Disclaimer:
I do not own Naruto. It is by Kishimoto Masashi.
A/N:
Set several years, maybe a decade or so, after the 4th Shinobi War.
~0~0~0~
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
- J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King)
~0~0~0~
Fool's Gold
His shadow never faded in her eyes. She contentiously kept it from fading because in the end it's the only thing she has left of him, a piece of him that is her's and her's alone to keep. His death never felt real to her but his absence kept screaming everyday, everywhere, everytime. His old room was left untouched. The Hyuuga Elders were never okey with him living in the Main House and by the news of his death, they were eager to erase any traces of a Branch member in the Main House.
It was not the first time she stood up against someone but it the first time she stood up against them. It was not the first time she spoke but it was the first time she spoke before her father did, the first time she gave out an order. And while it wasn't the first time she had looked them in the eye, it was the first time she made them submit with just her eyes.
For him – for the man whose shadow will always be before her, protecting her, sheltering her, loving her, caring for her and dying for her. His life had not been for his team or his clan or his village. His life had always been for her. Her strength has always been from him. Her long-time crush pushed her to try harder. He gave her the strength to be able to do so.
Her lavender eyes mirrored the sinister midnight as she slipped with the uncertain shadows of the moonless night. The border of the village in the West was silent. Her byakugan crept on, scanning the area for any stray eyes.
"That was hasty of you."
Her byakugan shut off, "Hasty is a weak word for insult." She offered a small smile to no one as she strode with light steps to where he was standing, hidden behind hulking trees, chakra carefully cloaked.
A ready smirk crept in his face at her reply. "Konoha will be in chaos should they learn that the Hokage's wife is meeting with a criminal."
"Konoha haven't forgotten that one of the Hokage's best friends is a S-class missing nin." She kept the small smile in her face as she faced him.
"Konoha never had a good memory."
She smiled.
"What do I get from this Hyuuga?"
"You aren't here because I summoned you either Uchiha."
He should be surprised with her tone. Should be, but isn't.
"The Uchiha Massacre wasn't the decision of Konoha Elders and the Hokage alone," she said when he said nothing. It was a dark night. The stars were veiled by thick black clouds. "Ten of the most prominent clans in the village had lent their voices. The Nara and the Senju sided with the Hokage. They were among the people of Konoha that cannot be talked to conceding. The rest were negotiated to side with the village's Elders."
He was looking up at the dark sky. The piece of light that would have mirrored her eyes was absent. He sneered at the thought then turned back at her. "By your clan."
She nodded. "You know there are voices in a clan that often eclipses the voice of the head."
He stared straight into soft, beautiful lavender eyes. She was staring right back. He figured she would. She will not come see him face to face like this to say that if she cannot look at him squarely. There were reasons why his brother sacrificed much to spare the village of a war. He knew now because he had lived through a war too. Her eyes had always been of genuine gentleness.
"I can see you aren't surprised Uchiha-san." There was spite in her voice that wasn't directed to him. "Perfectly comprehensible. They are willing to sacrifice their own blood to protect their jutsu. Yes." Her hair kept dancing with the calm midnight breeze, in the tune of a beautiful dangerous song.
One side of his lips quirked up in amusement at her remark, "They?"
She laughed.
Despite himself, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on the end at the sound of her laughter. Unfortunately for her, he's been with worst. "Who are you expecting to dance to your tune Hyuuga?"
She stood before him in a perfect picture of a refined lady. Her eyes looked more like her father's nephew than her's. "You don't dance to any tune Uchiha."
He was satisfied by her malice. The night floated through them just as the years did. The darkness embraced them in silence. It was him who spoke first, "Your dim-witted Hokage will not agree to it."
"I respect the Hokage but the matters of the Hyuuga are mine to decide on, not his."
"And yet you tell me."
Soft eyes against hard ones in another bout of silence. Several beats of minutes later, he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and turned away from her.
"He is planning to turn your clan's old compound to a memorial."
He snorted and left.
~0~0~0~
"How long do you intend to live if I can sneak in the Hokage's house without any effort?"
"I wanted to save myself from the effort of driving off ANBUs at the sense of your chakra." The blonde kept writing on his unfinished documents while he spoke, "I had sensors that won't sound off at your chakra."
"We aren't underestimating you but if you are expecting to kill off the Hokage in a blink of your eye..." The pink-haired medic spared him a look then retreated to the kitchen to get another cup. She had only prepared tea for two.
The intruder glared at the shadow of the medic, "When did I ever drink anything you prepared?"
The Hokage chuckled.
The intruder turned to him then, "Of course your wife is not here."
"She is in the Hyuuga compound for two days."
The intruder eyed the door where medic had disappeared to. Again.
"I have a few guesses of why you are here." The Hokage finally looked up from his papers, following the line of sight of his former team mate.
"She isn't one of them." The intruder countered. His gaze shifted to the Hokage. "Are you expecting to guess correctly dobe?"
The Hokage gave him a long, hard look.
The expression in the Hokage's shifted and the missing nin leered in reply. "For a very deadly technique, why is it called gentle fist jutsu?"
The Hokage tensed. The medic had appeared from the kitchen too. She set the cup of tea in the table then pulled one of the heavy oak chairs and sat. Her eyes were on the missing nin too, no longer openly admiring but admiring still. She never stopped. Never will.
The missing nin did not move. "A fitting head of her clan, she is the personification of the byakugan."
The Hokage's stood up and faced him, "That's unnecessary."
"And so is your plan of turning my clan's old compound to a memorial."
"I'm not doing it for you."
The side of missing nin's lips quirked up briefly.
"I'm doing it for your brother. To have his name engraved in a memorial in his village."
The medic watched the shadows of the oil lamp in the corner dance in the missing nin's beautiful face. The years and his scars made him more beautiful. "He does not intend to include your name in it. Even when you die."
The missing nin chuckled dryly.
"I do not intend to move his body from his resting place either."
"You will not be able to even if you wanted."
"Madara Uchiha's body was edo tense'ied, teme." The Hokage sounded exasperated and annoyed. He still didn't like that superior tone.
"It wasn't me who sealed his coffin."
"He is an Uzumaki." The medic piped in, sipping her tea quietly as she watched the exchange.
"An Uzumaki." The missing nin scoffed then closed his eyes. When he opened them, his eyes were bleeding sharingan, six intertwined black rings against red, "An Uzumaki or not, he does not have my eyes."
The medic and the Hokage exchanged glances then both turned to the missing nin again, their faces hard.
"I understand your fear." The missing nin said in reply. His eyes were black again.
The Hokage snorted.
The missing nin ran his fingers in his hair, "She intends to clean up her clan. This village cannot afford to have another of their doujutsu clans wiped out, right?"
Clear blue eyes stared at his black ones.
The missing nin shifted. "Do you trust her?"
The statement pierced the Hokage straight.
The room was silent for several long minutes. The medic spoke when the untouched teas had cooled, glancing briefly to the Hokage, "She had been intending to it for a while now."
"And you know too?"
The missing nin was watching the medic in the corner of his eyes. The medic was aware but remained focused on the Hokage, "She is not without reason."
"And reasons she have," said the missing nin. "The Hyuuga Elders had a huge part in the Uchiha Massacre. They had set several other clans against supporting the Hokage."
The Hokage's face darkened. The medic's too.
"Surprised?" His tone remained dark and heavy. It never changed. But the weight of his words did. "The sharingan is a rival of the byakugan. They are both doujutsu anyway, just as the Uchiha is as prestigious as the Hyuuga."
The medic stood up. Her eyes were on the Hokage, "While the Senju is a prestigious clan, you were never able to feel the weight of it properly. Nor was I from any prominent clan."
"So she thought an Uchiha will understand her better?"
"As he said, the Hyuuga is as prestigious as the Uchiha." The medic's face was grim, "They share the same curse."
The Hokage massaged his temples with his fingers. The medic and the missing nin exchanged glances in the corner of their eyes, both pretending not to be looking.
"It is still unnecessary." The Hokage asserted, collapsing back to his seat.
"If she intends to make drastic changes in the clan rules, something extreme had to happen too. Remember how Konoha cleaned up the Uchiha?" the missing nin asked.
The Hokage sighed. "But how can she do it?"
"By the ghost they had helped create."
The medic turned to the missing nin properly. "You intend to help her?"
"Help?" The missing nin chuckled ironically.
The Hokage glanced at him. "He does not even know what that word means."
He chuckled again. His clan's symbol is a fan, a tribute to their great fire jutsu and so the fire that fuelled his heart since he was eleven still burned. He glanced at his former team mates another time then he was off.
~0~0~0~
When the 5th Kazekage told him the name 'kage' has its burdens, he wondered. It sounded like the former jinjuuriki of the one-tail knew the word more than he did. That didn't sound right because 'kage' is probably the first word he learned to say as a toddler. The Hokage exhaled loudly as he set the Hokage's hat on his head. The red and orange cloak he wore announced his title like his father's. He closed his eyes at the torrent of thoughts and emotions pouring on his head.
The door of his office opened. "You were eleven years younger three minutes ago."
It was never a surprise that a Nara is the Hokage's advisor. It has always been that way. In his case, he would have not appointed any other person, Nara or not. He was the one who told him to grow up so they could be as bad-asses as their mentors. The Hokage gave him a weak smile, "It's tiring to keep growing up."
The advisor chuckled and placed his hands on his pants' pockets. He still wore the standard jounin uniform.
"Why did you ever tell me to grow up?"
"Because you wanted to wear that hat." He motioned for them to leave the room.
"Troublesome suits you." The Hokage followed his advisor out of his office. "How about getting married? Are you really planning to just be her boyfriend your entire live?"
"That sounds rather long." The advisor's strides were more lenient that he was soon walking behind the Hokage.
"It astounds me that the Kazekage haven't demanded me your head."
"She doesn't want to have a last name."
"And you?"
The advisor shrugged.
"Will your kid be in Konoha or Suna?"
"Black haired ones will be for Konoha. Blond or red or brown ones will be for Suna."
"You intend to have kids?"
The advisor rolled his eyes behind the Hokage as they descended the stairs on the side of the building.
"Well genes for a brain like yours will be a waste if you don't pass them on."
"A profound thought. I seem to have missed the point. I thought me having kids mean spreading inactivity in the world of shinobi."
The Hokage chuckled loudly. Right. When they were kids, they flunked tests together.
"So is it kids that was weighing you down?"
"The mother."
The advisor's steps quickened by a second. But they traversed the alley full of people in silence. They reached the rows of tombstones in a few minutes. There were several graves to visit now.
"The village is one thing. How is it to be a head of a clan?" The Hokage asked. His eyes were directed to the sea of names of dead shinobi.
"Her clan is complicated."
The Hokage thought of that.
"That was why wiping out the Uchiha was the easiest way to go back then."
The statement knocked out the Hokage's thoughts.
"I disagree with it but it was easy. Easier than any other alternative." The advisor kept his voice casual. "She's taking the long and more difficult way out. Which would you rather?"
"You agree?" The words came out slowly.
"Is that an official question?" The advisor crouched down to wipe the dirt from his teacher's grave marker. "Will you tell your neighbour which part of your roof leaks during rains?"
The Hokage exploited the small silence to think. Really now, when did anyone thought he would ever learn how to. He glanced away to look somewhere else, way beyond the many names of his village's shinobi, to where the people who gave him life in death and beyond were buried. Safely now. Curse that jutsu. It had disturbed his father's rest more than enough. He must have stared away too long. His advisor was already watching him amusedly when he looked back at the graveyard.
"You're not the only one who grew up Hokage-sama." The advisor said.
He chuckled, "We all wanted to die old."
The advisor started walking again, towards another grave marker, "Irony is life's way of being funny."
"Life is too small of a word for all its troubles."
"That's what you call it ironic." The advisor stopped on one of the new graves and stared at the name engraved on the slab of stone, "Who would have thought he'd die first in his generation?"
The Hokage read the name on the stone. The kid wanted to be a Hokage too.
"There's no foolproof anything, anywhere for anything." The advisor glanced at him briefly.
"You amuse me more than your brain."
The advisor paused properly in his speech and laughed.
~0~0~0~
It didn't shock the village because a clan like the Hyuuga keeps things under wraps better than Konoha. But the clan was shocked.
It was years later. But judgement does come. No one said it is judgement and they all know it is more than that.
Shadows are called shadows because they emanate from something present. It follows its source forever until the source is gone then the shadow dissolves in the air as well. She once swore she will never perform those hand seals because she will never. In the end, he still died for her. What difference did her promise make? Now, at present, her fingers started making those seals.
The Hyuugas watched.
There weren't any sounds as her fingers moved. Ten seals. It was long but the screams of agony of the five Hyuuga whose voices could be louder than the clan head herself were longer. To her, the screams were silent, just as how he died, silent amidst the chaos of war.
It only lasted seconds then it was over but years were consumed to bring about the moment - years of careful plotting and manoeuvres, long and hard years, years since she first wandered in a moonless night to meet a ghost.
When the screams died out with them, she faced her clan members properly. None of them were smiling. Nobody smiled in the Hyuuga complex. But behind closed lips and unblinking eyes she recognized fear, and desires. Hope, and an unflinching loyalty she saw in her cousin's eyes when his breaths flickered with the light in his eyes.
Her father was watching her. He stood among the crowd of Hyuuga. He looked exactly like his father. And the Hyuugas, they almost all look the same. All of them. All of Hyuuga. But he wasn't there.
He wasn't there and there will be no more him again. The Hyuuga had resisted change longer than their hairs. They will never cut their hairs anymore than they will accept changes. So she will accept the changes for them, and they will accept the changes for her. That's how the Hyuuga worked.
She wasn't standing mightily above these proud people, above her people. She wasn't looking down at them. She was standing before them. Her hands never trembled now because he was no longer there to hold them until she was settled. She looked at every pair of ivory and lavender eyes, returning every unflinching gaze directed at her.
~0~0~0~
The missing nin walked along the dead silent alleys of his old home. The dobe hadn't touched a thing. He added a huge memorial slab of stone on the front of the clan's compound. The missing nin did not look for his brother's name there. He was heading to the Western border of the village.
Tonight was different from the first time they met. The moon was full and bright. The harvest moon had always been mystically beautiful to guide those who will reap what they had sown.
The Hokage had been silent for five minutes since the missing nin approached, the kind of silence that amused the pink-haired medic who was standing next to the Hokage's wife. The Hokage was holding his wife's hand and she smiled at him in that the same timid smile she never grew up on. The Hokage smiled back. He, the Hokage and she, the head of her clan. His advisor was right. Irony is life's way of being funny. Being ironic is too complicated. That's why it messes things and people up. Like how it messed them all up.
"Just as you said," the Hokage said when he finally spoke.
"I never said anything." The missing nin walked past them and arranged his cloak properly.
In the end, the Hokage didn't have much to do about it. He didn't do anything at all. It was a Hyuuga matter. Not Konoha's. But the Hyuuga is Konoha's. Again, life is problematic in its use of words.
According to legend, the rinnegan and the sharingan came from the sons of the first shinobi. It was also said that the sharingan evolved from byakugan. Perhaps that's why he and his former team mate got tangled up by life, the same reason that he was holding this woman's hand in his. It would be logical then that his former team mate would be why she was able to get what she wanted from the people, who like her, also wields the byakugan.
The old compound of the once great doujutsu clan had been turned to a memorial. Yet no one is allowed among its grounds, only the people whose eyes would bleed red. The story of Konoha's great hero and one of his clan's most prodigious sons can never be told nor displayed because the secrets of his life was the cloak that sheltered the darkest alleys and nooks of his beloved village. But his name was engraved on a special place, on his clan's land and on the mountain for Konoha's greatest people. His clan's name was the shadow that created the village, the shadow conceived by the village.
The village had barely changed in appearance but too many things changes every day, much more in years. Appearances merely take so long to register the changes. Just as how she still looked as beautiful and elegant and fragile as she always did. Her eyes were of the same faint lavender hue. Her voice remained as soft and gentle as she first confessed her love for him. But his eyes registered the changes. He recognize the strong undercurrent of passion that will stir her clan to her direction. He was not smart enough to see where she could take them but he was sharp enough to perceive the light somewhere there. A beautiful light as beautiful as her people's eyes. And just as deadly.
The missing nin pulled the hood of his cloak over his head.
The four of them stood in silence. His eyes bled red. Her eyes turned white.
Then he left.
~0~0~0~
She grew up walking behind his shadow. He had always been above her, stronger, smarter, and braver. Even in his death, she was behind him. His shadow started to waver in her eyes but her breaths fanned it again.
He was buried next to his father. Only when he was buried there did she realize how often his father visited his nephew's father, who died in his place, just how the nephew died in place of the daughter.
Her existence was what brought about his shadow. Shadows are called shadows because they emanate from something present. A shadow follows its source forever until the source is gone then the shadow dissolves in the air as well. But his shadow does not follow her. She follows his shadow.
Her breaths were his shadow. His shadow was and is her breaths.
Only when she dies will his shadow vanish too.
~0~0~0~
For Neji Hyuuga