As always Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. Please review.
The class was silent when Hinata walked in that morning. She'd been late that day. Hizashi and Naomi were unsure if they wanted to send either of them back to the academy so soon or wait it out a few more days. Eventually they decided it was better they return with the rest of the students, but Ko was still ordered to walk them to the academy door (he did allow them to go to class on their own though). She hadn't expected it to be so silent when she entered, though. Everyone's eyes turned on her, and it only took a quick glance around the room to find out why. Sasuke's chair remained empty. She doubted he'd be in class for a while more still.
Even Iruka, their new teacher that year, felt the unease in the class and did his best to keep everyone engaged. His announcement at the beginning of class about the massacre and Sasuke's temporary absence didn't help in that regard. The only voices besides Iruka's were the soft, cricket whispers that made the air heavy and stiff. At least until lunch.
"Hinata. Hinata." Naruto plopped into Shikamaru's chair with more enthusiasm than anyone else in class had that day and scooted close enough to make Hinata's cheeks burn.
It'd been nice when Iruka replaced Kiku as their teacher that year, since he knew nothing about her aunt and uncle's prohibition against being friends with Naruto. Unfortunately they still kept it to a minimum; Iruka often shot odd looks their way whenever they talked, but he didn't stop them. They figured as long as it stayed with looks they'd be safe to be proper friends again.
"So, Hinata," Naruto continued in a hushed voice, "you're from a big clan, right? Do you know what's really going on with the Uchiha thing? I mean, I only overhear things. The memorial and what Iruka-sensei said is the most anyone's told me about it."
She took a deep breath, the same one she had to take anytime Naruto's face was that close to hers, and fixed her gaze on his nose. She'd learned it made it easier to talk to him if she didn't look him in the eyes. The same thing happened when she tried to talk to the little whisker marks on his cheeks – that'd left her tongue tied for a full minute. She wasn't fully sure why it was so hard to look at him when they talked, but it was.
"It was huge that night," she finally managed to explain. "The whole clan was preparing for war. The Hokage called on Uncle Hizashi and he went out with half the clan in search of Uchiha Itachi. He said every tracking family in Konoha was out there looking for him. One team found him, but they were all killed, and they had two ANBU with them. One of the branch family was in the team. We had the funeral yesterday."
"So one guy really killed everyone but Sasuke?" he asked, leaning back to take in the information.
Hinata nodded, her pretty face turning sour at the thought. "Yeah, and it was his brother. I tried imagining Neji-niisan hurting the clan or Aunt Naomi and Uncle Hizashi, but I can't. I mean, how can a person do that to their family? I feel bad for Sasuke-kun. Not only is his brother a criminal now, but he's all alone? Even when my parents died I had Aunt Naomi and Uncle Hizashi and Neji-niisan to help me. He has no one."
"Where is he?"
Hinata thought back to all the bits and pieces she'd been hearing since the massacre. "I think he's with Sandaime-sama right now. But from what I've heard in the clan that's just until they figure out what to do."
Naruto's nose twitched, and Hinata caught a glimmer of loneliness slipping into his expression. "People'll take care him."
"Kind of like how people take care of you," Hinata treaded carefully. There were still a few subjects she knew Naruto preferred they not talk about. His day to day life outside of the academy was one of them. "You know, Sasuke-kun's kind of like you now. Maybe you could be friends with him when he comes back."
Naruto scowled at Hinata with a face somewhere between 'eaten bad fish' and 'someone farted in the room.' "Me and that jerk Sasuke? Yeah, right."
Hinata shrugged. "You don't know, he might be different after this. I don't think I'd be the same if that happened to me."
"It'll prolly make him more of a jerk," he scoffed, but Hinata caught his gaze drifting to the front of the room where Sasuke's chair sat empty. Whatever he was really thinking he shook it off like an unwanted bug. "Even if I did he'd prolly say, 'who wants to be friends with an idiot like you?'"
"Well, then he'd be the idiot, because I like being friends with you," Hinata defended with a smile.
"Yeah," Naruto laughed, "but you're nice."
Hinata giggled awkwardly from behind tightly closed lips and quickly turned her attention to the amazingly complex and absolutely refusing to untie knot of her bento before Naruto continued the conversation any further. One day she was going to have to figure out why she couldn't talk after he said things like that. She had a feeling it would explain the not being able to look at him problem, too.
The walk home felt strange to Neji. Normally he could barely hear the person next to him when they walked up the commercial district, but the village was still mute in shock and grief. Hinata was unusually somber too, though he noticed traces of a smile flicker across her lips here or there. Her day must have been slightly better than his. The whole day had felt strange, really. The only thing anyone in class had talked about was the massacre, everyone telling different bits and pieces to add to the legend of that night. Neji'd remained quiet whenever someone asked if he knew what happened.
That night was still hard for him to think about. There was something he couldn't explain, something he couldn't even identify, but it frightened him. An entire clan being killed by one of their own. A proud and old clan, like the Hyuuga, simply gone. All erased from the world save for one boy and the criminal who killed them. Neji couldn't name what it was he felt, but it made him stay next to Hinata for the two days it took Hizashi to return home and made him walk the halls of the house each night since, listening to the sounds of the family sleeping. He'd walk them again tonight, just to know they were still there.
The clan was different now, too. He saw it at the funeral for Shin, the brancher who died in the fight with Itachi, and at the public memorial held for the Uchiha clan. He didn't know how long it would last, but for now at least the bitterness between the houses was gone. Everyone was worried, and a protective atmosphere surrounded the whole compound, especially around the children. Even for Hinata, who had most often been regarded with a certain amount of bitter disdain before. Neji knew it probably wouldn't last, not once the shock wore off, but he wished it would. The clan felt better like this.
The guards at the gate to the Hyuuga compound stopped them when they arrived. Neji noted their tense expressions cautiously as one stepped up and bowed. "Hinata-sama, Neji-sama, you're to go to the training yards immediately. Hyobe-sama and Hizashi-sama are waiting for you."
Neji resisted the urge to pull Hinata closer. He wasn't supposed to act too protective of her around the clan, but when both his father and his grandfather were waiting for them something wasn't right. And after everything that had happened in the last week a part of him didn't care if he was too protective.
"Go on," Ko encouraged, "you don't want to keep them waiting."
Neji could think of plenty of reasons to keep them waiting, unfortunately he knew he couldn't use them. Putting on a pleasant expression to try and reassure his sister-cousin, Neji shirked towards the main house training grounds. "Come on, might as well get whatever it is over with."
"I guess," Hinata replied with much less confidence. He knew she still hated being paraded before their grandfather. Hyobe always found fault with her.
It was slightly odd that he was being called too, though. Hyobe didn't have as much of an interest in Neji since he wasn't the heir (which Neji would never admit aloud but it pleased him immensely). They stopped by the kitchen to drop off their bentos before heading out to the back porch which led to the training yards, but what they saw outside stopped them both.
It wasn't merely Hizashi and Hyobe waiting for them. Yumi, Hinata's grandmother, as well as Kanjiro and Takeru, two other deciding members of the clan council, and a number of powerful members of the clan sat along the long wooden porch that made up the perimeter of the training yard. Their conversations ended when they took note of Neji and Hinata, each straightening up to sit properly. Hizashi broke off his argument with Hyobe –it had to be an argument the way Hizashi's jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white with restraint– and approached them.
"Why're so many people here, Dad?" Neji asked, suppressing every single urge he had to stand in front of his nervous sister-cousin and block her from their audience. It wasn't easy as upset as his father looked.
"We've come to see Hinata," Hyobe answered from behind Hizashi, who rolled his eyes in return (not that Hyobe could see him). "Given recent events with the Uchihas, we feel it's appropriate to see how our heir is progressing. It's important she's able to handle her responsibilities once she becomes clan head, and better to find her deficiencies now while they can still be corrected."
Neji's stomach twisted. Hinata didn't do well with people standing there judging her. It was why she learned better with other children or under Hizashi rather than Hyobe. Neji was beginning to understand why his father looked so angry.
"And Neji," Hyobe added as returned to his seat next to the others, "you'll be her sparring partner."
Now Neji was certain he knew why his father was so angry. There was no way they were going to see Hinata's improvement if they were comparing her to him. It wasn't fair. By the instinctive step Hinata took away from everyone, she knew it too. Hizashi offered Hinata a consoling nod and motioned for the two of them to enter the yard.
"Just focus on me," Neji whispered to Hinata as he crossed the yard to face off against her. They might be making him fight her, but that didn't mean he couldn't help showcase her talents. Hinata was more flexible than him and her reflexes had improved a lot over the years. He was going to be the aggressor in this spar, so he could steer the fight to emphasize her skills instead of her deficiencies, which tended to include strength and offensive abilities.
Hizashi rejoined the others, though he remained standing as a silent pillar of protest of what was about to occur. Neji slid into his opening stance and activated byakugan while Hinata –hesitantly– followed suit. He wished he could just refuse on principle, but not even Hinata could refuse Hyobe and the council until she was officially clan head, so they all had to bear down and suffer through it as best they could. All eyes were on them, watching them, grading them like cattle at the slaughter, until finally Hyobe called out, "Begin."
Neji rushed Hinata, taking control of the fight right from the start and pushing her into a strong defensive position. If he kept her on the defensive for now then they wouldn't have to see her weaker offensive tactics until he created a suitable opening for her. She fell into the rhythm easily; he could see in her fixed gaze she was taking his advice and ignoring (as best she could) their attentive audience. She diverted his strikes with quick parries, taking the openings he offered and, though not connecting more than a glance, made each attempt count.
Jyuuken was a style of finesse and patience. Against an opponent using traditional taijutsu it appeared strange and ineffective despite the deadly results occurring within. But against another jyuuken user it almost became a dance. Each choreographed step weighed and measured with the opponent's until a step forward was matched with a step back, a sweep to the side with a spin away, a strike to the chest with a backbend dodge. Neji knew her moves and she knew his, so their dance was steady and in sync as he slowly offered more openings for her to turn the fight in her favor.
"Neji!"
Hyobe's shout startled both children out of their concentration and caused Neji's last palm strike to land solidly into Hinata's shoulder when he'd only meant to knick her. The two children faced their grandfather, their heads lowered enough to show respect.
"Neji," he called again in a voice that ran like ice through Neji's veins, "stop coddling her."
Neji bit the inside of his cheek to stay his initial reply. After a deep breath he answered calmly, "I thought you wanted an assessment of her skills. I was showing you what she's skilled in."
"We want to see how she handles a real fight against you, not this exhibition. Now begin again and fight her at your level, not hers." Hyobe left no room for dissention, and behind him Neji watched his father's arms cross over his chest to cover how tightly his fists were clenched.
This wasn't simply a fight to assess Hinata, Neji realized, this was to assess him as well. That's why he was her partner, so they could see what he was capable of. The question he couldn't answer no matter how hard he watched them with byakugan was which one were they more interested in?
The children turned back to face each other again, but as they each scrutinized the other for a first move, Neji could see Hinata's left arm shaking as she struggled to maintain her form through the pain. His last strike had done real damage, which was only going to make a quick fight end even faster. He hoped Hinata saw in his face how much he didn't want to do this.
She made the first move this time, running hard and fast to get as many strikes in before either her left arm failed her or Neji broke through her defense. With two good arms she might have even survived for a while, but Neji deflected her attacks with more ease than he wanted to admit and countered each attempt with a solid strike. For all her weakness, Hinata had just as much tenacity and desperation to keep going, though Neji saw the truth in her shaking lips and terrified eyes: she just wanted it all to be over.
A failed sweep at his side gave him the opening he needed. Pulling in his chakra so he'd do nothing more damaging than wind her, Neji struck the center of her chest and watched his sister-cousin tumble to the dusty ground. He looked to Hyobe for confirmation. If he'd used chakra, that would have been a kill strike. Surely that was enough to end this escapade.
Hyobe glanced at the others in the council but received no voiced reply. Finally he offered Neji a slow nod, and Neji let byakugan recede. Hyobe waited for Hinata to right herself before speaking again, but the disappointment on his face was enough to make Hinata's eyes drop in shame.
"She's still quite weak in jyuuken," he commented with no more love in his voice than he would for a dog in the street.
Neji saw Hizashi bristling behind him. "Perhaps compared to Neji, but for her age she's almost average."
"The head of the clan is not simply 'almost average'," Hyobe returned.
"Considering where she was five years ago her improvement should be commended," Hizashi snapped back,
Hyobe tilted his head up enough to look back and Neji watched as his father appeared to stretch and contract every muscle in his body on singular command in order to keep still. "I didn't know you were in the habit of commending mediocrity, Hizashi."
Hizashi closed his eyes and Neji knew that was one of his methods to calm down. "Hinata has worked very hard to improve," he continued, ignoring Hyobe's stinging comment.
"Unfortunately she's not succeeding," Hyobe finished, his disapproving gaze focused solely on the trembling girl still on stage before them.
"There's more to being clan head than proficiency in jyuuken," Yumi interrupted before anyone crossed a line that couldn't be returned from. By the fury in Hizashi's eyes, Neji was certain it would be his father who crossed that line.
Kanjiro, who sat beside Yumi, nodded, though his hidden thoughts were more interested in Hinata than the growing tension. "Indeed, deficiency in jyuuken can be supplemented by a firm understanding of the clan and solid leadership."
Everyone sitting there, judging her in their clean, unwrinkled kimonos, shifted glances to each of the others. The small, terrified girl standing with her head bowed, too afraid to look at them, did not inspire a commanding presence. She looked far more capable of breaking under another harsh word than facing off against . . . anyone, really.
"Perhaps she has an understanding of the clan, at least," Kanjiro amended. "Come closer, Hinata-sama."
In slow, forced steps Hinata approached the unyielding force of the council. It took only one shake of Hizashi's head to stay Neji where he was. This was not a moment Neji or Hizashi could shield her from no matter how much they wanted to. He tried not to see how badly her left arm shook at her side, or how her eyes were firmly locked on her dust-covered sandals. He tried to think about anything else but how every instinct was telling him to run up and yell at them all to stop tormenting his little sister, how he wanted to steal her away so they couldn't look down on her with their condescending eyes. He stared at the weathered porch, the dark wood was old but well-maintained. He looked to the chipped and pot-marked targets hanging high on the nearby training posts waiting to be used once again. He watched the motionless servant, half hiding behind the cracked-open shoji door.
Neji's anger suddenly diffused under a wave of confusion. He searched the area, behind the council. The brancher servants that worked in the main house stood as still as the judges seated before them. Their interest wasn't on those they should be attending though, it was on Hinata. It wasn't just the council who was judging Hinata's fitness at that moment, the entire clan was. What they saw here would filter back into the branch house, and if they viewed her as unfit as the council did, the trouble between the houses would reignite with a vengeance.
Why did this have to happen now, when for the first time the clan felt united? It was as if their grandfather wanted to make sure everyone knew how little he thought of Hinata as the heir. All he was doing was instigating the division again. And Hizashi was just letting him. If he was supposed to be acting clan head why couldn't he stop this? Neji could see he clearly wanted to, but he just stood there with his arms folded and jaw locked.
Yumi's softer voice returned Neji to the display before him. "Hinata, I want you to tell us about the clan. What it means to you. How you see it. What you think needs to be done. Anything you want to say."
Hinata finally looked up, her wounded eyes grasping to the kindness in her grandmother's voice. She fumbled with the hem of her shirt as she thought on how to answer. The anticipation in the air was almost palatable, but not from the council. The uninvited and unintended watchers from the branch family stood rigid. They, more than anyone, wanted to hear what this eight-year-old girl had to say.
Yet, Hinata looked so fragile and her voice shook when she began, "The clan . . . the clan's my family. It's better than anywhere else in the village. It's an old clan and it has problems because of that, but we're family and that's what should matter."
Neji liked her answer. The council, on the other hand, looked less than impressed, but behind them and tucked away in the corners there was an honest curiosity in the branchers' eyes. Not certain, but cautiously intrigued. Neji didn't like thinking that way, since he didn't see them as anything more than siblings, but to the rest of the clan this was the first time a main family heir was raised by a brancher. No one was sure what she would think.
Kanjiro continued for the council. "What's your understanding of the problems between the main and branch families?"
Hinata braved a glance at Kanjiro, but quickly returned her attention to Yumi, who was still smiling supportively at her granddaughter. "There are rules that say the branch family can't learn some techniques that the main family can. And they don't like that the seal can hurt them."
Main and branch looked on with impassive expressions masking their opinions, or perhaps pains. Only Hizashi was readable, the worry plain across his brow. The next question was obvious, and her answer could do a lot to determine her future in the clan. Neji's stomach twisted when Kanjiro asked it.
"What do you think about that?"
Hinata shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny of her growing audience and turned her eyes to the ground again. Neji could see in her entire body –the fidgeting fingers, the avoiding gaze, the way she pulled her lower lip between her teeth to calm herself– she wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment.
"I don't understand all of it," she admitted. "Neji-niisan's stronger than me, but he's not allowed to learn techniques I am. It doesn't make sense to me why. And I know we need to protect byakugan, but why would you want to hurt the clan?" Hinata looked up to Hyobe, honestly asking the former clan head the question so many in the clan had wondered. "I don't understand why it has to hurt."
Hyobe's blank eyes traveled from Hinata to Neji, and behind him Hizashi's frame stiffened. "Neji, can you think of a reason why the suppression seal would be used?"
The air around the training yards froze with the close of Hyobe's words. Every servant that had been listening to Hinata's answer with an open mind now stood as rigid as Hizashi, their faces twisted in mute submission. To ask a brancher that question was cruel. To ask a brancher child was downright disgusting. If any of the council noticed the chill surrounding the horrified branchers behind them, they showed it in nothing more than a tedious shift of position.
Yet Neji –as much as he hated to admit it since he wished the suppression part of the seal never existed– did have an answer. He'd thought about it many times since the massacre, and it'd given him comfort. Straightening up so that he faced his grandfather's question with resolute confidence, Neji said, "If someone like Uchiha Itachi was in the clan, the suppression seal would stop them before they hurt too many people."
What might have been a twitch of satisfaction tempted Hyobe's lips for the briefest of seconds before returning to his leader's neutrality. "That is the very reason I was hoping to hear. These rules are not entirely pleasant or fair, but they are, in their own way, necessary. It's unfortunate you don't understand this simple concept, Hinata."
"Hyobe-sama," Yumi interjected quietly, "is that necessary?"
"We can't leave her to remain with these soft-hearted, naive ideas," Hyobe reprimanded with skilled precision. "She could do with some of Neji's practicality. In truth, it's more unfortunate that Neji was sealed. If not he'd be an ideal candidate fo–"
"Enough," Hizashi snapped. "If you're done with your assessment, then leave me to her training. What good comes from berating her like this?"
Hyobe finally turned his attention back to Hinata, now on the verge of tears. Neji wanted to go to her, but he knew at that moment it would only make things worse. But something in the atmosphere had altered in a way that made every hair on his body stand up on end. Hizashi had never yelled at Hyobe like that before.
"Perhaps, Hizashi," Hyobe began in slow deliberation, "if you trained her as well as your son we wouldn't be having this problem."
Neji didn't know what to call the emotion he read in his father's face. He saw shock in the slight part of his lips, disbelief in the widening of his eyes, fury in the set tension of his jaw, and something more, something that only came when he put all the other emotions together and multiplied them by a thousand and then multiplied that by infinity itself. Beyond hatred. Beyond loathing. Neji wasn't sure there was even a word in existence that properly embodied what his father must have felt at that moment.
But it wasn't an outburst from his father that shocked everyone or the subtle attempts to diffuse the situation from Yumi, it was Hinata. Her trembling, not yet crying figure climbed up onto the porch and threw her arms around her grandfather's neck in a huge, unconditional hug. Just as quickly as she appeared up there with him, she was back in her spot in front of the council with her eyes on the dusty ground.
No one was quite sure what to say. Even Hizashi's unnamed rage was subdued by the confusion of her act. Hyobe was the first to settle himself to speak, though he too had to shake off the bewilderment of his unexpected hug. "Hinata, what was that for?"
Neji was certain if Hinata's face lowered any further her chin would have to embed itself into her chest. The angry, frustrated, and expectant eyes of both the council and the branch servants around them fell hard on the tiny girl and for once no Hyuuga had a clue what was going on in her mind.
"Hinata," Yumi encouraged, her voice tender on the frightened girl, "it's okay, just answer the question."
Hinata reached a hand out behind her and, ignoring what he knew he shouldn't do, Neji ran up to take her hand. It wasn't protecting her –he stayed behind so she was still the one on display– he was doing what his parents had told him to: being there when she needed support.
More to him than to Hyobe and the council, Hinata's weak voice squeaked out. "Grandpa seemed to be upset, so I thought a hug might cheer him up and then he'd stop saying things that made everyone angry."
Neji wasn't laughing. He bit his cheek, curled his tongue, and shoved every last ounce of willpower he had to keep the smirk on his face the only visible reaction. His father, on the other hand, was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. No one else made a sound for several moments until a light-voiced snickering beside Hyobe joined Hizashi's open-mouthed laughter. Yumi covered her mouth when Hyobe sent a side-long glare her way but couldn't stop the mirth in her face, neither could several other members of the council who were avidly avoiding Hyobe's gaze. Behind them, all the servants struggled to maintain their composure, and one had to hurry inside the house before she lost control.
It was hard to believe that a moment before the entire yard felt ready to explode, and now –thanks to Hinata's innocent idea– the entire situation was diffused. Hyobe might have been right, Hinata was soft-hearted, but why was that a bad thing? Why was not wanting to hurt someone a weakness? Neji couldn't have stopped his father and grandfather from fighting, but Hinata did.
"Things are not so easily fixed, Hinata," Hyobe said. Unfortunately, his seriousness felt unnatural highlighted by Hizashi's slowly diminishing laughter.
"You give her too little credit," Hizashi said when he finally managed to calm enough to talk. He smiled at Hinata and waited for her to brave looking up again before continuing. "Her soft heart may be what this clan needs. Now, seeing as this has no further point, I'm taking the children in."
He waved Neji and Hinata to join him, which they quickly complied, and listened to Hyobe's call to stop only so much as the stay outside when he shut the shoji door behind them.
The servant that had been watching from behind the door held out her hand to Hinata, a broad smile on her face. "Come along, Hinata-sama, Neji-sama. Let's get you both cleaned up for supper."
Hinata held tight to Neji's hand as the servant led them through the halls and continued to hold back the tears that had been threatening to break free for the last ten minutes. "Neji-niisan, did I mess up again? Everyone was laughing and Grandpa looked madder. I just wanted everyone to calm down."
"Hinata-sama," the servant answered before Neji had a chance, "you were wonderful. Hyobe-sama's needed a good hug for a long time. It may not mean much, but I'm proud of you. Trust me, a lot of us are proud of you."
The servant nodded toward a few others whispering in the halls, the story flashing through the building like wildfire. Snickers and amused gasps became a constant background chirping, but to Neji's surprise there was no malice hidden within it. Hyobe might not have liked how her assessment turned out, but Hinata's actions showed the branch family something that had been absent in the main family for generations. She showed she actually cared about them. When she should have been as angry and mortified by Hyobe's censure as the branchers were when he asked Neji about the seal, she was worried about everyone else and refused to hate even Hyobe himself.
She wasn't ready to be clan head, but Neji refused to believe their grandfather was right. Hinata was the better choice, because the clan head should avoid making the division between the houses worse, not make them deeper. To Neji, Hinata was better suited than even their grandfather. From the smiles and whispered congratulations from the branchers they passed, the clan might just think so too.