𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘉𝘌𝘋𝘌𝘝𝘐𝘓𝘌𝘋 𝘓𝘌𝘎𝘈𝘊𝘠 | ⁿᵃʳᵘᵗᵒ

Balance of Love and Duty

BALANCE OF LOVE AND DUTY

✧

After her seventeenth birthday, two more years passed. Those years were no different from the ones before it—filled with more war, death, and painful losses. They were the same as all the years before her seventeenth birthday and the years before she was even born. Opposite sides hiring the Senju and Uchiha and bringing more bloodshed was not a new occurrence. It would always be part of her family history.

Who was to blame either side though? War was what brought food to the table and kept the clan afloat. What was a shinobi clan to do without violence and conflict? The answer was simple. They would starve, and they would die.

The lack of missions to handle violence or take part in conflicts would leave them without money, and without money, they wouldn't be able to take care of themselves. It was a double-edged sword, as those missions almost always brought death and loss with it.

Asami understood this, but sometimes she was just tired of it all. It wasn't as though she longed for this outlandish, unreachable definition of peace, but she did wish for somewhere she could live happily with her family. Was that too much to ask for? A life where she didn't have to fear for the lives of those she loved... that was all she really wanted.

She was lucky to have her cousins still, but the lingering fear that something could happen to them still hung overhead. It would always be there. There was no escaping it. Asami may have been two years older, but age didn't get rid of those fears that would stick with her for a lifetime.

She would wake in a cold sweat with nightmares sometimes. Dreams plagued by dark thoughts of Madara getting beheaded, his head rolling in the grass, and his body falling on its side, limp. Sometimes Izuna was stabbed right through the heart with a katana by a faceless figure to fall dead at her feet.

Sometimes Asami would have nights where she would sleep fine, but most nights she was tormented by these constant what-ifs that were not too far from reality. Each of those things could happen the next time they left for a mission or went into battle. She was keenly aware of this.

All Asami wanted was for everyone she loved to be safe. It wasn't a simple ask though, and she knew this. No matter how much she wanted to secure the safety of her loved ones, it was out of her control.

No amount of begging or pleas would make things go the way she wanted.

She wasn't ignorant of this. The frequent nightmares were proof enough that she was aware of how fragile everything was.

Asami stood in an open field wearing a navy blue yukata, Mayu on her shoulder. The tall green grass blew with the strong winds, her long hair flowing with it. The sun shone overhead and basked the clearing in a warm glow. Madara stood a few feet from her with his arm outstretched, a hawk swooping in to take its purchase there.

She didn't look too different from when she was sixteen, but if you looked close enough you could see the new scars that littered her hands and the stiffness in her shoulders. She had more of a hardened look in her eyes as she watched the bird descend. Two years of fighting on the front lines and increased frequency of dangerous missions did that to a person.

After the battle between the Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha before her seventeenth birthday, tensions had heightened. There wasn't much leisure time, and her days were filled with running missions or constant fighting. Wealthy lords or land owners seemed to be requesting missions from the Uchiha more than ever to defend their land or goods, eager to combat their offenders who hired the Senju.