Fugaku scanned the contents of the scroll one last time, making sure that his handwriting was impeccably neat. He was nervous. He was so rarely nervous, but this moment felt monumental. He was sure in his path, sure that he, his son, and his nephew had made the best possible choice for Sasuke and the clan. But if he was so certain, why did the decision gnaw at his gut? What if they had picked the best for Sasuke but not for the clan? Or what if they had picked the best for the clan but not for Sasuke? Fugaku knew that his wife would strangle him if Sasuke ended up unhappy with any of the women the council chose; she had joked as much as she teased him with drops of water running down her legs in the bath, but leaning on the counter watching her, he knew she was deathly serious. Mikoto would not stand by and let her youngest be miserable for the rest of his life.
Sighing, Fugaku resisted the urge to rewrite the scroll for the fourth time. He rolled it up, tied it, and placed his seal on it. The drying wax acted as a symbol of finality; it was official, and there was no changing it now. He stood from his desk and grabbed the scroll, felt its hallowed weight, and walked towards the door of the house. Fugaku took cautious steps, looking around each corner of the hallway with a shinobi's precision. Once he was certain it was clear, he opened the door and stepped onto the back porch.
"Is that it?" Mikoto called from her garden. Fugaku's heart nearly stopped and he had just enough discipline to not clutch his chest to calm the franticly beating muscle. He would never admit that he was sneaking around in his own house…but he certainly hadn't wanted to run into his wife before the troublesome scroll was delivered. He should have sent it by ferret.
"Yes," he replied gruffly, discretely taking deep breaths. A wily smile spread across Mikoto's lips as she rose and dusted her hands off on her dress. Fugaku watched her smile with concealed fear; her smooth lips revealing dazzling white teeth was the last thing many shinobi saw before she shut their eyes forever. Fugaku was no stranger to that smile himself. It had ensnared him, beguiled him, until before he knew it, he hung on her every word. Itachi hadn't been wrong when he said that he couldn't imagine his father thinking of any other woman; Mikoto had always had an uncanny ability to command his attention. Like Itachi, Fugaku hadn't needed a selection of women; all he had needed was to take one look at Mikoto and she had captured him like a genjutsu he never wanted release from. Fugaku could see that Izumi had done the same with Itachi. Now, he could only hope that Sasuke would experience such a moving desire, and that his future wife would be deserving of such attention.
Mikoto strolled up to her husband like a cat cornering an unsuspecting mouse. She smiled brighter when she saw Fugaku's Adam's apple work in his throat. Coming to a stop just in front of him, Mikoto placed her hand on his chest for leverage to kiss his cheek. His throat bobbed again. She pressed her lips lightly to the rough skin of his weather-worn cheek and traced her finger over his pectoral muscles. When she moved back, she could easily see warm affection in his dark eyes.
"Can I see it?" She asked sweetly. Fugaku took a deep breath, trying to find the energy to glare at her, but the playful twinkle in her eyes made such an act impossible.
"Mikoto," He grumbled, but she tossed her hair lightly.
"I only want to know what women stood up to the incredible scrutiny of the head of the clan and his trusted son and nephew." She smiled and feigned deference. Fugaku was not fooled in the slightest. His wife only wanted to know who was on the list in order to conduct her own investigation.
"You will know when Sasuke makes his decision."
"You can't even give me one name?" Mikoto asked in a honeyed voice, batting her dark, luxurious lashes. Fugaku shook his head and placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. He squeezed her hand gently and backed away.
"I'll be home shortly," he called back and walked towards his destination, hoping that he was not carrying his youngest son's sentence.
The walk to the council room was too peaceful and leisurely for Fugaku. Not because the village was being threatened, but because he felt the weight of the scroll in his hand with every step. As he walked, Fugaku watched older children playing without a care, mothers herding young children off for their naps, shopkeepers flocking their wares, people strolling along under the brilliance of the blue sky and warm sunshine; his people were at peace. But the scroll in his hand felt tumultuous to this peace, out of place. Fugaku nodded to everyone who turned to greet him, pausing their activity to acknowledge he who was so critical to their peace.
He wondered if they would do the same for Sasuke? With his wife at his side, would Sasuke garner this same reaction? Would the clan look at his wife with warmth, or would they show respectable deference, only for their eyes to remain chilled? Would they whisper as she passed, not outwardly defying her, but clearly establishing that she was not welcomed as a leader? Izumi had faced a cool reaction due to her heritage, but after seeing Itachi's sheer devotion to his wife, many were willing to reexamine their initial judgements of her. Adolescent girls, romanticizing Itachi's refusal to have any other, openly voiced their desire for a similar romance to the boys of their age. Older Uchiha looked to their own spouses with a twinkle in their eye, remembering the fire of their own young love. Fugaku mentally shook his head. Izumi had been the perfect choice for Itachi. He had to believe that written in this scroll was the perfect choice for Sasuke as well. If he didn't believe it, it would be impossible for the council to believe it.
Reaching the council room where the elders of the clan conferred, Fugaku opened the shōji doors and slipped his shoes off before stepping onto the tatami mat. He walked with determination to the center of the room, then bowed before the council. The 3 members bowed back and all sat at the low table with their legs crossed. A boy shadowing the elders as a secretary walked in with a steaming teapot and poured four cups of the hot liquid. He passed them all a ceramic cup, bowed, and then retreated into one of the other rooms that functioned as an office. The four drank their tea in a silence that somehow managed to be both content and heavy at the same time. Fugaku acknowledged that he was with family, his clansmen and woman, but he also acknowledged that while the elders may have the clan's best interest at heart, they did not necessarily have Sasuke's.
Once they finished their tea and the pleasantries were conducted, Fugaku passed the scroll to Agira, the longest serving elder and waited as she unrolled the scroll. The three studied the scroll intently, taking in every brushstroke laid carefully on the parchment. They shared a look that, characteristic of the Uchiha, revealed not much of their actual thoughts. Fugaku waited for what felt like 20 minutes before Agira finally spoke.
"You're sure about this, Fugaku?" Her raspy voice filled the otherwise quiet chamber. Her eyes scrutinize the list sharply.
"Very," He responded with no hesitancy.
"How were you able to come to a decision with such certainty?" Kohaku questioned, narrowing his eyes at the list again. "While you know our clan members well, we heard not much in the way of consulting and have not heard of you conducting interviews..." He trailed off. Fugaku knew exactly what the criticism was even if the elder veiled it in feigned politeness.
"It was compiled with Itachi and Shisui, who are above all else dedicated to the clan and the village. We looked through every option available to ensure that Sasuke would choose someone who would be a benefit to the clan in our domestic affairs and in our affairs with the village," Fugaku spoke firmly. The council would not outright reject Itachi and Shisui's opinions, who were both instrumental in handling the negotiations between the Uchiha clan and the village before the situation progressed to inevitable violence. Itachi's insistence that the Uchiha and village elders speak was one of the clearest showings of his strength as a leader, followed closely by his assertion of Izumi as his bride.
The last elder, Teiga, crossed his arms over his chest and nodded as if processing this valuable information. The elders were silent for a long time again. Had Fugaku been a child, he would have been tempted to squirm, but he sat with his back ramrod straight, hands relaxed in his lap, waiting for their final decision. It would be up to the council to accept the list and transcribe it on a scroll that bore the official insignia of the Uchiha elders; Fugaku would then seal the scroll with his own insignia, showing that both groups were in agreement of their decision. Finally, Agira spoke again.
"Very well. If the three of you believe this, then we will draw up the scroll. I hope for the good of the clan that you all have chosen this list wisely," She nodded her head. Kohaku's eyes narrowed for a split second and then relaxed, but Fugaku had already taken note of the reaction. He'd have to warn Itachi that Kohaku would not be easily swayed by his sacrifices as the other two could be.
Fugaku nodded. Teiga uncrossed his arms and began to rewrite Fugaku's scroll with painstaking care, making sure that every smooth line was perfect. Once the ink had a few moments to dry, he rolled the scroll up and secured it with a red ribbon. Fugaku placed his seal in the hot wax then watched as each elder placed their seal in order of their length of service. The seal would be stored in a secure spot until its delivery to Sasuke at the next council meeting in a few days.
Fugaku stood and bowed again, then turned and walked back to his home. When he walked in, Itachi and Shisui sat at the table, discussing perhaps their latest mission brief while Mikoto stood at the kitchen counter, arranging pots of the herbs she'd collected from her gardening earlier.
"It's done then?" Itachi asked once he noticed his father walk through the door. Fugaku nodded, coming to sit with them at the table.
"I hope we made the right decision," Shisui said, uncharacteristically serious for a man who was usually so jolly. Fugaku shared his sentiments but was amazed to find that he felt lighter with the weight of the scroll lifted from his shoulders.
"We cannot change our path once we have decided on it; we can only walk with conviction."
Kanami sat staring in the mirror of her vanity, absent-mindedly brushing her long hair. It was a nightly habit. She would brush the strands until they shined a river of smooth violet under the lights of her room. While her hands were occupied with such a simple task, her mind was free to roam through her thoughts of the day, the important things she needed to do tomorrow, her hopes, her dreams, her fears…and as it had been lately, Sasuke.
She huffed, mentally shaking herself for letting his name invade her peace again. Thoughts of him had been such a constant it was almost as if her mind was not her own; as if she shared it with him. She found herself thinking of him when she picked out her outfits, wondering if he'd like to see her in one dress or the other. She thought of him when she passed by a grocer in the market, wondering if they had the type of tomatoes he ate like a child ate candy. She looked at her body in the mirror, twisting this way and that, wondering how she would look, round with his child. He was a phantom, always watching her in her mind's eye. A knock at her window interrupted her thoughts, and it could only be him. He was the only person she knew who entered through a window rather than a door.
'Must be some sort of shinobi thing,' her mind spat with venom. How many of his quirks was she not to question because they were shinobi things? His clipped answers when she asked how his mission went, his prolonged absences from the village, his refusal to tell her anymore about his upcoming missions but its location, his need for "stress relief" after a mission—Kanami rolled her eyes. Was she supposed to accept those things happily as a house pet accepted scraps from the table?
Realizing that she held a death grip on her hairbrush, she set the innocent object down and stood with as much grace as she could. She kept her shoulders back and her head forward as she turned to the window, knowing well who waited on the other side. Her hair flowed like water behind her and she kept her expression neutral as she unlocked her window and raised the glass. She moved back, allowing him to enter. Kanami watched him step through the window frame with effortless skill, as if he'd been doing it all his life.
'He probably has. Avoiding the neighbors seeing, no doubt,' her snarky inner voice supplied. She nearly frowned as she thought of all the other women whose windows he'd also entered through. Nevermind that he walked with her through the market or took her to nice restaurants when he was in the village, or that she attended gatherings with his teammates and classmates. He'd yet to introduce her to his family or invite her to his home in the Uchiha compound. Surely, he was hiding his affiliation with her.
Sasuke watched Kanami walk back to her vanity and grab a hair tie to begin braiding her hair as she did to sleep. He sat down on a stool she kept in her room, waiting for her to unleash the torrent that had no doubt been building in the few days since he'd seen her last. He deserved much of her ire. After seeing Sakura again, he hadn't been in any particular hurry to go to Kanami. While he'd had another meeting with the Hokage, there hadn't been anything pressing keeping him away; he'd just had no interest in going. Over the months he'd been with Kanami, their routine became mundane, boring really. He'd figured out quickly that she had few qualities that he'd want his future wife to have; he had just been needed on so many missions lately that he hadn't really had time to break things off. Not that that would matter in a few more days.
"Glad to see you finally have time for me." Kanami tried to sound flippant, nonchalant, but her voice held a sharper edge to it than she wanted. She wanted to appear as if he hadn't been consuming her thoughts, as if she hadn't been waiting for him, as if she had been going about her life and only just deigned to give him the barest of her attention. She was met with his silence. Her eyes met his through the mirror and she glared.
"Say what you need to," Sasuke leaned back in the chair, letting it absorb his weight. Kanami turned around sharply, her braid flying haphazardly, and Sasuke mentally sighed, prepared to rehash the same old arguments.
"How kind of you, Sasuke, to present me with the opportunity," sarcasm dripped from her lips. "You're gone for a whole month! A month that I don't see you. Then I just happen to run into you because Naruto called me over," She took a deep breath, waiting for his response. He remained quiet, watching her with his arms crossed at his chest. "As if that isn't insulting enough, I found out that you went to Sakura first. Sakura! And now nearly a week later, you finally make the time to see me. Am I not supposed to be upset, Sasuke?"
He nodded his head slightly, but Kanami didn't know if he was saying that she should be upset or not. Besides, she didn't want a nod or a shrug; she wanted him to say that he was sorry and that he'd come to her first next time and every time after that. She wanted him to say, after a year of them being together, that she was the first person he wanted to see when he got through the gates of Konoha.
"You have nothing to say about me, your girlfriend, being the last person to know that you were alive, let alone receive some sort of attention from you?" She crossed her arms and her teal eyes turned to daggers. Sasuke inwardly cringed at the word. Girlfriend had always seemed like a juvenile word, and it implied a much more romantic tint to him examining qualities that would make a good wife and possible matriarch if need be. Some wanted romance in a marriage, expected it, but romance had never held his interest; shinobi died too quickly to wait for the foolish idea of a "one". He wanted a wife who would share his burdens and raise his children. They didn't have to love each other, but he did want a peaceful house born from compatibility and companionship—a nurturing wife for his children, and a nurturing aunt for his nephews or nieces. That Itachi and his father had found women they loved when they were young was an exception, not the rule.
"I had an injury. It's standard procedure to receive healing from a medic before reporting to the Hokage," Sasuke kept his voice neutral. Kanami threw up her hands and rolled her eyes.
"And so you went to Sakura, right? Two birds, one stone. You get your injury mended and your teammate on her knees at all hours of the night," Kanami snarked, and saw Sasuke's eyes narrow sharply. Finally she got some sort of reaction out of him! And of course, it just had to come with some reference to the pink haired woman who always seemed to come up whenever it came to Sasuke.
"You slept with her." She snapped.
"Whether I slept with Sakura or not wouldn't have mattered; it's the fact that I went to her at all. What are you really upset about, Kanami?" Sasuke's voice was lethally chilling, signaling that he was nearing his limit with the conversation. His eyes were narrow pinpricks beneath his sharp brow.
"What am I angry about?!" Kanami scoffed with disbelief. "I didn't even know if you were alive, Sasuke! All I had was the hope that you were okay, that you were so great as a shinobi that you wouldn't be hurt or worse. But she always knows, doesn't she? She and Naruto are always the first to know that you are okay, and I'm always left with scraps!" Her voice grew higher with each sentence.
"While you were on your mission, I needed a sentence, something! Anything to let me know that you weren't lying dead somewhere! I've seen you send hawks to other ninja. Is it so hard to send one to me?" Her vocal cords strained with the rising pitch of her voice.
"Unless Sakura and Naruto are on a mission with me, they find out I'm alive when I get back. I've told you before: I can't risk my position by sending frivolous notes back to Konoha," Sasuke interrupted. He gritted his teeth and felt annoyance slip through his veins. He'd never been fond of repeating himself, and Kanami's inability to understand the most basic concept that he had already explained multiple times was grating to his nerves.
"Frivolous?" Kanami's teal eyes watered with unshed tears that threatened to slip down her cheeks. Her lips quivered furiously, and she wished not for the first time that she could appear as schooled as him. She'd always been so painfully transparent with her feelings about him. What a gift it must be for shinobi to be able to hide their emotions. "Telling me that you're okay is frivolous?"
"When it could jeopardize my mission, yes." He watched as she wrapped her slim arms around her body, as if building a wall around herself to shield out his words. Sighing, Sasuke pushed out of the chair and walked over to her trembling form. He placed his hand on her shoulder blade, pressing gently to pull her into him, but loosely enough that she could break away if she didn't want his touch. Kanami took a few deep breaths, then stepped into his embrace. Her fingers curled into a firm grip on his shirt, and she rested her head on his chest, warm and solid beneath her grip. She listened to the strong beating of his heart, a deafening rhythm proclaiming his virility and success as a ninja. His heartbeat had serenaded her to sleep on so many nights as she'd glanced up at his serene face, satisfied and worriless.
In that moment, she didn't know who she hated more: him or herself? She hated him adhering to the unbending code of shinobi. Hated him for seeming so untouchable, like nothing she could do would ever hurt him. But she didn't want to hurt him. All she wanted, she sniffed against the liquid trying to escape her nose, was to feel like he cared. She wanted him to take her in his arms as he did now and kiss her, tell her that he would marry her, that he wanted no other woman besides her, tell her all the secrets his shinobi code or the Uchiha clan demanded he keep. She wanted him to make love to her, and in his most unguarded moments whisper his love sweetly in her ear as he moved above her. She wanted Sasuke Uchiha more desperately than she'd ever wanted anything in her life.
But maybe, maybe this was all she would get. Did that make her a fool for so desperately accepting it? Did that make her pathetic? Did she really care, so long as she could have some piece of him?
Kanami took a deep breath and brushed the back of her hand against her nose and cheeks to rid herself of the unflattering tears. She stepped back and untied the belt holding her robe together. She watched as his eyes followed the silky fabric parting to reveal her form.
"Kanami," he breathed deeply, as if he was exasperated with fighting.
"It's been a month," she said quietly, as if that explained her sudden shift. "I've missed you."
She let the fabric fall from her shoulders, baring her to his sharp gaze. She might not have been as practiced in seduction as a well-trained kunoichi, but she knew he enjoyed her voluptuous figure all the same. And she'd never been above using it to get what she wanted.
Sasuke's dark eyes watched her intently, taking in her every curve. Kanami felt the usual rush when she was under his gaze. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be trapped in the Sharingan. Kanami grabbed his hand and pulled him over to her bed, lying down so he could climb on top of her. For a second, she saw his indecision and wondered if he would humiliate her this way too—leave her when she was bare for him.
Sasuke hesitated, debating if he should step out of the window as he'd come. Something in him pulled towards the window, a voice that sounded oddly feminine, but he decided against it. He pulled his shirt and jōnin pants down and settled between her legs. Kanami wrapped her arms around him, relishing in his natural warmth and the enveloping scent of him. He always smelled like fire, and she wondered if that was unique to him or if all Uchiha smelled like the element she had seen him control so easily.
When it was over, she laid on top of him, listening to his strong heartbeat as she had done countless nights before. Her nails traced the smooth expanse of his muscles and she took in his deep rhythmic breathing. But unlike those nights before, she didn't fall into a blissful, content sleep. Instead, tears stung like pinpricks behind her eyelids, and small drops ran slowly down her cheek.
Sasuke feigned sleep. But he felt her tears, and his gut churned with bile. He should have listened to that voice telling him to leave.