later, but right now, all she cares about is the edge he pushes her towards once more, so fervent she can't help but feel consumed by it. Pleasure takes her and wrings her tight until she's left feeling boneless and numb.
"Enough," she does push, this time, and he goes easily. The sight of him, breath coming as hard as her own, wet across his face and down his neck, has satisfaction rising hot behind her ribs as she straightens enough for her clothes to fall back into place, ignoring the protest of limbs gone heavy with the force of her climax.
"Was it good?" His voice is hoarse and his eyes follow her hands as she fixes her belt. Her fingers are trembling. It feels ridiculous most of all because she knows he already knows the answer. It's too much, and she can't help herself, laughter spills from her throat, halfway hysterical before she has a chance to consider how he might take it.
She looks to see if he thinks she's laughing at him—she is, but not in the way she fears he might take it—and finds he looks rather pleased with himself.
As she lays back in her futon, her head swims pleasantly with the last traces of liquor and the heavy fog set into her mind by her own pleasure, sleep comes much easier. In her dreams, the sensation of his stubble between her thighs and the intensity of his eyes as he'd watched her hands shake follow her through til morning.
A/N: Even Tobirama had to do something right eventually. Everybody gets a surprisingly soft chapter today because I got food poisoning and projectile vomited into the neighbour's astroturf and needed to write something Chill™