He used to love her.
When she was still the only child and barely grown. When her shyness and her habit of hiding behind his kimono had been heart warming and cute instead of a weakness.
He used to be proud of her.
When she had just been born and barely a babe, he had gone around showing her to the rest of the family. This is my daughter, he had said. This is the one who will lead us all one day, he had said.
Hizashi had loved her too, Hiashi was certain. His brother had always loved his family even if he had hated the clan. Hizashi had never told him what he had said to Neji after the sealing, but Hiashi suspects it has something to do with his daughter as Neji basically ignored the clan yet paid special attention to the girl.
Sometimes when he sees her weak, bloody, and hurt he wants to run up to her and hold her in his arms and tell her that it will all be alright one day.
But he can't. Because Hiashi doesn't make promises like that after Hizashi.
And he can't stop Neji because in the boy reminds him so much of the brother he had lost, that he can barely stand to be in his presence. The pain is still too deep, he can't bring himself to sit down with his troubled nephew and speak of what Hizashi said before he left them all behind.
For a bit longer Hiashi wants to keep everything Hizashi has ever been and said for himself. Before the clan, before the Branch and Main houses, before Konoha and before Neji, Hizashi had belonged to him – he should have always belonged to him, but he's not here anymore.
So Hinata suffers and Neji suffers because the weak one is not his daughter, but Hiashi.
Now its years later, a decade of pain, and Hiashi stands in front of his nephew who looks even more hauntingly like Hizashi than ever before. Asking things of him, that might have healed the wounds long ago, but now, only rip open new ones.
:-:
