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sanxkei · 1 year

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WIP Wednesday-Love Persevering (Chapter 3)

Making good progress on the next chapter of ACU! Hoping I can maybe wrap up this chapter by the end of this week and have something (possibly) up by this weekend. Since I shared a bit from that story last week, I figured I'd tempt you all instead with some content from the next chapter of my mdtb!Ronin AU since I know there a few of you out there wanting the next installation.

I think after I post this next chapter of ACU I'll be dedicating some time to getting started on the continuation to my recent a/b/o mdtb childhood betrothal fic...I have most of what I want to do with that outlined, my brain has just been being difficult and mulling over how to start if off. *sigh*

Anyway, enjoy!!

Unsurprisingly they fan out to encircle them, though Tobirama notes one horse and its rider have split off from the rest, beelining straight for Kagami. It’s hard to keep his eyes on the strangers that have surrounded him while also marking the progress of the long-haired man so fixated on Kagami. He has only a moment to wonder as to their relation when Kagami catches sight of the stranger and throws himself beyond Tobirama’s reach with a loud cry of happiness.

“Chichiue!”

The rider canters up to them before forcing the horse he sits upon to wheel about in an effort to slow down far more quickly than would normally be advisable. Tobirama can tell that the man is a master rider with how gracefully he manages it, even as the creature protests with a high whinny and scrapes its hooves agitatedly against the dusty ground.

In seconds Kagami’s father has thrown himself from his saddle and remarkably the man’s horse stands still, making no move to bolt while the nameless stranger races up to Kagami and falls to his knees to take the boy into his arms.

“Thank the Gods,” Kagami’s father chokes out, loud enough that even Tobirama can hear the relief and quivering emotion present in the man’s voice.

“Take your son back to the compound, Hikaku,” one of the other men suddenly commands.

Of the gathered Uchiha on horseback, Tobirama finds the man who has issued the order to be the most intimidating of them all, at least physically.

He is broad-shouldered and blessed with strong, well muscled arms that are clear in their power even from beneath the voluminous fabric of the man’s indigo colored haori. He carries two swords at his waist just like himself, and Tobirama can tell the man is trying to determine whether he will need to use them on Tobirama. He has taken to wedging himself and his horse in between Tobirama and Kagami, as if he expects Tobirama to try and steal the young boy back.

The man’s long, wild hair is tied up and back in a high tail not unlike how Tobirama once used to keep his hair before he’d shorn his locks upon the loss of his family and title. The Uchiha carries the bearing of a leader around him like a king wears the raiments of his station, effortlessly and to ruthless effect. His dark eyes stare piercingly down at Tobirama, sharp in their understated but no less clear warning of violence should Tobirama show himself to be a threat to his people.

This is a man Tobirama would have feared to have crossed blades with on a battlefield had the Senju ever been set against the Uchiha. He cannot help but grimly wonder if such a fate may still yet come to pass with the frigid reception he has found himself on the receiving end of. Tobirama knows they see him as a threat, that they have taken one look at him and his disheveled clothing and see nothing but a disreputable ronin, just like Kagami had said only a few days before.

“You,” the Uchiha points to him abruptly, “will give up your swords and come with us.”

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sanxkei · 1 year

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Why didn't the Uchiha seek diplomatic dialogue?

This is in response to an Anon Ask I received a while back. Unfortunately, the draft I had been elaborating was obliterated by some bizarre Tumblr glitch so I've lost that content and hence can't post the original Ask - I'm a bit gutted, but oh well, I'll just rewrite my answer as a meta, no harm done I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There were three key points in the aforementioned Ask that I'd like to debate:

Sometimes I feel dialogue between Konoha and the clan could have avoided the disaster.

The Uchiha were already planning a coup, and forgiving them without consequences would have set a dangerous precedent.

Rehabilitating/reintegrating the Uchiha as a whole could have been a solution.

Long post, read under the cut! I'd also appreciate a reblog too :)

Sometimes I feel dialogue between Konoha and the clan could have avoided the disaster.

Who's responsibility is it to open dialogue, though?

When there's such a massive power imbalance in place, how is it conceivable for a marginalised people to initiate any brand of discourse in their favour? Socially ostracised minorities, and in the case of the Uchiha I'd add physically relegated since they were confined to their compound and to a very specific (and pointless) role within the village, don't possess such agency to enact a diplomatic intervention. Simply put, they don't possess the devices necessary to be taken into consideration.

A dialogue in this specific scenario can be defined as a discussion or negotiation, so that all parties involved can reach a (possibly mutual) understanding or obtain an act of arbitration.

But a Tyrant of any form will never be open to any brand of compromise. Konoha is not a democracy. It's not even a hybrid democracy: it's a military authoritarian oligarchy*, in which the division of labor in large organisations has inevitably led to the establishment of a ruling class which is very strongly concerned with protecting their own power (and it's hardly a coincidence that said ruling class is composed primarily of T0birama's former pupils) - Danzo is quite literally the embodiment of said hunger for power, and Hiruzen is a weak willed fool.

It's only at the point of no return in which he makes a very bland attempt to propose a more pacific solution to the dilemma:

"I'd like to deal with them through words."

Nice try Sarutobi, such a pity you did absolutely zilch to follow through (what a surprise, eh?).

And come on, he knew Danzo like the back of his decrepit, wrinkled hands: he knew what his old comrade was capable of (Danzo's list of heinous up until then was long indeed: murder, treason, conspiracy, abuse of power, criminal negligence, torture, war by proxy...) and he was very much aware that his Shadow would without a doubt execute his diabolical plan to commit mass murder, with or without the his, THE Hokage, approval.

If Hiruzen truly had the Uchiha's fate at heart, he could have done so much more to prevent their annihilation.

Warn them. Place Danzo under arrest, or better yet, have him executed for high treason, lord knows that his comeuppance was well due. Detain Itachi, too. Dismantle the entire fucking structure of the ROOT there on the spot and have those two wretched Elders impeached.

And what could the ROOT possibly do, once their Overlord's well under the sod? They'd have no point of reference, nor purpose! They had no true identity, if not to obey Danzo's whims. Remove him and you remove their sense of existence.

Would they insurge? Possibly. Or maybe not, at least not all of them.

The ROOT was only constituted of a select few brainwashed zealots, some of which would have gladly mutinied if their own life wasn't on the line: it wouldn't have been particularly complicated for Konoha to subdue them, especially with the aid of the Uchiha clan.

It's a gamble Hiruzen should have taken, had he wanted to prevent the ethnic erasure of the Uchiha.

So, should have the Uchiha sought out a diplomatic path? (I'll ignore the obvious fact that to accuse them of failure to communicate and open dialogue is such a poor excuse for justifying the genocide inflicted upon them... I mean, to dumb it down a little: it's ironic because when someone is being abused, we frequently ask, "Why didn't you fight back?," but the minute that person has the guts to actually fight back, everyone questions wether that abuse really did happen, as it might have been "mutual abuse," particularly if the victim retaliates violently.) I'm fairly sure they did: it holds to reason as a coup d'etat is usually regarded a last expedient strategy, given the extremity of it (and it's also subtly implied either from the data books or in canon material if you reconstruct the events).

Fugaku Uchiha was quite obviously a Kage-level Shinobi, (probably) on par with Minato Namikaze in terms of sheer ability and he was considered for the role of 4th Hokage - conversely, heavy tensions were fast rising with the Uchiha, and Konoha chose Minato instead (again, not by coincidence in the slightest, the Kyuubi attack represented a very convenient contrivance in order to permanently exclude the Uchiha from ever entering Konoha's political structure and to further spurn them). Fugaku, as an esteemed shinobi, at least in virtue of his extraordinary potential and service to the village, would most certainly have made an effort to reason with the Hokage as it was in his people's best interest.

Obviously, whatever attempts were made on his behalf to seek fair representation for his clan, didn't lead to much: 7 years down the line from the nine tails attack and the Uchiha are still confined to a spit of walled in land tightly located in proximity of the village's only prison (and I have several extensive thoughts on this particular matter, but that's for another meta), a pathetic role within the village which is entirely designed for their control and surveillance, no political representation within the framework of the village and they've become an even further invisibilised people in regards to whom the vast majority harbour mistrust - whether by propaganda or rumour, the result is the same, the Uchiha are "othered".

The Uchiha were already planning a coup, and forgiving them without consequences would have set a dangerous precedent.

And yet, Hiruzen willingly pardoned others time and time again. Both Danzo and Orochimaru, which personally I'd repute as the most morally corrupt characters in Naruto, were somehow, inexplicably, forgiven.

Danzo's case specifically just baffles me from a political standpoint, because he actually did attempt to have Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, supposedly his close friend and comrade under T0birama's guide, assassinated all because he deemed him too weak to lead Konoha (but more because he coveted that power since he was merely a teen - so much for T0birama's self-righteous teachings and verbose blathering about the curse of hatred and the importance of loving the village, you'd think that the second would have done a better job at selecting his apprentices, but I suppose the main requisite for the job was to be an Uchiha hater and no one fit the bill better than Danzo Shimaru...).

If that isn't a disloyal act of treason, then I don't know what is.

And yet he emerges from his failed coup not only entirely unpunished, unscathed and free, but with a very powerful underground militarised organisation under his control!

Now that sets a precedent.

But here's an interesting concept: not all coup d'etats unfold in bloodshed. Danzo's certainly would have since he was on the verge of polishing off Hiruzen along with a couple of orphaned kids, one of which was a partially failed lab experiment, but it's not a given in every single case.

While we're all very much aware that Danzo would rule with a bloody iron fist, who's to say the Uchiha clan would have done the same, though?

Where does anyone within the manga claim that that insurrectionist group was bound to seize and remove the government with the use of sheer brutality?

A non violent revolution or soft-coup is still a revolution, as long as the instated powers and establishment are dissolved: if anyone had the capability to subdue and render innocuous an old geezer well past his prime, it's the Uchiha with their expertise in genjutsu - a bloodless revolt was very much a viable option, and believe what you will, but Fugaku was hardly the savage butcher he's often made out to be in fanfiction.

Yet, somehow, we've absorbed this notion that these utterly feral terrorist Uchiha madmen had nothing better to do with themselves than concoct a ferocious assault and eagerly ignite a civil war, whilst inaugurating a public crucifixion... or something along these lines...

Though I suppose what is what happens when we take Shisui's and Itachi's as a gospel truth:

Here Shisui is narrating. He dreads the very threat of an intestinal conflict erupting, consequently exposing the village to external invasion.

But these are the words of a naive, good-willed child. However, his fears are sadly mirrored in Danzo's hammering rhetoric: so they're not genuine, but instilled into him, branded into his mind, a fear-ridden idea masterfully implanted into him to have him break away from his own clan and embrace nothing but the Leaf. Of course, it doesn't quite work, as Shisui's fear is so great that he commits suicide and entrusts Itachi (hah!) with what's left of him: his only remaining eye.

I find there are very strong inconsistencies with this hyperbolic narrative: Konoha willingly renounces their most powerful clan, a clan which is in possession of an unrivalled kekkei genkai and that has de facto faithfully served the village for decades since its birth, in order to safeguard a conjectural internal peace. By destroying such a crucial part of its hive, Konoha truly does expose itself to external threats; without the Uchiha, the village is gravely weakened, it's exposed and it's fragile.

How is that even remotely logical?

It's not.

The Uchiha massacre was never a matter of preventing civil war, that was just an overemphasised empty threat, a deceptive fabrication to fool impressionable young Uchiha minds so that they blindly believe that they belong to and within Konoha, and bring them to betray their own blood in the name of an (illusory) greater good.

Sadly, it was all only ever about the Elders maintaining their undisputed seat of power:

The phrase "If they're going to usurp our power," really does says it all, don't you think?

Rehabilitating/reintegrating the Uchiha as a whole could have been a solution

I reaaaally have to very strongly disagree with this approach.

What exactly should they be "rehabilitated" for?

An invisibilised people that's been forcefully marginalised by its own country don't need to be reintegrated, as they're not at fault nor hold no blame for what's been done to them: instead, they deserve fair political representation and equitable social consideration - something which the Leaf really didn't care about at all.

I cannot stress this enough, Konoha did everything in its power to gradually other and alienate the Uchiha, via political repression, through the decades. As long as they functioned with obedience and respected the village's entrenched dogmas, they were granted the privilege™ of existing there (for utilitarian purposes of course); but the instant sedition arises, Konoha answers with holocaust - and even worse, the UM wasn't really even a cause/effect dynamic as the Uchiha never even had the blithering chance to defy authority: all it took was that bootlicker blabber mouth Itachi disclosing what little he knew of his father's intentions, to have his entire clan wiped out of existence.

So, even willing, there is no space for rehabilitation nor reintegration, in Konoha - as a militaristic regime, it will always seek to exploit underrepresented and undesired groups up until they're still useful; when they become too much of a threat to the status quo, or a burden to the system, then the system responds by fabricating a reason to have that group permanently removed, all whilst convincing the unwitting spectator that it was actually warranted or deserved. That's what fascism is all about.

*I say oligarchy and not autocracy, because of the following: Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or other forms of rebellion)

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