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2025-08-14
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Lady Orihime

Summary:

Ichigo is the firstborn son of Mikoto and Fugaku, this creates problems in the Uchiha clan when the line of succession starts being questioned. Everything comes to a head when Ichigo hollowfies after an assassination attempt.

Inspired by If You Give Me A Sword, after the events of chapter 50, The Succession Crisis 1.

Notes:

Please read If You Give Me A Sword by TakaGang. It's really good.

Work Text:

Her clan. Her poisonous, traitorous clan. Those damned fools, scared little dogs, trembling under the fear of Konoha had brought this upon themselves. Their home (their walled prison) laid to waste by their own hand. Because they were afraid. They dared to question her and her husband and their son, their sweet Ichigo. To try and rip away his right as heir, to take it from him by force, to appease whispers and curry favor with a Hokage that saw them as little more than a nuisance. An inconvenience to be scraped off the bottom of his shoes. 

They attacked her boy. Grown men, but all of them cowards. Scum. There was no fairness, no trial, no true fight. Her boy was strong, her son was Strong… but he was still just a child. 

There were stories of the old days. Of Uchiha men, of lowlifes, scoundrels, who hunted children. The enemies of their clan. To stop them from growing into men, growing into threats. 

Mikoto was an Uchiha, and more than that, she had been a shinobi. She understood her profession, the mindset, the need to do reprehensible dirty work in the name of clan and home. But still… children. Perhaps it was hypocritical, considering her own childhood, considering her own genin career, no matter how short those days were before chunin. How she had brought down so many small bodies with her own hands. Other children like her.

But she at least hadn’t been an adult. No matter her prowess, no matter her ninjutsu ability or skill with the blade. She had been a child as they had been. She had not yet been a grown woman, not yet been a towering presence with skill honed by years and experience her opponent couldn’t hope to match. 

And more than that, more than that… they had not been from her village… from her clan…

Mikoto did not feel the least bit of sympathy for her disgraced kin, laying in tattered clothes and pools of their own blood. She did not wince, did not flinch. Their deaths may have been painful, but at least they were quick. Truly, they did not know how lucky they were. They may have experienced the most otherworldly fear as the sky itself cracked and shattered, as her beautiful baby boy’s body rose from where he had been cut down, distorted by a moving sea of black and white into the beast that now screamed in rage and agony. 

But they did not have to face her. They did not have to face her judgement. Her blade. Her fury. Because if it had been her, if it had been her who had gotten to them… their deaths would have been anything other than quick. Each pained roar from the howling beast only etched that resolve deeper into her heart.  

Her son, her kind, bright son… Who cared for his clan, who loved his kin, who would cry out at the injustices of the world… How anyone could do such a thing to someone so good… To someone who only wanted to help others, to protect them… 

Her bruised and battered body shook not with the pain inflicted by her unseeing, unknowing son, but with the sorrow and rage of not being able to keep him safe. Not being enough to do her duty as his mother. Not being able to keep this rotten world from ripping him away from her. 

Mikoto couldn’t move, couldn’t bear to raise a hand against the beast that had been her son. His grotesque reptilian body, red and white and black, didn’t hide the memory of him from her stinging eyes. His orange hair flowed behind him as he loomed closer, longer than it had ever been, but unmistakingly his. That same color that had brought the whispers, the rumors, the disparaging remarks.

Her son. Her darling firstborn. Her Ichigo. This beast, this vengeful spirit, was undeniably her son. And she was so, so grateful that she had made Fugaku leave. Had forced Sasuke into his arms and ordered him to run. Had selfishly lied to him and promised she would take care of Ichigo if he would just take their boys and run.

And Itachi, quiet, withdrawn Itachi, he had looked into her eyes and known she was lying. Too clever by far. But he had known and he had nodded. He knew Fugaku wouldn’t be able to do it, just as she had known. Knew he was soft, especially so when it came to their firstborn son.

Everyone knew that Ichigo was Fugaku’s weakness. The fault in his armor. An exposed sore that could be exploited. 

Fugaku had always been weak, always been soft, always been a crybaby. No matter how others saw him. Cold and distant, but in truth, awkward and shy. For all that people would call him Wicked Eye, he was nothing but a kind, doting, weak-willed husband and father. 

And Itachi knew that just as much as Mikoto had. He knew this would break him. So he had grabbed his father’s hand and tugged, had all but dragged him away. 

Mikoto smiled. Her foolish husband would have broke long before this point. Tears caressed her cheeks as the masked beast opened its mouth. Two perfect rows of teeth gleamed red as the air swelled with power.

And then-

A flash, a sliver of orange light, and that mask cracked, that heavy energy vanished. The cracks spread out, chips of white and red tinkling to ground as they turned to dust, and Ichigo, her Ichigo fell, slipping through the thick hide of that beast as it faded into nothing. 

Mikoto forgot all traces of pain as she rushed forward to catch him, pain blooming in her sharingan, each beat of her heart making the pain worse as she cradled his body. Alive. Her son was alive, breathing. Her darling little-

“Ichigo!”

Mikoto froze. Ice shooting through her veins. 

The cry of relief piercing the air wasn’t her own.

She turned to meet the approaching footsteps, harried and rushed by civilian standards.

Her heart shuddered in its cage of ribs. 

Mikoto pulled Ichigo closer to her, shielding him behind her own body as she looked at the woman with fear. 

This woman, this otherworldly looking woman, dressed in the most beautiful white robes… looking at her… it instilled doubt in Mikoto for the first time. Because how could she look at this beautiful woman, with kind eyes filled with such desperate relief, with shining orange locks of hair… how could she look at this woman… and not be reminded of a mother. How could she look at this woman, and not be reminded of Ichigo. 

“You can’t…” Mikoto croaked, holding Ichigo tighter.

The woman stopped her approach. Pity filling her soft brown eyes. 

And oh, how that pity burned her, made her rankle.

“You can’t take him from me!” Mikoto shouted, hoarse, flinging spittle. “You can’t take my son away…” rage and sorrow breaking her voice as tears streamed unbidden.

Don’t cry, stop crying, why are you crying!

“H-he… he has two brothers who love him… a-and a father… it would break his heart i-if his boy didn’t come home…” Why is she telling this woman all this? Why is she pleading with her? Mikoto is a kunoichi, a shinobi, a clan matriarch, and a proud woman beside all that. So why is she pleading with this stranger? Why can’t she move? Stand? Why can she only cower in fear of this woman taking her son?

“You're hurt.” The first words the woman had directed at her. And oh how they stung. The genuine kindness with which they were said was worse than any blade. 

The woman raised her hand, and then there was light. It didn’t hurt to look at. The world bathed in golden orange. It was soothing.

Mikoto could feel the pain and fatigue melting away. The woman was healing her… no. Mikoto had seen medical ninjutsu, had felt it countless times. This was different somehow. She looked down at herself, at her wounds, and watched with her sharingan. It wasn’t that they were being sealed closed. That her body was being repaired. No. Her wounds were being undone, as though they had never happened. And not just wounds she had incurred today, but injuries from years ago, faults inside her body from her career as a shinobi. Things that ordinary medical ninjutsu couldn’t fix. Things she was told only someone like the legendary Sannin Tsunade could have fixed. 

Her mind… it ran through the stories passed down in the clan’s ancestral tongue… trying to piece together what sort of being stood before her.

In a burst of speed a new figure appeared beside the woman, tall with spiked hair and three long thin braids. But more importantly, with a mask of bone and hole in her lower abdomen.

“Lady Orihime, have you found the presence that opened the garganta?”

The woman- Orihime- didn’t look away from Mikoto as she spoke to the newcomer. “It was just a hollow. I’ve already taken care of it.”

“... I do wonder how it found its way into this world.”

World… 

“It was probably one of Aizen’s creations. Lost after his imprisonment.” 

Mikoto understood. This woman… this kami… was lying for her sake.

 

Mikoto didn’t tell anyone of Konoha what had occurred that day. As far as the village as a whole was concerned, the Uchiha quarter was attacked by an enemy shinobi who had infiltrated the walls. Whatever village they had come from was a mystery however as they used a suicide jutsu that destroyed all remnants of their body. 

In private however… in the safety of the Naka shrine, spoken only in the Uchiha ancestral tongue, she told Fugaku, and Fugaku alone, of the orange-haired Kami, Lady Orihime.