Work Text:
The mission was supposed to be simple. Far-removed from any enemy Clans, and an easy espionage followed by assassination was exactly the kind of mission Otou-sama would send Izuna on during a more peaceful lull, while the Senju and Uchiha both licked their wounds and stuffed their coffers. The payment for this mission was the kind that Tajima had scoffed at, initially, before he was informed that the contractor had sent 65% of the payment, and provisions to last the Clan a month.
They'd all—Izuna, Madara, and Tajima together—had a laugh about superstitious civilian rubes. The town was plagued by oni, and they needed a strong shinobi, preferably one who was a shaman, to purge the town once and for all. The Uchiha kept the earthly fires of Amaterasu burning, after all, and had no parallels in raw power save the Senju, so of course no one thought it strange that a settlement would pay for their services specifically. The mission had been handed to Izuna with barely a second glance, and he'd packed for a month at most.
The town was far. His paranoia began to push increasingly annoying thoughts to the forefront of his mind as he sprinted and leaped and jumped his way to the furthest edge of Fire Country. It wasn't terribly surprising that even farmers and laborers knew the Uchiha name even this far from his home territory, but why would they go out of their way to contract with his Clan instead of any of the dozen or so mercenary Clans that were closer, smaller, and would not demand such an exorbitant price?
Izuna can remember his suspicion, his steadily growing dread. He can practically taste the noxious waves of dark intent the closer he gets to where the little country town is settled. It's not Killing Intent—that would be comforting compared to this cloying air, something he knew how to deal with. Izuna could stand the feeling of being stared down, like looking into a tiger's gullet before being devoured. Here...the wind seemed to play with his hair, gently blowing across the naked sliver of skin between the uppermost edge of his yukata and his nape, huffing softly across his eyelids, his lips, his jaw.
Izuna was thirteen. No one had ever touched him like that. The restless, discomforted feeling trapped in his gut only intensified as he made his way into the foreign territory, feeling sicker and less at ease with every single step.
To this day, Izuna doesn't know if he ever made it to the town. He remembers sitting down, suddenly sleepy, resting his head against the base of a twisted tree. Then darkness. Then...
Foreign hands, reaching for him, reaching for his more vulnerable weak spot. The deep, eternal black seemed to be broken, throwing strange shadows onto the walls. Animals, simple creatures, wouldn't bring light, just teeth and hot spit and stink and precious, precious meat and blood. As he lay down, emaciated and exhausted, his hands scratching out with nails long but sharp and terribly strong to make up for the fact that his limbs simply refused to support his weight any longer, clarity seemed to snap back. Blood on his fingers, running down his hands, his arms, staining his filthy, torn traveling clothes. Familiar red eyes spun in the darkness. Izuna breathed out, relaxing fully into the ground and truly slept for the first time in—at least a year. He didn't think of that.
Izuna thought of nothing at all, not even the piercing wail from the small basket his body was curled around, as he surrendered to his exhaustion.
0-0-0-0
The sun's warm but judging rays brushed his skin like a mother. It could be Mother, welcoming him to the Pure World to be with his little brothers. He ached. Izuna had a responsibility now. He felt selfish, to hope to leave his world behind to be with the dead.
The warm hand holding his was Madara's, Izuna realized as he became aware. Madara, several other men, maybe three if his judgement wasn't off, surrounded his prone form. Izuna still couldn't feel his chakra, but the burning thirst that had been his constant companion for what seemed like an age was mostly abated.
Madara was his beloved Elder Brother. But. But. Izuna had a responsibility. He had to- he had to-
"Izuna, stop trying to move! You're going to tear at your scabs!" His scabs?! He didn't allow scabs to form for a reason! How long had he been asleep, to heal so quickly? The baby- oh, Amaterasu preserve her, who would know to feed her?
"My child. She needs to be fed, I need her to be brought to me."
Izuna's eyes were covered with thick bandages, to protect his sensitive eyesight from the unfiltered sun after obviously spending all of his recent time in darkness. He didn't need his sight to imagine the flash of emotion on Madara's face.
"She's been given a portion of goat's milk, Brother. She's fine."
Goat's milk? Milk, for his child? Izuna found himself laughing hysterically, though it hurt his throat, his chest, his stomach. He fought to sit up, but found himself restrained.
"You might as well have given her morning dew for all the good that's going to do! She needs blood, Madara! Or direct chakra!"
He could feel the immediate drawing back, the horror as his kin realized that the scabbing cuts on his body, his utterly depleted reserves, were not received wounds from enforced confinement but self-imposed. There were only civilians within his reach, and so few of them that had the spark of power strong enough to sustain his child, and so many who had been warded and sealed as to make their blood dangerous for his young daughter to consume at her tender age. If Izuna didn't give himself up, she surely would have passed.
Madara took a steadying breath, not that Izuna could hear or see it, but he could feel the reigning in of superfluous emotion. That was good. Izuna didn't like his odds attempting to fight through four of his clansmen, much less Madara himself, without chakra, vision, or limbs that would reliably support his body, but if that was what he needed to do to make his point and get his baby fed, that was exactly what he would do, no matter how many disadvantages he had.
A small voice seemed to whisper to him from within his head. He stiffened. Izuna had become quite proficient at ignoring the mutters, but he was suddenly seized by a desire to see his child.
It'd been so long. His eyesight had gone, taken with the darkness of the cave that shielded them from malevolent forces that desired nothing more than to rip his life from his mortal coil, to steal away the child that had been made from his body, his blood, his chakra. His daughter.
Izuna could hardly remember what she looked like. She could have sprouted an extra set of limbs, grown a few more eyes, and he wouldn't know. He couldn't even touch her directly as she hungered, grasping out with unknowing power.
Her skin had been dusky, he remembered. Startling against his own, when she was soft and her small patch of downy, dark hair sweet-smelling. Maybe she was still as soft and sweet as he remembered. He couldn't know.
And her eyes. Piercing and grey. No one in his Clan had eyes like that, pale and bold. It was...arresting. Lovely.
He gave everything he had for her. The...the...being, her mother, that dark, malevolent force, had beguiled him with images and feelings. Pride. Joy. Grief recognized and soothed. His baby brothers were dead and gone. She (it?) could give him something to ease that pain. A new life.
Izuna loved her. He would fight anyone for her, sacrifice anything. Madara needed to understand.
"You're the strongest shinobi I know, Nii-sama. If you give my child just a bit of your blood, a small taste of your chakra, she'll be sated for days,"
Izuna could feel the horror from his kin, the same way he could feel the strength that practically poured from his Elder Brother. Izuna didn't have contort his voice or his voice into a pathetic plead for sympathy, though he knew he would without hesitation if it was necessary. He was sure that Madara could feel his desperation in his slowly recovering chakra.
There was silence for a moment.
"I've already shed more blood for you than any man has in his body. Please rest, otouto. Your child will be fed."
Relief flooded Izuna, and love. Pure, like a cold, mountain stream. Aniki...aniki could do what Izuna could not, always. When the being...when he had been brought low, stuck in that cave like a fly stuck in a web, barely even able to move his chakra, his blood, even his will was sucked away, he had cried out like a child. In the darkness, his voice had rang out into the deep, and no one heard. But here...here,his call would be answered.
Again, Izuna slept. He trusted in Madara. He had to.
0-0-0-0
The journey back to the compound was taxing, but rewarding.
His daughter had a name, now. Shikari. The hunter.
It was an archaic name, common enough among the old Uchiha. Well, old was relative. The records showed the strange, fey names that had dominated his lineage hundreds of years before, and as a potential Heir, Izuna was required to memorize their tales, learn lessons from their mistakes and emulate their greatness.
There were stories about the old Uchiha, linked with the tales of how the world used to be. It wasn't uncommon, after all, for shinobi to be called in to small villages to subdue 'demons' 150 years ago, if the records were to be believed. Back then...it wasn't so strange for a young Uchiha to wander into lands dark and strange, and leave with a child. There was...precedent.
Madara was relying on that precedent to protect Shikari. Children like her grew fierce and strong, could singlehandedly bring back the Clan from the brink of destruction with their power, and their alien fecundity. Izuna and Madara and their three dead brothers were the only full-blooded siblings in the entirety of the compound with a family that large. Their mother had been the most vicious kunoichi to take the field in decades, and she had given everything up, down to the last drop of blood in her body, to give the Clan fresh bodies. She'd been the last direct descendant of a man born in circumstances much like Izuna's own daughter, if the old lineages were to be trusted.
The wars ad wiped so many of them out, in these last decades. Before, savage in-fighting saw branches of the family tree set aflame, leaving naught but ashes in their wake.
All this, Madara told him once he was lucid and regaining strength. Every night around the campfires they made sure to keep stoked and warm, his brother taught him.
Every night Izuna could, he held his child, imagining the sweet scent of her hair, imagining how the warm fire might bring out a rosy hue on her cheeks. He still could not safely open his eyes, nor could he chance holding her without the layers and layers of blankets painted in seals made of blood. His daughter had been hungry for so long, even the shortest brush across her skin could tear out the remainder of his chakra, leaving him permanently unable to be a shinobi or dead, which was more or less the same thing by his father's measure.
It was their father's decision that would seal their fate, one way or another. Madara would do what he could, but Izuna would never force him to murder their father. But Izuna knew exactly what he himself would do if his father ordered the unthinkable, and he knew in his bones that Madara would rather see their father dead than Izuna.
Shikari would be strong. She would bring horror to their enemies, and she alone could restore their falling ranks, given enough time, bring new, powerful blood to augment and reawaken the old. Her descendants would be guaranteed the Sharingan to the fifth generation when now, less than half of the Clan's fighters even had the capability to reproduce the doujutsu.
He just had to make sure she survived long enough to see greatness.
0-0-0-0
Chichiue-sama was dead by the time their retinue arrived home, and with his death, traitors came crawling forth, questioning the strength of Tajima's heirs with their unpredictable, polluted bloodline. Izuna's eyes were recovered within three days of returning, but he did not need his vision to recognize the tense edge of every shinobi in the Clan.
His child was as he remembered, now that she was fed and sated and seals were etched onto her belly. She was different from many of the Uchiha babes he'd seen, by virtue of her coloring. Izuna disliked the thought, but she looked more of a Senju than one of his Clan. He disliked those who would utter such vile treachery aloud even less.
Fortunately for him, those who spoke treason against his brother and his daughter belonged, more or less, to the same group.
On a moonless night, Izuna lured these into the small room Madara had prepared for Shikari.
Naught but ash was left in their wake.
Shikari rested, silent and still, save for the sharp gleam in her pale gaze. Izuna smiled, brushing a finger against her warm, soft cheek, pressing a kiss into her hair, which had begun to resolve itself in the form of wild, bronzed curls.
A power great and terrible washed over him, overwhelming for an instant. Then...warmth. Bonds recognized. Blood recognized.
That power engulfed him, and made one thought clear before dissipating as his child's eyes fluttered shut.
Izuna smiled, flexing fingers newly rejuvenated.
0-0-0-0
Izuna set back to training when one week passed after his vision was fully restored. His body was stronger and bigger than he remembered, muscles longer and less slight than they had been when he'd set off on that mission so long ago. A year had passed, and he'd grown half a handspan, despite the constant drain.
He had been meant to raise Shikari, after all. If Izuna hadn't shown himself capable of making a strong child, he would have died. Shikari's existence was proof of his own strength, and his body had fought to keep him developing as he should. It was only towards the end when he ran out of villagers and Shikari needed him alone to sustain her, weakening him until he no longer had the strength to hunt that his condition deteriorated.
His growth proved his strength, but it also meant that retraining was more frustrating than he had been anticipating. It mattered very little in the grander scheme of things, however; with the shift in power, the Uchiha needed to demonstrate their might. Izuna trained as much as he could handle, reworking his way up the ranks for over a month to regain his previous condition. Madara, once again, became the only person who could best him reliably in a fight.
It was an ugly fight between the Senju and his clansmen on their border along the Nakano river that officially called Izuna back onto the frontlines.
They'd thought him dead, of course, which gave him a much-appreciated but unneeded element of surprise. Izuna no longer fought for himself or his brother first and foremost.
He began to weave genjutsu, subtle and intricate from his vantage spot in the trees, lightly flaring his chakra to alert his kin. They began to feign a withdraw, and the Senju, with their greater numbers, pressed the seeming advantage. Neither Butsuma nor Hashirama were there amongst the enemy forces: Izuna was far from the best sensor in the Clan, but his abilities were enough that sufficiently strong chakra signatures would alert him. That albino terror wasn't present either, thankfully, or Izuna's ruse would not have worked.
No. These were mid-level skirmishers, nothing more, nothing less, and there were a dozen of them in total. His clansmen numbered ten in total, including himself, but he was worth at least four of these fighters alone.
He didn't intend to simply fight them off, as Madara might have suggested. Now, Izuna held no true malice against the Senju any longer: Shikari's other parent had taught him just how truly corrupting, how terribly, magnificently potent that emotion was. He'd learned much when Shikari was made, and more when he alone was capable of protecting her. A year ago, he would have slashed the throats of any Senju he could and returned home triumphant in his kills. Now...now, he could recognize that even an enemy might serve a purpose.
Ten Senju were left to bleed out into storage containers, their bodies set aflame once he'd filled his containers to capacity. The remaining two...these, Izuna could procure for the long-term.
He would see his daughter grow strong, no matter what it took.
She took to the foreign blood with fervor that night, and every night for six days after. Then, she took everything that the live Senju had to give.
Izuna smiled upon his daughter as she rested silently.
0-0-0-0
"You need to be discreet when you abduct enemy ninja, otouto. Our rivals are beginning to talk."
Izuna stared into his brother's gaze unflinchingly, despite the rebuke. It was only a gentle order after all, and one he could attempt to abide by. He could even admit that he'd been a little too brazen recently. After all, were their positions reversed, Izuna and his Clan would definitely notice if every single fighter in their squadrons disappeared each time crossed blades with their enemies.
It was uncommon but not unheard of for such a thing to occur among shinobi. After all, a similar phenomenon had happened when Madara first took to the field. His presence had quickly been counteracted by the debut of Senju Hashirama with his vaunted Mokuton, however.
If the Uchiha's luck held, there would be no other force that could reckon with Shikari. Izuna held no illusions as to where his newfound strength was coming from, after all.
It was no easy feat, making a child like Shikari, but there were indications in the records that once, while rare, these shinobi had mighty enemies of their own. That his daughter was made in these tumultuous times, when the number of shinobi whittled down as the constant warring intensified, meant that a change was to come
Izuna desperately hoped for his daughter and his Clan's sake that no one would be able to challenge her strength, once it was her turn to fight. He hoped, but he would make her as strong as he could before finding sources of energy for her became more difficult. Izuna was aware that, once other Clans thought to look into their records, they might identify just why their members were dying en masse when they went against the Uchiha.
He wondered how many more shinobi he could bring to his daughter before the other Clans understood what was happening. Would it be 10? 50? 100? He esstimated that, in the three months since he's returned to the field, he'd murdered maybe 60 members of various Clans. The majority had been Senju.
Shikari always seemed more vibrant after he fed her Senju blood and chakra.
Izuna bowed in deference to his brother's admonitions
"I shall do as you say, Anija."
Madara stared at him with eyes black as coal.
"This state of affairs will come to a head, otouto. We do not speak of what you do to those enemy nin, but everyone knows. All it will take is one of us to break under interrogation and every Clan will work together to see our downfall."
Izuna frowned, unwilling and unable to refute the words.
"For now, the other Clans are blaming our sudden efficiency in young Hikaku-kun's debut, but we both know full well that another young prodigy will follow in his footsteps soon enough in some other Clan. You must find an alternative within the month, or Shikari will be removed from the Clan grounds."
...oh.
Izuna was not fool enough to challenge his brother in open combat. Neither would he take his chances with an immediate escape. He breathed subtly. He had faced all manners of monsters on the battlefield, and the greatest of them all in that damned cave. He could survive this.
"Where will you put her, if she is removed from our lands? Make your threat clear to me. Do you mean to put my daughter to the sword, or do you intend to leave her for the wolves? Because she will take them, and she will eat them. She will eat everything until she starves, and you'll leave the land cursed."
Madara grimaced, but Izuna pressed on.
"Shikari existed in her mother for kami knows how long before I gave her shape and presence with my blood. Do you think killing her will get rid of her? Do you truly believe leaving a hungry, vicious spirit with a taste for chakra-bearing blood will leave us any better off? Shikari recognizes the chakra she consumes, brother! She prefers strength above all! If you untether her from her mortality, she will seek the strongest sources of energy she can."
His own threat rang clear. Madara continued look upon him with pained eyes. Finally, he sighed, holding his face in his hands.
"What has happened to us, brother?" Izuna smiled, but it was a strained, sickly thing. There was only one answer.
"War, of course."
They sat in silence for another few moments that seemed to stretch into eternity. Izuna was the first to break.
"I cannot kill my daughter. To be quite honest, I don't think you can kill her either, not now. She needs more time to acclimate to humanity, and the more human chakra and blood she has to draw on, the less she will need to be given, I believe. If we can give her what she needs, I swear to you that she shall bring our Clan to greatness once again, Anija."
Madara still looked troubled, but he nodded.
All Shikari needed was time, and Izuna would do anything he could to buy it for her.
0-0-0-0
"Papa. Talk."
Izuna startled. Looking around. All he found were expectant eyes from his own daughter, who was hardly seven months old.
"Talk. Papa. Talk. Shikari, Papa. Talk." Her tiny fists smacked into his mouth as she brought her face closer to his, her little brow furrowing. She tugged at his mouth with clumsy fingers.
"Talk, Papa. Shikari talk. Papa talk." Izuna blinked.
"Shikari-chan...you want Papa to talk to you?" Shikari only stared him, and crawled away on her hands and knees. When she was a distance away, she sat facing him.
She brought her hand to her chest. "Shikari," she said, enunciating slowly. Then, she added, "I am Shikari."
She pointed at him, next. "Papa. Izuna-sama." Izuna nodded.
"Yes. I am Uchiha Izuna, your Papa, Shikari-chan."
Something in his words set her off. She scowled and glared at him stormily, as though he'd done something unforgivably offensive.
"No. Shikari-chan. No, Papa. No. I am Shikari. Shikari-dono."
...oh.
She repeated her gestures again, naming herself and Izuna. Then, she patted the soft floor.
"Tatami." She crawled to her neatly made futon, patted it, and named it. Izuna suddenly understood.
"Listen, Shikari," he began, and went through every thing he could.
It was a long, exhausting night, but he ended is visit as he always did.
"I love you, Shikari-chan." He kissed her hair tenderly, wondering if she understood.
"No!" She grabbed his face and pressed her lips to his cheeks and his forehead.
Despite himself, Izuna grinned even as his eyes burned, retrieving his daughter's maid and slinging his forgotten pack behind his back.
If she could talk with human speech, mirror human gestures, that meant that his nature had prevailed instead of her other parent's.
If his daughter was human, it meant she could suffer and die. Izuna didn't know it was possible to be so happy and scared at the same time.
He thought of reporting the development to Madara, but something stayed his hand. Izuna was sure all would be revealed in due time.
0-0-0-0
Shikari was fully mobile and speaking clearly, if somewhat simply, by her first birthday. The first snows had yet to fall, but now Shikari could run about on small, chubby legs, pestering passing relatives who attempted to keep her at arms-length.
They were unsuccessful. Shikari seemed to no longer require chakra as she did before, but that didn't mean she couldn't take it. The first unfortunate souls to attempt shunshin or kawairimi from her advances suffered chakra exhaustion for days, days in which they had no choice but to engage his child in increasingly strange discussions. Izuna loved his daughter, but he did not mind the reprieve as she set her sights to greener pastures.
"-how do you know that your feelings are real?" Her high voice drifted from around the corner. Izuna pressed himself against a building and focused intensely on suppressing his chakra. An irritated huff sounded from the porch of the medicinal building.
"Good shinobi don't have feelings, and I'm a great shinobi." Izuna twitched at the speaker's young voice.
"Then how do you know that you are real? How can you tell that this is not a dream or a lie? How do you know what's true if you can only see what's on the surface?"
Izuna walked away as quickly as he could, uninterested in hearing a preteen attempt to grapple with that question. He was nearly fifteen and when his daughter had begun asking the same of him some weeks ago, he had no answer. Furthermore, Izuna desperately wished to avoid being questioned himself yet again. He never thought that he would have to coach a child not yet old enough to fight on the battlefields through an existential crisis.
"And you're not a great shinobi. You would taste better if you were strong."
...ugh. Izuna completely empathized with the startled squawk that rang out from the 'great shinobi'.
Izuna wondered how long he had before he could hammer the concept of consent into her head. It was very difficult for him to remember at times that she was scarcely a year old when she ran around the compound speaking the way she did. It was unnerving, but then, Shikari didn't truly look much like a baby of only one year, either.
"I taste awesome! But you shouldn't be eating my chakra anyway, you demon-brat! It's wrong." The child's voice turned smug at the end, and Izuna held back a snarl.
No one dared call his child a demon. Izuna wouldn't stand it, he refused, not when he had claimed his daughter. To call her a demon, like that was all she was when it was his blood, and his chakra, and his life that had given shape to the little girl...to give her other parent that kind of responsibility and reward...Izuna refused. Shikari was his daughter.
He was halted yet again by laughter.
"If I'm a demon, why do you taunt me instead of answering my questions? I could take your skin instead of your conversation and chakra as recompense for disrespect, you know. Or I could take you down to the river and drain you dry of everything."
Her tone was teasing, but Izuna felt sick.
He'd never spoken to her of those legends, not ever. He wanted to hope, despite himself, that she'd merely heard them from other members of their thrice-damned family, but he somehow doubted that anyone would be so bold as to tell her the stock she came from. Not yet, at least, as she rapidly learned to speak and repeated words and phrases she heard constantly.
The even worse alternative—if no one in his family had dared utter those filthy stories in front of her...who had?
Pale and shaking, Izuna made his way to his brother's rooms.
He would see this matter resolved, no matter what.
0-0-0-0
"I want a pretty guard, Papa. Not just a strong one." Her little mouth twisted petulantly as she spoke, her arms crossed
Izuna tried not to sigh as Shikari glared at Emon, an Uchiha of typical coloring, facial features and height who Izuna found no physical fault with. Emon made no show as to his feelings at his daughter's insult.
"Emon-san is a perfectly serviceable guard for you, Shikari. Please be kind to him." There were very few Uchiha who could be spared to monitor his young daughter, and he had no clue what a child as young as Shikari might find pretty, anyway.
Shikari turned those stormy eyes onto him then, her mood visibly darkening by the second. "If he's my guard, then I get to pick his clothing. And his hairstyle." She turned her gaze back to Emon who continued to stand silently, eyeing his ornate facial decorations. "And his face paint."
Izuna frowned. "Emon is a grown man, and is free to decide his grooming and dress, Shikari-"
"If it pleases Shikari-sama, I will submit to her orders." Izuna blinked at the man who had taken a knee, head bowed in his daughter's directions. Shikari's fron lessened by the slightest of degrees as she further examined the man. Izuna remained silent.
Finally, she nodded in grim acceptance, and fell upon her poor guard, moving his face this way and that, and just as quickly dragging him the the general direction of her room.
"First, I'll fix your face," Izuna heard her mutter, his face burning in mortification at her conduct.
Manners, he thought faintly. He needed to teach her about the intricacies of consent and manners as soon as possible.
Another time, he thought, still in a bit of a daze as he headed to the mission desk. At least now he'd be able to rest easy, knowing someone was keeping an eye on his daughter and perhaps beginning her preliminary training while he ran missions.
Izuna predicted he'd be on very many missions, in the upcoming months. A squadron of Uchiha had disappeared without a trace some weeks ago, and while he was tasked with finding them, for all of them to be delayed for so long...it did not bode well for their chances of survival. He was likely the unfortunate soul who would deliver the terrible news to Madara, and slightly later, the families.
Seven Uchiha aged 14 to 33 were missing in action, all men of middling talent. Soon, Uchiha women would outnumber the men 3:1, but fortunately, many of them were of the matrilineal lines. His own mother had been a woman of the matrilineal bloodlines, though his father was of one of the patrilineal families. No one knew for sure what the results of such a match would hold, unlike in marriages where one bloodline was clearly dominant to the other.
Well. In his and Madara's case, certainly, the results had been better than anyone could have anticipated. The problem was simply that the matrilineal bloodlines were overall less predictable, even if they produced the fiercest, strongest soldiers for the Clan, as had happened in his and Madara's case. No one in the Clan had skills like theirs, and their body counts of foreign, enemy shinobi were so astronomical that none but the best of the best even attempted to cross blades with them.
Izuna hoped desperately that the same would happen to his daughter. He begged Amaterasu herself that one day soon, the name Shikari would be whispered in awe and terror, striking fear into the hearts of any who would do her harm. She was so small still, so soft and babyish, that Izuna feared any passing blade might fly true and her blood, his blood, would spill forth, and she would die the same as any defenseless Uchiha babe. The same as his long-dead brothers.
Izuna shuddered as he accepted a mission scroll from his scowling brother. The incident at hand was worrying to be sure, and privately, Izuna wondered if this might be the dreadfully-awaited response to his own murders months past, when Shikari needed so many lives to sustain her own. He hoped not—he hoped a new jutsu had been developed, or a new prodigy had taken to the field, both threats that could be studied and neutralized, in many cases—but the possibility was high. He could only think of one other Clan that might produce shinobi strong enough to endure the trials Izuna had, and if the Senju sought revenge for the many Izuna had killed for his child, he feared to think just how many fighters his family would lose in the upcoming battles.
Then again, with the way this wretched war was going, when even children not yet old enough to begin training were tracked and slaughtered if they wandered even a step off the Clan compound, it wouldn't make a difference whether or not his kin were picked off one by one in battle after battle or in bursts like this. Their Clan was headed toward ruin, as they ripped each apart within and their enemies killed them en masse outside.
This war needed to ebb again, and Izuna hoped that it would not take Shikari's presence to do it. Children were not permitted onto the field until they were at least eight, and the Clan would dwindle to dangerously few members if its members continued to die at the rate they were should this level of fighting continue for nearly another decade.
Izuna checked over his packs and scrolls one last time before he slipped off the Clan grounds, running toward the Nakano river. The first place to check for dead Uchiha was obvious, and according to intelligence reports, the Senju's best sensor, the accursed Tobirama, was halfway across the country. Izuna seized the opportunity the absence offered, and swiftly as he could manage, crossed the threshold into Senju lands.
He halted, staring at the desiccated husks the hung from the mighty oaks, for a second not comprehending what he was seeing. Then, he unfurled a sealing scroll, and went about readying the bodies for transport, his thoughts racing as he considered the...implications of their condition.
It was known that, somehow, Senju Hashirama controlled natural chakra well enough to create living plants from nothing, but as Izuna gingerly unhung the corpses, he was reminded of those bloody, early days with Shikari. These men weren't quite dust, though, and he hoped that Hashirama had simply found a way to further manipulate natural energy, or that perhaps that monster masquerading in human flesh Tobirama had discovered a horrifying use for his Water-release.
Of course, their physical condition was worrying, but the fact that every single one had empty sockets for eyes was very pressing indeed. The thought of a Senju strutting about with his kin's doujutsu was sickening. Izuna fervently prayed that the soft tissue of their eyes had simply disintegrated entirely when their bodies had been subjected to whatever technique resulted in their current state, but it was difficult to imagine that no Senju had even attempted to steal a Sharingan for themselves, with so many ripe for the picking.
Izuna returned with his grim package within the day, hiding his presence from the rest of the Clan. Madara needed to know before anyone else.
0-0-0-0
Mass funerals were becoming increasingly common, Izuna noted miserably as he stood witness to the massive funeral pyre that he, Madara, and several priests and priestess periodically fed with Katon as the day wore on. This sacred routine had become standard, every five or six weeks since that first ill-fated squad had been found nearly nine months ago.
Shikari stood by his side, bright eyes narrowed in consideration. The top of curly head of hair did not even reach his hip, but Izuna could see the harsh glint in her eyes, the way her chubby hands were clenched. She looked up to him, her mouth pursed into a scowl. For a moment, the flames seemed to surge hotter.
"You need to begin training me seriously, Papa."
With a heavy heart, Izuna bowed his head in acceptance.
By the end of the day, he began training his daughter in earnest. The experience was...startling, as so many things involving his daughter were. Her form was polished and eerily familiar, though her endurance and stamina were severely lacking. That was to be expected. There was a reason why babes were left to toddle and play with wooden kunai and shuriken at her age, it wasn't to preserve their innocence. Very young children were not good for much of anything until they were at least four or five.
More concerning was the fact that Shikari could activate her Sharingan.
His young daughter not yet two years old could use her Sharingan, and all that implied.
Thankfully, it was only for short bursts of time before the strain wore on her and she needed to be fed, preferably his own blood and chakra to make up for what the Sharingan cost her. Bodies so young weren't meant to bear that strain, and he tried to make clear to her the consequences of over-use of their doujutsu. Shikari merely tilted her head.
"Indra didn't have this problem, and I'm close to his blood. Don't worry, Papa! I'll be okay!" She tried to reassure him with a pat, but her touch left his hand sticky with dirt, sweat, and blood from training. Izuna held back a grimace. Little children were simply so sticky, though he knew for a fact that Shikari bathed at least twice a day, the same as Izuna. Madara liked to tease him about it.
That said, Izuna wanted to know who this Indra character was. He'd never heard that name, though it sounded like something a distant ancestor might be called.
"Well, it's better to be safe than sorry in any case Shikari. Why don't you tell me why you think your Sharingan is different than mine?" Shikari stared at him in disbelief.
"I'm a demon! Of course my capacity for hatred and pain is stronger than yours. You're a very strong person Papa, but you're only human. It can't be helped."
Izuna flinched, feeling his stomach rise up in protest.
She wasn't supposed to know that, and Izuna trusted Emon, who had allowed Izuna to place a seal of silence on him. Emon was with her always when Izuna was not, and reported everything.
"Shikari, I need you to tell me who's been telling you these things." He knelt down and grasped her gently by the shoulders, attempting to mask the slight tremor in his fingers. The effort was for naught: Shikari could smell fear a mile off.
She stared at his hands in confusion, pursing her lips. "No one told me. I've always known!" She stared back into his eyes without guile, and Izuna didn't know her to be a liar. When he didn't say anything in response, she grasped his hand insistently.
"It's true! Even back when it was very dark, Mama tasted your blood and knew your lineage, and she gave me her chakra until she could pass on. She gave me everything she knew! So did you, when I was little and couldn't see or talk yet."
...oh.
Well. That explained the awful knowledge, didn't it? Amaterasu preserve them.
He drew his composure about himself like a cloak and offered his young daughter a ride about his shoulders. It was time for her bedtime snacks and nightly rituals, after all, and she needed her hair braided. That would take an hour, maybe more, and Izuna couldn't break down in front of his child and Shikari wouldn't permit anyone else to tame her rebellious, increasingly cumbersome curls into a style suitable for training. Izuna carried on that evening, and permitted himself to forget the troubling events of that training session for the night.
0-0-0-0
The killings did die down, until Shikari took to the battlefield herself. If Izuna could have prevented her from knowing the thrill of battle until she was older, more controlled and able to deal with managing her impulses, he would have in a heartbeat.
Their troubles reignited when a small group of young girls, intended mikos, were abducted by wandering bandits. Their temples were at the edges of the Clan lands, over a day's travel at shinobi speed. Beyond their lands lay dense, dark forests full of medicinal and poisonous herbs, strange creatures whose bodies had value for a great many holy purposes. His daughter learned out the affront against their goddess, for the miko in-training were her youngest, most vulnerable children, taken in between the ages of six and nine. Before Madara had ordered a rescue squad, Shikari vanished.
It was Izuna who found her, the young girls hidden behind her overwhelming presence, masked in genjutsu as she sat meditating amidst a veritable sea of blood and viscera. She turned to Izuna, revealing a new tomoe in each eye. Her nails were black and pointed, he noted, her incisors sharper than when he'd seen her the day before.
Shikari stood, padding barefoot through the bloodied mud, that overwhelming aura disappearing little by little. She dismissed the genjutsu and the other little girls came bounding forward, into the protection of their kin.
Her teeth were stained with blood, Izuna realized, and her clothing littered with gashes that her skin did not bear.
"I will begin to take missions now, Papa," she informed him, breaking her silence during their run home. She kept pace with him, refusing his offer to carry her back. Her energy did not flag, and even the unpleasant consequences of running without shoes did not seem to hamper her.
Izuna did not say anything to her declaration. Shikari had seen her fifth birthday three months past, and with this showing and how she had progressed in her training, the Clan would expect her to begin contributing soon.
That did not mean Izuna had to accept their wishes. He could not see how allowing a girl barely out of infancy onto the battlefield would aid the Clan.
When he shared his misgivings with Madara, his brother merely snorted in derision.
"Have you even met that child of yours? She'll have her enemies begging for mercy with a twist of her fingers as she steals their chakra. She's too strong to justify keeping her here any longer, otouto."
Izuna would not admit that his brother was correct, stiffly bowing and excusing himself.
Madara would regret this hasty decision. Izuna knew it.
0-0-0-0
"I'll tear that Senju fucker's spine from his body! I'll wear his skin like a cape, I'll rip his chakra out until he's nothing but dust! I HATE HIM!"
Izuna listened to his daughter rage as he waited for the designated cook to finish roasting their dinner. The threats ceased to phase him anymore, since Shikari frequently did carry out whatever heinous impulses overcame her when she faced their enemies. He idly wondered just which 'Senju fucker' had displeased her this time.
"Why don't you listen to music, Shikari? I'm sure you'll feel calmer afterwords," Izuna blandly suggested, brushing a bit of dust off his shirt. They were technically in Senju territory after all, and if she truly began screeching, her chakra would flare and destroy the seals that made their energy blend into the surroundings. She harrumphed, but thankfully sat down, casting a minor genjutsu on herself.
Madara and other members of the Clan did not approve of the coping mechanism, but Izuna was the one who dealt with the day to day existential crises, bloodthirsty temper tantrums, and devastating meltdowns. He would take what reprieves he could.
As the night wore on, the wildlife became increasingly loud, and the trees seemed to stand taller. Izuna felt content and sleepy, and had halfway drifted off when Shikari shot up, throwing on her battle armor and cackling.
"Papa, that Senju fucker is here! He's like me, I can smell it, I'm going to tear him apart! Go home!" She sprinted away, and Izuna followed, cursing, and then turned back. His kin were all fast asleep. Izuna could feel his chakra draining. He forced them all to wake up, and they staggered out of the Senju lands. The drain only stopped once they crossed the Nakano river.
The symptoms of chakra exhaustion set in once the drain stopped and it was safe for them to rest. Izuna's vision faded to blackness as he fell unconscious.
Upon waking, he attempted to cross the river to find his wayward daughter. As soon as he reached Senju territory, the drain returned with a vengeance. Cursing, he returned, determined to involve his brother.
Izuna lugged his still unconscious kin closer and closer to their Clan compound. They had less chakra than him and less experience recovering from such a severe drain. He wished someone would invent a scroll capable of safely transporting living bodies. He had to carry them one by one, stopping to dribble water and broth into their mouths.
Izuna wondered if the drain had affected him more than he initially believed. His hunger came and went and he fell asleep and awoke, and yet, the sun never set.
Three days passed this way before fresh shinobi found him, a large group that included Madara, whose skin was uncharacteristically pale.
"Shikari stayed behind to fight," Izuna managed, allowing Madara to hoist him up. Madara, as always, snorted at his words, though Izuna could not figure out why.
"We figured. Amaterasu has always favored Shikari's like. The sun hasn't set in days."
...oh. With that thought in mind, Izuna remained silent and eventually fell asleep.
He woke up to bright sunshine yet again, a few hours later. The sun remained unmoving for another four days, and only began its descent from high noon when, with little fanfare, Shikari appeared in rags at the gate, her chakra surrounding her like a golden shroud.
Her eyes shined bright and her skin was covered in blood, but her presence seemed to hum with vitality, despite the displeasure writ across her features.
"I'll get that Senju fucker back. I swear it!" she hissed as she took in his sorry state. Her chakra cloaked him for a second, and Izuna blinked, feeling refreshed. She swept away from him, headed for her rooms and likely, a bath.
After two years of bloody battle, their enemy shinobi had evidently produced an answer to Shikari's demonic prowress, and the slew of murdered Uchiha all those years ago finally made sense.
Later, when she was clean and clothed, Izuna attempted to extract details about her foe, only to be treated to incoherent screeching and frenzied cursing. He slapped a seal of silence on her, knowing that soon, her chakra would destroy the ink.
If she didn't want to tell him, she would be forced to explain herself to Madara, whose company few enjoyed. Madara was rarely outwardly kind to the daughter of the demon who had held Izuna captive for a year.
The pattern continued without explanation. Both Uchiha and Senju territory continued to grow as they subjugated neighboring Clans in their quest to dominate and destroy one another. Shikari disappeared for days, weeks, and later, months at a time, locked in battle with a mysterious Senju Izuna had yet to see. The fighting between their Clans began to lessen the longer his daughter vanished, returning to the uncomfortably tense stalemate it hadn't been for years.
Shikari came back changed from her fights as she grew older and stronger, and she refused to divulge the contents of her battles. Ten months passed and Izuna did not see her a single time, though he knew she stole back into the Clan to eat and change armor. The seasons passed, and suddenly, Izuna was celebrating his own 25th birthday, marking his descent into middle age.
Shikari returned for his birthday celebrations, clad in a furisode that matched the colors of dawn perfectly, deep blues and purples blending into warm reds and bright oranges and pale pinks. He embraced her, and was startled to see that the top her head reached his shoulder, and was horrified to feel the physical evidence of impending adulthood on her body.
Her hair was long and loose, her curls nearly brushing the ground, with various golden ornaments woven in throughout, feet bare but clean and clad in rings and anklets that chimed softly as she stepped. Dark kohl brought out her grey eyes, made them gleam like gems. The last time he'd seen her, in
Somehow, his daughter had blossomed into an ethereal creature from the half-wild, feral beserker she'd been nearly a year before. Her nails still gleamed sharp and black and her teeth were pointed.
They celebrated fiercely that night, drinking and eating well, dancing, singing, participating in contests. Izuna enjoyed the presence of his child fully for the first time in a long time, as she chattered and laughed and teased like she used to, before the bloodlust set in and turned her wild. Finally, as the sun began to rise, she led him back to his rooms, weaving past their sleeping, drunken kin with ease even as he struggled not to stumble.
"I'll see you, Papa," she promised, giving him another hug and kissing his cheeks and his forehead after she tucked him in. Izuna fell asleep happy, content with his family and free of worry.
When he saw her again, both the Senju and the Uchiha were at the Nakano river, signing for peace terms. The forest was lush with new growth and the silver bodies of fish surged in the waters. This particular area had been burned, the river poisoned and then destroyed in a battle between Madara, Hashirama,Tobirama and Izuna about a year ago, but then, stranger things had happened as a result of his daughter's actions.
It had been four years, and Izuna could not deny her maturity. She stood tall and proud next a hulking figure of a man wearing light Senju robes that contrasted startlingly against his deeply bronzed skin.
In her arms lay an infant swaddled in a blanket of pale green. The huge man balanced two small boys against his hip, both dark like the man but with haunting, familiar grey eyes that peered curiously at the massive assembly.
Izuna could only stare, stunned beyond belief like the rest of the silent crowd. Shikari stepped forwarded, lightly rocking the babe in her arms, and began to address the people before her.
"We grew weary of fighting and tried to create some new things together instead." The man grunted in agreement, serenely holding his peace and allowing Izuna's daughter to continue. Izuna supposed this must be the much maligned 'Senju fucker'.
"I intend to make at least another dozen babies with this man. Please get your shit together and make a village for us all to live in."
Izuna supposed he never had gotten around to teaching her manners.
Evidently, she had said her piece. Her gaze honed in on Izuna and she strode towards him with purpose.
"Hello, Papa. Look at this girl I made." She thrust the bundle out gently as she stared at Izuna combatively, as if she expected him reject the proffered child. He took the baby with ease, looking down at familiar bow lips and a button nose, a furrowed little brow and wispy brown curls that sprung wildly from her crown. She could have been Shikari come again, save for her slightly deeper skin color.
"And what is this little one called?" he asked quietly, as two sets of grey eyes blinked up at him. The baby yawned, and snuggled into his arms uncaring.
"She is Noemi. Those ones are Yomil and Daniel," she explained, gesturing back to the small boys who were meeting Hashirama and thrice-damned Tobirama. All strange names, nothing at all like what the Senju named their children nor what the Uchiha named theirs. Izuna had no desire to speculate their origin, so he moved on, bringing a hand up to caress baby-soft curls.
"Come meet them," she ordered, turning abruptly. Izuna followed.
"You have to be polite to Hashirama and that horrid prick Tobirama because they are my brothers-in-law now and my beloved likes them. It's okay if you scratch at Tobirama a little bit, though," she added. Izuna stopped and gave her back her baby, hoping the child in her arms would keep those gleaming talons she passed off as fingernails away from the brother of their potential ally.
"What is your husband's name?" he asked quietly. He was not expecting the large man to look down at him and answer himself.
"I am called Enmei. I am pleased to make your acquaintance." He bowed respectfully, as a youth does to his bride's father. Despite being nearly a year away from thirty, Izuna felt terribly old, suddenly.
"Uchiha. Tell me how you are related to my brother's wife," Tobirama demanded, though as always, his damned voice was irritatingly collected and smug. He knew why it was necessary to restrain Shikari from clawing at his face, but Izuna understood the need to tear his pasty face off.
"He's my Papa, you damned lab rat," his daughter answered. Hashirama looked gobsmacked and Tobirama's mouth twisted into a disbelieving sneer. Izuna felt more than saw his child bristle.
"Fuck off, Tobirama. You're the reason why no one likes your family. Take your dirty eyes off my dad." Izuna stepped forward, placing a restraining hand on her shoulder. Despite the baby, Shikari seemed ready to fight.
"I made these children when I was thirteen. There is no reason why Izuna-sama couldn't have done the same." That same deep voice cut in, and dark eyes faced eerie red. Tobirama looked away, clearly unconvinced but silent. Amazingly, Shikari seemed to diffuse.
"Well. We'll let you old guys talk peace terms. I want a big Village, lots of Clans, and lots of civilians. They make good food, you know." With that, she and her husband walked away.
Izuna couldn't help but wonder if she meant that the civilians themselves were good food or if they cooked well. He cleared his thoughts and nodded respectfully to his daughter's brothers-in-law. That was a bit unwieldy. He wondered what Tobirama's stupid face would do if Izuna called him something like nephew.
Izuna smiled beatifically at the thought, and soon, the negotiations were underway.
0-0-0-0
Izuna sat quietly, sharing a bench with a pale-haired man who stared critically at the horde of small, brown children that tussled and wrestled for dominance, rolling all over Hashirama's garden. Izuna waved to a shimmering golden figure in the distance as the sun set and a woman's form disappeared like mist. He stood with some effort, leaning slightly on the worn, oaken cane that'd been fashioned for him directly from a tree as a joke at his wedding so many years ago.
"It's time to run home now, children! I'll have some sweets for you tomorrow!" Tobirama rolled his eyes and muttered something about coddling the next generation, but there was no ice, no venom in his words as there would have been forty, fifty years ago.
One by one, his legacies lined up to press sloppy kisses to Izuna's weathered cheeks and lined forehead, wishing him a sweet goodnight. He smiled into the night as they ran home, one by one.
Izuna was content.