Another interlude from a non-Hinata/Sasuke POV.

Chapter 58: Kiyoko's Interlude

It was afternoon when Kiyoko crossed back through the gates of Konohagakure and, after submitting her report, the first thing she saw upon returning home was her mother in the kitchen, as always, preparing something or another.

"Welcome home," Fūma Junko greeted without turning, hands busy. Though she'd retired from being a kunoichi immediately after marriage, her senses were as sharp as ever.

"…I'm home," Kiyoko said belatedly, hand on the doorway as she replaced her sandals for house slippers.

"How was the mission?"

Kiyoko tucked her sandals into the rack by the door. "Good." It wasn't a lie. The mission had gone as planned. But Kiyoko hated missions that took her to Iwa.

"That's good," Junko said absentmindedly. She gestured to a cup of tea. "Can you take this to your father? And tell him lunch will be ready in an hour."

Making a nose of assent, Kiyoko took the cup and made her way to her father's office. Knocking on the wood paneling next to the shoji, Kiyoko waited but received no answer. After a moment of hesitation, she slid the door open.

The office was empty. Kiyoko debated about entering, knowing it would annoy her father, but the sight of a familiar figurine on his desk cinched her decision. Setting the cup down, Kiyoko swiped the figurine and frowned at it.

It was an old toy, one that had belonged to her once upon a time. It was so long ago that Kiyoko could hardly remember if it had been chosen for her or if she'd rejected the frilly dolls to pick a toy aimed towards boys of her own volition. The crudely painted uchiwa on the back was a new addition.

Glancing at her father's desk again, Kiyoko's eyes were drawn towards his calendar when she saw a certain name on it marked in the box with today's date.

Suddenly the sound of approaching footsteps had Kiyoko stepping away from the desk. She had just enough time to discreetly tuck the figurine into her pocket before her father appeared, a disapproving expression set on his wrinkled face.

"Okaa-sama made tea," Kiyoko pre-empted. "Lunch will be ready in an hour."

Fūma Takehiko's expression didn't change. "You know better than to enter my office without permission." He moved to take a seat at his desk. "Tell your mother I won't make it to lunch," he said with a dismissive wave.

Biting back a comment about how he should inform his wife of his plans so she didn't waste time making him lunch, Kiyoko pasted on a smile. "Yes otou-sama," she replied, though her father's attention had turned to the papers on his desk. Making sure to slide the door closed behind her, rather than head back to the kitchen, Kiyoko detoured further into the house and out the back door.

As expected, Fūma Kotoro was outside running through his stances, a Fūma shuriken spinning wildly from hand to hand.

Without a care, Kiyoko hurled the figurine towards his head.

"Oh!" Kotoro exclaimed, expertly transferring the shuriken to his left hand as he caught the figurine in his right. "Welcome back, onee-sama!"

"You're too old for toys," Kiyoko said. "Otou-sama thinks so too."

At thirteen years her junior, her little brother was newly sixteen and much too old to still be playing pretend with his figurines. To think that the Fūma mantle would be passed into his hands.

Kiyoko's red painted lips tightened into a thin line.

Kotoro didn't notice, grinning happily. "You got it back! Thank you onee-sama."

"If you don't want otou-sama to confiscate it, then get better at hiding it," Kiyoko retorted before whirling around to head back inside.

Her mother characteristically responded with a mild smile when Kiyoko relayed that her father wouldn't be attending lunch.

"That's alright," Junko said. "Your father is a busy man. But you'll be joining us, yes?"

Kiyoko looked around at all the dishes her mother had prepared. "…sorry okaa-sama. I have plans."

"Kiyoko." Her name escaped her father's lips as a hiss and, understanding the implicit demand, Kiyoko straightened up from where she'd been chatting with the guard at the Uchiha district entrance.

"Otou-sama," she returned, joining him a little ways away from the entrance.

"Why are you here," Takehiko demanded, voice quiet so as not to be overheard.

With her face visible to the guard, Kiyoko kept her expression pleasant as she replied. "It's expected that you should bring your heir to these kinds of meetings." At his age, Takehiko was much older than the other clan heads in Konoha. He should have retired years ago.

"You're not my heir."

Kiyoko bristled, smiling wider even as her eyes iced over. "Then you should have brought Kotoro, otou-sama."

Takehiko glared, but didn't have a response.

They were granted entrance into the Uchiha district and Kiyoko couldn't help but to glance around in interest. All clans in Konoha guarded their secrets but none more than the Uchiha. While others clans had living quarters, the Uchiha had their own miniature economy. A village within a village.

Some might say it was their due as one of the founding clans.

Kiyoko would have taken the direct line to Hokage.

As she studied the people around her, Kiyoko noticed they studied her back. Undoubtedly she and her father were regarded as rare intruders to the Uchiha safe haven. She tried to read the atmosphere, wondered if the slight tension in the air was in her imagination. Surely not.

Surely the aftermath of the Kyuubi no Yōko Shūrai had reached even this haven.

The civilians thought that the attack was an unhappy accident, but the talk within the ninja ranks was of a different tune. Of the many talents the Uchiha loved to claim, the ability to control the Kyuubi was chief among them.

And so the rumours piled up.

Kiyoko didn't know what to believe. All she knew was that she'd come home from war, bloody and bruised and with the dirt of Iwagakureburied under her nails, only to see her home torn apart a short year later.

Now, six years after the attack, the divide that had always existed between the Uchiha and the rest of the village was deeper than ever and there was a distinct cooling of sentiment towards them.

Kiyoko's father was here today to renew their exclusive contract to supply the Konoha Keimu Butai with weaponry. Kiyoko suspected he'd be able to negotiate a good deal. There was hardly anyone else jumping at the chance to work with the Uchiha with how rigorously they'd been policing the village since then.

When they finally reached the main building they were told to wait.

"I have an appointment with Uchiha-sama," Takehiko said tersely.

"Uchiha-sama is hosting the Hyuuga. I have sent word for him, I'm sure he'll arrive shortly," the young man at the door explained.

Kiyoko and her father exchanged a look of surprise.

"You're welcome to wait inside," the man continued.

Just then, a familiar chakra signature pricked at the edges of Kiyoko's sensory range. She faltered, drawing the attention of her father who stared back, oblivious. His sensory abilities had always fallen short of his wife's and as Kiyoko had grown older she'd long surpassed him in this area. Even if she hadn't, however, there was no reason for this particular chakra signature to have alerted him.

Neither of them were Hyuuga. They could only hope to recognize chakra signatures of those closest to them.

"I'll wait out here," Kiyoko said much to her father's consternation. She took his displeased glare with well practiced ease.

Striding through the Uchiha district at a pace just short of a run with her chakra suppressed, Kiyoko's feet brought her to an alley on branching off a less populated street.

When she turned into the alley, the sight she was met with had Kiyoko's heart skipping a beat.

Mizunoto.

Ever since they'd both passed the chunin exams on their first try and their genin team had subsequently disbanded, sightings of her old teammate had been few and far between. He'd been quickly taken under the wings of some of the best Konoha had to offer while Kiyoko, who had beaten her opponent in half the time, had been left to fend for herself in scrounging up a mentor. It had been hard not to resent him, but it was impossible for the resentment to overwrite all of her feelings for him.

They'd crossed paths of course. But war was grueling and rebuilding was too.

Now they were adults, both decorated war heroes.

Kiyoko had been given a medal and shunted back into regular duty. Mizunoto, if Kiyoko's sources were to be believed, had ascended as far as one could. The elite of the elite.

"Danzo-sama has accepted your request for a meeting," Mizunoto was saying to the teenaged Uchiha in front of him.

"And he had to send you in person to tell me this?" the boy asked.

"It's a precarious position you're in. Danzo-sama needs assurances."

Kiyoko bit her tongue. Years of toiling away, taking subpar assignments and completing them with a smile, making connections in the hopes that somewhere along that network of nobodies she'd find an in with someone willing to bet on her, she was only just starting to seriously make a name for herself. And now here was this boy her brother's age, of a clan currently reviled by the ninja ranks being granted an audience with Danzo of ANBU, one of the most influential shinobi in Konoha. A man Kiyoko couldn't hope to get a glance from.

And she knew why. It was impossible not to figure it out after years of being sidelined. It was the same reason she wasn't the heir, why her chunin exam match had garnered little interest from the crowd, why she was frequently passed over for the squad leader position, why she had to fight tooth and nail for every step up the ladder.

Because she'd had the nerve to be born a woman.

"You shouldn't be here."

It took all of Kiyoko's training to stop from jumping.

The voice was quiet, but held so much authority that Kiyoko, Mizunoto and the Uchiha boy all immediately turned their full focus to its owner.

This Uchiha, Kiyoko recognized without a shadow of a doubt.

"Itachi, aren't you meant to be with your father?" the other Uchiha boy asked.

Uchiha Itachi's pitch black eyes slid along Kiyoko and then Mizunoto before ultimately landing on his kin. "I'm taking the little ones to get dango," he said.

It was then that Kiyoko noticed the two children with him. A blue haired girl with pale eyes cowered behind Itachi while a young boy with dark eyes observed the scene curiously. Upon seeing Kiyoko's attention, the girl pathetically curled even further into herself. Noticing this, the boy frowned and situated himself in front of her like a protector. Kiyoko almost snorted at his childish little glare.

"Shisui, send your guests away," Itachi said with finality.

Kiyoko had just started to curl her lips into her most winning smile, ready to tell the Uchiha genius that she was an invited guest, when a tight grip on her arm halted her in her tracks.

"No need. We'll be taking our leave," Mizunoto said.

Itachi nodded seriously. Then, like flipping a switch, he turned a gentle look on the two children and led them away by the hand.

Kiyoko shot Mizunoto an irritated glance, but for the life of her she couldn't bring herself to shake off his hold. "We need to talk," she muttered to him, wary of the other Uchiha, Shisui.

Mizunoto stared at her long and hard. Then something in his expression softened. "You shouldn't get involved in this," he told her.

A sort of excitement lit up inside her, the sense that she was finally on the verge of the greatness she'd always yearned for. A chance to reshape the world into a place where someone like her could have a seat at the table. Where the blood she'd shed, the sacrifices she'd made, the nightmares that haunted her would be worth something more than a medal and a pat on the back. Kiyoko licked her lips and then smirked. "Try and stop me."

The creaking of the reinforced door opening broke Kiyoko out of her reverie. When a head of blue hair followed by a dark crows nest came into view, Kiyoko allowed herself a small feeling of victory alongside a rush of relief.

She'd known that unlike Sasuke the Hyuuga wouldn't ignore her request. And that wherever the Hyuuga princess went, it was a guarantee Sasuke would follow.

"Um, Kiyoko-san, you asked to see me?" Though she was a far cry from the cowering child Kiyoko remembered, Hyuuga Hinata's voice still held a pathetic quality to it. This was a girl who had never had to laugh off her male peers offhanded comments or bite her tongue and smile as the older men in her unit made passes at her. A girl who had never learned to turn her femininity into a weapon.

Any other time, Kiyoko would examine the situation from all angles and choose the best method in her arsenal to get what she wanted. But she was behind bars with no power, desperate and faced with a girl who was the kind of pathetic that bent to sentiment.

Kiyoko didn't need an angle. Now wasn't that a scary thought?

"It's been over a week and no one will tell me anything when I ask," Kiyoko said. She didn't have to fake the distraught expression nor the urgency that bled into her voice. "Mizunoto's condition. How is he?"

Hinata blinked and then the surprise melted into a wretched sympathy that prickled at Kiyoko's nerves. The Hyuuga opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by the Uchiha positioning himself in front of her.

"Why?" Sasuke asked, voice filled with suspicion. "Back to scheming already?"

Kiyoko folder her hands together in her lap and shook her head. Reluctantly, she looked up at Sasuke with all her defenses lowered. "…that's not why." Her eyes darted between Sasuke and Hinata half-hidden behind him and it was almost laughable how similar they were to their younger selves.

But for whatever reason, it wasn't laughter that caught in Kiyoko's throat. It was a sob.

The image of Mizunoto the last time she'd seen him filled her vision. His rounded face ashen except for the blood dripping down his lips, eyes shut, silky hair fallen from his topknot. She hadn't been able to tell if he was breathing when they'd taken him away from her.

Kiyoko hated that she cared. Hated that when she should be worried about her own fate, about how she'd been so close to having the influence and power she'd always dreamed of only to ruin it all and let it slip from her grasp, all she could think about was if Mizunoto was alive.

She wanted to curl her hands into fists, feel the sting of her nails breaking skin. Instead she kept her hands demurely flat against her thighs.

Kiyoko expected Hinata would be the one to grant her this wish, that pathetic weakness that still ran through the girl despite having been at the frontlines of a war. That pathetic weakness she'd been allowed to hold onto.

But instead it was Sasuke who spoke. "…I'll have them send you news."

Stunned, Kiyoko tried to catch his gaze but found it trained on the Hyuuga, expression hidden by his bangs, kept for the Hyuuga's eyes alone.

It wasn't about her, not really, this show of mercy. Nonetheless, Kiyoko still had to say it.

"Thank you."

For the first time in over a week, Kiyoko's heart settled just a little. Though she hated it, she knew it wouldn't completely calm until she knew that Mizunoto was okay.

A little insight into Kiyoko just to close out her storyline as we get to the end of this fic.

I really love reading everyone's reactions as they read each chapter makes me feel like I'm reliving it too!

Noticed a comment from someone who clearly didn't read the fic or at the very least has reading comprehension issues / Hinata didn't actively decide "hey Naruto isn't paying enough attention to me, let me go for Sasuke to hurt him", she broke up with Naruto fully thinking she would never love anyone else but ended up falling for Sasuke. And the idea that she's calculating enough about her feelings to think "okay, need a checklist for my ideal guy, first thing is he needs to be in the village constantly and have a ton of free time" is also laughable, like that's not how feelings work? If it were, Hinata probably wouldn't have fallen for the kyuubi vessel that her father (and the rest of the village) definitely disapproved of (before the war obviously).

Also have gotten several comments (probably bots) asking me to commission fanart. My dudes, I am writing this fic entirely for free. I am not making money off of this. Why would you think I'd want to pay to have art made of a story I'm writing for free?

Anyway, thank you as always for the support for everyone who's been keeping up with this fic and leaving me comments!

MVH