Title:
Things that could have happened had Hizashi been the older son
Author:
Runespoor
Rating:
T
Summary:
series of unrelated drabbles/ficlets. See title.
7A.
Hinata was two when her father died, and she doesn't remember him. She was too young.
He left nothing for her to find years after his death, no letters, no hidden trunks, no weapons she'd have received when she donned her Konoha hitae-ite for the first time, no "your father wanted you to have this".
She was too young to remember even glimpses of what had happened; she doesn't blame Hizashi or the Main House.
But her father – her father died without a thought of the daughter he was, for all intents and purposes, abandoning. (She's harsh, maybe needlessly, but she never knew the man and her heart is steel against Hizashi-sama's dead brother.)
So she doesn't trust Hizashi-sama even a little. She knows that the time will come when he will forsake his own son, without a thought.
This is why she always, always carries the tea tray into the dojo when the order comes, no matter the training she should be doing herself.
It is Hinata's duty to protect Neji-sama, whom no one needs to know she thinks about asNeji-niisama. (She had no memory of her father, her mother is a half-faded woman, and Hinata is an only child.) She has lost her father, and she must prepare to shield Neji from his father's ultimate betrayal – because he, too, will leave. (It's only more likely because they were twins, similar.)
This is why Hinata always confronts her uncle – discreetly, when Neji isn't looking, because the ease with which Hizashi seems to give makes Hinata even colder on Neji's behalf.
This one is mine, she promises.
When you go and die. I will be there.
The day Neji looks for her in the compound, under an excuse that has nothing to do with his father, she thinks that she's starting to win.