My Hairpins are Sharper than Your Battle Fan

This seems to be the first MadaMito crack fic on this site. I hereby claim credit for inventing Oblivious!Madara and FedUp!Mito.

Some said marriage caused the death of men and girls. Madara prided himself on having no connection whatsoever with marital duties, but it was only a matter of time until this temporary heaven came crashing down around his ears.

"Nii-san, it is in the best wishes of our clan that you choose someone to wed," Izuna told him in confidence, which naturally meant the entire Uchiha clan was watching. Madara rationalized that his younger brother was probably unaware of that fact since his eyes were housed in other, more worthy sockets. "If you do not have an heir, the Senju head will imbue this new village permanently with his legacy. He is already planning to wed the Uzumaki princess, and I've heard that she is willing to go through with this."

"Only because she has never met me," Madara scoffed. Some of the council members gathered in the room gave opened their mouths, but it only took one glance to silence them, the pitiful things. "I will find someone suitable later. Preferably in the far future."

"When you are old?" Izuna thankfully lowered his voice. "Nii-san, I don't know if otou-san informed you of this before he died, but women generally do not like to bed old men."

Madara gave his brother a look. Then he gave the clan members a look. When he was sufficiently satisfied that every female in the vicinity would be willing to fuck him at any age (except that Naori girl with the strange Sharingan, but who needed her, anyway?), he turned back and raised an eyebrow. "That does not apply to me."

His brother winced, and adjusted the bandages over his eyes in a truly skillful play of the guilt-trip card. "Please, nii-san? This would greatly benefit all of us, if we wish to keep the Uchiha name in the village that will be founded here. Only one heir is necessary. And we need it soon, before the Senju finalize their alliance with the Uzumaki clan."

Well, the brat had a point. He'd actually have to look into this shit. With a long-drawn sigh, Madara turned to gaze bleary-eyed over the crows of Uchiha, where the single females were strategically positioning themselves in his view. Well, they were striking, as all Uchiha were, but unlike the majority of all clan members he was well aware of the dangers of screwing around with those who may or may not be his family. Plus, he didn't want to have to do this more than once.

He stood up sharply and left the council room, determined to procure for himself a wife.

~v~

Seventeen-year-old Uzumaki Mito was a very frank girl, and she wasn't afraid to express this utter frankness in every possible situation, ever. Unfortunately, the life of a kunoichi princess tended to be unforgiving in terms of etiquette, so the one person who was at the receiving end of her frankness was the only confident to whom she would ever admit.

"He treats me like I'm some sort of glass ornament," she admitted to her obaa-san within the rooms the Senju had provided them with. "And he's pretty old. I mean, I know he's only thirty but that 'old-and-wise' look he carries around makes him look twice that age. Sure I'll marry him, but I don't have to like it. I bet he's a total cold fish in bed, too."

"All men are stupid like that," her obaa-san replied stoically. "Pathetic fools. But they are useful, and this is a good way for you to establish yourself in this village that promises to be successful. If you charm him well enough, you can carry our clan name to the heights of the new society."

Mito sighed, and picked up her comb.

~v~

As in all his endeavors, Madara wished this courting business to be short, efficient, and preferably filled with a sufficient amount of haste. So he approached the first potential mate he could think of. The one already in the game.

He found Uzumaki Mito sitting at the edge of the koi pond in the Senju compound, brushing out her hair with a shell comb in the simmer of late evening. He took a brief moment to appreciate how it gleamed in the sunshine, almost like this own, and then promptly sat down next to her. There were a few minutes of silence in which she turned to look at him, and blinked about three times. But he vaguely remembered hearing that women should speak first in this type of situation, the stubborn, idiotic, fickle creatures, so he remained quiet and waited.

Unfortunately, the Uzumaki princess had been taught exactly the opposite. She continued awkwardly brushing out her hair for a while, wondering whether all of Konoha's men were so strange, and then after making sure there was a sufficiently sharp pin to castrate with him somewhere along the folds of her kimono if things turned awry, she turned to him with a polite smile.

"Can I help you, oji-sama?" She let her eyes glance over his robes. Obaa-san had mentioned something about another clan, but she couldn't exactly recall. Well, he seemed to have good taste in color, anyway. Purple was a sufficiently regal shade.

"Indeed you can. I'm here to ask you to marry me," Madara replied in the tone he usually reserved for particularly useless soldiers. "I am the head of the Uchiha clan, and my name is Uchiha Madara." That was really all he needed to say to most people to have them gravelling at his feet. Women, especially, tended to be rather awed by his looks. They were the ones that spent hours painting their faces, yet he easily triumphed them in beauty. Manly beauty, of course.

Mito blinked again. Then she casually reached inside her kimono and fingered the pin. She gave him one minute to attempt to redeem himself before she began the procedural Uzumaki blood-sealing that obaa-san had drilled into her, while saying that it was particularly useful against the lesser, more primitive sex.

"So?" He asked. "Your answer?"

"I am… engaged," she said slowly, "to the future Hokage of Konohagakure."

"Oh yes, well that's lovely. I'm sure you'd rather spend your life being pampered by that idiot Senju- you still haven't told me an answer."

"No," she said bluntly. "I can't marry you. I'm already engaged. And even if I weren't, I wouldn't marry you. Why would I choose you over Hashirama-dono?"

"I should remind you," Madara said stoically, " that it is equally likely that I will become Hokage, seeing as both of us are candidates and I am stronger than him in battle."

Mito's stare didn't waver. "And why would this make me change my mind and marry someone I have only just met?"

Madara slowly flipped through memories of his older brother's experiences with girls (they were all dead now, but that was precisely because they had been fooling around and courting instead of training). Finally, his mind settled on one encouraging factor. "I'm actually bigger than him," he informed her tonelessly, assuming that as a seventeen-year-old kunoichi, she would know what he referred to. "And apparently that's what you are all after." Women. They were all so single-minded.

Mito stilled, and only seven years of having regal composure trained into her prevented her from tripping into the koi pond. She slowly turned to face him. "And… how do you know this?"

"Oh, I knew him quite well a while ago. But we've grown rather apart," Madara went on innocuously, remembering days of boyish measuring that may or may not have been repressed for various reasons.

Mito stilled. Obaa-san had told her about these types. These were generally the most troublesome and idiotic type of men, the ones who had grown up with five brothers and no mother and looked at women as if they were foreign creatures that had dropped from the sky. The fact that she had grown up with three sisters did not seem to be relevant in the situation, and she promptly dismissed the thought. Pulling together every scrap of dignity their conversation could muster, she said, "no."

With that, Madara stood and brushed off his armor. "Well, this has been a grand waste of a good hour." Women were worse than he'd thought. "We may see each other later on the off, non-existent chance that Hashirama takes the position of Hokage. Good day."

Uzumaki Mito blinked as she watched him walk swiftly away with all his dignity seemingly intact. As a girl trained in the arts of clawing men's ego to pieces, she was more than disturbed.

~v~

A few days later, Madara sighed. In front of him, a shivering Hyuuga girl had her hands clasped together tightly enough to draw blood, and she looked like she wanted nothing more than to bolt off to the next country.

"Did you hear what I said?" He repeated. "Is that a yes or a no?" God, even Mito was better than this trembling creature.

"Anything you like, Madara-sama!" She squeaked.

She probably hadn't even heard the question over the noise of her fear. This was useless. And weren't the Hyuuga extended family, anyway? Were there risks in marrying this girl, who professed to be the second daughter of the Hyuuga clan head? Madara would have gone for the first daughter, but her hair hadn't been the right shade.

"You… have no idea what you just agreed to, do you?" He asked, weary from this courting business already.

"N-No, Madara-sama," the Hyuuga girl mumbled.

Madara sighed.

~v~

Later that night, Mito snuck through the halls of the Senju compound – seven-layer-kimono and all – to her future husband's room. Partly because she needed to speak with him, and partly because the strange dark-haired man had roused her curiosity.

She found the Senju heir in his room, pouring over various scrolls like the middle-aged man he was. Slowly, she went to drape her arms around him, inhaling his earthy scent. Stupid Uchiha man, she already had her treasure. "Hashirama-dono," she whispered. "May I ask you a question?" Her breath skittered teasingly across his ear.

The mood was abruptly ruined when he turned with a soothing smile on his face that had none of the predatory glee she was used to seeing. "Of course, Mito-san. Anything."

Mito frowned and moved away. "Who is Uchiha Madara?"

For a moment, silence filled the room with a blanket of pure awkwardness, and the Hashirama reached up to sheepishly run a hand through his hair. "Er, he's the head of our rival clan, and we were good friends. Where did you find out about him?"

"He asked me to marry him today," she teased, sitting down on the bed and spreading the outer layer of her kimono around her, flatteringly. At that, she noted with a secretive delight that Hashirama was frowning.

He tapped a finger against his chin. "It is generally advisable to stay away from him."

"I see," yes, she thought, prove to me that you're not just another stupid man, and tell me something I don't know.

"-because there are various levels of political tension currently rising with the makings of the constitution. He is a good man, but a little unstable sometimes."

Mito's face fell. She adjusted one of her hairpins. "Is… that it?"

Hashirama blinked. "Was there anything else you expected, Mito-san?"

She sighed. Men. They were either idiotic like her future husband, or they were that Madara person. Who was simply beyond the normal definition of idiocy. Giving up on her information extraction, she walked over to pull him down to the bed, deftly undoing kimono-layer-four with one elegant hand.

"Well, if that's all, aren't you free tonight?"

He frowned. "Yes, I am. Why?"

Why? How thick was this person?

Instead of answering, her fingers moved to wordlessly pull his mouth down to hers. She had to get something out of this silly marriage, after all. It was only unfortunate that he kissed like a log of wood.

"Wait," Hashirama pulled away, and the kind, old-wise-man smile graced his features once again. One firm hand gently pulled her kimono closed. "Mito-san, there is no need right now. I will not need an heir until I have secured the village."

Mito's brain screeched to a halt.

~v~

"…Madara-sama, why have you approached me for this matter?"

Uchiha Naori sat calmly before him, fingers twined into her red armor as she washed the blood of her enemies from the metal plates, because fighting with sticky armor was inconvenient. The wooden pail of water already looked a deep red, and the stables around them were quiet in the early morning.

Madara crossed his arms and gave her a baleful look. "That does not matter. Is your response a yes? I have no time to waste if it isn't."

It had been one week since Izuna had delivered upon him the responsibility of finding a wife, and so far he had been unsuccessful in procuring one outside of the clan. Most had reacted just as the first Hyuuga girl, stilling in horror and nodding to whatever he said. It had not exactly been a convincing display of good genes. And it had only cemented in his head the fact that the Uchiha were clearly the most worthy of people.

However, almost all the Uchiha girls gained a certain creepily ecstatic glint in their eyes when he approached them, and though they were fun to fool around with sometimes, he didn't trust their genetic makeup. The only one left was Uchiha Naori, who had unfortunately never worshipped him as much as the others. This was probably a good factor. She had the potential to be less troublesome than most women.

"It's a no," Naori informed him plainly. "Have you forgotten that we are cousins, Madara-sama?"

Madara paused. "Is that sufficiently distant for genetic purposes?" At least she wasn't his sister, right?

"No!"

"Oh. Well, this is a shame." He turned away stoically. This was beginning to seem much harder than he'd expected. God, how hard could it be to have one damn heir?

~v~

Uzumaki Mito felt conflicted.

Hashirama-dono was a totally-not-hot-blooded old man in a body half his mental age, and Tobirama-dono was a block of ice that called her 'Mito-sama', and their servants had done her hair with twice as many clips as it was supposed to have and now her head felt like an overused pincushion. This was not what she imagined married life to be.

She swept up her layered kimono and headed off to obaa-san's room.

~v~

"Listen, Izuna," Madara began after making sure they were actually alone. The forest clearing around them was riddled with twigs, but Izuna had a knack for using his chakra to do what his non-existent eyes couldn't. "This is more time-consuming than I'd thought."

Izuna nodded sagely. "Indeed, nii-san. Many men have been dissolved into the grand abyss of endless misfortune in pursuit of the same ends, which you expect will fall into your hands." His brother was rather sharp when he tried, and he therefore found the need to make his every sentence ambiguous enough to leave himself an escape route if Madara-nii ever caught on.

"What I'm saying," Madara went on obliviously, "is that there is no woman qualified to be my wife. Half of them are afraid of me, and the other half is a little too closely related. I wouldn't want any heir of mine to be a blithering coward. Or deformed."

Izuna raised an eyebrow. "Our parents were first cousins," he slipped in with a skilled nonchalance.

"Well, that explains many things about you and our three elder brothers, who must be enjoying the view from underground," his brother replied. "But return to the situation at hand. If this plan of having an heir isn't working, then surely there must be another option to prevent Hashirama from spreading his legacy over the village."

"Well, you could always just kill him," Izuna suggested, thoroughly tired with life.

Madara paused thoughtfully.

~v~

"Obaa-san! I can't do this!" Mito confessed, curling up with her head in the older woman's lap. Wrinkled fingers worked deftly and soothingly through her long hair.

"I told you, Mito. Men are idiots. You just have to learn how to deal with their idiocy, because you were born into the Uzumaki clan and we practically live for dealing with idiots. Usually the idiots want seals, but it occasionally differs."

A thought arose just then, something so unfounded that she sprung up on the futon in their room in the Senju compound. Wasn't there… another option?

Well, he was rather pretty…

"You know," she sniffed thoughtfully, "apparently Hashirama-dono isn't the only one who can become Hokage…" Mito turned slowly towards her confident.

And Obaa-san's ancient, wrinkled eyes glittered with permission.

~v~

Early the next day, Uchiha Madara made a presence at the courtyard of the Senju compound, and the word of his arrival spread like wildfire through the clan. Back in the Uchiha grounds, Izuna had fallen unconscious from repeatedly banging his head against a wall.

"Hashirama!" He declared, seeing his old friend step out of the sliding door and walk into the open yard. "I have come to challenge you to a spar. Accept my challenge." His voice was projected loudly, bouncing off every wall within a kilometer and attracting hundreds of Senju fleas to witness.

Senju Hashirama blinked, still wearing his yukata. "Madara… this is rather… sudden."

"I'm aware," Madara growled. "Is that a yes, or not?" He'd been asking that question rather often, recently.

At that, Hashirama smiled his warm, wise-old-man smile and walked forward to pat his oldest friend on the shoulder. Those watching held their breaths, wondering what Madara would do to someone who dared to touch him. They were unaware that years ago, Hashirama had done far more than touching shoulders.

Madara still maintained in his mind that it had been for measuring purposes only. Memory repression had its charm.

"Why don't you come in and have tea?" Hashirama suggested lightly. "Maybe we can talk things over."

Madara's eyelid twitched.

~v~

When Uzumaki Mito heard of Madara's arrival in the Senju compounds, she transformed into a girl with a mission. Everyone in the vicinity could hear the click of her shoes against the stone floors, the rustled sweep of kimono fabric, and the rush of her fiery hair as she breezed through the halls, headed for the courtyard.

When she reached her destination, she was met with a strange sight. Mito stopped in her tracks at the sliding doors, watching her future husband and actual husband having a… staring competition?

…and was that actual emotion in Hashirama's eyes? Well, now she knew why he hadn't been able to get it up.

Within seconds, her lacquered nails were waving in the air between their faces, snapping them out of their manly staring challenge. Hashirama's face once against morphed into a smile that relayed all the pure warmth and kindness of a thousand-

"Fine!" Mito snapped at Madara, totally ignoring Hashirama's attempted greeting. "I agree." Without hesitation, she slipped her hand into his and tried to pull him away. The surroundings had gotten about three degrees quieter as all the Senju looked on confusedly.

Madara frowned. "Agree to what, woman? Can't you see we are occupied?" He tried to pull his land out of her grasp, but she held on tightly like some kind of limpet.

"To marry you," she explained. "It will be beneficial, will it not? You get an heir, and I get a position in the village and a pretty husband whose only defect seems to be an utter lack of social skills. And that's fine, because I have been drilled with enough social skills for the both of us."

Hashirama tried to open his mouth to protest.

"Don't say anything!" Mito told him. "I'm perfectly aware that I'm incapable of pleasing you, for certain reasons that I can't exactly help. However, he's fair game." She pointed at Madara.

Madara really had no idea what had happened as Mito pulled him out of the compound. All he knew was that there was this feeling, something skin to relief, that settled heavily on his shoulders.

~v~

"…nii-san," Tobirama asked carefully. "Is that… true?"

Hashirama sighed and rubbed his head sheepishly.

~v~

Izuna was expectably ecstatic that evening. When he heard that his nii-san had returned hand-in-hand with the stunning Uzumaki princess herself, nothing could have made him happier. He vacated the best rooms in the compound for her, and rushed to bring them plates of top-quality senbei.

He then promptly went off to begin making wedding plans before the Uzumaki girl would have time to rethink her decision.

Mito watched him, and thought him a good, complacent brother. She ruffled his hair as he went out the sliding doors, and then turned to Madara, who was standing behind her with his arms crossed, probably expecting her to leave.

Layers one and two of her kimono dropped to the floor.

Madara raised an eyebrow. "Go move your things to your own room, woman. It's only been three hours. I'm not that kind of man."

But when she deftly undid layers three and four, the silent growl in his eyes said that he was totally that kind of man, and it only took seconds to drag him onto the bed.

End.

Ah, I love Hashirama, but it's fun to make fun of him sometimes.

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