Aiko WAP 36

Hashirama was a scary motherfucker like this, cold with fury. Aiko walked towards him with a serenity she did not fucking feel as his chakra roiled all around them. He was spread out into the trees above and the roots below, simmering through the grass under her feet. 

“You are angry,” Aiko said, because it was obvious. “I have not deliberately harmed you.” That bit of honesty out of the way, she made the executive decision to fold down into seiza as if they were in a civilized meeting room. It might prompt him to follow suit. 

He made an angry sound in the back of his throat that she hadn't heard out of a young man before. Aiko kept her face in a sort of pleasant neutral even as her blood pressure started to rise.

“Let us dispense with the pretense.” Hashirama did not sit. He took an aggressive step closer to her, in fact. 

‘If he really does decide to fight, this is a bad position for me to start from.’ 

“You have conspired to disadvantage my clan.” 

Aiko made a face that hopefully politely conveyed that wasn't the case. She didn't dare speak. 

Hashirama had very intense eyes when he was angry like this. He didn't seem to notice the creaking all around them from trees. “We are now publicly committed to installing Uchiha Izuna as the Daimyo, but there is no mention of Konohagakure in the disseminated news.” 

Yeah, he was pissed.

“In my defense,” Aiko said slowly, “I didn't know that Madara was …. Circumspect enough to be interested in that maneuvering.” 

Hashirama stared at her for a very long moment of incredulous disbelief. “You believed that the head of the Uchiha was an upfront and honest sort of man?” He said. It was halfway between a question and an insult. 

She pressed her lips together. She was not enjoying this. “I did not anticipate what they did,” Aiko said. It was a bitter thing to admit. She was the one who had spent hours drafting things with Madara, and she just hadn’t been careful enough

His face twitched. “Incompetent,” he said, and ohhhh god she hated that. 

She took a long, bitter moment to wrestle down her ego. He was right. She had inserted herself in this situation and she had gotten played. That did not reflect well on her relationship with either the Senju or the Uchiha. 

Aiko took a deep breath. She nodded. “I was overly confident in my management of the situation.”

Hashirama scoffed. He turned away from her, clearly reaching for a little bit of privacy to think. He raked a hand through his silky hair. Then he sort of deflated. The feeling of violence in the air started to recede. “You owe restitution.” He turned to glare at her and holy shit, okay, maybe there was a good reason that he had been the first Hokage. Aiko sat up a little straighter. “We are committed, now, and have only diplomacy to ensure that the Uchiha hold up their end of our agreement. You might imagine that the Senju are currently feeling somewhat cynical about the future of cooperation.”

Aiko took a moment to wonder if she was actually incompetent enough to torch a peace movement that had succeeded over like, mountains of corpses.

Oof. That felt bad to contemplate. She skated past it mentally for now. That was something to examine later, in private. “The Senju need a show of significant favor, to offset the impression that they are acting as assistants to the Uchiha,” she concluded. Ugh. 

The following discussion was… tense. But gradually she got the feeling that Hashirama didn't have any to kill her, as the sun moved overhead and they hashed out an agreement.

Aiko went back to her village, not entirely satisfied with the results. It felt shitty to collaborate with the Senju in a way that excluded the Uchiha. But she'd had lots more face time with the Uchiha, so there was a good argument against favoritism. 

‘I’m just pissy that the Uchiha are such incorrigible bitches that even though I actually favor them, I have to lean towards the Senju so I look impartial.’

She let out a big sigh. Annoying. 

It seemed like the kind of thing she had to have a meeting about. Aiko gathered up her three  adult apprentices and the three little girls and sat them down for a talk. 

She should probably break it to them gently, she thought, and then said, “The Senju are making us a bigger, better shrine in their clan compound, and I need some of you to staff it.” She put her cheek in a palm and waited for the dumbfounded looks to wash over the gathered group.

“...Why?” asked Fumiko, after a long silence where everyone present seemed to consider saying “not it.”

“When the royal court comes to make offerings, they're going to go to that head shrine.” Aiko tried not to sound pissy about it. She'd put a lot of work into building this one. She'd spent an entire day on it! But, uh.

She was in touch with reality enough to know that Hashirama could and would make a much grander building, in half the time. 

“I will go between shrines. I can take any of you as well to visit home easily, but I need there to be permanent residents sleeping there.” 

Hana looked leery. That was… not very encouraging. Hana was always on board with whatever Aiko suggested! 

‘Leaving your home is a big ask.’

Honestly, she probably needed to recruit more members. Aiko felt tired just thinking about it. A larger shrine staff meant prestige. Obviously, she needed that. 

“I can do it.” 

They all looked at Shinji, surprised. Her only male disciple looked like he might hide his face in his collar to escape the attention.

Aiko opened her mouth to say ‘Really? But you've always been so passive!’ and then she caught a clue. “Thank you, I appreciate it,” she said instead of anything that would hurt feelings. He could show face, and maintain whatever statues Hashirama arranged. He didn’t need a big personality for that. He could, uh, be mysterious!

That just left–

“And girls, I'll move your lessons over there. You can sleep here still, if you like. But being around during the day would help with our image.” 

The very next day, she made her miserable way to the Senju clan compound to see what progress Hashirama had made. She half expected that nothing would be done yet. She couldn’t really expect that her projects would be the highest priority for the Senju clan head, after all. The other half of her thought that he would have already shown her up with some fantastic palace. She was resigned to being blown out of the water by the master.

He had a big pavilion edged out on the mountain, and a series of steps leading to it.

“...Huh,” Aiko said, and went to find him. She found him with ink on his fingertips, arguing with his wife and some advisor over diagrams of different shrines. They cut off their talk as soon as they sensed her approach, but her hearing was better than human. 

“The priestess of the valley village has come to visit,” said the woman who was escorting Aiko this time. She bowed at the sliding door. 

“Enter, please,” Mito invited. Her trailing silk sleeves brushed nearly silently when she gestured. The threads caught the light, glittering. 

“By your leave,” Ako said politely. She settled into the open spot at the low table and looked at the art they had out. “I see that construction is being planned.”

She didn’t mean anything by it, but Hashirama faintly grimaced. “It would be foolish not to learn from the artistic accomplishments of our forebears,” he said. “I am not a master architect.”

“But a recreation would always be a lesser imitation.” Mito covered her mouth with a sleeve. She left her point to hang there pointedly.

Aiko looked between them. They were both right. Frankly, building was a different skill set from fighting with branches. There was a reason that Yamato had studied so many technical books. If Hashirama didn’t have that skill set, he wasn’t going to gain it in a day in order to make difficult designs.

She tilted her head slightly as she thought. “A shrine might be distinguished by the materials used and the artwork featured, rather than the design.” she thought aloud. “Trees and other elements of nature as well…  I knew of a shrine that kept sacred deer on the premises.” 

“Hawks,” Mito said instantly. “We have many tame birds.”

“Tall roosts would be impressive,” Aiko said. They could work with that. “As well as statues in protective buildings along the mountain path. That won’t help with the inside, are there any ideas for art?”

“Local craftspeople can paint the panel art, fusuma, and shoji.” Hashirama seemed more comfortable with that topic. “As I understand, Modachi-sama and others from the imperial court are commissioning art for your shrine already. Might they be housed here?”

Aiko nodded. “That’s fine.” She paused. “If there was anyone who might be suitable to join as a shrine maiden or priest, it would not be unwelcome.”

Hashirama’s face didn’t show his surprise, but something in his chakra did. Mito cut in. “I am confident that we can find volunteers. Who will need to be housed here immediately?”

“My acolyte, Shinji, will be in permanent residence, as will three shrine maidens in training. I will stay often.” 

As they talked, Aiko gradually felt the tension slide away from her shoulders. This wasn’t hostile territory. She could genuinely cooperate with them. 

With that in mind, she offered to collaborate on the actual Mokuton building process. It would inevitably show Hashirama that she wasn’t perfect, but…  it would be nice to have someone to learn from. It had been a while since she’d had a mentor in any capacity.

Things gradually seemed to thaw as they worked together. That continued throughout the week, which was enough time for the Uchiha to notice that she was spending a lot of time with the Senju and to send her somewhat plaintive invitations back to tea.

Aiko was pissed off enough to send back curt rejections. 

She sort of regretted that at the end of the week when they received a formal declaration of hostilities from the Hyuuga as representatives of everyone in Fire Country who stood against their coup of the civilian government. It probably would have been better if they’d been on the same page when they essentially got a declaration of war.