Chapter Text
Heat wafts along, carried by the wind, and stirring the browned stalks of wheat. Elder Nakano had said this year was too hot to grow rice, unless they wanted the stalks boiled in the field. Madara is glad Oto-sama had listened to her advice. The water-levels had dipped alarmingly in spring. The heat of summer had only made things worse. Through it all the fighting had risen conversely proportionally to the water-levels in drought. The clan grumbled about eating wheat, but better no rice than no food at all. The wheat means they have enough food for the winter, but the Outguard would likely need to head off to war in the spring, either for the clan’s own war or to fight as a proxy for someone else’s.
Madara takes in another glance of the browned fields, slightly more golden than the brown of the dried grass stretching out past the cultivated fields, with his Sharingan active before deactivating his eyes and turning to walk back towards the compound.
Even before Madara steps into the gardens, he can hear Izuna arguing vehemently.
“This is a jest at best and a slight beyond enduring at worst!” his eldest younger brother shouts.
Madara walks faster towards the entranceway, but only Izuna’s voice carries in such a way. Madara isn't certain who else is involved, as he only hears more after entering the genkan. He’s standing on the tataki and changing his geta for his uwabaki on the agarikamachi when he hears Oto-sama speak.
“The Daimyo is only commanding us to forge a peace,” Oto-sama says mildly.
“The implication is that we are to make peace with the Senju!” Izuna roars.
Madara steps over the shikii into the ima, to see Izuna on his feet, pacing the room and father and Hinote in seiza at the head of the room and next to Izuna’s abandoned cushion respectively.
“The Senju cannot be trusted of course,” Oto-sama continues.
“And the Daimyo is ordering us to make peace! The Senju swine would murder us in our beds,” Izuna shouts, stomping his feet on the tatami to punctuate the statement.
“The Daimyo did not specify the Senju,” Hinote says, looking at the formal washi scroll in front of him.
Madara turns to the younger of his living brothers, as do Oto-sama and Izuna.
“What does that matter?” Izuna adds bitterly, “We are told to make peace so the battles to come next year do not devolve into war. Empty words so we must first be stabbed in the back!”
Oto-sama adds slowly, eyeing his youngest son, “Do you see a way to obey the edict without tying our hands?”
Hinote does not look at Oto-sama but turns to look at Madara. “There is,” he pauses delicately, “that Nara-nee.”
Madara remembers hearing of a mission gone bad, remembering Itagu already dead and buried a year, the frantic run through the forest, seeing Hinote in the arms of a stranger, and the fury and fear. He remembers being handed his brother, his younger brother, who was alive! Hinote who was alive, unharmed, and unafraid of the stranger.
The silence is broken by Izuna, predictably. “What does your foolish little hero-worship have to do with anything?” Izuna demands.
Hinote turns to look back at their father, before his gaze continues on to the hanging scroll of Amaterasu behind Oto-sama on the wall. “It shall be honor done for a debt unpaid and favor unlooked for,” he says, looking straight at Amaterasu behind Oto-sama, instead of anyone in the room. “An Uchiha cannot marry out of the clan, but we can marry in a kunoichi without a kekkei genkai to seal an alliance with marriage, as is traditional.”
There are three disbelieving looks in response to this and an even more disbelieving silence. This time, Oto-sama speaks before Izuna, “And to whom shall she be married to?”
Madara gathers his wits, finishes walking across the room, and drops himself into seiza on Izuna’s abandoned cushion.
“I would of course volunteer,” Hinote starts in a more placid version of Oto-sama’s mild manner before ending with, “but marrying Madara would be the greater honor.”
Madara suddenly regrets taking a seat when he nearly falls over turning to gape at his younger brother. His younger brother whose glaze has not wavered from the painted Amaterasu while rearranging reality around them.
Izuna snorts. Father is looking between them consideringly. All Madara can manage is a weak, “Nani?” thinking he has misheard.
“She must be Madara’s age or older, and likely already married besides,” Oto-sama speaks, in the tone that signals he is speaking in his capacity as Head of the Outguard. “We shall do the Nara great honor, offering marriage to our clan heir, obey the Daimyo in flattering grandeur, and need not treat with the Senju besides. Should she already be married,” here he smirks, “the Uchiha Clan, of course, cannot be held at fault.” Oto-sama inclines his head towards Hinote, “Very well, we shall do as you suggest. You three are dismissed." He rises, "I shall compose the response to our benevolent Daimyo,” Oto-sama finishes with a sneer and walks out of the ima towards his study.
Izuna makes a choked sound of incoherent rage before starting to rant at their younger brother, but all Madara can do is stare blankly at the wall scroll Hinote had looked at while changing the tenets of their world.