I've always thought Gai could do with a bit more love from the fandom!

Hakujitsumu VII

Tsunade stood over the bed where Yamato lay, the half of his face which was still his looked calm, bordering on serenity, as no creasing marred its surface and she did not like it. Seriously ill patients only looked this calm when they'd accepted their impending death. Tenzou had not earned this death, he had already lived a long, hard era and for a man who'd managed to retain such gentleness and an even temper, he more than deserved a longer era of peace and happiness before his death. The right side of Yamato, that was not Yamato, looked a good deal more stressed and glistened with the thin sheen of moisture the flesh seemed to exude; it was not sweat. Tsuande called upon her chakra and held a hand to his right cheek, it certainly felt like Yamato's body and chakra, she could feel the chakra pathways that connected the cells together… though they certainly seemed odd, there appeared to be an odd clustering of them around his cheekbone before they opened to circle the occipital bone. She placed her other hand on the opposite side of his face and felt exactly the same cluster — though on his normal side, the pathways were far more logical in their manner. Instead of twisting back on themselves and creating a pinch point, as they did on the right side, the pathways on his left appeared to follow the natural line of his face, following the cheek upwards to the bone before flowing along it and up around the eye. On the right side, however, the pathway looked as if it wished to still curve upwards and to the right, but was forced back on itself by the left-curvature of the cheek… as if someone had, somehow, merely copied the flow of the pathway from his left side and implanted it into the right.

Tsunade repeated her inspection at intervals down the length of his body and found the same thing: the chakra pathways all appeared to have been duplicated from his left side and then replicated into the right. At the join between the two 'sides' of him, there appeared to be an impasse: the human side of him could not fix what had been changed and the inhuman part of him could not infect him any further. But was it an infection? Tsunade wondered as she searched the cells for any indication that they were fighting. No. In fact, the more Tsunade thought about it, the more that the white portion of Yamato read as Yamato. As he was normally. Aside from the chakra pathways, the only thing telling her that there was something wrong with him were her eyes. She walked over to the bench in the corner of the room and picked up several vials, she returned to her patient and took skin scrapings from both sides of him, as far from the join as she was able to avoid contamination, she set the two into her lab-coat pocket. She then picked up a scalpel and made a small incision in his right arm; nothing happened to the wound for a good few minutes until eventually it welled with thick white ooze. She took a sample of it. Labelling the vials and returned them to her pocket. She turned back to heal the small wound, only find that it was gone. Frowning slightly at it, she pulled the cover back up to Yamato's chin and left the room.

"Sasuke? Are you awake?" Shizune asked as she held a hand to the last Uchiha's forehead,

"Hn,"

"I'll take that as a yes; how are you feeling?"

"Hn."

"Tsuande-sama wants to ask you some questions, do you feel up to it?"

"Hn." Shizune sighed and pulled her hand away,

"You'd better give me something better than 'hn', Sasuke, this is serious. How did you escape the Otsutsuki after she'd captured Naruto?" Tsunade ordered, already irritated with the contrite patient.

"The tree got… Kakashi and Sakura… Naruto tried to help like an idiot and got caught… I used the opportunity to escape."

"I gathered that," Tsunade answered, looking carefully at Sasuke who was slowly pulling himself to a sitting position, his eyes remained closed and body language suggested the fact that he must feel awful. Sasuke had never looked so terrible. "I'm asking how you escaped."

"My rinnegan, whilst she was occupied capturing Naruto, I used the… Ashura path… I think… after I got away, I waited and she didn't chase. The tree around me didn't react to my chakra." Sasuke explained, rather haltingly. Tsuande resisted the urge to sigh, Sasuke had never been the most forthcoming of individuals and he certainly had the ability to rival Naruto in his inability to clearly articulate himself but he was starting to take the piss.

"Sasuke, that is not a good enough explanation." Tsunade replied, "Do you have any idea why she didn't chase you?"

"No. She just didn't." Sasuke replied blandly, as Tsuande mustered every inch of her self control to resist punching his smug face into the back of his head.

"Come with me."

"Why?"

"It's time for you to talk to Ino again. She's just down the hall."

"I'm too tired, now." Sasuke replied, lying back down again,

"Well you'll be dead later, so you'd better hop to it now and I might let you have a painless death."

"That's the best threat you can come up with?" Sasuke shot back, not moving in the slightest; Tsunade crossed the room in less than a second and grabbed him by his collar, lifted him clean off the bed and slammed him onto his feet, not once loosening her grip. "Ugh, ah… what—?" He struggled for a few minutes, his sharingan flashing into his eyes, though before he cast any sort of genjutsu upon his Hokage, his nausea caught up to him and he was forced to croon his neck around Tsunade's hand and vomited all over the floor. "Ugh," He groaned pathetically, "Let me go,"

Tsunade smirked, "Who'd have thought a little vomit would be enough to stop the last Uchiha? Maybe all I needed to do, back then, was feed you a large glass of saline water and saved your teammates untold trouble. Come on." She marched out of the door and down the hall, still dragging Sasuke who only attempted to take every third step or so. Eventually they made it out onto the roof space of the hospital, above which an enormous tree branch loomed and Ino was still attached. They'd managed to move the Yamanaka at intervals and the tree was quick to reattach to her wrappings. She was now at the top of the hospital and, depending upon what Sasuke had to report back, Tsunade was hoping to free her before too much longer.

It had been several months since Sasuke had suddenly appeared and thrown Ino's entire perception of reality into disarray; she's spent several days thinking about what he'd said and tried to analyse her memories. His body language, his tone of voice, his words his eye movements. Although she was forced to admit that she really didn't know Sasuke all that well, she did know he'd always had more than enough ego in him to believe he was always above everyone — and that the only true power was physical might. Egoists never have much time for subtle games of deception. The only thing about the whole situation that prevented her from dismissing him entirely was the fact that she hadn't thought about Sasuke at all until he appeared in front of her. Neither had she heard anyone else mention his name nor the name 'Uchiha' — and given the part he played in defeating the Kaguya, it was certainly an odd thing. Even more odd that Ino hadn't even considered it until the man himself appeared. Some intelligence operative she was. If Sasuke's appearance hadn't been enough, she'd suffered strange bouts of blankness; as if she'd fainted but woke up in exactly the same spot she'd dropped and to the same time of day. She never found any bruises or bodily injuries and no one else seemed to notice that she dropped into a dead faint — be in the middle of the street or whilst she was talking to Ibiki.

After talking with Sasuke — and a sleepless night — Ino decided that she needed some further proof and went in search of Sakura; if she had indeed been 'woken up', then she should be acting differently than normal. Just like Shikamaru had been. She tracked down her friend and found her walking idly home with a shopping bag in her hand.

"Hey, Sakura! How've you been? We haven't spoken for ages,"

"Oh, hi Ino." Sakura smiled,

"Want to get some lunch?"

"No, I agreed to eat with Kakashi."

"No problem," Ino replied, falling into step beside her old friend as they walked down the street, "I've been meaning to ask you something,"

"Oh?"

"Have you heard from Sasuke, recently?"

"Who?"

"Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke." Ino clarified, looking at Sakura carefully,

"Oh, him. No, not really, why?" Sakura asked, seemingly oblivious to the trap; Ino nodded a few times,

"Oh I was just trying to remember how long you guys dated for, a few months, wasn't it?" Ino lied,

"Yeah, something like that, I barely remember those days, now, it all seems so long ago." Sakura replied, with an easy, unthinking smile on her face and a casual shrug of her shoulders,

"Yeah… it does. I've gotta go, but we'll catch up soon, okay?"

"Okay, bye!" Sakura offered as Ino leapt up onto the nearest roof and sank into a crouch on its far side, out of line of sight of the street; not that she thought the parody of Sakura down there would notice. Haruno Sakura would never have forgotten Sasuke. For as much as she loved him as a child to as much as she learned to hate him as a teenager, Sasuke was, for all the wrong reasons, one of the most formative people in her best friend's life. Sasuke had been the singular person who taught Sakura how to see herself, how to see that she was worth more than the neglect of a man who hated her… and Ino knew that Sakura was not so stupid as to ever let herself forget such a vital lesson, or what taught it to her. Whatever that thing was down there, prancing about in Sakura's uniform, wearing her face and occupying her name, was not Haruno Sakura.

Ino's next stop was Kakashi, he'd just gotten back from a mission — Ino had seen him walking into the administration building just before she'd found Sakura — she darted over the rooftops and was in luck: she spied his silver quiff through the crowd. She leapt off the eve and landed a few paces ahead of him,

"I'm sorry to bother you, Kakashi-sensei, I know you've just got back, but we're preparing an intel briefing and I need to clarify something with you,"

"Oh?" Kakashi said, appearing to perk up slightly,

"Do you remember, several years ago, when Asuma-sensei was killed? It was those two Akatsuki members, their names were Kisame and Nagato, right?"

"Ahh… I haven't thought about that in a long time."

"But their names were Nagato and Kisame?"

"I think so… Why are you asking me? Can't you check the records?"

"Of course," Ino said, Kakashi smiled, pulled his copy of Icha Icha from his pocket and walked past her, she turned slowly to watching him walk casually away, easily slipping past the milling civilians.

"That was not Kakashi."

"Eh?" Ino turned at the sudden voice over her shoulder, finding Maito Gai,

"Kakashi is an elite genius — he always knew more about the Akatsuki than any of us, there is no way he would mistake their names — especially not the names of those who'd murdered one of his dear friends." Gai's face was as stern as his voice,

"You've noticed it, too?" Ino asked softly, "What were the names of those Akatsuki?"

"Hidan and Kakuzu, of course… I would have liked to have been on that mission to avenge Asuma," Gai answered darkly, "I don't like this, I think I should speak to Tsuande-sama,"

"Gai, wait! I think I can tell you what's going on… come with me." Ino again hopped onto the nearest roof, this one having been adapted into a useful space, with benches, an awning and a number of plants; Gai landed before she did.

"Please explain," Gai began, his arms folded over his chest,

"Before I do… can you just answer one thing for me, please? What's the last thing you remember hearing about Uchiha Sasuke?" Ino asked, carefully watching as Gai's stern expression frozen, before it slowly morphed into one of deep, though unsuccessful, recollection: his lower lip pushing into his upper and his eyes slowly rising and slanting to the right, almost disappearing under his vigorous eyebrows;

"I suppose that would be back during the war."

"Me too, I hadn't thought about him at all until recently. It seems no one has… doesn't that seem odd to you?"

"Hmmm… yes… but why did you suddenly think of him?"

"Sasuke came to see me."

"Eh?"

"I was conducting an interrogation, just as I sat down to begin questioning him, I looked up and there sat Sasuke."

"You sure it wasn't him you were supposed to be interrogating?"

Ino shot him a look, "Uchiha Sasuke wanders back into the village and submits to an interrogation and you think the entire village wouldn't have been talking about it? At least give me some credit, Gai."

"My apologies, you have a point. What did he say?"

"That we are all trapped under the Infinite Tsukikomi."

"WHAT?" Gai shouted, reflexively squatting into his panic-stance as his fists balled, "How? Why? When did we..?"

"I don't know, I clearly remember winning the war, I remember hearing about how Sasuke and Naruto had sealed Otsutsuki… so where we were captured and what actually happened, I can't tell you." Ino answered, trying to hide her concern over Gai's reaction; his words seem to reassure him and he remembered himself, again standing upright,
"How can we be certain of this?"

"You saw Kakashi just now… I've been noticing something has been off with Shikamaru for a few weeks and I spoke to Sakura earlier, she got key points of her own life wrong, as well. Sasuke told me that they've woken up several Leaf shinobi, Tsunade-sama, Sakura, Kakashi-san, Shikamaru, Shizune-sampai and they're planning on waking up Chouji soon."

"Then we should watch Chouji to see any changes in him."

"Exactly what I was thinking… do you like barbecue, Gai?"

"No. Whilst a delicious treat, it… err… doesn't well agree with me. We should invite Chouji to train with us… perhaps once a week should be good intervals so I can get used to Chouji's personality and style. We don't know if the change when someone is awoken is sudden or slow."

"That is a good point. Chouji's out on a mission right now, he went last night but he told me he's supposed be only gone for a week."

"Okay! When he gets back, I'll find him and tell him I want to train with him, he's sure to agree!" Gai offered his signature grin and a thumbs up,

"Um, well just in case he's unsure, I'll tell him we're training together and that I want him to join too,"

"Okay!"

Just as they'd agreed, they trained with Chouji; although he'd been rather reluctant initially, after a single session training with Gai, Chouji had immediately warmed to him and happily agreed to the regular training sessions. Ino was right with him — Gai was a very different instructor from what Asuma had been; though she still sorely missed her former sensei, even from the first day, Ino knew she would never form as close a relationship with him as the boys would. Asuma usually kept a slight but significant distance from her, as if she were some strange creature he would happily teach and protect but would never fully understand and so made no genuine effort to do so. Sakura had said the same of Kakashi and they both quietly accepted that that would be their fate as kuniochi under male instructors. Ino had never spoken much to TenTen, so what Gai had been like towards her, she never heard. But Gai was markedly different, even from the first training session, he observed them spar, initially, and had given them both immensely useful tips — from their stances, to how to increase seal speed, to how to more effectively hold a kunai, Ino hadn't learned so much about her own fighting style in a single day since the academy.

Gai had an exceptionally keen eye, despite his outwardly brash and occasionally idiotic seeming personality often overshadowing it, he was clearly a man of great experience and insight. He spoke directly but without ego or belittlement, it was blindingly obvious that his only intention was to help his comrades improve: he spoke no differently to Chouji as he did to herself and she felt no gulf in understanding between them. Gai had no comments about her emotions, he didn't pull back when she got angry and had only heartfelt words of encouragement when her confidence faltered; a far cry from many of the men she'd worked with over the years. And improve they did, Ino enjoyed training with Gai so much she's almost completely forgotten that they were supposed to be watching Chouji (she'd also been stunned to realise just how much she enjoyed Taijutsu under Gai's enthusiastic attitude). At least, until one day Chouji arrived to train and the difference in him was instantly recognisable. Ino and Gai had shared a dark look but trained as normal. Afterwards, they talked for a long time about what they should do and, in want of a better idea, they'd agreed to wait until Sasuke returned.

It had been the better part of five months until Ino saw him again and, to their fortune, it happened to be whilst Ino was sparring Gai. Just as she was preparing to dodge Gai's attack, she looked up at him to find Sasuke leaping in front of her,

"Hello, Ino."

"You're back, finally."

"What do you mean?"

"It's been nearly half a year! I was starting to think you were just back on your bullshit."

"Interesting, it's only been a week in my time." Sasuke replied, not sounding half as curious as his words would have suggested; Ino raised an eyebrow but waiting for him to continue. "We're back in Konoha, now."

"Am I back in Konoha? Was I before?"

"No, we moved you."

"I guess that explains the blackouts,"

"Blackouts?"

"I kept on… fainting, I guess, but no one else noticed."

"Why would they have? We didn't move anyone else who was still under."

"I meant no one else noticed me fainting." Ino replied, though Sasuke merely stared back at her as if she was trying to explain was so out of the realm of his experience he couldn't begin to fathom her meaning. "What's happening in Konoha, right now?"

"I don't know, I've been in the hospital. But I know they are planning to attack the Otsutsuki soon,"

"And that will free us?" Ino pushed,

"Not sure."

"Why are you in hospital?"

"I'm ill."

Ino rolled her eyes in frustration, "Thanks so much for the clarification, idiot, obviously you're ill. Ill with what?"

"Some sort of infection, Tsuande doesn't think I'll get better." Sasuke replied, Ino bit her tongue to prevent issuing the 'good' she so desperately wanted to.

Kakashi closed the door his apartment behind him, slipped off his sandals, flack jacket and haitai-ate, plonked his butt on his bed and wondered just exactly what he should give his first thought to. The fact he may well be ordered to accept one of Sasuke's sharingan after his death — and whether or not he was okay with such an eventuality — or just what he was feeling towards Sakura and how he would articulate it to her. Not to mention what her response might be. Both felt like heavy weights that had settled themselves on his shoulders and clearly had no intention of leaving until forced… whether he'd made a decision or not. The worst he could do would to be unprepared, to be caught off guard by the turn of events and be swept along by them before he even knew what was happening. He'd successfully put off thinking too hard about it by spending his days training, trying to regain what he could of his atrophied fitness but it failed to inspire him as previously it had. He'd been fighting the gnawing sense of hopelessness ever since he'd been awoken: he'd already put the hard work in to recover from the toll of the war. He'd already recovered from the fighting and continued his training, with reaching new heights of his abilities. He'd stepped across the tricky and sometimes dangerous barriers of creating a deeper relationship with Sakura. He's become a husband, a father. And in a heartbeat it had been ripped away and here he was, sat on his ass, physically weaker than he'd ever been in his life and with none of the people he felt closest too around him.

He remembered feeling like this once before, just after his father had died; he felt powerless and lost, uncertain which direction to move in and helpless to shift the weight that had then settled upon his shoulders. That same week was when Kakashi had first walked into this very apartment, it had been a sad October day, then, everything had been grey and flat. It had been Inoichi, Kakashi recalled, who's shown him to the apartment, on the Sandaime's orders after Sakumo's body had been discovered; Inoichi had just joined the Intel squad, such as it was in those days, and, as the newest member had taken on the job of removing an eight year old Kakashi from the scene. Kakashi remembered swallowing his turmoil and nausea before turning to a twenty year old Inoichi and asking, 'what happens now?' Inoichi had given him such a sad look then, before telling him to get some rest and see the Sandaime tomorrow. It was until some time later that he'd realised Inoichi had probably interpreted Kakashi's question to be 'is my father still alive' rather than the 'what becomes of my fathers effects and finances now' that Kakashi had actually meant. Back then, Kakashi had been able to push his feeling down and squash them under and ever increasing workload and being gone from Konoha as much as he was able; it gnawed quietly at his sense of self for years and he'd happily let it. Until one day he realised he hadn't thought about it at all for a long time… right around the time he started to notice Sakura looking at him.

But that beast was very different from the one he faced now… though identical in the manner they presented themselves. Here he faced an enemy he could do little to defeat and the wreckage of the world did little to alleviate his growing anxieties. The beast that continued to stalk his peripheral vision, which tiptoed around his synapses and upset their delicate chemical balance… Kakashi knew well the physiological reasoning, but it did little to lift the weight that saddled him. And he had no idea what any one event would combat it and that attempting to bury it this time would do nothing but make him worse.

When Hinata had arrived back in Konoha, she had gone straight back to her clan compound; it still looked as grandiose and imposing as it always had, despite nature's encroachment. The two other Hyuuga who'd also been awoken flanked her, as the only Main House member current awake, the two Branch House members looked to her on instinct, despite their being Jounin.

"Go and rest," She ordered, "We will investigate the extent of the damage tomorrow." They had obeyed and walked off to the far side of the courtyard; Hinata stood for a few moments, the full moon giving ample illumination; the tree branches casting deep shadows over the small central tree; many windows and fusuma had been smashed or torn where several smaller branches of the great tree had forced their way in to capture their targets. She walked slowly towards her front door, easily stepping over the debris and fallen branches from the grand tree which down stood at the courtyard's centre. Her mother had once told her that, despite its small size, the tree had lived for almost a century, the Hyuuga clan having planted it when they settled in Konoha and each successive generation had carefully tended and pruned it to keep it compact and healthy. Hinata, only six at the time and preparing for her first day at the academy, had wondered why the tree should be kept so small when it could grow so large.

"Because, Hinata, if we allowed the tree to grow as it pleased, it would soon dwarf the house, it's leaves would overhand the windows, it's branches would break and damage the roof and it's roots would spread into the foundations." She heard her mother's voice as clearly as if the woman were speaking next to her; even then Hinata got the sense she was speaking about something other than the tree but it was only now, as she stood looking at her cold, ruthless childhood home, that she realised that her mother was probably talking about the Branch House. Hinata looked back across the courtyard to where a small light flicked on in the adjoining house and two shadows moved sombrely around. The old politics might have had their place, back in the dark ages of constant warring and the only trust a shinobi might know was with a clanmate but here, in today's Konoha, such barbaric indifference to human life had no place. And her leadership would change it.

She climbed the steps up to the engawa and pulled open the fusuma, which opened directly into the main hall, where clan meetings were held and training took place… and the site of many a humiliation for her. It was littered with dust and debris; the air as still and cold as she had often found it to be back in her childhood. She half expected to see Hiashi appear from one of the adjoining doors. She crossed the room and walked down the hallway, the main house was a labyrinth of walkways, engawas and rooms, her own being in the very centre of the house. She'd been moved after her attempted kidnapping and Hinata knew that the trauma of that incident, combined with the move away from any windows and the sudden increase in her father's desire to see her become a shinobi unlike any other had destroyed Hinata's sense of self and left her so psychologically weak, she was almost ashamed to recall what she was like back then. Shaking her head to clear her memories, she continued down the hall and took double aspected room at the end. She took a futon from the cupboard and hurriedly got ready for bed, despite her turmoiled thoughts, she was exhausted.

She'd awoken early the next day and set about cleaning and repairing the damage, when Ryutsa and Yiro had awoken and come to find her with a freshly brewed pot of tea which they'd almost dropped in at the sight of her with only a loose jinbei and trousers on, her hair in a high bun and on her knees scrubbing the floorboards.

"Ah… Hinata-sama, you should not have to—"

"No." She's risen to her feet and turned to them, "We all need to put in equal work if we are to help restore the compound and get Konoha back on its feet. I will take over as head of the clan from here on and I will abolish the Branch House. No one else will suffer the mark nor will you be expected to throw your lives away because of clan politics." Ryutsa and Yiro had merely stared at Hinata for several long moments, apparently unsure how to respond. "From here on, I ask only that you protect the clan to the same level that Tsunade-sama asks of her shinobi to Konoha."

"H-hai, Hinata-sama."

"Then please help me to clean up the buildings of the compound." They had gladly agreed and hopped to the task, though not before bowing to her; the insidious threads of politics would take a while to unpick.

Eventually Hinata had to face her father's study, a room she had been in only thrice before and each time she had been alone with her father's animosity and dissatisfaction. Hiashi had been a man born into leadership and took up its mantel with gusto, though the only definition he was able to create was a pallid reflection of the clan's former egoists who believed that bullying and coercion were the only way to get others to follow orders. Despite the large window, Hiashi's office had remained untouched since the last time he'd left it, his low desk sat in the middle of the room, behind it, with his back to the window was the ancient zabuton Hiashi used. Somewhere she'd heard that it had belonged to her great-grandfather. Either side of the desk were two enormous tansu which stepped up the walls in an identical manner, mirroring each other. They were carved from cherrywood and dominated the room, blocking out a lot of light from the window it created only a narrow channel for it to enter the room, in turn blocked by Hiashi as he sat at his desk. How he could bear to have his back to the beautiful woods behind him, Hinata had never understood.

She decided to start with the tansu to her left, with the obvious drawers and cupboards — well aware that the two enormous chests were probably stuffed to the gils with secret compartments and booby-trapped spaces — but she'd worry about those later. The initial compartments were filled with clan documentation, marriages, births, deaths and related minutiae; there were also documents detailing the hierarchy for siblings and how it was to be decided which children were accepted into the Main House and which were foisted off into the Branch. Hinata was well aware that her father had been the first born twin and owing to that hand of fate, his six minute younger brother, Hizashi, had been cursed to bear the seal of the Branch House. Hinata had wondered why her own younger sister, Hanabi, had not been used with the same hand; she'd often assumed that it was mostly owing to Hinata's unsatisfactory development… but that didn't entirely explain it all. Besides, who made the decisions as to who became Branch or Main? Was it purely birthright? Or did it fall to the whims of the head of the Main House?

Tsuande settled herself in her office chair, the mountains of paperwork that she'd left behind when she deployed up to Kaminari territory still sat exactly where she'd left them; the bloody sunset was casting deep shadows in her office and it did little to sooth her mood. Right now, things were fairly stable, the Otsutsuki seemed unperturbed by the awakening of so many shinobi but there was no telling how long that might last. Even with Naruto and Sakura having the ability to fight using sage techniques, there was still no good reason to believe that they two could potentially win against the Kaguya… especially where two powerful shinobi, blessed by Hagoromo no less had previously failed. Sasuke was clinging on to life and whether or not he lived for several weeks more, he was useless to them. Tsuande sighed to herself and reached into her side cupboard where an unopened bottle of sake sat, she pulled the cork off, wiped the dust from her bowl and poured a little out; even the strong smell of sake wasn't enough to lift her foul mood. She doubted the taste would elicit a more positive reaction, but she sorely desired to be simply absent for a short while, to forget her troubles until at least the sun rose again. Just as she picked up the small bowl, balanced between her finger and thumb, a sudden, enormous cloud of smoke filled her office. It was sudden enough that it caused her drop her bowl of sake, spilling it over the table,

"Kuso!" Tsuande swore, jumping to her feet,

"Sorry to surprise you, Tsunade-shishou."

..

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A/n I recently read an awesome Tumblr post by elenathehun on Hyuuga clan politics, which is partly the reason I decided to devote some time to Hinata as a character in this story! My thanks to they!

— If you're confused about timelines here, they've been back in Konoha for a little over 2 weeks, though some of the segments do jump back to their initial arrival.

— If any of you are familiar with my other story Storm Cloud, you're probably thinking I have a real thing for abandoned studies, discovering knowledge and forgotten family treasure! XD

— I've also been watching a lot of DS9 recently and dear god, could you image in we had holosuites? If we could create the Naruto world and -actually- interact with all these characters? If only! T.T