Chapter Text
Everything was moving slowly. There was a ringing in her ears. She clenched the kunai tighter where it was buried in the assassin’s chest. Where was Tou-san? He had been called away so suddenly.
Everything was tinted red. Or was that just the blood taking up the entirety of her vision?
She had been making tea for Ka-san. The birth hadn’t been easy. Her other siblings were with her mother and the new baby when she heard the disturbance.
Izuna had stopped crying, and she could hear her mother telling him not to look. She didn’t want to look either. She didn’t want to look at her two older brothers motionless on the ground. If she didn’t look, she could pretend they were just asleep. Ro-nii and Dara-nii couldn’t be-!
“Sweetheart, come here,” the shaky voice of her mother called to her. She slowly turned to see her mother, bloody and still weak from childbirth, holding tightly to Izuna. For a moment, her heart froze seeing the toddler so still, but the slight movement of his chest indicated he was simply asleep. Had her mother placed him under a genjutsu?
“Ka-san?” She whispered, dropping the kunai and turning her back to the assassin’s corpse. “Are you ok? Where’s Kokichi?” Her newest brother wasn’t even three hours old, why wasn’t he in her mother’s arms?
Her mother’s face crumpled for a moment. She was pale, half her hair spilling over her shoulder where it seems to have been cut from a stray blade.
“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” her mother caressed her face, tears spilling as she looked at the newly formed sharigan in her child’s eyes. “I’m so sorry to ask this of you, but it’s the only way to protect the clan, to protect Izuna.”
“Ka-san, what are you talking about?” When had she fallen to her knees?
“They’ll go after Izuna next if he’s made heir.”
She froze.
She turned her head slightly to see the corpse she had assumed to be from a rival clan. Taking out the entire line of succession would be a heavy blow to the Uchiha, a benefit to all of their enemies. But it would also mean a new heir from a different line had to be named.
Is her mother saying this was an internal job?
“Izuna is too young, too untrained. If he’s also killed,” she flinches, eyes flickering to her sleeping brother as her mother continues, “whoever they make successor will not want what’s best for the Uchiha. Or the unrest could lead to a full-blown coup.”
“We just have to protect him! We let Tou-san and the council know and-“
Her mother shook her head to interrupt her desperate rush of words. “Snakes are not so easily lured out. It’s too easy for them to target the vulnerable.”
Her lips thinned, thinking of her brothers.
Ro-nii, home on bedrest after an infection and broken leg from a mission gone wrong. Dara-nii, her twin, yet always so much kinder, so unwilling to hurt anything. Izuna, pudgy-faced, still too young to throw a kunai straight. Kokichi, tiny and brand new to the world. Even her mother, weakened from a difficult, prolonged birth.
If she’d be in the room, if she hadn’t gone to get them tea, could she have-?
“I’m sorry sweetheart, it has to be you.” Her mother said, closing her eyes briefly. “You have to be heir.”
“What? Why me? I can’t! Women aren’t even allowed to be clan head!” She cried. “If we’re worried about a coup, surely this would cause more unrest!?”
“I know.”
She quieted at her mother’s firm tone.
“My sweet girl, you’ve always had such potential, overlooked just because you happen to be a daughter,” her mother held her hands gently. “You’ve even awakened your sharingan so young. Younger than Jotaro, or your father, or grandfathers. They may be more willing to accept you as heir. And you can protect yourself better.”
“They wouldn’t accept a girl as the heir, as the clan head! And Izuna is still in the line of succession!”
“No, they wouldn’t accept a girl.” Her mother said with a heavy look. “A girl would be removed from the line of succession.”
At her uncomprehending look, a tear escaped her mother’s eye. “The attack killed the clan head’s eldest son, daughter, and newborn. His second son and youngest daughter survived,” she said as if she was quoting an announcement.
She stared at her mother a moment before her eyes widened in understanding. “You want me to…” They weren’t identical twins, but she and her brother still looked eerily similar, and Izuna was still too young to have been announced to the clan. Outside of her parents and siblings, only her grandmother knew of Izuna’s name and gender, and only because she helped with the birth.
This was crazy. She couldn’t do this.
“I’m so, so sorry to ask this of you, my daughter, but I fear it’s the only way,” her mother whispered and ran a hand through her hair.
No one could contest her place as heir this way. Izuna wouldn’t be targeted this way.
She could protect Izuna, her last brother, this way.
She bowed her head. She had gone from a middle child to an oldest son in one night.
“My poor baby. Ka-san is so sorry to place this burden on you.” She could hear her mother cry, running footsteps quickly approaching from outside the room. As her mother placed a sleeping Izuna in her arms, she could suddenly see the red stain on the older woman’s abdomen and pooling beneath her.
The door was suddenly thrown open as her father stood in the doorway, stricken.
“Take care of your baby sister, Madara.”