yours are rattled bones

She had a god in her long before she became a sacrifice for Konoha.

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Uzushio has never forgotten the old gods, even when the clans begin to fight and rely on their own strength, even when villages form and shinobi sell their skills to the daimyo. The Uzumaki remain, above all other clans, devout. They leave offerings for the gods, some small and some large. And their clan head offers the greatest gift of all:

His daughter, Uzumaki Mito, with flowers in her cheeks and stars in her eyes.

They crown her with seashells and beach roses, paint her lips crimson to match her hair, and there is a light in her eyes that wasn't there before, something ancient and deadly and wicked and kind.

[Mito-hime, they had called her, fondly and dotingly. Now they watch her with fearful pride, and whispers of Mito-sama, Mito-kami follow wherever she walks.]

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She takes to spending her time in the old temples, gazing up at carvings of the old gods. Did you know them? she asks the silent deity in her head. Did we know them, did we watch their rise and fall? Were we like them, too?

Some nights, she wakes up in the river, blood dripping down her arms and a prayer on her lips. Dead fish float to the surface and she dreams the river turns to blood. Some nights, she dreams the stars fall, celestial glory burning away to nothing before her. She dreams she is ethereal, immortal, and proud.

[It is difficult, some days, to tell where she ends and the god begins.]

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The day she leaves for Konoha, grief fills her blood. She weeps, for the first time in years, to be leaving this place. She knows that Konoha is not like Uzushio; there will be no temples there, no gods to ask for guidance, no one to pray to but the god within her.

Senju Hashirama has kind eyes and his hands, while rough, are gentle as he touches her. He is her husband, and Mito thinks that she could love him, if she tried.

[She knows, even then, that she will not try. Gods are not made to love mortals.]

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Uchiha Madara is her husband's best friend. Mito watches him with interest. She wonders, for a moment, if he, too, has known divinity; there is rage in the tight lines of his body as he spars with Hashirama, a rage that no mortal man should possess. But then Hashirama draws blood, and as the crimson drops slide down Madara's cheek, Mito's curiosity fades. Gods do not bleed.

[She doesn't stop watching him.]

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She cannot remember how this began, and while she knows, logically, that it is wrong, she cannot bring herself to care as Madara holds her wrists tightly in his hands and presses her into the wall. Hashirama is out of the village, but even if he were here, Mito thinks he would not stop them. Hashirama has never held anything back from Madara. Not even his wife.

Madara wants what Hashirama has. That is all Mito is to him – something that belongs to Hashirama, something that can be taken away with little effort. She has become a part of their game, sick and twisted as it is, and although she knows this, she allows Madara to kiss her until she is dizzy, gasping for breath. She doesn't love him, not yet, but she loves this.

[Gods are not made to love mortals but Mito can feel herself falling.]

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Eventually, Madara tires of her. His heart aches, and she wishes that she could rip it out, throw it away, do anything to make the pain stop. Madara wants what Hashirama has, but he no longer cares about the wife that Hashirama has no use for. He wants to be Hokage, and that, too, makes Mito's eyes sting. She wants him to love her, wants Hashirama to love her, even though it is cruel of her when she does not want to love them in return.

But shinobi have always wanted power more than anything else. The Uzumaki alone remember the old ways, worship the old gods. For the first time in years, Mito falls to her knees and prays. If Madara wants to damn himself, then Mito will not stop him. But the gods alone have the power to destroy cities, and she will not let Madara become a god.

[She prays and has no fear, even as the Kyuubi begins to burn and burn and burn. Mito was born by the sea, crowned with shells and beach roses, and knows she cannot burn.]

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When she seals the Kyuubi inside her, Mito is not afraid. She held a god in her long before she became a sacrifice for Konoha; there has always been something other, something more inside.

Mito thinks about the man she married, brown hair and brown eyes and soft hands and warm smiles, and Hashirama and Mito carved into a tree. She thinks of his best friend and worst enemy, of Uchiha Madara with eyes like destruction and a smile like a sin. Mito thinks of Madara and she thinks of this: bruises like fingerprints on her arms; blood in her mouth from being kissed too hard, too much, too fast; his mouth on her neck and oh, what his tongue can do.

She is not afraid, but she regrets.

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[She kissed Hashirama and he had nightmares for weeks.

Madara kissed her and smiled, bloody and violent and alive.]

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There was a god inside her long before she became a sacrifice, and the gods have always loved tragedies.

Note: slightly au-ish. Because it might have been unclear: Mito is some sort of reincarnated god/the host of a god even before sealing the Kyuubi inside her (I don't even know) and she and Madara had an affair because Madara is selfish and messed up and possessive. Leave a review if you'd like