A/N: Here goes chapter number one! Yeah! Well, as expect from a love story between Hiashi and Tsume, it does not and will not evolve rapidly. However ... I really badly want to write the Hinata/Kiba part ... very, very badly because they are the ULTIMATE LOVEY-DOVEY COUPLE! HINA/KIBA FANGIRLS (the feminine is used here to be neutral, it is not offensive xD) UNITE! As you see, I am smitten with that pairing, therefore, instead of incorporating their love story in my very slow and descriptive life of our favourite older Shinobi, I might (I WILL) write a companion fic to this one that will start when Kiba and Hinata are eighteen and will depict how the story repeats itself and of course, their parents will have a great role to play in it ...
Warning: Well there is none really for this chapter. I actually realized that this story was pretty much T, besides a few chapters that will be M, but eh I'll just inform you guys then.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but heck would I love to own the Hyūga (besides Hanabi) and all the Inuzuka.
:: Chapter 1 ::
Age had no importance was he always told. It was true. When an enemy attacks, he never asks of your age, he never wonders if your mother might be waiting to tuck you in, in a far away country. It was repulsive to think that one could attack someone younger than him; it was so repulsive to his little self-righteous, disciplined soul. And yet, it was the truth of this world. If it hadn't been the truth, his mother, his beloved mother, soft iryōnin who bent down an instant over a dying husband would have never lost her head in the swift movement of a katana.
He still remembered how she could not harm any being. She would always tell his father:
"I am an iryōnin, a false ninja. I do not kill, I heal. I am a traitor in my very own way."
And what a traitor! She had no right to die; she had no right to leave them all alone. However, once again, the enemy does not ask about every person's rights to remain alive or not. If he did, he would be no enemy but a policeman from the Uchiha clan.
"Hiashi, don't tell me you are crying again, all by yourself?"
Quickly raising his large sleeve, he brushed it over his eyelashes.
"I am not crying, Hizashi. Heirs don't cry ..."
He turned his head; making that cumbersome hair he must grow slap him right across the eyes. He had started to feel uncomfortable around his twin since their parents' death. The further the boy was from him, the easier he could breath. It was quite amusing, in a very ironic way, to believe that not so long ago they would not leave each other's side. Whenever their grandfather would order for them to split, Hizashi would look up at him cheekily, stating that a true bodyguard never leaves the side of his master. Horridly would he pay such words, but Hiashi would always butt in, walking towards their grandfather, staring and glaring.
"You have no right to punish MY bodyguard. It is to me to judge what is offensive coming from him!"
How their father, that would always be leaning on a door, here or there, would laugh at their impudence and especially at his own father's bewilderment. He would always take it upon himself, like the good father he was, to teach both his sons, whatever their status was, what respect meant. They would finish like bloody heaps in the backyard of the Hyūga Main House, coughing blood and sometimes teeth, their laughter transformed into a gurgle.
But he was dead too. Their father was the faulty one of their mother's death and they should not pity his loss. Even if Hizashi mourned for their father more than for their mother that never found the strength to hold him ... Why he did so, Hiashi did never grasp. For the simple reason that even if they were each other's reflection in a mirror, even if they had spent six years together without ever leaving each other's side, they simply did not belong to the same world.
They were Master and Servant, not equal brothers in the eyes of this society. One was more precious than the other. One was to be a mind, the other a tool.
As soon as the fatal words of death had chimed at their ears, they were siblings no more. Hiashi followed without any rebellion the orders that fell upon his being. He did not become leader; he refused the title until he turned twenty-five, advised by his grandfather. He was nothing but a child, a seven-year-old boy that had yet to attend the academy but that had been trained by the whole Hyūga clan. A seven-year-old boy that could kill an experienced Jōnin. A child that had cried for the past year, alone in his room, when nobody could hear him and that had begged for his mother to return. He lived nightmares like any other child, he was scared, but his demons might have been different from the bonesetter.
There was no place for brotherhood in the Hyūga clan. People died every day, they disappeared, they were replaceable. And Hiashi did not want to have his replacement by his side every instant of his life reminding him how he could be the next to vanish. There was no sign that Hizashi could bear, no humiliation he could undergo that would have made Hiashi the same laughing brat he was only a year ago.
"Hizashi, leave. Your duty is finished for the day."
Hizashi, leaning on a door like their father would have, and Hiashi seated on a tatami, here and there, straight like an arrow, just like their mother used to be.
"Don't forget, Hiashi, shinobi don't cry."
Hyūga Hiashi, the genius heir of the Hyūga clan, was seven years old when he killed his first enemy, himself. Yet, even if he broke all sentimental links with any member of his household, he never forgot what his role as future leader would be. The short time all Hyūga had granted on this world should be in peace and hope whenever they cross the entrance gate.
He realized he had been born to serve, would it be the Bunke or the Sōke. All Hyūga had certain rights, all Hyūga had a value, whatever that value was and every one of them was alive.
At age seven, Hiashi quit being a son, a brother, a grandson. He became a leader, a true leader even if the title was yet to come. He sacrificed his all to serve the life of all these people, slaves and masters.
It might be true that outside age doesn't matter, it might be true that an enemy is an enemy, but there must be a place where everyone can go back and lay on the grass, look up the sky and say that he feels well. Somewhere inside of his seven-year-old heart he believed that any enemy of the Hyūga clan had such a refuge. Therefore he promised himself that he would become the irreplaceable sun that glowed above the compound, that he would protect this haven if he could not protect his kin. Because it would not be fair that the righteous and the just could not have the same benefits as the violent and wicked. It was somewhat of a simplistic philosophy that only later would comprehend that enemy of some meant heroes of others.
Nevertheless, Hyūga Hiashi was such a hopeful person. He believed. And he cried, for the last time, because all great decisions have to be sealed with tears. He would become a pillar of strength for all the Hyūga that had to go towards death, like his mother had.
Inuzuka Tsume was born six years after him and while he was building his character she was still staggering on her toddler feet, trying to catch the tail of one of those dogs that seemed to enter and exit the rooms she was inhabiting whenever they pleased.
Six years had been enough to make them see the day in two completely different periods. At age six, Tsume did not think of her clan or of her family, really. She thought of herself, selfishly.
No one could have blamed her though. Absent parents that whenever they would appear would spread violence and misery around them. How many undeserved beatings had she endured from the hand of those that should have cherished her! Nobody ever told her she had to behave herself or that she was an heir, or anything that implied a special status with responsibilities.
Nonetheless, whenever a spurt of anger struck a member of the leading family, torment would fall upon her. Inuzuka were not renowned for such discipline that implied hierarchy, and the raising of their children was quite questionable as well.
In fact, she spent most of her time between the tatami in the living room and the outdoors. Her only companions, as soon as she left her mother's breast, that never had enough milk to nourish her, were those dogs that slept all over the Inuzuka compound, that bickered for a piece of raw meat or even for something as silly as a piece of fabric on which to lay puppies.
It is at the late age of four that she said her first words that some of the normal, non-inebriated members of the Inuzuka clan managed to inculcate her.
"Give me eat."
She had passed her rite of initiation and the puppies and beasts were replaced by more ferocious creatures, the Inuzuka children.
She was scooped up one morning by a tall boy, eight years her elder, an academy student, one that was near graduation, surrounded by his tribe of loyal followers.
"So ya're Tsume-hime?" he had asked, a smile of derision perceivable in his rough voice. His hands around the collar of her torn clothing and his rough endeavours were the most understandable paroles any Inuzuka could have spoken. He was signifying her that he was the leader of that tribe trailing his steps and snickering in pleasure at the sight of that diminutive child being pushed around, as they all have been in their time. He was the alpha male and she would be better to bow her head.
However, all the time deprived from any type of human contact and the nature of her character did not make an easy nut to crack from little Tsume. In reality, as any member of the leading family, she was suffering from a definitive complex of superiority that extended to tyranny. And there was no one, whatever his age was, that was allowed to give her some attitude.
And that poor boy that did not know his misfortune would learn what it meant to grab someone like Inuzuka Tsume.
Indeed, in no time, he had a bleeding nose from a decently powerful elbow punch and bite marks on the hand that had dared touch her clothes. To the surprise of all, that tiny nothing of a puppy had dared raise its minute fist in front of the leader. To the surprise of the leader himself, a certain passion invaded him, something he had not felt since his first bicker with a genin. He gave her a beating. He was older, height years older, and stronger, almost a genin and accompanied by two beastly soldiers that did not appreciate either for their master to be humiliated in such a manner.
And when she was nothing but a bleeding heap of flesh, he barked harshly for all his followers to disperse leaving him alone with that stubborn imp that had never loosened the contraction of her jaw to let escape a moan of pain.
He seized the back of her neck and pulled her without any pity through the muddy paths of the Inuzuka compound. Rain started pouring from the skies. On him, Tsume and his two puppies.
Arriving in front of the main house, he released her while she spat blood and maybe even a tooth or two. Kneeling in front of her, he gripped her chin and raising it, turning it from one side to the other, while his slitted pupils examined all the damage done.
"Ya'll swell. Hope that this was a good first lesson. Never attack someone stronger than ya, Tsume-hime, or else ya'll get beaten up."
The only answer he received to his kind advice was a muffled growl, which made him laugh. A true, loud Inuzuka laughter, with fangs glistening in the rain. However, this outburst of joy did not last all that long, it was replaced by a frown in no time. And maybe some sadness that could break through his narrow, dark pupils. Yet, Tsume's younger years did not make a very sensitive person out of her, therefore she did not feel any need to soften her harsh gaze, the hateful gaze of a beaten straying dog.
"One day, ya'll become a leader. Better ya know what they think of us out there. They think we are filthy, Tsume-hime, disgusting beings that bath in sin. We're not fit to be shinobi, they say. One day, soon, ya'll get out there and they won't be no different to ya, just because ya're an heiress. Remember that, Tsume-hime. They'll think ya're no good and whatever good ya'll do, they will think it is out of luck and will push ya back into the filth. That is why ya're the leader, Tsume-hime, to change everything. I always wanted to be the leader, ya know, Tsume-hime ... But it is my luck that ya'll a girl. Ya'll grow and become the leader, and I'll marry ya and we will change it all. We'll prove that we are worth the trouble; we'll prove the Inuzuka's are worth the trouble. That's my dream, and I'll make it happen with ya. Ya hear me, Tsume-hime, ya hear me ..."
He gripped her shoulders so fiercely. None could be aware how it was thorny for a twelve-year-old boy to ask a four-year-old girl in marriage, whatever the reason was. Their eyes for an instant melted together and if she had not understood all the words, Tsume grasped the violent feelings that inhabited this boy for the reason that they were something she had experienced b herself. The smouldering desire of acknowledgement . And in her first upsurge of rebellion against this world she did know but that already left a bittersweet taste of blood on her tongue, she opened her small mouth that now lacked a tooth or two to express her first law, and one that would prevail in the Inuzuka clan, over all the others:
"Give me eat."
Her first selfish request. One that gave birth to a being as contradictory as moon and sun were different.