A/N: These are getting harder to write so I apologize in advance for the slowdown in updates (not too much, however, I promise). Reviews are welcome!

NINE: In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

"My sister was branded with the curse seal when I was six," she told him one night while they lay in bed. "I hated what it did to her. She was so beautiful and full of dreams. The seal changed all of that. She became an empty shell of her former self."

"My brother had the opposite reaction," Hiashi said quietly. "He became angry and defiant. Over time he grew to hate me."

"Hizashi does not hate you."

"Hmph," he murmured tiredly into her bare shoulder but otherwise did not argue. He knew differently.

"Promise me you will not brand our children."

"I cannot make that promise," he said shortly, surprised by her unreasonable request. "The decision is not mine alone. There is the council and the fate of the clan to consider."

"Then tell the council to go to hell," she whispered softly.

"What has gotten into you?" he demanded, sitting up abruptly and looking down at her. His unbound hair spilled over his shoulder and tickled his nose but he ignored it.

She looked up at him with hard eyes. "Why do you not stand up to them? Why must you do everything they say?"

"Do not speak on things you do not understand," he said harshly and turned away.

"Then help me to understand! Help me understand why my sister's children and your nephew must be sealed. They barely started living their lives and you're imprisoning them!"

"Stop."

She did thankfully and he took a calming breath. "Have you considered the alternative? Imagine living a life where thieves kidnap Hyuga children in the middle of the night so they can gorge out their eyes. Do you know how much a pair of healthy Hyuga eyes go for in the black market?"

"Hiashi…" her voice failed her as it choked on tears, "that is not—".

"That was the reality our ancestors faced once the world knew of the Byakugan," he continued quietly, "and the seal was their solution. It is a cruel system; I do not deny that, but it is a necessary one. Without it, our people would be slaughtered like cattle by those who would seek the Byakugan's power."

She was quiet but he did not need to look at her to know that she was crying. He hated himself for making her cry but these were the hard truths he faced everyday as clan leader. There was nothing, no matter how much he wanted it to be otherwise, he could do to change this fate. "Why are you speaking of this?" he asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

She didn't say anything for a long moment and he thought that she was shunning him out of anger. But then he heard her faint whisper and his world changed forever.

"I am pregnant."