Disclaimer – A FANFIC INSPIRED BY ROBERT GRAVE'S I, CLAUDIUS

I, HINATA

1

I need someone, namely a female fanfic writer, to help me make this sound more 'feminine'. Not saying a woman can't write like this—I just mean I need a woman to personalize it, and make it so if someone doesn't realize who Hinata is, they still know it's a woman speaking... Am I making sense? All I know is I'm not a skilled enough writer to be able to do it myself. - Cantor

" . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . "

I, Hyuuga Hinata, esteemed clan head of the Konoha Hyuuga clan, and master of the Byakuugan, am one who many would think has lived a privileged life. Born into a noble family, many would think I had wealth, respect, and power at my fingertips from a young age. This is simply not true. My life has been troubled with many problems, and it has only been through hard work and perseverance that I now stand where I do. In these short twenty-two years, I have accomplished much. Originally called a failure and as both a ninja, and a Hyuuga, I am now one of the most respected and powerful women in Konoha, and like any Hyuuga would be proud to do, I have the opportunity to only increase my standing among Konoha. However, I am no true Hyuuga. I never considered myself to be. Nobility, and all that comes with it, wealth, respect, power; what use are these? How do these help me live a fulfilling life? If life is only given to us to constantly work to increase our standing, rather than live happily, then I would rather not live. That said, I, Hyuuga Hinata, will die in two weeks.

And this is what leads me to why I write this... for lack of a better word, record. I will detail my life, my accomplishments—how I overcame adversity both within my own family and in the village of Konoha, how I avoided a terrible fate and the hatred of the majority of the branch house for most of my life with the plan of the village prankster, how I went from village-wide known failure to worldwide known S-class ninja, how I, Hyuuga Hinata, fell in love with the man whose courage and strength has saved an ungrateful Konoha time and time again, and inspired me to do the same.

This is not my only goal however. Konoha is filled to the brim with shinobi, who only know what they are told by the village and the nobility. A veil has been pulled over their eyes, and they don't know about anything beyond it, and those who do know, do nothing. This veil will undoubtedly shield them from the truth of what has led up to now, and what will happen in a few days. I intend to leave this record behind so that others can learn our side of the story, and hopefully, the shinobi of Konoha will understand and learn to not always trust the authorities in situations—to question what they see in front of them and find out for themselves who the true criminals are.

This is my goal. I hope I succeed.

" . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . "

How do I begin? Although I wrote that introduction before, and I thought this story through beforehand, as I begin to put pen to paper to start the actual story, I have no idea how to start. The task seems daunting.

I smile at the idea I've just had, which was, 'What would he do?'. As I think of the answer, which would be, 'write as I think and not care for appearance, just do it as it comes to you,' or something along those lines at least, I feel like that suites me perfectly. After all, it's only fitting that my writing idolizes the words of the man I love, just as I have idolized him in person throughout my life.

As I said earlier, I was born into nobility. Wealthy, dignified, powerful, virtuous, honorable, elegant, elite, all of these come to mind when someone thinks of the Hyuuga, my family. To the outside world we epitomize the patrician class, and we portray ourselves as perfect. I have always been at odds with this.

I was always a shy girl, and my insecurity clashed with the ideals of what a Hyuuga should be. This was especially apparent in my speech, which from an early age, was constantly wrought with a horrific stutter. My father, the clan head, only agitated the whole problem with his overbearing and glares of disapproval. I can't remember my father ever looking at me kindly when I was young. Or when I was older, for that matter.

According to my mother, who died shortly after the birth of my younger sister, Hanabi, my stutter wasn't inborn. While I was alone, or even alone with just my mother, I would speak with a normal cadence. I suppose one could say my father is the reason for my stutter, which eventually became such a habit I might as well have been born with it.

My mother and father were like night and day. One was cold and foreboding, unforgiving to someone who wasn't prepared, like one would be if they had forgotten a blanket to sleep under. The other bright and cheery, whose warmth flowed through you and made a smile creep onto your face. Even now, I have a sad smile at the memories of my mother singing softly as she would walk through the clan's gardens with me. How I miss my mother.

Thinking on it, I feel bad for my younger sister, who despite having a significantly better childhood in many respects, she still never had the joy of a mother like I did. I do not even think she realizes what a loss she suffered, which only makes me pity her more.

My sister. She is my exact opposite. If I were weak and shy, she was strong and confident. When we were younger, Hanabi was recognized by many as the one who ought to be heiress of the Hyuuga clan, as opposed to me, whom according to the clan laws, was the rightful heiress by being the older sibling. A lot of my problems stemmed from that law, and I am glad that I finally changed it, along with other clan laws, when I finally did become the head of the clan. The clan elders were furious! Even so, I had support from much of the clan, and the village.

That's for later though. I don't want to jump ahead and then go back, making the story hard to follow. Where was I? Ah, family. Yes, Hanabi was a difficult sister to have. There were many times where I agreed with the elders and my father that she should inherit the clan, but as we grew older, I realized just how much the clan needed me, and, forgive me for saying, dear sister, if you read this when I am gone, what harm I feel she might have done to the clan.

This isn't to say she would have truly been anything worse than my father, but there would have been no change, leading only to stagnation of the clan, buried in the main house's belief that the branch house was only meant to serve them. The branch house, in case anyone reading this does not know, as many in the future will not, since it is now gone, was the second half to the Hyuuga family, which was divided by Main and Branch. If you were in the main family, you were the leading family, the aristocrats of the already aristocratic family, with the power of life and death over the branch house family, who were the servants and bodyguards of the Main family.

Does that make sense? Maybe not. My cousin Neji, who I will be naming my successor when I am gone, was once a member of the branch house. His father and my father were twin brothers, but because his father was born only minutes afterwards, he was part of the branch family, while I was part of the main. When I was three or so, I met Neji for the first time, despite living on the same clan compound. He was commanded to protect me from that day on. He was only 4. Still, he was trained in the jyuuken—my families own fighting style, which utilizes the Byakuugan, our doujutsu. This was all done so that he could protect me, and essentially die in my place, should I be threatened.

This didn't just mean jumping in front of me to take a stray kunai. This was even more than that. This was fighting my fights for me, so that I would never have to. When he died, he would presumably be replaced by another random branch house member, as if his life did not matter at all. Though I never expressly told this to Neji, he always meant more to me than that, and I hope he realized this later in life by my actions as clan head.

This act of giving life for the sake of the main house members actually happened more than might be thought. Neji's father actually had to do it for my father, shortly after I was kidnapped by a Kumo nin. He had intended to take me so Kumo could steal my Byakuugan eyes, and thus our bloodline, either through simply implanting my eyes or even worse, using me to breed a new Hyuuga clan. But my father killed the kidnapper and rescued me. Kumo demanded compensation for the loss of their diplomat, which this ninja was posing as, claiming that they had no intention of stealing my eyes. Their 'compensation' was my father's life.

While my father was apparently willing to go, perhaps one of his few redeeming qualities in life was his honor, the elders would not allow this, because it would still allow Kumo to have a set of Byakuugan eyes. To prevent this, they had my uncle go, who was part of the Branch house as I said, and because of this, he had what all branch members have; the caged bird seal. The seal eliminates all traces of the Byakuugan once a Branch member dies. This is why Branch members were expendable. Or at least, that was the excuse. I feel that it was truly the main house's cowardice, and they were clinging on to life selfishly... Again, this is something I hope I have changed.

Losing his father for the sake of mine caused Neji great pain, and I believe he especially felt this when he had to protect me, as was his duty at the time. I did not realize this when I was little, although I knew Neji hated me. In fact, I did not find out the full extent of his hatred until the Chuunin exams, when I was twelve years old, a full six or seven years after the death of his father.

Just after the second phase of the exam, there were preliminary matches between different chuunin hopefuls, and Neji and I were pitted against each other. I can remember my natural shyness, combined with an utter fear of my cousin build up when I walked down to face him. I despised those moments, and I felt so lonely, and so terrified. Neji hated me, and he did not plan on showing any mercy.

Kiba, knowing of my relationship with Neji, had even warned me after he had fought against Naruto-kun, "If you're matched up against the sand nin, or Neji, give up, Hinata."

It was discouraging to hear, but I believed it and I had fully intended on giving up as soon as the examiner started the fight, but when I looked up at Kurenai-sensei, Naruto-kun, Shino, and the other genin watching, I felt I should at least attempt the fight, if not win. If one Hyuuga trait had been passed down to me, it was pride. And I had too much pride to simply give up out of fear in front of my friends.

The match started out with a silence so absolute, I could hear the other genins' breathing in the stands, and when they shifted their feet, it sounded like they were stomping. My own heart was beating furiously in my chest, and I couldn't even meet my cousin's eyes. I despised myself.

"Before we begin, Hinata-sama, allow me to give you some advice," he said. "Give up."

Neji always knew of my lack of confidence, my shyness and insecurities...He cruelly capitalized on them in the beginning of the fight. "You are not fit to be a ninja. You just follow along and go with someone else's idea. You always feel inferior, and you truly do not wish to take this exam."

I could barely speak after his words, stuttering so badly I'm still not sure how I was understood. I told him he was wrong though, that I wanted to change myself, but he was relentless.

"Hinata-sama, you are indeed a spoiled child from the main family. People cannot change. A failure is a failure, personality and power will not change, and that is why terms like elites and failures exist. Everyone judges you by how your face and body look, how intelligent you are, your abilities, and your personality. People suffer due to their limits, and live. I can see these things, with my Byakuugan, and I know you are just trying to be tough."

He had activated his Byakuugan, using its ability of insight to read my body posture like a book. "You truly want to leave here right now." I did. I was shaking where I stood, and couldn't even begin to form a response to his barrage of verbal attacks.

"You cannot fool my eyes. You already predicted in your mind that you will lose. Putting your arm in front of you to protect yourself, like putting a wall up, touching your lips, showing your mind is disturbed...in other words, you already know that you cannot change. That your loss was fated the moment your name appeared with mine on the board behind us."

All of this, at the moment, was true. Neji's Byakuugan was recognized as the most developed in the Hyuuga clan, showing the most potential. If he had been born into the main family, he would have been the ideal heir. And at that moment, I felt like crawling under my bed's sheets and hiding myself from the world, crying in self-loathing and pity. But one golden voice interrupted everything: Neji's voice, my thoughts, the silence surrounding the fight, and in it, I found my strength.

"You can!" Naruto shouted furiously. "You can change, Hinata! Don't listen to him! And you!" he shouted, pointing at Neji. "Don't label people like that you idiot! Beat him up, Hinata, don't take that from him!"

And just like that, all my fears evaporated. Thank you, Naruto, although I know you'll never read this. You did more for me throughout my life than you can possibly realize. The least I can do now is help people understand that you were never a monster like Konoha believes, and hopefully, as I tell more about you throughout this record, it will become more and more apparent how much you did for the people of Konoha. You were Konoha's staunchest ally, not its enemy.

I ended up fighting Neji, and throughout the fight, Naruto cheered me on, making me fight more and more fiercely, until I could see Neji's shock with my Byakuugan. I even forced him on the defensive at times. Still, I was no match for Neji and his skill at jyuuken during that fight, and he defeated me eventually. Even after I knew I couldn't win any longer though, when I was down and beaten, I kept getting back up both because of Naruto's constant encouragement and belief in me, and because I knew I had to prove to Neji that people could change. It became my goal throughout that fight to show Neji that I finally understood his pain, his anger at the main house, and I tried to show him that if I could change things, he could change as well.

" . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . " . "

End of CHAPTER 1

Email me if you're interested in helping me out with the narration style. And no, I don't mean including stuttering in the writing. Hinata is intelligent, and refined, being from the Hyuuga family, but namely I need a woman's thought process to be narrated I guess. Or something. I'm not even sure exactly what I need at the moment. I'm looking for novels narrated by women to read so I can get an idea of what I want. Suggestions?