Hello my dears! Thank you, eight reviewers for chapter 14, so much for your kind words and the like. Really, I grin like a little kid when I read them, and I love them all bunches. I'm going to say that chapter 16 is going to be uploaded on Monday or Tuesday in all likelihood, unless it seems like people are going to go find pitchforks if I don't finish it sooner. So yeah.
Funfact: Tokugawa Ietsuna's dad Iemitsu didn't tend to mess around with his anti-Christian campaigns or his rooting out of such people. I'm assuming that the old guard which served as Ietsuna's regents for the first…I don't know…fifteen years of his term as shogun would've been of Iemitsu's mind on the matter rather than Ietsuna's pansy stuff.
Funfact: Ietsuna rolled back the law/tradition/thing that had samurai killing themselves after their lord fell. He was like "Guys…guys…wow. Cool your jets. It'll be okay, you'll serve him better by being alive to prevent massive anarchy after his death." He seemed like he was one of the more chill Tokugawa dudes. If by wielding an axe makes you more chill than the guy with a chainsaw, but yeah.
Funfact: The almost mafia-style of clan power-struggles and the like are pretty common in history, the Evil Uncle trope didn't come outta effing nowhere. Especially in Japanese successions, there were lots of power dynamics to be had—age, influence within the family based on lineage, lots of stuff. Fugaku is the head of a split-off branch, but his brother was the family head. His brother's kids take precedence for family/clan leadership, but if he had enough backing he could've easily put his own children (in this story, remember we're bearing with that) in that place. Usually in most accounts of this the usurped heirs met nasty, bloody, and quick ends.
Why? Because the Japanese didn't tend to mess around with left-over heirs and the like after the Sengoku period—before there had been a rich history of "Oh the kid is only 2, they won't ever grow up hating me for killing a man they never knew!" and then 20 years later choking on their own blood as the kid shiv'd 'em. So usually if someone seized power of a clan, family, region, etc, the heirs of the previous leader moved to a new estate located permanently under the lawn. So yeah.
Funfact: Executions took place in the fall or winter, when stuff was dead. You almost never saw executions in the spring because that's when stuff was getting back to life. You wouldn't want to be that jerk who scared off spring by beheading some dude near the peach or cherry blossom season—wouldn't that suck, be the guy who did that. So they tried not to do things like that. A summer execution was way more common than a spring one, but really one would expect an execution in the fall or winter. Yup. THE MORE YOU KNOW!
Yeah, pretty funfact light this time around because I think we've just almost gotten to the point where I don't need to have an effing history lesson before each chapter…So hooray for that? Maybe?
And with that,
Enjoy!
Kakashi held her close to him, wanting her near yet knowing she drew no comfort from the embrace. They stood in the middle of the road that way for a long time before he loosened his arms from her slightly. He knew he had ruined something, he just didn't know how much he had ruined. Somehow their isolated world on the farm had him becoming forgetful of Sakura's life, of her experiences and her feelings about that life and those experiences. He had assumed the role of her protector eight months ago, but he hadn't done that today—and perhaps he hadn't been doing his duty to her for even longer. He couldn't even figure out when he had started to become derelict in his obligations toward her, and that made Kakashi sick to his stomach.
He knew they couldn't go back home and face Tenzou the way they were now, but nor could they stay on the road. Her face was red from tears, and Kakashi's heart ached at the sight—he wanted to wash those tears away, he had to wash them away. He knew that less than a ten minutes' walk from where they stood was the large stream which wound its way through the southeast end of the valley—it was the same stream that he and Tenzou fished from, farther upstream. Wordlessly Kakashi bent at the knees and hoisted Sakura up to carry her, supporting her at her shoulders and knees. He wouldn't make her do anything for now, not even have her walk—he owed Sakura some sort of penance for what he'd done. She lay against him bonelessly as the tear-tracks on her face dried and tightened the skin on her cheeks. She was silent for the entire walk, not one word of recrimination or anger or praise or even ambivalence passing her lips. Once he reached the stream bank he gently let her down, only letting go once he felt her legs steady over her own weight and then turning to kneel at the edge of the bank.
He dipped the sleeve of his haori into the water, wetting the dark blue cotton but not soaking it, and then stood again to face her. It was just as he lifted the make-shift washcloth towards her that he hesitated and despite how he tried to hide it, the pain had to have shown on his face. It was all useless. To pridefully think for both of them, to take advantage of the fact that he had her complete and implicit trust, to hope that his love alone would be enough for any difficulties they faced. His hand and his damp sleeve retracted away from her to fall limp at his side.
Kakashi felt as broken as he had in the months following his father and Obito's deaths, and the shame that he had betrayed his wife's trust bowed his head and weighed heavily on his shoulders. He didn't flinch when Sakura took a step closer to him, but he did when she put her hands on either side of his face to lift his gaze to hers. How far had they tumbled backwards because of him, he wondered as her eyes steadily looked into his open one.
"Do you think I'm a demon?" And right then Kakashi knew what the true betrayal had been—he had been the one to reach out for her, unafraid of rumors or whispers, and barely an hour ago he had set those rumors into the stoniness of fact. He pressed his cheek into one of her palms as he reached up and took hold of the now free hand, putting it over his heart as he had the previous winter.
"No, I don't. I don't," he insisted, wishing he could force her to understand this one thing. Her expression showed distrust which was easily read. Just by looking into her eyes he could tell what was going through her mind, that Sakura couldn't know if he had a casual belief in her otherworldliness, a deep one, or none at all—the sheer ease with which his retort to Noriaki had left his lips was indicative of the former two but not the last. And suddenly everything was spilling out of him, as it had out on the road.
"You've had to fight gossips your entire life, and your first way of dealing with them is to wilt, and quiver and tremble. There's no way I can possibly understand that, but Sakura," he pressed their hands tighter against his chest, "I have to watch as my wife, the woman I've come to love, shrinks back from her acquaintances as though they'll insult her or demean her in some other manner. I couldn't, can't, and will no longer stand by for that." Kakashi took a deep breath, glancing away from her face and pointedly not staring her down.
"I wanted nothing more than for you to be able to stand up straight and be the one dragging me through town not the other way around." He knew the damage with the townspeople was done, there was no way to take back what he had said, and all they could do now was deal with the fallout of what he'd confirmed to Fujimi. His eye turned back up towards hers as he got used to the feeling of how badly he'd shamed her felt on his shoulders. It wasn't an easy weight to bear, but he would do it.
"Sakura—I don't believe you're anything more than human. You look ethereally beautiful sometimes, when the light strikes your hair at certain times, but at the end of the day you are just as human as I am."
She shook her head a little at him then, her fingers sliding into his hair. She took her other hand out from under his and he let her. She held his eye and Kakashi couldn't even blink to break their gaze, even as she grasped his sleeve and tugged it upwards. He got the hint and lifted his arm on his own then, grabbing his dampened sleeve and bringing it to her face. Sakura closed her eyes finally and for the first time in more than an hour a smile tugged at her lips. His free arm twisted in behind her, bringing them closer as he focused on cleaning away her tears.
"Next time we're in town I'm going to say I cursed your hair, Kakashi," she teased, her eyes still closed. He felt his own eye get hot, and he refused to admit to himself that there might be tears pricking there. Of all the ways he could have messed up with Sakura, he had to have picked the most vicious of all of them—he was lucky she was even willing to begin forgiving him, let alone actually doing so just now.
His silence was apparently taken as a question, however, and Sakura spoke again with laughter ghosting through her words.
"Yes, I most definitely cursed your hair." So she was going to keep on about it until he responded then?
"But my hair has been like this for far longer than we've been married, Sakura."
"Nope, I cursed it. Because I'm magic," she opened her eyes then and took his breath away. Her eyes were so wonderfully green compared to the brown and black eyes of regular people.
"Yes, you are, Sakura. You're quite magical," he stopped wiping her tearstains, which were long since gone, and leaned in close enough that their noses were almost touching. There was a flash of something nervous in her face, but it was quickly smoothed over and replaced once again by her teasing.
"And I made you fall in love with me too, becau—"
"Because you're magic, I've known that much," he interrupted her mostly so he could kiss her, just a quick press of his lips on hers, "And I do love you, and I'm glad that I do. You are so unique, and you're mine—now I just have to work to deserve you."
Six days after Mikoto's funeral armed guards followed by investigators of the shogun stormed the Uchiwa estate. It was shortly after the morning meal. The Uchiwa women had gone to their private activities in their own rooms, the children—Itachi's young second cousins—were either taken to their lessons or allowed to play in the gardens depending on their age. The men had also gone to their various pursuits, some sparring, others reading or studying, and still others staying to meet with Itachi to discuss family matters. He was the clan head and some things would always require his approval or knowledge.
Everyone wore mourning clothes, and the mood was generally solemn. It was jarring to hear the laughter of children but it was ignored—both the feeling and the children's laughter. They were too young to know the gravity of the death of the clan mother. Itachi knew he looked depressed and withdrawn, but inside he was in a world of calm. He was glad for the mourning outfits his extended family had clothed themselves in.
Especially as the shouts of the Uchiwa servants and guards rose up across the estate, followed by the yelling of men and screams of women—and Itachi refused to let the shrieks and wails of children affect his calm, even as rough hands seized him and the men he had been meeting with. Instead he had started to pray aloud, trying to encourage his relatives to do the same. Soon they would all be with God, every one of them. But Itachi didn't and in fact couldn't know how soon—would they be executed this very fall? Or was the Uchiwa family and its branches too large to take to trial within the traditional execution season?
Itachi smoothed his mind over the sounds of swords clashing and the yells of his clansmen as those who had time to grab their swords did so—he hadn't wanted his family to go out fighting, but it seemed that some of them would. He continued to pray after his own guards had bound him, leaving him in the room they were putting the women and children—cutting the clan head, the directive force of any family, off from the body of the men he controlled. Cautiously the children and then the women started to follow him in prayer, although some still gave themselves over to inconsolable weeping.
Some of the shouts he refused to acknowledge were questions—mostly of why this was happening, while others asked after wives, children, and occasionally Itachi picked up on their requests for him and his whereabouts. Gradually, less than an hour later, the fighting outside calmed. Guards appeared and escorted Itachi and his companions out to one of the main gardens where the men and servants were bound and watched. There were men who were injured, both lightly and badly, in the ranks of his family members, and farther away Itachi caught a glimpse of the dead—both their attackers and his family—being piled up away from the main group of people.
The air smelled faintly of blood, and hotly of fear.
Sasuke was staying with his cousin's family in Kyoto, as he had moved out of Orochimaru-sama's house—formally ending their relationship as mentor and student, as well as in preparation for his adoption as Orochimaru-sama's heir apparent. His cousin and the man's wife had been summoned to greet a guest by a servant only moments beforehand when Emiko's scream rang through the house, sending chills down the spines of everyone who heard it. Her scream was cut abruptly short.
After that, bakufu agents stormed into the house and started taking all they encountered prisoner—and brutally subduing those who resisted.
Shisui had realized Itachi's plans immediately when the man had suddenly relocated himself to Fujimi and taken Mikoto with him—and it was only a day after this that Shisui took himself and his wife into hiding. He had been Itachi's best friend for years, he almost felt insulted that Itachi thought he could hide his actions and motives from his cousin. Itachi had never been able to easily stomach hiding from the authorities, that much Shisui had always seen. The rest of their family had written his behavior off as stress—he had been made clan head at the age of eleven and had taken responsibilities for the clan at the age of thirteen, his life was admittedly stressful.
But Shisui had been sent to Edo for more than just an easy way of hiding Rin's rebellion from the family. Fugaku had begun to doubt his decision to not merge his branch family with the main one—the one Itachi descended from, the one which gave Itachi the claim of clan leadership. Having raised both his own sons and those of his brother, Fugaku could have decided that the older Obito was a better choice for the head of the family—and Itachi had been ten when his father had died, whereas Obito had been nineteen and recently married. One was a man and the other a child, a mere boy.
But that would have put pressure on Fugaku in the form of keeping Itachi from his rightful inheritance, and at the time he hadn't wanted that. It was only recently that Fugaku had started to feel that perhaps Itachi should step down and let Shisui guide the family. Whether Itachi could feel this or not was irrelevant—what was relevant was the fact that Itachi had most likely turned on the family and exposed them and their faith to the bakufu. Shisui was not a man to simply allow himself to be killed by doing nothing—if the government wanted him and his wife dead, then the government would have to search him out.
He didn't dare try to leave Edo, he was sure there were orders to keep all Uchiwa family members inside the city, but he did beg one of his friends in town to hide him and Rin. He cited fear for his life, that Itachi believed him to be trying to usurp the clan from him—a believable enough story if one knew the family dynamics but wasn't part of them.
When the bakufu's agents stormed the Uchiwa city house, Shisui-sama and his wife were nowhere to be found.
The middle of the day—several days after the disastrous day in Fujimi—found Kakashi and Sakura relaxing on the porch. Tenzou was weeding the garden, having banished Sakura to sit with her husband. Sakura sat against one of the posts holding up the awning, and Kakashi had his head comfortably laid on her lap. He had his book propped open, just high enough above his nose so that he could actually read it. He had been reading aloud to Sakura earlier, but this other story never failed to bring a blush to his own face and he couldn't even begin to think he would ever read it to his wife. Sakura was running her fingers through his hair and humming softly, which made it hard to focus on his book—she could be quite bewitching when she wanted to be, and Kakashi smiled at the thought.
It was comforting that, however painfully, they had aired their thoughts and opinions about their relationship and of each other. Kakashi felt closer to Sakura, and it was as though she felt closer to him as well. Setting his book on his chest, he took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, looking up at her face as he did so.
And it was then that they heard horses thundering on the road, faint but growing in volume with each passing moment. Kakashi lifted her hand away from his lips before sitting up slowly, calling for Tenzou to check on the road. The brown haired man nodded once, already standing and dusting his hands off before heading around to the front of the house. Kakashi stood and then helped Sakura to stand as well, but didn't say anything about the sudden, urgent noise, or even Tenzou's raised voice hailing the riders. He did feel something ominous drape itself over him, however, at the sharp stop the riders—five of them?—reined their horses to in front of his home. He half considered having Sakura go inside to start tea or a small snack, but Tenzou rapidly came back, but through the house this time.
"Kakashi, you need to come out to the gate, they'd like to see you," he said clearly, bowing formally which he rarely did anymore. Kakashi's sixth sense for danger kicked into overdrive at his servant's behavior.
"Have they asked for Sakura?" The people in Fujimi thought Sakura was a demon, but an outsider to the town would perhaps not be so forgiving. Kakashi suspected that his sudden visitors were most definitely not Fujimi locals.
"No," Tenzou said, sneaking a warning glance up at him—it only served as confirmation of his suspicion.
"Then you will stay here with her, Tenzou. After you escort me to the front door, you will return to her side and not leave it until I return from meeting with them. I shouldn't be long I hope," Kakashi said, straightening his clothing and stretching briefly.
Outside four solemn faced men that he'd never seen in his life awaited him, their horses tied up at his gate—the fifth horse he'd heard was tied by a lead to one of the other four. Kakashi's guard, already raised, rankled at his skin as he walked across the small front yard to meet them. They were obviously here for someone, and Kakashi prayed to the gods that it wasn't for Sakura, that his terrible words days before hadn't somehow made their way to those who should never hear such things.
"Hatake Kakashi?" one man said, stepping towards him so that they met halfway between the fence and the house. The man, obviously an official of some sort—and higher ranking that Kakashi himself—slowly looked him up and down as though searching him for some hidden flaw.
"Yes?" Kakashi realized a little belatedly that his hair was mussed from when Sakura had combed her fingers through it, and that his clothes—a comfortable yukata because he had no plans on seeing anyone important enough to dress up for today—were not impeccably pressed or freshly-donned. The silence following his simple query stretched uncomfortably before one of the men cleared his throat.
"Are you willing to accompany me to Sarutobi-sama's estate," at some sort of signal the three remaining men also strode forward and vaguely surrounded him. Kakashi frowned, glancing around at them—did they think he was going to cause trouble? "Or must I report your forcible detainment? Surely you wouldn't wish for your family to have such a black mark on its public records, Hatake-san."
"Why is this so urgent that four riders were sent out by Sarutobi-sama?"
"This isn't business conducted by Sarutobi-sama, Hatake-san, this is the business of Shogun Ietsuna. You're needed for questioning regarding the Uchiwa traitors, and you've also been implicated as one such traitor yourself. Again, you can come with us willingly or not—but think of your family before you choose. Your wife, your kids must be inside—they'll hear us if you kick up a fuss. It would be…a…shame if they were to come outside and become involved in our business."
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