NADESHIKO

Shizuka…

The scorned mistress.

It was an odd thing to hear. Years ago, she could have never imagined herself being saddled with such a title. It was galling, to say the least, to see her fellow kunoichi looking down on her with pity and sympathy. To be—despite her prowess as a ninja—forced into seclusion due to her current fragility.

Once upon a time, Shizuka had fantasised about what her romance story would be like. Days she had spent, dreaming up scenarios where she would regal her child—preferably a daughter, since boys apparently disliked gossip—with tales of how she met and fell in love with their father. She had had such conversations over a million times within the privacy of her mind, going over it, again and again, so that when the time came she would be prepared.

…It all seemed pointless now.

For the sake of her village, she had had to abandon her love and join hearts with a man who couldn't seem to care less about her. A man who, after tying her down, picked up his breeches and ran off to fight his stupid wars without even so much as a second glance back.

Shizuka had never hated someone so much before.

Although she never showed it, and her in-laws were remarkably loving people, she loathed the father of her child. Understandably, her hatred was most likely mostly a result of her rampant hormonal imbalances and the feeling of neglect bubbling in her soul, but that didn't make the emotion any less real.

Heavy at the hips, she sat on the edge of her futon, cradling her swollen belly with a downcast expression on her face. The first rays of dawn filtered through the delicate shoji screens, casting a soft glow over her chambers. The room was serene, adorned with colourful tapestries and intricately decorated vases filled with fragrant peonies as her mother-in-law had insisted.

"Musume-sama," came Tokiwa's voice from behind the shoji screen, "may I come in?"

"...No," Shizuka hissed.

A momentary silence filled quickly by a forlorn sigh followed her reply. Shizuka refused to look up as the door slid open. "...I don't remember permitting you to enter, Tokiwa," she noted with an irritated pout.

"Then I must apologise, Musume-sama" came the older kunoichi's sedated reply.

Shizuka looked up to meet her attendant's gaze, defiant. "Why do you always do this?" she asked.

"Do what, Musume-sama," Tokiwa replied, feigning ignorance. Shizuka growled, her irritation growing: The older woman simply smiled in response.

"I heard you turned away your breakfast," Tokiwa noted.

"I didn't feel like eating Natto."

"Should I ask the maids to bring you some steamed rice instead?"

"I am not hungry," Shizuka hissed.

"You cannot not eat, my dear," Tokiwa replied patiently. "Especially not at this stage; your child requires all the nutrients it can get for it to mature hale and healthy."

Shizuka didn't reply, pulling her knees as close to her chest as she could manage whilst pouting. For several moments, the room temporarily fell silent as neither of them spoke.

"...What's the matter, Musume-sama?" Tokiwa asked as she shuffled closer to Shizuka. "Talk to me; I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is."

Shizuka looked up to meet her attendant's softening gaze. "...Please," Tokiwa pleaded. "Let me help you."

Misty-eyed, Shizuka looked away. What was she to say, she wondered. That she had grown tired of her fellow kunoichi looking down on her with pity? Or that she felt neglected by her perpetually absent husband? Alas, Shizuka was a prideful woman; not a word of complaint escaped her lips.

Eventually, Tokiwa realised her inquiry would go unheeded and left to attend to other matters. Lady Mikoto came in minutes later to sit with her. The Uchiha matriarch spoke little, but her company was welcomed nonetheless. Yet, even that only went so far in elevating her spirits.

Kaigo, her husband's strange proxy, joined them sometime later. Shizuka's brows bunched up in a frown as she regarded the clone.

"Is anything the matter, Shizuka-chan?" her mother-in-law asked.

"...No, Mother," Shizuka replied.

Lady Mikoto glanced at Shizuka before flickering her gaze to the clone and then back to Shizuka again. "Leave us, Kaigo," the Matriarch said eventually.

"Yes, Mother," the clone replied before quickly complying.

Once more the room fell silent, yet this time Shizuka felt an odd stuffy awkwardness fill her chest.

"You are angry," her mother-in-law easily deduced. A tired sigh escaped the older woman a moment later. "...That fool boy."

Shizuka felt her cheeks flush red as Lady Mikoto stared at her for a long moment before sighing again.

"Everything is going to be alright, my dear," the Matriarch said indulgently as she reached out to caress Shizuka's cheek.

"I will set that idiot son of mine straight when next he comes around. Now please, eat something. You are worrying everyone."

"...Yes, Mother."

***

Nagato stared at the one named Uchiha Sasuke through the eyes of Yahiko…

Astounded.

Such pure, unadulterated power. A power that could have been used to bring the world one step closer to everlasting peace. Alas, as they were wont to, the hidden villages, with their machinations and scheming had soured what was once a good fruit.

He watched as a giant, ethereal skeletal hand wrapped around the dismembered body of Itachi Uchiha before stuffing him roughly into the mouths of one of the three strange heads atop the younger Uchiha's even stranger Susanoo.

Itachi was still alive. Somehow. Nagato could still faintly sense his soul through the Human Path. Why the younger Uchiha didn't just kill his elder brother whom he so obviously loathes, Nagato wasn't certain. Still, it offered him a good enough chance to force the boy to relinquish possession of the one-tails.

Some distance away, Nagato could sense another shinobi take up the responsibility of maintaining the strange rain technique that was supposedly preventing Sasuke from simply teleporting away from the battlefield. Kisame's not-corpse lay on the ground, equally undying, yet not as a result of any action of the youngest Uchiha.

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"Sasuke Uchiha!" Nagato howled into the rampant storm. The towering Susanoo slowly turned to face him. "Give me the Shukaku and I might let you leave with your brother unbothered." he bargained.

"...Much too late to haggle now," Sasuke intoned slowly from within his Susanoo, his voice booming even as he backhanded a wave severing jutsu streaming towards him from the side. The youngest Uchiha glanced sideways at Tobirama before ignoring him altogether. His gaze flickered to one end of the battlefield, then his Susanoo slowly raised its blade before swinging sideways in the direction he was looking.

Reality severed along the path of the blade and some distance away, Nagato felt the one known as Kakashi forcibly cancel his use of the Rain Dome technique to evade the attack. Seamlessly, Nagato took command of the technique having observed and deduced its nature moments ago.

Sasuke's gaze swivelled to settle on the Deva path, unimpressed.

"Give me the Shukaku," Nagato repeated.

Within his impervious Susanoo, Sasuke arched an amused brow. "Even if I deigned to entertain your offer," he said, "It is beyond obvious you aren't willing to deal in good faith."

"...I do not understand."

"You want me dead," the younger Uchiha replied. "Moreso than anyone else here in attendance. I can feel the killing intent emanating from the depths of your Ego, unwavering even as we speak now. Why is that, I wonder?"

For a moment, Nagato stared at the lithe figure above in contemplation. "...What do you seek with this war?" the outer path asked. "You are of a generation whose understanding of the cycle of hatred is faint at best, yet you so guilelessly seek to draw yourself into it. Your naivete sickens me. Unlike others I have met, your desire for carnage is borne of no true or noble purpose. You seek not to educate the essence of pain, but merely to inflict it. Shallow. Undeserving."

A pause. Chuckling. Laughter. Reckless laughter. Sasuke Uchiha bowled over, arms clutched around his abdomen as he cackled in response.

"...Do my words amuse you?" Nagato asked.

"Your world is a cursed one," Sasuke replied, calming himself. "It took from me what it had no business taking. And here you are, slighted that my carnage lacks purpose. Of course, your words amuse me. My carnage doesn't lack purpose. You merely do not acknowledge it."

Slowly, the Uchiha brought his hands together to form one hand sign. Above him, all three pairs of his Susanoo's skeletal arms copied the motion.

蛇.

Hebi.

"A world which doesn't understand the consequence of overstepping its bounds would never appreciate true peace. Taking from me, even if temporarily, was a mistake. A monumental one. I do not seek war to teach the world the essence of pain or whatever. I seek it to set boundaries on where the foolishness of man must end. The rest can burn, but what I consider mine is beyond abuse. Even if my motives dissatisfy you I couldn't care less."

"Raimu Raito! Limelight!"

A ball of lightning chakra formed in his enclosed palm with electric tendrils leaking out from the gaps of his fingers. Above, the same phenomenon repeated in the enclosed skeletal palms of the Susanoo cloaking the younger Uchiha.

Nagato sought to intervene, bringing the Deva Path's hands together to also form a single hand sign. Chibaku Tensei was Nagato's reply to the Uchiha's strange Jutsu. A black sphere formed between his hands which he then hurled towards the Uchiha.

Sasuke didn't seem to react to the approaching black hole. From his enclosed palm, and those of his Susanoo, four connecting streams of lighting chakra shot into the cloud cover above where they then created a massive ball of lightning which detonated moments later.

The gravity well Nagato launched made contact with Sasuke's Susanoo, activating to generate a powerful attractive force that began to suck the ethereal armour into itself. At the same time, Sasuke's attack on the cloud cover immediately revealed its effects. In that split moment, the extreme electrical currents emanated a wave of ionising particles that created an electrically charged barrier which then proceeded to interfere with the rain cloud's formation and precipitation.

The next few seconds that followed saw the momentary seizure of rainfall, disrupting the effects of the Rain Dome Jutsu. The decimated Susanoo disappeared from the battlefield to emerge outside the crimson barrier many miles away. There was a flicker, followed immediately by the disappearance of Sasuke from Amegakure entirely.

The Uchiha had managed to evade their collective efforts to bring him down.

***

Guy stood at the centre of the battlefield, his body glowing blue as his sweat immediately evaporated from the heat his core generated. This had been a particularly hard-won victory. Trapped beneath his feet was the one known as Kage. The Kunoichi lingered at the edge of death, her arms pulverised and legs severed at the knees. The only reason she was still alive was because of the valuable information on Sasuke Uchiha she might possess.

Even still, the woman sought to kill him with a tenacity that impressed Guy.

"I admire your strength and loyalty, Kage-san," he said, "but you've lost this battle. Stop this foolishness."

Even as he said that Guy knew he had little left in him should the woman pull off another one of her impossible comebacks. The kunoichi had forced him to open the seventh gate, the Gate of Wonder. His entire body hurt, and he had torn more than two dozen muscles and broken a few more bones in the process. Yet, it had all been worth it. The enemy forces had been successfully dislodged from Whirlpool Island and Kirigakure no longer had a foothold in the region from which they could project into the Land of Fire.

Guy's gaze rose from the crippled ninja beneath him to regard the battlefield around him. Nearly all that participated in the battle had died or suffered some horrible injury. The land was scarred beyond belief and nature would likely take years to recover from the damage she had sustained today.

A pyrrhic victory at best, it seemed.

The more Might Guy thought about it, the more he felt this was probably what the misguided Uchiha truly desired. Terrifying, that boy. Why Danzo turned him against the leaf, Guy probably would never understand.