Chapter 9: Shatterpoint.
Author's Note: There will likely be a major shift in what was canon. It's an idea I had thought of when I first started the story, it was a solution to how I could fit Naruto into the rookie 12 when the inclusion of his sister would bump it up to 13. Hopefully I can pull it off.
Hyuga Hiashi, clan head of the Hyuga, frowned at what he saw. Next to his eldest daughter, as she was walking back home, was the Uzumaki boy. He didn't have anything personal against the boy. By all accounts, aside from being a menace to some of the more aggressive shop owners, he was an intelligent and driven young man. But with the strained relations with the Uchiha, the Hyuga could ill afford anybody thinking they were trying to influence one of the village jinchuriki..
We don't need that suspicion towards us.
Much of the clan, at least the Main branch, were seen as uptight and arrogant jackasses. It wouldn't be a lie if one were to point it out. They were. He had tried to change, for the sake of his wife. She was his better half.
And then she died.
Saddled with an infant, and a inconsolable child that resembled her mother far too much in appearance and temperament, he was barely able to function as a clan head and father. Hizashi was there for him when his whole life seemed to be falling apart.
And I let my brother die for me.
Hiashi wanted to die. He didn't want a war to break out because he struck down the Kumo "ambassador" in anger. He had been taught since childhood that he mustn't let his anger get the better of good judgment. He failed that lesson when the thing that resembled most what he had lost, their little girl, was almost taken from him. His actions made it look like the Hyuga, and Konoha, had fabricated a false tale of an attempted kidnapping to justify killing an ambassador. If conflict arose, not everyone that was a third party would assume Konoha could claim aggrieved status.
Hizashi died because of me.
He was supposed to protect his little brother. Their father might have said it was a duty and an honour to protect the clan heir, but their mother told them something else.
Protect your little brother, Hiashi. You're the big brother and his twin. Stick together, and you'll never be alone.Those words were dancing in his head when Hizashi volunteered to die for him.
"I'm not choosing to because it's my duty to protect the clan head. I'm doing it because I love you, Hiashi." No matter how much he pleaded, his brother wouldn't listen.
"If you die, who will protect Hinata and Hinabi from the elders machinations?" He had whispered. The elders were paranoid that the heir and spare would be physically delicate like their mother. Hiashi's wife didn't fully recover from Hinata's birth. The Kyuubi attack, and more specifically the remnants of caustic chakra left behind, caused multiple miscarriages and physical deformities in the current generation of children. Hyuga iryo-nin had done their own examinations on their clan head's wife. They had talked about concerns on whether the child would be premature. Hiashi had waved off their concerns, hiring capable caregivers to ensure his wife delivered their child on the proper due date. But Fate didn't care about the well layed plans of mice and men. She had gone into labour, two months early.
He had prayed to every deity he could think of, desperate to not lose what he held most precious.
They both survived. His wife, weak and ill from the effort. And their daughter, their precious daughter, struggled to even breathe on her own. The first few weeks were a nightmare for him. Frightened that he would wake up with their daughter's chest not rising and falling in the rhythm it should.
Hinata was physically weaker, but she would live. Two types of medical reports came from medics who were payed handsomely for their discreetness. Some of the reports said that she would not physically recover from it, that she would remain weaker than normal. Others said that she would recover, but it would take a few years. The elders assumed the former was the case. They demanded that he "Do his duty as clan head", and provide an adequate heir.
He was only able to delay for a few years. He knew what went unspoken.
His daughter would be marked. If she didn't show improvement in her taijutsu, he would be forced to try for another child, which could very well kill his wife. Hinata was too kind. Hizashi's son was an amazing prospect, even at such a young age. Even if Hinata had shown a marked improvement in her taijutsu, it would have been overshadowed by Neji's prodigious understanding of the gentle fist.
The elders had promised Hinata wouldn't get marked, so long as he gave the clan a suitable heir. His wife had been the one to convince him.
"We have to protect our daughter, my love." They did. She was pregnant. She gave birth to a perfectly healthy girl.
Two weeks later, she died. He had been in bed. Waking up earlier than usual, he turned to look at his wife's face, only to see her soulless eyes staring back at him.
He had fallen apart. His brother was the one who tried to help keep him together. But then the kidnapping attempt occurred. His brother dying for him.
I should be one to do it.
His brother protected Hinata and Hanabi by choosing to die. The Main branch would resent him, as a Branch member, taking temporary regency until Hinata or Hanabi reached maturity. It could have very well caused a schism in the clan.
To stop it, and to keep the Byakugan out of enemy hands, Hizashi let himself get killed.
"Protect Neji for me, brother." Was his last request before the light left his eyes.
Hiashi had found the idea of "Twin Telepathy" to be silly. It was likely just the fact that siblings close in age would understand one another better. He had his doubts when he felt the moment his brother died.
Died because I couldn't think of losing her again.
Hinata was kind like her mother. She looked like her, sounded like her, and had her eyes.
Soulless eyes that once only had warmth when I saw them.
He started to blame their daughter for his brother and wife's deaths. If Hinata had been stronger, the elders would not have demanded a spare. His wife wouldn't have died. He would have had a clearer head when rescuing his daughter. The "ambassador" wouldn't have been killed. His brother would still be here. The guilt that felt like poison in his veins wouldn't have ever been.
And so he stopped being a father to her. He tried to avoid her eyes. He demanded she do better. How dare she be allowed to be weak when that weakness caused her mother to die?
Poison. In his veins.These thoughts all flooded into the front of his mind when he saw the jinchuriki of the beast that caused his daughters weakness walking with her back home.
Ironic. Was Hiashi's dark thought. The thing that took her strength and mother is just three feet from her, held back by ink and chakra.
He could see a small level of chakra trickling into the boys tenketsu that wasn't his own. The sight of that small amount was one of the most foul things he had laid eyes on since the Kyuubi itself had torn apart the village. He got a slight phantom pain at the memory of the near blinding level of chakra that came from the beast.
More premature vision issues occurred that one night than decades of life.
Several Hyuga were killed when they were caught off guard when they activated their eyes to see where the kyuubi was, only to have the equivalent of an ocular flashbang exploding in their head. It did nothing to engender sympathy for the Jinchuriki twins. The low level of Bijuu chakra swirling around in their tenketsu acted as the rubbing of salt in a festering wound.
It reminds me of how things all went wrong.The war had ended. He and his brother returned home to their wives unharmed. His close friend, Minato, was selected as the next Hokage. With the Yellow Flash at the helm, nobody would dare cross Konoha with an army killer as it's Kage. But then he died. The man who had saved his life in the war, giving him the chance to have a family, was stripped of the opportunity to do the very thing that he had.
The chance to be a father.
He had remembered when Jiraiya and the Sandaime had requested his assistance in seeing what was wrong with Minatos' son when he was a newborn. It was a sight he'd never seen. A large portion of yin chakra had been disconnected and trapped behind the seal that also held back the Kyuubi. He had feared the worst. If the seal wasn't robust enough to hold back two different types of chakra, could it break? Jiraiya had assured the little "Club" that it was safe. The Sandaime, Jiraiya, Yamanaka Inoichi, and possibly Shikaku, and himself were the only ones who knew about the strange phenomena that was Uzumaki Naruto.
Hiashi still didn't know what a detachment of yin chakra would do. Would it even fuse back together properly? Inoichi and Sarutobi had assured him that the incident two months back fixed the issue. But he still had his worries.
Traumatic incidences don't "fix" an issue of the mind, it destabilizes it. Yamanaka should know that.
He had the feeling they had hid something from him about the incident. He had been forced to stop the train of thought he had been on when his daughter and Uzumaki arrived at the entrance of the compound. Dismissing the two guards beside him, he stepped forward to speak with his daughter on why she had left without an escort.
"Hinata." He said simply.
"F-father." she replied quietly, not making eye contact.
He was about to demand why she left without informing anyone when he looked to the Uzumaki boy.
He was glaring at him.
Deciding not to show his disappointment with his daughter in front of a stranger, he kindly asked for Hinata to go inside, wanting to speak with the boy who nicely offered to escort her back. He had been able to read some of the words the boy had said with his Byakugan activated.
Hinata nodded slightly before walking into the compound.
"Uzumaki Naruto, I presume?" He asked, brow raised.
"Your presumption is correct, Lord Hyuga." he said with a slight bow.
Either he's always formal, which is unlikely, or he's being intentionally like this to insult me."Let us skip the pleasantries and get onto the point of what you're wanting to say to me." he continued.
There it is. The defiance I've heard about. Hiashi then responded. "Why were you with my daughter? It's not normal to decide to walk a stranger home, now is it? I ask, why."
He wanted to know what sparked the boy to walk her home when to the best of his knowledge they have never met.
The boy then shrugged his shoulders, a look of unimportance on his face. "She was being bullied. I stepped in to stop it."
Bullied? Who would dare do that to the Hyuga clan heir? "Explain." he demanded stiffly, "Now." he ordered.
The boy glared at him from the tone of demand, but he answered him.
"Three boys saw that she was a Hyuga. They thought she was "Arrogant and stuck up like they all are". he said, using quotes around the reasoning. "They offered to let me join in. I took offense."
Hiashi was angry at the thought. "She didn't fight back?"
He saw the boys face shift. Before, there hadn't been much aside from a small amount of glaring. But now, there was something akin to fury radiating behind his gaze. "What is that suppose to mean?" the boy asked, his tone quiet.
"She is the clan heir," Hiashi said stiffly, "The Hyuga clan heir must not show weakness."
There was a moment of silence between the two. The boy looked down for a moment, before levelling his gaze back at him.
His eyes weren't violet. Was Hiashi's thought when he saw his eyes.
"When I heard her crying," he said, his voice hardly above a whisper, "Her chakra was shifting. It shifted the same way my sister's would when a villager showed hatred towards her."
Hiashi discreetly pushed some chakra into his eyes. There's more. He thought, seeing more of that foul chakra moving through the boys system.
"I saw a little girl, all alone in the snow, crying. I drove the ones who hurt her off. I walked her home so she wouldn't be alone. When we walked back here, she said she was useless." The boy's voice was still quiet.
What is he saying?"And?" Hiashi asked, with a questioning tone.
"You are more focused on your daughter not fighting back, instead of concern for her being hurt." he gritted out.
"It is unbecom-", he started, before the cut him off.
"Bullshit." he snarled. "Spare me your excuses for being a shit father."
Hiashi glared murderously at the boy.
How dare he."She told me enough to fill in the blanks." he continued, his voice a little calmer than before." Of how you are so demanding of her. That you are always disappointed. I had to console her because I knew you weren't going to. No child should fear their father." he finished, his voice quiet again.
Hiashi just stood there silently.
"When the villagers called my sister demon," he continued, " I had to tell her she wasn't. They hated us because they didn't understand. I protected my sister because I love her."
"I'm not choosing to because it's my duty to protect the clan head. I'm doing it because I love you, Hiashi."
Hiashi's bit down hard to stop his face from twitching. This boy was comparing him to the villagers that hurt his sister.
His twin.
Hiashi desperately wanted this conversation to end. It brought doubts. Some private, traitorous thoughts. He refused to believe that what he was doing would hurt Hinata's potential. The demeaning worked for him and Hizashi. It'll work for her. But the conviction in the boy's tone made him doubt.
"We need to protect our daughter."
Giving the boy a look, Hiashi spoke in a formal tone to hide his emotion. "You are dismissed."
"Didn't realize I was summoned, m'lord." Was the boy's sarcastic reply. Hiashi turned to leave but before the gates closed, he heard the boy say one last thing.
"You can only call someone a demon so much before they become one. Same goes for the 'worthless'." With that, the gate closed.
As I walked out of the Hyuga compound, I desperately tried to get my anger under control.
Actually seeing Hiashi be a bastard has my anger simmer right under the surface, affecting more than I could possibly think.
Sure, I sort of understood why, but it doesn't change that he's a bastard about it.
But there wasn't anything I could do. I was just a six year old ninja tactical nuke with a mercurial temper on good days.
Deciding it was time to actually go home, I trekked through the snow and made my way there, periodically reaching out to sense different signatures as best as I could.
It was difficult to press further, but it got easier the more times I did it. Currently, I could catch flickers of chakra from certain people, the three that stood out the most though were following me.
They felt like Uchiha, which did nothing to calm my nerves about being followed by multiple different people. The ANBU were undoubtedly watching me, so I didn't need to fear being attacked.
Still didn't ease my mind.
Shrugging at the situation surrounding my entire existence, I got back to my apartment and crashed on the couch, shutting my eyes and going to sleep.
"So, how's the ANBU been treating you lately?" Shisui asked, his eyes trained on Itachi's.
The younger of the two Uchiha nodded, glancing around at the trees swaying gently with the breeze.
The cold wasn't an issue for two reasons. One, they both had coats on and thermal lined pants. And two, both were more than capable of circulating fire chakra through their tenketsu at an extremely controlled pace that warded off the cold.
It paid well to have a close friend as prodigiously intelligent as you to figure out a technique notmally used by only A-rank Shinobi with Fire affinities.
Itachi oftentimes, even more so, needed this time alone with Shisui, his best friend being a rare voice of calm for him in the storm that was overtaking their clan and village.
"I've heard talks that I am being considered for a promotion to ANBU captain within a year." Itachi said neutrally, not knowing what to think of it when he first heard it.
"Good for you." Shisui smiled, his eyes bright with happiness. "You deserve all the credit for what you've accomplished."
But Itachi didn't feel pride, he only felt... empty? about it.
"Hey, earth to Itachi," Shisui said, cutting him from his thoughts, "You need to talk about something? I can tell you're, well, brooding."
Itachi fought the urge to scowl. Shisui would accuse him of brooding even when he was weighing choices on what kind of takeout to get.
"Am I that transparent?" Itachi raised a brow, causing the more laid-back Uchiha to laugh.
"No amount of ANBU training will hide your thoughts from me, Itachi," He adjusted his headband to rest a little higher on his forehead, "Best friends know what their best friends are thinking."
A grin appeared on Itachi's face, already feeling lighter just by hearing Shisui try to get him to interact.
"Well?" Shisui still had that same contagious smile on his face. "Cough up. What's troubling you?"
Itachi grunted somewhat dismissively. "Nothing that we both haven't discussed already. My father is becoming more and more concerned about the rise in complaints of officers using excessive degrees of force."
"Are they accurate?" Shisui asked.
"No, my father personally interrogated each of the ones that received complaints. Total fabrications, but the civilians think otherwise."
Shisui hummed thoughtfully, clicking his tongue as he absorbed the information.
"That it?" He questioned, eying Itachi speculatively.
Itachi almost didn't want to say, because the realization of it frightened him when he noticed it.
"Uchiha are monitoring and following one of the Jinchuriki, the boy specifically." He replied coldly.
"It could be precautionary because of him being attacked. Genjutsu can subdue Jinchuriki."
Itachi's fingers twitched at the unintentional reminder of the Uzumaki boy being nearly killed on his watch.
"The optics are not good, you know that." Itachi said unnecessarily, "Uchiha following him will undoubtedly have the ANBU asking questions, questions that I have no answers for."
An awkward silence fell over them after that, neither knowing how to break it.
"Things... are probably going to get worse before they get better," Shisui eventually said, sounding melancholic, "But I know we," He pointed at the two of them, "Can help with that."
"I don't want to think in what ways this can get worse," Itachi admitted, silently relieved that Shisui spoke first, "But I don't think I could help matters if you weren't here as well."
Shisui reached out and grabbed Itachi by the shoulder, standing a few inches taller than him from being a couple years older.
"We'll figure it out, even if all the old geezers can't. We will."
A small, but noticeable laugh cane from the youngest and most reserved of them, silently relieved once more that he wasn't on this particular road alone.
This chapter was the other half of the previous one. Most of the people I'm trying to expand on is being done for a reason. Feel free to guess why I'm using certain individuals.
I'm currently at a loss right now. There is something I'm pondering right now on whether I'll put it in the story or not. This is a spoiler. If you don't want to know what I'm curious about, skip ahead some.
Should I have Sakura butterflied (never enrolled) out of the Academy? It solves the odd number issue. I already thought of a way to not need to do that. But I'm curious on what you think.
End Spoiler.A time skip will likely occur next chapter. About a couple years.
Thanks for reading. This story has reached 100 follows in just over a week. I'm glad people think I can weave together a half decent story. Farewell and good luck.
Raging.