The air in the Konoha central clinic smelled of dried herbs, boiled linen, and the faint, metallic tang of sterilization chakra. It was a scent Y/N Hyūga associated with order; in a world so recently built from the blood and mud of a dozen battlefields, order was the only solace. 

She moved through the ward like a still point in a turning world. At twenty two, she was the jōnin Head Director of the hospital, and she commanded it with a quiet, unyielding grace. Her pale lavender gray eyes, the Byakugan, were not activated, yet she saw everything. The dip in a patient's breathing, the tremor in a young nurse’s hand. 

"Y/N-sensei," the nurse whispered, her voice tight with panic. "The tenketsu points on his left arm, they won't stabilize. This fire style jutsu... it's dissolving his chakra pathways." 

Y/N’s gaze settled on the shinobi. A Senju, barely twenty, his face slick with fever. His left arm was a ruin of charred flesh and sluggish, laking chakra. 

"You have done well to contain the necrosis," Y/N said. Her voice was soothing. "Step back. I will take it from here." 

She stripped the white hospital coat from her shoulders, leaving her in her simple lilac robes. Her hands, pale and slender, hovered over the wound.  

"Byakugan." 

The veins and muscles around her eyes expanded. The world dissolved into a tapestry of gray and silver. The fire was not simple flame; it was a curse of chakra, designed to eat, to linger, to destroy from within. It clung to the boy's network like poison ivy. 

Her hands ignited in the soft, pale green of medical chakra. But where others would flood the area, Y/N’s control was finer. She spun her chakra into microscopic needles, a thousand tiny, precise instruments. She did not douse the dark fire; she began, thread by thread, to un-weave it from the Senju’s own. 

For an hour, she did not move. The nurses watched, mesmerized. They called her the "White Fire of the Hyūga," not for her passion, but for the intensity of her focus; a flame that healed where others consumed. 

Finally, with a soft exhale, the last of the dark chakra dissipated. The boy's breathing evened. "He will heal," Y/N said, her voice quiet with exhaustion. "See to his dressings." 

She was washing her hands when Hashirama Senju found her, his Hokage robes already rumpled, his face alight with his usual, chaotic energy. "Y/N-chan! Perfect! I was just coming to see you. Tobirama is complaining about our budget for the new children's wing again, can you believe him? I need you to look over these requisitions and tell me if-" 

A sharp, formal rap at the door cut him off. A Hyūga guard stood in the doorway, clad in the stark white of the Main Family. He did not look at the Hokage. His pale featureless eyes were fixed on her. "Y/N-sama. Your father, Hisasi-sama, requests your presence at the compound. Immediately." 

The warmth in the room vanished. Hashirama’s smile faltered, his boisterous energy replaced by a sudden concern. He knew, as she did, that Hisasi Hyūga never "requested." He commanded. 

"I... of course," Y/N said, her voice regaining its formal ton. She bowed. "Hokage-sama, forgive me. My duty calls." "Y/N..." he began, worried. "I am sure it is a small matter," she lied. 

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖

The Hyūga compound was silent, a stark contrast to the hospital's vibrant, aching life. Here, emotion was a flaw, a thing to be controlled, polished away like a smudge on a perfect surface. 

She paused outside her father’s study, the shoji screens casting a pale, milky light. She checked her reflection in a polished lacquer box by the door. Her long black hair was tied back. She took a breath, smoothed the front of her robes, and knelt. 

"Father. You sent for me." 

She slid the screen open and entered, bowing her head as she took her place on the tatami mat across from him. Her father sat in perfect seiza, his hands resting on his knees. His Byakugan was not active, but she felt his gaze rake over her. 

"You smell of the hospital chaos, and Senju" he said. His voice was flat. "You were with the Hokage." "I was, Father," Y/N replied calmly. "He wished to discuss about some concern." Hisasi interrupted. "I see. But what we require is stability between clans. His 'village' is a dream held together by hope and charisma. Hope is not a foundation, Y/N. Charisma is not a treaty." 

Y/N remained silent, her hands folding gracefully in her lap. "The Uchiha," he said, the name dropping into the room like a stone. "They are the crack in this new foundation. They follow Madara, and Madara follows only his own pride. They are a fortress within our walls. They will, inevitably, be the source of the next war." 

A knot of familiar, cold dread tightened in Y/N’s stomach. "The Uchiha were responsible for Mother's convoy," Y/N said, her voice quiet but unwavering. It was the one grievance that was hers. "Yes," Hisasi said, his pale eyes finally meeting hers. "They took your mother, they spilled our blood. That is precisely why this new accord is necessary." 

He slid a single, unadorned scroll across the low table. "The Senju offers words. The Hyūga will offer blood. We will bind the Uchiha to this village in a way they cannot break. We will forge an alliance that will force peace." Y/N stared at the scroll. Her heart rate was slowing, her extremities growing cold. "You have... arranged a marriage," she stated. "I have." She thought of her younger brother, Haru. "You cannot mean Haru. He is... he is not a diplomat. It would be a disaster."  "To send Haru would be an insult. A sign of weakness." Hisasi's gaze was sharp, pinning her. "The Uchiha are a clan of power. They respect nothing else. They will not be bound by a child. They must be bound by an equal : by our strongest." 

The room was suddenly very small. "Father... what have you done?" "I have done my duty as clan head. And you will do yours, as the heir." He tapped the scroll. "You will marry Uchiha Madara." 

The sound of her father's voice dismissing her was a distant hum. Y/N stood, bowed, and slid the shoji screen of his study closed. She didn't remember walking. She was suddenly just... outside. The village was alive around her, the smell of cook-fires, the shout of a merchant, the ringing of a hammer. It all felt like a painting : distant, flat and cold

Her feet carried her past the hospital. She couldn't go there, not now. She was walking to the Hokage tower. She went to find her friend. The guards at the tower bowed, "Y/N-sensei." "Is he in?" Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. "Hokage-sama is... yes. He's in." 

She didn't wait. She took the stairs, her steps quick and silent. She didn't knock. Her hand was on the door, sliding it open with a sharp, rattling whoosh. Hashirama looked up, his dark eyes wide with surprise, a half-eaten rice ball in his hand. "Y/N? What is it? Another attack? Is the hospital-" 

He stopped. He truly looked at her. She was paler than her Hyūga blood usually allowed. Her hands, those instruments of perfect, steady control, were clenched at her sides, shaking. A fine, violent tremor she couldn't seem to stop. "Y/N..." He was on his feet in an instant, his chair clattering to the floor. "What happened? What's wrong?” 

Y/N opened her mouth. No sound came out. She tried again. "He... my father." "Hisasi? What did he say? Did he forbid you from working at the hospital? I'll speak to him, Y/N, I swear I will-" "No." She held up a shaking hand. "It's... the alliance. The one we all wanted." A terrible, cold understanding began to dawn on Hashirama's face. He knew the old ways. "Y/N... what did he do?" "He said... he said the Hyūga would offer blood. To bind the Uchiha. To force the peace." Hashirama's face went white. "A... a political marriage? He's forcing Haru to...?" 

Y/N let out a sound that was almost a laugh. It was a terrible, broken thing. "No. Not Haru. That would be an insult. They are a clan of power, he said. They must be bound by our strongest." She finally looked up, her pale, lavender-gray eyes meeting his dark ones. The shock was finally cracking, revealing the raw, 14-year-old grief beneath.    "He's marrying me to Uchiha Madara." 

The name hung in the air between them, a declaration of war disguised as a promise of peace. Hashirama stared at her. His mouth opened, then closed. The man who could command armies looked utterly, devastatingly helpless. "He can't," Hashirama whispered. "Madara... Y/N, he...he’s my friend but I won't allow it. As Hokage, I forbid it." Y/N shook her head, the last of her strength failing. "You can't. It's a clan matter. You know it is. It's... it's done. The contract is drawn." 

She took a staggering step forward, her hand landing on his desk to steady herself, scattering scrolls. "He's giving me to the man... to the clan... that killed my mother, Hashirama. He's calling it peace." 

Hashirama’s face crumpled. "But... you, Y/N. Your mother. How can you...?" "He asks because I am the heir," she said, her gaze distant. The shock was being replaced by a deep, bottomless exhaustion. "It is my duty. The same as yours." She straightened, her hands performing the simple, familiar gesture of smoothing her robes. The moment of crisis was over. "I must go," she said. "I won't be at the hospital tomorrow, Hashirama." The simple, domestic statement struck him harder than her grief. "What? Why?" "My father has arranged a meeting. A formal introduction. With the Uchiha family," her voice was perfectly level. "Tomorrow evening. I am to... prepare." 

She bowed, a deep, formal bow that was suddenly miles away from the friend who had burst into his office. "Hokage-sama." She turned and left, her back straight, her steps silent, leaving him alone with the ruins of his perfect, peaceful dream. 

Y/N walked from the Hokage Tower in a daze. Her limbs felt heavy, her movements automatic. The sounds of the village, the shouting merchants, the ringing of hammers on the new Academy roof, were a distant, muffled hum, as if she were underwater. 

Uchiha Madara. 

The name was a black, cold stone in her stomach. A nightmare. A sentence. She was walking, but she had no destination. She just... had to move. 

"Nee-san!" 

The voice was a bright, familiar, painful sound. It cut through her fog like a kunai. She stopped, her head turning. Haru, her seventeen-year-old brother, was jogging toward her, his jōnin flak jacket unzipped, his face bright with a post-mission high. He was the picture of the normalcy she had just lost. 

"Just the person I was looking for!" he grinned, stopping in front of her. "I finished that patrol early. Let's go to Ichiraku, my treat. You've been cooped up in that hospital for-" He stopped, his smile faltering. He wasn't a sensor, but he was her brother. He saw her. "Nee-san?" he asked, his voice softening. "Are you okay? You look... pale. More than usual." 

This was it. The first test. The first lie. Y/N manufactured a smile. It felt brittle, thin, like a paper mask that would tear. "I'm fine, Haru," she said, her voice sounding falsely bright to her own ears. "Just... a long day. The hospital budget meetings were... exhausting." 

He frowned, not entirely convinced, but he accepted the plausible, boring excuse. "See? You need ramen. Come on. A few minutes. It'll cheer you up." He tugged on her sleeve. 

She couldn't. She couldn't sit with him. She couldn't listen to his cheerful, simple stories about his mission. She couldn't bear his happiness while this cold, dark secret was suffocating her. She gently pulled her arm free. "I can't, Haru. I... I'm sorry." The lie tasted like ash. "There's... there's a new shipment of medical supplies at the hospital. I... I have to catalog them before dark." 

His face fell in open, boyish disappointment. "Oh. Right. Work, work, work." He tried to rally, giving her a playful shove on the shoulder. "Rain check, then! Don't let Hashirama-sama and those stuffy budgets work you to death, Nee-san." "I won't," she lied. "See you at home!" he said. With a final, cheerful wave, he turned and ran off toward the market, oblivious. 

Y/N watched him go. The smile on her face didn't just fade; it crumbled. She was, for the first time, completely and utterly alone. She had just left her only friend in the tower. And she had just lied to her only family. This was the real weight of peace. It was a burden she had to bear in silence. She turned, her heart a cold, heavy stone, and walked, not to the hospital, but home to the white, silent, empty walls of her compound.    Earlier that day. The Uchiha Compound. 

The room was dark, lit by multiple candles that cast long, flickering shadows. Madara sat at the head of a long, dark-wood table, his eyes closed, his presence a cold, heavy void. His father, Tajima Uchiha, and three of the clan's most powerful elders sat in the shadows. 

"The Senju are one pillar," Tajima said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "We are the other. The Hyūga... are a loose stone. They are a threat." An elder, his face a map of old scars, nodded. "Hisasi Hyūga is pragmatic. He has offered a solution. A... bond. A marriage." 

Madara's eyes opened. They were cold, black, and utterly devoid of interest. "A marriage. We will give one of our branch cousins to their heir. It is... trivial." 

"No," Tajima said, his voice hard. "Hisasi is not a fool. He does not offer his heir for a branch family. He offers... his strongest... for our strongest." 

A pause. The air in the room grew heavy, the pressure of Madara's chakra a physical weight. He understood. "You are joking," Madara's voice was not a question. It was a low, dangerous growl. "You want to bind me... the leader of the Uchiha... to a Hyūga?" His disgust was palpable. It was not just a rival clan; it was them. Their "weak" eyes, their "rigid" customs. 

"It is not a joke," the scarred elder snapped. "It is logic. It neutralizes our most dangerous dōjutsu rival. It binds the Hyūga's neutrality to us. With this, the Senju cannot move against us. We will have the Byakugan as an asset, not a threat." 

Madara's hands slammed onto the table. He stood, his shadow swallowing the room. "I will not be... sold... for a treaty. I am Uchiha Madara. I lead this clan. I do not... whore... for it." 

"You WILL!" Tajima roared, standing to meet his son's gaze, his own Sharingan flaring to life. "This is not about your pride! This is about survival! You swore an oath to protect this clan. This... this... is how you protect it!" The elder's voice was a furious hiss. "You will bind that pale-eyed princess (he spat this last word) to our house, and you will chain her entire clan to our interests. It is your duty." 

A long, terrible silence stretched, filled only by the hiss of the candle. Madara's own Sharingan blazed, a crimson, spinning vortex of rage. He was at war with his father, his duty, his hatred of the Hyūga. Finally, the crimson faded. His face became a mask of cold, hard ice. He had made his choice. 

"...Fine." The word was a chip of obsidian. "I will do my duty." He turned, his black robes sweeping. "Prepare the contract. But... make no mistake." His voice was a flat, lethal promise. "She... is a duty. Not a... wife." He swept from the room, leaving the elders in the dark, his cold, furious sacrifice hanging in the air.  𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ I hope you liked the first chapter. Don't hesitate leaving a comment or a repost ! Luv yall Jasm.

The retreat did not happen with the violence of a storm. It happened with the quiet, suffocating inevitability of a drought.

Madara woke from the nightmare of Y/N's death with a singular, terrifying resolve. His love was a target. His closeness was a danger. The logic of the Uchiha Curse was : to love was to lose. Therefore, to keep her safe, he had to stop loving her. Or at least, he had to stop acting on it. He began to rebuild the walls Y/N had spent months dismantling, brick by brick.

It started subtly.

The morning after the nightmare, Y/N woke to an empty room. She reached out instinctively, her hand brushing the tatami where his pallet usually lay. It was cold. Not just empty, but erased. The pallet was rolled and stored in the cabinet with military precision. There was no note. No lingering scent of tea. Just the empty space where he had slept.

When she went to the kitchen, she found Chiyo alone, scrubbing a pot with unnecessary vigor.

"The master has already eaten," the old woman said, avoiding Y/N's gaze. "He left before dawn for a security meeting. He said not to expect him for dinner."

Y/N accepted it. It was a busy time. The village was growing. She told herself it was just duty. She prepared the bento, wrapped it in the dark blue cloth, and left it on the counter for him to pick up later.

When she returned that evening, the house was silent. She checked the counter.

The bento was gone.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. He had taken it. It was fine. Just a busy day.

But late that night, as she lay in the dark, she heard the front door open. She heard his footsteps in the hall. They were heavy, slow.

They stopped outside their door.

She waited for the slide of the shoji. She waited for him to enter. He stood there for a long time. Then, the footsteps moved away. Toward his study. He did not come to bed.

By the third day, the pattern was undeniable.

Y/N woke early, determined to catch him. She dressed in the dark and went to the kitchen. She made the tea. She prepared the bento, packing the grilled fish he liked. She stood by the counter, waiting.

The sun rose. The house stirred.

Madara did not come to the kitchen.

Instead, she heard the heavy thud of the main front door closing. He had bypassed the kitchen entirely. Y/N walked to the window. She saw his black armored figure striding toward the gate. He did not look back at the house.

She looked back at the counter. The blue-wrapped bento box sat there.

Untouched.

Abandoned.

A cold knot tightened in her stomach.

It wasn't work. It wasn't his duty as the police chief.

It was her.

He was retreating. He was ghosting her in their own home.

By the end of the week, the isolation was obvious.

He was sleeping in the barracks or his study. He was eating out. He was ensuring their paths never crossed.

Y/N felt like she was haunting her own marriage. The warmth of the festival, the intimacy of the desert, the shared tea, it all felt like a dream she had woken up from.

She walked the halls of the Uchiha compound, the ring heavy on her finger, feeling a loneliness sharper and deeper than anything she had felt when she first arrived.

Then, she had been a prisoner. Now, she was an exile. 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

Y/N fled the silence of the compound. The hospital was usually her sanctuary. Today, she used it as a shield.

She walked through the main doors with a stride that was perhaps too fast, her head held high.

She immersed herself in the work. She did not go to her office to review budget reports, she went straight to the trauma ward.

A construction worker had been brought in with a crushed foot, a heavy beam having fallen during the expansion of the Academy.

Y/N knelt beside the cot. She did not offer empty platitudes. She placed her hands over the mangle of flesh and bone.

For twenty minutes, while she took care of the man's foot, she did not think of Madara. She did not think of the cold stone floor. She thought only of the tensile strength of bone and the flow of blood.

But the moment the procedure was done, the moment the man was resting, the void returned. It rushed back in to fill the space her concentration had vacated.

She moved to the next patient. And the next.

She consulted on a difficult case of chakra exhaustion in the long-term care wing. She lectured a pair of apprentices on the proper ratio of antidote for scorpion venom, her voice sharp, brooking no questions, tearing apart their sloppy hypothesis until they were scrambling to rewrite their formulas.

"Sensei is scary today," she heard a young medic whisper to another as she swept past the nurses' station.

By mid-afternoon, the adrenaline began to fade, leaving behind a hollow, aching fatigue. She found herself standing in the supply closet, staring at a shelf of bandages. She had come in here for something. She could not remember what.

She stared at the white rolls of gauze.

White. Like the lilies he had placed on her mother's shrine.

White. Like the cloak he had bought her in the desert.

The silence of the closet pressed against her ears. She took a breath, forcing her heart rate to slow. She grabbed a box of supplies she didn't need and marched back out into the hall.

She went to her office. She pulled a stack of paperwork toward her. It was mindless administrative work. Requisitions. Duty rosters. Budget approvals.

She signed her name.

Hyūga Y/N.

She paused. She looked at the ring on her finger.

She crossed it out.

Uchiha Y/N.

She stared at the name. It felt like a lie. Was she an Uchiha? Or was she just a Hyūga staying in an Uchiha house?

She signed the next form. And the next.

"Y/N-sensei?" a nurse asked from the doorway, holding out a clipboard. "You have signed this three times."

Y/N blinked, looking down. The paper was inked with her signature, over and over.

"I am tired," Y/N said, her voice hollow. "That is all. Leave it."

She worked until the sun began to set. The light in the office turned from bright white to a heavy, golden orange, and then to a bruised, ominous purple.

Outside, the wind picked up. The leaves of the trees whipped against the window. The pressure in the air dropped rapidly.

A summer storm was coming.

The hospital emptied out. The day shift left. The night shift settled in. The halls grew quiet. Y/N sat at her desk in the dark office. She had no more work. She had no more excuses. She looked out the window at the village below. The lights were coming on in the houses. Families were gathering for dinner.

And on the edge of the village, the Uchiha compound sat in darkness.

She did not want to go back. She did not want to walk into that empty parlor. She did not want to see the closed door of his study. She did not want to sleep in the big bed alone while he slept in another room.

But she was the Okusan. She had a duty.

She stood up. Her legs felt heavy.

She walked out of the hospital and into the rising wind, heading toward the storm and the silence of her home.

The next day was a carbon copy of the previous one. The sun rose, indifferent to the cold silence in the Uchiha household. Y/N left before breakfast, her bento box once again untouched on the counter.

At the hospital, the atmosphere was brittle. The nurses walked on eggshells around the Director's office.

Haru stood at the end of the corridor, his arms crossed over his flak jacket. He was supposed to be on patrol, but he had taken a detour. He watched his sister stitch a laceration on a genin’s arm. Her face did not move.

"She looks like she did when Mother died," Haru said. His voice was low and tight.

Mina stood beside him, clutching a stack of patient files she had no intention of filing. She watched her friend wipe blood from her hands.

"Worse," Mina corrected quietly. "When your mother died, she cried. She leaned on us. Now she just works. She is trying to turn herself into stone."

Haru’s jaw clenched. "It is him. The Uchiha. I saw him at the gate this morning. He looked like a corpse walking. He did not even acknowledge me."

"They are destroying each other," Mina observed. "And they are doing it in silence."

She shoved the files into Haru’s chest.

"Hold these."

"What? Mina, I am on duty."

"Hold them," she ordered. She rolled up her sleeves. "I am going in."

Mina marched down the hall. She did not knock on the exam room door. She slid it open with a loud, cheerful bang that made the patient jump.

"Director!" Mina chirped. "Emergency consultation required."

Y/N looked up, her eyes dull. "What is it, Mina? Is it the triage unit?"

"No. It is a critical case of hypoglycemia in the senior staff," Mina declared. She stepped forward, hooked her arm through Y/N’s, and pulled. "Meaning you. You haven't eaten since yesterday. We are going to the roof."

"I am not hungry," Y/N protested, trying to pull back. "I have charts to review."

"The charts are boring. The sun is shining. And I bought the expensive dango ! Move."

Mina was not as strong as a Hyūga, but she was persistent. She dragged Y/N out of the ward, past a startled Haru, who gave his sister a look of deep concern, and up the stairs to the roof.

The sudden brightness of the midday sun made Y/N squint. The wind was warm, carrying the scent of pine and dust from the village below. It was a stark contrast to the sterile, chemical smell of the hospital.

Mina pushed her onto their usual bench and shoved a skewer of tri-colored dango into her hand.

"Eat," Mina commanded. "If you faint in my OR, I will draw whiskers on your face with permanent ink."

Y/N stared at the dango. Pink, white, green. Cheerful colors.

She took a small bite.

"I am fine, Mina," she said, her voice monotone.

Mina sat down beside her, ignoring her own food. She watched Y/N’s profile. "Talk to me, Y/N. And don't give me the 'I am tired' speech. What is happening? You two were... glowing. Last week, you looked like you were living a romance novel. Now you look like a widow."

Y/N lowered the dango. Her hand trembled. The facade cracked.

"It was good," she whispered, her voice breaking. "It was so good, Mina. In Suna... and after. We were talking. He held my hand. He drank my tea. We sat in the parlor and we laughed about Hikari."

She looked at the black ring on her finger. "He called me by my name. Not Okusan. Not Hyūga. Just Y/N. And the way he looked at me..."

Her breath hitched.

"I felt safe. For the first time in that house, I wasn't a prisoner. I wasn't just an asset. I felt... cherished. My heart would race just hearing his footsteps. I thought... I really thought we were building something. I thought he felt it too."

"And now... it is gone. Overnight. He won't look at me. He won't eat my food. He sleeps in his study or the barracks. He treats me like I am invisible. Like I am a mistake he is trying to erase."

She looked at Mina, her lavender eyes swimming with pain.

"It hurts, Mina. It hurts more than the arranged marriage. It hurts more than the fear. Because he showed me what it could be like... and then he took it away. It is breaking me."

Mina listened, her expression softening from fierce determination to deep sympathy. She reached out and wrapped an arm around Y/N's shoulders, pulling her close.

"Oh, sweetie," Mina sighed. "He is an idiot. A giant, emotionally stunted, Uchiha idiot."

"He hates me," Y/N whispered into Mina's shoulder.

"No," Mina said firmly. She pulled back and gripped Y/N's shoulders, forcing her to look up. "Listen to me. Hate is loud. Hate is shouting. Hate is what he feels for Tobirama. This? This isn't hate. This is fear."

Y/N blinked. "Fear?"

"Yes. Fear," Mina insisted. "He got too close. He felt something real, and because he is a tragic war hero with too much trauma, he panicked. He is pushing you away because he thinks it protects you, or him, or the village, or whatever nonsense logic he has cooked up in that brooding head of his."

Mina shook Y/N gently.

"You are the Head of Medicine. You diagnose problems and you fix them. You don't let a patient die just because they are stubborn about the treatment."

Mina's eyes blazed.

"Stop waiting for him to come back. He won't. He's stuck in his own head. You have to go in there and drag him out."

"Force the communication," Y/N murmured.

"Exactly," Mina said. "Go home. Find him. Corner him. Scream at him if you have to. But don't let him ghost you in your own marriage. Make him look at you."

Y/N took a deep, shaky breath. She looked at the village below, then at the Uchiha compound in the distance.

The despair in her chest shifted, hardening into something sharper. Something like anger.

She was done waiting.

"Eat the dango," Mina said gently. "Get your strength back. Then go handle your husband."

"You are right," Y/N said, her voice gaining a sliver of its old steel. "I am going home."

Y/N returned to the Uchiha compound with the fire of Mina's words burning in her chest. She was ready. She was going to corner him. She was going to demand the truth.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

She marched into the house, her steps echoing on the wooden floors. She lit the lamps in the parlor. She sat at the low table, her back straight, her hands clasped. She waited.

The sun set. The sky turned black. The crickets began their nightly chorus.

Y/N did not move. She listened for the heavy thud of the front gate. She listened for the clack of armor.

Hours passed. The oil in the lamps burned low. The fire in her chest began to cool, replaced by a cold, creeping dread.

He did not come.

Midnight arrived and passed. The house remained silent as a tomb.

He wasn't just avoiding her inside the house anymore. He was staying away entirely. He was likely sleeping on a couch in the Military Police barracks, surrounded by subordinates, just to avoid sleeping under the same roof as his wife.

The realization extinguished her anger. It left her feeling small and foolish. She blew out the lamps in the parlor and retreated to their bedroom. The large bed looked like a vast, lonely island.

She changed into her sleeping yukata, her movements slow and heavy. She sat on the edge of the mattress, staring at the empty space where his pallet usually lay.

Scratch. Scratch.

The soft sound at the shoji screen made her jump.

"Y/N-nee?"

The door slid open a crack. Hikari stood there, clutching a small pillow. Her hair was a mess, and she was rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, yawning.

"Is Nii-san back?" she mumbled sleepily. "I had a bad dream. I wanted to tell him."

Y/N felt a fresh crack in her heart. She looked at the child who adored her brother, who trusted him to always be there.

"No, Hikari," Y/N whispered. "He is not back."

Hikari blinked, looking around the empty room. "Oh. He is working late again?"

"Yes," Y/N lied. The lie tasted bitter. "he is working late again..."

Hikari looked at Y/N. She saw the sadness in the woman's posture. She saw the empty room.

She stepped inside and slid the door shut behind her.

"The dark is loud tonight," Hikari said, shuffling toward the bed. "Can I stay?"

Y/N didn't hesitate. She lifted the heavy quilt.

"Come here."

Hikari climbed in, curling up against Y/N's side. She felt warm and solid, a small comfort in the cold room.

Y/N wrapped her arm around the girl, resting her chin on the top of her head.

"Go to sleep, little one," she murmured.

Hikari was asleep in seconds, her breathing evening out.

Y/N lay awake. She stared at the ceiling. She held Madara's sister in Madara's bed, in Madara's house, and she had never felt further away from him.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The morning sun brought no warmth to the Uchiha household. Y/N woke with Hikari still curled against her, a small, trusting weight in the large, empty bed. She carefully extricated herself, dressing in her standard jonin uniforme, her hair tight in a hihg ponytail. She needed answers, and she was done waiting for them to come to her.

She bypassed the hospital entirely. Her destination was the Hokage building.

She marched through the village, her stride fast and clipped. The guards at the tower recognized her immediately. They saw the Uchiha crest. They let her pass without a word.

She climbed the stairs to the top floor and knocked once on the heavy oak door before sliding it open.

Hashirama was alone for once, staring out the window at the village below. He turned as she entered. A welcoming smile began to form on his face, but it died the moment he saw her.

She looked brittle. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed, and there was a frantic energy in her chakra that he had never felt from the usually calm Hyuga.

"Y/N-chan," Hashirama said softly. "You are here early."

"Where is he?" she demanded. No bowing. No pleasantries.

Hashirama blinked. "Madara?"

"He did not come home last night," Y/N said, her voice tight. "He has been avoiding the house for a week. But last night he vanished. Where is he, Hokage-sama?"

Hashirama sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to deflate his shoulders. He walked back to his desk and sat heavily. He looked at the map spread out before him.

"He took a mission," Hashirama admitted. "A solo patrol."

"A mission?" Y/N repeated, her voice rising in disbelief. "We just returned from Suna. The southern border is secure. The Iwa treaty is signed. What patrol requires the Clan Head?"

Hashirama pointed to a jagged, red-inked line on the map. It was far to the northwest.

"He went to the Iwagakure border," Hashirama said gravely. "But not the trade route. He went to the jagged cliffs. The disputed zone."

Y/N felt the blood drain from her face.

"That area is not covered by the treaty," she whispered. "It is a no-man's-land. It is swarming with rogue ninja and mercenaries. It is a death trap."

"I know," Hashirama said, rubbing his temples. "I told him that. I told him it was suicide to go alone. But he insisted. He said he needed to verify the perimeter. He said he needed... a fight."

Y/N felt a cold, sinking sensation in her gut. He had run away. He had literally fled the village to throw himself into mortal danger just to get away from the quiet of their home.

"Why?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Why is he doing this? Everything was good. We were fine."

Hashirama looked at her with sad, dark eyes. He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands.

"He came to me," Hashirama said quietly. "Last week. On the cliff."

Y/N stepped closer to the desk. "What did he say?"

"He was agitated," Hashirama said, choosing his words carefully. "More than I have seen him in years. He talked about you."

Hashirama gave a small, wry, sad smile.

"But the way he said it was telling. He listed everything you do. The cooking. The training with Hikari. The way you smell."

Y/N flushed, confusion warring with hope.

"He said you were a distraction," Hashirama continued. "A weakness. He said he couldn't sleep because of you. He said he needed a solution."

"A solution," Y/N repeated numbly.

"I may have made a mistake," Hashirama admitted, looking guilty. "I told him the truth. I told him he was in love with you."

Y/N froze.

"And he panicked," Hashirama finished. "He looked terrified, Y/N. Truly terrified. Like he was back in the Warring States period. He fled then, too. Just disappeared."

Hashirama looked out the window again.

"It is like he has reverted," he said softly. "The Madara I saw this morning was the Ghost again. Cold. Shut down. He looked at me like a stranger. He took the mission scroll and left without a word. He seemed distracted, yet terrifyingly serious. He is trying to kill the part of himself that feels. Because he thinks feeling is what gets people killed."

Y/N stood there, the pieces finally clicking into place. The nightmare. The distance. The fear.

He wasn't rejecting her. He was rejecting the vulnerability of loving her. He was terrified that if he loved her, the universe would take her away, just like it took Izuna.

He was trying to save her by erasing himself from her life. He was throwing himself into a high danger zone because that was the only place he knew how to exist without fear.

It was incredibly, infuriatingly stupid.

Y/N’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. The despair that had been drowning her evaporated, boiled away by a sudden surge of determination.

"He is an idiot," she stated flatly.

Hashirama blinked, startled. "I beg your pardon?"

"He is a dramatic, self-sacrificing idiot," Y/N said, her voice gaining strength. "He thinks he can just decide? He thinks he can unilaterally cancel a marriage because he had a bad dream? He thinks he can go die in a ditch in Iwa just to avoid a conversation?"

She turned to the map on the wall. She looked at the red line. The danger zone.

"How long is the patrol?"

"Three days," Hashirama said. "Maybe four. If he survives."

"Fine," Y/N said. She adjusted her medical pouch. "Let him have his tantrum in the woods. Let him freeze out there alone."

She turned back to the Hokage, her eyes blazing with a cold fire that rivaled any Uchiha's.

"When he comes back," she said, her voice low and dangerous, "he is going to find that his solution has failed. I am not going anywhere. And I am done being patient."

She bowed, a sharp, quick jerk of respect.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

She turned and marched out of the office, leaving a stunned Hashirama staring after her.

"Wow," he whispered to the empty room. "Tobi was right. She really is terrifying." 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The disputed zone between the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth was a graveyard of jagged rock and gray mist. It was a place where treaties did not reach and where the only law was strength. The wind howled through the narrow canyons, carrying the scent of ozone, dust, and fresh blood.

Madara moved through the landscape like a wraith. Behind him, twelve rogue shinobi lay broken on the stones. They had been mercenaries, deserters from Iwa who thought numbers and terrain would protect them from a single man. They were wrong. They had been little more than kindling for his fire.

He did not even pant. His armor was untouched, gleaming dull black in the overcast light. His gunbai rested lightly on his shoulder as he stepped over a fallen enemy without breaking his stride. This was his element. This was where he made sense. Here, there were no complications. There were no tea ceremonies, no whispered conversations, no soft hands brushing against his. There was only the enemy, the strike, and the silence that followed.

He had come here to find that silence. He had come to drown the noise of his own heart in the familiar, cold clarity of battle. He sought the simplicity of violence to purge the chaos of affection.

It was not working.

He scanned the ridge line, his Sharingan spinning slowly, tracking a heat signature a mile away. His analytical mind broke down the threat: three men, likely scouts, moving in a standard defensive wedge. Easy prey.

But as he analyzed the threat, his mind betrayed him. It superimposed another image over the gray rocks.

He saw Y/N.

He saw her sitting in the sunlight of the training yard, laughing with Hikari, her head thrown back, her throat exposed and vulnerable. He saw the way she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, a gesture so simple it made his chest ache. He saw the pale curve of her neck in the moonlight of Suna, the way the silk dress clung to her form.

He gritted his teeth, his jaw aching from the tension. He forced the image away.

But she returned.

He smelled the metallic tang of blood on his gauntlet, but his memory conjured the scent of honey and almonds from her kitchen.

It was maddening, like a poison.

She was a ghost he could not exorcise. She had infiltrated his defenses so thoroughly that even here, in the middle of a war zone, she was with him. She was in the wind. She was in the silence. She was in the very beat of his own heart.

"Focus," he growled to the empty canyon. His voice was rough, unused.

He had to kill this feeling. It was a weakness. It was a target painted on his back. Hashirama’s words echoed in his mind: You love her.

No. He refused.

If he loved her, he would lose her. That was the rule. That was the Uchiha Curse. Every time he opened his heart, the world reached in and tore something out.

He would not let it take her. He would rather she hate him from a distance than die because he held her too close.

He gripped the handle of his fan until the leather creaked. He needed more enemies. He needed a fight loud enough to drown out her lullaby. He needed to be exhausted, broken, bleeding, anything to stop the constant, looping reel of her smile.

He sensed movement ahead. A patrol. Larger than the last one. Twenty men. Chakra signatures that felt heavy, earth-based.

Good.

He would burn the world down if it meant he didn't have to feel the warmth of her hand in his again.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The three days of Madara's absence stretched over the village like a shroud of gray fog. For Y/N, they were a test of endurance. She woke up alone. She worked until her hands cramped. She slept, fitfully, in a bed that smelled of him, holding a pillow that offered no warmth.

She was angry, she was terrified, but mostly, she was resolved.

At the edge of the village, the sun began its descent on the third day. The sky turned a bruised purple, casting long, stretching shadows across the main road leading to the gates.

Haru stood at his post. He had requested the gate duty specifically. He told his captain it was for the overtime pay. In reality, he was waiting. He needed to see the man who had broken his sister's heart. He needed to see if the Ghost of the Uchiha would return, or if Y/N was about to become a widow.

Then, he saw it.

A solitary figure emerged from the tree line.

It was not the crisp, imposing silhouette that had marched out three days ago. The figure moved with a heavy, mechanical rhythm. Every step looked deliberate, as if the ground were trying to pull him down and he was refusing, out of sheer spite, to fall.

Madara Uchiha had returned.

He was a ruin.

His armor, usually polished to a black mirror sheen, was dull and coated in a thick layer of gray rock dust. There were deep gouges in the chest plate, scratches that revealed the silver steel beneath the black lacquer. His cloak was gone, likely lost in some ravine. His hair was matted with sweat and dried mud.

As he drew closer, Haru stiffened. His Byakugan was not active, but he didn't need it to see the dark, wet stain on Madara's left side. It soaked the fabric of his undertunic and seeped between the plates of his armor.

He was bleeding. And he was not bleeding a little.

Madara reached the gate : he did not look at the guards, he did not look at the village. His gaze was fixed on a point a thousand miles away. He looked like a man who had fought a war single handedly and won, but lost his soul in the process.

Haru stepped forward, blocking the path.

"Uchiha-sama."

Madara stopped. He blinked, slowly, as if pulling himself back from a great distance. He looked down at the young Hyūga.

His eyes were black voids. The fire was gone.

"Open the gate," Madara rasped. His voice sounded like gravel grinding together.

Haru did not move. His gaze dropped to the injury on Madara's side. The scent of copper and old blood was sharp in the air.

"You are injured," Haru stated. It was an accusation. "That is not a scratch. You are bleeding heavily."

"It is benin" Madara said. He took a step forward, expecting Haru to move. "Stand aside."

Haru held his ground for a second longer. He looked at the man who had fled his sister's love to go find pain in the wilderness. He saw the physical toll it had taken. Madara had gotten what he wanted. He was exhausted. He was numb.

Haru felt a surge of anger, but it was quickly eclipsed by a cold, practical urgency. Y/N needed to know.

Haru stepped aside.

"You look terrible," Haru said, his voice low. "She is going to kill you."

Madara did not respond to the taunt. He didn't even seem to hear it. He walked past Haru, his boots dragging slightly in the dirt, leaving a trail of dust and the faint scent of iron in his wake. He headed not toward the hospital, but toward the Uchiha compound. He was going to hide. Again.

Haru watched him go. He waited until Madara turned the corner, vanishing into the shadows of the village streets.

Then, Haru abandoned his post.

He signaled the junior guard to take over.

"I have an emergency," Haru lied smoothly. "Cover me."

He did not run to the Hokage Tower. He ran to the hospital.

Y/N was in her office. The lamps were unlit, the room filled with the gray light of dusk. She was not working. She was sitting at her desk, her hands clasped tightly on top of a stack of unsigned paperwork.

The door slid open with a bang.

Y/N jumped, her heart leaping into her throat.

But it was not Madara.

It was her brother.

He stood in the doorway, breathless, his jonin vest dusty, his face was grim.

Y/N stood up slowly. The look on his face stopped her heart cold.

"Haru?" she whispered. "Is it... is it him?"

Haru nodded. He stepped into the room and closed the door.

"He is back," Haru said.

"Is he...?" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"He is alive," Haru said quickly, seeing the panic flare in her eyes. "He walked through the gate on his own two feet."

Y/N let out a breath that was half-sob. "Thank the gods." She moved to grab her cloak. "I have to go home. I have to-"

"Y/N, wait."

Haru's voice stopped her. He looked uncomfortable. He looked angry on her behalf.

"He did not go to the hospital," Haru said. "He went straight to the compound."

"He is tired," Y/N said, defending him instinctively. "He has been on patrol for three days."

"He is not just tired," Haru said, his voice hard. "He is hurt."

Y/N froze. Her hand hovered over her medical pouch.

"What kind of hurt?" she asked, her voice dropping to the clinical tone of the Head medic of Konoha.

"I saw his side," Haru reported. "There is a wound. It is deep enough to soak his armor. He is pale. He is moving slowly. And he looks..." Haru paused, searching for the word. "He looks like he doesn't care that he is bleeding."

The color drained from Y/N's face.

He was injured and he had walked past the hospital. He had walked past her. He was going home to bleed in the dark rather than let her heal him.

The resolve that had sustained her for three days hardened into something unbreakable. It was no longer just about love. It was about survival, it was about saving him from his own colossal stupidity.

"Thank you, Haru," she said. Her voice was ice cold.

She grabbed her medical kit. She grabbed her cloak.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The house was silent when Y/N entered. Hikari was not running in the halls; she was likely already asleep or hiding in her room, sensing the storm that had just walked through the front door.

Y/N went straight to the study.

The door was closed, asliver of light leaked from beneath it.

She did not knock, it was her house afterall. He was her husband, the time for polite distance was over.

She slid the door open with a sharp movement.

Madara sat at his desk. He had removed his chest plate, leaving him in his black under-tunic. The fabric on his left side was matted and dark, clinging wetly to his skin. He was hunched over a scroll, a brush in his hand.

He did not look up, he kept writing, the brush scratching against the paper. He was trying to pretend she wasn't there. He was trying to be the Clan Head, busy with reports, too important to be interrupted.

Y/N stepped into the room. She closed the door behind her, walked to the center of the room and stood there, her medical kit heavy in her hand.

She stared at him. She stared at the way his hand shook slightly as he wrote,the gray pallor of his skin, the blood soaking into the tatami mat beneath his chair.

"You are injured," she stated. Her voice was flat, devoid of the warmth he was used to.

Madara's brush paused. He dipped it into the inkstone.

"It is superficial," he rasped. His voice was a wreck, dry and unused. "A scratch from a rock slide. It does not require attention."

Y/N scoffed. It was a harsh, incredulous sound that cut through the dim room.

"A rock slide," she repeated. "Do not insult my intelligence, Madara. I can smell the iron from here. I can see the way you are favoring your left side. You are bleeding out."

She dropped her kit onto the floor with a loud thud.

"And you are writing a report."

"It is my duty to write one, the village needs it," he muttered, still refusing to meet her eyes. He made a stroke on the paper. It was crooked.

"The village needs a Clan Head who is alive," she snapped.

She crossed the remaining distance in three strides. She reached out and slammed her hand down on the scroll, right over his writing.

"Stop."

Madara froze. He looked at her hand on his work, the black ring on her finger was smeared with fresh ink.

Slowly, reluctantly, he looked up.

His eyes were dark, hollowed out by exhaustion and pain. But behind the fatigue, there was a wall. A high, cold wall of stubbornness.

"Leave me, Y/N," he growled. "I am working."

"No," she said. She leaned over the desk, invading his space, forcing him to acknowledge her presence. "You are bleeding out. Slowly, stupidly, and stubbornly. And I am not going to let you."

She reached for the collar of his tunic.

"Take it off."

Madara caught her wrist. His grip was weak, his hand cold.

"I said no."

"And I said I am your wife," she hissed, her face inches from his. "I am the Head medic of this village."

She ripped her wrist free from his grasp.

"Take it off, Madara, or I will cut it off."

The silence in the study was heavy, broken only by the sharp, metallic snip of Y/N's scissors cutting through the ruined fabric of his tunic. Madara sat rigidly in the chair, his jaw set, staring at the far wall. He had stopped fighting her, but he had not yielded. He was enduring her care like he endured a necessary evil.

Y/N peeled the blood-soaked cloth away from his skin. The wound was ugly, a jagged, deep laceration running along his ribs. It wasn't a rock slide. It was a blade wound, likely poisoned, though his own potent chakra was fighting the toxin, leaving the edges of the cut angry and inflamed.

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. Seeing his body broken like this, knowing he had sought out this pain just to escape the intimacy of their life together... it was a physical ache.

Her hands glowed green with healing chakra. She began to clean the wound, her touch precise and gentle despite her anger.

"You are irresponsible," she said quietly, her voice trembling slightly.

Madara didn't flinch as the antiseptic stung, he didn't speak.

"You think because you are Uchiha Madara, you are invincible," she continued, her hands working steadily. "You think you can just walk into a war zone alone because you are the strongest. Because you are a god among men."

She paused for a second.

"But you are not a god. You are a man. You bleed like a man."

She looked at his face, at the dark circles under his eyes, the stubborn set of his mouth.

"People count on you," she whispered. "The village counts on you. Your clan counts on you. I count on you."

He didn't react.

"Hikari was terrified," Y/N said, her voice catching. "She came to my room the night you left. She had a nightmare and you weren't there. She asked where you were, and I had to lie to her. I had to tell her you were working, when I knew you were out there trying to get yourself killed."

She finished sealing the deepest part of the wound and began to bandage his torso.

"You are not protecting anyone by running away, Madara. You are just scaring the people who love you."

She tied the bandage off, her hands resting for a moment on his chest. She could feel his heart beating beneath her palm : slow, steady, stubborn.

He still didn't answer. He just stared at the wall, lost in his own fortress of solitude.

"It was working," Y/N said, her voice tight and trembling with a rage she had suppressed for seven long days. She finished tying off the bandage around his ribs with a sharp tug, but she was not done.

She grabbed his left arm. The fabric of his sleeve was shredded, stiff with dried blood. She didn't bother rolling it up. She took her scissors and sliced the ruined silk open, exposing a nasty, jagged gash that ran from his elbow to his shoulder. It was packed with grit and gravel from where he must have slammed into a canyon wall.

"We were working," she hissed. She grabbed a bottle of strong antiseptic. She didn't warn him and poured it directly onto the raw flesh.

Madara’s hand clenched into a fist on the desk, his knuckles turning white, but Y/N did not stop. She picked up a coarse sponge and began to scrub the debris from the wound.

"Do you remember when I first arrived? Your clan looked at me like I was a disease. They looked at me like I was a spy who had infiltrated the walls. I walked down these halls and felt the weight of their hatred on my shoulders every single day."

She scrubbed harder. The water in the basin turned pink, then red.

"But we changed that. I changed that. I cooked for them until my hands were blistered. I healed them until my chakra was drained. I taught your sister how to breathe. They stopped staring and started smiling. The children call me Princess. The elders bow to me, even Chiyo smiles."

She grabbed a needle and thread. She didn't use chakra to numb the area, she wanted him to feel it. She pierced the skin, pulling the thread tight.

"I found a family here, Madara. In this cold, stone fortress that you call a prison, I found a home. I thought I had found a place where I belonged. I thought I had found a partner."

She stitched with angry, jerky movements.

Up. Down. Pull.

"We were moving forward. You held my hand in Suna. You drank my tea. We were partners, we were finally standing on the same side of the line."

Her voice cracked, the anger giving way to a raw, bleeding hurt.

"And then, the moment it became real, the moment it became good, you decided to step back. You decided that happiness was a threat. You decided to throw yourself off a cliff just to avoid standing on solid ground, you decided to abandon me again."

She reached the end of the wound. She tied the knot and snapped the thread with her teeth. Then she grabbed a roll of bandage and began to wrap the arm, pulling the linen tight enough to cut off circulation.

Madara hissed.

The air sucked through his teeth in a sharp sound of pain. His body jerked involuntarily, his muscles seizing under her hands as she wrenched his injured arm. He tried to pull away, his instinct to retreat kicking in.

"Stay still," Y/N snapped.

She slammed her hand down on his shoulder, pinning him to the chair. The contact was electric, skin on skin, but there was no tenderness in it.

"If you are going to act like a child, I will treat you like one," she declared, her eyes blazing with lavender fire. "Do not move until I am finished. You do not get to run away from this. You do not get to bleed in peace while I pick up the pieces."

Y/N clipped the final metal clasp on the bandage with a decisive snap. She dropped her hands, letting them fall to her sides. They were trembling, not from exertion, but from the adrenaline of her fury.

The silence returned to the room, heavy and suffocating.

Madara did not move to put his tunic back on. He sat there, his chest wrapped in white linen, his arm bound tight. He did not look at his injuries. He looked at her. His dark eyes were fixed on her face, watching the way her chest heaved, watching the flush of anger on her cheeks. He saw the cracks in her mask.

"It hurt me," Y/N whispered. The anger drained out of her voice, leaving only a stark, brittle honesty. "When you stopped eating. When you stopped coming to bed. When you looked through me like I was a ghost in my own home."

She picked up her medical kit, her movements slow and heavy.

"I thought we had built something. I thought I was a partner, but you treated me like a liability you could just... discard."

She snapped the kit shut and stood up straight, meeting his gaze with a look of profound disappointment.

"If this is how you want to live, Madara, then fine. Be the Ghost. Be the monster everyone fears. Sleep in the dirt and bleed in the dark."

She turned toward the door, her hand resting on the frame. She looked back at him one last time.

"But do not lie to yourself. This is not protection. You are not saving anyone by acting like this. You are just drafting people away. You are just ensuring that when the end comes, you will be completely, utterly alone."

She slid the door open.

"And you are ensuring that I will be alone, too."

She stepped out into the hallway, sliding the door shut behind her, leaving him in the dim light of the study with the smell of antiseptic and the echoing truth of her words.

Madara sat in the silence she left behind. The scent of antiseptic was sharp in his nose, overpowering the smell of ink and old paper. He looked down at the fresh white bandages wrapped tight around his chest and arm. They were a physical manifestation of her care, and they felt like chains.

Drafting people away.

The words echoed in the empty room. He felt a surge of heat in his chest that had nothing to do with the fever of the wound. It was anger. A hot, roiling, shapeless anger that made his hands clench into fists on the desk.

He was angry at her for entering without knocking. He was angry at her for speaking to him with that tone of command. He was angry at her for dismissing his judgment, for calling his tactical retreat a "tantrum."

But beneath that surface rage, there was something else. A harder, denser knot that he could not untie.

He was the Uchiha Clan Head, he made the hard choices. He sacrificed his own happiness for the safety of others : that was his duty, his burden. She had looked at that burden, at the weight he carried to keep her alive, and she had called it cowardice.

She had told him he was making her alone.

He slammed his uninjured hand against the wood of the desk, the pain rattled up his arm, satisfying and sharp.

He wanted to believe that his distance was noble.

But her voice kept ringing in his ears : You are not protecting anyone. You are just scaring the people who love you.

He stood up. The movement pulled at his stitches, a reminder of her needle, of the way she had hurt him to heal him.

He looked at the door. Through the hallway, down the corridor, was the master suite. The soft bed and the woman who had stitched him back together.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The roles reversed with the rising sun.

For a week, it had been Madara leaving the house before the dawn could touch the roof tiles, escaping the warmth of a wife he was terrified to love. He had been the ghost, sliding out of doors and vanishing into the fog of duty.

But when he woke up in his study, his neck stiff from the high backed chair and his side throbbing with a dull, persistent ache, the house was already silent.

He pushed himself up, gritting his teeth against the pull of the stitches. He walked to the kitchen, expecting the usual routine, he expected to see her back turned to him as she brewed tea. Madara expected the silent, heavy tension of two people trying to ignore each other.

The kitchen was empty.

The stove was cold.

There was no tea, no bento wrapped in blue cloth. There was only Chiyo, chopping vegetables .

"Where is she?" Madara rasped.

Chiyo did not look up. "The Okusan left an hour ago."

Madara blinked. "It is barely dawn."

"She said the hospital required her immediate attention," Chiyo reported, her voice dry. "She also left instructions for you."

The old woman pointed a knife at the counter. A piece of paper sat there, weighed down by a small bottle of pain medication.

Madara picked it up :

Bed rest. Five days. Do not leave the compound. Do not train. If I find that you have strained the stitches, I will ensure the next dressing change is memorable.

It was a threat from the woman who knew exactly where every nerve ending in his body was located.

"She also said," Chiyo added, finally looking at him with eyes that judged his very soul, "that she would be late. She has taken a mission assignment."

Madara crumpled the note. "A mission? She is the Head medic. She does not take patrol missions."

"She does today," Chiyo said. "She has volunteered to supervise a Genin team on a herb gathering run in the Forest of Death. She said she needed the fresh air."

Madara stood frozen in his own kitchen.

She wasn't just working; she was finding reasons to be anywhere but here. She was taking D-rank babysitting missions just to avoid the possibility of seeing him.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

Two days passed in a gray, suffocating blur.

The house, which had briefly known the warmth of laughter and the scent of honey, had reverted to a tomb.

Madara sat at the low table in the parlor. His side throbbed with a dull, constant ache, a reminder of the stitches that pulled tight every time he moved. He was following her orders.

Across from him sat Hikari.

She was pushing her rice around her bowl with her chopsticks. Her shoulders were slumped. Her usual bright energy was extinguished.

There was a third cushion at the table. It was empty. The tea in the cup beside it was cold.

"She is late again," Hikari mumbled, staring at the empty spot.

Madara did not need to ask who.

"She has duties," he rumbled. "The hospital is busy."

"It wasn't busy last week," Hikari countered, her voice bordering on a whine. "Last week she was here. She helped me with my reading. She watched me practice. Now she just leaves before I wake up and comes back when I'm asleep."

She dropped her chopsticks onto the table with a clatter. She looked at her brother, her dark eyes filled with accusation.

"First it was you," she said. "You stopped eating with us. You stopped sleeping here. You ran away to the border."

She pointed at the empty cushion.

"And now she is doing it too."

Madara stopped eating, the rice turned to ash in his mouth.

"She is unhappy," Hikari whispered. "She used to smile when she looked at you. Now she looks like she is getting ready for a funeral. Is she going to leave for good, Nii-san? Is she going to go back to the Hyūga because we are too sad?"

The question hit Madara harder than the poisoned blade had.

He looked at his little sister. He saw the fear returning to her eyes, the same fear she had lived with before Y/N arrived. The fear of abandonment, the fear of the empty house.

He looked around the parlor. It was impeccable, Chiyo kept it perfect. But without Y/N, it was just wood and paper.

His attempt to save her life was destroying his family.

Madara clenched his hand on his knee. The pain in his side flared, sharp and grounding.

He realized, with a sickening clarity, that the Uchiha Curse was not just about death. It was about this self-inflicted isolation

He looked at Hikari's tear-filled eyes.

"Eat your rice," he said. His voice was rough.

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat," he commanded softly. "She will return."

He stared at the empty cushion.

He had created this void, and he was the only one who could fill it.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The midnight bell tolling from the village watchtower had faded into silence hours ago. The Uchiha compound was a world of stillness, the heavy, wooden bones of the house settling into the cool night.

Madara sat on his futon, he wore a simple, dark gray sleeping yukata, the fabric soft and worn. His hair was loose, falling around his face, framing the sharp angles of his jaw and the dark circles that had taken permanent residence under his eyes.

He was waiting.

He sat in the center of the room, his legs crossed, his hands resting on his knees, breathing slowly, deliberately, trying to ignore the throbbing ache in his side where the stitches pulled tight against his skin.

The shoji screen slid open.

Y/N stepped inside. She moved like a ghost, her steps silent, her presence muted. She was dressed in her white medical robes, still wearing the dust of the day. Her shoulders were slumped with exhaustion.

She reached for the lamp to extinguish it, expecting the room to be empty.

Then she saw him.

Her hand froze in mid-air. Her eyes widened, losing their dull glaze for a fraction of a second. She stared at him sitting there, occupying the space he had abandoned for a week.

She did not smile. She looked at him with the wary, guarded expression of a soldier encountering an unexploded bomb.

"You are here," she whispered. The words were flat.

"I am," Madara replied. His voice was gravelly, low in the quiet room.

She lowered her hand. She looked at the door to the hallway, then back at him.

"Are you not sleeping in your office tonight?" she asked.

It was not a sarcastic question. It was a genuine one. She had become so accustomed to his absence that his presence was the anomaly. She was asking if she needed to leave, if she needed to make space for his ghost.

Madara looked at her pale face. He saw the way she held herself, rigid and protective.

"No," he said. "I am not."

He did not offer an explanation or an apology. Not yet. He just held his ground.

Y/N stared at him for a long heartbeat. Then, she gave a small, stiff nod.

"I see."

She turned away. She did not engage. She moved to the wardrobe, gathering her sleeping clothes and her toiletries with mechanical efficiency. She treated him like a piece of furniture, something to be navigated around.

She slid the door to the bathing room shut.

Madara was left alone in the main room, but he was no longer in the void. He was in her orbit.

He heard the sounds of her routine, the rustle of fabric dropping to the floor, the splash of water and the clink of a porcelain jar.

And then, he heard it.

At first, it was just a breath. A vibration in the air.

Then, a melody.

She was humming.

It was the lullaby. Her mother's song.

The sound was soft, unconscious, a reflex of comfort she offered herself because no one else was offering it.

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. The sound wrapped around him, dragging him backward through time.

He remembered the first night. The wedding night.

He remembered the smell of jasmine and fear. Him sitting on this exact floor, listening to this exact song. He had been a stranger then. He had listened to her hum and wondered if she was plotting his death or mourning her own life. He had felt nothing but a cold, grim satisfaction that the alliance was secured.

He had been so arrogant. He had thought she was just a Hyūga princess, a piece on a shogi board.

The memory shifted. It dissolved into color and light.

Suna.

He saw the explosion of the fireworks reflecting in her lavender eyes. He saw the way the red light softened the curve of her cheek. He remembered the feeling of the desert wind and the warmth of her body standing next to his.

He remembered the taste of the honey cake.

He remembered her smile, not the polite mask she wore now. The real one. The one that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made his breath catch in his throat.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a painful, erratic rhythm.

He had held that warmth in his hands.

And he had thrown it away.

He had traded that smile for this cold, hollow silence. He had traded the honey for ash. He had terrified himself with a nightmare of losing

Madara opened his eyes. He stared at the closed screen of the bathing room.

The fear of the Curse, the fear of her death, was still there. It was a cold snake coiled around his spine.

But the pain of listening to her hum alone was worse.

The pain of seeing Hikari cry was worse.

The pain of living in this gray, empty world he had created was worse.

He looked at his hand. The steel ring was there, scarred and dull.

He clenched his fist.

He was Uchiha Madara. He did not cower and did not hide from storms.

The shoji screen slid open, releasing a cloud of warm, damp steam into the cool bedroom. Y/N stepped out, her skin flushed from the heat, her hair damp and heavy against her back. She was dressed in her indigo sleeping yukata, the sash tied tight around her waist.

She stopped.

Madara was not where she had left him. His pallet was no longer in the center of the room, an island of isolation. He had dragged it across the floor. It lay directly beside the large platform bed, the edge of his futon touching the wood of her frame.

He sat there, legs crossed, his hands resting on his knees. He looked up as she entered, his dark eyes were not the void she had seen for the past week. They were heavy with an emotion she was too tired to decipher.

Y/N stared at the proximity. If she lay down on the bed, and he lay down on the floor, his hand would be within reach of hers.

She did not comment on it. She did not have the energy to fight him, nor the resolve to welcome him. She simply walked to the vanity and picked up her comb. She sat down, her back to him, and began to untangle her damp hair.

The silence stretched, taut as a bowstring.

"We need to speak," Madara said. His voice was a low rumble, rough with the fatigue of his journey and the weight of his guilt.

Y/N’s hand paused mid-stroke. She looked at his reflection in the bronze mirror.

"Tomorrow," he added. " In the morning. Before the day begins."

It was a request.

Y/N lowered the comb. She looked at the bandages peeking out from the collar of his yukata. She looked at the gray cast to his skin. He was injured and exhausted.

"You are injured," she said softly, addressing his reflection. "You should rest."

Madara waited. He wanted her to agree to hear him out.

She did not give it to him.

Y/N set the comb down with a soft click. She stood up and walked to the bed. She pulled back the heavy quilt and slid inside, turning onto her side, her back facing him and his pallet.

"Goodnight, Madara," she whispered.

She did not answer his question. She did not promise him a conversation.

Madara sat there for a long moment, staring at the curve of her back under the covers. He understood. She was protecting herself. He had hurt her, and trust did not return just because he moved a mattress.

He accepted her silence, it was better than her absence.

For the first time in a week, the house was full. And as the moon rose over the Uchiha compound, they both fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, separated by height, but breathing the same air.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The sun slanted through the high windows, hitting Madara’s face. His hand flew to his side, shielding his eyes, while his other hand instinctively checked the space beside him.

It was empty.

The bed was made: the sheets were pulled tight and smoothed flat, erasing any evidence that she had slept there.

Madara sat up, a hiss escaping his teeth as the movement pulled at his stitches. He looked around the room. Her medical bag and cloak were gone.

He let out a long, heavy sigh. The sound scraped against the silence.

She had left. Y/N had gone to the hospital before dawn, just as she had for the few days. His gesture of moving the pallet, his silent request for a truce, had not been enough. Madara had expected too much too soon.

He stood up, his body aching with the stiffness of healing and the weight of regret. He would go to the kitchen, drink his tea alone, and then go to the tower to bury himself in paperwork. It was the routine he had built, the prison he had constructed.

Then he heard it.

It was faint, drifting down the hallway from the dining parlor. A sound that had no business being in a house of mourning.

A giggle. High, bright, and undeniable.

Then a voice. Low, soft. murmuring.

It was Y/N.

Madara froze. His hand tightened on the collar of his robe.

She was still here.

He walked silently, drawn toward the sound like a moth to a flame.

He reached the open door of the parlor.

They were there.

Hikari was sitting on a cushion, her hair half-braided, munching on a rice ball. Y/N was kneeling behind her, a comb in her hand. She was weaving Hikari’s unruly hair into a neat plait.

Y/N was not dressed for the hospital. She was wearing a simple, pale green house yukata. She looked tired, her eyes shadowed, but she was here. She was present.

"Hold still," Y/N whispered, tugging gently on a lock of hair. "Or you will go to the Academy looking like a bird's nest."

Hikari giggled again. "A cool bird's nest."

Madara stepped into the room.

"Good morning."

His voice was rough with sleep.

The atmosphere in the room snapped tight.

Hikari’s giggle cut off instantly. She looked up, her dark eyes darting from Y/N to Madara.

Y/N’s hands stilled on the braid. She did not jump or turn around. She finished the plait, tied it off with a red ribbon, and then slowly stood up.

Her expression was calm. "Good morning," she replied. She did not use his name.

Madara walked to his cushion. The distance between them across the small table felt vast, a canyon he had dug himself.

Y/N moved to the teapot. She poured a cup and placed it in front of him, steam curled into the air.

"You should eat," she said, sliding a bowl of rice and grilled fish toward him. "Your body needs the fuel for the healing process."

It was the physician speaking. Not the wife.

Not his wife.

Madara picked up his chopsticks. "Thank you."

They ate.

Usually, breakfast was a quiet affair, but this silence was heavy. It was thick with the things they had said last night and the things they had not.

Hikari sat between them, her eyes wide. She looked at her brother, who was staring grimly at his fish. She looked at Y/N, who was drinking her tea with a gaze fixed on the garden wall.

The air felt static, like the moments before a lightning strike. Hikari chewed her rice ball slowly, afraid that if she swallowed too loudly, she would break something fragile.

She sensed the wall Y/N had put up.

She sensed the regret coming off her brother in waves.

They were sitting at the same table, but they were miles apart.

Hikari finished her food quickly, stuffed the last bite into her mouth and scrambled to her feet. She needed to get out of the blast radius.

"I'm going!" she announced, her voice too loud in the quiet room. She grabbed her bag. "I'm going to be late !"

Y/N turned to her, the mask softening just a fraction. "Have a good day at the academy, Hikari-chan. Be careful."

"I will!"

"Bye, Nii-san," she whispered.

Madara nodded, not looking up. "Go."

Hikari fled. Her footsteps faded down the hall, then the front door slammed shut.

The silence rushed back in, absolute and suffocating.

The front door clicked shut behind Hikari, leaving a silence that felt heavy enough to crush bone.

Madara sat at the table, his hand resting near his teacup. He looked at the steam rising in thin, gray wisps. He looked at Y/N. She was sipping her tea, her gaze fixed on the garden. She was sitting right there, but she felt miles away.

Madara cleared his throat, the sound was rough in the quiet room.

"The sun," he started, his voice low. "It is... bright today."

Y/N lowered her cup and looked at him. Her expression didn't change, but a flicker of something, confusion perhaps, or disbelief, passed through her eyes. Madara Uchiha was making small talk about the...weather ?

"It is," she agreed politely.

Madara clenched his hand on his knee. Why was this harder than facing a battalion of rogues ?

He pushed himself to his feet. "Walk with me," he requested. It was not a command. "The air in the house is... suffocating. We should go out."

Y/N looked at him. She looked at the bandages visible at the collar of his yukata.

"You are healing," she said. "Exertion is not recommended."

"Walking is not exertion," he countered. "And I cannot sit in this room any longer. Please Y/N.."

The please hung in the air. It was a word he rarely used.

Y/N hesitated. Then, she stood up.

"Very well," she said softly. "A walk."

They walked through the village outskirts, avoiding the busy market streets where eyes would follow them. They took a winding, dirt path that led up the gentle slope of the Hokage Rock, winding around the side to a high, grassy hill that overlooked the entire valley.

The walk was silent. The only sounds were the wind in the trees and the crunch of their sandals on the earth.

Madara walked at a measured pace, mindful of his injury, though he would never admit it. Y/N walked beside him, matching his stride. They were close enough that their sleeves brushed occasionally, sending small, electric jolts through the heavy atmosphere between them.

They reached the top of the hill.

The view was breathtaking. Below them, Konoha spread out like a map. The red and green roofs, the winding river, the bustling streets, it was a living, breathing testament to the peace they had built. The sun bathed everything in a warm, golden light.

Madara stopped at the edge of the overlook. He crossed his arms over his chest, wincing slightly as the motion tugged at his ribs. He looked down at the village.

Y/N stood a few feet away. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders against the breeze.

Y/N was looking at Mardara. She saw the profile of the man she had married. The sharp nose, the wild hair, the lines of exhaustion etched into his face. He looked strong, as always, but there was a crack in the armor... He looked lonely.

"It is a good view," Madara said, his voice carried away by the wind.

"It is," Y/N replied.

He turned his head to look at her. The wind whipped a strand of black hair across her face.

He wanted to reach out and tuck it behind her ear. He wanted to pull her close.

But the wall was still there.

"Y/N," he said. His voice was heavy.

She met his gaze.

Madara turned his head and looked out at the village he had built. The wind tugged at his loose hair, whipping it across his face, but he did not move to brush it away. He kept his arms crossed, his hands gripping his biceps.

"I have lived my life in the cold," he began. His voice was low, a rumble that vibrated through the ground beneath their feet. "Since I was a boy, I have known only duty, war, and the silence that comes after the fighting stops. I built a fortress around myself. It kept the world out, and it kept my grief in."

He took a sharp breath, the air whistling through his nose.

"Then you came."

He turned his head slowly. He looked at her again.

"I expected a political arrangement. I expected a quiet presence in my house, a signature on a treaty. I did not expect this." He gestured vaguely to the space between them. "This noise. This disruption."

Y/N stood still, the wind fluttering the hem of her yukata. She listened.

"At first, it was just irritation," Madara admitted. "You were in my kitchen. You were in my training yard. You were humming in my room. But then, the irritation changed. It became a pull. A gravity I could not fight."

He stepped closer, invading her personal space, needing her to hear every word.

"When I look at you, there is a tightness here." He pressed his hand to his chest, right over his heart. "It is not pain or adrenaline. It is a heat. It starts when I hear your voice in the hallway, it flares when you smile at Hikari and it burns when you look at me with those eyes that see everything. It is a feeling I have not known, and it terrified me."

He looked down at his hands, calloused and scarred from a lifetime of violence.

"I did not know what to do with it. I am a warrior, Y/N. I know how to destroy, how to conquer. I do not know how to hold something delicate without crushing it. I do not know how to be warm."

His voice cracked, just a fracture in the stone.

"And that fear paralyzed me. In Suna, under the fireworks, I looked at you and I felt a happiness I have not felt for ages. And immediately, I felt the shadow. Because in my life, happiness is the herald of loss. Every time I love something, the world takes it away. It bleeds it out in front of me."

He looked at her, his gaze raw and desperate.

"I pulled away because I was scared. I am scared of hurting you. I am scared that my darkness is contagious. I am scared that if I hold you too close, I will break you, or my enemies will use you to break me. I am scared that I am doing everything wrong, that I am failing you as a husband because I only know how to be a general. I thought if I removed myself, you would be safe. I thought if I stopped caring, the curse would pass over us."

He let his hands fall to his sides, open and empty.

"I tried to leave. I tried to go back to the cold. I thought it would protect you. But out there, in the rocks and the blood, the cold was not safe anymore. It was just lonely and I realized that I would rather be afraid with you than safe without you. I would rather risk the loss than live another day in that silence."

He stopped, the confession hung in the air.

Y/N stared at him. She saw the man stripped of his armor, the general who had surrendered his command to his own heart.

She reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were cool against his warm, scarred skin. She didn't just hold it: she gripped it, anchoring him to her.

"Madara," she whispered, her voice carrying over the wind. "Look at me."

He met her gaze, his dark eyes vulnerable.

"You are afraid of a shadow," she said gently. "You are afraid of a story your clan tells itself to make sense of the pain. But the Uchiha Curse only exists because you let it dictate your future. You let the fear of loss stop you from gaining anything worth keeping."

She stepped closer, her other hand coming up to cup his cheek. Her thumb brushed the scar there, a tender, reclaiming touch.

"I am not a fragile thing you need to put on a shelf," she continued, her voice gaining strength. "I am jonin of Konoha I have faced death in the hospital, on the battlefield, and in the eyes of my own father. I am strong enough to be loved by you, Madara. I am strong enough to carry your fear until you are ready to let it go."

Madara leaned into her touch. His eyes fluttered shut as her thumb traced his cheekbone. He let out a long, shaky breath, the air whistling through his nose.

"You said you didn't know how to be warm," she murmured stepping in. "But you kept me safe in Suna. You fed me when I was tired and you held my hand when I was afraid. You are already warm, Madara. You just need to stop dousing the fire."

He opened his eyes. They were dark, intense, and they shifted slightly to her mouth. "Y/N," he rasped. It was a plea and a surrender.

"Do not push me away to save me," she whispered, tilting her head back. "Hold me close. That is the only safety I want."

Madara didn't speak, he moved. He lowered his head slowly, giving her every chance to back away. She did not. She rose on her toes to meet him, his lips brushed hers. It was not a storm or a desperate collision. It was the softest thing he had ever done. He kissed her with gentleness, his rough lips moving against hers with a reverence that made her knees weak.

Y/N sighed into his mouth, her fingers tangling in the long hair at the nape of his neck. She deepened the kiss, just slightly, inviting him in. Madara made a low sound in his throat. His arms came around her, locking behind her waist, pulling her flush against him. He held her there, drinking in her warmth, letting the reality of her.

He pulled back, just an inch. His forehead rested against hers. His breathing was unsteady. "I will," he rasped into the space between them. "I will hold you."

He wrapped his arms tighter around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. They stood there on the hill overlooking the village they had built, wrapped in each other's arms, the wind singing around them.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖

The sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm, orange glow over the Uchiha compound. For the first time in multiples days, the house did not feel like a tomb.

Y/N stood in the kitchen, finishing the preparations for dinner. The air smelled of grilled mackerel, miso soup with fresh scallions, and steaming white rice.

"I am starving!"

The shout preceded the arrival. Hikari burst into the room, her feet thumping loudly against the wooden floorboards. She was a blur of energy, sliding in her socks as she rounded the corner into the dining parlor.

"Hikari."

Madara’s voice cut through the noise. He was already in the parlor, setting out the tea cups. He looked up, his expression a familiar mask of brotherly disapproval.

"Do not run in the house," he rumbled. "You will knock something over."

Hikari skidded to a halt, grinning unapologetically.

"I didn't knock anything over, Nii-san. I am an excellent runner."

She flopped onto her cushion, bouncing slightly. "Is it ready? It smells amazing."

Y/N entered with the serving tray.

"It is ready," she announced, smiling at the girl. "Sit properly, Hikari-chan."

She set the tray down on the low table. Usually, she would place the dishes and then move to the cushion opposite Madara, creating a respectful distance between them.

Tonight, she did not.

She knelt on the cushion directly beside Madara.

She settled in, arranging her skirts. She was close enough that her knee brushed his, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his side.

Madara paused. He looked at her, then at the empty space across the table where she usually sat.

He shifted his weight, leaning into her just slightly. He picked up the teapot and poured her cup first, his movements fluid and easy.

Hikari watched them.

She picked up her chopsticks, ready to dive into the fish, but she stopped.

She looked at her brother, the terrifying Ghost of the Uchiha, who looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him.

She looked at Y/N, who was sipping her tea with a soft, contented flush on her cheeks.

She saw the way their sleeves overlapped, the way Madara’s arm rested protectively behind Y/N’s back, not quite touching, but guarding the space.

Hikari dropped her chopsticks.

A giggle bubbled up from her throat. She clamped her hands over her mouth, but it escaped anyway.

"Hehe."

Madara narrowed his eyes at her. "What is it?"

Hikari shook her head, but her face was turning a bright pink. She peeked through her fingers at them.

"You are sitting together," she whispered, her voice high with delight.

"We are married," Madara stated flatly. "It is normal for married couple."

"No, it's not normal for you two," Hikari insisted, giggling again. She wiggled in her seat, blushing furiously. "You look like... like the people in the romance scrolls. It's so mushy."

She hid her face in her hands again, peeking out with one eye.

"It's gross. But it's also really nice."

Y/N laughed, the sound bright and free. She leaned against Madara’s shoulder, abandoning all pretense of distance.

"Eat your fish, little monster," Y/N teased. "Or I will give your portion to your brother."

"No!" Hikari grabbed her bowl, stuffing her face to hide her grin.

Madara sighed, a long, suffering sound, but as he reached for his own rice, Y/N saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

The dinner dishes were cleared, and Hikari was tucked into bed, exhausted from her day.

Madara went to the bedroom first while Y/N finished her nightly routine in the bath. The hot water soaked away the last of the tension from her muscles, leaving her feeling loose and warm. She dried herself, slipping into her indigo sleeping yukata, and brushed her hair until it shone like black silk.

She slid the shoji screen open, stepping into the bedroom.

The pallet on the floor was gone, rolled up and stored away in the cabinet.

Madara was in the bed.

He was sitting up, leaning against the headboard, a scroll open in his hands, though he wasn't reading it. He wore his sleeping robes, his hair loose around his shoulders. He looked large in the space, his presence dominating the bed that she had slept in alone for so long.

Y/N stared at him. It was a shock to see him there. It was one thing to share a bed in a Suna guest house out of necessity but it was another thing entirely to see him claiming his space in their home.

Madara looked up. He saw her hesitation, the way she froze by the door, her hand tightening on the sash of her robe.

"I can take the futon again," he said, his voice low and rough. "If you want the space. If this is too much."

Y/N moved instantly. She crossed the room in three quick strides.

"No," she said firmly.

Madara froze.

"Do not go," Y/N said, her voice softer now. She stood by the side of the bed, looking down at him. "I do not want the space. It is too big without you."

She felt a flush rise on her cheeks, but she held his gaze.

"I like it," she whispered. "I like you here."

The tension left his shoulders.

"Hn," he grunted, "Then come here." He set the scroll on the nightstand and extinguished the lamp.

Y/N climbed into the bed, the mattress dipped under her weight tilting her toward him.

His body heat radiated across the small distance between them, it was a comforting heat.

She settled onto her pillow, turning on her side to face him.

He was facing her. In the dark, she could just make out the gleam of his eyes. He reached out. His arm slid under her neck, pulling her closer until her head rested on his shoulder. His other arm draped over her waist, holding her secure.

Y/N sighed, the sound lost against his chest. She rested her hand over his heart, who's beat is slow and strong against her palm.

"Goodnight, Madara," she murmured.

"Goodnight, Y/N."

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

There was no floor, no cold.

It was just them.

𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ 𓂃 ࣪˖ ࣪˖