Work Text:
This is the story of a girl who was both a blessing and a curse to the Uchiha name. A story of a girl who should have never lived in the first place. And yet she did.
But before her story can be told, the one that came before hers must be told.
Her mothers.
Her name is Itsumi Uchiha and she was lucky to have a job of looking after the Clan head’s family. That's what she was always told. Lectured about it until her ears practically fell off. She washed their laundry, hung their clothes out to dry, beat the dirt and sand out of the mats and rugs. She bent over water basins and rubbed sweat and blood stains out of clothing for the Sharingan warriors of the clan.
She was lucky to have such a job, being trusted with their clothing as she was. But Itsumi wanted more than just trust over someone’s dirty laundry. She wanted so much more .
She sees Tajima, their great Clan head walking along the engawa of his home. It's around mid afternoon in the heat of the summer months and it's the best part of Itsumi’s day. He is the clan’s pride and joy, a man of few words and stoicness. A Sharingan warrior since his eighth winter when a Senju scum had snuck into the Clan heads home and strangled the previous Uchiha Matriarch to death. At just eight years old, Tajima had awakened his sharingan, killed the Senju rat, and gotten justice for his slain mother and Matriarch. He was a fine specimen--no, he was the finest the Uchiha had to offer. He was everything that Itsumi wanted in a husband; stoic, strong, intelligent, brave, powerful and commanding.
Itsumi meets Tajima’s eyes across the walkway and her young face heats in embarrassment at the thought of him catching her slacking off to daydream. Daydream about him. When she chances a glance up a few moments later she takes a breath of relief to see he was no longer there.
She can’t help the sigh of disappointment that leaves her. Now she wouldn’t be able to see his beautifully stern face again for another month since he was to be away on the battlefield, killing those disgusting amoral Senju.
Three weeks had passed before Itsumi heard news of Tajima’s squad coming back from the battlefield, with one of them missing a leg and another that bled out to death just before reaching the compound. If Itsumi remembered correctly, the one who bled out was one of Tajima’s younger bastard brothers.
She wondered if it made her a horrible person, that her first thought was how she could bed Tajima-sama to comfort him over his recent loss.
She was still figuring a way around his wife to do such a thing of course. His current wife, mother of his four sons, and Matriarch to the clan was her dearest maternal cousin, Puyumi. Puyumi, who was older than her by four years and had already birthed four potential successors for Tajima-sama.
Puyumi, a woman who was perfect in every sense of the word and the one person that Itsumi hated most in the world. They were both from the Susanoo lineage of the clan but Puyumi was born earlier and had an arranged marriage to Tajima before she could even walk. Itsumi has often wondered if it would have been her married to Tajima if she had been the cousin born first instead.
Another year had passed and Itsumi had celebrated her sixteenth winter when her parents had let her know they found a match for her within the Amaterasu line of the clan. A Sharingan warrior who recently came back from the battlefield to a wife that had killed herself and their infant child. A match that could have been perfect for her. He already had two sons from his previous marriage who were in training to be warriors of the clan. He was a well respected man within the clan. Known to be humble and astute if the clan gossip was anything to go by.
He could have been a good match for her. Everyone else seemed to think so as well. And yet, all Itsumi could think about was Tajima. Even when she sat down for tea with Shinnosuke and he spoke of courting her properly. Adding his knowledge of her young age and inexperience and how he wouldn’t force anything upon her. That he could go slow, as slow as she wanted.
He would have been such a good match. It was a shame that all she could think about was Tajima. The way he stood in the training grounds with his bronzed chest and strong shoulders bared for the world to see as he instructed his young sons on how to throw shuriken and how to properly hold tanto’s and katana’s so they didn’t slice their fingers off.
It was Tajima that she thought about when Shinnosuke sent her proper courting gifts and presents. Wondering what the Clan head would have gotten her. When Shinnosuke sent her a beautiful jade colored kimono with cranes and chrysanthemums along the skirt hem and sleeves, she wasn’t thinking about how beautiful the embroidery was. She was thinking about what it would feel like having Tajima’s calloused hands take it off of her.
It was delirious of her, she knew that. Her head was filled with nothing but fantasties. And as long as she was the only one who knew of those delusional, perverted daydreams, she thought she would be just fine. She could marry Shinnosuke and bed him; she could make herself believe it wasn’t his hands on her pale body, but Tajima’s instead.
News spread of Puyumi’s fifth pregnancy soon after and it became even more impossible for Itsumi to keep her wandering eyes away from her young clan head. He was a decade younger than Shinnosuke and filled with such life and bright fire it was impossible to look away from him whenever he was in view.
It was enough for Itsumi’s mother to drag her into the west wing of their home one day and slap her across the face. She hissed at Itsumi to keep her eyes down, and to throw her ambitious and impure thoughts away immediately. That her lewd dreams were all but written all over her face and to hide it as to not bring shame upon their lineage. It wouldn’t do for her to openly lust after her cousin's husband, especially not in front of her own intended, Shinnosuke. Her mother spoke Shinnosuke’s name with a certain reverence, how patient he was being with his young bride to be and how open she was about her cheating thoughts.
“If you like him so much, why don’t you fuck him instead?” Itsumi hissed at her mother and the way her mothers face contorted made the beating she received after worth it.
After that Itsumi assumed she would be wed to Shinnosuke within the month, so she could be the older man’s problem instead of her mothers. But instead she had been called to the Main house to help take care of her cousin during her fifth pregnancy. To say it was a surprise was understating it at best.
She didn’t mind having to wait on her perfect cousin hand and foot, because it meant she was in the same house as the man she was so desperately in love with. It meant she saw him almost daily when he was back from the battlefield.
It started innocently enough. Small glances here and there and a quick look away when he felt her gaze upon him. “Good morning, Tajima-sama” quickly came next. She doesn’t know when exactly something between them started. They went from accidental touches when reaching for the same thing, to late night talks when everyone else was sleeping. Somewhere along the way, the accidental touches stopped being innocent. Tajima began to seek her out within the home and would spirit her away at the first chance he got. He’d take her somewhere within the house or compound where they could be alone without risk of being caught.
Itsumi would be lying if she said she was only following her Clan head’s lead. Tajima liked to think he was the one who started it all, that he saw his wife’s younger cousin watching him with those innocent doe eyes filled with warmth for her first love. That it was his decision to look for her more within the compound walls when he wasn’t busy with his duties as a father and to his clan.
Itsumi never said anything about her own machinations towards getting his attention focused on her. Once her arranged marriage had been put on hold to wait on her pregnant cousin and she lived within the same house as the man she was obsessed with--it was like a moth to a flame for her. Really, she couldn’t help herself when put in such close proximity to the man of her desires. She thought it was cute how he was ten years older than her and thought it was him who started their secret relationship. That it was him who took her sweet naive innocence for the first time. How he took all of her first moments.
She’d let Tajima believe whatever he wanted of her pure heart in all of this, as long as it kept him focused on her. As long as he looked at her with those lust filled eyes instead of her cousin. As long as it was her who kept his bed warm at night instead of Puyumi. As long as it was her, she didn’t mind playing into the role he had unconsciously decided on for her. And she really did play her part beautifully for him when he took her in the front courtyard after coming back from a failed mission after fighting the Senju leader, Butsuma.
He didn’t even go for foreplay, he hadn’t even finished taking his armor off when he saw her in the courtyard, bathed under the moonlight. His kisses were erratic and rough and he left bruises along her lips and skin. She was surprised at first. He had tried so hard to keep everything he did to her secret and behind closed doors, and then he was taking her virginity in the front yard basically.
And he was rough with her, he was so rough with her body. And she loved every second of it. Watching a man as stoic and stern as him, unravel in her hands. How his eyes glazed over with lust when he was on top of her. And her daydreams were right about his hands— rough, calloused hands from years of being a Sharingan warrior. The same hands he used to kill so many people were wrapped around her hips and squeezing her breasts. He even came in her--so many times she lost count.
She had later come to learn from him that he had placed a genjutsu over them when servants walked by so he could continue uninterrupted. And oh, did he continue. All night long.
Once Itsumi had gotten a taste of the man, both literally and figuratively, she was lost to her desires. She had no self control to speak of anymore. She wanted him all the time: his attention, his focus, his love. And he seemed desperate for her too. There was a moment during Puyumi’s pregnancy in her final trimester that she was delirious with a fever and Tajima took Itsumi in the futon next to his unknowing wife while she slept.
Tajima barely even went to see Puyumi anymore after his missions. He found himself laying with Itsumi more and more until it felt unnatural to not seek out her warmth when back from missions.
The best news Itsumi had ever gotten in her life was hearing that Puyumi had finally died during childbirth in the west wing while her husband, Tajima, ravaged Itsumi’s body in the north wing. She had finally passed on, out of Itsumi’s way and oh , what a way to go for her. It took all of Itsumi’s self control to not laugh during Puyumi’s funeral knowing that her husband was busy fucking her younger cousin while she took her last breath.
Of course the ecstasy wasn’t to last for her. With Puyumi’s passing, all of the maids that took care of her were kicked from the Main house and back to their respective families' homes. Which meant that Itsumi was back with her mother and her marriage to Shinnosuke was underway again.
It also didn’t take long for Itsumi’s belly to begin getting bigger and her morning sickness made it impossible for her to eat anything. At first she thought herself with the flu or another sickness. Or maybe she was gaining weight but she didn’t understand how she could be gaining weight when she could barely keep her food down.
It was during a family dinner with her parents, and Shinnosuke over that she finally couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. One too many comments from her dear mother and the secret was out.
“I’m not fat, I’m pregnant, mother. Of course, I can see how you mixed the two up, since you’ve always been quite unsuccessful at it.” Itsumi bit out, and the mention of her mothers failed pregnancies halted all conversation. She didn’t even feel shameful about bringing up her mothers many, many past miscarriages.
“Who.” It was Shinnosuke who broke the silence that settled over them. His demeanor was calm like a placid lake in the winter. Like he was making conversation about the weather and not about how his wife intended to be, was pregnant with another man's child.
“Who else except our Clan head?” Itsumi answered after she poured herself some more tea. When she looked up from her teacup, Shinnosuke’s seat was vacant, as if he had never even been in their home in the first place.
She was three months pregnant with Tajima’s child and her cousin hadn’t even been in the grave for a month. It was a fight of self control to keep the smile off her face.
It didn’t take long for her to be wed to Tajima. The Clan elders wanted him to take another wife and who better than the woman who was currently pregnant with his offspring?
Itsumi was officially the Uchiha Matriarch, pregnant with Tajima’s child, and her perfect cousin was perfectly dead in a grave six feet below the ground . Her hands hadn’t even so much as touched someone’s dirty laundry in what felt like ages. What was even better was how much Tajima took her, again and again, even while pregnant. It was magnificent how much he ravaged her.
“The healer says it will be another boy.” She said to him, on one of the rare nights that he wasn’t fucking her senseless.
“Hn.”
“Do you have any names you like?” She asked and he steered the conversation to something else. It took her a week to get him to tell her his thoughts on the subject. And even then, he gave her the bare minimum to get her to stop pestering him. She hoped their union together wouldn’t continue down a similar path. She might still be young and naive to the inner Clan politics happening around her, but she needed his favor if she was going to stay afloat in it all. Especially with rumors starting that said she actually secretly poisoned Puyumi instead of her just dying in childbirth. Rumors that she would have to cut down before they got too big.
And keeping his favor meant staying on his good side and not pestering him or lecturing him about things. She didn’t need to be a genius to know that she didn’t have a significant sway over him just because he took her every night when he wasn’t away from home.
Throughout her pregnancy, Tajima was less than interested in the whole thing. The healers all believed she was going to have a boy, perhaps even twin boys if the monks' prophecies were anything to go by. Not that Itsumi believed in a single line he spouted. She didn’t know why but she had the feeling that it wasn’t a boy, but a girl. A beautiful young girl who would have Tajima's eyes and her fair skin. Itsumi was sixteen almost seventeen and prayed to a God she didn’t believe in to give her a daughter. Puyumi had already given Tajima all the male heirs he could ever want. He didn’t need another son from her.
But Itsumi.
Itsumi wanted a daughter. A little girl dressed up in the prettiest, finest kimono that Fire country had to offer. A little girl to read bedtime stories to and to teach how to read hiragana and how to sing. Because, daughters were easy. Easy to raise, easy to keep close.
Daughters were safe to love.
The Uchiha clan rarely had girls so Itsumi could sleep well knowing that her daughter would never be trained as a Sharingan warrior. Not when she had five older half brothers to kill themselves on the battlefield instead. No, Itsumi’s daughter was going to have a very easy upbringing. Itsumi would find her the perfect husband within the clan once she was old enough.
She spent her free time looking into beautiful girl names for the daughter she knew she was going to have. Even when Tajima took her at night, she was thinking of future names. It became her new obsession.
She had just entered her third trimester when Tajima’s nephew, Masahisa, was killed on the battlefield.
Masahisa, who was Tajima’s deceased older sister's son. She died of infection weeks after giving birth to Masahisa and Tajima, as his only living family left, took the boy in and raised him practically as his own. Masahisa was his child before Tajima was married and before he had children of his own. He burped him, fed him, rocked the babe to sleep, and taught him how to kill.
He was thirteen and had been cornered and picked off by some Senju that were lying in wait to ambush Tajima. Only at the last second, Tajima had switched over to the second squad after reports of Butsuma heading west, towards one of their outposts. It was too good an opportunity to pass up to potentially kill the Senju clan head and Tajima went after him, leaving his nephew to command the first squad.
It ended in a massacre of the first squad and Tajima’s second squad coming back heavily wounded.
It was the first time that Itsumi had to seek him out in the compound instead of the other way around. It was the only time she had seen him lose his composure.
The only thing it cemented in Itsumi’s mind was her desperate plea to Gods she didn’t worship, that she birth a daughter into this world, instead of a son. She didn’t want to bury a child like Tajima had to for Masahisa. She didn’t care how selfish it was of her.
She would never bury her child.
It was on the hottest recorded day that broke clan records going back almost two hundred years, when Itsumi’s water broke after changing into a lighter yukata. Her child had finally deigned to enter the world after staying in her womb after three separate missed due dates. At that point, Tajima wanted the babe out too and he had shown no interest throughout the pregnancy.
It was nearly ten hours later when the midwives handed Itsumi her infant daughter and she cried from pure unadulterated joy. Her very own child. Her very own daughter . She hadn’t been a believer but now she most certainly would be one of the most devout believers in the clan.
“It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Her daughter's naming day had come.
Itsumi was restless, cradling her sleeping daughter close to her chest, and took a deep breath to help calm her nerves. It wouldn’t do for her to be so anxious on such a wonderful day.
She is brought out of her thoughts by the sound of Tajima walking into the room. She knows he made a sound on purpose so as to not startle her. The man was more silent than a cat's footsteps usually. Typically a person could not even hear the sound of his clothing rustling while he moved.
But around Itsumi, especially when she was holding their newborn daughter, he made a point to never surprise her when he was nearby.
(A dark part of Itsumi’s mind wondered if it was a habit he picked up for Puyumi’s pregnancies. That it wasn’t something he did for just Itsumi but—)
It wasn’t good for her to think of such things on such a special day.
It only took a moment for Tajima to cradle their newborn into his protective arms and Itsumi rose gracefully from her seiza.
“Will she wake during the ceremony?” Tajima asked, voice quiet as they moved from the private living quarters to the main hall of their spacious home. Itsumi followed dutifully behind him, two steps back.
“Doubtful. She fell asleep with a full tummy.” Itsumi replied and Tajima remained quiet so he must not have had anything to add. Itsumi wondered if he was nervous like she was. He was the one that would begin the ceremony, as the father.
Their daughter’s Oshichiya. Where her name would finally be known to the rest of the clan, seven days after her birth. Tajima would be the one to write her name down on the scroll and be the one to hang the scroll prominently on the wall for all to see.
Most of the ceremony was a blur for Itsumi. She did her greetings, as proper of the Uchiha Matriarch. She participated when she was supposed to. She sat perfectly, poised and graceful, when she was supposed to. She played her part perfectly, as was expected of her.
She held her daughter while Tajima wrote her name on the scroll, in his beautiful calligraphy.
She kneeled next to Tajima as the Clan elders each came up to congratulate and look over the newest addition to the Head family. It went on for hours . Even the current priestess visited to give blessings to the girl.
And through it all, her daughter remained quiet. Even when she woke halfway through the ceremony she didn’t cry. She only watched with her unnerving eyes. Itsumi does her best not to worry about the infants' quiet—sometimes too quiet nature. She sits in front of Tajima and Itsumi, swathed and cradled in blankets. And just - observed the people around her. Never made a peep throughout her ceremony, only watched and watched as the hours went by and the people greeted and then left.
The elders called it a sign. Her mother called it fortunate. A quiet child will be an introspective adult. The priestess had called her child neither favored or unfavored by the gods.
Itsumi promised she would visit the shrine soon to pray again and the priestess looked as if she had more to say but instead bit her tongue on the subject and left it at that.
When the ceremony was over and the people had left, Itsumi cradled her daughter close to her chest while she sat in the engawa. She played with her small fragile hands and whispered her name over and over.
“Satsuki. Satsuki. Uchiha Satsuki, born on the hottest recorded day in over two hundred years.”
A child that is neither favored or unfavored.
“I’ll always protect you.” She whispered into the night air.
Itsumi would do anything for her child. Her daughter. Her precious one.
If Satsuki became unfavored then Itsumi would make the gods favor her.
Itsumi would make everyone favor her. And she didn’t care who would get hurt in the process.