#satsuverse

"Yes, otou-san?" I blink up at him guilelessly.

I can see the question hovering around the corners of his mouth—why? without specification—but his proud shoulders slump as he lets it go. In the end, all he says is, "No cat ears at the table."

My hands fly up to the top of my head to smush down my cat ears protectively. "My Cats like them, though! I look like a huge two-legged cat with these on!"

"If you want to be a Cat, you may eat on the floor like they do."

Did he just—

Beside me, Sasuke blurts out a laugh. He smacks a hand against his mouth and curls inward, trembling, obviously trying to keep the rest of it in. Traitor.

I look from him to Itachi, pleading with my eyes, but Itachi only points out mildly, "It is a fair request."

Mikoto, you're my only hope…

But she's only gazing at me with a small, amused smile on her face. There's no help from this quarter, either.

I pat my cat ears once more before slowly, reluctantly, taking them from my head. On one hand, I get it—if they let me keep the cat ear headband on, Sasuke will argue for him being able to bring his Pointy Stick of Doom to the dinner table too, and none of us want that stick anywhere near food. On the other hand, I’m physically eight years old, these cat ears are my new favourite thing, and I really want to wear them.

I cannot fucking believe that my own father threatened to make me eat on the floor. How cold do you even have to be?

itachi - either finally growing a spine or entering his teenage rebellion phase, depending on who you talk to - acquires a discharge from anbu, abdicates from his position as clan heir, and signs up for medic classes at the hospital. he has known death since he was a child; he has walked alongside it, delivered countless people to its hand. it is imperative to his mental health that he learn how to save as well as kill.

sasuke is a second son and shows it. there is not a moment in anyone’s mind where they consider that he become clan heir after itachi. sasuke is a rambunctious child and loves chasing after people and whacking them with sticks, and this seamlessly levels up into an adoration for swords. he chases down his tokubetsu jounin uncle ryouji for kenjutsu lessons. his dream is to become anbu commander, because what traumatises one brother will be heaven to the other, right,

satsuki takes up the mantle of clan heir after itachi abdicates. they love their clan - are proud of their clan, which sometimes is another thing altogether - and, although the level of responsibility is new, they have always prioritised their clan. there is no division of loyalty.

the focus of their skills are genjutsu, poison, and fuuinjutsu. as one of shisui’s students, they’re Very Good at shunshin; combine that with their reverse-engineered hiraishin, and they are So Fucking Fast y’all

since outguard head is concerned with all things external--external threats, missions, border security (though in a post-konoha landscape, what does ‘border’ mean? the border of clan lands? the border of the village?)--and satsuki is uh. (looks at hiruzen who is ousted from his seat when the rookie nine are 8. looks at danzo who is dead before the rookie nine are 12. looks at obito whose path to supervillainy is cut off partway through the power of friendship and also destruction of his compulsion seal.) Pretty Good At Dealing With External Threats, I Think. they can probably be outguard head? and remain seen as clan head to outsiders?

(in satsuverse, mikoto is the one who’s of the main line - she’s homeguard head. fugaku, when he married her, took over as outguard head. to outsiders i imagine that that looked like ‘woman heir gets married for legitimacy while her husband takes over the actual position to rule’)

the konoha military police force ... does technically fulfill the ‘border security’ part of outguard head if the ‘border’ is taken as the border of the village ... but can i really write satsuki as a cop..................

like. yes. satsuki would genuinely like to keep their village and clan safe. they do, genuinely, want to ensure that the acts of danzo and orochimaru cannot happen again, that the village will not knowingly allow traitors and child-snatchers and child-experimenters to roam free and grow.

but uh. maybe intelligence would be better suited for their personality rather than kmpf.

“who would be satsuki’s homeguard head, if they’re the outguard head?” you know that’s a great question and one i don’t know the answer to. shisui, in becoming the rookie nine gen’s babysitter and training kiddies and also being the best friend of clan heir 1 and clan heir 2 and sincerely wanting to help them figure out how to make this clan work, would actually be good homeguard head material, i think? if only i could marry him... (gazes wistfully into the distance)

(shisui is eight years older than satsuki and also, again, Literally Their Babysitter and later their jounin-sensei, so although i love him very much and satsuki also canonly loves him and considers him their Person, Him Ever Having Feelings For Satsuki Would Be Weird.

why did i do this to myself.

oh right it’s because i can’t go five minutes without interacting with shisui, even to my detriment.)

if i think about tobirama, who also fulfills the function of a homeguard head by actually running the clan while hashirama is the face of it, then. uh. naras come to mind. and satsuki’s teammate nara seika 1) is not main-line nara, which means that he can be married out without succession issues, technically, and 2) would not actually mind marrying satsuki no matter what form that relationship would take, so... he might be a possibility?

kagura (maternal cousin - mikoto’s sister’s oldest child) might be a contender but i need to flesh her out more before i can think about her qualifications more in-depth

i will. think on this issue later. because it has no actual bearing on what i’m writing about now.

uh.

other life directions.

sakura is going to be a front-line medic like in canon. she can hit you so hard you want to die and then she’ll heal you so that she can do it again.

hinata as a medic suits her personality... she doesn’t want to hurt anyone and although that’s a detriment for a shinobi, it doesn’t have to stifle her options completely. i know that she Can fight and that it’s like character growth or whatever for her to become confident enough to strike her opponents ruthlessly, but, also, like. man. man it fucking sucks that That’s what’s desirable

naruto learns fuuinjutsu because He Deserves This, Dammit. i do also want to like... expand on the skills he actively cultivates in canon (trapping, transformations) bc these are things that he enjoys and they’re Useful. little foxy trickster

shikamaru is the logistics guy. lazy, doesn’t want responsibility, but he’s responsible enough to get off his ass anyway to get shit done. he’s so going to become naruto’s advisor when naruto’s hokage and he’s going to stress about it but he’d be MORE stressed if he wasn’t there

ino is Obviously going to follow inoichi into intelligence. also i think she’d be good with poisons, with a preexisting foundation in botany. i can see her doing a stint in anbu, taking on seduction missions - of all the kids i think she’s the only one suited for that particular type of mission

(looks at the rest of the kids) the fuck am i going to do with all of you

so of course. i decided to make an au where satsuki really was born as mikoto’s sibling (legitimate this time!) and

every. time. i make an au where satsuki was born in another era. i literally just fudge their name to be something-tsuki. itachi twin satsuki is itsuki, mikoto twin satsuki is mitsuki...

I look up from the books strewn across the table, blinking. "What?"

"You are not marrying Madara."

That clears up… literally nothing. I stare at him, perplexed. The only people that I've expressed such an interest in are Senju Tobirama and Namikaze Minato; Madara is a far cry from either of them, no matter which way you look at him. The only similarity that he has to them is that I'm… researching… them…

My gaze drops down to the three separate biographies of Madara's life, two written after his presumed death by contemporaries and one written himself in the form of a journal, and the two books covering the end of the warring clans era and into Konoha’s founding.

… Okay, considering that I've only researched Tobirama and Minato this in-depth before, I can see where Sasuke is coming from.

However—

"I don't want to marry Madara," I sputter. "I want to find evidence for my theory!"

He doesn't look reassured at all. Actually, his expression of dread deepens. "What theory?"

"That Madara was manipulated in his grief and isolation to be at odds with Hashirama, again, as part of a millennia-long campaign to keep certain individuals from making peace with each other." I pause. In the name of honesty—and to keep this theory from gaining any credibility whatsoever, just in case—I add, "And the one behind it all? An immortal plant man.”

I’m really beginning to pride myself on how easily I can make Sasuke visibly wish that I was related to someone else.

1) due to bits and pieces of uchiha culture i’ve cobbled together from fics that i liked and am mashing together, i have to FLESH OUT said pieces of uchiha culture

2) i still have to name mikoto and fugaku’s oc siblings and nieblings

3) i realised today that after the kyuubi attack, mikoto is Not Going To Be Having A Good Time because i made kushina her Person and kushina is Dead. which means that i can’t push off naming her sister at least or her sister’s partner or children because they’re going to be introduced very early on

4) ugh fuck i need to name mikoto’s dad too and decide when exactly he dies (i’m still deciding on whether it’s a few years before the kyuubi attack or during, because that affects whether or not any of the kids have any memories of him and also it affects my satsuki au where they land themselves during the kannabi bridge incident)

5) why didn’t i just decide to go along with the uchiha family tree from frolic et al’s uchiha headcanons??? why am i making worldbuilding so much harder on myself?? i mean i know why but sometimes i despair

6) i already know some cultural bits of what uchiha kids grow up with--i personally enjoy exploring the idea that they prepare themselves and each other for grief and loss and pain, due to the nature of their bloodline, and respect certain things that the individuals will not budge on, would drive themselves mad for, like their People and their Choices (capital letters necessary yes)--but for some reason i’m challenging myself to create Specific Words. specific LINES. for these things. and i’m suffering.

itachi is. itachi. he doesn't love the clan or what it represents. any chance of that died due to his upbringing. he knows duty and responsibility and he knows that he has to value the village over the clan (and he knows that both are fallible but the clan will fall before the village does), and he could take over as clan head, he could, but he would never enjoy it, would never see it as anything other than a weight.

sasuke is. sasuke. he's the second-born son; he's the one that has never had to worry about his image or his decisions, the one whose future has always been left open. it's a given that he would support his brother; then it's a given that he would support naruto when naruto becomes hokage. in every future he holds in his heart, he is not servicing the clan.

and then there's satsuki. who loves their clan, who dives whole-heartedly into its history and culture, who lives for it in a way that their brothers never have and never will.