Uchiha Akai has heard it for the longest he could remember.
Since he first enrolled in the Konohagakure Academy at the age of four, everyone considered him an anomaly.
He who bore the Uchiha surname had no towering arrogance as the Konohagakure Mountains situated behind the Academy. He was abnormal for wind-bathing under trees instead of instigating petty fights and atypical for his fondness of playing with the stray kittens around the village instead of practicing Kunai techniques. This quiet, reserved demeanor wasn't seen as aloofness and pride, for he was weak and never part of the other Uchiha cliques.
He graduated later than his peers during wartime and named Chunin not for valor but for cannon fodder. He was so weak the mere mention of his name had become taboo within the clan. Childhood friends mocked him behind his back while other geniuses depleted his training resources away.
The treatment of an outcast never improved as he grew older. The Uchiha considered his parents' deaths in the war dishonorable and blasphemous that he'd dared marry a commoner civilian. Yet these reasons were minor in retrospect, because the fact remained that after all these years, his Chakra hadn't improved from his Academy days.
He was weak, since and still forever. If he'd once been an outcast, now he was in exile.
"What are you thinking about, dear?"
The soft voice floated like the first breeze of spring. A gentle nudge stopped him from walking into a tree. It was this gentleness, without a hint of reservation, that he fell and cherished for in his weary life.
Akai blinked, pulled from thought, and wrapped an arm around her round waist.
Uzano Yumeka was an ordinary civilian, as ordinary ordinary could be. She was the only daughter of a family of craftspeople, original settlers on the Land of Fire before the village was established. Though she'd never matured to stop complaining about the shape of her nose and chin, Akai always thought she had the brightest, cutest round pair of eyes, generous dimples, a silly, loving smile, and the most beautiful heart of all.
Her family did, too. After all, they betrothed her, through all the hate and prejudice of the village, to the waste of the Uchiha clan. She and her family were the reason he hadn't given up his life during the battlefields of the Second and Third Great Ninja War. Now, his efforts would pay off. He could quietly raise their child together in an era of peace, as civilians without the dangers and stress of the Ninja World.
Or so he thought.
Akai gazed ahead between the trees and into the curtain of nightfall. They had made their way through the shadowed forests to a safe-house on the outskirts of the village, for reasons he'd always wanted to put behind.
"I've wronged you."
Yumeka chuckled at his self-blame. They had this sort of conversation often.
"You weren't so desperate to get stronger when we were younger and in the Academy."
Times were differentthen, Akai thought. And was not all a blur.
Akai never hid how he believed the Second and Third Great Ninja War was a great shame for the Ninja World. Civilians, with or without the slightest trace of Chakra, were recruited to fight as ninjas for power struggle of the Five Great Nations when peace and prosperity was promised after the first and following wars.
He reminisced about the day Yumeka first joined his class. He hadn't fallen for her at first sight; it was a gradual appreciation of the dignity and grace she carried and her silly smile. And before he knew it, he'd deployed onto the rainy battlefields of the Second Great Ninja War, promising to treat her well and uphold his love forever when he returned — a promise sworn again during the Third — promises unlike the shaky and short-lived peace treaties signed by the first generations of the Great Nations.
Akai's voice fell lower as reminiscence grounded to reality. He wasn't pompous, unable to be critical of himself. But his promise then seemed shaky and short-lived now, too.
"I want to grow stronger so we don't have to sneakily deliver our child outside, without midwifes, so we can raise her without being persecuted," he said in one breath.
"You can't control the Uchiha," Yumeka answered. "Or the world. Only yourself."
Again, it was a repeat of previous conversations they had and that would usually comfort him. Yet today, Akai couldn't shake off the negativity. There was a nagging premonition in the back of his mind that wouldn't go away. Every tree gazed into his soul. Every shadow flickered with the movements of a hiding clansmen. Every crisp crunch of their feet into the dead leaves and soil sank more regret and blame into his wary heart.
"... I married you," Akai murmured. "We can choose our own fates."
Yumeka grinned. "Exactly. The best decision I ever made. Uchiha men aren't exactly known for being husband material, but you—you're great, dear."
Akai didn't reply. He only held her closer.
"You're supposed to be the one consoling me," she teased.
He usually did, for the great majority of their relationship. But ever since her period stopped coming and her belly swelled with the culmination of their love, he'd somehow become more hormonal than a pregnant woman.
Akai wasn't proud of that fact, but mood swings and episodes of overthinking angst was familiar to him. In fact, he was the type to grow anxious about how he wasn't anxious. Perhaps that was the reason why he was so found of nature and the purrs of kittens when he was younger. They were the first to take all that away.
"... let me worry now. For you. For our daughter."
"Daughter?" Yumeka arched an eyebrow. "I thought you wanted a boy."
She was right to be suspicious. He'd wanted a son before. But he'd grown sort of cynical from the hypocrisy of the Ninja World, and with it came a bubbling desire to challenge their conservative traditions, the cheap values, and meritocratic way of life. The patriarchy was one of those values, something Yumeka's own parents indirectly taught him to challenge. Yumeka's presence was evidence why. She was a gift to the Ninja World by her parents and he'd like to continue honoring that.
"A little girl like you would be everything."
Akai heard Yumeka hum contentedly and his shoulders relaxed. He was glad to be one comforting and consoling in this moment.
"A family with you is everything for me—ah!"
He was mulling over her soft murmurs so the muffled outcry startled his blood cold.
Akai caught her slight stumbles firm. There was a tangle of branches and roots in the small clearing ahead of them that she'd tripped on. But they also marked their destination.
The safe-house stood nestled in the forest, obscured by towering trunks and gripping shadows. He'd discovered it by chance during his routine patrols in the Second Great Ninja War and figured it was relic of the civilian inhabitants during the First.
Now, not even three decades later and past the Third Great Ninja War, the safe-house was not used to hide from the persecution of enemy ninjas, but from one's own kin, clansmen, and villagefolk. He couldn't believe it either, but an impure descendant would be the tipping point to the Uchiha's tolerance—he'd risked going blind to find that out.
Akai raised his gaze to the midnight sky. Overhead, a full moon shone with such clarity he could've discerned its cracks and crevices if he looked for longer. The canvas of the darkness too was clear, devoid of imperfections. No brushstrokes of passing clouds. No glitter of distant stars.
When has the Uchiha clan, Konohagakure, or the Ninja World ever stopped me from fulfilling my promises?
Akai turned to his wife. Only she could.
"You're certain you feel comfortable delivering here, Yumeka?"
She didn't answer. He watched her slowly bring his hands to her stomach instead. She craned her head towards him, allowing her hair to fall aside for a view of her smile that would've star-struck even the cosmos.
"Our daughter is fine with it. So how could I not be?"