Chapter Text
Madara received word from Hashirama over a full day after the incident occurred. He headed home immediately, feeling furious. He had left for only a short while to strengthen their clan’s presence at the furthermost edge of the territory— a task his father had neglected for years in favor of warring against the Senju, and which had allowed weaker clans to crawl into their lands— and this is what his family did without him? Start some stupid new fight?
The journey home was long enough that he managed to cool down during transit. Petty fights erupting over transparent tricks had been a fact for his entire life. It was just that he had felt so close to ending it all for good, so close to cementing his name in Uchiha history forever as the one who ended the wars and protected their children, and everyone else seemed determined to undermine him.
It was only one small step back, though. Hashirama had ended it, he said, without further bloodshed. Karin had been able to provide convincing evidence of a plot by the Masaki and removed any impetus to continue fighting. The clans would be mad at each other over the lives lost in the battle, but this was just typical of the time. People made stupid mistakes and then they died. It was regrettable but not insurmountable.
It did please Madara that Karin had involved herself and that Hashirama had seen. He liked the idea of her being rude to him, of her telling his grouchy brother that he was a fool and Madara’s comrades were not. These thoughts helped to sooth his temper.
His bad mood reignited immediately upon arriving back at the Uchiha compound. For one, there was a hole in the roof of his house.
His immediate family rushed him immediately, spitting up a confusing story like a pack of upset children. His father was not among them, sick in bed again.
The story barely made sense. Karin had collapsed the roof. She’d attacked them. She’d been spying on them. She’d saved Izuna’s life. They’d tied her up and didn’t know what to do with her.
Madara stomped into the main room of his house, with its collapsed roof, to find it a mess of broken pieces of wood and tiles no one had picked up yet. Karin sat bound in the middle of the rubble. She had been stripped of a shirt, and instead her torso was entirely bound with the bandages covered in the seals the Uchiha used to suppress a sharingan.
She didn’t even manage to look pathetic about it. She just looked annoyed, jutting her chin out defiantly and glaring at Madara.
“Go on,” she told him. “Tell them they’re being stupid as fuck.”
Madara had to remind himself not to ogle at her bare shoulders. It would have been easier if she’d just looked like a sad, pathetic woman. The way she was now, and with the unorganized story Izuna told him, Madara was sure he was just looking at someone powerful enough that his own father ordered she must be fully restrained. It made something in his stomach twist in excitement.
He elected to ignore this sensation. It was just proof that he was right and had bested Hashirama once again, finding and hosting this woman. That was it.
“I don’t understand,” Madara said. “Did she not explain that she was acting under my own orders? Has she gained no good faith from you? Or do you not trust me as your leader?”
Both Izuna and his grandmother looked towards their feet in shame. The rest of the main family, lined up with them to hear Madara’s judgement of the situation, looked equally queasy.
“Tajima is still clan head,” Granny Furi said after a beat.
“Father is currently sleeping with the aid of four different medicines,” Madara hissed, “having exhausted his ailing lungs after decisions made out of blind pride. He is fit to lead no more.”
Madara raised his voice just slightly. “From this moment onward, I am taking over fully as clan head. You will all behave as such. Do you agree?”
They did. Izuna knelt to untie Karin’s hands and ankles. Kairn stood unsteadily, and Madara grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him. He was perhaps rougher about it than he needed to be, but nevertheless, a confusing smile spread across her face, her eyes lighting up at his touch.
“This woman is under my protection,” he announced. “If anyone accuses or attacks her without my command, for any reason, then I will interpret that as disrespect to my explicit wishes. Understood?”
“Yes,” everyone mumbled. He let go of Karin’s arm.
To Karin, Madara said, “Get dressed properly. We shall speak in private tonight.”
Karin… fluttered her eyelashes at him… and then disappeared, and he made the announcement to the rest of the clan that he was now head.
The rest of the clan took this news with more excitement than his immediate family. From their point of view, he’d been the one publicly making announcements and orders anyway, and Karin had been instrumental in stopping a recent battle and saving lives. It wasn’t even particularly strange for an Uchiha to punch through their own roof in a fit of passion. The rest of the clan had no reason to think anything unusual had happened at all, and the compound buzzed with talks of a formal ceremony and the subsequent party.
“Brother, I am sorry,” Izuna said as soon as Madara stepped back into their home. A pleading look painted his face. “I arrived home with news of the battle, and Karin was already threatening our father and grandmother. I did not want her harmed, but I failed to de-escalate.”
Madara pinched the bridge of his nose. Supposedly Granny Furi had also accused his and Izuna’s own mother of unfaithfulness during her first year of marriage, and she’d twice accused the husband of Madara’s aunt of stealing. It was simply her protective nature as a mother, and he should have anticipated her eventually finding some flaw in Karin and lashing out.
Izuna, though… Madara had known he was afraid of Karin, with her brash forwardness. The circumstances had just twisted this into a touch of cowardice.
“You know what you did wrong, so I shall not lecture,” Madara said eventually. “But you should apologize to Karin.” His lips turned up in a mean smirk. “Take her out to the peach orchard.”
Izuna’s face went pale. Despite everything, it was pretty funny.
The clan set about repairing the roof quickly, and it seemed the rest of the house was unaffected. Madara set himself up in his room, taking his first notes as official clan head into his journal, chronicling the clan’s history for his descendents to learn from.
Then, he sent someone to collect two servings of dinner, and to bring Karin to his room.
She did nothing to hide the way her eyes darted around in interest, settling across from him at his small work table. She sighed as she sat. Tonight, she had chosen to dress in a kimono, and as she sighed, the fabric parted around her shoulders, showing off the dips of her clavicles and a hint of cleavage.
She pouted at him. Madara had no idea what to make of this. Had she confused him with Izuna?
Madara did not bark out a command to cover herself, as his little niece knocked and announced she’d fetched dinner. The girl set two trays in front of them, and he patted her shoulder in thanks before sending her out.
As this all occurred, Karin had re-hid her shoulders and cleavage, looking mildly peeved.
“So,” Madara said, cutting to the chase. “Will you be leaving?”
“Huh?” Karin said, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her.
“My clan treated you in an unacceptable way,” Madara said bluntly. “I would not stop you if you wanted to leave. I would even assist you.”
She had, after all, given him what he wanted, which was showing off in front of Hashirama. If she wanted to leave, he would not blame her.
“Oh, well…” Karin stared down at her dinner, hands fidgeting in her lap. “I did think for a moment I might have to leave. And you know what? I didn’t like that at all. Where would I go? Everyone I know is here. And you put things right immediately, so it’s fine.”
Madara’s eyes narrowed. Normally Karin was a deeply logical person, down beneath all her loud and obnoxious fronting, but several of her thoughts here seemed irrational.
“Where would you go?” he repeated. “Is the answer not obvious? You have your clan.”
Karin’s lips thinned. “I don’t know them,” she said.
“They would watch out for you regardless,” Madara pressed.
“Family is just crazy people who know you,” Karin countered. “Look at your old man, or your grandma. Look at the Senju brothers. Here, at least I know if there is a problem, you will stomp around like an angry, fire-breathing peacock. I don’t know what the Uzumaki will be like.”
Peacock? Madara thought, lip curling. This woman never stopped running her mouth!
“So I think right now, my best bet is to stay put,” Karin concluded.
“Why do you think your family would want you harmed?” Madara demanded. “Are you hiding something?”
Karin's face went blank. Her hands stilled in her lap. Madara pressed his lips together. Karin was so brash, surely there was no line he could cross. Was she hiding something?
He kept her gaze, waiting. Madara had the most powerful eyes of anyone alive. He could hold her gaze for as long as she chose.
When Karin finally spoke, her voice was flat and carefully devoid of emotion.
“Where I was being kept before,” she said, “they told us we were one of them, protected like anyone else. Then they killed my mother in front of me. So no, I will not trust people just because they’re supposed to care for me, because that doesn’t mean anything. I will trust them based on their actions.”
She picked up her chopsticks and started eating, as if she’d proven some point to Madara. As she ate, gravity pulled her sleeve down around her elbow, revealing bite marks across her upper arms. His eyes traced the pattern of them over her skin, cataloguing the different sizes indicating different mouths. One of the marks was fresh. That’s how Izuna said she’d healed him.
I was used for my bloodline limit, she’d said.
So Karin had endured a lifetime of abuse, and now she was experiencing a maladjusted response to her hosts suddenly deciding to accuse her of treason and locking her up. In her brain, she’d turned this into some logical fallacy where a known group of people with violent tendencies was better than an unknown one.
Madara could not say that this did not fit in perfectly with the average Uchiha mentality.
She said she trusted me, Madara realized dully. She trusts me as the leader here, to act justly and to defend her.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Obviously, he’d been attempting to be a good and trustworthy host and leader. He wanted to be the powerful leader his clan needed more than anything, wanted to be recognized and respected by Uchiha and non-Uchiha alike. But it felt different for someone as crass and mean as Karin to say it outright. A warm feeling welled in his chest, and he immediately felt the necessity to return their conversation to their usual status quo.
“But did you have to destroy the roof?” he griped. Karin snorted with laughter into her rice.
“Take it up with your father and grandmother,” she said. Then after she’d chewed and swallowed properly, she hit him with a deeply smug look. “I did tell you so, about the Masaki.”
Madara let out a sound of exasperation but didn’t argue with her. She had been right, after all. He picked up his own bowl of rice.
“I saved Izuna’s life,” Karin pressed, voice going sweet and sing-song, the way she did when she flirted and the way that always grated on Madara’s nerves. Her kimono slipped off her shoulder again.
“And I’m grateful,” Madara said, sounding deeply strained even to his own ears.
“You should have him marry me in thanks,” Karin said with a dreamy sigh, and Madara outright blanched. Karin smirked back at him knowingly.
Vulgar woman, Madara thought, not without a hint of affection.
After they ate, Karin stood up to leave, but paused at his door.
“Tell your family,” she said, “that I can sense chakra in my sleep from further away than any of them can kill me, and I sleep with a poison kunai under my pillow.”
“I shall tell them that if you attack, it is their own fault,” Madara assured her.
“Good.”
xXx
Karin crawled into her futon feeling calmer than she had any real right to be. She had not felt at any point post-battle that the Uchiha were going to harm her, not when Madara was on his way to make his own judgement, but it had been wildly uncomfortable to be tied up and have her chakra sealed. They hadn’t even given her dessert!
The summer heat made it too hot for blankets, and Karin starfished across her futon in nothing but her underwear. Her hand hit the waded up fabric of the kimono she’d intentionally tied improperly and then worn to see Madara.
Had she really done that? She found him attractive before, but…
This woman is under my protection, he’d said, and maybe she’d liked that a little too much.
Karin couldn’t help it, really. She liked dangerous men and she really liked the idea of dangerous men throwing around their power on her behalf. It just felt good, like maybe somewhere in her shitty, fucked up life there was someone who thought she was worth protecting. Obviously she couldn’t help but flirt a little bit.
“Whatever,” she muttered to herself. It didn’t have to mean anything. And she’d brought up Izuna, like, twice, just to see what annoyed face he’d make. Madara wouldn’t think anything of it, and she didn’t have to go anywhere with it.
And if she indulged in a little fantasy of the face he’d make if she yanked his hair, and her hand went a little south down her body… well, these were just the sorts of things that girls alone at night needed to consider for an hour or two…
In the morning, Karin slept in. She woke up to Madara’s massive chakra moving, and then laid in bed tracking it. He was going down to the river, to meet with Hashirama. Hopefully he’d get to— she didn’t know— make out with his mancrush, and then he’d come back happy and never think about her trying to flash her tits at him ever again.
Karin had gotten sweaty during the night, so she pulled the kimono back on to walk out to the bathhouse to quickly clean up.
She didn’t see anyone from the main family. Granny Furi was on the roof, bullying the people working on it, and everyone else was out. She did run into Mariko and a couple other girls in the bath.
“You did not say!” Mariko babbled. “Why did I have to hear the news from my brother?”
“What?” Karin said, ladling cool water from a barrel into her own bucket.
“About your engagement,” another girl said, eyes shiny with gossip. “Did he propose in secret? What did he bring you?”
Karin opened her mouth to say that just because she was telling everyone she should marry Izuna, it didn’t mean she was engaged, but then she remembered what Hashirama had screamed on the battlefield for seemingly no reason.
She closed her mouth. She set down her bucket.
Senju Hashirama, you motherfucker, she thought.
Her instinct was to deny it. But, as she wasn’t sure why Hasirama thought that, she didn’t want to say something that would start more rumors. Annoying Madara was good and fun, but if it got out of her control, it could end up backfiring on her or crossing some sort of line.
“I have to ask Madara about that,” she said blandly, and then washed herself as quickly as she could and fled.
Probably Hashirama is just crazy, she decided as she walked back to the main house. She went into her room via the window to avoid the aunty that had just arrived home.
Maybe he’s so crazy we can just make Madara Hokage when they make Konoha, Karin thought, dropping the kimono to the floor again. Then he doesn’t have to go crazy and try to level it with the Fox or whatever. History saved.
She flopped down on the floor, intent on hanging out here until Madara came back from his date. At some point, it appeared Madara and Hashirama started fighting.
Whatever, Karin thought, debating doing her nails. Stupid man things, I guess.
xXx
Madara went down to the river the next day to meet with Hashirama. The cicadas were loud, and Hashirama arrived with a happy skip in his step despite the recent battle.
He did sober briefly.
“I cannot express to you how apologetic I am,” he said. “I have rebuked my father and brother for acting so rashly. After my wedding, when I am clan head, something like this shall never happen again.”
“I have formally claimed the clan head title,” Madara said, “And I have told off my own clansmen. We shall move forward, my friend.”
Hashirama grinned, and then said, “My clansmen were most impressed with your woman!”
Madara allowed him to babble a bit about Karin snagging even Tobirama with her bloodline limit.
“She is the one who caught the deception,” Madara said. He really needed Hashirama to rethink his obsession with Mito. She was clearly an inferior woman. “Your brother did not think to question the Masaki present.”
“Yes, well…” Hashirama sighed deeply. “Ah, I wrote to Mito-san about your Karin. She said their clan has no record of such a child, but she said…” Here, Hashirama frowned slightly. “If your Karin truly has golden chains, then there is no question. She is of Mito-san’s own bloodline, part of the Uzushio royalty.”
Madara could not help the laugh that escaped him. “Karin?” he said, incredulous. “Royalty? The woman talks like a seasoned sailor!”
“That is what Mito-san said,” Hashirama said, sounding annoyed for the first time. “Do not disrespect her with such mockery.”
“Mockery?” Madara replied. “I am simply pointing out that perhaps Uzumaki royalty is not such a precious thing. What, were you excited to marry a princess?”
“Mito-san is their beloved daughter,” Hashirama said. “I am honored to be her husband—”
“Honor?” Madara said. “Ha! You do not even know the woman. At least when I marry Karin, I will do it knowing that she is powerful and true, that her flaws are mine to accept and dote upon—”
“Why are you making this a contest?” Hashirama interrupted, full-on frowning now.
A feral smile tugged at Madara’s lips. He always liked a good fight with his friend, liked having all of Hashirama's attentions on him.
“So defensive,” Madara half-purred in a tone that sounded annoying like Karin herself. “Afraid you’ll lose?”
The fight that erupted levelled the surrounding area. They’d have to yet again find a new meeting spot. Still, Madara finally went home feeling satisfied.
He stopped by one of his aunties’ houses, to ask after the jam she made every summer. Her face lit up and she handed over a jar.
“For your Karin?” she said.
“...yes?” Madara replied. Karin had a known sweet tooth, and she’d saved his brother's life despite his father threatening to kill her as some sort of power move. Madara didn’t apologize, but he could at least indulge her a little.
“You’ll make a fine husband,” the woman said.
Madara walked away feeling a bit strange. Yes, he’d doubled down on marrying Karin earlier, but that had been in private. He hadn’t said such a thing to anyone else, least of all his clan.
A group of women suddenly hushed as he walked by, and then burst into giggles. An older man came over to congratulate him.
Inside his home, the hole in the roof now covered in a quilt of bamboo mats, his grandmother looked at him very sternly.
“I wish you had asked me earlier,” she said. “Of course that silly girl would be keeping your secrets for you, if she thought she were to be your bride! But, Madara—”
Oh no, Madara thought.
Madara rushed to Karin’s room, only to find her in her undergarments, clipping her toenails.
“What?” Karin snapped, otherwise completely unruffled to be found in such a state.
Madara made a show of covering his eyes with his arm, but he still closed the door behind him.
“Why does the whole of the clan think we are to be wed?” he asked.
“Oh, because Hashirama yelled it for everyone to hear,” Karin replied. “I guess the rumor only got out to everyone today, now that everyone’s relaxed again. What the hell did you tell him?”
“I…”
Madara had no explanation for this. Any iteration he could come up with in his head sounded insane, even though he swore it had felt like normal behavior when he’d done it.
“You should probably go tell everyone we’re not,” Karin said, and Madara heard her shift in place. Putting on clothes, he hoped. “Afterall, I’m going to marry Izuna~”
“No,” Madara rejected. “I mean, we’ll inform everyone, of course. We’ll fix this.”
He dared to peak over his elbow. Karin had put on a summer yukata and was running her hands through her hair, fixing it up, casual as could be. She smirked as he peered at her, and then turned fully to reveal she had not actually tied her yukata, flashing him pale skin decorated in red scars. He pressed his arm into his eyes again.
“Woman,” he hissed.
“Oopsies,” Karin cooed. “Who would have thought, that a pair of tits could defeat the sharingan.”
“That’s not—” Madara snarled. He stopped himself. He counted to ten silently. He removed his arm from his face and glared at her, now fully clothed.
“How could anyone think we are engaged,” he said, “when you behave with the maturity of a child?”
“Well, why are you barging into a girls’ room without knocking?” Karin countered. She adjusted the hem of the yukata, now firmly tied and covering her. “But of course they’ll believe it’s just a silly rumor. You didn’t even bring me a proposal gift.”
They went out to the main room. The entirety of the main family had gathered, from his father to Izuna to his little niece. It was like the inverse of Madara rounding them up to yell at them for engaging the Senju and imprisoning Karin.
“I have acknowledged your new status as clan head,” Tajima said. “But I reject your bride. She is not Uchiha. She is not even of Fire Country. She has no significance to us and brings nothing to our clan.”
“I agree,” Granny Furi said. “I did not mind her flirtations with your brother so much, but it is your duty as the eldest to produce heirs with the strongest sharingan. I respect your decision to offer her our protection temporarily, but this girl cannot be your woman.”
Madara’s eye had developed a full-blown twitch. Did they really think they could this? To him? All he’d done for this clan, and they thought they could reject his decision so soon after he’d become clan head? This was so preposterous that he would not even entertain such arguments.
“How dare you question my decisions,” Madara reprimanded. “I am clan head, and so it is I who will decide who I marry and who is best fit to join this clan. You do not get a say in the matter. I will not let my children inherit father’s ill lungs, and so I will marry outside of the clan for fresh blood. Karin is of the Uzumaki royal line, a princess in her own right and above any woman you fools might offer me. We will have the most powerful children in all the land!”
Karin was staring at him, red eyes wide and expression unreadable. He ignored her, smug that he’d he’d finally gotten her to shut her mouth.
“Does anyone have any objections?” Madara asked, expression daring anyone to even try.
There was a deadly silence in the room, until his niece raised her hand. “I like her. She’s pretty and funny.”
“Th-thanks,” Karin squeaked out.
xXx
Karin might be having a panic attack. Or perhaps she had lost all ability to feel at all. She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t feel good.
She had— she had— okay, she liked Madara threatening people on her behalf, and she had been making cutesy remarks about marrying— but! But! What were any of the things he’d just said about her? What was happening? How had everything gone so insane so quickly?
Madara ushered her into his room and then just sort of stared into space, apparently also confused about what he’d just done.
“What,” Karin breathed out, voice barely audible, “the fuck was that?”
Madara was wearing his battle armor, covered in bits of twigs and leaves from his brawl with Hashirama. Perhaps on a better day, Karin would have found a man fresh from a fight kind of sexy. Today, Karin grabbed both shoulder straps and shook him.
“I thought Hashirama was the insane one, but it was you all along!” she half-squeaked, her voice muffled in an attempt to prevent his insane family from overhearing. “Why the hell did you double-down, you complete fucking moron?! Uzumaki princess? BABIES?!”
She wasn’t really expressing herself coherently, but Madara was gracious enough not to stop her from shaking him as hard as she could.
Eventually, Madara stopped staring off into the abyss in horror at his own actions, and looked down at her.
“So we’re in agreement,” he said.
“That you’re the stupidest man alive?!”
He pried her hands off of him. “That we shall continue the ruse, and then devise a way to dissolve our engagement.”
“YOU DIDN”T EVEN PROPOSE,” Karin hissed. She attempted to still keep her voice low despite the situation deserving some full-volume screaming, and what came out just sounded hysterical.
“Oh,” Madara said, then glanced around his room. He took a scroll from a display shelf. “I captured this scroll from the heavily guarded treasure trove of a lord. It is yours.”
Karin took it and threw it across the room as hard as she could. It lodged itself in the paper of the wall.
“We are not actually getting married,” Madara said, although his tone still sounded like he was doing some deep staring into the abyss.
Karin scowled. She couldn’t fucking believe he’d done this to her, had started talking about— about babies, even, like an insane person— and now she didn’t even get a real Uchiha proposal gift out of it?
“This one might be worth more,” Madara said, picking up some sort of jewel-encrusted bracelet.
“It’s not about the monetary value!” Karin replied, stomping her foot. It was about the dedication! The proof of unconditional affection! The idea that someone would love her so much that they’d risk their own life for her and she could just be safe for once!
Madara just stared down at the bracelet in his hand. Irrationally, Karin felt her throat seize up like she might cry, and she felt stupid and weak for it.
“I hate you,” Karin seethed.
“Well, I didn’t exactly want you in this position,” Madara answered testily. “Believe me, I do not desire to be wed to you.”
“Good,” Karin scowled back. “So when my stupid Uzumaki cousins come, I’m going to tell them that you’re a horrible man who ruins everything and they need to take me away before you force a marriage.”
“Fine,” Madara snapped back. “I’d like that. Do me a favor and ravish another wedding guest in front of my whole family like the vulgar woman you are, so they understand why I let you go.”
“Fine,” Karin agreed, and then she stomped back out of the room.