What is this. More top of the head overflow?
Why depressing?!
Includes: Death, nameless children, faulty Naruto timeline (well, that seems normal...), rambling, no-plot no jutsu, etc etc.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me, because of this faulty timeline. Oh wait, it already has a faulty timeline. I just made it so that Tobirama had more time with his kids, okay?! (Whoa, kids?!)
Chapter 12: Once Upon a Time...
Mariko strokes Tenzou the cat's ears, and the dark tabby purrs deeply in her arms, warm and comfortable. There is a clatter as Mariko's daughter dropped the plate with a startled yelp, the fine china splitting into multiple shards, but the cat's only response is his a flicker of his ears towards the noise. The girl's mother remains unmoving for a few moments.
"Mama?" The girl is only six years old. She waits for her mother to say something, to scold her. Mariko turns to look at her daughter, who bites her lips and glances down at the broken plate in shame. The girl waits for her mother to snap angrily and repeat the importance of being careful with delicate plates. Her mother says nothing.
Mariko looks at her daughter wistfully. She has her father's hair, and her father's eyes. Their son has her own blue hair, but also her father's eyes. When she looks at them, she remembers him.
Mariko is not old.
She is simply the age of a woman married to a shinobi, shinobi who risk their lives daily for their villages and families. There is a certain risk that comes with marrying a ninja, and Mariko has always known it. She will teacher her daughter the consequences. Maybe the girl will marry a peaceful townsman and live happily ever after. Even if she doesn't, Mariko will teach her to enjoy as much time as possible.
"Mama?" she repeats.
"It's fine, baby. Just get the broom and dustpan," Mariko answers lightly. The young girl hurriedly rushes to the broom closet, carefully picking her way around the broken shards, but Mito beats her to it. Her aunt pulls out the broom and hands it to the little girl, whilst casting a concerned glance at Mariko. It's been two months, but Mariko still sits in silence. Mito remembers the time when she, too, locked herself in her own room and refused to emerge when Hashirama died.
Tenzou the cat jumps away from Mariko, pushing off her lap and making his way outside, to his favorite tree.
"Mom?" A young, blue-haired boy stands at the doorway and lets the cat out. "Uncle Hiruzen wants to know if you'd like to have lunch with him and Auntie Biwako."
Mariko glances up at her son, sees his piercing garnet eyes. He's the spitting image of his father, just with her own hair on his head.
"Tell him that he is kind to offer, but no thank you," she answers rather flatly. Mito interrupts her.
"Mariko, you need to get out," she insists. "You can't stay here forever. You remember what almost happened to me, right?"
Mariko remembers. But she also remembers his bloody hands and his pale face as she held him in his last moments, just after he finished off his twenty enemies to save his team. She had tried to figure out why it had been twenty shinobi; twenty shinobi from the Cloud that had finished him off, and not a powerful legend like a traitorous Uchiha. He had not died gloriously, but neither had his brother. Mariko reasons with herself—perhaps it was better to die this way, silently and nobly. She also reminds herself constantly that he had not been finished off—he had finished off the enemy, for his team, and the "king" of Konoha he vowed to protect. He was protecting Hiruzen, and Homura, and Koharu, and the rest of his name. He protected Konoha's children, and ultimately his own, till the very end.
She remembers everything. When their first son was born, he cried "thank you, thank you" to her until he fell asleep on the hospital bed alongside his exhausted wife and newborn child.
She remembers his shock and depression upon his brother's death.
She remembers Mito's nearly suicidal seclusion from the world. She knows that if she and Tobirama had not been there, Mito would've gone to join her husband, without a thought for their single child, the Kyuubi, or their grandchildren.
"Mariko," Mito says again. Mariko's son is still waiting at the doorway, shielding himself from the chilling breeze.
"Tell him I'll see him there, then," Mariko decides, nodding at her son, who runs off to tell the Third Hokage his mother's decision. Mariko thinks of the Hokage Office, now occupied by a young man who still struggled with the shock of his appointment.
"You should go for a walk, you've been inside for too long." Mito guides her outside, and they begin a peaceful walk around the Senju complex. Her daughter has finished cleaning up, and follows her mother outside, small hands clutching Mariko's dress. Mariko pats her daughter's white hair and draws her close.
"Mama, what's that? Next to Daddy's face," she says suddenly. The girl is pointing at the Hokage Mountain, where Hiruzen's head is in the process of being carved next to his predecessors' faces.
"It's Uncle Hiruzen's face," Mariko informs her softly. "He's the Hokage now."
"Like Daddy and Uncle Hashirama?"
"That's right." Mariko, her daughter, and Mito stop at a small lake, with a sparkling surface reflecting the faces of the Hokage.
"Why aren't you and Auntie Mito up there?"
"We're not Hokage, that's why."
The little girl frowns at this.
"But you're just as important, right?" She smiles, and Mariko leans down to kiss her daughter's cheek, smiling back.
"She's right," Mito comments. "We were the Hokage's support in the background."
Mito reminisces with Mariko, both of them staring wistfully over the lake. However, Mito turns to observe Mariko, who watches the gentle wind create soft, lapping waves for a moment longer. She assumes that even the sight of the body of water makes her remember Tobirama.
"Mama?" The girl is confused now, watching her mother's eyes cloud over, staring over the lake. "Mama, Daddy was strong, right? That's why he was Hokage?"
"Yes, your Daddy was very strong," Mariko whispers hoarsely, an unbidden tear slipping down her cheek.
The girl's confusion changes to a smile.
"Daddy always told Mama not to cry, right? Mama should smile." The girl wraps her arms around her mother's neck, burying her face into the familiar blue hair and maternal scent.
Mariko smiles gently, holding her daughter to her tightly, watching the Hokage Mountain.
Maybe it is the sun playing a trick, but from where she kneels by the lake, it looks as if Tobirama's face is shaped into a smile, watching over them.
"Mama, will you tell me a story about you and Daddy?" the little girl asks later. She recalls her father during her younger years, a tall man with large hands to scoop her up when he came home from work, but she's only six years old, and wants to know some of the things her older brother might have experienced. She knows a few things, like Mariko as a princess and her father as the Hokage, along with a few other things here and there. She can name each of her many relatives, aunts, uncles, and even Uncle Hashirama, whom she recognizes in all the pictures. "Mama was like the princess in a fairy tale, right?"
Mito pauses in her home cleaning, gauging Mariko's reaction. To her relief, Mariko doesn't sigh and brush her daughter away as she did the week before, unwilling and unable to recall memories of her beloved. Mariko had locked herself away for a long time, briefly appearing for his funeral, before breaking down in front of all of Konoha, clutching his retrieved hitai-ate and Hokage's belongings. In the end, when Hiruzen slowly approached her, she had stood solemnly, and placed the Hokage's hat decisively on his head. Hiruzen remained with his head bowed until Mariko walked past him, and away from the funeral proceedings. She then ran into the forest and cried for a day, a young girl lost in a foreign country again.
Mariko considers the question carefully, and decides that perhaps sharing would relieve some of her hurt. She picks a suitable story, one dreamlike enough to fit the fairy tale standards of her daughter. After all, her parents were not just normal people: They were the heart of Konoha.
"Of course," she finally says, settling her daughter on her lap. She looks into the ruby eyes that reflect Tobirama back to her. A twinge of grief wrings through her, tight and quivering with sorrow. Mariko sees Tobirama smiling at her again, and swallows her anguish. She swallows her fears and her doubts and her sorrows, all things that have not resurfaced since her mother died many years ago, and she was sent to Konoha on an arranged marriage deal. It was because of Tobirama that she was happy. Mariko was not afraid anymore. She accepted the life of a shinobi, accepted her role as a wife and mother, and promised Tobirama that she would never be afraid of life again. She, too, was the Hokage, and she had a family to take care of.
"Once upon a time…"
Happily. Ever. After.
Not really. You'd think that an OC gets a happily ever after, but Tobirama obviously dies, and I apparently cause my OC mental anguish by sending her to Kumogakure because she snuck there to follow his mission, but ends up seeing him die somehow?
Uh.
-unnamed children, still-
This made me depressed...
Maybe I should've added some Obitopede to spoil the mood.