Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

"Perhaps one day, they'll understand

All the sacrifices that she gladly made

Out of love for them."

-John Mark Green

The Senju arrive on the Island under the direction of Asuran, one of the members of the border guard. Kanae herself had volunteered to bring them across, but there is little reason for a princess to exert herself for a party of mainlanders.

Even if they are important mainlanders. Even if she is only the younger princess.

She's sitting with her father when they arrive, all four of them. The first to step through the door is Senju Hashirama, the one who'd written to her elder sister, written of her elder sister, written soppy poetry about the shape of her eyes that Neesan had shared with her over tea and cakes.

Another desperate suitor. She thinks, though she knows that this one is different. Neesan loves this one or she wouldn't be so happy to see his letters arrive. She examines him, and finds that there's nothing particularly remarkable about him. He has dark hair and dark eyes, tanned skin, and a smile.

Perhaps it is the smile that has won Neesan's heart so. Neesan has spent some time in the Senju camp teaching their healers. And she could do a lot worse than the head of a clan who seems to be on the rise in the Land of Fire. I just wish that it wasn't so far away. "Uzumaki-dono?" He asks.

Chichi extends a hand in greeting. "Senju-dono."

The next is Senju Tobirama, who seems to be wearing a permanent scowl. He has white hair, and red eyes, and looks nothing much at all like his brother. He says nothing. Kanae privately decides that he could do with some lightening up. Perhaps the dancing would help loosen his tight muscles. If not, he must be a lost cause.

The third is a woman, that she does not know the name of, who silently comes to stand behind Hashirama's shoulder. She is probably an important member of the Senju clan, if she is here in the same meeting as the clan head and his brother, but Kanae isn't too worried. It would be simple to ask for a name later.

And the last is Asuran, who bows first to his liege lord, and then secondly to her. "Taicho." He says. "The border is secure." He means to say that there have been no disturbances besides the Senju party then. Various ninja from the Land of Water had been sighted earlier in the month, but it seems as though nothing else has been picked up on, so far.

She nods. "That's good." He offers her an arm, and she rises, a quick bow to her father, "I'll take my leave then, Chichi," and the rest of the room. "Best of luck in your endeavors, Senju-san." From the corner of her eye, she notes that Senju Hashirama blushes.

How interesting. It seems as though he's the type to be easily embarrassed. This could be interesting.

"Go as you will, Arashiko." Chichi waves her away, and she leans in to kiss his cheek quickly.

"Make him squirm for Neesan." She whispers.

Chichi chuckles, but doesn't say more.

The conversation starts as soon as she slides the door shut behind her. She hears Chichi's casual comment about drowning unworthy suitors, and the hasty reassurances from Senju Hashirama that he really does love Mito, no Uzumaki-dono, please, he means it.

The last she hears is Chichi's quiet laughter.

"There's been no sightings of the Hoshigaki?" She asks, conversationally as she and Asuran stroll down the street, arm in arm.

"No, Taicho." He responds. "I have spoken with Ilya-atawa no Sumire, but her people haven't seen anything either."

"Not Habiki-san?" She asks. Sumire-san is less reliable than Habiki-san.

From beside her, Asuran laughs, the sound golden in the morning air. "Not all of us speak to kings on a daily basis, Taicho." He leans in closer. "If I have to stake my bets, you'll be marrying him. He seems quite taken with you."

She prods his shoulder with ill grace. "Asuran-kun, it's mean of you to tease. Habiki-san is most certainly being obfuscating just because he can."

"Do you see him calling anyone else Lovely Girl?" The man beside her cheerfully whistles a tune, something that sounds like a cross between the cries of a gull, and a magpie.

She smacks his shoulder. "Ichiro-usahaya no Habiki is king of his court, and he's paid compliments to practically every girl on the island. Besides, he only calls me that because Niisama does."

Asuran says nothing further, just keeps whistling as they wander down to the beach.

Kanae sits in her neesan's room the day before the wedding, as Mito herself tosses kimono about. "What am I supposed to wear to see him?" She runs a hand through her red hair, and turns around and around. "How am I supposed to dress? My hair's a mess, oh Kami, what if he thinks I'm some sort of-"

"Neesan!" Kanae laughs, and comes forward. "You'll wear the cream kimono of course. It'll bring out the cream of your skin." She sits her sister down, and leans in. "You could wear a sack and you'd still be beautiful enough to be a goddess that's fallen out of the sky, and far too good for some mainlander."

"But-but-" It seems that her sister is hardly convinced.

She presses a finger over Mito's lips, and sighs. "You're an Uzumaki. We're all of us pretty, but you're the prettiest of us." And it's true. Uzumaki Mito has a heart shaped face, expressive dark eyes, and a smile that could charm the stars from the sky.

Kanae has always loved her sister's smile. "And if you don't believe it, I believe it enough for both of us."

Mito pulls on the cream kimono, and Kanae ties the obi. Then she turns to her sister's hair. "One bun or two?"

Mito closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and looks at herself for a moment in the mirror of the vanity. "Two."

The next few minutes are spent silently, as Kanae tucks and pins and twists all of Mito's hair up into two buns, as she slides the pins to keep it in place, and then, at the very end, after she's pinned in the tags, she slides open the drawers of the vanity, and pulls out a golden comb.

She slides that in between the two buns. "Perfect." She whispers. "He'll love you more after this." He'll love you so much that he'll take you away in less than a few weeks, and you'll leave all of us for good. Something of her heart stutters. Who will I be without Neesan?

"You think so?" Mito asks her, as she carefully powders her neck, and face. "He hasn't seen me in over two years."

"I know so." Kanae tells her, hands on her shoulders. "You'll charm everyone tonight." Privately, Kanae tells herself that if Senju Hashirama is not charmed, then he doesn't have eyes in his head and ought to wind up dead of poison in his soup.

Thankfully he does, because when they head into the central hall, his eyes are drawn immediately to Mito. "Mito."

Kanae withdraws as he moves closer. Her sister snaps open the bottom half of her fan, and bows forward politely. Hashirama does the same, something excited, something fearful in his eyes, and Kanae considers it a job well done.

She watches them for a moment longer, the awkward but still sickeningly sweet way they dance about each other, and considers it practically final. Her sister is leaving them all behind quite soon.

"Excuse me," she turns, and finds Senju Tobirama standing behind her.

He'd been so quiet that she hadn't even noticed. She straightens, and tries not to let her surprise show. Even if I had been distracted by how happy Neesan looks tonight, he still has to be really good if he could surprise me. It would seem that I have to train harder. "Yes, Senju-san?" She asks him.

His face is still about as expressive as a cliff. The cliff might be more expressive. She decides. "What does your sister want from my brother?" He asks her.

She blinks. "As far as I know, his love, forever and ever, would be great." If only she didn't want him. Even that dratted Hoshigaki suitor that she slighted would be closer to home.

The man beside her snorts. "Tell me the truth."

A cynic then. She frowns. "That is the truth, Senju-san."

"She went out of her way to ensnarl him." Senju Tobirama is beginning to grate on her senses. "She wants something from him, and you will tell me what that is."

"Neesan loves him. She wants him to love her too." She can hardly raise her voice right now, but she doesn't need volume to cut him. "You don't know anything about women do you?" He flinches slightly. She doesn't give him time to respond. "A woman in love pursues what she wants. As far as I am aware, she wants him, and that's it, though heaven knows why, he seems like every other man there is in the world. Have a nice night, Senju-san." No one would ever be good enough for her sister, but Neesan likes Senju Hashirama and that would have to be enough for Kanae to be content.

She turns on her heel and leaves him. It had been a nice night until the younger of the Senju Brothers appeared to ask nasty questions as if Neesan was no more than a-a woman of ill repute. Mainlanders know nothing about Uzu. She would have to find a way to embarrass him later.

It's bad enough that Neesan made her preferences so clear over a man who clearly isn't worth it.

"He clearly isn't any good if his brother thinks Neesan is a woman of ill repute chasing after a man with worldly possessions or titles." She's sitting on the rocks, complaining perhaps, but her listener is attentive, and it doesn't seem as if her mood bothers him much. "Maybe he's really just charming her, but he really loves another."

She should be inside dancing. They would miss her, because normally she loves dancing and if she skipped out on the whole night Neesan would be worried. If she tries the right tactic, he might even be compelled to come in and dance with her.

Habiki-san flips a strand of blue hair over his shoulder. "Little Kitten seems to like him well enough, and she is not a bad judge of character, Lovely Girl."

"Love has made her blind, Habiki-san. She didn't even notice that he's absurdly clumsy or that he writes really bad poetry. She has more taste than this most of the time." She tosses a stone out onto the water, thinking. Neesan laughed a suitor of hers off of the Island for writing her bad poetry. Why does Senju Hashirama's bad poetry make her sigh and giggle?

He hums under his breath, leaning back, dark hair spilling over the rocks like water. "Love makes everyone a fool at one point or another, Lovely Girl." His statement surprises her.

"You've never been a fool for love." She hasn't seen it in her lifetime. She hasn't heard any stories about the youkai king beside her being a fool for anything. He has lived centuries as a king, and much longer a life before that without making a fool of himself.

"Hmmm..." He sighs. "No, Lovely Girl. I am just as much as a fool as your sister." He peels himself from the rocks. "But we should head in for the dancing, should we not?"

And she likes to dance, and it's even better with such an experienced partner. "We should." She agrees, and he takes her hand.

Tomorrow her sister will get married, a week from now, and Uzumaki Mito will vanish from the shores of Uzu, but at least tonight, she's dancing with a friend who was old when music was young, and he is excellent.

She should be the happiest girl in the world, so of course, the Senju mainlanders manage to ruin that too the next night.

Senju Hashirama appears before her as Neesan is being tucked and pinned into her wedding kimono. Or more precisely, he asks if he can enter, and really knowing that he shouldn't see the bride before she steps out for the walk to the shrine, it's Kanae that steps out.

"What do you need, Senju-san?" He looks like a wreck, and that does not impress her much. Could you look more like you're about to walk to your doom? It cements the idea that he loves someone else more than he loves her sister in her head, but of course, she cannot say that to Neesan, couldn't even think it in her general direction.

Mito would say that he looked cute. That he's just nervous, but Kanae herself doesn't believe one word. Before Senju Tobirama questioned my sister's motives, he should question his brother's.

"I-uh." He stumbles over his sentences, and attempts to call up that blinding smile again. She is completely resistant, and crosses her arms over her chest, and waits for him to talk. "I-DoyouknowifMitolovesmeatalloramIjustbeinganidiot?"

She blinks. "Of course, she loves you." Mito practically swooned over his bad poetry. She's decided that it's okay to give up everything that she knows for this idiot. "And of course, you're an idiot, Senju-san."

He slumps into a comical depression. "She's never said so, and I'm nervous and I'm very sorry to bother you..."

"Kanae." She tells him, because clearly he's forgotten her name. "Uzumaki Kanae."

"Kanae-chan." He says, and slumps further.

She brushes away the strand of irritation that she feels. He's in no position to call her Kanae-chan just yet, but still he does it anyway.

Senju Tobirama appears to drag his elder brother away, and they exchange glares over his shoulder. I dislike my sister's in-laws already. She decides.

"Did he have something he needed to tell me?" Mito asks turning anxious eyes in her direction as she steps back in to finish her sister's hair.

"No, nothing. He was just being nervous." She'd hardly tell her giddy sister that the man had asked if she loved him, of all the daft things. It would ruin her mood, and Kanae would not be breaking her sister's heart if she could help it.

She sings, in a high voice that Neesan often calls sweet during the ceremony, and asks the Kami to bless Neesan, bless Hashirama, bless Konoha, and while she's asking for blessings, she throws one in for Tobirama for good measure as well.

The reception that night is interesting. Habiki-san's come back to dance with her, and pretty much only her, as he tells her inane stories about the things he's seen over the years, and she waits for a spare moment to threaten Senju Hashirama with castration when it happens.

Tobirama, she's taken to referring to him with no honorifics in her head, opens his big fat mouth, and puts his foot in it. "So, why are you marrying my brother, woman?"

Neesan's fan snaps shut, and she draws herself up to her full height, which is still half a head shorter than him, and jabs his chest with her folding fan. "Because I love him." She hisses, something dark moving in her eyes.

Hashirama laughs, and rubs the back of his neck. "Tobi, I told you that you should stop."

"I won't." Tobirama steps forward towards Neesan, and Kanae drops her arms. Beside her, Habiki-san stiffens. "I want to know." Tobirama says, something dangerous in his tone. "Why you fell in love with my brother." He says fell in love as if the phrase is a curse.

Kanae is willing to agree with him. Neesan falling in love with a man that had an idiot for a brother is certainly a curse. She pushes her way through the shell shocked crowd, and hopes that she'll get there before any of the four of her brothers in attendance tonight. If Masato-nii or either of the Terrible Twins got to him before she did, Senju Tobirama might find himself food for the fishes. If Korui-nii got to him he might never walk again.

"Because he sees me as a person, not as a prize to be won." Neesan says back to him, but there's hurt in her eyes, that she cannot disguise. Kanae wants to put her hands around the idiot's neck and wring it herself.

Although she really isn't sure if Hashirama really sees Neesan that way. Neesan is quite a prize to win for a man who has nothing but a matchstick city.

Her hand lands on Tobirama's elbow and he whirls around to face her. "A dance, Senju-san?" She asks, a smile on her face, one that bares most of her teeth. You'll be lucky if you don't get your tongue ripped out. For the first time, she is absurdly grateful that Kyoya-niisama is not in attendance, or the night would end in bloodshed, and Senju Tobirama fed to the sharks.

"I don't dance." He blinks at her, stupidly in the light of the dying sun, and she ups the wattage of her smile.

"I insist." She purrs in his direction and drags him forward, onto the floor and away from Hashirama and Neesan.

He is shocked enough to follow her. She casts Habiki-san an apologetic glance, and he waves at her resignedly before stepping out, back down to the beach. Clearly then, she's lost her dance partner for the night as well.

"My brother doesn't need a weak woman." Tobirama hisses under his breath. "And as far as I am aware, none of you have fought in any sort of war."

She glances at the seal on his chest, the one that Neesan had applied so casually while poking him with her fan, and decides that he could use a lesson in humility. Who do you think you are speaking to? The hand that holds his wrist has ended lives with nothing more than a few drops in a nobleman's tea.

She could end his life as easily as passing him a drink. Knowing his arrogance he'd take it.

"Osuwari." A quick twist of chakra later, and he plummets to the sandy ground. She steps over him, heading for the beach. "I don't think you dance very well, Senju-san."

From behind her, she hears the applause of the crowd. "That's our Little Kanae!"

It was Neesan who did the hard work. Seals that altered gravity are difficult to apply, and she'd been touching Senju Tobirama only a few moments through a fan no less.

Habiki-san is long gone by the time she makes her way down to the rocks.

She's lost her dance partner for the night.

And she's beginning to think that she hates everything Senju.

She heads back to threaten Senju Hashirama with slow castration with a wooden spoon should he so much as put a toe out of line.

He stares at her stupidly for a moment and bursts out laughing.

She is not amused.

She wholeheartedly agrees with this idea, especially when three days later, Neesan hugs her tightly and whispers a goodbye in her ear before stepping out onto the water.

Hashirama himself calls her Imouto in the most obnoxious way, and kisses her on both cheeks before he returns to stand by Neesan's side.

Tobirama glares at her, and she lifts her chin and glares right back.

She dislikes it even more, when Chichi calls her to his study a week later. "Arashiko," He sighs, and looks as though he's aged a decade in a week. "Please sit down."

He misses Neesan as much as I do. But her anger burns hot today. Neesan's first letter back to her had confessed that it would take some trouble to win over her new husband's brother. He could have prevented her from leaving. He could have forbidden it. He could have drowned Senju Tobirama in the bay before he insulted everything about us.

She storms from the room and goes out diving for pearls. She finds nothing, and Habiki-san still will not speak to her.

It takes her another three weeks to speak more than two words stringed together to her father.

It is late when she slides open the door to Chichi's study and crosses his floor to where he sits, a scroll open on his lap, an abacus by his right hand. "We are low on rice again." He says to her, by way of conversation.

"I am sorry for ignoring you, Chichi." She whispers, her head on his shoulder. Uzumaki Ashina is a king, but he is far more lenient to his daughters than his sons. "I will not do it again."

"I hope that you do not." He tells her, even as he raises a hand to smooth her hair. "It has been hard not hearing your songs."

They sit there for a long moment, silence stretching out between them, until she remembers that Chichi had opened their conversation with a remark about the rice stores. "We are low on rice?" She asks.

He sighs. "Yes. I am trying to decide how much will go to each mouth." His head is bowed, and his shoulders slumped. "We may have to go without."

If he is so worried, it is more than their immediate household that will have to go without. There'd been times over the years when they'd eaten less, all of them, to survive a particularly vicious winter, or when the summer drought struck the fields harshly, and the trade lines ran dry. They have few alliances on the mainland, if only because they spent little time considering the mainland. They fought off invaders from the Land of Water who wanted to consume Uzu, and they had skirmishes with the Land of Lightning, who wanted more land on the water, and they tried to not offend people from the Land of Fire, who were for the most part, willing to leave them alone.

It is a delicate balance on most days.

But now they have an alliance. "Write to Konoha." She offers. "Ask Senju Hashirama to send us rice." It sticks in her throat, the thought of begging. It is why they are a nation, not a territory. A nation spanning seven islands, with this Island being the main one. A small nation, but a nation nonetheless. "We could sell them something."

"I will not." Chichi says, and squeezes her shoulder. "I have nothing I can afford to sell them worth the amount of rice we need."

"Surely they'd give us some, even if it isn't enough." She asks him. To see him so worried, it must be that another clan has cut alliances. She wonders which one it is. She wonders if she is skilled enough to poison them. It probably wouldn't help the situation either way.

"I will not be marrying you off to Senju Tobirama." And it's a vicious note that Chichi's voice hits now. "I will not." He rises, and stands at the window, watching the waves over the summer sea.

It really is desperate then, if he's thought of selling her hand to Senju Tobirama.

"We paid out a great deal for Neesan's dowry to the Senju then?" She asks. Her good hearted Chichi must have spent more, must have, because the wedding had been elaborate, and he must not have asked for much in return.

He can't do the same thing again. I am considering marrying a man I despise. She thinks, and considers how long she would last before she poisoned Tobirama's dinner if she ended up married to him for true.

Not long at all.

"Well." She says, coming to stand by his side at the window. "If I am not to be married to Senju Tobirama, what about the other clan inside Konoha?"

If the Senju will not send food there is no point in marrying one of them, but the Land of Fire is rich, especially with agriculture. It would not do to broker an alliance with another clan outside of Konoha, for Neesan's situation would then be terribly dangerous.

"The Uchiha?" Chichi's hands tighten on the ledge. "I have no desire to marry you to one of them either."

The Uchiha are...infamous, and it is unclear that they would be willing to send anyone to marry an outsider. She does not delude herself. She is the younger princess of an island kingdom with little more than her bloodline to offer.

"Ask them first anyway, Chichi." They both know that it would be better than say, asking a clan that has yet to join Konoha.

He nods, tired, sad, and hugs her tightly. "I am sorry." Sorry that I ask this of you.

Now that she thinks about it, the wedding had hardly been that elaborate. It must be something else, that has depleted the rice stores halfway into this winter.

"No." She tells him. "I will do my best." Do my best to win whoever it is that they send us. Do my best.

The next day, Chichi announces the situation over breakfast, and forbids every last one them to write a word about it to Neesan.

After breakfast, he ties a letter to the leg of a gull, and only Kanae knows the contents. That morning, after breakfast, after the letter, she walks down to the shrine, and lights three sticks of incense.

And prays that whomever the gods send her, it will be someone who agrees.

Outside the shrine, the children of the Island laugh, and celebrate the year's first snow.

Not a week later, the first child, a little boy named Katsu, falls sick.

Uzu holds his funeral when the ground is too hard to dig, and the ice has frozen even the whirlpools in the bay. Asuran drills the hole in the ice, and the entire city stands, dry eyed, as the priest reads his last rites.

A.N. So this is the companion piece to Sunfall, entitled Moonrise, because I'm a sucker for matching titles. In which everything is in Kanae's point of view, which isn't always rational either, because well, neither Hashirama nor Tobirama are idiots, but according to her, no one's good enough for her elder sister. Don't worry, Madara appears next chapter, and things ensue. (Exactly the same way they did in Sunfall, so you might want to read that if you haven't read that yet.)

I'm getting really rather fond of Kanae and Madara right now. I'm not entirely sure why.

~Tavina.