Aiko WAP 35 whole

CHAPTER 35

“You are not making the choices of a victor. Neither of those clans is worthy of your association. But if you choose to grant that, please do not grant them your trust.” 

Aiko twitched with the effort of keeping a straight face. She really, really did not like being criticized or told what to do. The implication that she might get outmaneuvered by the Senju or the Uchiha put her hackles up.

‘I prefer it when people are honest with me,’ she reminded herself. She liked Mayumi, she respected her opinions and assessments. So she swallowed her pride enough to listen to the criticism. “How so?,” she managed to get out calmly.

Mayumi looked back pitilessly, leaned up against the wall in a spectacularly careless fashion. “The Uchiha are oathbreakers and liars,” she said, tone rich with utter disdain. “Not technically.” Her nose twitched. “They will keep faith with you only to the exact extent of the most beneficial interpretation of an agreement. They do not truly value those outside of their clan as equals, and they will never respect your Senju.” She accentuated that judgment with a swift hand gesture that seemed to slap away the possibility. “The idea of an Uchiha Daimyo will not be received with enthusiasm.”

…Aiko had a sinking feeling in her gut about the fact that the Uchiha had provided that written proclamation, unprompted. It did make a sort of sense. 

‘I don’t enjoy how that description reminds me of the Uchiha rebellion.’

“And the Senju?” she said, not looking forward to this. She knew them less than she knew the Uchiha.

“Self-involved, moralistic, and tedious,” Mayumi pronounced them. She looked as if she was smelling something unpleasant. “Petty people who love rules, but only the ones that they make.”

Aiko choked on a laugh at how accurate that was. It was uncharitable, but it did line up with her personal experience and with the history books.

The Inuzuka clan head continued, “The Uchiha and the Senju have been relentlessly killing each other for generations because they both desire to be the largest bully organization, and because no one likes them enough to mediate a peace.”

Tea went up Aiko’s nose. She put a hand to her face and took a moment to assimilate that scathing assessment. “...There are people who would find it pleasant if they ah, eliminated each other?” she checked.

Mayumi cracked an unkind and toothy smile. “There are some.” 

‘Including the Inuzuka, despite being nominal allies with the Senju. Understood.’

“The reality is that they will not eliminate each other anymore,” Aiko said, blithely ignoring the bizarre fact that the Senju disappeared in a generation and the Uchiha were massacred. That probably was just a massive coincidence and didn’t mean anything. “So, what do you do now? Is it better for you to ally with them? Avoid their notice? Leave the area?” She was genuinely interested in this as a first test of an outside opinion. Mayumi was here as a courtesy to Aiko, not because she needed Aiko’s opinion to make the best choice for the Inuzuka.

Mayumi sighed and let her head thunk back against the wood wall frame. “It’s difficult,” she groaned. Her eyes slid shut. “Of course, this does not void my clan’s agreements with the Senju for cooperation. Formally ending our relations would seem drastic to most. However, if our association continues, we have now gained the Uchiha’s enemies as well, who are numerous, formidable, and closely located.” Her tone went flat on that last bit.

Aiko winced. “I can see your concerns,” she said.

The sigh that netted her was absolutely inappropriate for company, which was how Aiko knew Mayumi liked her as a friend. “I think that I am with you,” Mayumi decided. She peeled one eye open to glare. “So you had best keep your eyes open to danger and be ready to contain and react to misbehavior. If this alliance is your goal, I will support it. But I cannot do so to the detriment of the people who are in my care.”

“I understand,” Aiko promised. She reached over to put a comforting hand on Mayumi’s shoulder. “I am touched by your faith. Thank you for your counsel. Would you feel better if I made them give you a leadership role in their new village?”

“...Their what?” Mayumi asked. 

That explanation took a while. Mayumi spent most of it with her face in her hands, periodically saying something like “mmhm,” “aa,” or “shit.” When she understood the depth of their ambitions she started rubbing at a tension headache.

Aiko sat back on her hands and watched pitilessly. She had been suffering with these rat bastards. It was sort of nice to have someone else agree that they were absurd and despair about it. 

“Why do you care?” Mayumi burst out. She uncovered her face enough to make teary eye contact. “Establishing a new power dynamic for the entire country is going to be so much effort and make us powerful enemies. The Daimyo’s family is going to act. They have retainers, samurai and shinobi. Technically, all of us owe them allegiance. Some shinobi clans are going to stand with them. This could become a civil war worse than anything the Uchiha and the Senju were going to do to each other.”

Aiko… paused. She hadn’t spent a lot of time contemplating the likely death toll. The cold hard truth was that she didn’t care that much. They were all real living people, yes, and she didn’t want anyone to be harmed. But she needed to establish Konoha and to have a hand firmly at the top of the power structure, so that she had the influence that she needed to explode Izanami’s cult to international status. It took generations to grow a religious movement in legitimate, normal pathways. She absolutely refused to be away from her home for that long. Fuck. No. She banished the grim specter of actually waiting out a hundred years until Naruto and her friends were born. It was selfish. She didn’t care. 

“I care because this is the best pathway to securing my goals,” Aiko admitted. There. She said it. At least she was honest. “Konohagakure will be an international seat of power for at least four generations. My mission is to establish an influential sect of worshippers for the goddess Izanami-no-Mikoto. The human death toll is not my primary concern.” She shrugged. It was ugly, but there it was. “She will not mind,” Aiko said wryly. “She was the mother of creation, but she is now the Queen of the underworld.” She looked at her hand and flexed it slightly, thinking of all the people that she had killed and all the people she had raised from the dead. She needed Izanami in her corner so that the Death God did not get to claim her. Izanami had influence over him. As long as Aiko made the goddess happy, it didn’t really matter if she stole from his realm. “I can make you a promise,” Aiko decided. She looked up to hold eye contact. Mayumi went still at whatever she saw on Aiko’s face. “If you support me, your clan will not suffer a single loss to death.”

Mayumi was silent. “...No one can promise such a thing,” she said.

Aiko gave her a smile. Mayumi recoiled at the sight. “I can.”

Mayumi stood abruptly and gave a bow. “Thank you,” she said, suddenly in a more formal register. Her face was a little pale. Aiko probably should have been concerned by that, but she was feeling a little distant from herself at the moment, placidly watching the human woman make an excuse to leave. “I will consider your words. You know that I- that I respect your power and am your ally. Thank you for listening to my concerns.”

Aiko stood as well to walk her out. “I will wait for your answer,” she said, and only belatedly realized that could be interpreted as a threat. 

Mayumi didn’t seem scared, at least, only shaken. She lingered enough to give her goodbyes to the little girls– Hanako, Momoko, and Aiko all chose to walk the Inuzuka clan head back to the trail– and then left. 

She didn’t bother to walk with them. Aiko started a fire in the hearth and stared into it, mind quiet. She felt at peace with herself and her choices. Mayumi’s concern was kind. But it didn’t truly matter to Aiko if the Uchiha and Senju were obnoxious. The point was that they were powerful.

Aiko went to bed. She was in her futon curled on her side when she had a sudden realization. Her eyes shot open. “I didn’t tell Mayumi about the plan to make Izuna the Daimyo.” She sat up and threw off her futon cover, body thrumming.

That hadn’t been announced yet. That meant that either the Inuzuka had a spy (very unlikely) or someone had shared that information early.

“...Shit,” Aiko said, thinking about the fact that the Uchiha had pushed the Senju to publicly announce that they had an alliance and mutual support so early in the process, before deciding anything about how they would seize power. “Shit.”

It was hardly a surprise to wake up the next day to the furious arrival of a powerful shinobi. Aiko was washing the morning rice when she felt Hashirama approaching at high speed.

He wasn’t hiding his approach. His chakra lashed around him, wild and dangerous. The feeling sent an eerie pressure into the air.

Aiko swallowed, trying to gather herself and some composure. He was angry. He did not like her. She put down the pot. Her hands were shaking. She wanted these people to think that she was basically invulnerable, that she was bulletproof and perfect. At that moment, she was acutely aware that she had very few military allies. Kakuzu would fight for her if she called him– but he was famous in her time for being defeated by Hashirama. If Hashirama had decided that she was a problem, he had an entire clan to back him up. 

She went out to meet him with an outer calm that she did not feel. She did not want him in her shrine, near her apprentices. 

‘He might feel more at ease in the forest, where he is most powerful.’ Aiko moved along the path quickly, trying to put more distance between herself and the vulnerable sleeping village. ‘I can’t let him see any fear. He’s one of the best shinobi in history. If he knows that I fear him, he will know that I know he could harm me. He cannot have any leverage.’