As always Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. Please review. I thank my friend LexKixAss for letting me abscond her twins for my story.


Neji ran through the halls of the main house as fast as his little feet could take him. He wouldn't admit to being panicked, but if his hands were fisted tight enough for his nails to make indents in his skin, well that only made sense. He couldn't find Hinata, again. It was his job to watch over her and that wasn't easy in the months since her mother's death. Hinata, he found out, could hide really well. He even cheated once and used byakugan (a big no-no in the compound).

He skidded around the corner of Hiashi's old office and looked in every corner and cabinet. It was no longer the empty shell of a room it had been after Hiashi died. Mementos were scattered about in a strange order of childish intent. A picture of Hinata and her parents set center stage on the desk no longer used for working but as a shrine to those Hinata had lost. Her mother's books on plants, medicines, and healing jutsu filled the shelves while her father's incense holder remained ready to be lit on the display to the right.

Neji stopped in front of the dark cedar bookshelf and stared at a slight topple of books he knew wasn't correct. He pulled out the slanted book and looked at the bright green and red flower on the cover. A sad smile crossed his young face as he returned the book to the shelf. He knew where to find her now.

He ran past the everyday business of the servants, out the house, and away to the far edge of the compound where a little plot of half-tended earth struggled to sprout. Next to it sat a tiny child with mud caked on her hands, turning the pages of a book she couldn't read.

"Hinata-chan," he called out softly so as not to startle her, "what're you doing out here?"

"I can't make them look right." She turned the page and tears welled up in the corner of her pale eyes. "The pictures . . . Mama's always looked like the pictures."

Neji squatted down next to her. The book had smears of mud and weeds on the edge from where she held it, but when Hinata cradled it against her little body Neji knew she treasured it. It was her mother in bound paper.

"Maybe when Atsuko-sama was little she couldn't make it like the pictures either," he offered, reaching out to hold her hand. "If you ask my mom, I bet she'd get someone to teach you how to make it look like the pictures again. They can teach us both."

She shook her head and the tears finally fell, clearing a streak down her dusty face. "I can't do it."

"Of course you can," Neji encouraged with a smile. "I'll help you."

Hinata tucked her face into the book to hide from him. "I can't learn anything right."

"Yeah you can," he insisted.

She cried in full sobs now. "Grandpa yelled at me again. They show me but I can't get it."

"You mean when you sparred?"

She nodded behind the book. "I don't do it right. I try . . . I really try."

Neji simply held her hand for a moment, not certain how best to comfort her. Should he try and comfort the girl who'd lost her parents or the one who couldn't succeed in what she tried? Could he really do anything for either? What was a big brother supposed to do? Neji thought back to what Osamu had told him and let out a determined sigh.

"Okay, let's try again." He pulled his confused sister-cousin from the ground and carefully detached the book from her hands. Since he couldn't help her with the garden, which would ease the loss of her parents, he'd do what he could for her other problem. "Show me and I'll help you. Then next time Grandpa won't yell at you."

"But . . ."

"Come on," he interrupted before any more melancholy could slip in, "you can do it. I'll help you."

Hinata looked around befuddled by the strange change in his demeanor. She let him lead her back to the main house, her face a mix of confusion and nervous shock. Neji ushered her to her room with a smile and told her to change into her sparring clothes while he ran back to his own room to change. A small bit of him swelled with pride. He could cheer her up. He would cheer her up. And he'd do it all himself.

A quiet knock at his door drew Neji out, still pulling his shirt over his head as he hurried down the hall with Hinata in tow. "Don't worry," he called back at the uncertain look in her eyes, "we'll have fun."

They ran out to the training yards in the back of the main house grounds, and Neji was glad to see no one was using it at the moment. He had a feeling Hinata might not go along with him if someone was watching them (obviously at least, that close to the main house someone was going to be keeping an eye on them).

"So, what's Grandpa teaching you?" Neji asked when they both were in the center of the training field.

"I don't know how to do it," she fussed, her hands fidgeting in front of her.

"Well, show me what you're trying and I'll help you," he insisted. Like Osamu said, doing something was better than just sitting around, and Neji was determined to cheer her up.

Hinata's eyes flickered around the yard a couple times before she was assured no one was watching them and slipped into her jyuuken stance. She looked around one last time, and Neji didn't need byakugan to see the fear on her face. He knew their grandfather could be intimidating, but he'd always been praised in his training. He didn't know what it felt like to be yelled at for failing. From the tense expression on Hinata's face, it must have been a scary thing.

She took a deep breath and began the familiar kata that he'd been taught (and practically perfected if he listened to his father's criticism) long before they moved to the main house. Her form wasn't as solid as his or the older kids, but it wasn't horrible either. She was halfway through the routine when he noticed her slipping further out of proper stance. Her palm thrusts weren't bad, but when she had to move with them, or when she had to kick, her form fell apart. By the end of the routine Hinata was huffing with her head down in shame.

"That wasn't that bad," Neji encouraged, but she merely dropped her head even lower. "Really, it wasn't. Do it again, I'll help you this time."

They went through the kata over and over. Sometimes Neji mirrored her and sometimes he stopped and adjusted her form. He'd never taught someone before, so he talked to her the way his father did when he taught Neji and always praised her when she fixed something she'd been doing wrong. Hinata wasn't fully cheered up, Neji knew, but she wasn't shying away from him anymore either. Neji considered that an accomplishment.

They had to rest after each turn at the kata. Well, Hinata did and so Neji feigned tiredness so she didn't feel bad to take a break. After all their work Neji was barely out of breath, while Hinata struggled to keep going at times. His father always told him to build up his endurance and stamina in order to become a good shinobi, but Hinata didn't seem to have either. He wondered if that was what made their grandfather yell at her.

"Neji-chan!"

"Hinata-sama!"

The two friendly voices broke through the quiet afternoon like fireworks in the night: bright, cheerful, and with jarring force. Osamu and Isamu hopped off the porch from the main house and strutted over as well as a couple of seven-year-olds could. Osamu sneaked behind Neji while Isamu slipped in behind Hinata and in unison the twins ruffled the two younger children's hair until it flew off in every direction.

Neji swiped at his attacker, but Osamu was already spinning around in front of Hinata with Isamu, matching smiles on their faces. "Who are we, Hinata-sama?" they asked in unison.

Hinata looked at each of their faces with childish intensity. It was a game they played with her every time they visited, and Hinata took it seriously each time. She reached up and blocked out their eyes and then their mouths, as if hidden somewhere on their identical faces was a hint to their true names. After several minutes of deep scrutiny Hinata pointed to the twin to her right and proudly proclaimed, "Isamu-kun!"

"How could you, Hinata-sama?" The twin she pointed to grasped his heart and toppled to the ground over-dramatically. He laid in his mock death until a pout was firmly planted on Hinata's young face, then, peeking one eye open to stare at her, he stuck his tongue out. "Lucky guess."

Osamu, the twin still standing, ruffled her hair once more for good measure as a bright grin filled her face. It was the first time she'd gotten them right. Neji didn't sulk next to her, but his nose squinted up a little. He'd picked them wrong that time.

"So," Isamu drawled out as he got up and brushed himself off, "what're you two up to?"

"I'm helping Hinata-chan with her kata," Neji beamed proudly, though it quickly deflated a little at the discouraged sigh from his sister-cousin. She really had improved, even if she didn't see it.

"Why don't you show us," Osamu suggested, sensing the defeat in her sigh. He snuck a wink at Neji that returned the confidence to his smile. Hinata looked at the ground nervously, her tiny hands twisting the edge of her dusty training shirt like a safety blanket.

"Come on, Hinata-sama," Isamu encouraged, "if you do I'll shove Aniki in the mud for you to laugh at."

"Hey!" Osamu balked.

Isamu simply shook his head. "Aniki, it's for Hinata-sama."

"Oh yeah, pull the 'it's for Hinata-sama' card on me."

Both twins flashed Hinata an exuberant grin so she knew they were joking and then put on the biggest, saddest, most pleading puppy-dog eyes any Hyuuga could manage. Flustered, she looked at Neji and fidgeted back and forth for a minute before finally muttering a barely audible "Okay," to the ground.

Victorious, the older boys settled back as Hinata and Neji fell into the same stance they'd been working on for the last hour. Neji could tell right away she was getting tired. Her first couple palm thrusts were good, but it deteriorated quickly, and she didn't even make it through the whole routine before she had to stop and catch her breath. A frown would have marred her face if only she could have stopped wheezing long enough to make it.

"Neji-chan," Osamu called after exchanging a 'look' with his brother, "have you been doing the kata practice with her?"

"Mostly."

Another 'look' flickered between the twins' gazes, and Neji could see something serious in it he couldn't identify, but it was adult-like serious. The look passed as quickly as it came and Osamu was back to his infectiously happy grin.

"Hinata-sama," he asked, "want to play a game?"

"Game?" she repeated.

Osamu nodded and reached out to take her hands in his. "Yeah, let's see who can hold their breath longer. Everyone take a deep breath."

Osamu and Isamu inhaled with over-exaggerated effort to encourage the others to follow their lead and all four children stood silently holding their breath. Neji looked between them confused, but he wasn't as good at reading meanings as the twins (yet) and just had to trust them. Within seconds Hinata was squirming uncomfortably, her lips curling under to try and hold the air in longer. It was useless though. The air gushed out of her first, and she huffed heavily as her red face paled again. Game over, the twins both relaxed (signaling Neji to also) and smiled at Hinata again before she got upset over losing so quickly.

"You thinking what I'm thinking, Otouto?" Osamu asked to which his brother nodded.

"We need to work on Hinata-sama's lungs more than her kata."

Neji smiled encouragingly at Hinata when her confused stare returned to him, but in truth he had no idea what the twins were talking about.

"You see," Osamu explained, releasing Hinata's hands to stand up and brush himself off, "it's not that you can't learn the kata, Hinata-sama."

"It's that you can't breathe through it," Isamu concluded as he followed his brother's example and got up. "It's hard to do any training if you're huffing and puffing five minutes in."

"How can we fix her breathing?" Neji asked, not at all liking that he had to ask. He should know these things as her big brother. (Plus, the twins were annoying when they acted like they knew everything.)

Neji saw the 'look' that passed from brother to brother and this time he recognized the emotion it conveyed: fear. He stepped up close to Hinata. Not that he expected them to hurt her, but he'd never seen fear in his cousins before and it was his job to watch out for Hinata.

With their silent debate concluded, Osamu and Isamu nodded once to each other and erased any lingering negativity from their excited faces. Isamu held his hand out to Hinata. "Want to come to the branch house, Hinata-sama?"

Hinata took Isamu's offered hand with innocent trust. "Branch?"

"Yeah, it'll be fun and we'll work on your breathing there."

Neji wanted to say something but Osamu quickly silenced him with an almost unnoticeable shake of his head. Hinata wasn't allowed out of the main house, he knew. They all knew. So why did they want to take her to the branch compound? As much as he knew they shouldn't, a part of Neji missed his old home. He hadn't been back since they'd moved and that felt like forever ago now. And the twins wouldn't have suggested it if it was really bad, Neji told himself. His father's nagging command to the contrary was squashed beneath longing and the knowledge that he and the twins would be with her the whole time. They'd take care of her. He'd probably mistaken the fear he saw, anyway.

Osamu squatted down in front of Hinata and smirked cheekily. "We have to be sneaky though, like good shinobi. Our mission: get to the branch house without being spotted. They'll spoil all the fun if they catch us. Are you up for it Hinata-sama? Neji-chan?"

Hinata mirrored Isamu's happy nod, but Neji looked at the two skeptically. "If I'm a real shinobi then you shouldn't call me Neji-chan anymore," he pouted. He was a big brother now anyway; they needed to stop teasing him with that name.

Osamu laughed and clapped Neji on the shoulder. "Tell you what, Neji-chan, if we get to the branch house without getting caught, we'll start calling you Neji-kun as a reward."

That silenced the last of Neji's doubts. He was tired of being called –chan.

"Now then," Osamu said, huddling them all together to plot in secrecy, "how do we get there?"

"What if we went by the garden and when they stop watching us go around the back?" Neji suggested.

The twins snickered. "You must really want that –kun," Isamu teased.

"But it's a good idea," Osamu remarked. "Okay, to the garden and around the perimeter. Everybody keep an eye out for someone watching, but casually."

"Casually?" Hinata asked.

Isamu picked her up, even though she was already big enough to look cumbersome propped against his hip. "Don't worry, Hinata-sama, you just watch me and laugh and no one will bother us. That's your job. Can you do that?" She laughed a pleasant bird-chirp in reply and they all started for the garden.

Other than Neji, the twins were the only people Hinata seemed comfortable being held by. When the servants picked her up she always pushed away. Even his parents didn't always look right holding her (not that his father did very often). But she hugged Neji without restraint and held onto him when they slept together, though his father was stopping her from coming to his room as often. And as they walked Hinata easily wrapped her little arms around Isamu's neck and rested her head against his shoulder. A part of him remembered what her mother had asked of them before she died and he grinned with pride. They were keeping their promise.

It didn't take long to get to the garden, though it took longer for the last of the servants to stop watching them. Eventually the last pair of eyes returned to the house while they messed around in the dirt. All four children snickered at each other and hurried around the back of the house.

Neither the main house nor the branch house were technically 'houses' in the sense outside the Hyuuga compound. They were actually the two sections of the Hyuuga compound, one reserved for the main family and any official business to be done with Hyuuga-sama, the other reserved for members of the branch family. As large as the Hyuuga compound was, most of it was actually the branch side.

So in order to get to the branch house, the children simply had to follow the perimeter of the compound wall, often hiding in shrubs or behind trees to keep from being notice by wandering Hyuugas. True, only Hinata and Neji needed to hide as the twins had no problems going to the branch house, but, as Osamu told them, sneaking around was half the fun. Neji had to admit, he'd missed getting into trouble with his cousins. From the smile threatening to blaze off her face, Hinata loved it too. Neji wondered if she'd ever gotten to do anything like this before at the main house. As strict as they were, he doubted it. Where was the fun of being a kid if you never did something you weren't supposed to?

Neji was surprised when the twins ignored the most covert path toward the residential area, choosing instead to continue their journey along the edge. The further away they snuck from the homes, the more Neji suspected he knew where they were headed, not that he understood why. Sure enough, after skirting a few training grounds and a couple gossiping girls, they reached a large pond along the far corner of the compound. It was small enough to not be called a lake or anything, but deep enough that at its center Neji had to dive down to reach the bottom.

"Success!" Isamu cheered, picking Hinata up and spinning her around in triumph.

Osamu turned to Neji and ruffled his hair. "Well, I guess you earned it, Neji-kun. I'm going to miss the –chan. It made you cute." Neji smoothed back his hair but a grin belied his frustration. His first mission was complete. He'd have told his father if he didn't think he'd get yelled at for it.

"So what now?" Neji asked.

"Now we go swimming," Osamu answered as both twins peeled off their shirts.

Neji was about to do the same (not really understanding why but it'd been too long since he'd gone swimming) when he saw Hinata hesitating behind them.

"Hinata-chan, what's wrong?"

"I don't . . . know . . . swim," she murmured almost too low to be heard.

"You don't know how to swim?" he repeated to make sure he didn't mishear. She nodded.

"That's okay, Hinata-sama," Osamu called, he and his brother now down to their boxers. "You can hold onto us, we'll keep you safe."

"How is this supposed to help Hinata-chan's breathing?" Neji asked. Not that he didn't want to swim, but it didn't make sense to him.

"You know Mio-chan, she gave up the academy cause she couldn't breathe well when she trained, way worse than Hinata-sama," Osamu explained. "But she loves to swim. She says it's easier to breathe in water. We figured if it helps Mio-chan, then maybe we can use the water to help strengthen Hinata-sama's breathing."

"Then I can do my kata right?" she whispered.

"It'll be easier," Isamu encouraged. "And Neji-ch– kun, Aniki, and me will help you with the parts you still have trouble with."

Neji took her hand and tugged her to the edge of the water. "Grandpa won't yell at you anymore. We'll help you get strong."

Her pale eyes gazed down at the clear surface of the pond and then back at Neji with a childish grin returned to her face. "And swim?"

"Definitely swim."


Hizashi relaxed into the subtle ministrations of his wife slowly seeping a trace of chakra into his temples to relieve his growing headache. Hizashi had a feeling it was more Naomi's presence than her chakra that was doing the job, but he wouldn't reject either. The sigh that sunk him further into his chair told his wife just how much he appreciated her attention.

"You should thank Yumi-san next time you see her," Naomi chucked, the sound a feather-light breath against his stressed mind. "She's the one who taught me how to do this."

Hizashi snatched his wife's hand and snaked it around to place a lingering kiss against her fingers. "I'd enjoy you even if you didn't know how to do it. Merely having you here is a balm."

Footsteps pounded across the hall until the shogi door rattled from the force. Hizashi scowled and had a suspicion his reverie was about to be interrupted. "That's the second time someone's run down the hall."

"I'll go check on it," Naomi offered but found her hand securely trapped.

"I'd rather you stay," he whispered, pulling her close as he stood up.

He knew she wouldn't no matter what he said, just as he knew he should find out what the commotion was about himself. They had their duties to attend to, and though it had become easier since his brother's death, there was still much for Hizashi to learn about being clan head. So the chaste kiss he placed on her lips was both longing and goodbye.

"Perhaps next time," she teased, her hand slipping unfettered from his.

A sharp knock on the wood frame of his door rudely snapped both of them from their quiet farewell. "Hyuuga-sama," a young voice huffed and the door opened before he could even respond. Panic filled the woman's pale eyes as she knelt down in apology. "Forgive me, but Hinata-sama is missing."

"Missing?" Whatever relaxation Hizashi had achieved disappeared in that one word.

"Yes," the woman answered, her head lowering further in shame. "We watched her go to Atsuko-sama's garden with Neji-sama, Osamu-kun, and Isamu-kun, but when we went back to check on them they were gone. We've searched the entire main house, with byakugan. They're nowhere in the main house. We've already sent searchers out."

Two very conflicting emotions swirled deep beneath the mask of calm that settled over him. The Raikage wouldn't be foolish enough to try taking her again less than a year after that botched mess, but if they had . . . She was with the boys, though. Even if someone had tried to take her, the twins were already in the academy; they would know how to send a distress call from a distance. The twins . . .

Hizashi stalled. Surely they wouldn't have been so stupid.

"Did anyone check the branch house?" Hizashi asked.

"The branch house?" the confused woman repeated. "No. I don't believe so."

Naomi shook her head. "The boys wouldn't do something so foolish."

"You'd better hope they did." Hizashi activated byakugan and stretched his sight as far into the branch house as he could. Normally every Hyuuga, even those privileged in the main family, followed the strict rule of no byakugan within the compound unless sparring. No one would be able to live with the remotest sense of privacy without it, but with the heir missing – especially after losing Hiashi– nothing was sacred.

His gaze passed through homes and trees and people going about their daily lives. His hands fisted the longer he searched, both praying to find his niece and not wanting to imagine Neji and the boys would be so idiotic as to take Hinata from the main house. At least if they were he'd have easy targets for the adrenaline-fed fury simmering under his controlled countenance. Finally his colorless vision passed over a small pond in the far corner of the compound, and he exhaled all the fear from his body.

"She's safe," he reported to the collective relief of the women in the room. "Call back the searchers and inform everyone that when I get back new rules will be in place about leaving Hinata alone."

"Yes, Hyuuga-sama," the woman bowed again, guilt still in her white eyes, and left the room.

"What're you going to do to the boys?" Naomi asked as Hizashi let byakugan recede.

"If they're lucky I'll only kill them," he seethed, the fury he'd controlled up to then filling in the place forfeited by his fear.

"They're children," Naomi cautioned, but Hizashi wasn't in the mood to listen to excuses.

"They knew the rules. The one thing they were absolutely not allowed to do was take Hinata from the main house." He swept out of the room so fast Naomi was practically jogging in order to keep up. "The clan can't take scares like this, Naomi. They won't be allowed in the main house anymore."

Once in the yards, they set into a run across the near-empty grounds that led to the branch side of the compound. Naomi sprinted ahead of him slightly so that he had to look at her when she spoke. "Hizashi, be reasonable. Hinata enjoys having the twins around, and she needs a little time to be a normal child with all the changes she's had to deal with."

"They should've thought of that before they put her in danger. She's not just a normal child, Naomi. She's the heir to the clan, and they knew not to take her out."

"It's not as if they took her out into the village," Naomi insisted. "She's in the compound still, and there are plenty of people in the branch house there to protect her."

"And how would they know to protect her with them sneaking her away? Naomi, this won't go unpunished."

"I'm not saying it should, but think about Hinata for a moment," she pressed.

Hizashi scowled at his wife, an act that showed more than anything how furious he was. "I am thinking about Hinata. I'm thinking about keeping her alive until she's old enough to protect herself. That's our duty."

"If you stopped thinking like her regent and started thinking like her uncle you'd see how much she needs children around her."

Hizashi stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Naomi to double back to meet him again. He leveled a hard gaze on her, one he'd never used on his wife before. "I'm not her father, and you're not her mother," he said coldly, "We're to raise her, but she's not our daughter."

Naomi met his gaze with a glare of her own. One of the reasons he loved her was the strength she had, the kind of determination that made her step before him with the same authority and power as he held. "She's not our daughter, but she's still our niece, and when you made the decision to raise her I supported you. But you need to realize that to me that means I'm going to think of her as my own and I'm going to treat her as my own. If you weren't so frightened of replacing Hiashi, you'd think that way too. How long do you think it's going to be before she realizes that you're scared to hold her? Or that you run away whenever she even begins to look at you like she looked at her father?"

Hizashi turned away from her, but said nothing. That his wife knew him so well was sometimes a curse.

"We're not her parents, but we're all she has. If one day Hinata thinks of you as much of a father to her as Hiashi was, that doesn't mean you've disgraced his memory or you're merely a convenient replacement. It means that you did everything right."

If anyone else had said that to Hizashi, he would have been insulted and only increased the anger already boiling at the edge of his control. To hear it from Naomi though was to hear a truth he didn't want to face. He understood that he was more family to Hinata than even his wife, whose relation was by marriage and not close blood, but sometimes when that little girl looked at him he knew she was searching for Hiashi in his face. If not for the black scarf he wore to cover the seal on his forehead, she'd see nothing to say he wasn't her father. Hizashi tried so hard to keep a distance from her, was he forgetting to see her as nothing more than the heir? Hadn't he agreed to be her guardian because he thought she needed more than that?

Hizashi took a deep breath and exhaled in slow, deliberate time as he released much of his fury. (Much, not all.) "They're still going to be punished severely," he conceded.

"I'll get with my cousin and make sure of it," Naomi agreed.

"And they won't be allowed at the main house for a while."

"That sounds fair."

Hizashi sighed, his anger almost completely dissipated before he even had the chance to yell at the children. That was most likely Naomi's plan from the start. "Neji will need to be punished as well. He's younger but he knew she was to stay the same as the twins. He needs to learn not to be influenced by them so much."

A foul, sinister smirk darkened his wife's normally tender face. "Oh, I have plans for our son."

Hizashi suddenly wondered if the children wouldn't have been better off with him yelling at them for a few hours instead. They might end up wishing he had merely banished them from the main house.

"All right, let's go deal with the children," he said, adding a 'calmly' for her benefit.

They hadn't been far from the pond when Hizashi had stopped, so they were in earshot of the children in a matter of moments and what he heard made him pause. If he had barreled in screaming at them, he might have missed the soft calls that now confused him. Holding a hand out, Hizashi motioned for Naomi to wait with him in the trees just out of the children's line of sight.

Hinata was close enough to shore to still be standing on her own in the water. Osamu and Isamu hovered nearby in case she moved too deep into the pond and needed to be supported. Neji was further into the pond facing Hinata, half-standing, half-treading to keep up. Water splashed between the two as each thrust forward in jyuuken strikes, Neji hindered by the lack of foothold more than Hinata.

"Two more then kick, Hinata-sama," Osamu called, and the twins moved in to support her as the underwater kick took her deeper into the pond.

"Why did they come all the way out here just to do training? And why are they in the water?" Naomi whispered, looking as confused as Hizashi felt. He had expected to find them playing, but training in the pond? That simply didn't make sense.

They watched as the twins carefully pulled Hinata deeper into the pond so that she clung to them entirely, while Neji walked out a little to sit in the shallows. One of the twins nodded three times to Hinata and then they all went under. Still on the edge, Neji counted aloud until they burst through the surface again (longer than Hizashi was comfortable with waiting).

"How long was that?" Hinata coughed.

"Forty-two seconds," Neji answered proudly.

The twins lifted her out of the water in triumph only to let her splash back into their arms. "That's twelve seconds better than before, Hinata-sama," one cheered.

Hizashi and Naomi exchanged a curious glance. What exactly were they doing? Exiting their cover in the trees, Hizashi and Naomi strode toward the four children with all the stern condemnation on their faces as befit the crime of stealing Hinata from the main house. They didn't need to know Hizashi was more curious now than angry.

"Osamu. Isamu. Neji." Hizashi said each name in a slow, thick voice that warned of more danger than heated anger could produce.

Hinata interrupted their admonishing with a trill of delight and a naïve smile that wasn't on the boys around her. "Uncle Hizashi! Aunt Naomi! I held my breath for forty-two seconds!"

"That's wonderful," Naomi cooed, moving forward to pick up Hinata as she ran in from the shallows. Her dripping training outfit soaked Naomi's front in seconds. "But you know you aren't supposed to leave the main house. We've been worried."

Unsure of what to say, Hinata twisted around to find the boys, all of whom were now standing in their boxers on shore. One of the twins stepped up to take responsibility for the rest. Hizashi assumed it was Osamu, being the oldest (and he made a mental note to learn how to tell them apart).

"We were trying to make Hinata-sama's lungs stronger. So her katas wouldn't be so hard. We thought it'd be easier in water. And it was," he added the last bit with a nervous grin, as if being correct made it all right.

"Even if Neji and Hinata don't understand, you two should know what it meant for us to discover Hinata missing after all that's happened," Hizashi demanded, his hard stare bearing down on the twins until Osamu retreated back to his brother. "Do you realize what could happen to you for kidnapping the heir to the clan?"

"We didn't kidnap her," Isamu muttered, not meeting his eyes. "We just wanted to help her and the pond's in the branch house."

"Did it occur to you to ask?" Naomi questioned coolly.

"It'd spoil the fun," Hinata chirped, not grasping the true tone of their conversation. By the snickering the twins failed to hold in, Hizashi had no doubt she was parroting what they told her.

"You two," Hizashi snapped, towering over the twins who immediately sobered up again, "you are not allowed back to the main house for two weeks and we'll be speaking with your parents about the rest of your punishment. For now, go straight home and wait there. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Hizashi-sama!" the twins yipped and exchanged a look of disbelief.

"Don't think you're getting off easy," Naomi quipped, the sinister smirk Hizashi had glimpsed before returning with devious intent. "I'll be speaking with your mother personally to decide your punishment." Hizashi almost thought he heard a tiny cackle in her voice, not that he would ever say that to his wife. There was a reason the twins were now shielding each other and actively avoiding looking at Naomi.

"Did we really do something that bad?" Isamu whispered nervously.

Osamu tempted a worried peek at Hizashi and Naomi and reluctantly nodded to his brother. "I think we did."

"I'll be dealing with you as well, Neji," Naomi added, staring down at her young son. "You knew better, too. We trusted you to watch out for Hinata. You can't just follow what Osamu and Isamu do."

"But, we were just helping," he whimpered. Naomi held her glower firm. "Yes, Mom. I'm sorry." The children might fear Hizashi as the head of the clan now, but sometimes shinobi mothers were the most frightening people alive.

Hizashi's pale eyes fell on the little girl still held secure in his wife's arms. She appeared so much frailer than normal with her limp hair dripping against her face and her clothes sticking tight to reveal her thin body. He quelled a deep-seeded need to turn away and allow Naomi take care of Hinata. Thanks to Naomi's intervention he could no longer relinquish his responsibility for Hinata to his wife, not without admitting that a three-year-old girl inspired trepidation in him.

Fortifying himself with a deep breath and forcing a placid expression onto his face, Hizashi plucked Hinata from Naomi's arms. "I'll leave the boys to you, Naomi."

"Of course," she replied, her mother's scowl turning into a knowing grin.

Hizashi avoided his wife's smile and started back to the main house in silence. Hinata weaved her arms around his neck to keep upright, but he could feel a tenseness in her body he hadn't seen when Naomi held her or when she was with the boys. He wondered if perhaps Naomi hadn't been wrong. Could Hinata sense his own discomfort holding her?

She fidgeted in his arms and drew him from his thoughts. "Can Neji-niisan and I train with Isamu-kun and Osamu-kun again tomorrow?"

"No, the twins don't get to come over for a while. It was wrong of them to take you from the main house. You need to remember that, Hinata. You're not to leave the main house."

"But they promised to help so Grandpa won't yell at me," she whispered in a quickly disappearing voice.

Hizashi stopped walking and examined the child in his arms. Her gaze was to the ground and a frown spoiled her tender features. Hizashi shifted her so that she was facing him, but her eyes never rose to meet his.

He had made the decision to be clan head, to raise Hinata. Yet in the seven months since Hiashi's death, Hizashi had spent little time with her. The work and training he was inundated with as clan head became a convenient excuse to push the daily rearing of the children on Naomi, and though she was still learning basic jyuuken, it was simple enough to take his father up on the offer to tend to her training. If not for meals, Hizashi might not have spent more than a few minutes a day with her. All excuses to avoid her, and why? He'd told himself it was because it was easier on her not to see Hiashi's face, but in truth Naomi had been correct. He didn't want her to see him as Hiashi's replacement. He didn't want to be her father and in doing so ignored the fact he was her uncle.

"Hinata," he said softly, coaxing her gaze up with a gentle touch, "would you like it if I trained you instead of Grandpa?"

Her eyes flickered back and forth, looking anywhere but at him as she considered what to say. Finally, her tiny voice squeaked, "Do you yell, too?"

"I try my best not to."

Hizashi waited for her to think it through. A part of him marveled at how timid she was in his arms compared to the playfulness he saw in her at the pond with the boys. If only she had that same confidence around adults, then her weakness might not appear so blatant to the clan.

After a long, nervous deliberation Hinata nodded. It was the first time she looked directly at him since they left the pond.

"Very well, I'll train you tomorrow." He offered her a warm smile and found a hesitant one returned to him, only to be hastily hidden when she buried her reddening face against his shoulder.

He could do this, Hizashi reminded himself as he started for the main house once more. He owed it to his brother's sacrifice to watch over her as more than merely his ward or responsibility. He could raise her without replacing Hiashi.

"Uncle Hizashi," Hinata's small voice whispered into his neck, "can I learn how to swim?"

Hizashi chuckled. "The boys can teach you once their punishment is over."