Kotaro could admit he hadn't approached Akane with the purest of intentions. It hadn't exactly helped that he hadn't heard great things about her before they actually met.
The Blue Death was fairly reviled among the Senju, and for good reason. It was bad enough that the Uchiha burned their opponents to death. It was worst still to be turned directly to ash. One could survive severe burns after all, but no one could make it back from dust.
It was incredibly puzzling to meet the kind, gentle woman who Akane presented to the world-and believe she was responsible for that technique.
Akane Uchiha had given her all to end the war between the clans. She had discovered the conspiracy that drove it. She had attended every following diplomatic meeting. Akane had soothed tempers on both sides, and presented a reasonable way forward without seeming to do much guiding at all. It was amazing to watch her work, especially considering it was supposed to be his specialty.
Both information gathering and diplomacy.
Not that any Uzumaki would mention that to the Senju.
It wasn't exactly a secret, what Mito's guards did was always more than simply guarding her, but it would be considered rude to acknowledge just why they were routinely so kind to their sister clan.
The Uzumaki were largely insular, and for very good reason. No one needed to know just how much power their clan really had, that tended to lead to pointless wars and loss of Uzumaki life. Their clan had long mastered the art of appearing friendly while keeping perfectly to themselves. Their relationship with the Senju was a part of that. A way of seeming subordinate to a 'stronger' clan to the rest of the world. Part and parcel of a play the Uzumaki had been playing for a very, very long time.
Of course his clan wasn't perfect. Even as they avoided enemies outside the clan, their own factions found plenty of trouble for themselves. Factions like those that believed in the prophecies about Adamantine chains being the fall of the clan and Uzumaki way of life. Life had gotten much easier for everyone involved when Mito had fallen in love with Hashirama and was willing to be her generation's traditional Senju bride.
Personally Kotaro thought the stuffy elders and questionable prophecies of old were full of it, but he was hardly high up enough in the clan hierarchy for anyone to care about his opinion. No, Kotaro was meant to investigate the state of the elemental nations at large and report back to the clan. All the while leaving the Senju to feel that the Uzumaki stood solidly in their corner without actually giving anyone important the idea that they had much power of their own.
It was a fine line to walk, the illusion the Uzumaki held for the world at large, and the one they crafted solely for the Senju.
Like most Uzumaki, Kotaro did it by not actually lying. He was simply selective in the manner with which he presented his truths. It was why he so readily began to admire Akane, and her ability to navigate the rough waters of inter clan diplomacy without having to resort to leaning completely on etiquette or pointless flattery. Let alone garish things like threats and menacing smiles.
No, the Blue Death was twice the opponent she was on the political field as she'd ever been in battle-and most people didn't even notice. They simply thought her kind and beloved, a more reasonable, down to earth, less overpowered, Uchiha version of Hashirama, he'd overheard more than one shinobi call her.
Her-a woman who was also famous for turning her opponents to ash. Akane managed to give the impression of being kind and gentle regardless, because it was her truth, who she really was. The woman who had created a better life for those neglected by her clan. The woman who had led the Uchiha and Senju to peace in truth. The woman who was trying and succeeding in creating bonds among the clans that made up the village of Konoha.
Kotaro had been fascinated.
He was hardly the only one, but unlike Tobirama, he acknowledged his infatuation to be romantic interest and had no intention of lying to himself about his fixation and telling everyone, himself included, that he was simply keeping an eye on one of the most dangerous of the Uchiha. Kotaro could not believe his luck when he learned that she had no partner, and unlike Madara Uchiha, he would not let something like family loyalty get in the way of being with the most amazing woman he had ever met.
Kotaro had known he wanted nothing more in the world than to marry her when he'd watched her run rings around one of the smartest men he'd ever known.
Getting there had been tricky, but like most Uzumaki-he was stubborn and steadfast in his goals.
He'd teased, flattered, plotted, seduced and ultimately won her heart.
After her mothers death, watching her her break apart had almost hurt worse than losing his own family. It had been what had broken him-too early and completely. He'd lost both his parents to a seal accident-he's come home from another great day at the beach with his cousins and found their blood smeared along the walls. Kotaro had screamed himself hoarse, horror and grief overwhelming him by turns. After, he hadn't spoken for two years.
But eventually, he'd found his words again. He'd found the strength to pick up a brush-at least, once it became obvious to him that the only way to leave Uzhio and the haunting memories of what he'd found in the house that had once been his home, was to become a shinobi.
He still wasn't the first Uzumaki one would come to for a seal, but he made it through his apprenticeship and earned the title of seal master. It was the only way to receive permission to leave the island. The rest of the world was as good of a distraction as he could find.
As one of the clan's few orphans, Kotaro had grown up bouncing between households. Not unloved or lacking care, but never anyone's priority-never someone anyone had turned to with the adoration his parents had given him. He'd settled for other kinds of affection and attention, but his parents death had created a hole in his heart he'd never thought anyone could fill.
When he had thought about wedding Touka, his biggest motivator had been to never have to set foot on Uzhio again. His cousin was a good woman, and Kotaro had resolved to make her happy-until, of course, she'd decided on her political marriage to Izuna Uchiha instead.
It wasn't like that with Akane.
At her side, Kotaro could almost pretend he'd never been shattered at all. It was why it was so easy to let her lean on him after her mother passed. He wanted to do for her what she so effortlessly did for him-ground her and shore up her jagged edges.
Almost a year to the day of her mother passing, with a war on the horizon-Kotaro proposed.
She'd looked at him wide eyed, not quite disbelieving but completely caught of guard.
"Why?" Akane had asked, and Kotaro had been reminded of when they had first gotten together. How confused she'd seem to be by the extent of his interest.
"You make me want to be more than I've ever been." He'd replied, pulling her close and repeating, "Will you marry me?"
It took possibly the longest minute of Kotaro's life, but Akane just looked into his eyes, breathed out yes, and then leaned forward to captured his lips in the most passionate kiss they'd shared yet.
The wedding itself was almost painfully traditional-but Akane had shrugged, reminding him it was the Uchiha way. Fortunately between him, Kana, and Mito, the ensuing reception was decidedly Uzumaki. The only thing missing had been a few drunks wandering off to almost drown at shore.
He knew they married a touch too soon, they had at least agreed not to have children any time soon-not with a war looming and not when Akane was so busy Kotaro had taken it upon himself to make sure she ate and got enough sleep to be able to make out all the Kanji on her ever growing piles of paperwork. But her brothers barely tolerated him still, and Akane had never even been to Uzhio-as much as Kotaro tried to escape the place for what it represented to him, he was-ultimately an Uzumaki, and the island would always be a part of him.
Kotaro also had to win over a lot more of Akanes clan than he'd thought. He never paid attention to the Uchiha who were simply xenophobic, there was no pleasing them regardless. But he'd found a sadly reasonable faction that had simply wanted Akane to be with someone who made her life easier as well as making her happy.
Her older brother, Naoya-was the unspoken head of that faction of his wife's clan.
Kotaro tried, but he didn't make much headway until Akane began to struggle against the elders to provide the rest of konoha with greenhouse technology.
He had hated every second of it-but, after falling into a research hole with Kana and Genji, he had ended up with a seal for water distribution that he dedicated to the Uchiha clan. As long as the council felt they were coming out ahead they tended to give his wife less trouble-and some days that was all Kotaro could ask for.
He had a wife, a wonderful woman that made his heart full and he did the best he could by her. It helped that Akane never made him feel like an afterthought. When she spoke of the future, he was always a part of it-every time he brought her a meal, she would put down everything she was doing, cup his face, look into his eyes, and kiss him her thank you.
Akane was singularly the most giving person he'd ever known-and he was terrified of the prospect of a world without her.
The Uzumaki had never been at war in his lifetime. Half the reason they operated the way they did was due to the sheer destruction that tended to ensue when the Uzumaki had enemies in truth. Water country had once been significantly larger-at least, until a Damiyo had tried to take an Uzumaki bride against her will. They had to redraw the maps because of the amount of cities his kinsmen had sunk into the ocean.
While his clan tried to stay out of the limelight, they had always done their best to help the Senju, and now that three of them had married into Konoha, that help would come more readily still.
Kotaro did not fear war-but he did fear the childhood his wife described to him. How she'd almost become numb to the loss of her clan mates. How easily the people that actually made up the clan fell by the wayside in service of war. He could also admit that he did fear losing Akane.
He was the happiest he could remember being before his parents death at her side, and he didn't want to leave it for a moment.
Sadly Kotaro had duties of his own.
Mito-being a seal master herself, did not exactly need a guard. But the position was still the shield with which he did his true work, and so he attended to it religiously. He never wrote his clan anything Konoha would consider sensitive information. He wasn't allowed in those meetings, and had never tried to be. His information was mostly about the state of fire country and what he could reasonably deduce about the rest of the elemental nations from that information.
He knew it wasn't something his wife would begrudge him, but Kotaro had made his oaths to his clan, and just like the oaths he'd made to his wife-he would be keeping them.
It left a bad taste in his mouth to hide that particular truth-he didn't like keeping anything from Akane, especially not after their marriage. But much in the way she didn't share much about Konoha's innermost workings-there were ultimately things he had to keep to himself.
X
And today on Everyone's A Little Broken-here we have Kotaro and his trauma. Also, does it count as him being a spy when he's not technically spying on Konoha?? What do y'all think?