Thanks to my friend, LexKixAss, for use of her twins. As always, Naruto belongs to Kishimoto.
You'd think being dead would have felt cold or lonely or any other combination of bad that existed in the world, but that wasn't what lingered as Hinata bolted up, a body heavy and dense in comparison. Being dead had felt like family. It had felt like a warm summer day spent in her garden, like home and peace. It had felt like her parents, like she was a child of three being led by the hand to dance in the colors painted by a late afternoon sun. It had felt like safety.
Now the air was thick with the dust that drifted along currents of wind around the barren crater. Her body felt heavy, she realized belatedly, because her torso was restrained in the tight embrace of her aunt, who stared at her, face streaked with tears and forehead glaringly uncovered, with as much confusion in her eyes as Hinata felt. They watched one another in mute shock, neither one daring to blink and cause the illusion to disappear.
But it wasn't illusion. A cacophony of voices assaulted her senses as lights plummeted from the sky into the animals lying on the ground beside her, and they began to stir as well. Hinata looked around, struggling to find some purchase to stand on in the chaos. Sakura, Tenten, and Lee were nearby, delight breaking through the surprise on their faces. All eight of her hounds shook off the battle alive and well, though a few got to their feet warily, while the female toad hugged her partner with elation. Hinata was certain she'd seen the old toad die in battle. She had died.
Hinata brought a hand up to the place she'd felt the rod touch before the darkness had taken her. It was smooth. Her eyes wandered over the scroll wrapped arm she'd moved. There was no more pain. Whatever damage she'd suffered seemed gone. She was alive. Hinata looked back into her aunt's eyes . . . she was alive.
Hinata's voice caught in her throat as she tried to speak, but before she could, Naomi yanked Hinata into a hug so tight she could barely breathe. Naomi's hands twisted up to cradle the back of Hinata's head, as if she might run away if given the chance. She felt the older woman's breath striking her neck in soft, hurried sobs.
"My baby," Naomi whispered over and over—a mother's incantation to ward off evil threatening her child.
Sakura's presence behind her was felt, not seen, as chakra moved slowly over her back in precise, searching patterns Hinata recognized as a med-nin's touch. "Her wounds . . . they're all gone."
"How?" another voice asked, light and crisp. Tenten.
"Pain, the real one," answered a third voice. This one Hinata didn't recognize. It was weak, as if coming from a creature too small to speak with volume.
Hinata forced herself to push out of Naomi's fervent grasp, which was harder than she thought. Being dead had felt wonderfully releasing, or at least that was what teased her thoughts, like a dream half remembered, and Naomi's arm restored that pure family sensation that she'd lost coming back to the real world.
"What's happened?" she finally asked, still partially in her aunt's familiar hold, but turned enough to see everyone before her.
The alien voice had come from a slug riding atop Sakura's shoulder. It shifted its white body so as to better address the entire company, human and animal alike. "When Naruto faced the true Pain, a former student of Jiraiya-sama, he was able to convince him that his actions had been wrong, that there was another way to peace. The real Pain chose to sacrifice himself to bring those he'd killed today back from the dead."
"Naruto convinced him?" Sakura said, not quite as a question, but not quite in disbelief either. "I know Naruto's changed his enemy's mind before, but to do it at such a scale . . ."
"It seems they came to understand each other," the slug said.
"That sounds like Naruto-kun." Hinata smiled, leaning closer to her aunt's shoulder.
It had worked. Not exactly the way she expected, but Naruto wasn't known for his predictability. Her death hadn't been meaningless. He'd gotten free and saved the village. More than the village, he saved even those who'd died, and Hinata was glad to be included in that number. But even if he hadn't, even if the village had been left to face the aftermath in grief, Naruto still won, and that made her sacrifice matter.
"Katsuya, do you know where Neji is?" Tenten asked the little slug. "Did he go with Naruto?"
"No. He allowed Naruto to go on to face Pain alone, though their encounter was rather frightening. Naruto left him and Gai in the woods some time ago. No part of me is with them, so I don't know where they are now."
"Neji let Naruto go alone?" Tenten reached a hand down to help Hinata from the ground, much to Naomi's displeasure at releasing her niece. "We need to find him. He couldn't take your death. It hurt him worse than anything you imagined. We can't let him keep thinking you're dead."
Hinata nodded. She'd known Neji would probably take it the hardest, but something in Tenten's voice—an edge of fear and pity sharp enough to cut—told her Naomi's reaction was inconsequential compared to Neji's.
"Wait," Lee popped up over everyone's heads, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. "I think they're coming this way."
They all followed Lee's gaze to a trail of dust moving ever closer. The figures at the fore were too small to identify yet, hard as they tried. Tenten stepped up beside Hinata, her hand outstretched to block the sun. "Is it them? Can you see with byakugan?"
Hinata remained still, not even to raise the veins of chakra that fed her family's bloodline technique. She didn't want to see his face with so much insight. She didn't want to gaze into his eyes knowing he could see her. What would she see that she wouldn't be able to unsee? Her brother, her closest confidant, the sword and shield she couldn't use no matter how much she wanted to . . . would he ever forgive her for dying?
"It's them," Naomi answered in Hinata's place. Naomi, who didn't know her son enough to speak without works, was unafraid to look on him and see.
It took little time for Neji to cross the distance, and as he neared, Hinata's hands clenched at her sides. The pain she'd expected was carved into his face as surely as if she'd taken a knife to her brother and scarred him. Without words, he swooped in and enveloped her in a hug that lifted her off her feet, his arms vice tight.
Something was broken in him. She could feel the fear in the way he refused to set her down again and the way his body shook beneath her. She could hear his panicked relief in the sobs touching her ears. He was crying—a tired, raw sound that crackled from overuse. She could see it in his eyes when he finally allowed her enough room to see his face, though he didn't release her. Grief was in his eyes. Grief and happiness and sorrow and joy and a mixture of a hundred different emotions that all said, Neji was broken. Coming back to life would mend the damage done by the sadness and pain, but the cracks would remain . . . forever.
Hinata didn't know what to say. She wanted to apologize like she'd tried with Naomi, but the thought seemed even weaker than before. She wasn't sorry—not for dying, at least—and Neji would see the lie. Her death meant they'd won. How could she apologize for that and mean it?
Instead, she finally said, "I'm sorry for hurting you." That much was true.
"You're alive," he whispered, pulling her to him once more to cage her in his arms. "You're alive."
The others speaking sounded like background noise too muffled to hear clearly beneath the deafening sound of Neji's fading sobs. They weren't loud or obvious like Gai or Lee could be when they cried, but the soft intake of breath in a short, hasty rhythm tore her down bit by bit until she was consumed in his ecstatic grief and cried silently into his shoulder.
What felt like hours later, though Hinata had a feeling it was probably only a few minutes, Naomi's hands detached them with the gentle effort of a mother so that they both faced the rest of the group. Pakkun padded forward from the rest hounds to get Hinata's attention.
"We're returning home before anything else attacks and kills us all."
Hinata knelt down and bowed her head to him and then to the other hounds. "Thank you for all your sacrifices. I couldn't have fought as long as I did without you."
Pakkun pawed at his ear and huffed in what Hinata might have thought was a smile. "Good to know Kakashi passed our contract down to someone worthy." He turned without any more ceremony and poofed away into a cloud of smoke. Several of the hounds gave wry chuckles at his exit, before following his example.
"We should all head back, too," Sakura said, motioning to the edge of the crater where people seemed to be gathering. Her eyes seemed to glisten with unshed tears in the sunlight. "Katsuya said Kakashi-sensei's bringing Naruto back."
"The clan needs to see you, too. I'm sure everyone with byakugan witnessed . . ." Naomi ran a hand over Hinata's hair, fingers lingering in the sweat-damped strands. Her eyes still conveyed the surprise and joy at her daughter's return from the dead, even if she couldn't say that it happened. "They need to see you alive again."
Their small company heard the cheer of Naruto's safe arrival before they made it to the crowd. It was euphoria turned into sound. Their home may have been destroyed, but no one was left grieving and that was a reason to celebrate with all their hearts. The cause of that happiness was Naruto, and everyone knew it.
Hinata stopped at the edge of the crowd, close enough to barely see Naruto. The look on his face . . . there were no words for the elation shining from her friend's face as the people cheered his name. Finally—finally—the village saw him the way she always had.
The others halted when Sakura paused to urge her forward, all except Neji, who'd yet to wholly release her from his hold and kept a steady hand on her arm. "Come on, Hinata. Naruto will want to see you're okay."
She shook her head. "If I go up there now, he'll fuss over me. He's waited so long for the village to accept him. Naruto deserves to enjoy this all by himself. I'll find him once things quiet down. Besides, Aunt Naomi's right. I need to find the clan."
Sakura looked doubtful but was eager to continue on. After a quick wave from Neji, Lee and Tenten soon followed. Gai himself disappeared into the outskirts of the crowd toward a figure who might have been Kakashi, but the people undulating in and out made it hard to get a clear view.
"Is that the only reason you want to wait?" Neji asked in a soft voice to keep Naomi, who led them through the back of the crowd, from overhearing.
Hinata lowered her gaze as the memory of Naruto's face in those final moments, the fear bleeding in his eyes, returned to her. "I made Naruto-kun watch me die. I'm not sorry—it was the right thing to do—but he saw it all. I know he'll forgive me and be happy I'm alive, because that's Naruto-kun, but maybe I don't deserve to be forgiven just yet."
Neji nodded and his grip on her arm tightened. It wasn't painful, only possessive, and that hint of broken Hinata kept seeing showed obviously, though not clear enough for her to name it. "Soon you'll need to tell me what happened in that fight. Not now—it's raw still—but soon."
"I have a feeling there's a lot we need to talk about," she said.
He nodded. "Once the dust settles."
Naomi led them away from the celebrating crowd and to an area that was quickly turning into a makeshift medical and command station. The dead may have returned, but there was plenty of work to be done. It seemed the people who'd gathered below had brought those too wounded to move on their own to this area before hurrying on. Med-nins picked through the resting bodies to triage the worse cases while those shinobi not succumbing to the rapture of survival hurried back into the ring of debris to search for more injured.
Before Hinata could see where Naomi was leading them, an enormous weight slammed into Hinata and detached Neji from her side for the first time. Arms caught her before she could fall and pressed her tight against the two bodies behind her. "Hinata-sama!" Isamu and Osamu planted identical happy, sloppy kisses to her cheeks in mirror time.
"We're so glad you're alive," Isamu said in a rush of exhilaration.
"Don't ever do that again," Osamu added. Neither relinquished their helpless target no matter how dark Neji's glower got at being pushed aside.
The two men loosened their grasp enough to swing around and face her. A tenderness that wasn't like his brother's lingered on Isamu's face. It was one of the ways she'd always told them apart; Isamu looked at her ever so differently. She understood it now, since he'd kissed her, and though he never suggested the feelings he'd offered so unconditionally remained, the tenderness in his face did. Hinata liked to think it was the sweet remembrance of a path not walked. She hoped it was; that made it easier to smile back.
"It wasn't exactly my first choice," she said, still unsure how to apologize for hurting them without apologizing for going into the fight.
"It was a horrible choice!" Isamu said, his face tightening.
"It was a decision made by the head of the clan, and one that had to be made," said a deep voice that felt alien to hear with respect in it. Hyobe leaned heavily on debris scraped together and tied into crutches to support his broken ankle as he slowly walked forward. "She did what a Hyuuga should to protect the village and her clan."
Isamu and Osamu shuffled away to allow Hinata to stand alone facing her grandfather. She had thought he would be angry with her. She'd died. All the fear she'd been raised in, the fear of the clan, of her family, of her own weakness because she couldn't die before becoming clan head—how could she not be a failure to actually die?
Hinata did not lower her eyes, though her body desperately wanted to. When she spoke, her voice cracked like a child's. "I did?"
Hyobe stood stalwart despite his injury, and settled his face with an expression Hinata couldn't understand. Melancholy, grief, love, joy, and . . . pride? Was that pride? She'd seen it so rarely she couldn't be certain. This wasn't like the mixed emotions Naomi or Neji had when she woke, though. It was older, a deeper part of him he held so tightly in restraints that only a fraction escaped for her to see.
"You looked like Hiashi," was all he said.
Hinata didn't know what to say, she wasn't sure the words would come out if she did. She should have noticed before when he'd said it was a decision of a clan head, but disapproval was her standard expectation for her grandfather. Hyobe had never compared her to her father before. Never compared her to any clan head before. And he'd never showed her the kind of respect he did now, looking her in the eyes like an equal. The closest she'd ever managed was when she'd taken so quickly to the seal. But that was surprised admiration; this . . . this was respect. Hinata didn't want to say anything and break the magic this single moment held between them.
As if sensing she was not able to continue without help, Hyobe lowered his gaze to release her and his face fell blank once more. "Do you know why I have demanded you never be called sister or daughter by those who love you?" he asked, confusing everyone in attendance by the shift in topic.
"Because I am main family and they are branch," she answered after a moment to grieve the loss of his unconditional approval.
He shook his head, though not in the condescending way she was familiar with. "Because it is a terrible thing to use the seal on someone you call father, mother . . . brother, sister, . . . son, daughter. The branch, even those closest to the clan head, must all show deference not merely because of your station, but to create the distance needed to allow the clan head to use the seal on them, to be a constant reminder that they are not exempt from our laws simply because you love them."
Hinata forced herself not to look at Naomi when he said "mother." She wondered if she would have been capable of sealing Naomi if she hadn't used it so often on Neji already and numbed herself to the guilt causing such pain used to fill her with. "I don't understand why you're saying this now."
"Because I never thought you'd be able to use the seal on one you loved. I feared you'd never be able to use it at all. But today you sealed the woman you would call 'mother' if I allowed, and there was no hesitation when you did. You acted with confidence and purpose because it was for the good of your clan." Hyobe sighed. "So, on this, I will yield. You and your family may use whatever names and titles you feel is appropriate, and I will stop correcting Shou when he calls you 'Oneesama.' Consider this the first of the privileges you'll have once you take over the clan."
Hinata blinked. There wasn't much more she could do, because her mind was not prepared to absorb what Hyobe had just said. No more corrections of "cousin" whenever Shou said "sister." No more hiding the fact that Neji was a brother to her as surely as if he'd been born to the main family. No more denying that Naomi and Hizashi were as much her parents as Atsuko and Hiashi. The feeling was the same, after all: these people who were still alive and that sense of peace and family that continued to stroke the edge of her consciousness from her afterlife dream.
"You mean it?" It was Neji who'd spoken, his voice suddenly hoarse with restraint. In his eyes reflected part of that brokenness she'd created by dying, but something new was with it, something that seem to fill the cracks with gold the way potters would fix a broken cup to make it more beautiful than when it was whole. There was hope.
"Don't make me repeat myself, Neji," Hyobe said wryly, though he nodded anyway. Perhaps he saw the broken part, too.
A med-nin in a soiled white coat with a tear across his front that left a large piece of cloth flapping as he moved walked up to their group with calculated optimism as he assessed each member. He appeared relieved when he finished. "Good, none of you look too hurt. I was afraid you were a new group brought in. I am sorry, Hyuuga-sama." He turned to address Hyobe. "Your wounds are still rather low on our triage list, and it would be best if you remained where you were, so we can find you when we need to."
Hyobe glowered in a dignified annoyance at being ordered around by this young man, but ceded his authority after a moment. "We must all do what the med-nins say until everyone's helped," he remarked, not at all sounding like he agreed with his own words.
Another bout of relief filled the young man's tired eyes. It couldn't be easy telling people there was no one to help them yet. "Thank you. And if any of you are able, we still have a lot of people unaccounted for in the debris. The Hyuuga's byakugan could be very useful in finding anyone still out there."
"Of course!" Hinata said, finally feeling her way back into normal conversation. Besides, all her wounds were healed up, so more than anyone else, she was fit and ready to go.
"Wonderful. They've set up a command station just past the wounded and are giving out search areas so no one overlaps." And with a quick nod, he headed back to those who needed his attention.
"This is a big mess to clean up." Osamu ran his fingers through his hair, catching on a knot. He looked at it a moment as if he hadn't realized how disheveled he was, only to be interrupted by Isamu gently knocking on his arm and shirking his head to something behind Hinata. Osamu nodded and threw a hand over Neji's shoulders and pulled him away. "Why don't we talk over here for a minute."
Surprisingly, Neji only resisted a second before nodding and allowing himself to be led not-too-far away. Then Naomi's eyes widened and she headed over to motion Hyobe towards the med-nin's triage area. "Why don't I take you back now."
Hinata stared at her retreating family, realizing a little belatedly that she'd effectively been left alone for no good reason. She turned on her heels, searching for whatever it was they saw behind her that scared them off, and was immediately assaulted by another embrace that she now identified as the "you're alive" hug. It was different from other hugs by the sheer pressure imposed to keep her from running off and dying again. She hadn't actually gotten a glimpse of who collided with her and now squeezed around her chest enough to catch her breath, but the hair dangling in her eyes was bright as the sun and beyond stood Sakura, a knowing smile on her face.
"I told him you didn't want to interrupt his celebration, but he didn't like that idea," Sakura said before gazing over Hinata's shoulder to see the wounded lined in rows. "I'll be helping out here if you need me, Naruto."
And they were alone, or as alone as everyone could give them surrounded by injured shinobi, nearby family, and the wide open space that hid nothing anyone was doing, least of all the hero of the village who was slowly drawing curious attention their way.
Naruto's almost suffocating embrace held all the emotions she'd seen in his eyes right before she died. The same desperation. The same fear. But instead of pain, there was relief. Sweet, exhausting relief. As hard as he held her, Naruto's body also sagged against her, using her to support some of his weight as they stood in a happy awkwardness.
"You were dead," he said. It was no more than a whisper in her ear, but the words struck her as hard as any blow. He didn't have the same broken sound Neji did, but he'd been there. Naruto had seen her die. The hurt in him was different, but just as powerful to bear.
Hinata wrapped her arms around him to return his hug, or maybe to offer the comfort she couldn't in words. "It was the right thing to do. I knew you'd save everyone. You even managed to save me."
"I almost didn't." There was that whisper again. It held all the intensity and strength his normally boisterous voice did trapped in a shadow of its true self, like a thunderstorm screaming through a wind chime. "I wanted to kill him. For you . . . for the village . . . I wanted to see him hurt the way he hurt you. But then . . . I wouldn't have been the hoka— the man you died for . . . right?"
"I died so you could save them. I knew you'd figure out how if I got you the chance."
They continued to hold one another, neither breaking the pleasure of feeling their friend alive. Hinata herself had died before Naruto was free. She hadn't been certain her sacrifice had been worth it. But it had, and Naruto was here in her arms, not trapped by the Akatsuki or dead. It felt good to breathe in the dirty musk of damp hair and dust that permeated him at present. The fight was over. The people were safe. For this moment, Hinata felt surprisingly at peace.
A fast, jerky movement ripped her from the quiet calm their embrace had offered. If Naruto himself weren't still a little unsteady on his feet, she'd have fallen from the unexpected force of his movement, but instead they balanced each other as he pulled back enough to see her face. Hinata remembered getting lost in Naruto's eyes before, blue and bright, so different from the Hyuuga's white eyes. She didn't lose herself when he stared at her now; she was trapped. A single glance and he'd stolen her soul and held her as firmly as his hands fisted over her shoulder.
"I'm stupid," he said with the kind of definite authority Hyobe would use to explain something he expected Hinata to already know. "I've been an idiot about a lot of things most of my life, so when everyone said to just shut up and let it go, I actually listened to them. And maybe Neji was right when he told me it was just guilt that made me want to do something, to make it right, but then you died . . ."
Naruto paused and dropped his eyes, releasing her from his imprisoning stare long enough to think beyond the intensity of emotions laid bare and open to her. Even so, all Hinata could name was need. The need to say something. Deep, thick need dripping from every word and bleeding from every twitch of his face. If only she had any idea what he was talking about, she might have seen far more in those blue eyes when they returned to face her.
"I was angry and sad and I realized I never got to know the amazing person my friend had become because I listened to everybody else when they said to leave you alone. I'm not making that mistake again." He leaned in closer, his fallen hair brushing against her bangs, tangling softly against her forehead. "I should've asked before, and now everything's a mess, but when things settle I'm gonna ask you out, and I can be damn persistent."
Hinata's throat closed up. Naruto couldn't understand how intimate feeling him nearly touching her forehead was. He wasn't Hyuuga, didn't know how even she—sealless—did not let people touch her forehead lightly. And yet here he was, in the middle of who knows how many people now staring at them, holding her both further away than the previous hug and yet so, so much closer. And she was supposed to get married! Sure the village's destruction probably postponed that for a long time, but it was still a fact. And why couldn't she say anything?!
"She'll say yes when she figures out how to talk again," said a surprising voice from behind her.
She broke free of Naruto's far-too-blue eyes. "Neji?"
"You're not mad at me?" Naruto narrowed a skeptical gaze at Neji standing only far enough away as to appear to offer privacy. The twins, it seemed, had disappeared.
Neji took in Hinata and Naruto in their awkward intimacy and smiled his broken smile. "You brought my sister back to me. I'm now officially on your side."
As if the two of them hadn't spent the last five years completely loathing each other, Naruto's face grew brighter with his new-found grin, which he wielded much-too-effectively against Hinata. "It's settled then! I have to go find Kakashi-sensei, but when this is all over, I'm coming to ask you out. Count on it!" And off Naruto went, lumbering more than running past Hinata and Neji in the direction Sakura had gone earlier. No doubt he was headed to the command station beyond the field of wounded.
Hinata stood frozen, flabbergasted by everything that had happened in the last few minutes. There were no words for her to grasp onto and fewer that she appeared capable of uttering. What just happened?! Sensing her fluster, though he made no attempt to hide his amusement, Neji approached and claimed Naruto's place in front of her. Gently, he kissed the top of her head like a parent comforting a child.
"Forget about the clan or what's right. You died for the clan. What more commitment can they ask for? Do something stupid for once. As long as it makes you happy, I'll make sure no one causes a fuss."
"A fuss!" she gasped as the words finally broke through her shock. "Grandpa would kill me, not to mention what the clan would think."
Neji cocked his head to the side the way Akamaru sometimes would when he caught the beginning of a trail. "I don't know. Naruto did just save the entire village and bring you back from the dead. That might earn him a few points with Grandpa and the clan. Can you imagine the hassle if they had to wait until Shou was old enough in order to have a legitimate clan head? He saved us all a big headache."
Hinata slumped her shoulders, but yielded any argument. Neji had just made light of her death, which considering how he'd acted since she'd awoke, Hinata took it as an improvement, and not one she was going to challenge with continued arguments.
"I suppose none of it really matters right now. Weddings won't be happening here for a long time, probably." She let her eyes wander over the ruins of their village. "We should go help search for anyone still trapped.
Neji didn't stop her, but ushered her a longer way around the triage area rather than wading through the injured. She thought he might have done it out of respect, but that brokenness still lingered in his gaze as he looked over the wounded, and she wondered how horrible her body must have appeared after she'd died. She didn't complain at his route.
After a moment's walk, which put them out of direct sight of most of the injured, Neji let out a small sigh, as if he'd been holding his breath, and eyed Hinata as they strolled over the barren land. "Osamu and Isamu told me the highlight of your fight while you and Naruto hugged each other profusely. Did you really seal the enemy?"
Hinata blushed a dark crimson, but all the grime coating her skin made it appear merely pink on her cheeks. She didn't return Neji's gaze. "I'd run out of options by that point. Then I remembered Grandpa had said that most likely the three great ocular techniques were all connected, and likely born from byakugan. I figured there might be enough similarities to work, and didn't have much to lose trying."
"It's still amazing it worked at all."
"It wasn't exactly the same seal," Hinata admitted, glancing around to make sure no one was too near to overhear their conversation. This was a truth she could explain only to Neji, who knew how much she'd studied the seal outside Hyobe's tutelage. "His coils weren't the same as ours. There was no pathway that led to the brain stem as ours do. If I'd cared about doing damage to him, I wouldn't have been able to finish it."
Neji said something in reply, but Hinata didn't pay attention. A nagging feeling about what she'd said tugged at her mind. There'd been no time to consider her actions during the fight. Now she had the luxury to wonder. The enemy's coil system had been different. There was nowhere to put all the chakra needed to activate the seal upon death. She ended up shoving it behind his eyes, as the coils system was strong enough there to contain it, even if it couldn't do so without damaging his eyes.
Without a word to the confusion that stopped Neji beside her, Hinata pulled out a blank scroll and a pencil from her pack and began sketching as much of Pain's coils system that she could remember. She let her mind replay the sealing, feeling out the path she took and copying it down in as much detail as she could. Seeing as she used to do this to Neji's coils after using the seal, her drawing was fairly accurate despite the short time she'd focused on it in battle. There was nowhere that could hold the chakra in this coils system.
When she failed to respond to him again, Neji covered her hands with his to force her attention back. "Hinata, what's wrong?"
"Not wrong," she said, the pieces of her mixed up thoughts coming together as she spoke in a hurried hush. "It's not wrong. I've been looking at the seal as having two parts that need to be separated, but they're not. There's nothing wrong with the seal, it does exactly what it's supposed to. It just does more, too."
"I don't understand."
"I assumed the chakra was in the brain stem to cause pain, but that's not it. Hijiri, the one who crafted the seal, wasn't a cruel leader. He must have had the same problem I do: there's nowhere else to put the chakra without hurting the person. He might not have even known it would be able to cause pain when he crafted the seal. Later clan heads could have abused the side effect until we all assumed that's how it was crafted, but the teachings scrolls never mention any intent to cause pain. It's just meant to seal byakugan!"
"So does that mean you can fix it?" Neji asked tentatively, the edge of hope fighting to escape his voice.
Hinata shook her head to rein all the racing thoughts back enough to answer him coherently. "No, not right now. It means I've been looking at it all wrong. I don't need to create a new seal. I need to focus on finding a way to hold the chakra somewhere else without hurting the person. I don't know if it's possible, but that's where I need to focus, not on the seal itself."
Neji grabbed the scroll from her hands and quickly rolled it up as a couple shinobi headed their way with an injured man between them. "Exciting as this is, it'd be best to keep quiet for now. Come on, let go help the others."
Hinata nodded, but she burst inside with the eager energy she felt first learning the seal, new and challenging and wholly within her reach. Finally she knew what she needed to do. She just had to figure out how. Who knew rinnegan would hold the key to the seal?