Please leave a comment or PM if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns, or just compliments. For the sake of this work, the elemental balance will go earth}lightning}water}fire}wind. Thanks to SmallFountainPen for betaing chapters 57-73. Thanks to SoaringJe for betaing beginning with chapter 116.
It was a big announcement.
It had to be; all three Councils were called.
…But it wasn't the end of the unofficial war.
It couldn't be; that sort of announcement would not be booked a week in advance.
So the question remained:
What did Hokage Namikaze have to say?
And why couldn't anybody figure it out?
Fugaku was at least happy for the reprieve; he'd initially been scheduled to meet with the elders on the day of the announcement, for the final vote.
The final nail in the coffin.
Now that would be tomorrow instead, and even an additional day—
Well, Fugaku had become increasingly aware of just how irrational he could be.
He sat, now, appropriately clothed.
Glanced at the other Uchiha he could see—two Department Heads.
He wondered how many Uchiha ANBU were scattered around the room.
He wondered if their reports were why this announcement had been scheduled for today.
The stadium was full, everybody was in attendance, and still Fugaku could see not a single knowing smirk in his vicinity.
And then the Hokage appeared.
In full regalia.
And Fugaku, he knew Namikaze.
He knew exactly how much the man hated the regalia, and in particular the hat—made him off-balance, apparently.
He was wearing it now.
Fugaku's stomach tightened, worst-case scenarios tripping over each other to invade his conscious.
He forced them out.
They wouldn't do any good.
He waited.
Everybody else waited too, waited in the sudden hush that followed the Hokage's arrival.
"I'll make this short, because I know everybody is busy and we have a rotation to the frontlines in only thirty hours.
"As you all know, I was severely injured some months ago. While I am back to form and healthy, I also remember how tenuous those first few hours were.
"I also remember how the first two changes of power went, from one Hokage to the next."
Murmuring.
Fugaku could hear murmuring, people whispering more and more excitedly as they began putting two and two together.
"I do not wish to place Konoha in such an uncertain position again, so I have decided to publicly announce my heir well ahead of time, and confirm an heir every five years, to give everybody substantial certainty in Konoha's future, with or without me."
The murmuring had silenced.
Everybody knew what came next.
Everybody wanted to pay attention to every single syllable.
"After months of careful consideration, I have made my choice. I admit that I have not asked their permission—I could have easily found the time to do so, but chose not to. Throughout the world, accusations of favoritism, cronyism, and bribery have plagued the nominations of people to offices with far less power, and I wanted to make it clear that my decision was entirely my own, and born out of long and serious consideration over what would be best for Konoha."
Fugaku felt slightly ill.
"To that end, my official announcement is this:
"Should I ever die or become permanently incapacitated, it is my decree that Uchiha Fugaku, the Wicked Eye of Konoha, shall take my place and become the Godaime Hokage."
He'd—
He'd told him.
Months ago.
He'd told the Hokage, in as few words as possible, that Suna was wooing them. Was wooing the Uchiha, wanted them to change allegiance and were making very persuasive arguments.
And—
And then he'd not spoken to the Hokage.
Because if he had, if he'd done a single thing to work with outsiders in dissuading the Uchiha's move—
He'd be guilty of treason in the elders' eyes.
He was already guilty of treason, for doing what he had, except that he had truly, still truly, believed that Konoha and Uchiha were one in the same.
So he'd stayed well away, kept working for the Uchiha, made his opinion clear but did not make a single step towards his own objective.
And now—
Now his fellow Clan Heads were slapping him on the back, congratulating him.
Now Nami—now Minato was reaching out a hand, beckoning him to join by his side, to take in the cheers.
Cheers.
Fugaku—
He knew the feelings many had over the police department's alleged biases—
But those had begun dying away as more and more non-Uchiha joined the police, and despite the police being stolen from the Uchiha, it was his clansmen who still ran the operation, who still made final decisions on almost everything.
And he'd known the feelings many had over the late captures of several summons by the cats—
But despite his refusal to help the Aburame and that Morino boy who had been working at tracking summons themselves, had been spreading to all and sundry exactly how difficult it was, asking other summoners to try too (and, of course, they were failing. The Uchiha's own crow summons couldn't identify other summons, and they'd had decades of working alongside the cats). He'd overheard more than a few discussions about how even the Researchers hadn't found a solution, about how really, the cats were wildly powerful in their ability to track, to hunt.
(He'd even used those arguments himself to further delay Suna's advances, wring yet more concessions out of them while spending even more time.)
He stood next to Minato.
He could see faces, could see a range of emotions, but—
No one seemed to think his appointment was unreasonable.
At least, not enough to make a fuss about it now, not in front of a crowd.
And—
And—
Fugaku could see the Elder's Council, could see so, so many of his kinsmen.
Could see their shock.
Their hesitation.
Because Suna, Suna would never let them become Kazekage.
And previously that hadn't mattered—the elders held that after two Senjus, a Sarutobi student of a Senju, and even a non-clan shinobi—and the student of a student of a Senju—it was clear the Uchiha would never be allowed to become Hokage either.
…This rather squashed that notion.
Would it be enough?
To delay, certainly.
But would it be enough?
He and Minato both bowed to the legislators, and still Fugaku couldn't celebrate.
Would it be enough?
.
"Are you upset?" Hyuuga Mawaru asked. Hiashi, who had come back from the front early just to listen to the announcement, frowned.
"About what?"
"That you were not chosen?"
"Why would I be chosen?"
They walked in silence.
Then, "I… I am sorry."
"Why?"
"I will continue working to separate the branches of the clan. I believe you are… better. Than I'd expected. As a clan leader. But, there is still too much bad blood."
Hiashi had come to this realization well before he'd even appointed Mawaru as the official Hyuuga representative. He did not say that. "That is fine; when done right, propagation can result in an entire forest."
Mawaru blinked at him. "And you would not mind that?"
Hiashi considered. "I will always think of you as Hyuuga, and wish for the best for you. In this case, your branch remaining attached would mean that you struggle to grow, to thrive. And so we must separate."
Mawaru did not answer.
They arrived at the Hyuuga gates, separated.
It was time, now, to inform their respective families.
To eat dinner.
To live, as much as possible, in cognizant harmony.
.
Akimichi Tenmu squinted out at the herd of cattle as his brothers kept them moving with the wagons.
Cattle trades only happened once every five years; and at six, Tenmu was still too young to act as cowboy—and at eleven he'd be too old. His mother, however, was this year's cattle trader, so she'd brought him along anyway, so he could show off what he knew of the nomadic languages and watch as his mother and the primarily-patriarchal groups negotiated.
Cattle trades were important, Tenmu knew. It kept the cattle diverse, and it allowed for selective breeding.
He didn't so much care about the cattle trades, though; he just wanted to be a cowboy.
Maybe, if he did good enough at school, then he could do the diplomacy thing his cousin had suggested, learn how to ride horses that way.
It felt like a lot of effort, though, when he was only one year too young to be a regular cowboy anyway.
None of these thoughts—complaints, really—were new, but Tenmu knew his mother enough to know she wouldn't appreciate him whining, so they just kept rattling around his head instead.
At least sometimes during lunch, his cousins would help him on a horse as long as his mom was busy. It wasn't quite the same as actually corralling the cattle, but it was something.
Tenmu sighed, letting his hand drop low enough that the stick he was carrying began tracing a line in the ground, watching as the dirt and dust kicked up from the wagon wheels.
But he could still hear the cattle, could still hear one of his older cousins calling to another.
He turned, facing towards the other side of the path, where the forest was too dense to lead cattle through.
It would be hours yet until lunch, and—
Tenmu blinked, looking back at the trees.
Then he screamed.
The shinobi team the Akimichi had hired as guards were on him in an instant, and the jounin sensei (an Akimichi, but one Tenmu didn't know personally) spotted the bloody man immediately.
And then relaxed.
"Looks to be Leaf. I'll check it out. You three, guard the caravan just in case."
Tenmu and the three genin watched as their Sensei and the bloody man conversed. Unfortunately, it looked like the jounin was right, and there wouldn't be any fighting—he was still very relaxed, and they were clearly having a friendly conversation. Something about the route in front of them, maybe; the man kept gesturing to the west.
After a couple minutes—long enough for his mother to come up alongside him—the two men walked to the caravan.
"This is chuunin Yamanaka," the jounin said. "He has an important message he needs to deliver to Konoha directly, but he badly underestimated just how bad open wounds were." His tone didn't sound particularly understanding. "Takafumi, could you heal him up enough to continue?"
The man grinned. "Thanks, I appreciate it. In my defense, I did make it all this way."
"Where were you?" one of the genin asked.
"What's your name?" another jutted in.
"I was in the Land of Wind, and my name is Arato," the man said. "Will this take very long? It really is an urgent message."
"And you will die if you continue without seeking treatment," the jounin said, and Tenmu made a noise that made his mother glare at him.
"Fine, fine!" Arato said. "Just a minute, then."
And then he lifted up his shirt, and Tenmu got to see what people's insides looked like.
So maybe this year hadn't been such a letdown after all.
.
Utatane Akihiro rubbed his tongue against the inside of his lip, barely paying attention as his team and the new hires trooped after the shipmaker. He understood, intellectually, why it was important for Konoha-nin to learn more about ships and seas and stuff—Fire and Konoha itself now had significant island holdings—but this was also not what he wanted to be doing.
He wanted to be fighting.
He'd argued, repeatedly, that his team was up for it, was ready for it—that they were genin, adults, prepared for danger.
Given that he'd split his lip because he'd been biting it during the spar this morning and Sensei'd had to patch it together while complaining about how she wasn't an iryo-nin…
Well, he wasn't exactly surprised that he lost ground.
It just..
Sucked.
Oh.
Everybody was staring at him.
That wasn't good.
Akihiro coughed. "Yes?"
The shipmaster sighed, and Akihiro could feel Sensei's glare boring into his head.
If the war was going to be over soon, like Konoha kept saying, then Akihiro wanted to be doing that, not getting punished just because he couldn't be bothered to listen to some civilian tell them about rope.
(Somehow, he doubted Sensei would see his side.)
