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Part III
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Converging .
Spiral
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A more naïve Mito—a five or seven year old her, perhaps—would have thought that this was the fabled end of the road.
Once there was confrontation, there was truth—and from truth, came more confrontation until the inevitable conclusion where good trumps bad or bad trumps good came about (she'd never once in her life believed that good always won).
But the real world was more complicated.
She and Senju Hashirama danced dizzying circles around each other, danced spirals, coming closer and closer towards the nexus of truth, only to jump back when something started to scrape, when they started to learn more about each other.
It was painful because the dance was never-ending. It was painful because there was no end to the relationship—no signal from Kenka, nor her dead father, to cut off the alliance. At the heart of a dual-spiral, where one line encircling the other in forced cordialness and niceties, would the two lines ever meet? Could an arranged marriage make them meet?
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Kenka,
The village is doing nicely, I trust.
But this is not a letter for pleasantries. I require no more from you than the promise that the scrolls I send back with this letter with be kept among the clan with utmost care and secrecy. I wrote them recently. Yes, you may look at them. If you understand them, you will know how vital they are to protecting our livelihood as seal masters. If somewhat crude now, in the future, these arts will be not what destroys other armies, but what heals our own.
You needn't be worried about the affairs of Fire Country. Senju Hashirama will not betray us, as you constantly nag. We are still useful to each other. He is not unkind, but shows me no social graces. It suits me fine.
M. U.
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On a day that started like any other, Tobirama arrived at the door of her shack and was laid on her bed. It would have been his deathbed, too.
"Tell me why you're here," Mito glared stonily at the intrusion of Hashirama, whose matted hair and sweat-drenched armor stunk of grime and other men's tears. The woman nudged again at the prone body of the younger Senju brother. "Tell me why you brought him here."
"You are a healer," he puffed, wiping Tobirama's blood with Mito's coverlet.
Mito raised an eyebrow, trying to survey the damage while remembering the Uzumaki clan's own clashes with the Uchiha. "I'm not."
"I've heard of what your chakra can do, what the Uzumaki can do."
"That doesn't make me a healer." She was in no mood to be amiable. This wasn't part of the unspoken contract. Her face was unmoving, cold and serene. "This isn't just a flesh wound," she informed him. "He's dying."
"I know you can." Hashirama's bangs were falling in raven hanks to his forehead as he pleaded. "The surgeon at the square's market moved away last week. I can't ask Sarutobi either—the clan is already furious with me for letting their heir be injured in battle. I have no right to ask them for help with Tobirama's condition."
'No right'? Mito scoffed internally.
It was Tobirama who had outed her identity, nevermind that she was going to tell it eventually. Mito hadn't forgotten this old grudge. If Hashirama was just a necessary evil in her life, then Tobirama was clearly evil itself. Had he not thought this through clearly, or was desperation clouding his mind?
Mito examined her fiance's pained, but hopeful, expression. She picked her words carefully, to make sure her words were like ice water.
"You have 'no right' to ask me, either."
For one brief instant, Senju Hashirama was livid, his eyes hard in anger and frustration, before he shook off his headband and ran a mud-covered hand through his hair.
"N-no. Indeed, I have no right to ask you, but I thought, I thought you might…"
"Do it out of the goodness of my heart? Do it because we're to be wed?" The last word, Mito nearly spat out. She tapped her chin and quirked her lips, in an effort to mask the heat that rushed to her eyes and temples.
"You are to be my wife." A whisper, almost a question.
"Yes. Not your slave."
His voice almost shouted. "I never said—"
"But that is all I can ever be," Mito's own voice rose several decibels, stern, laced with something trying to ignore her own heart quavering, matching the tremulous breathing of the once powerful Senju Tobirama, who was on her bed, ready to die. "This healing procedure will hurt me as well. I can never love you nor your clan enough to do this," she continued.
"Love is a powerful emotion. Not many can spare it," he edged.
Hashirama had a strange look in his eye. It was like the hard furrow of his brow disappeared, and something almost like sympathy creeped into his gaze.
And Mito hated it.
Her throat suddenly burned like fire, and she found she could no more retort or drip verbal acidities in defense against that stare. More than anything else, the Senju had no right to look down on her. The future that the Uzumaki had fought tooth and nail for was not something a man spewing nonsense about tolerance and virtue (and hypocrisy) could understand.
"Leave me," she commanded, the tone of her voice actually making Senju Hashirama flinch.
"And leave your brother here. You can collect him in the morning, though you'd better start praying now that you'll collect more than just a body."
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Tobirama lived.
Something else lived too, between Mito and Hashirama.
It might even have been the start of a real relationship, if only he hadn't returned.
He returned with the tidings of a village. A new village unlike any other in existence. A village hidden in the leaves, forged not by the bonds of kinship, but by the ties of alliance.
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"Alliances are not strong enough, without blood kin. There will be infighting. It will never work," Mito said to her fiancé, for that was what Hashirama now wanted her to acknowledge him as. He looked at her with something like devotion, respect, affection.
"I will make it work."
He was not looking at her now. Senju Hashirama's jaw was set, and his brow stern and somehow regal as he peered over the fields that would become his new village. He looked like a god among shinobi, overlooking the red sunset over the plateau (it made Mito think: "just maybe…" but then she stopped herself). The wind blew his raven locks toward Mito, who stood only a foot behind him. He turned toward her (hair blowing into his face), unblinking, and took her hand into his own.
It was a warm hand. A merciful hand… and thus a strong hand.
"I will make it work, but you must help me." The faint pink on the Senju leader's cheeks mirrored the color of the sunset.
"I-I still have no right to ask you, but… but I want you to be my wife. Please know this."
He stumbled over the words. ('Just a man,' Mito realized, as if awakening from a genjutsu.)
Indeed, it was the most unappetizing proposition a husband-to-be had ever given her.
The proposition was devoid of golden halls and promises of wealth and power. The village Senju Hashirama was building had not a single building in it. Mito sincerely hoped Hashirama was hiring the construction team, because she'd seen his aesthetic sensibilities in designing things with pieces of wood. Mito told herself she should just move back to Uzu village.
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(Mito scoffed at the idea of this diverse, multi-clan village, but she was piqued.)
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The days melted into weeks, into months. Mito knew peace, for the first time in her life. She knew peace in her solitude, because Hashirama was busy traveling, forming alliances and gathering much needed funds. She would have helped him, had not her pride stopped her at the last moment.
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"Mito! There's someone I want you to meet! An old friend of mine."
She jumped. He should stop sneaking up to her shack like that. Now that they were due for marriage, it was improper for him to enter and go from her bedroom at a whim. Strange how the customs of her world worked, really.
"Can't you see I'm busy packing? Isn't it enough that you want me to move?" she frowned until Hashirama's bubbling exuberance turned into light embarrassment.
"A-ah. Okay, take your time," he back-pedaled, his grin nonetheless infectious. "Come by the village tomorrow night for supper, won't you? He'll be there. It's nothing grand, but we'll all eat around a fire with the carpenters and stone masons."
Mito rolled her eyes and did her best to look unenthused.
"I'm to be your esteemed wife, not some man with whom you pass around sake late at night. I'm not coming."
Really. He was just like a puppy sometimes.
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Year 157
Clans of the Shinobi Alliance and Civilian Villagers break soil in their new home
Konohagakure is founded
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The village construction was going at full-pace, and new, half-formed jungles of wood and cement were being stacked together across what would become the full-fledged village of Konohagakure. Under the light of the moon, the workers often toiled through the night… but on a moonless night like this, retired to their beds. Hashirama had long since left for the Sarutobi clans' tents, to schmooze and plan and, very likely, gamble.
And so, nothing, not even the moon, was here to witness one particular reunion.
Not that it mattered. For decades afterward, many, many times, Mito would tell herself it didn't matter.
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Mito stepped out from the concealment of the pillar, into the ring of stone that served as seating for the men over their repast. Mito's insides were burning, burning low like the flame. He was sitting around the edges of a soon-to-be-dead fire, his signature brooding expression magnified by the quivering shadow of the flames. She willed herself to be calm, and took a breath to steel herself.
"We meet again, Thief."
Just as before, he did not acknowledge her greeting. And here she realized that, perhaps, he had not changed much-that boy from back then.
"What did I steal?" he asked finally, daring her to show him the evidence.
In response, she moved close (mirroring the silent hunter that night, showing him that she could take vengeance) and, in a split second, had kissed his temple, then his collarbone. If he could, he didn't stop her.
"This is how he kissed me, before you killed him."
She had his attention now. The fire died, being unattended. Madara was silence itself, blending into the dark night.
"Give that happiness back to me," Mito murmured.
Finally, he spoke.
"…You didn't love him," the Uchiha said, as if he had the fucking right to decide these things.
"I didn't, but I liked his kisses," Mito said leisurely. "What's wrong with that?"
His eyes were scornful. "Ha, you became just a woman after all. And now you're chasing after Hashirama, I see."
Mito felt like laughing, because it almost sounded like Uchiha was jealous. But it was not jealousy, and she and Hashirama were not what the village people chose to see. "And that's where you're wrong. He is chasing me. Though, he is chasing an illusion of me. He believes I am light and lovely and would save his brother merely out of the inherent goodness of my heart."
Madara's brow wrinkled, then relaxed. "Hashirama… chases many illusions. We both know that."
She looked into his dark eyes. 'Yet here you are, chasing it as well' was the unspoken comment hanging in the cold night air.
"Then what are you chasing?" she asked instead.
"I am not chasing an illusion," Madara told her, and his eyes turn the color of bloody flame. "My eyes are clear. For example, when I look at you, I don't see the illusion that he sees."
Do you speak the truth?
Mito tried not to look pleased, tried to keep her voice light, though she was mesmerized by the swirl of three commas. "What do you see?" she breathed.
"Someone trying to survive. Someone trying to protect the clan, and willing to do anything for it."
He was exactly right.
Mito didn't tell him, didn't let any sign show on her face, but Madara smiled darkly anyhow, as if he had won something.
He was right. Something inside her rejoiced, and it was a bitter sort of happiness. His words thrilled the basest part of her, and she found herself wanting more. Wanting the truth this man understood.
Uchiha Madara grasped Mito's hand in his, and tugged forward.
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"I can't," Mito whispered.
"You won't," he amended.
She agreed, her nod in the dark invisible to all but his red-red eyes.
"…When did it happen?"
Her mouth quirked, and the spell of his eyes was gone for her, even if her heart still ached.
"Speak for yourself. I'm not the only one rooting for his stupid dream. Why do you think you're here?"
He didn't smile back.
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The wedding was not extravagant by relative standards in Fire Country, but it was political and thus of great importance, and Mito walked herself through the rituals with longsuffering steps. The festivities started from late afternoon to evening, and would stretch far later into night into more debaucherous celebrations. A few of the newer clans would be scandalized and never join Konoha. The wilder clans would come and undoubtedly pervert Konoha's culture forevermore.
Kenka was there, seated on the opposite end of the ceremonial banquet hall from the Uchiha contingent. There were various other clans with things like restraining jutsu and body-stealing jutsu between these two enemies, and Mito found herself laughing at the ridiculous beginnings of her new home.
Konoha. Home.
That felt wrong on many levels, but it felt right, too. It was beginning to feel right.
Looking at the man on the opposite end of the sake cup, she tried not to think about all the ways she could kill him. It had become habit, now, to assess the vulnerabilities of her husband-to-be, to wait for instruction to kill. Forever-marriages were only for fairytale princesses, for girls too weak to seize power for themselves, right?
She took the cup from him, unconsciously pausing and seeing him before she brought it to her lips, before she sealed the deal.
He stared back at her.
Eyes wet. Grin threatening to split his face in two.
He looked like a fucking idiot.
So she drank.
She drank the ceremonial way, grateful to tip her own eyes away, still feeling the incredible warm gaze trained on her face.
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After a month of marriage, it seemed her husband had caught on. Not much was changed in their relationship, besides formal titles, purely addressed by strangers. Perhaps Mito had made it too obvious, because Hashirama's requests were beginning to sound more and more insistent.
"Move in with me," he asked more than demanded.
The deafening roar of silence quieted all other thoughts in her mind.
"I like this shack," she retorted. "Less for you to build in this fancy Hokage Manor you won't shut up about."
"This shack is not a place fit for a lady. Nor a princess of Whirlpool."
Her husband's eyes were warm, but also dark and tinged with something Mito knew from experience to be "desire". She should have thrilled at this progress—this was when the kill would be quick and simple—but (she sighed at old habits) she had no orders to kill. Now, looking at the desire in the man's eyes, she had no ready reply.
"Just an old vanity of mine," Mito finally got out. "Being a princess, I mean… But I don't need to be a princess, and I don't need to live in a palace. I like this place."
"We will make it a shrine, then. A shrine dedicated to Uzumaki, or to whatever you would like."
Mito's smile was heavy-hearted. He was talking like a leader now, Senju Hashirama. Giving out incentives, bribery, to gain what he wanted. She hated that in a man. He could be so easy to kill, in this moment. He was always easy to kill, from her perspective. That scared her.
"Ah." Hashirama seemed to catch himself, bribing his very own wife. He stammered an explanation, "Madara mentioned his plans for a Uchiha shrine… I think that's a great idea, actually. So I thought… maybe you would like one too…?"
(In an effort to change the topic away from Uchiha, she acquiesced.) "Yes. Of course."
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Mito permitted herself to let out a long sigh. She had considered poisoning Hashirama only thrice in her life, thus far. That bode well for their continued marriage, she supposed. The first time was when he explained the reason he'd told her his real name. The third time, she'd known him for almost two years, and had given up trying to reign in his enthusiasm in collecting more clans for his village. After all, Hashirama never asked further than one time about whether her allegiance lay first with the Uzumaki, or with Konoha.
"It's the code of conduct for shinobi to love their clans first. Don't be naïve."
"I told you, I want to change the way things are," the Senju had said, squinting hard at the small wooden peg in his hand. It was lunch time, and not many customers frequented the artisan stalls when they could be at the food booths. Hashirama whittled away another shaving with his small knife (Mito thought he should have just used a kunai. There was no need to keep up appearances anymore, but hey, why was the hypocrite talking?).
"I just think it's pretty miserable living in a world where kids have to fight and die all the time."
"Hm." Mito intoned. She wanted to flick his forehead as she would a moping whipping boy from her village, but mere words of bravado did not incriminate a man.
"By the way, when's your birthday?" Hashirama asked out of the blue.
Mito blinked, and considered for a moment if this was a roundabout tactic of winning her favor. Probably not. "The first day of spring."
His dark, distant eyes stared at her. Mito felt her stomach turn uncomfortably. "Why?"
"Oh, well, you can be kind of cold in bed…" Hashirama's smile was sloppy and just a bit perverted. "So I figured you'd be a winter birthday or something."
She felt her brow wrinkle.
"And, well, I wanted to give you a present. I mean, it's almost been a year since our wedding. When I finish this piece, I'll give it to you."
"Thank you," she said in her best frosty manner, in opposition to the thawing feeling in her chest. Uzumaki Mito, wedded countless times, was used to gifts. She told herself she was not touched by his gesture.
Besides, Hashirama's crude sculptures were… undesirable.
Hashirama fixed his gaze at his craft, blowing away a cloud of wood shavings from the peg, which fit comfortably in his fist.
"And then, I'll be able to say! Ha—told you I could make something small and cute, too!"
Mito's ringing laugh, like a bell, startled Hashirama into nearly shaving off a thumb.
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Peace did not last. It was merely replaced by conflict, which laid the foundation for more peace. War was good breeding soil for stability.
She hated conflict, still. Not all conflicts made sense.
The blistering war of men was still that—a war among men. Mito did not want to unpeel the layers of meaning hidden deep down in both combatants' psyches, did not want to sicken herself to the number of lives they were throwing to fate. The heavy-handedness of her husband, his friend (her friend?), their plans, was something she found graceless, at best.
Gracelessness.
Powerful, moutain-crushing, landscape-razing gracelessness.
Played out in thousand-armed buddhas and armored tengus and a bloodthirsty, demon fox.
So graceless was the conflict, in fact, that when she stepped in, she picked the side she honestly thought would lose.
How many people a kunoichi was willing to kill for one man did not equate to how much she loved him. She'd known that from day one, with her father, then her brothers. Mito was a kunoichi, one from an era of clan and blood allegiance, thick and simple and strong. She did not kill for ideals. Ideals were tricky, changing things. Where men carved their principles in rock, the fast-flowing water of streams and whirlpools weathered the shapes, changed the principles, made them soft, their shape untenable.
Her two men carved their principles at what would be called the Valley of the End, and Mito cried invisible tears of pain.
She cried in pain, because her abdomen swelled, and she'd marred her own seed, his seed.
Forgive me, she mouthed to no one. Hashirama would not know how of how his war sapped at the strength of his to-be daughter.
It was Mito's choice, anyhow. She was equally to blame.
She had tainted her firstborn with the chakra of a demon fox she'd had no choice but to seal, for use in the war of men, which would inevitably come in the later days.
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There were deep sadnesses with every life.
Perhaps the only life with no sadness is that of an orphaned babe who dies at the hand of a merciful stranger before his first cry of hunger.
Yet, moving her hand to her frail, dying daughter's swollen abdomen, Uzumaki Mito could not help but think that a life is not so easily pitied. A merciful stranger must be fully stranger and not acting out of passion.
Hashirama was dead.
Madara was dead.
Kenka was dead.
And Tobirama… Tobirama was constant. He had always hated her, more so over the years when he saw how much his elder brother loved her. He did not think Mito was safe. He asked incessantly the question Hashirama asked only once (Which do you value more? Your clan or your village?). Now, what would Tobirama think about the baby boy—this male heir of the union between Senju and Uzumaki (no, between Hashirama and Mito) that Tobirama had always doubted?
"I am not a stranger, little one," Mito said, brushing her calloused kunoichi hand over her daughter's midsection. As she applied more healing chakra, she felt a light kick, but maybe she had imagined it.
"Not a stranger, and thus you will live and experience sadness."
Mito shed tears for her husband. Hashirama was dead.
She had realized how much he protected her, only after his death. He had been a tree whose leaves were so abundant and branches so wide, they canopied against the whole sky. She had taken that for granted.
The news of his death had come, relayed by envoys who were fiercely loyal to Senju and more loyal to Hashirama. They said he chose to lay down his life for Madara, who was dying as well. The report had come a week ago. Tobirama was Hokage-heir.
The tears collected on Mito's cheeks, the excess splashing down in fat, hot droplets against the fabric of her obi, which was stained with blood and placenta.
"And also, I am sorry because…" Mito whispered, "I am not merciful. You will live on, little one. You will be called Nawaki.* A rope tied firmly to your grandfather's legacy."
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The years passed.
Her two men had long ago carved their principles at what was now called the Valley of the End. Now Mito watched the waterfall carve out the space between their rock statues, rigid yet changed by the course of the water.
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It was many years later, many deaths later, that Mito found herself staring into the image of her youth again.
Mito saw red hair and flashing eyes, and a small tendril of courage leapt in her heart.
It's you, she thought. You don't know yet, but you are the one to give birth to hope.
Her own daughter, radiant, but frail from the impact of the sealing, was of Hashirama's legacy, and her daughter's son as well. The Senju legacy was strong, but rigid, hard like the bark of the Hashirama tree. It was not the bloodline that could house the demon fox.
Mito never thought that another Uzumaki would come to Konoha to bear this heavy burden, much less one from her brother Kenka's line.
She laughed, because it was her father's village—her father's most beloved legacy—that had finally produced this perfect girl-child.
This child was someone whose anger flushed like ripe fruit and whose laughter fell like morning rain. Mito looked at her (heard her clumsy "dattebane's") and believed that this child could house hope one day, hope which would live on in resilience, just like the village Mito no longer could deny was her own.
Kushina.
What a lovely name.
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How many people a kunoichi is willing to kill for one man does not equate to how much she loves him.
The end is much more gentle than she imagined, the siphoning of her burden just a gentle tug. She feels, somewhat distantly, an empathy for the girl-child, whose life is now part suffering. But that is how all lives are.
Mito muses that, in another life, it could have been him. Before she lays herself to rest one final time, arrogant eyes and dark hair swim before her closing eyes—
—It could have been him.
But it wasn't.
And Mito isn't sorry.
Despite all the hurt and destruction and war, she isn't sorry. For any of it.
Her heart (pumping Uzumaki blood) is Konoha's. It is as resilient as the village proves to be.
It is also Hashirama's, somehow, and she wonders if he'll smile his face-splitting grin when she sees him again. He will laugh, surely, for her believing in such naïve things.
She smiles.
Welcomes rest.
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Owari
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Suzu: That's a wrap! Thanks so, so much for reading.
As always, I'm crazy grateful for your encouragement and critique, which always help me write boldly.
Note on the motif:
"How many people a kunoichi is willing to kill for one man does not equate to how much she loves him."
Mito at the beginning thought it to be love or allegiance to kill others for someone. Well, Mito makes the transition.
Progress: saving other for the sake of someone (Tobirama for Hashirama).
Finally: choosing to die for the sake of others (first sealing the kyuubi, then giving it up for Kushina to carry for Konoha). The story suggests that Mito ultimately gets closer to what love really is.
There were other themes touched upon here in this piece, several contrast points:
One was the clan allegiance (blood allegiance) versus allegiance to ideals, to principles, to new things like Konoha. Upon Hashirama's death, Mito believes Konoha, the ideal, to be doomed, but she acts as midwife for Nawaki, and she names him so that Senju Hashirama's dream will have a foothold in the future, too. Male heirs, in days of old, are often named to reflect their predecessors, more so than female children. Regardless of right or wrong, that's the way it was.
The male-female/shinobi-kunoichi dynamic is also something I explored here. Not going to go too much into this, since it's more of a backdrop woven into the rest of the story. I think what is interesting is the different standards for how shinobi should behave, versus kunoichi-both the fighting methods and lying methods.
Of course, the romance theme was embedded to highlight representations. Hashirama represents ideals like Konoha (which Mito is increasingly drawn to) while Madara represents a stubborn clan-pride, something embedded in their culture that neither he nor Mito shake as easily as Hashirama does. Old Mito gradually comes to escape from blind allegiance to her father, enters the go-between ground of Madara, then ultimately chooses Hashirama.
Asterisk Glossary:
1. Nawaki means rope tree.