I've noticed in reviews people think they've figured out who the pairing for Hinata is, so maybe you're right and maybe you'll get to be surprised. This arc will take quite a while to complete. Once again, thank you to everyone who reviewed. I'm getting so much inspiration from your comments.

I thank my friend LexKixAss for the use of her twins. As always, Naruto belongs to Kishimoto.

Hizashi leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and silently wish the clan would disappear for a few days. Not many, just a couple to let him relax and de-stress. Hinata's exhibition had been quite an eye opener for the clan head, and though it also laid to rest the constant arguing between himself and Hyobe, Hizashi couldn't let go of all the tension. It wasn't the outcome he wanted for her and he wondered how well her resolve would hold up when she had to meet with the suitors, choose a fiancé, or come face to face with the wedding day. It was a huge sacrifice to make at her age. She was still learning to live with herself; bringing in someone else, who would change the entire dynamic of her life, would not be simple. He hoped the determination she displayed now remained strong.

The only consolation was that it was a distant threat. Much had to be done before Hinata would be directly involved, and most of the small details would be handled by him and Naomi. If he was successful in convincing his father, Hinata wouldn't wed before she turned seventeen, regardless of how quickly her partner was chosen and arrangements could be made. The fiancé could be trained in his role in the main house in the interim. Anything to keep her from marrying any younger.

A knock on his door elicited an audible groan. Wasn't the clan supposed to disappear? Hizashi smoothed back his hair, making sure the scarf covering his seal stayed in place, and called for the interloper to enter. Arata, one of Hizashi's assistants, came in, offering a short bow before approaching. In his hands was a folder thick with papers.

"Here's the most recent clan census, Hizashi-sama. I've already separated them by gender and whether or not they carry the recessive gene."

And so it began. Hizashi sank a little further into his chair. It was nothing Arata hadn't seen before on the exasperated clan head. "Just leave it on my desk. I'll get to it later."

Arata offered him a consoling smile and did as he was instructed. Before he turned to leave, Hizashi stopped him. "How many are close to her in age?"

Arata glanced down at the folder and his lips thinned. "Not nearly as many as those carrying the gene."

Hizashi waved Arata off and sighed. He needed a break. Strategically placing a pile of paperwork over the folder, Hizashi got up and headed for the nursery. The walk was longer than he liked—his office was furthest away from the bedrooms since he often received guests on official business there—but it offered him a chance to calm down. Hizashi slid the door open quietly in case Shou was napping.

The nursery was a mixture of simple restraint and bubbling exuberance. The walls were a bold yellow at the top, fading in tone as it progressed down the wall until it was a pale yellow-brown. From the bottom "grew" cherry blossom trees, which scattered its blossoms across the other walls. A wood crib was in the corner, empty. Shou, instead, rested on his back on a plush blanket on the floor. His caretaker, Miki, was beside him, gently tugging on his arms until he pulled up into a sitting position. When he caught sight of Hizashi, an innocent happiness brightened his face.

"Hizashi-sama," Miki said in an overly pleasant voice meant more for Shou than him, "we were just practicing sitting up."

"Were you now?" Hizashi sat down on the other side of Shou and brought his hands down in faux-menace that had the boy giggling and flailing. Yes, this was what he needed. Nodding to Miki, he said, "Why don't you take a break? Shou and I can handle things for a while."

Miki stood up and gave a short bow before exiting the room. A part of Hizashi felt guilty shuffling Shou off to nannies while he worked. Neji had Naomi all to himself growing up, after all, but he also remembered coming home several times to a worn-out woman quite ready to hand off the her motherly duties for a few days. Shou always had an eager and attentive caregiver, who was not responsible for any other household chores. It was little different from Hinata's upbringing.

What worried him more was when Hinata took over the clan, and Hizashi would have to take a young boy away from the only life he knew. Picking Shou up, Hizashi placed him in his lap. Being premature, Shou was small for six months, but his body had filled up with a thick layer of baby fat that made his cheeks plump each time he smiled.

"Let's see, if we assume your grandpa insists 'of age' is eighteen—I doubt we'll get to twenty—that means you'll be four when Hinata comes home permanently." He paused and brushed back the thin black hair covering Shou's brow. "Just in time for you to be sealed."

Hizashi kissed the top of his son's head and pushed the thought back. He had several more years before that worry became reality. "I'll remain to teach her for a couple years, so that will put you at seven or eight when we move back to the branch house. Even I was older than that. What are you going to think then?"

Shou grabbed hold of Hizashi's middle finger and clamped him mouth around it.

"I don't think he cares much about that, Hizashi-sama."

Hizashi looked up at the face peeking through a slight crack in the door. Though Hizashi couldn't see the young man's entire face, the playful voice indicated who it was, and Hizashi waved him in. With the time Hizashi spent overseeing the twins' training since their return to the clan, one would think he'd have figured out how to tell them apart by now. They'd be wrong of course. Unless they were actively fighting, Hizashi hadn't gained the same expertise as his children in telling them apart. When fighting was a different story. Each had different tells in their movements, and when working together against an opponent, Isamu tended to follow Osamu's lead.

"Only one of you?" Hizashi remarked when his guest closed the door behind him. If the part of his hair was honest, which in the last few years it had been more consistently, Osamu was the one joining him.

"Yeah, it was my turn to come visit Shou, so Otouto's picking up lunch." Definitely, Osamu.

"It's your turn?"

Osamu knelt down next to them and Shou immediately reached out to be picked up, which Hizashi allowed. The boy squealed with unfettered glee as Osamu lifted him high into the air before "dropping" him back down to rest on Osamu's chest. "Yeah, well, we need our new cousin to know who we are, but that doesn't mean he has to realize there's two of us. We're curious how long we can keep it up."

Hizashi sighed. He shouldn't have asked. "Please don't use my son for your experiments."

"You would deny us such small pleasures?"

"Yes," Hizashi said sternly.

Osamu held Shou out in front of him so he could look the boy in the eye. "Your daddy is a spoilsport."

Normally Osamu showed more deference in front of Hizashi, but Shou was a stark reminder that Hizashi was the twins' uncle in the end. It was easy to dismiss their familial relations being clan head and them working for the clan. One day family would be the only relationship he would have with them again. Osamu sat Shou down on the blanket again and Hizashi ran his fingers over his son's plump cheek. Perhaps it was good for Shou to get to know his cousins.

"You know, she's never going to let you leave," Osamu said, a rare trill of hesitation in his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Hinata-sama. By the time you would have to go back to being branch, she'll be clan head. Then it will be her decision, not anyone else's, and as far as she's concerned, your home is right here with her."

Hizashi's eyes narrowed as he examined the young man in front of him. Osamu and Isamu's skill at insight was well known, but Hizashi had never expected, perhaps foolishly, that they saw so much in him. It seemed they merely kept their mouths shut in front of the acting clan head; family was not so out of bounds.

"It is unnerving how much you see."

Osamu smiled, a little tenser than his usual pleasant nature. "Our gift and our curse."

Disconcerting to hear or not, that didn't make his comment any less true. Hizashi always saw Hinata's ascension to clan head the way he saw Hiashi's: an ending. After that, he would be living on borrowed time, making her capable of not needing him. Then, one day, he would be sent away as he had been once before, so as not to muddle the lines of power. But Hinata was not Hiashi or Hyobe. By grace or luck, they had managed to keep the lines of family strong. Once she was clan head, it wouldn't be the bifurcated power between him and Hyobe; Hinata would have the right to make whatever decisions she deemed fit. It was a future he had not considered.

"Tell me," Hizashi said, shifting the subject, "what have you seen from the clan since Hinata's demonstration."

Osamu smirked and shook his head. "That's an interesting question. You have to take it in context though."

"Meaning?"

Osamu sighed and handed a stuffed dog to Shou, who happily clamped his toothless mouth around the toy's paw. "When Hinata-sama was first made genin, the consensus was that you were indulging her. We knew you weren't, but they didn't want to listen to us." He glanced up momentarily, a nervous sign of how much he had read back then, only to quickly return his gaze to Shou. "For all they feared her being genin, the clan was prepared to wait and see what happened. They wanted change in the clan, but they couldn't see how that would do anything but put us at risk."

"And now?"

"And now . . . it's not only that Hinata-sama knows kaiten. It's that you didn't teach her; she learned it with her team. We could see how much her team has helped her, but the clan couldn't. Now they can. It's allowed doubt to creep into those against her being genin. They heard her, and now they wonder how much stronger her team can make her. They also respect her for holding her ground."

"But?" Hizashi asked, sensing Osamu was not saying the whole truth just yet. If that were all, the young man would be far more delighted in his telling.

"But the longer she's working, the greater the risk something will happen. The clan knows she should be chuunin, and most believe she's doing chuunin level missions regardless of her rank. There's a lot of hidden fear about that."

Hizashi nodded. It was Hyobe's words thrown back at him. How could he alleviate the clan's fears without ruining all the progress Hinata had made away from them? The simple fact was, Hinata was more suited for a life outside the structure of the clan where she wasn't constantly watched or judged. The proof of that was clear in her decision to marry rather than leave her team. He knew it. She knew it. Now the clan knew it, yet the fear remained.

"The clan loves you as clan head," Osamu paused, a mischievous grin taunting his uncle, "mostly. You've held us together through some of the worst times we and Konoha have seen. But you're branch, so they know it's temporary. They want stability, not just in the moment but for the future. If something happens to her, the question comes up again: who leads the clan after you? Neji? Or would Shou, not being sealed? They don't want to wait another twenty years to feel secure."

"And you see all this?"

Osamu shrugged. "We see everyone in the clan when they pass by us, and Otouto and I are very sociable people. We love to talk. Even if the branch family won't go into deep gossip about the main family around us, we see the small tells. See enough of them and a picture forms."

Hizashi shook his head, a minuscule motion that Osamu no doubt caught. Those two were perhaps the most underrated members of the clan. Hizashi had posted them to guard duty more out of practicality than anything; it was one of the few long-term jobs he needed filled. Yet, they'd become witnesses to the moods of the clan, knowing it and the people better than anyone else. Better than Hizashi himself, who had lived too long back in the main family to assess their collective thoughts and was feeling sourly out of touch.

"What would you do to assuage their concerns?"

Osamu's cheerful expression froze for a second, his only outward sign of shock before returning to his usual disposition. "What would I do? That's a heavy question coming from you, Hizashi-sama. Otouto and I are more about having fun than fixing clan problems."

Osamu paused and thought long enough to make the silent air feel thick around them. His jaw tensed the more he processed the question. Finally, Osamu lifted his head and looked Hizashi in the eye. "The marriage . . . make it a spectacle. From the choosing of her husband to the preparations to the wait for the ceremony. It won't make things any better under the surface and Hinata-sama will hate every moment of it, but it will distract them from her life outside the clan. There's no way to both make the clan feel secure and allow Hinata-sama a life outside of it, but it's been a long time since the clan's had something really great to celebrate. They want to see this as a good thing, let them. Hell, encourage them. Make it a clan affair instead of just for the main family."

Cursing aside, Osamu's idea wasn't bad. Weddings were normally happy occasions. If they could make Hinata's a celebration instead of the reluctant ultimatum she'd been forced to accept, then perhaps a little joy could counteract the lingering fear.

"Thank you for your insight," Hizashi said, a genuine compliment in the statement. He had much to consider now.

Osamu smiled. "Just don't tell Neji or Hinata-sama it was my idea. I don't feel like getting my butt kicked twice by people who know main family techniques."

Hizashi chuckled under his breath. "Your secret is safe."

"Thanks." Osamu ruffled Shou's thin hair once before standing up. "Otouto's probably waiting for me by now, so I'll head out, Hizashi-sama."

The young man, no longer an infuriating boy, bowed and headed back to his post. Strange how time changed people.

Hizashi picked up Shou, who was half asleep with the stuffed dog in his mouth, and moved to a rocking chair in the corner of the room. Shou's small head nestled contently against the edge of Hizashi's kimono, his pudgy hands still grasping the toy. Thoughts of marriage and clan could be addressed later. Right now Hizashi indulged in the fact all his son's problems could be fixed with a pair of strong arms holding him. He missed the days when all his children were that simple to please.