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Eight months after the war ends Kakashi calls her up to his office and says, “Hinata, I want you to be Hokage.”
“What,” she says.
.
Hinata’s been busy. She’s clan leader now. She thought that was all about being strong, about being frightening, about being able to kill your own brother, but it turns out it’s more about making her Gentle Fist go from perfect to something she’s able to teach. It turns out being leader of a clan is more about dealing with children, and the people who act like children. The main branch elders are pushing back hard against her efforts to destroy the tradition of sealing branch members and she’s definitely resorted to abusing her power. “I am your Clan Head,” she says in a meeting, staring across the room from her place sitting cross legged on an elevated stage. It’s ridiculous. A stage? Honestly. She’ll need to have it removed.
“We are your elders, Hinata-hime,” one of them, Momoe, points out, from the panel of main branch superiors seated on mats, in a row over on the left. Her eyes are like metallic disks, forcibly rubbed smooth into planes of uniform silver. Hinata meets them without flinching. The elders have eyes like silver, eyes like the moon, eyes that could control the tides. Hinata has eyes of steel. “Even your father heeded us.”
“I am not Hinata-hime,” Hinata says and she’s facing them the same way she faced going to war. “I am Hyuuga-sama, your clan head. You do not hold reins on me. You do not need to be heeded. You advise.” She turns her head, looks to the branch members, remembers the fights she’d had just to get them included in clan meetings at all. She looks at their foreheads—a woman with cloth wrapped around her seal, with laugh lines and kind eyes; a boy with his own skin still untouched, watching the proceedings with eyes wide—and then stares down at all the Hyuuga children, some still too small to even stand by themselves. “My clansmen will not be branded like cattle.”
For a moment none speak and she thinks she may have won. Then, “Even your father followed these traditions, Hinata-sama, despite having to give his own brother to the first branch family,” and it starts all over again.
As a child she loved order. She was meticulously organized, with all her clothing folded and put away, all her weaponry carefully placed in drawers and all her scrolls kept nicely in a bookshelf. The Hokage rules the village with a council of civilians and a council of clan heads and everything goes nice and neat, everyone gets an opinion.
She’s starting to hate rules.
.
“I really don’t understand, Hokage-sama,” Hinata starts out tentatively, suddenly extremely uncomfortable. “Me? Hokage?”
What about Naruto? someone inside her asks. What about Naruto?
“Please, call me Kakashi,” he says. He adjusts his Hokage hat, sparing it an annoyed glance. “We both know you would be a perfect fit for the job. You’re intelligent. You’d be good at it. The people would accept you. You’re a war hero.”
“Y-yes,” she manages, “but not the war hero. Hokage-sama—”
“Kakashi.”
“Kakashi,” Hinata corrects. “I am the Hyuuga clan head. I don’t—I don’t have the time—”
“Plenty of Kages have had other responsibilities,” he says, waving a hand flippantly.
“It shouldn’t be me!” Hinata bursts out.
Kakashi raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”
.
It takes a month of campaigning and giving speeches and taking advantage of how cute the recent branch member babies are before the clan finally, finally, finally votes in favor of reappraising the lines of Hyuuga law written to create the Caged Bird Curse Seal. She’s so happy she doesn’t even tell anyone, just smiles and smiles and smiles. When Sakura asks her to go out for drinks with the rest of the Konoha Twelve she’s so happy she forgets to say no and says yes, even though she can’t imagine drinking ever being her scene and Naruto will be there and probably Sasuke, too, which makes everything awkward and uncomfortable automatically.
“It’ll be fun,” Sakura had said. When Hinata didn’t look completely convinced she added, “Come on! I’m gonna be there.”
Which was a fair point. Hinata’s been nursing her sangria all night, partly because she’s probably going to have to do a lot more work tomorrow and partly because she doesn’t really like to drink. It tastes sweet. She sips it and settles more comfortably into her barstool. Sakura’s been significantly more adventurous, but still lingers right next to her. Hinata used to need people like Sakura and Naruto for strength, for inspiration, used to have something like jealousy when she thought of Sakura and something like admiration, but now when she looks at her halfway drunk friend all she feels is pride.
“I really thought things would be more exciting in Konoha,” Sakura complains. “Why aren’t people leaping over themselves to make me head of the hospital or something?”
“You’re right,” Hinata says. “You’re a war hero.”
Sakura wrinkles her nose. “Yeah, kinda,” she mutters. “But not the war hero.”
“Yes, you are,” Hinata says a little stupidly. She doesn’t get what Sakura means. “You and Sasuke and Naruto saved the world. You’re definitely the war hero, Sakura-chan.”
Sakura doesn’t say anything for a little while. Hinata watches her eyes flash from the murky depths of her drink to where Naruto and Sasuke are enthusiastically and complacently, respectively, starting up a bar fight. “Thanks,” she says quietly. Her eyes are kinda dark now. It was so long ago but the two of them both used to be insecure and small. Sakura got bigger before she did. There’s no way she could possibly still be even a bit unsure now, though—she’s a war hero, and possibly the greatest medic in the world. There’s no way.
Right?
“I mean it,” Hinata adds quietly, just in case.
Sakura grins. “Yeah, yeah, enough about me—how about you? How’s rewriting century old Hyuuga law like?”
Hinata smiles back, wide and full of teeth. “Horrible,” she says and motions to the bartender. “Diplomacy is hell.” She’s gonna need another drink.
.
“I’m just—I’m only—”
Kakashi’s still got his eyebrow raised. Hinata flounders.
“You’re only one of the youngest clan heads in Konoha history,” Kakashi supplies. “You’re only a war hero and one of the most accomplished shinobi of your generation. You clearly have the skill for it. It barely took you a few months to rewrite Hyuuga law.”
Hinata gapes. “How do you know about that?”
He looks at her like she’s a bit dumb. “The entire village knows about that,” he says. She stares at him.
“Wha-what about Naruto?” she asks, a last defense, pulling up anything she can find. “What about Sakura, even? Sakura would be a great Hokage, wouldn’t she? Or Sasuke? He wanted to make the shinobi system less exploitative, right?”
“Naruto doesn’t have the mindset for it,” Kakashi says dismissively, outright disinterested in the suggestion. Her jaw drops. “Sasuke’s a reformed criminal and would sooner bomb Konoha than engage in all the intricacies needed to change anything about the shinobi system. And Sakura...” Kakashi pauses, leans forward on his elbows on his desk. Papers are strewn all over it. The pieces of Hinata that keep her entire compound meticulously organized and clean itch at the sight. He looks tired. “Sakura suggested you, actually.”
“What,” Hinata says.
.
“If I were you, Hinata,” Naruto’s saying, drunk and showing it, “I would just tell all the elders to go stuff it. Or beat them up! Hinata, just beat them up!”
“That’s not how—how change works,” Hinata says. She can’t even formulate a real response. Sakura’s openly laughing, having abandoned giggling into her glass.
Naruto nods at her sagely, wisened. “You should just beat them up until that is how it works,” he says. “That’s what I did with Sasuke!” He looks around, as if in confusion. “Wait, where did Sasuke go?”
“Home,” Sakura says helpfully.
“If I just beat everyone up, that wouldn’t be fair at all,” Hinata says, shocked now, offended, even. “That’s—that isn’t fair! It would be an abuse of power!”
“You could just beat up everyone who says that,” Naruto says. Hinata’s pretty sure he doesn’t get the point at all. “When I become Hokage, I’ll beat them up for you, dattebayo! Haha! Then they’ll listen!”
“Y-you really can’t do that,” Hinata says. She’s still flushed from alcohol but any embarrassment about being around Naruto is completely faded. She told Naruto she loved him and he wasn’t interested and that’s fine, but nobody is gonna beat up any Hyuuga clan members. That isn’t how she wants her reign as clan head to run. They’re going to rewrite law and change things and become better and they’re going to choose to. And it’ll be fair. “You can’t just force someone to do something.”
Too many people have made Hinata do things she did not want to do. Too many people have forced Hinata into docility. She’s never going to do that. You can’t force people to do things. That’s wrong.
“Sure you can,” Naruto says and Hinata irrationally wants to punch him in the face.
“I’m pretty sure Hinata just has a better grasp on politics than you, Naruto,” Sakura says drily. As a child Hinata pulled her strength from the people around her. She watched Naruto’s determination and made it into her own, watched Sakura’s intelligence and channeled it, watched Kiba and Ino’s brashness and brought it within herself, held all these people in her heart like delicate birds.
She’s older now. She has her own strength. Those birds flew away long ago.
“Don’t worry, Hinata,” Sakura says, flinging an arm around her shoulders and pushing their cheeks together. Sakura’s hair is in Hinata’s mouth. “You’ll change the Hyuuga clan!” Hinata wiggles a little so her face is tucked into the crook of Sakura’s neck, lips to her collarbone.
“Thanks,” she murmurs.
Sakura pulls away just far enough that Hinata can look into her eyes. “Anytime,” Sakura says, smile brilliant and beautiful, and Naruto starts shouting something else, but Hinata doesn’t think the world even exists outside of Sakura’s green eyes.
.
“There’s no way Sakura said that,” Hinata says. Kakashi doesn’t look impressed. “Naruto’s her teammate. He’s wanted to be Hokage since we were academy students.”
“We aren’t always good at what we want,” Kakashi says.
“You didn’t want to be Hokage,” Hinata accuses. “How’s this working out for you?”
He gives her a long look. “If you wanted it,” he says, slowly and carefully, “I wouldn’t trust you with it.”
.
She and Sakura walk home together, to Sakura’s cute little apartment. Sakura trips twice on the stairs. “You’re a war hero, too,” Sakura says. “Just so you know.”
Hinata stares at her and Sakura stares back. She’s got that smile on, the grin that makes Hinata feel weak in the knees. “Thank you,” Hinata says and she wants to tell Sakura she used to watch her in the academy, used to look at her and Ino and desperately wish to be their friend. She wants to tell Sakura she’s an inspiration, that girls all over the world must think of her when they need someone to lend them some strength, that Sakura’s amazing and strong and a genius and beautiful and has saved her life so many times.
Instead, while Hinata’s still trying to make her throat produce noises, Sakura says, “You should come inside. I really don’t want you to get lost or anything, ‘ya know, and the Hyuuga compound’s far.”
“Okay,” Hinata says. She comes in and immediately passes out on Sakura’s bed, their legs tangled together and her hair in her face. In the morning she wishes she would have kissed her.
.
“You’ve already reformed the Hyuuga Clan,” Kakashi says. “Is there any reason you can’t reform Konoha?”
“I guess not,” Hinata says. “Sure.”
A month later Hyuuga Hinata is Konohagakure’s Nanadaime Hokage.