(A/N: Hey! I'm not dead! Anyway, this is a couple of oneshots that wouldn't fit in with the plot in Snake's Legacy, so I'm posting them in a separate story. There are going to be at least two, where Hikari finds out the identity of her father, and where Sasuke and Hinata are in Oto on their mission. I might even do one where Hikari spends time with Sasuke during the six months I kind of skipped over . I dunno. It depends on where my inspiration goes. It left for a while. But it came back! So I finished this, cause I said I would.)
Snake's Legacy Snapshots
Oneshot #1: Who's your Tou-san?
Hinata looked at her first born daughter for a moment. She, Sasuke, Hikari, and Kazuya, Hikari's boyfriend, had just enjoyed a peaceful lunch together after the younger kids left for the academy. Hikari and Kazuya were about to leave to go to the movies, but Hinata had something she wished to tell her firstborn before she left. "Hold on one minute, Hanii. Kazuya-kun, you go on ahead, Hikari will catch up in a little while."
Sasuke walked to the door behind the Kazuya on his way back inside and closed it as Hinata walked upstairs to put Miyu, her youngest child, in her cradle. "Are you finally going to tell Hikari?" He directed his question toward Hinata when she came downstairs, but looked to her first child.
"Hai, Sasuke-koi. Why, do you think she is not ready?"
"Iie. I think you should have told her a long time ago. She should have known who her father was when you told the villagers who you were."
"My father? Kaa-san, are you finally going to tell me whom he is?"
"Hai, Hikari. Have you ever wondered why you have red Byakugan with powers that white Byakugan users don't have?"
"Not really, I thought it was normal. I haven't really seen many Hyuugas, Kaa-san." Hikari was curious now. She had her full attention focused on her mother.
"The reason you have red Byakugan is because it is a combination of Sharingan and Byakugan."
"Yes, but what does this have to do with my father?"
"Your father was an Uchiha, Hikari, and he wasn't me." Sasuke said, his voice gentle so his statement would not be taken as cruel. Hinata let this fact sink in before speaking.
"My first lover, your father, was Uchiha Itachi, Hanii." Hinata said, eyes downcast for fear of seeing revulsion in her daughter's eyes.
"Tou-san is a mass murderer who killed his own family just to test his power?! How could you love someone like that?" Hikari questioned angrily, confirming her mother's fears.
"I was a student of Orochimaru and I killed countless people in cold-blood. I almost killed the current Hokage when we were younger. I was heartless, and all I cared about was killing my brother, your father. How could you all accept and love a person like me?" Sasuke questioned, wrapping his arm around Hinata's slightly shaking shoulders. His wife hadn't begun crying yet, but he knew she needed comfort if she was to continue their current conversation.
"You're different. You did that to kill Itachi. I am not refering to him as my father." She spat in reply. "You came back and redeemed yourself, Tou-san.(1)" They fell silent as there was a knock on the door. Sasuke removed his arm from Hinata's shoulders and walked to the front of the room to answer it. He cracked the door slightly and looked out to see Kazuya.
"I heard yelling. Is everything okay?" Kazuya asked. Sasuke nodded with a slight grim smile on his face, though the younger man did not notice. "Can you tell Hikari-hime that we are going to be late for our movie if she doesn't hurry, onegai?"
Sasuke turned around and looked Hinata in the eye, silently questioning whether the man at the door should hear their talk.
Hinata slightly nodded her head. Sasuke moved aside and invited the man inside. "We should probably tell this to you also." Sasuke explained when the young man flashed him a confused look.
"What are you talking about?" Kazuya asked.
"The identity of Hikari's father." Hinata spoke up.
"Who is he?" Kazuya asked, shocked that he should be let in on such a private conversation.
"First you must swear that who he is will bring about no change in how you feel about my daughter." Hinata said with a steely edge in her voice, left over from her days as Snake-sama.
"My feelings for her could never change because of who her father is. She can't choose his identity."
"Itachi." Sasuke said.
"What? What about him?"
"Her father, my lover, was Uchiha Itachi." Hinata said in a voice almost so quiet that Kazuya didn't catch her words.
When he realized what the older woman said, Kazuya was shocked into silence. How had the kind, soft-spoken person he had known for years fallen for the most wanted killer of her time?
"Itachi-koi redeemed himself, just as Sasuke-koi did. In all actuality, he never did anything wrong. He-" Hinata resumed their conversation from where they left off, trying to explain to her daughter and Kazuya why she did what she did.
"How could you say that, Kaa-san! He murdered his whole clan except Sasuke and you say he did nothing wrong?!" Hikari interrupted with an indignant shout.
"He was ordered to kill them to keep a war from breaking out between the original founder's clan, the Senjus and the police ninja, the Uchihas. Itachi was in the ANBU only because the Uchihas were using him to spy on the Senju clan, but Itachi was doing what he thought he had to do to keep the peace.
"He actually disobeyed his orders by keeping Sasuke-kun alive. Itachi couldn't bare to kill his own brother. Itachi lived his life full of regret, believing that he deserved no better than to be hated and killed by his own brother.
"His own village made him a living sacrifice. He needed someone whom he could trust and I, who had loved him since I was young, became that person to save him from himself." Hinata finished quietly, but with a strong resolve, knowing those words were truth.
"Hah! So let me get this straight: Itachi- my father- only killed everyone in his clan because he was ordered to do so! You've got to be kidding me! That is the worst lie I have ever heard." Hikari shouted spitefully at her mother.
Crystal tears began to drip slowly down Hinata's pale face as she watched the hatred she had always feared form in her daughter's eyes. Sasuke returned to her side and she turned, burying her face in his shirt. She knew that Hikari would get over her anger eventually, but this was the first time Hinata had seen her this enraged at her.
It was hard enough to get Kiba and Shino to forgive her for making them believe she was dead. They only forgave her after two years of getting used to her presence. When she had told them who Hikari's father was, they had been almost equally livid, but they had forgiven her once more when they had noticed her tears and she had explained somewhat.
Flashback
Hinata stood before the two furious men of her former team. "Please do not be angry at me!" She said quietly but with force. The tears cascading down her cheeks made Kiba and Shino calm for a moment to listen as she spoke. "I don't regret what I did, but I do regret that you would hate me for it. Forgive me for following my heart." She said this, not spitefully, but not kindly, either.
Shino was the first to move. He walked forward and placed his hand gently on her slender shoulder. "I forgive you. I am tired of being infuriated with you. Why should we let a few awful choices get in the way of our friendship with you?" He turned to Kiba. "And you?"
"Hai. I don't see any reason to stay mad. Everyone does wrong." The three smiled at one another, two men embracing the girl with gentle arms and wiping away her tears.
End Flashback
Hinata hoped her daughter wouldn't hold a grudge against her for as long as her two friends did. Her body swayed at the thought that maybe Hikari wouldn't forgive her quicker than her friends did. Had Sasuke not been holding her up, she would have fallen to the ground.
Hinata refused to let anyone else in the village know who Hikari's father was unless Hikari told them herself. That was her solemn oath.
"It is no lie. Your father was Itachi." Sasuke said. "Hinata loved him even before he 'betrayed' my clan. Do you really believe that your mother would lie to you and say that your father was a criminal? If she were lying, wouldn't she rather say that he was a hero?"
Hikari froze, eyes wide in panic. She saw the truth in her step-father's words. "You really are telling me the truth aren't you? How many other people know?"
"Just Sasuke-kun, Naruto-san, Kiba-kun, and Shino-kun. Now you and Kazuya-kun also." Hinata answered, her voice muffled slightly by Sasuke's shirt.
"No one else?" The twenty-one year old sighed in slight relief.
"Iie. Are you planning to tell anyone else?" Sasuke asked.
"Absolutely not. There is no way I would go around telling people my father was an insane mass murderer."
"Ano, Hikari-chan, do you still want to go see the movie, or would you rather stay home?" Kazuya asked gently. He did not like seeing the family he had known so long torn apart by the identity of a dead man. Neither did he like Hinata's tears, Hikari's burning anger, or Sasuke's mournful stare toward his girlfriend.
"I don't want to go anymore, Kazuya-kun, but you can still go if you want. I would understand if you never want to see me again." Said girlfriend answered with the most melancholy voice he had heard in his life, save for Hinata's.
"I told Hinata-san that I would love you for you, not judge you by who your parents are. Come on, lets go upstairs and watch a movie here." He suggested.
Hikari nodded and left the room to head upstairs with Kazuya after turning and glaring at her mother, sending the thirty-nine year old woman into further distress.
Sasuke watched them leave and, when he was sure they had gone, he enveloped Hinata further into his arms and began stroking her hair. "She took it better than I expected she would." They stood in such a position for a long while, before finally retiring upstairs headed to their room to rest before their children arrived home from the academy.
Sasuke chuckled slightly, attempting to lighten the mood with a statement he had been reminded of after seeing a picture of himself and her at a formal party with their respective families. The photograph hung in the hall, just beside the door to Hinata and Sasuke's bedroom. Itachi, Hinata, and Sasuke were in the middle of it, with Itachi frowning at Sasuke as he pulled Hinata's hair and her cringing toward the elder brother. "No one would ever have guessed that you hated me when we were little, judging by our actions now. Or that I was so cruel."
"I was good at hiding my feelings even when I was younger. I was trying to suppress my anger and the negative emotions, but I was unsuccessful. The only thing I could think of doing was hiding them." Hinata explained. She smiled sheepishly, though saddness still pervaded her opalesque irises. "And yes. You were very mean to me. I don't really blame you though. You just weren't used to girls as shy as me." Both people chuckled slightly, but the woman's laughter was still tinged with sorrow.
"Don't worry, Hinata-chan, Hikari will calm down soon." He said, knowing her first daughter was worrying her. "She can't be mad at you for long. I don't think that's possible."
"Talk to Kiba-kun and Shino-kun, then say that." Hinata said mournfully.
Sasuke was about to reply when Miyu's wails stopped him. Hinata broke his embrace and walked silently from the room. He followed.
He watched as she leaned over the crib and picked the wailing baby up and cradled Miyu in her arms. "Sh. It's okay, Miyu, Kaa-san is here." She murmured softly, a lone tear dripping down her face.
Miyu's cries stopped as the child reached up to her mother's face, touching the tear and examining it as it rolled down her finger. She smiled up at her mother, as if she knew the woman needed to be cheered up. She was one year old, and as she smiled, it made her mother happy also. "Kaa-san." Miyu said.
Hinata's eyes widened. She looked at her daughter, then turned, still clutching the girl, to find Sasuke.
She did not have to search far, for he was standing just outside the doorway. He heard Miyu speak her first word and gently held his wife as both looked lovingly down at their daughter.
"Sasuke-koi, do you really think Hikari will forgive me? Honestly?" She asked, looking down at Miyu with loving, sorrow filled eyes.
"I do. Just let her calm down a bit, then I will go talk to her. Remember when you told her that you had been Snake-sama? She wasn't angry at you, she hugged you. If she can forgive you for that, then she can forgive this once she calms down. Don't worry, Hina-hime, I'll go talk to her when her temper dies down a bit."
His wife looked up at him with such clashing emotions filling her eyes, he wondered how he'd ever thought them dull and lifeless.
An hour later, he walked to his step-daughter's room to find that both she and Kazuya were sitting on the small couch in front of the television. Hikari's head was resting on Kazuya's shoulder and her face had an expression of utter peace with the world.
When she heard the sound of the door opening, she looked back to find Sasuke standing in the doorway to her room. Turning her back to him, she stubbornly stated, "I don't want to hear you justify what Kaa-san did. I don't want to hear you defend my mother when she is the one in the wrong."
"I don't have to justify what she did. I don't even have to like it. But I do love your mother, and that won't change for any reason. Hikari-chan, what you you say if Kazuya-kun killed his family and abandoned Konoha, all on the Hokage's orders? Would you still love him?" Sasuke asked gently, aware that the wrong words could make Hinata's situation with Hikari worsen greatly.
Hikari looked at him with wide eyes. "Of course I would! It wouldn't be like he had a choice. Disobeying the Hokage's orders can mean death or torture." Suddenly realizing what she was speaking of and the point Sasuke was trying to make, she clapped her hands over her mouth. "Kazuya-kun, I will be back in minute. I have to apologize to Kaa-san and Tou-san."
Her boyfriend nodded his head, looking as though this was the exact thing he wanted, because it was. He did not want this family to be torn apart by something that had never even mattered before that day.
As she approached the door, she bowed deeply before Sasuke. "I beg your forgiveness for how coolly I acted toward you when you were trying to defend Kaa-san. I lost my temper and I am profoundly sorry."
Sasuke nodded his head in return, but his gaze never left her face. "I am not the one to whom you need to apologize. Your mother, on the other hand, took almost as long as you to calm down." He jerked his head toward the hallway, in the direction her their room.
Hikari took that as a dismissal, and forgiveness, and walked hurridly toward the room indicated by Sasuke. She knocked on the door, entering upon her mother's soft, pained words of clearance.
Looking in, she saw her the woman, laying face up on the bed, staring at the ceiling. There were tear tracks marring the porcelain skin of her cheeks, and a small wet spot on the pillow. Hikari suspected there was a larger one, hidden under her reaven coloured hair that had been fanned out over said pillow. "Kaa-san? I-I didn't mean to yell at you. I am so sorry, I just lost my temper.
"All the rumours about Itachi and the stories I was told were gruesome. I couldn't see how you could love someone like that. But Tou-san made me see clearly. He asked what I would do if I was in your position, and Kazuya-kun in Itachi's." Hikari bowed her head in shame, wondering just how badly she hurt her mother.
"Iie, I should have told you sooner, before the tales of him could truly sink into your mind and pollute your image of him, just as everyone else's had been." Standing, she wiped the sleeve of her kimono across her face, ridding her face of the tear tracks, and embraced Hikari. "You were forgiven before you apologized, Hanii."
So with all the problems solved in the Uchiha household, the family and Kazuya prepared for the noisy arrival of the other children coming home from the academy.
(A/N: I forgot to put this up top, but I don't own Naruto. Please, please, please review! Tell me whether you liked it, hated it, or even if it was as good as Snake's Legacy? Please?
1: Hikari refers to Sasuke as her father, because she never knew Itachi and Sasuke had been more of a father figure to her than anyone else.)
