Being summoned is annoying.

A few weeks later.

Hiashi Hyuuga was currently a quite annoyed man, he was a busy man with a large and quite active clan to handle the affairs of, so having a meeting with the Hokage come up out of nowhere was more than a little disturbing when he didn´t have even the slightest clue what the reason could be.

The guards at the door instantly recognised him of course, a rather tall and strongly built man with long black hair and the Hyuuga clan trademark almost all white eyes with just a hint of lavender where other people had mostly blue, green or brown, and they quietly opened the door and showed him in with respectful bows.

The Hokage welcomed him properly and offered tea, then doing a bit of small talk a few minutes, being ever so gracious, and while somewhat flattering to Hiashi, also getting on his already somewhat pressured nerves as he had several other meetings today, one of which had already had to be delayed.

In the end the Hokage relented and started getting towards the point of the meeting

"I am told that the current Hyuuga heiress is still having trouble living up to the clan standards?" the words shocked Hiashi, bringing such a clan disgrace up like that! Not that it wasnt true, but it was NOT a subject he liked talked about outside the clan.

"She has been improving at least a little over the last year so there may still be hope." he replied a bit too tersely, while trying to think of a way to avoid dragging his clan honour down too much.

"Ah yes indeed she has, that is in fact exactly what I wished to discuss with you."

what? ? That was most certainly not what Hiashi had expected, at best a lighter admonishment to get on and deal with the problem and at worst an attempt by the Hokage to directly interfere with the clan succession, although the clan had already just about decided that the younger daughter Hanabi probably would take over as heir eventually, retaining better safety until then by not being actually named as such until she was old enough to fully defend herself if need be, although not even 7 years old she was already showing herself as a prodigy and essentially untouchable against most non-shinobi opposition and even capable of handling lowend shinobi plenty well enough, still it was a decision he really would not enjoy having made by someone else ahead of the clan.

Stalling his reply became a very noncomittal "I see..."

"Are you aware of the reason for her improvement?" the Hokage asked innocently.

"It seems getting a wider range of instruction has benefitted her more than the traditional specialisation..." was Hiashi´s muted reply, trying to make it as bright a picture as he could.

"Quite so, it seems the young lady training her is a perfect match to have lady Hinata improve rather well; there is however a problem, no actually there are several problems with this situation."

By now Hiashi was no longer sure of anything and simply asked "What might that be?" with a not quite sigh.

"Well, the most obvious one is that we have a chuunin who is using her own time and money to train the heiress of one of Konoha´s largest and richest clans."

That certainly got Hiashi´s undivided attention and very abruptly made him realise how badly that could seem for his clan´s reputation when the Hokage went on

"there´s also the issue that as it is, lady Hinata´s training with Kurenai is unstructured and spotty due to her obligations and need to perform missions as usual, which means that there could likely be more progress if there were not so many obstacles, and while I much doubt that the lady will ever become as skilled in the Jyuuken as her younger sister or even her cousin, my conversation with her tutor tells me that it seems she still has excellent potential for the arts in general and Kurenai believes her to have big, even great potential as a future shinobi of Konoha. But not with the Jyuuken unfortunately."

"I... see... Well obviously I must make sure to pay the woman properly for her dedication and interest in my daughter, despite her missions, that was a bad oversight."

"I think we can do a little better than that my friend." the Hokage interrupted with a friendly smile

"If miss Kurenai were to take lady Hinata on as her apprentice, and the proper salary given was from the start of that I believe we could avoid any potential issues with clan reputation, especially since she will be taking on another apprentice at the same time at my own request."

That got a double blink of surprise from Hiashi

"Apprenticeship? to a chunin?"

"Well she has shown herself to be quite a good teacher already hasn´t she." the Hokage replied, implying that she was better than the multitude of private, very expensive family tutors the Hyuuga clan had.

"That is in fact the very reason I wished to have her try it out, I expect her to be jonin well before lady Hinata graduates from the academy and I expect her promotion to specialist to be quite soon, actually I have already assigned her to the advanced training class that Hatake Kakashi will soon hold, as part of a preparation for her and a several others promotions."

"Training class?" the Hokage was expecting effective training from Kakashi? Miracles were apparently happening everywhere at the moment.

"Indeed, it is my belief that we must make sure experience is passed on and while Kakashi is still young, he does have much experience and his Sharingan has allowed him to learn many techniques, which means he will be able to teach everyone at least something."

Finally starting to get ahold of himself properly, Hiashi carefully went onwards
"What about other education, needed as heir of the clan?"

"Oh I´m quite sure that you can figure out a suitable solution, just remember that for an apprenticeship to work, Kurenai´s authority will be the final word, if there´s ever any kind of issue with that, bring it directly to me instead of confronting her, she would rather kill you than not fulfill her duty as teacher properly. She can be a very serious woman."

That got another double blink from Hiashi while the Hokage continued on in a content and decisive tone

"So, I guess it´s settled then, I will inform Kurenai that she can take charge of her new apprentice, shall we say the last day of this week, if that is enough time for you to take care of everything on your end?"

Rather overwhelmed Hiashi tried to think quickly but soon simply nodded and sealed the deal.

"Excellent, lets wish for lady Hinata to reach all of her potential and add even further to the honour of the great Hyuuga clan!"

Not long afterwards a slightly dazed Hiashi Hyuuga left while trying to figure out why he felt like he had been tricked, despite not being able to see anything from either the conversation or the deal that would be negative to his clan.

Having a more capable Hinata was far better than not even if she didnt become as proficient as usual in the Hyuuga clan´s traditional and powerful Jyuuken style, and while an apprenticeship was uncommon it was also prestigious enough even for a potential heiress of a great clan(that he had already once sent her off to the very much not prestigious academy(at least in the eyes of the clan), didn´t even appear in his mind), and the way the Hokage had apparently set matters up already before he had been sent for did make sure that there should be no downside despite his failure to notice doing something as disgraceful as using a commoner as a teacher and then not even paying for the tutelage.

In fact, no matter how he looked at it he could find no real disadvantages.

The Hokage didn´t hold his position for nothing indeed.