trifecta (Naruto)(T)(OC warning)
Sometimes he wonders what the children would be like.
His long black hair, and her dark heart’s-blood eyes, perhaps; his strength, her dagger-sharp mind. Her long, elegant fingers, with his strength behind them; his tenacious determination, and her ability to say anything, do anything, in order to change the world.
He hopes they would not look like him, because his face is full of nightmares, lined with care. Hers is still and pale and perfect, like a porcelain mask, a better barrier than the carved white bone that veils ANBU in anonymity. He loves her face, loves the passion that seethes under it where no one else can guess at. He wonders if their children would take after her relentless control, but thinks better of it; children often strive to be as unlike their parents as they can manage, after all.
Maybe they will be geniuses, he thinks, and hopes that nothing of the sort will happen, for he has far too much intimate knowledge of the peculiarly pervasive darkness that casts strange and often livid shadows across the lives of those so cursed. No, he hopes they will be intelligent, but not to the point of genius; he hopes they will build their foundations on hard work, rather than fragments of insight that come without toil. He doesn’t care if they really do turn out to be intelligent or stupid, as long as they are not geniuses; that is all he wants.
The thoughts come unbidden, in the soft weight of her presence against his shoulder or the way she watches him, the fragrance of her folding around him when they sleep together.
And then, because it is wishful thinking
(and he has never been one for dreams)
he shakes the gentle longings away, and looks to the road ahead.
Uchiha Itachi has always been good at facing reality.
==
Sometimes he wonders what their children would be like.
Pale, definitely; tall, because both of them are. Strong and comely, because both of them are. They would have her cold, unchanging fortitude, and excel in everything they turned their hand to- because both of them always did. They would be masters of manipulation, because that tends to run in his family. And their tempers would be hot, because that ran in hers, and she was the exception rather than the rule.
They would grow up to be masters of their craft, because he had learnt this by her hand; they would grow up to be fast and deadly and proud, because he had seen himself reflected, dimly, in her (or was it the other way round; that she had pressed herself so strongly and harshly upon him that they would forever be alike) and they were strong, had always been, would always be. They would never need, never want, because they already had everything they needed.
Maybe they will be geniuses, he thinks sometimes, for it seems difficult to believe that any of her, his, their, offspring, could fail to be so blessed. Then he wonders if he might be able to tell the difference, because she has a peculiar knack for making brilliance out of ashes (one only has to look at her teammates, at his loud blond once-friend, to realize this). Perhaps they will excel without trying, or perhaps they will excel because it is the only standard their parents have ever known.
The thoughts come unbidden, in the long silences alone in the dark (Sakura’s soft, sweet-smelling hair tossed carelessly over his arm, Naruto strangely as silent in sleep as he is in wakefulness, the wary darkness of Oto, the unceasing downpour of Ame) when the scent of her skin (she wears no scent, but the hand that caught him across the face so many times carries a faint spice like cinnamon and musk tucked under her skin) and the ruby-tinged darkness of her hair and the cool directness of her gaze seem but a thought away.
And then, because it is an impossibility
(and he has never believed in impossibilities becoming possible, no matter how much Naruto screams his defiance into the world)
he closes his eyes against the dreams, and practices breathing exercises until life resumes its normal course without her.
Uchiha Sasuke has always been good at avoiding leaps of faith.
==
He never wonders what the children would be like, because he knows that neither sweet words nor coercion will never be able to induce her to carry his child to term.
Even in the farce of a relationship they share, he knows she plays her own game, with rules he can only guess at, though he knows she sees him as her diametric opposition. Tsukiyomi can only hold her for so long, and even in that bloody world of dreams and visions her resistance is like a solid white wall tempered by iron control and the famous Kizuno hatred; Amaterasu would destroy her (and she is so much more amusing alive) and hypnosis cannot hold her for long (for she has had a lifetime to study the Sharingan, to cut apart its secrets and cache her memories so that he cannot destroy them).
Besides, he already knows, with a gut-deep certainty, what they will be like, no ifs or buts or maybes.
There’s no denying that their children would likely be powerful fighters (as they both are) and ruthless (because both of them are) and devastating in their own ways. The Uchiha bloodlines would run true, of course; the Kizuno may have preceded the Uchiha in direct descent from the Hyuuga, but Sharingan would always be superior to Jagan (to kill with a single look was, after all, like hitting a fly with a hammer; and that was all the Jagan could boast). They will be proud to call themselves Uchiha (of course they would. Her own clan was an entity she hated) and they will rule, as is the ultimate destiny of the Uchiha.
Whether they are geniuses or not matters little, if at all. They will be his descendants. There is no higher qualification.
But because it is immaterial
(and tunnel vision has brought him too far for him to discard it even now)
he never thinks about it, never considers any path other than that which he has walked for generations.
Uchiha Madara has always been good at focusing on his goals.
--
When she was a child, ostracized and awkward, discussing the topic of marriage with someone she had barely known for two months, she had wondered what their family might be like.
It would be warm, in the way her father had held her, in the absences of the mother who had never approved of her purposeful failures, in the only ways she knew how. Maybe it would be filled with boys, and they would follow after their calm-eyed father like her younger brother had always followed her own quiet sire. Maybe it would be filled with girls, and she wouldn’t know what to do with them, because all her experiences with mothers had only told her that mothers didn’t like girl children, weak and useless mirrors of themselves.
Even when he had gone away, she had believed in that dream, had held it in her heart. Even when it became clear that Konohagakure would be an impossible ground in which to grow the seeds of her dream, she had believed that it would be possible to sow them in other soil- fertile soil, far away where nobody had ever heard of the clan massacre- where nobody had ever heard of the Uchiha clan, their fight for power, their power, their fall. She had poured all her resources into making herself a means to that end, strong enough, vicious enough, ruthless enough to clear the way for that dream to be planted.
And then their marriage had broken- they had broken.
She had broken. And had in turn broken the family he had left in her care, completing the fall of the Uchiha.
Sasuke had chosen power, leaving behind a village, a team, friends, a mother, to gain what he needed to kill the person she loved. (She thinks he will understand, in time, that she had loved him enough to teach him how to survive, but had loved him enough to balk at teaching any more than that.)
Mikoto had chosen the Elders, knowing that she could not have allowed such a trespass. Their only consolation was that Sasuke had already chosen to leave, that he would not come to hate the village, hate her, hate them, more than he already does.
(She knows, however, that this is unavoidable, that her deeds will be brought to the light of day, and then his hatred will be complete.
And even she is human enough to dread that day.)
The village no longer offers her a home to return to; the clan no longer tolerates the weakness of her father and herself. She realizes this after retrieving her younger brother’s swiftly-dying remains from a failed message delivery mission (how could it have happened, how could they have sent a fresh chuunin on a C-turned-A-rank mission, how could they, how could they) and they leave the village together, uprooting her teammates, taking their families away.
In the home she built for themselves, the offspring her team shared between them, she saw what the children would be like.
They would love
squirming things trying to get out of her lap, tiny hands curling around her fingers, large eyes and sun-kissed faces eager to please
and be loved.
her fan tapping out gestures of discipline, the entire household participating in group kata as the children learnt the ways of their family
They would be children she would be proud of
soiled nappies, wet linens, everyone pitching in to scrub the futons as the little ones flamed pink in shame and tried their best to grow up soon
and she would be proud of them no matter how good or bad they turned out to be at the paths they chose for themselves.
water walking, that familiar exercise, knocking them mercilessly into the water again and again and watching with something swelling in her breast, something warm and glowing and bright, as they fought their way back to the surface with great gasps
She will raise them as she raised Sasuke. Her team, her father, will raise them as they raised her, and things will be different this time; they will be a happy family.
Because that is her dream,
(no matter how far she has to go, no matter how many lives she will break, how many times she will whore herself, how many times she will ask more and more of the people who cannot walk away from her)
and dreams always have happy endings.
Kizuno Ouka has always been good at making the impossible happen.