Izuna never meant to fall in love with his brother's fiancé.
His only saving grace was that it happened when he was too young to understand what love was. He'd always thought the little girl with the sunshine smile who helped grandma Kaede with his little brothers was pretty. Izuna had started to come to see his baby brothers religiously after training, no matter how exhausted he was, once she'd been apprenticed to Granny Kaede.
Akane was definitely the first girl he'd ever had feelings for.
But watching her step in front of Akira protectively when she wasn't even a shinobi had changed something. Turned those feelings into something stronger than the boyish crush he'd first had.
Maybe the knowledge that she was the only reason Akira was still alive, and that she was the only one who could get him to smile, did too. She was probably also the only reason Izuna was alive as well. Without Naoya coming to their rescue, he's sure he wouldn't have survived the Senju blades either, and he knows the only reason the other warrior made it so quickly to the clan head residence was to save his own little sister.
He knew their family was close in a way his own had never managed to be.
He watched her with her brothers in the training fields sometimes. He'd seen the way she could tease a smile even from Naoya-who'd been one of the deadlier senior warriors long before he'd activated his sharingan. Watching the ice cold man melt away into a doting older brother more affectionate than his own was decidedly strange. But it made sense when it was Akane.
When his father engaged her to Madara and ordered her to join the war efforts on the battlefield-Izuna was horrified. But unlike Madara, who had focused on expressing how upset he was, it had occurred to Izuna to ask his father why.
It had taken him years to understand the explanation.
Fire touched was an archaic term he had scoffed at, believing his father hadn't wanted to share his true reasoning. Fire touched Uchiha were a fairy tale not unlike the Sage of Six paths. Perhaps there had been a time when it was a real part of their history, but the details had long been lost to time and exaggerated retelling. Later, after he read everything he could find on the fire touched in the clan archives, he'd thought his father had simply been dumbing down his explanation due to Izunas age.
Akane had come up with a completely new fire Jutsu and the Amaterasu were known for their love of fire even in a clan full of pyromaniacs. While, according to their history, they'd called the Uchiha that had innovated Jutsu Fire touched-the idea that they were somehow being guided to protect the clan and its people by the god his lineage was named after was silly. If the Uchiha truly had the protection of their gods, they wouldn't have been at war with the Senju for hundreds of years. They wouldn't have lost so many in battle fields, and at the very least, no one in the clan would starve.
If the Uchiha had ever been blessed by Amaterasu in truth, they had long been abandoned by their god.
Except that if his father had merely wanted to introduce the technique to their lineage, he would have engaged Akane to Izuna, and kept the more powerful bargaining chip of his heirs' marriage in his hands. So there had to be something Izuna was missing. It wasn't just because of the crippling guilt at the thought that if he had just kept Akanes technique to himself, then the girl who meant so much to him wouldn't be at risk of dying in the battlefield.
Izuna had been the one to gush in his report all about how amazing Akane was. Wild boar summons couldn't have pried that information out of Naoya, and it would never even occur to Akane to brag. Izuna was the one at fault-and he dreaded every mission Akane went on even as he prayed to a god he'd never believed in to protect her. The guilt had been eating him alive.
It wasn't until he'd seen Akane on the battlefield that he'd first thought his father might actually be on to something.
Watching her on the battlefield was like watching a complete stranger.
All that easy warmth he associated with Akane vanished, leaving the warrior who'd killed two Senju Assassins before she'd ever set foot in a battlefield. Every deadly burst of blue fire was decisive and sure. Akane earned her Nickname of the Blue Death before she'd been a full blooded warrior an entire year.
Izuna had never seen a better Kunoichi.
Especially not one so close to his age. And then there was the way Akane could come home and find that warmth again. The way she didn't let years of battle leave her cold and uncaring for the world at large.
She had so much heart, and the things she did outside the battlefield sometimes made Izuna think that if there was anyone who deserved the blessing of Amaterasu, it was definitely Akane.
Izuna knew Akane did more for the clan's health and happiness than his father, the clan head, did. She was just that kind, intelligent, and even brave enough to do things without waiting for anyone's permission.
He'd hounded Madara to do everything in his power to help her anyway, and did his own part to push forward all of Akanes' agendas in any way he could. His brother, the secret bleeding heart that he was, was only too happy to help. Izuna hadn't been able to ignore the way it made him notice his fiancée. Madara had been too busy with the war to really pay attention to Akane before hand-but seeing who she truly was, how much she valued her clan members and fought for the less fortunate of the clan, had made his older brother start looking forward to their future together.
The first time he'd caught himself thinking that it was unfair Madara would get to marry her-he'd managed to shake off the thought as silly and childish. The third or fourth time he'd begun to suspect he had a problem. By the time he'd begun thinking Madara didn't do enough to protect her as his fiancé, he could no longer deny where his jealousy stemmed from.
Izuna was in love with Akane.
He couldn't really blame himself, not when Akane was everything anyone could want in a wife. But she would marry his brother-so Izuna kept his feelings to himself. It just didn't stop his feelings from growing. How could they? When she was the brightest light in the entirety of the clan.
Akane was just so good, and Izuna never stopped hearing about her. She was a renowned warrior, and once Akane had achieved a renowned level of fame-everything about her family became news.
He'd overheard even Lineage Kunochi bemoaning how Naoya was wasted on his out of clan civilian wife who hadn't even borne him a child after several years of marriage. There were plenty of warriors who would fight to the death to be the ones who could marry Aiko home- and even her other, less impressive, brother Akio had endless amounts of admirers.
Then Akane got seriously hurt for the first time. Saving her useless brother, and at the hands of the one Senju Izuna should have killed years ago. He still had nightmares about what would have happened if Madara was too late to save her.
Izuna had allowed himself the luxury of checking in on her in the hospital for a month. He got a front row seat on how Akane reworked the healer apprenticeship system. Created a greenhouse for otherwise difficult to source or expensive medical materials and even found herself two more attendants to help with her self assigned workload-which made Izuna realize how badly the Amaterasu Lineage was treating her-because they should have long set her up with tutors and attendants so that she could take her place as clan matriarch.
They'd never even granted her a maid.
Not that Akane would be able to trust anyone her father tried to assign her, not when it wasn't a secret that most Lineage shinobi looked down on her for the lack of Sharingan and thought her unworthy of becoming his brother's wife. Izuna had never understood how a clan whose bloodline limit enhanced their sight so much could be so blind. Akane was worth ten of the Kunochi the clan usually flung on the field just long enough to activate their bloodline limit. He didn't understand how anyone could look down on Akane.
She was so kind, always looking forward into the future and trying to make the clan a better place to be, and fiercely competent on top of all of it. Everyone not a part of a noble Lineage, looked forward to the day she married Madara. Akane had done so much just as the Clan Heirs fiancee, almost the majority of the clan pictured the future with her in charge with boundless enthusiasm.
What would it look like to live in a world where Akane was officially leading the clan?
It was the closest thing to peace Izuna could believe in. He still scoffed at Madaras dreams of a village full of different clans working together-but a world where there were more Uchiha alive to fight the Senju, better armed, trained and fed until they won the war? That was something Izuna could get behind.
It was a future he could truly believe in. It had become his cause for cutting down Senju in the battlefield. The reason he trained himself into the ground whenever he was in the compound.
When several elders conspired to assassinate Akane on her first mission back on the field after her recovery-Izuna did his part. He'd killed two of them to avenge her, though Madara insisted on taking the blame so one of them could be in the clan often enough to keep an eye on her.
It had been so hard to watch someone he loved so much brought so low. It had hurt places in his soul he hadn't even known he still had. He'd thought-guilty as he was, as his mothers son, and the person that had condemned her to the field in the first place-that when his father retracted her engagement Izuna would step up. As long as she was willing, he would spend the rest of his life caring for her, no matter how long that life was. As a son of the mail line Izuna had plenty of resources, money if nothing else. Enough that Akane could still afford proper care when he died.
But Akane had proven herself Fire-touched after all. There were no legends about Uchiha artifacts. No basis for what she'd somehow know to do to create a Chalice. A cup that took Uchiha blood to make holy water. It was even growing in strength-being Akane, she'd made sure her glass workshop churned out vials of the stuff available free for any shinobi.
It had saved so many lives-and even the Sharingan purist against her engagement could no longer gather as much support against her. Even the rumors that claimed that the vengeance he, his brother, and Naoya wrought on her behalf had actually been a sacrifice by the elders of the respective lineages had fallen through once it became obvious who had the chalice in hand.
It was one of the kindest things his father had ever done not to confiscate it from Akane, calculated a move as it surely was. His father never did anything without reason-Izuna had learned to respect that over the years. Especially because the betrothal of his heir to Akane Uchiha had been one of his best political decisions.
Akane would be the Uchiha Matriarch one day. She would be someone that would lead the clan to a better future.
There was no world where she would turn to Izuna instead. No scenario that played out where she married Izuna-not unless his brother died, and Izuna wasn't so far gone as to wish his brother dead just to marry Akane.
But it was getting hard not to be bitter that he wasn't Clan Heir. One day Madara would marry Akane, and they would be very happy together because Madara was already almost in love, and he would do his best by his future wife. His brother always gave his all for his family.
Which was why he knew he was to blame when Madara canceled the engagement. He'd even gone to yell at Akira about breaking his promise to keep the secret only to find himself on the receiving end of his younger brother's vicious tongue and unamused glare.
Madara denied all knowledge of his previous crush and it had made Izuna feel ugly and ridiculous that he'd thought he'd managed to hide such a big part of himself from the person who knew him best for so long. Even if he'd started trying the second he'd realized the depth of his feelings, Madara must have noticed something big enough to catch even his battle obsessed brother's attention.
Izuna had long been used to being a worse warrior than his older brother, but he'd always privately considered himself better at social things like emotional intelligence. He felt so terrible he'd never actually managed to keep his incredibly inappropriate feelings to himself.
Then his mother, who-when Izuna was a child desperate for her love had told him, to his face-had lost her heart with his uncle's death, demanded Madara marry her niece.
Izuna had been disgusted.
He knew his parents political marriage had not been a happy one, but his mothers willingness to use her sons as a chess piece to leave the clan that had raised and supported her her entire life rubbed him in all the wrong ways.
She'd left the Amaterasu home before his father was cold in the grave, and she'd made no secret of wanting to take her fortune and retire in the capital-something she would be allowed considering the lack of Sharingan and that Yoshimatsus birth had damaged her body badly enough she would never reproduce.
But she wanted to leave all her clansmen, sons included, behind-and didn't care what it might mean for their future or happiness. She needed her Lineages approval and support to leave and not be hunted down as a traitor, and she was willing to make Madara marry one of her nieces to get it.
Foolish, dutiful son that he was, Madara had agreed.
It hadn't made Izuna feel any better-and then Madara capitalized on the guilt he felt and actually replied to the Senju proposed ceasefire.
Izuna had found himself in the shrine. Thinking of the older brothers he could barely remember and little Yoshimatsu-run through by a sword. All the Senju deserved to die in his Mangekyou black flames. He didn't understand what his brother was thinking.
He didn't know how long he stood in the shrine, before letting himself in through the secret, Sharingan eyes only entrance to the hidden basement where his father kept the collection of Uchiha relics they managed to take with them from their last compound.
He stared blankly at one of the Tablets that spoke of the Mangekyo for a long, long time-before a voice snapped him out of it.
"Izuna!" He'd recognize that voice anywhere, especially since Akane never called his name often enough. It always felt like such a treat to see it. She sounded like she was far away, "Izuna!"
He wondered how she'd known to look for him, but he found her at the entrance of the shrine, close to the secret door only the Lineage elders and Main alone were supposed to have access to.
"Akane?" He asked, it was late-hours still before sunrise. If she was looking for him it had to be important.
"There you are!" Akane said with clear relief, flashing him one of those blinding smiles that could always make his heart skip a beat.
"Is there anything wrong?"
Akane bit her lip, hesitating, before seemingly deciding to go on anyway, "You're going to be part of the ceasefire meeting with the Senju, right?"
Izuna nodded, it was a terrible idea of course-a blatant trap his father would have never let Madara fall into. But Izuna could only do his best to cover his brother when things undeniably went south.
"Can you tell me where it's going to be held?" Akane asked.
It was a strange question. Madara respected Akane enough to invite her along if she wanted to go, but there was no reason to ask for a location if she didn't want to be a part of the meeting.
Still, it was Akane asking, "I do."
Akanes' flawless face grew grim and determined, "I have reason to believe there may be forces conspiring against the ceasefire with the Senju. I'm going to need the location for the meeting, and your help."
If Izuna was honest, he couldn't think of anything he wouldn't do for Akane. It wasn't just love-he simply owed her too much.
"What do you need me to do?"
X
Akane was really out here turning our little atheist into a believer.
If this story were a romance Izuna would be our dashing second male lead and probably pretty yandere, ngl. He is the drama, but it's not a romance so he skews more tragic unrequited love interest instead lol. I also genuinely hadn't realized how much of Izunas parts got cut out with rewrites and editing-I swear in the first draft of this his Akane obsession wasn't a surprise.
Also, the entire time I was writing this chapter I just kept realizing that I definitely grew up watching novelas lol.
Next up Zetsus gonna have a very bad day-being Zetsu though, he's gonna be trying to spread that misery.
