Prologue

A three year-old's memory is a fickle thing. At that age, it's difficult to expect anyone to remember any sort of event to any degree of clarity, unless it was of some nature so traumatic or euphoric that it burnt itself against the consciousness in indelible ink. To that end, Hyūga Hinata was a person with such an experience, an experience that rippled out with such effect that no ninja or civilian would ever speak of it in a tone louder than a whisper.

It only took one pair of loose lips in the Hokage Tower that frosty night, one gossip with more daring than common sense. Overnight the rumors had spread throughout the ninja grapevine, penetrating the invisible line delineating ninja and civilian, penetrating the sleepy haze of schoolchildren dragging their feet, ninja returning from missions, merchants setting up shop, striking with unerring accuracy everywhere a living being drew breath.

"The Hyūga Affair." They'd whisper, sneaking furtive glances around, as though expecting some white robed, pale eyed spectre to appear and strike them dead. Even the mice seemed to scurry with the news, the wind whispered it on the breeze, as though to prove that for all the secrecy surrounding the time-honored clan, this would be the one thing they could never keep.

For once their affairs had spilled out into the public limelight, spelling a certain doom for the village as it readied its battle-weary troops.

"Kumo isn't happy."

"They sent another envoy, right through the village gates this time. Shin-kun was on duty, never let them out of his sight for even a moment."

"Sandaime-sama hasn't left the Tower for weeks—"

"Did you hear? Junko-san was fired for letting the cat out of the bag, I heard the Hyūga were right furious, another moment and we'd have another body in the mortuary…"

While the ninja were aware of a distinct irony that Kumo was the one demanding reparations when they were the one to 'break and enter' as put by one of the chunin, it was simply a fact that they could not afford to go into another all-out war, not with their troops decimated as it was from the last war. That didn't stop them from heavily eyeballing the diplomatic squad, a veritable tidal wave of killing intent following them wherever they went. Not even in the Hokage's own office were they safe, for the ANBU saw fit to display at that very moment, why they were the Hokage's hand-picked guards. And with the Hokage apparently oblivious, immune (or perhaps even undetectably contributing) to the killing intent slowly strangling the office, the Kumo diplomats wrapped up business on their end very quickly indeed.

Watching the door swing shut behind the sweating Kumo squad, Sarutobi waits a moment or two, before quietly dismissing the ANBU, overriding their silent protests and hesitations. He shuffles papers for a few seconds, then turns to his pipe, emptying out the tobacco and replacing it with a fresh batch. All of this he does slowly, laboriously, hoping against hope that perhaps when he looked up, the damnable paper would be gone, maybe simply a clever genjutsu from one of his less scrupulous underlings. But all of these are just distractions, and the paper is still lying innocuously on his desk five minutes later, the ominous seal of the Raikage glinting in the lamp light.

Sighing, he picks up the parchment as he pens a note with a heavy hand to the person he wanted to see least (out of guilt, more than anything else) at the moment, Hyūga Hiashi.

It seems that once more, I have failed not only our village, but also one of our founding clans. Minato… what would you have done?

Another sacrifice to keep the peace. Another sacrifice to save the rest. An eye for an eye, and the world goes blind.

Three days later, he announces the death of Hyūga Hiashi, once the leader of the Hyūga Clan, now another name on the Memorial Stone honored for his dedication to the Leaf.

Konohagakure mourns, for it was a loss that came too soon, they had already lost so much to the war and now even in peacetime death refuses to leave their lands. Hyuga Hiashi was a beacon of light, a rallying point in war, unquestionably a leader that naturally made ninja fall in line and listen, and had saved more than a few lives during his time as a front line fighter. Even Uchiha Fugaku, his longtime rival in battle and in clan politics paid his respects, waiting with a stony face in the lines and lines of ninja and civilians lining up to say their last goodbyes.

The coffin sealed, the procession quietly departs, leaving behind a village spared from destruction for another day.

Among the fanfare and drama and gossip lies a mysterious figure shrouded in shadows, the clan heiress who'd been nearly kidnapped and set this all off, Hyūga Hinata, never before seen in the public eye. Gossip spreads fast, and she was in turn made out to be a hapless spoilt maiden and a brilliantly talented prodigy, built up to the heavens and torn down to hell in each story added to circulation. She doesn't care about the mourning of the village for her father, simply because they did not understand.

But at the heart of it all, Hyuga Hinata was foremost a child, and a daughter. Gossip mongers would be surprised to see that the person of their intentions was not a whiny brat with a silver spoon in her mouth, or a fiercely proud warrior, with burning eyes of an avenger. She was a daughter who had lost her father, a strict one, yes, but her father nonetheless.

She could hardly care for what everyone else in Konoha felt about her father's death; they were just outsiders, spectators looking in on her family life like children at a travelling zoo. Most of Konoha didn't know her father the way she did, the strict taskmaster that oversaw all of her training, chiding her every step of the way for being too gentle, too unwilling to fight. They didn't share the quiet moments in her family living room, where she sat with a scroll, reading night after night as her parents attended to their own matters. Most of all, they never saw the Hiashi that stone facedly ate dishes that he knew she didn't like as well, and leave the ones that she idid/i like whole and untouched for her to enjoy. None of them ever acknowledged his actions, that was just the way of their family. But she always knew, and would always remember the sparing kindness that slipped silently from her father's implacable mask.

While Konoha had lost a brilliant man, Hinata had lost her father, one of the anchor points in her life, harsh as he was. But no matter what, if she couldn't make him proud during his life, she would try her very best in his death.

So when the time comes, she smooths her face, determined to do the one thing that her father had always drilled into her, and she had always failed to do… while he was alive.

With a mask blanker than any of the attending Hyūga, she bows before the coffin of her father three times, gazing upon him dispassionately even as her inner being wailed and reached out for one more chance just one more, Father please, I'll make you proud this time, I'll do anything, just come back, please don't play this game-

And then she turns and walks back to her place, never once flinching or fidgeting.

Hyūga Hana was worried. Losing her husband had been painful for everyone, most of all, and she still couldn't look at his things without being forced to her knees from grief. It took all she had to sit through meetings with clan Elders prattling on about how Hiashi was so noble and this and that, when all she wanted in the world was to introduce them to her right fist, followed up by a swift introduction to her left.

But on top of that very heavy burden…

Passing out of the stifling, sterile white room, Hana glides gracefully through the corridors of the clan compound, nodding distractedly at the Branch House members that made way for her much like servants might. Even the sight of the calligraphy scroll Hiashi had written for her hanging on the wall barely makes her flinch, her mind too distracted to pinpoint exactly what it was. For now, a different person who was no less dear held all her attention.

A right turn, straight down the corridor and the last door on the left, she heads for where she could feel Hinata's chakra flowing mutedly.

"Hinata-chan?"

Worry rises in her once more, unstoppable as she regards her only child. The Hinata before the unspeakable event was gentle and had hated the dojo as much as a Hyūga could hate something. Though not allowed, and not predisposed to expressing such strong emotion, the reluctance in her eyes (another failing in a list of many the clan elders pounced on, that she did not master the art of masking one's emotions) on every training day made it clear it was the last place she'd rather be on any day.

But now…

Hana eyes her child as she runs through the Jyuken kata, a marked difference in her performance shining clear. While before Hinata had been hesitant, unconfident and doubting in her own abilities, now she seemed to have expelled all of that behind a firm and blank mask, fluidly running through her kata without fear of mistake, and if she made one, she practiced the correct moves one hundred times to 'purify the mistake' as her late father often said. She did all this and more without complaint, without fear, without emotion.

"Hinata-chan." Hana calls more firmly this time, almost wary as Hinata turns an unnaturally blank face in her direction.

"Hai, okaa-sama?"

She almost winces at the honorific, it seemed that training wasn't the only thing that had changed…

"Okaa-san." she corrects gently. "Hinata-chan, come with me."

With her new behavior, Hana is sure that her daughter won't hesitate in following after. With the pain of recent loss too fresh, she quickly detours to Hinata's room instead, sitting down on her bed. Hinata herself follows after obediently, waits patiently for her to speak, and never says a word without being invited to.

Damn… I need to nip this in the bud.

"Hinata-chan," she begins unsteadily, "I know you are very sad about your father—" a falter, but not enough to break her, "—and I know you want to… make him proud. But you shouldn't do it like this."

Staring into her daughter's flat, pale eyes, a thrum of fear suddenly passes through Hana as she wonders… am I too late?

"Your father… he wouldn't want you to be like this. I know he always asked you to be like him, like everyone in your family, but he would be… sad, to see you like this." Hinata's mask cracks a little, revealing fear, apprehension, and Hana grabs onto that like a lifeline, pressing her point without delay. "He always loved you just the way you were, and he only wanted you to put on a mask, you see?"

"A… mask?"

"Yes, like the ANBU mask that Hitoko-obaasan has, you remember it, right?" Seeing her child nod dutifully, she continues, "So your father only wanted to you pretend to be like them, to put on a mask, you see? It's important to pretend to be strong, and like everyone else in the family, but it's okay to still be yourself, okay? Your father doesn't want you to become cold…"

The façade before her cracks more, shining through precious shards of the daughter she knew and loved, with all the emotion that came with it. Pushing on, more and more, she tries to coax her child out of the shell of grief she'd made for herself, back into the outside world.

"So you understand right? Come on, come and give your kaa-san a hug… my little princess."

In the face of the affectionate nickname her mother always used to simultaneously comfort and tease her, the mask shatters, and Hana finds herself with a lapful of hair and small child, all tears and grief and pain.

"Kaa-san," Hinata all but wails, finally letting go of the sadness and guilt she'd been holding back for days. She hurt, and she cried, still uncomprehending of all that she had lost in a day. Buried in her mother's lap she holds close the last memory of her father, grips onto it and sears it into her mind's eye.

.

.

.

"Hinata-chan, I love you."

That one sentence, along with the only kiss and hug she'd ever received from her father, would never be forgotten.