It's just two weeks before Touka and Izuna's wedding that Akane green lights an increasingly impatient Madara about telling the rest of the clan about the creature.
It's the only reason that the wedding happens without any riots. Akane has been preparing the clan for news of some unseen enemy over the months of the engagement, and as she hoped, the rumors she'd seeded about the remnants of an ancient enemy clan are quick to take off.
It also distracts the bulk of Madras political enemies. Banding together with the enemy of another enemy to take them down is a long standing Shinobi tradition, and Akane had dug up enough proof that the narrative of the mystery clan being the sole reason they'd spent over a hundred years at war with the Senju is one they're having trouble denying. It's one thing to call the new heir incompetent in the face of trying to naively negotiate peace with their longtime enemy-its another to negotiate a treaty with a fellow victim in order to band together to destroy a common enemy.
It doesn't go down easily-there are full blown tantrums in the compound streets, grieving mothers and widows kneeling in protest outside of the main house home and then a couple of Elders attempt to assassinate Madara-which bizarrely enough, is the perfect turning point for the clans attitude. Madara is the Uchiha figurehead after all-the closest thing the clan had to a true center. Soon enough there are well respected Lineage Shinobi standing beside the protesters to signify their support of their clan head's actions.
Akira grumbles about his brother being a little too credulous-but Akane knows Madara is a great leader. Her chosen brother looks down on anyone who isn't suspicious of everyone else to a certain extent despite his lack of full blown shinobi training or experience. But that is undeniably because Akira has had the ill luck of being seen as the main line's weakness since he survived the assasination attempt that cost the clan the majority of his generation. The crippled son of Tajima Uchiha, a target for manipulation and scorn. She's well aware of why her younger brother is so jaded, but it doesn't make Madara a bad leader for him to trust those he believes to be in his camp.
It's what made him a great leader.
Moreover, the three pillars that held aloft Madaras authority in the clan worked beautifully to their benefit. Centuries of Uchiha tradition meant that even when they didn't like it, the majority of the clan would obey Madaras will because it was the will of the clan head. Anyone who thought of doing away with Madara, like those elders, had to contend with the simple fact that they had to win against the best shinobi the clan had. And finally, Madara had been clan heir for the past ten years, and he had a loyal faction among the lineage shinobi to show for it.
Madara trusted the clan to trust him and follow his lead, which may have seemed naive to someone so used to gratuitous intrigue like Akira, but that made perfect sense to anyone who had been on the field since before age ten. On the field, you couldn't worry about whether or not your orders were the best ones, you just had to trust that your leader knew what they were doing and that they would guide you according to what needed to be done to meet the objective. In the field, you also listened to anyone who spoke up and offered advice because making use of your resources was basically Leadership 101. Madara had been leading squads on the field successfully for years and he clearly knew when to listen to those on his team.
If he hadn't been willing to abide by Akanes expertise when it came l to human interpersonal relationships, there was no way in hell they would have made it through Izuna and Toukas engagement period, let alone the actual wedding. And seeing as the wedding was the litmus test for whether or not peace between the clans was possible, there was nothing as important as making sure it went off without a hitch. Which it had-and led to Akanes mild existential crisi about the existence of Konoha.
Konoha.
The naive little dream in her heart, a beautiful-if painfully brief break from the never ending war that was all Akane had ever known in her second life. She would do everything she could to extend the time of peace it prosmiser of course, but fuck if she knew how to process how suddenly close it was.
It felt a little like sleep walking, discussing who else among their closest Allie's would be invited, holding meeting to pick out a location for the site, explaining to the overly enthusiastic future first Hokage that it would be pointless for him to grow the Uchiha a residential compound as the clan shinobi would be far too paranoid to live in it. Ignoring the future second Hokages epic bitch face.
It was so weird to walk into a room and be confronted with how viscerally Tobirama did not want to be there and then watch him contribute substantially to the creation of the village anyway. He could be credited with drafting nearly all of their missives to the Fire Daimyo about the Konoha. Akane rarely had anything to add he didn't cover perfectly effectively-most of her additions were simple embellishments and rewording points he'd made a little too clinical or clunky. They worked surprisingly well together-but it was mostly because Akane knew better than to take the Senju heirs' attitude personally, than any effort on Tobirama's part to be civil or personable.
Ultimately, when the eight founding clans reached an agreement and relocated to begin building a village, Akane was painfully glad. She'd cried, happy grateful tears, that she could put down her flames, if only for a while. It was better than never putting them down in the first place.
They took a vote for military commander that Hashirama and his charisma wasted no time in winning-but the Uchiha grumbling was easily mitigated by Madaras subsequent election as head of the council of clans, an idea Akane had been pushing for since they'd begun discussing the future village power structure. The head of the council of clans position was equivalent to that of the Hokages, and as long as he had the support of at least half the clans, he could force a veto of nearly any Hokage issued policy or order.
It wasn't quite the checks and balances proposed by her previous lives political system, the shinobi world and inherent philosophy's about power didn't lend itself too well to the concept of democracy, but it was a step in the right direction, and if her current life had taught Akane anything, it was to take what she could get.
Next up was simply to begin building infrastructure. They took a couple of months to set up their own clan compounds within the agreed upon locations, but then it was time to make the actual buildings and roads for the village.
There were a lot of suggestions Akane had made that got shot down for several reasons, like the lack of agreed upon food source for her proposed canteen, but then there were the ones about simple logistics. Like the need for a bridge crossing over the Nakamura river.
It was meant to be an easy project.
They had several shinobi from all eight of the founding clans. The Yamanaka, Akimichi, and Nara were used to working together. The Inuzuka were long standing Uchiha allie's despite the supposed relationship between cats and dogs, Inuzuka were friendly and easy to get along with. The Sabutori were kind of loud, but otherwise very intelligent-and the Shimura, while a lot more gossipy than Akane could have ever expected, were almost as friendly as the Inizuka. It wouldn't have actually been terribly difficult to complete a bridge with everyone working together.
Except that Tobirama Senju had designed the damned thing and the time between being informed of that little factoid and Tobirama's micromanagement tendencies setting in was near zero. By the first day Akane, someone who regularly worked with the high strung man and considered herself used to his thoughtless austere personality, wanted to strangle him.
She knew the attitude was his perfectionist nature meeting the expectation of obedience being a field commander usually meted, but they weren't on the field. They simply wanted to build a bridge-both physically, for their new village, and metaphorically between the eight clans that had come together to create Konoha.
Akane knew in her heart she had to nip the incident in the bud or the first attempt to really come together as a village would be dead in the water. Fortunately-busy as he was, Tobirama split the moment the sun went down.
Being shinobi, the other warriors didn't start bitching about him until he was properly out of earshot, most stuck around for the grumbling, trying to gauge everyone's reactions and if anyone was actually going to do anything in response to their hellish afternoon of bridge building and their insufferable self elected leader.
That was when Akane stepped up.
"I asked one of my clan mates to memorize all the plans," she told the crowd, "I have an idea about how to stick it to that jerk, anyone interested?"
It said a lot about how impossible Tobirama had been that his clan mates stuck around and didn't even run off to snitch at any point. Akane had been paying attention-she would have noticed. Instead all the clan members present worked together, through the night, completing the bridge just before dawn.
Akane smiled at them, proud of their new bridge and looking forward to Tobirama's reaction to its existence. She knew better than to blindside him completely of course, that would be read as bad faith by the man, paranoid soul that he was-but she knew it would bother him that they had created it without him and she was woman enough to admit that she very much enjoyed that knowledge to herself.
She made an excuse about checking in with one of her brothers before coming back and used her soul sense to track down the crankiest Senju she knew.
As she'd expected, Tobirama's bitchface when informed of the existence of the bridge was phenomenal. It took all the self control Akane had not to giggle in delight. She was a serious no nonsense Kunochi with a goal, after all.
"You have quite a reputation you know," Akane said, struggling to keep her voice neutral instead of falling into the annoying little sister teasing voice she'd long perfected and was highly tempted to use. "Not just as an exacting asshole, or a prissy pain in the ass-everyone knows you're a perfectionist, someone with high standards."
Tobirama was confused about where she was going with her little speech and desperately trying not to give it away-which was almost cute. Akane wouldn't claim to know him well, but she had known him long enough to read his micro expressions, so it was easy for her to tell.
"You could show up today and be pissed as hell we didn't wait for your supervision to finish and piss off everybody involved, sure." Akane continued, "Or-you could show up and be impressed that we did manage to finish it without you. Well enough to impress the oh so exacting Tobirama Senju. It would be good for moral and clan relations is all I'm saying. But it's your choice to make."
Akane knew perfectly well what his choice would be once she'd put clan cohesion on the table-but she'd yet to meet someone put off by the illusion of choice.
"I'll think about it," Tobirama said stiffly as he excused himself and made his way towards the finished bridge.
That was when a redhead man appeared and almost startled her-the suddenness of his presence had her reaching for a Kunai before the familiarity registered. The redhead was one of Mitos guards, She couldn't quite remember his name.
"Should I be worried about how easily you're manipulating my cousin?" The redhead asked, voice light and playful despite the way his purple eyes bore into her soul.
"That depends," Akane acknowledged, "Do you have anything against deepening clan relationships?"
The man threw his head back and laughed, a surprisingly sensual sound and Akane had the awkward moment of remembering she was painfully straight as she was forced to acknowledge how attractive she found it.
She was almost sad to see it come to an end as the man's mirth died down. "I might-if this is the way you keep going about it."
Akane smiled, pretty and benign-it was the same smile she'd used when Cho had first informed her there was some lineage grumbling about how Akane was the best candidate to marry Madara after all. She'd already made a name for herself with the other clans in their currently small village, and her interception of the creature and handling of the resulting clusterfuck was masterful enough to finally earn the grudging respect of a lot of the elders that had looked down on her bloodline before.
"I think I'm going about it the best way actually, why don't we go see how your cousin actually handles things? We both know he won't lie if he thinks the bridge will collapse the first time someone uses it?"
"Good point," The Uzumaki chuckled, "but now I'm kind of jealous you know my cousin so well."
"I might get to know you better if you gave me your name," Akane pointed out dryly-flirting almost despite herself. She had no idea how old the Uzumaki was, although rumor had it no one under fifty was assigned to watch the beloved Uzushio princess. Not that rumors about Uzumaki longevity weren't credible-Akane just didn't want to find out she'd been flirting with an old man after the fact.
"Fair enough," The Uzumaki acknowledged with an easy going grin, "I'm Kotaro Uzumaki."
"Akane Uchiha," Akane responded.
"Want to know a secret?" Kotaro said, conspiringly.
She nodded, curious.
Kotaro leaned forward until he was just beyond what shinobi considered a polite distance.
"I already knew that."
Akane snorted without meaning to, it wasn't even funny, but she liked the dramatic energy Kotaro was emanating to mess with her. She was also beginning to wonder if she would be able to stop herself from flirting back if Kotaro kept on flirting with her.
It wasn't like the guy looked fifty, and spiritually speaking they would be about the same age.
It had been a very, very long time since Akane found herself genuinely interested in someone after all-and the best way to show the clan she had no interest in marrying her clan head would be to marry someone else.
It was something to think about-if nothing else.
Later that day all of the village's biggest gossips were peddling the story of how all of the various clansmen working on the bridge pulled a fast one on the most autocratic Senju-but they'd done such a good job working together that he'd been impressed anyway.
Akane grinned when she overheard a Yamanak telling an Inuzuka about it enthusiastically-a good leader trusted their people to get their jobs done. And her people had to be some of the best in the world.
X
So like-this isn't as long or as well edited as I'd like it to be but I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off packing so imma take updating on schedule as the W it is.
Also officially introducing Akane's libido and the guy who reintroduced them lol-as before, when it comes to romance, imma need some of that wiggle room and I'm going to do my best to keep the details to myself.
That aside, Tobirama was piiiiissed about them making his whole bridge without him-but he also couldn't deny how much more people in different clans are vibing with each other now so he continues to grump into levels previously unseen in the elemental nations lol. But he very begrudgingly respects Akane now, both for the audacity and like the efficiency.
Also, what do you guys think is coming? Because sometimes I'm really out here feeling myself thinking I'm being super creative and that none of y'all will see a plot point coming only for me to read a review where like-y'all clearly see the plot point coming-so I'm like???? But also impressed, so-would anyone like to take a stab at future things?