Four hours later, the storm was still going strong, but the inn manager had said that it would clear by the evening. Haruka and Madara were on their shift going through the details of the ceremony one more time to sooth his nerves, when he stiffened. Madara wasn't as good a sensor as Izuna, which meant that whatever he had felt would be here in a matter of seconds, so she woke up Izuna and Hikaku, who quickly got out their kunai. Izuna apparently got something, because he hissed. "You've got to be kidding me! What are you doing here mister I've-got-only-one-expression-because-the-lab-that-created-me-run-out-of-emotions?"
The rest of the Uchiha didn't even need to look to know that Senju Tobirama was standing at the entrance of the cave. With him was the rest of his team, covered in snow and with grim expressions, except for Hashirama who looked like Santa had just delivered his present. He gave them a large grin and a wave, and Madara could already feel the headache coming. Before he could say anything Tobirama answered. "Does your ass ever get jealous of the amount of shit that can come out of your mouth?"
I've got to admit, point Tobirama on this one, being barely out of the hands of Morpheus clearly affects your game, Izuna, thought Haruka with a smile hidden in the collar of her red and black mantel. She couldn't really say it out loud or Izuna would murder her in her sleep.
Hashirama chose this moment to interject. "Okay, okay, settle down. The two of you just had a good exchange a few hours ago. Why don't you stop here and keep the good stuff for another day? After all, we will be stuck together for at least a few hours. Let's just try to be civil."
Madara gave a snort. "Like hell we are! We were here first, so you need to go and find yourself some other place, if you don't want a fight on your hands."
A heavy cloud of sadness slammed on Hashirama and he fell to the ground hugging his knees. "You're so mean. We were almost freezing out there, and only found this cave because Tobirama spotted your chakra. I was the one who convinced them that you were a hospitable and charitable man, and now they are going to think that I'm a liar. I am sorry if we offended you, clearly old friendships mean nothing to you. We will be on our way."
Haruka could barely stop herself from laughing out loud at the performance. This guy clearly knew how to mix the right amount of flattery and self-depreciation in his speech to manipulate Madara. It was something that took her years to master, and only she, Natsuki and Izuna knew how to do it. Apparently, only a brief summer friendship was enough for him. It was good, because it would avoid a conflict that nobody else wanted anyway. Haruka secretly gave him a thumbs up for his ingenuity. And Madara was clearly showing signs of being uncomfortable with the flattery, and wanting to let it go.
Mito, however, seemed to disagree with her opinion on Hashirama's behavior, because she haughtily said, "Cousin, would you stop acting so childishly and conduct yourself as the proper heir of the Clan? If he doesn't want to listen to reason, then let's just fight him for it. We will see who can win."
The light mood instantly went away and everybody was tense.
Haruka noticed the brief irritated look on Hashirama's face, before it disappeared into another sheepish smile. Touka rolled her eyes from behind the redhead, and Tobirama was clearly displeased. Haruka knew that it was because he shared a character trait with Izuna: Only they were allowed to scold or make fun of their elder siblings, anyone else better give them the respect they deserved or there will be hell to pay later.
But he said nothing. They all just ignored her. Just like the Uchiha did. So our fiancée-to-be clearly isn't very liked by the fiancé, his brother and his friend. Interesting.
Haruka was weirdly jubilant about this. Hashirama rubbed the back of his neck nervously with a smile and said, " Of course not. I'm exhausted and so are all of you. Let's just stay in the Uchiha's hospitality for a while." His words clearly left no place for argument and the ball was back in the Uchiha's court.
They all stood tensely, kunai in hand ready for a fight. Madara clearly didn't like the redhead's tone and a lot of his good will was gone, so Haruka decided to push a little. She relaxed her stance, put the kunai back in her pouch and turned away to go next to the fire in the back of the cave where it was larger. She gathered all of her teammates's stuff and bags on one side of the fire and sat down back to the wall while gesturing smilingly. "Here take the other side. The storm won't stop until the evening so we have a long time ahead of us, let's try to make it nice."
Madara,who was looking at her from the corner of his eyes, finally straightened too, and went to her side after throwing the others a glare, followed by Izuna and Hikaku. Hashirama beamed at her and got up to join them around the fire. His teammates hesitated at first but came anyway after exchanging a few looks.
They all sat in silence. The situation was weird to say the least. Any other Senju or Uchiha would have been at each other's throat by this point. But their group shared a bond that prevented them from doing so, even if everyone was tense. So they just sat there, around a fire, in silence, waiting for someone to break the ice.
Oddly enough, it was Izuna. He pushed himself a bit away from the group and laid down eyes closed after muttering something about it not being his turn anyway. Such a display made Madara smile fondly at him. It meant that he trusted his brother's judgment; and trusted his siblings to keep him safe. He wasn't profoundly asleep anyway, and would wake at the slightest disturbance. Hikaku joined him after a while, followed by Touka when the Senju came up with their own shift schedule. Hashirama and Tobirama went first and for the longest period, clearly trying to be gentlemanly which earned them an amused glare from Touka. Mito didn't try to go to sleep and just retreated to the back a bit, keeping an eye on the Uchiha group.
Haruka smiled inwardly. Anyone in their group could easily slaughter her, being so cautious served to nothing.
Finally, Madara relaxed enough to start looking for the scrolls he had left behind when he first jumped. They had his schedule for tomorrow, which he already knew by heart but liked to check whenever he could. He found them in the pile that separated him from Hashirama and started rolling everything back up and storing them away.
Clearly, his actions brought the curiosity of his former friend, because he obviously kept craning his neck trying to take a look at their content, to Tobirama's silent despair. Haruka was amused by the slight pout he gave when the third scroll was finally gone in Madara's bag, and the clearly smug look on Madara's face after the fact. Like a kid who had a secret that he wouldn't tell his friend about.
It struck Haruka that the Senju maybe didn't know about the wedding since only their closest allies were invited. She had sent word of it to the daimyo's wife, and the court's envoy should be in the compound by tomorrow morning, but she doubted the daimyo had let the Senju know. The wedding of an heir was one of the days where a clan was the most vulnerable, even if Haruka and Izuna had personally gone over the security measure to ensure that nothing was left to chance. And even then, all the shinobi knew to come to the celebration armed and ready under their haoris and hakamas.
Still she felt kind of sad they weren't able to make peace happen fast enough for the two friends to be able to attend each other's weddings. And she worried a lot about the fate of her nephew or niece.
Children were no longer sent to fight by an agreement of all clans after the Kotaro incident. The Senju had beaten them to the punch, because not a week after it, they sent messages to all their allied clans asking them to stop sending children to battle. They even contacted the Uchiha indirectly through the Nara clan. Everybody had been pretty much on board except for idiots like the Hagoromo and the Shimura, and even if it wasn't perfect, rules were established:
—Children would no longer be sent to the front-lines. The most they could do was to assist the medic-nins in transporting the wounded or run messages.
—Every clan had an age limit they set but most kept it at around twelve.
—Given that they were forbidden from engaging in combat, they weren't classified as threats and thus killing them became forbidden.
When the Hagoromo killed a Sarutobi child, all clans collectively decided to banish them, and cut off their resources. It meant no food because of the Senju, no clothes or weapons because of the Uchiha, no medicine because of the Nara and their group, and so on. The restrictions had lasted a full year, and only stopped because they too had children and they were starving. The lesson had been taught.
But they still had a timer on their backs. Peace needs to happen somewhere in the next twelve years, because Madara's kid was in no way going to be ripped from them by some bloody war.
Haruka was itching to know. Do they or don't they know about the wedding? Should she be expecting an attack on the day she had carefully planned every minute of? There would be hell to pay if that happened.
She kept sending twitchy looks Hashirama's way. If anyone was going to give her answers, it would be him, but how to get him to talk with the silent guardian dog by his side?
Hashirama must have understood her meaning, because he threw a knowing look in Madara's direction with a smirk, and said, "So, you were studying up on wedding stuff, huh? I could have lent you some interesting material if I had my secret storage scroll on me. What a shame!"
Haruka thanked god for the Uchiha's high collars because she could hide her laugh in them, while clasping both hands on Madara's face to keep his indignant shouts from waking up the sleeping shinobi. She answered for him. "Trust me, he doesn't need help in that department, he has already proven that. And if push comes to shove, Izuna could give him a crash course that would make a red district worker blush."
Hashirama gave a hearty laugh saying, "Is that so? I guess every family has a brother like me, who supports the… how to say this delicately… The less experienced!". Now it was Tobirama's turn to be indignant at the implication.
Haruka shot back. "Impossible! With how he swears, who would believe that Tobirama-kun isn't a regular at the Senju equivalent of a whore house. You're really trying to tell me that he is innocent? Sometimes even I can't get the images he's depicting quite right, and I live with Izuna. I have seen and heard things. Many things."
That particular discussion went on for a while. Tobirama and Madara, who had never thought they could be on the same side, found themselves victimized by their shameless siblings. Sometimes they too put in a good word or two, between chokes on dry air. The atmosphere was really light and everybody was having a nice enough time, given the strange circumstances, when Mito decided to butt in. "I've heard that the Uchiha heirs usually get married in the summer. What made you decide on a winter wedding, Madara-sama?"
Now that was just rude, wasn't it? Haruka thought so too.