"I need to leave."
Shikamaru had debated how much to reveal since he'd decided on his 'break Hinata out of the hospital' plan. He'd settled on the 'like a band-aid' strategy, reasoning that Hinata had always preferred the truth, even if it hurt.
He only started to doubt his choice when Hinata became practically catatonic after hearing the news about her father, and had remained still and silent for over a minute afterwards.
Shikamaru hadn't even been sure if she'd beenbreathing.
But he still hadn't been prepared for thetonethat came out of Hinata once she finally spoke: her voice was low and inflectionless, the words dull and completely devoid of feeling. It was a voice he'd never heard from the girl before, and combined with the eerie stillness of her body, Shikamaru felt a shiver of unease creep down his spine.
"Kiba once said that you can disappear." Shikamaru replied after far too long, belatedly remembering a conversation he'd had with the Inuzuka one day when he'd come to pick Ino up from team training for their poison lessons.
"If you can do that, I can get you out." He finished the thought, blaming the headache that had formed from holding his shadow for so long for his uncharacteristic slowness.
Hinata's head turned to him slowly and tilted, the downward curl to her lips thoughtful, and Shikamaru distantly mused that it was probably a good thing that Hinata couldn't currently see him. He wasn't sure if he was ready for the reaction the Hyuuga would have upon seeing that he'd spread his shadow over the entire floor of her roomandthe corridor outside, immobilising everybody caught in it, in order to speak to her.
Finally, Hinata nodded, and Shikamaru let out a silent sigh of relief.
"Alright. I'm gonna come closer and pick you up." He warned, lifting his hands in the air despite the Hyuuga not being able to see them, "Don'tstab me."
It probably didn't spell anythinggoodthat Hinata didn't so much as twitch at the order, no matter how jokingly it was said. Shikamaru sighed and put Hinata's current state out of his mind for the time being, focusing on getting them both out of the hospital as fast as possible. He stepped over to the bed, got one arm under Hinata's bent legs and one around her shoulders, and hefted the girl's weight with far more ease than he'd expected.
And then nearly let go when he felt a wave of cold spread from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, and when he looked down, he could no longer see either of their bodies.
The shiver that went down his spine had nothing to do with whatever technique Hinata had used. If the Hyuuga's behaviour from earlier had been eerie, looking down at where he knew he should be able to see his hands and seeing only the floor was downrightcreepy.
"Neat." He croaked, but Hinata didn't deign to respond to the comment.
"I can't stifle your scent or breath," she murmured instead, her voice much closer to his ear than Shikamaru had expected, "so you'll have to be quick."
"I got that, yeah." Shikamaru snorted, infusing the words with more humour than he truly felt. "Where are we going?"
"I'll guide you."
"…Alright." He allowed the vague answer for the time being, then focused on his shadow and how many nurses they had to successfully sneak past.
"Any ideas for how to make the nurses forgetwhobroke you out?" he asked absently, more so to fill the silence than out of a genuine need to know, already having made peace with the fact that he was going to get a bollocking at best and a serious punishment at worst for what he was about to do.
He didn't expected for Hinata to hum contemplatively, nor for the quiet, ominous 'some' that followed.
Well.
For once, it was probably better that hedidn'tpress.
"Let's break you out of the hospital, hm?"
Kakashi hadn't expected the knock on his door.
Nobody except for Gai knew that he was back in his apartment after disappearing for over a fortnight, and Gai wouldn't haveknocked.
He did a perfunctory chakra sweep to see if he could identify who had made the mistake of assuming he was ready to receive visitors, then froze.
There was no way the Nara brat should know where he lived. More importantly, there was no way that the Nara brat should appear to be holding achakra void.
Before he could second-guess himself, Kakashi was on his feet and wrenching his door open, only to do a double-take at finding nothing on his doorstep, yet a twitch of his nose revealed that it was only his sight that was lying to him.
"Let us in?" came a sudden murmur, the owner of the voice still invisible, and Kakashi nearly laughed at the presumption. "I promise to explain."
"How did you know where I live?" Kakashi demanded, because none of their merry band of brats should have known his address.
"Ididn't."
And then Kakashi suddenly remembered who the Nara brat tended to hang around when not with his team. Someone who was on a team built for the sole purpose of tracking Konoha's enemies. Someone who Kakashi himself had once requested for a mission specifically for their ability todisappear.
He stepped aside, a wordless invitation, then all-but slammed the door shut behind the Nara. "What did you do."
"Hinata is not suicidal." The kid argued immediately, despite Kakashi never once implying that he thought she was. "And she's done nothing to deserve being kept in the secure ward and lied to."
Lied to.
Kakashi felt his nails dig into his palm and had to forcefully relax his fist even as a memory he'd been doing his best to forget slammed into him.
("Tsunade-sama- the girl…?"
"Your pet Hyuuga's dead, kid. I'm sorry.")
Kakashi grit his teeth, only absently catching the moment the notice-me-not genjutsu was dropped, revealing a harried-looking Shikamaru leading a very much not-dead Hyuuga heiress to sit on Kakashi's sofa.
("Kakashi. The girl- Neji's cousin- she survived."
"Nice try."
"Kurenai told me. You know she wouldn't lie about something like that."
"I watched her die, Gai. Tsunade- Tsunadesaidshe died. Why would she have said that if the kid survived?"
"She must've had her reasons."
"And I have mine to stay away.")
Once he wrenched himself out of the memory, Kakashi wondered, in that macabre, masochistic way of his that Kurenai always hated, what sort of information could've been deemed too dangerous for a blind, traumatised, teenage revolutionary to know. What could've warranted her being kept in the secure wing of the hospital, with four windowless walls and only her shrink for company?
And then he blinked, only just noticing that the Hyuuga's feet were bare, and that she was dressed in the horrible, starchy hospital pyjamas that triggered Kakashi almost more than the sterile stench that always permeated the hospital's walls.
"…Did you kidnap her?" he asked bluntly, not sure whether what he was feeling was closer to amusement or disbelief.
But before Shikamaru could reply, little Hyuuga-chan finally spoke up, and Kakashi almost wished she'd stayed silent: "I asked him to."
Oh. Oh, no.
Kakashi knew that tone.
He sighed, and with the exhale, felt all his energy leave as well, letting himself drop onto the chair opposite the sofa the Hyuuga was trying to become part of, torn between not letting the girl out of his sight and putting his head in his hands.
The Hyuuga wasn't suicidal. She and betrayed, and trying to hide it in the only way she knew how.
The same way Kakashi did.
Absently, Kakashi was aware of Shikamaru staring at them for a few seconds, but he didn't dare look up, not wanting to know what someone related to Nara Shikaku might be able to gleam from his expression just then.
After a few seconds, the teen sighed and wandered off, and not a minute later, Kakashi heard the telltale sound of his cupboards and fridge being opened as the boy seemingly decided that him and the Hyuuga were hopeless cases better left to their own devices.
It was blissfully silent for all of three minutes, barring the occasional sounds of shuffling and rearranging coming from the kitchen, before the Nara declared:
"Your fridge could be a bioweapon." In a tone so judgemental that a brief flare of amusement broke through the chokehold his guilt had had on Kakashi since the Hyuuga had shown up on his doorstep.
More clangs and bangs followed as the Nara made himself at home in Kakashi's kitchen, then the sound of the front door opening cut through the white noise just in time for Kakashi to catch the boy calling out 'I'm going to grab groceries' before the door shut and silence enveloped the apartment once more.
"Kakashi-san." The Hyuuga murmured some moments later, her voice urgent despite its softness, and a thought struck Kakashi with all the subtlety of a thunderclap: It wasn't that the Hyuuga hadn't wanted to speak tohim.
She just hadn't wanted to do so when the Nara could have overheard.
And then, after seemingly confirming that she had his attention, the girl declared, soft yet damning: "It wasn't your fault."
Kakashi's breath caught in his throat.
"I have watched many people I cared about die." He rasped when he could speak again, suddenly overwhelmed and finding himself grateful that the Hyuuga's eyes were covered. "Too many."
He took a breath then let it out, and with it, a confession more damning than if he'd ripped his heart straight out and offered it to the girl on a silver platter. "You're the first of them to come back."
The girl smiled then, a small, fragile thing, and Kakashi was sure that if they had been other people, she'd have tried to comfort him.
He was glad that she didn't. The words that came out of her mouth were cutting enough:
"I'm sorry for your loss."
Kakashi laughed, a breathless, gasping, shuddering thing.
"That's not what you wanted to say." he managed, not sure if the Hyuuga could follow his spiralling thought process.
The girl sighed, and that, more than anything else, told Kakashi that she very muchcould.
"You're right." She agreed, and it was only then that Kakashi realised just how much of the girl's true emotions were conveyed by her eyes. Though he'd thanked the stars for the blindfold not two minutes earlier, it was quickly becoming apparent that it was far more of a hindrance tohimthan the Hyuuga. "What I wanted to say was that you would not have been to blame for my death, even if I hadn't been brought back."
"I was there." Kakashi shot back, frowning at the girl even if she could not see it. "I should've been prepared. Should've been able to break your KI sooner."
"Kakashi-san." the girl chastised, and there was that smile again, but somehow, for all that it looked like the Hyuuga understood more than even his shrinks did, there was nopityin the curl of her lips. "I walked into that room knowing that I might not walk out. I'd made my peace with that eventuality."
"Don't say that." Kakashi rebuked sharply, and this time, the breath that the girl let out was tinged with frustration.
"How is it different to going on missions?" She demanded, and though she didn't raise her voice in the slightest, Kakashi got the distinct feeling that she was far more tightly-strung than usual, her patience starting to thin much sooner than he was used to. "Every time we leave the Village, we have to face the fact that we might not return."
"Itisdifferent. The only reason you should die in-Village is of old age." Kakashi retorted, desperately not-thinking about blood-stained tatami and a ceremonial knife buried deep.
He'd long since learnt that nothing good lay down this road, so he redirected, voicing another thought that had plagued him since that meeting of the Council of Clans. "What kind of KI manifests asdespair, anyway?"
The girl huffed, clearly noticing the change of subject, but surprisingly allowing it. Her next words, however, chilled Kakashi to the bone:
"The kind that knows there are worse things than death."
Kakashi stared for a few seconds, processing. Then, he started to laugh, a sharp, hacking, humourless thing that he wouldn't have been able to control even if he had tried to.
"Yeah, no." he chuckled, greeting the horrified hysteria like an old friend. "There is no way you're the same age as my brats."
The Hyuuga didn't respond to that, and her silence gave Kakashi the time he needed to get himself under control, feeling an unexpected bit of kinship with Gai.
Kakashi knew he was far from the paragon of mental stability, knew that he'd made some less than wise choices in his youth, knew that most of his friends still thought that he had a death-wish.
But Kakashi's self-destructiveness was a violent, vicious, screaming thing; a wolf caught in a bear trap, ready to gnaw off its own leg and the hands of anybody who tried to help it. He'd kicked and thrashed at the injustice of losing his team so much that Minato had had no choice but to make him a shadow, and then he'd done so well at the darkest, deadliest, most soul-staining missions that Sarutobi had had to forcefully retire whatever husk of him had been left ten years later.
But even at his worst, Kakashi would not have gone gentle into that good night.
Which made what the Hyuuga was saying, made her calm, rational acceptance of the possibility of death at her family's hands, all the more horrifying.
"What will you do now?" He found himself asking an indeterminable amount of time later, and it was only the subtle way the girl twitched at his voice that told him he hadn't been the only one to get lost in his thoughts.
"I…I don't know." She admitted quietly, though Kakashi's gaze caught on her interwoven fingers and the way her knuckles turned white when she suddenly squeezed. "Shikamaru said that- that my Father woke up yesterday."
Kakashi winced, grateful for the blindfold once again, and couldn't help the cruel voice in his head that wondered whether it wouldn't have been kinder of the Godaime to keep the Hyuuga Head in his coma indefinitely.
"You worried daddy-dearest will undo all your hard work?" he asked instead of voicing that thought, though aware that the spoken words were only marginally kinder.
"I'm in no state to compete in the Jounin Exams as I am right now." the girl replied, and it was the resigned acceptance in her voice that clued Kakashi into how a fourteen-year-old had learned to weaponizehelplessness. "I will not be able to challenge him if he does try to take back control of the Clan."
And while that was a valid worry, Kakashi couldn't help but feel like the girl was underselling her abilities.
By a significant margin, at that.
"I read the report of your Exams in Kumo." He revealed, snorting at the way the girl immediately tensed. "You didn't use your dojutsu a single time. And IknowKurenai has been having you fight blindfolded."
"I am…not as adept at fighting blind as I would like to be."
No reaction to the compliment, just more denials of her own skill, and Kakashi- well. Kakashi had been bumbling his way through an informal apprenticeship for over a year. Might as well make it official.
And with that thought in mind-
"I could teach you."
-was out of his mouth before he could second-guess himself.
The girl froze.
Then, in a voice like she wasn't certain if he was being serious but was fully prepared to backpedal in case he revealed he was joking, offered a quiet: "…The Exams are in a month."
Which wasn't ano,and that told Kakashi all that he needed to know about the Hyuuga's feelings on the matter.
"Do you doubt me?" he asked, despite already suspecting what answer he was going to get.
"Only myself, Kakashi-san." the girl corrected, proving his hunch.
"Well, I don't." Kakashi announced, surprised at how honest the words were, and a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Genma urged him to reinforce the verbal support with physical touch, but Kakashi ignored it.
He was twenty years of trauma and battle-forged instincts masquerading as a man, and the girl on his sofa was tight-strung and trigger-happy on agoodday; casual physical touch between them would only end in disaster.
"You've proven that you're stubborn enough." He continued, smiling crookedly for all that the girl couldn't actually see him and wondering whether this was how the Hyuuga heiress had known how to reach through to Naruto. "If you want to learn, I can teach you."
To her credit, the Hyuuga didn't hesitate, offering him a tremulous smile and a quiet, "I would like that." that nonetheless rang truer than many oaths Kakashi had heard and taken in his life.
But the tension that had been in the girl's shoulders did not loosen even with the solution to her problem, and Kakashi reminded himself that he'd promised to stopnot-seeingwhen it came to his students, official or not.
"There's something else." he stated, making it a fact not a question as he studied the girl, more than familiar with her penchant for misdirection at this point. "More than the Exams."
The Hyuuga bit her lip, then released it as if realising the obvious tell, and her next words, when they came, were shaky and the most unsure Kakashi had ever heard her:
"I- my Father-" she stumbled over the words, and Kakashi was almost certain that the tremor in her voice was panic. "I don't- when he- I-"
"Hinata." Kakashi cut her off, and the girl shut her mouth with an audible click, though whether at the interruption or Kakashi using her first name, he couldn't be sure. Then, because he had a feeling he knew why the girl might be panicking at the fact that Hiashi had woken up, he continued: "Nobody can force you to reconcile with your father."
Hinata's breath left her in a sob and Kakashi wondered what it said about Hyuuga Hiashi's parenting that his daughter was brought to the brink of a panic attack at the mere prospect of interacting with him.
"H-he l-left me the s-scroll." Hinata stuttered out, it took Kakashi a few seconds to realise what scroll she was referring to. "Without it, I w-wouldn't have b-been able to- to-"
"You would have found a way to confront your grandfather one way or another." Kakashi cut her off again, his bullshit senses tingling. "All Hiashi did by leaving you the scroll was put you in danger."
Hinata sniffled, raising a hand to wipe at her eyes before seemingly catching herself, and her voice, when she spoke, was full of a desperate, delicate hope that Kakashi wasn't sure he could stand having directed at him.
"S-so I can- I don't have t-to-?" She tried, then cut herself off and took a deep breath. Her next words were surer, but her cheeks, or what little Kakashi could see that wasn't covered by the blindfold, were red with embarrassment. "Could you come with me?
Kakashi blinked. "To meet your father?"
He wasn't sure how his words came out, but whatever the Hyuuga heard in his voice had her backpedalling, practically shrinking in on herself, the line of her shoulders growing tenser than a bowstring as she visibly tried to make herself smaller where she sat.
"I- forgive me, please forget about it."
"That wasn't a no." Kakashi corrected bluntly, studying the girl intently to figure out where the sudden bout of self-consciousness had come from. "Why do you want me there? Your father wouldn't dare raise a hand against you in the hospital."
"I- it's not that." The Hyuuga denied, shaking her head, and Kakashi absently threw the box of tissues onto the sofa next to her, feeling a brief flash of guilt when she startled.
When the girl collected herself a little, her usual steely composure making a valiant return, she continued:
"My team, Genma-san, Yugao-senpai… they all agreed to lie to me." She sighed, and Kakashi tilted his head at the echo of what the Nara had said, wondering whether he was going to get more of an explanation or whether it was up to him to piece together the puzzle of what the two local genii were dropping at his feet.
Luckily, Hinata didn't keep him waiting long. "Or, Kagane-san- S-Shikamaru said that Kagane-san made thempromiseto lie to me if they wanted to come see me."
Ah. So that's what the Nara had meant.
"And they all agreed."
Kakashi wasn't too surprised by the fact that Kagane Natsume was still pulling this shit. What he did find surprising was that Kurenai of all people had gone along with it, especially considering her own infamous reaction when those tactics had been used againstherthe last time she'd been sectioned.
"Senpai and Genma-san didn't say much, and they only came once. But- myteam-!" Hinata added, her voice breaking on the word 'team', betrayal and anger suffusing her words, the blank mask she'd donned around the Nara finally cracking.
"-intentionally kept you in the dark." Kakashi finished for her, vindictively satisfied when the girl nodded. "You don't trust them."
"I trust them with my life." Hinata was quick to correct, but Kakashi knew this game well: there were many people in the Village whom he would trust to guard his back.
But he trusted maybe a tenth of them with his personal life.
"But not enough right now to support you in this." he offered, and, to her credit, she conceded the argument with a quiet, resigned, "No."
Kakashi hummed, thinking over their options.
"Do you want me to henge?" he asked eventually, absently noting that the Hyuuga didn't seem to consider prolonged silence as rejection.
The response, when it came, was blunt and immediate: "No."
He felt his eyebrow climb up his forehead, the final piece slotting into place, and nearly had to bite back a laugh at the conclusion he reached. "You want a guard dog."
"I want- to be left alone." Hinata corrected, but just as Kakashi's questions hadn't been a refusal, this wasn't a denial.
It wasn't a bad idea when he thought about it a little more, especially considering that the request was coming from a kunoichi who suddenly found herselfblind:
Kakashi's avoidance of hospitals was practically universally-known, as was the fact that he was, by most people's standards, a bastard. Bringing him along to the hospital to visit Hiashi would not only ensure that she wouldn't be bothered by her team and all those who had agreed to lie to her, but would also probably put Hiashi on unsteady enough footing that he wouldn't be his usualcharmingself.
Plus, they both knew that Kakashi's guilt, despite the Hyuuga's dismissal of it, wouldn't allow him to refuse.
It was, in one word, a genius plan.
"Alright." Kakashi conceded. "We'll go to the hospital tomorrow morning."
The girl sagged then, all her bravado leaving her along with her breath, and her words were exhausted but full of gratitude, "Thank you, Kakashi-san."
And Kakashi- Kakashi couldn't deal with that when he was still processing the fact that he hadn'tfailed, so he redirected.
"You can drop the honorific." He suggested, smirking meanly at the thought of the possible reactions. "If youreallywant to be left alone."
"I couldn't possibly-!" the girl argued, but Kakashi reckoned he knew her well enough by now to see that the protest was only performative.
"You could. I wouldn't mind." He cut in, because he had an inkling that this was where the girl's real apprehension lay. "And it would be funny."
"What would be?" the Nara's voice suddenly rang out from the corridor, and Kakashi started when he realised that he'd relaxed enough that he'd missed the teen coming back.
"Scandalising nurses." He replied flippantly, hiding his startle at his own inattention behind snark and his mask. "And Hiashi."
"The nurses are horrible gossips." The Nara replied blandly, toeing off his sandals and heading to Kakashi's kitchen with an ease that concerned him. "If you want some news to spread around the Village, all you gotta do is talk a little too loudly in the reception."
At Hinata's hastily muffled snort, the Nara added a conspiratory, "Ino exploits this fact quite often," and the smile in his voice was obvious.
Kakashi hummed then, a thought occurring to him as he turned to the Hyuuga. "Do you want Nara junior there?"
The Hyuuga's eyes were covered, but the indignation on her face was clear as she replied; "Of course."
The Nara poked his head out of Kakashi's kitchen upon hearing his name, eyebrow raised as he regarded Kakashi suspiciously. "Where?"
"In Hiashi's hospital room, tomorrow." Kakashi revealed, directing his most bullshit smile at the Nara brat. "Gonna ruin the bastard's day."
He watched that infamous brain work double-time as Shikamaru struggled to connect the dots, gaze flickering between Kakashi and the Hyuuga before finally a small, smug,meansmile spread on his face.
He nodded at Kakashi once, sharp and resolute, though out loud, he only said, "I'm looking forward to it." before ducking back in the kitchen, and Kakashi barely stifled a laugh.
Hiashi wouldn't know what hit him.
Tsunade was sure that taking down a warhawk who'd been in power since before she'd even left the Village would be the craziest thing she'd do as Hokage.
Having to mobilise the ANBU because the –blind!– Hyuuga heiress had disappeared from the secure wing of the mental ward with seemingly no outside help threw that certainty into question. The fact that the nurses on call had no memory of the girl leaving the room or anybody cominginafter the girl's shrink had been called away hadn't helped matters.
So seeing the girl walk into Hyuuga Hiashi's hospital room not even twenty hours later flanked by Hatake Kakashi and the Nara heir made Tsunade want to put her head in her hands and curse.
She thought that Hinata managing to put Hyuuga Hotaru in T would've satisfied her need to give Tsunade headaches for at least half a year, but judging by the resolute expression on the visible parts of the girl's face and the absolutely disgusted one on Hiashi's at the sight of her entourage, this was not going to be apleasantvisit.
Finally, Hinata sighed and stepped fully into the room, letting the door shut behind her, Nara and Hatake on either side like her own personal guard dogs.
"Father." She murmured, either ignoring Tsunade's presence or unaware of it. "Welcome back."
Tsunade wondered at that address, not missing Shikaku's soundless sigh or Inoichi's worried glance.
Hiashi, for all that he'd had Tsunade deliver a bullet-point summary about what had happened to his Clan while he'd been comatose not twenty minutes earlier, seemed rather unruffled at his daughter's lukewarm greeting.
"Hokage-sama tells me much has happened since I ended up here." He replied idly, a blatant dig for information if Tsunade had ever seen one.
If she'd needed any confirmation that Hyuuga Hiashi had no real idea of his daughter's abilities, she had it now.
Predictably, Hinata only inclined her head, that same composure that had initially thrown Tsunade when she'd first had the girl's team in her office after their Chunin Exams making itself known as she replied, her voice perfectly even: "She is not wrong."
Hiashi frowned, either not having experienced Hinata's talent for understatement before or not buying it.
"Father disinherited Hanabi and Neji." He stated bluntly, but Hinata's mask of polite disinterest didn't even flicker.
"He did."
"You freed the Branch Clan." Hiashi continued, frowning openly now, and Tsunade couldfeelthe schadenfreude that Hatake was radiating without even needing to look at the man.
Hinata nodded again. "I did."
"You've been planning this coup for years." Hiashi pressed, an accusation and a statement all in one, his tone finally losing its inflectionless geniality, the first hints of frustration leaking through.
But Hinata just smiled. "I have."
Distantly, Tsunade wondered whether Hinata shouldn't have protested the term 'coup', but she reckoned the girl had learnt to pick her battles.
"Is there a reason you didn't think to come to me?"
Tsunade only just resisted the reflex to snap her head to the side to stare at Hiashi in disbelief.
That question had been…almost petulant. Like the great Hyuuga Hiashi, asshole extraordinaire, had beenhurtby his daughter not looping him in on her plans of revolution.
Hinata sighed, looking, for the first time since she'd walked in, a little unsure.
Then, Hatake did something weird with his chakra – there was a feeling almost like he'd flexed it, expanding it outside of his body ever so briefly, then collapsing it again – and the girl straightened, her resolve visibly firming as she squared her shoulders.
Realisation dawned on Tsunade like a thunderclap: the chakra trick hadn't been a trick at all. It had been Hatake's way of reminding the Hyuuga of his presence, like a cat brushing against her ankles, except without the 'touching' element. And the girl, who counted half a dozen of Tsunade's ANBU and just as many Clan Heads in her circle, took the wordless reassurance for what it was without a single word needing to be spoken between the two.
Tsunade didn't know whether to laugh or despair, but she was spared from having to decide by Hinata opening her mouth.
"I didn't trust you." The girl said simply, and Tsunade didn't think there was anything in the world that could've prepared her for the sight of Hyuuga Hiashiflinching."You never seemed opposed to the Cursed Seal."
Hiashi seemed to consider his daughter, something sharp and brittle passing through his eyes before he replied: "I had been handed an ultimatum by your grandfather when you were born."
That was...far more upfront than Tsunade had expected the man to be.
Hinata seemed to disagree, however, shaking her head. "That's not good enough."
Hiashi wasn't the only one to do a double-take at the girl's blunt rejection, Shikaku's eyes widening as he tracked the exchange between the two Hyuuga. The only one who seemed nonplussed was the Hatake brat, and Tsunade was starting to feel suspicious.
"I beg your pardon?" Hiashi blinked, staring at his daughter with shock writ in the crease of his forehead and the lines around his mouth.
"Shikaku-san once told me that Uncle Hizashi would have been proud of me." Hinata elaborated obligingly, and this time, it was Shikaku who flinched. "What do you think he would say of you, Father?"
Tsunade didn't think she was imagining the way the temperature in the room seemed to drop at the Hyuuga's question. What was even more conspicuous was the fact that Hiashi rather tellingly did not answer.
Surprisingly enough, the girl decided to take pity on her father.
"Do you plan to take back your position of Head?" she asked after a good minute had passed without an answer, and this, it seemed, was unexpected enough to knock Hiashi back into his usual mien, because he frowned.
"It is rightfully mine." He rebutted, though there was a hint of doubt that Tsunade was certain would not have been there before.
Hinata appeared to not share in her father's confidence, tilting her head in a gesture that would have once looked innocent, but now, knowing what Tsunade knew about the girl, looked only mocking.
"Is it?"
Hiashi stilled, his eyes intent on his daughter even as his hand twitched, either in fear or frustration. "What does that mean?"
"It means that with the removal of the seals, there is no longer a Main or Branch House." Hinata replied, and her vindictive satisfaction was obvious despite half of her face being covered with the bandages. "Can that position be 'rightfully' yours, if the foundation of oppression that right was built upon is gone?"
Tsunade felt the question land, and with it, a single realisation echoed around the room:That isnota fourteen-year-old.
"What are you suggesting? That it might be questioned?" Hiashi demanded, staring at his daughter suspiciously, before his expression smoothed out. "I suppose this is the moment you put forth your candidacy?"
"I am not a jounin yet." Hinata denied neatly, and Tsunade watched as her face also lost all expression.
But where on Hiashi, it had looked like he'd put on a mask, on Hinata, it looked like she'd taken hersoff,the perfect ANBU-like blankness looking eerily at home on her face.
"But if you do choose to assume that nothing has changed and try to forcefully reclaim your position, you might be surprised." Hinata continued, and even her voice had fallen into the even, toneless drone of the shadow-ranks. Or Kakashi on a bad day. "And I will challenge you for the position as soon as I make jounin next month."
Tsunade wasn't the only one to freeze at that declaration, staring at the girl in mild disbelief.
"…You lost your sight and your dojutsu, and you have the nerve to be this confident?" Hiashi asked at last, voicing the thought Tsunade didn't have the heart to, and for once, she couldn't begrudge him his tone.
But Hinata just nodded, no hint of hesitation to her mien; "Yes."
"You were right, Hokage-sama." Hiashi mused after a few seconds, though his gaze never left Hinata. "My daughter did die."
"My daughter did die." Hiashi agreed tonelessly, so much more than he would ever voice wrapped in the simple statement.
But it wasn't at my father's finished silently, never letting himself look away from Hinata's bandaged eyes and blank face.
The daughter he had once known had died before her graduation. The girl that stood before him now was the product of small, gradual changes that Hiashi had only ever caught glimpses of over the two years since she'd become a genin. He hadn't thought much of the changes whenever he saw them, hadn't realised they'd ever come together into something meaningful, something that could revolutionise the Clan without him, his father, or any of the Elders ever being any the wiser.
To think that Hinata had fulfilled Hizashi's dream and Hiashi hadn't even known she'd beenplanningto do it…
There were some things that Hiashi would take to the grave. How he felt in that moment, staring at his daughter and seeing a stranger, would be one of them.
Hinata sighed then, her shoulders slumping, and a melancholy, almost resigned smile briefly tugged on her lips, before even that small flicker of softness was wiped away.
"I think… I'm done." She murmured thoughtfully, then took a single step back, putting her shoulder-to-shoulder with the Nara. "Kakashi- please?"
Hiashi startled, briefly struck speechless by the overly familiar address that came out of his daughter's mouth. Not only was it incredibly unseemly considering her position as heir, but it also implied a relationship that Hinata hadno right to havewith the Hatake.
Hiashi opened his mouth, a sharp reprimand on the tip of his tongue, because no matter how much he was internally reeling with everything the Godaime had told him, no matter how much of a punch to the gut Hinata's jab about Hizashi had been, how much the realisation that everything his father had said about him before he'd gone to confront Shimura was true- that was stillhis child and heir.
But then he caught the way Shikaku hung his head and laughed silently, shoulders shaking with obvious mirth, and the reprimand died before he had a chance to voice it, suspicion replacing indignation.
Only for the indignation to return twice as strong when the Hatake brat stepped forward, putting himself ever so slightly in front of Hinata, his shoulders squared and back ramrod straight as he addressed the Godaime.
"I will be taking Hinata on as an official apprentice until her jounin promotion." he announced, and Hiashi would've once drawn great pleasure from the way Shikaku's head snapped up in disbelief, his earlier mirth nowhere to be found. "I have already filed all the relevant paperwork with Shizune and the missions office."
"Why the missions office?" the thus-far silent Yamanaka asked after a few seconds of stunned silence, expression leaning more towards confusion than the clear suspicion that was on Shikaku's face and the floored disbelief on the Godaime's.
"Because I will be taking Hinata out of the Village for a month." The Hatake explained, and Hiashi finally found his words.
"You will be doing no such thing." He denied, eyes catching on the way the Nara heir had wrapped his fingers loosely around Hinata's wrist, though the teen met Hiashi's gaze unflinchingly when he noticed him looking.
And then the Hatake turned the full force of that fake innocent expression on him and tilted his head, smiling so falsely that Hiashi ground his teeth. "I'm afraid that's not up to you, Hyuuga-sama."
"Hinata." Hiashi switched tracks, appealing to his daughter in the face of Hatake's obstinance. "Think of how this looks."
"How it looks that she has one of the best jounin in the Village taking her on as an apprentice when she's not even two years out of the Academy?" the Nara heir demanded, speaking for the first time since he'd stepped into the room, and Hiashi realised that his dislike of the Nara Head extended to his son. "Perhaps the Hyuuga Clan has different standards, but I would say that it looks incredibly impressive."
"Fortunately, I did not ask for your opinion." Hiashi snapped back, losing patience in the face of Hinata's continued silence, and he only realised his misstep when Shikaku suddenly straightened, his voice glacial.
"I realise that you have had a lot of information dropped on you in a short period of time." The Nara Head allowed, more cordial than Hiashi had expected him to be, "But do not presume to speak to my heir the way you speak to yours."
"Hokage-sama, Yamanaka-san, Shikaku-san," Hinata suddenly spoke, drawing the attention of the room onto herself once more and cutting off whatever remark Hiashi would've shot back at the Nara, "thank you for your time and assistance, and I apologise for today's interruption."
Then, she turned towards Hiashi, and Hiashi realised that he'd missed the moment the Nara heir had gone from holding her wrist to holding her hand, but the sight of his daughter and the Nara holding hands in his hospital room felt like a punch to the gut.
"Father…I didn't do what I did to upset you." Hinata murmured, and the words rang true no matter how much they sounded like Hinata was forcing them out through gritted teeth. "I wasn't planning a coup. Grandfather's arrest, Elder Shimura's death, the destruction of the Houses- they were all…unplanned."
"Then why?" Hiashi found himself asking, the question wrenched out of him in the face of his daughter's brutal honesty.
"I did it because Neji deserved better." Hinata declared, blunt and unflinching and nothing like the child from his memories.
The sentiment was noble, yet the hidden meaning of her words rang loud and clear:
I did what I did becauseyoucouldn't.
Speechless, Hiashi could only watch as Hinata took a breath, and then, pausing only to incline her head politely in the Godaime's direction, turned on her heel and walked out of Hiashi's hospital room, the Nara by her side and the Hatake not a step behind.
And Hiashi had a sinking suspicion that whatever familial ties may have still remained between him and Hinata had just been severed.
He was not her father anymore. He was not her Clan Head.
He was a relic of a bygone era, and a loose thread Hinata couldn't afford to leave untouched if she wanted to legitimise her revolution.
He could plant himself and oppose her, see this conflict through to its bloody end, defend his right of Headship even from his own heir.
Or, assuming that Hinata's confidence wasn't misplaced, that she would indeed make jounin within a month and challenge him…he could step aside.
Hiashi was suddenly sure that somewhere out there, Hizashi was laughing at him.
"You came."
"You asked to meet in person. Of course I did."
"Your informant was right."
"…Do I want to know how you verified the information?"
"I spoke my mind. He didn't like it."
"He punished you."
"Yes. But in doing so, he revealed his Mangekyo. The pattern matched that of Hatake-senpai's."
"I don't know if Uchiha Obito having survived is better or worse than the prospect of actual Madara still being alive."
"I believe that, as the Spymaster, it is your within your realm of responsibilities to find out."
"You don't have to tell me twice."
"There is, however, something I'd like to know. You see, I do not have a network as extensive as yours, but I have my crows. And according to them, as of three days ago, Hatake Kakashi does not possess the Mangekyo."
"…You're not wrong."
"I know I am not. But neither was your information. And knowing that Tobi is not Madara butUncle Obito…changes things."
"Like?"
"That is my concern, not yours."
"Where are you going with this?"
"Once I reveal Madara as a liar to Kisame-san, I am confident he will leave and return to Kiri; the current Mizukage is a childhood acquaintance of his, after all. I will speak to Kakuzu-san too."
"Thenyou'regoing to leave."
"Like I said, Jiraiya-sama: this knowledge changes things."
"There's more, isn't there?"
"Yes. I have verified your information, at a great personal cost, at that. As such, I have my own price before I tell you any more."
"What is it?"
"I want to meet your informant."