Chapter Text
Fool Against The Current
Konoha was buzzing with life and the sounds of people talking, of buildings being constructed, of children laughing and screaming, it all reached out the Hyuuga compound.
The city itself looked nothing like it did just a few years ago; the only thing that was familiar was the Hokage Monument and even it had changed; a new face was looking down on the village, half-finished but stern.
Even the Hyuuga compound was touched by the changes and Hiashi could feel it all with every inch of his skin.
The sun was reaching too far into the room and blazing right into his face, because there were no more high linden trees shielding his office with their rich crowns.
The office itself was wrong, still smelling like sawdust and wood varnish, startlingly new and in the wrong place. The entire building was in wrong place. When the Akatsuki decided to raze Konoha to the ground even the foundations of buildings were torn out and reduced to pieces, leaving only an ugly crater, riddled with gaping wounds of what once was.
Hiashi closed his eyes, but it didn't help with anything.
The low table, the one that belonged to the Hyuuga clan head even before Konoha was created was no more. Instead, there stood a desk, forcing him to exchange a seta cushion for a chair.
The sunlight was still there, burning his face as were the ghosts of the past, cold emotionless eyes burying into his backs.
They had all the reasons to do so, since he was piecing together bits and scraps of old scrolls, riddled with burnt marks and only partially legible along with the long, long lists of names the members of the clan delivered.
Hiashi sighed, feeling out of place, like he was the damaged artifact of the past dig out from the rubble and placed in the new world, unfamiliar and fresh.
Nonetheless, he had to work, writing down name after name, separating the tree into two without mercy, while the ghosts were looking over his shoulder with cold distant.
A soft knock on the doors was like salvation.
He didn't need to use his eyes to see who was on the other side, he didn't need to feel the chakra to tell.
"Come in," Hiashi said, carefully putting away the damaged scroll. With an equal care, he cleaned the brush, making sure to not mark the new, wooden surface of the desk. The thought of leaving stains on it was filling him with an unpleasant feeling that grew and grew with every passing day, bubbling in his chest and filling his trachea to the point his throat felt like someone tied a noose around his neck and then pulled.
The doors shifts open without the familiar creak, swiftly, easily, yet another thing from the new world pushing into his space with merciless details.
"Honored father," Hinata bowed before she made a single step inside.
She was wearing a traditional yukata, which was quite unusual for her, always favoring comfortable, soft clothes but there's a jacket thrown over her arms, clashing with the pale white fabric.
It's a comfort thing, Hiashi knew it. A familiar thing that makes you more you, even if everything is all but crashing around.
She rubbed the sleeve in her fingers, like she was testing the elastic fabric, before she looked up at him.
"What brings you here?" Hiashi asked and the ghosts wince at him. Hiashi wants to wince too, because he clearly heard himself, the too strict tone of his voice, the snappish way he spat out the words.
"I have come here to ask of you..." she started, not looking at him, and then she stopped.
Hiashi waits, swallowing down the words that wanted to spill out of his mouth.
Hinata did the thing with her eyes, the one her cousin called her on all those years ago during their disastrous duel.
Then her eyes steeled up and she looked straight at him, straight into his face and Hiashi felt a pang of something warm fighting its way through the bubbles in his chest.
"I have come here to inform you," Hinata corrected herself, more and more determined with every passing second. "That I am retiring as a shinobi."
Hiashi knew this day was going to come.
A few years ago he hoped that she would marry someone from the clan and then fall into obscurity while her sister takes over as a clan head, providing an heir, but now...
Now things were different.
Her soon to be husband could protect her with ease, so she was going to be spared the unsavory fate of bearing the Seal, but...
It was a tempting thought, to use her.
To let her forehead be marked and to see the Fox unleashed in the hyuuga compound the same day, burning all the traces off it from the surface of the world.
Hiashi would sure enjoy the flames.
He imagined dipping a needle in ink, imagined the all that o familiar pattern growing on the pale flesh and shuddered, taken aback with disgust by his own thoughts.
The ghosts are behind him, not just two but dozens upon dozens, crowding the space behind him, stares buried in his flesh with such intensity it burnt.
“You know this is going to be difficult,” Hiashi stated, carefully picking words, because using a wrong one would choke him.
Hinata nodded.
“I know, but this is… there's peace now, not everyone needs to fight, there's no one to fight against-!” The words are spilling out of her mouth, faster and faster, barely legible by the end. Hinata is out of breath, but there are still things left to said.
Her fingers danced on her sleeve and Hiashi wondered if she's even aware of it.
“I'm sorry,” he finally cut on, giving her space, a moment to breathe but of course it was a wrong thing to say.
Her shoulders slumbered and she flinched, curling away from him.
“This should have been your decision, but I've taken it away from you,” Hiashi continued. “For that, I'm deeply sorry.”
Hinata slowly, oh so very slowly, lowered her arm. Only enough to take a peek, startled eyes wide open.
It hurt, the way she looked at him and the fact that she had all the reasons in the world to look at him like that hurt even more.
“That boy of yours,” Hiashi started. It’s awkward, it sounds undignified, he was stumbling like a fool. “He will be able to keep you safe.
“So… you… I can?”
“If that is your wish,” Hiashi nodded. “But it is going to be a difficult path. The war ended but people still live certain that a person is worth something only when wearing a hitai-ate.”
“I want that,” she admitted quietly, lowering her hands, looking down onto the new, new tatami. “Even if it does make me weak in the eyes of other people. I’m already…”
Hiashi grit his teeth.
“You’re brave,” he cut in before Hinata managed to finish the sentence. “Going against the current, standing your ground, it is a brave thing to do.”
She was. She was brave, oh so very brave, fighting her fear on every step she took through the Hyuuga compound, looking up at him and telling that she already made a decision.
“You have grown so much,” Hiashi said, voice too well trained to be anything but ster. “I applaud you, my daughter.”
xxx
Hinata snuggled into Naruto's shoulder, enjoying the presence of another human. The warmth, the smell of soap, droplets of water dripping onto her nose because Naruto didn't bother to wipe his hair after taking a shower.
She had finally calmed down, but the words from earlier today were still dancing inside her head, creating one question after another.
"I think my father is acting odd," she finally stated.
"How come?" he asked, shifting for a moment, trying to find a position that was either comfortable or allowing him to see her better. Hinata wasn't sure which.
"He said he's sorry."
That was a thing he never did. He rarely even bothered with explaining; his decisions were always final and that was it.
"What for?"
"I don't know," Hinata sighed and hid her face in the nook of his neck. "For everything, I guess. Or for a lot at least..."
Naruto was quiet for a short moment, but he never was able to keep his mouth shut. And it was such a great thing, the ability to just say things instead of swallowing ten thousands words per day.
"That's good, right?" He asked with a small smile. "You went there and told him about your plan and he was... okay?"
"He was," Hinata nodded into his shoulder. "And he said he was sorry and that I should've been the one to decide in the first place and that's... that's not how he is, Naruto."
"Maybe he changed, ya know?" Naruto mused. "I mean, everything changed, just look out of the window! And people change too, so why can't he?"
Naruto was right, of course. People did change, especially people he had a chance to punch in the face at some point.
Hinata furrowed her brow, suspicion rising in her chest and pushed herself up to look him in the face.
"Did you talk to my father?"
"I what? No! Of course not!"
Hinata squinted at him.
He didn't sound like he was lying. To tell the truth, Naruto was always somewhat terrible at lying.
Spinning the tale, twisting the truth to better fit his goals, he was never able to do so and it was the sweetest thing.
"I believe you," Hinata admitted with a sigh. "But I'm worried. He's... this is too sudden."
"Nothing bad is going to happen, believe it!" Naruto reassured her with a grin. "He's not stupid and he was a ninja for ages! And even if, I'll be there to help! Okay?"
It was impossible to not smile back at him, to not look into those deep, blue eyes and to feel anything but love and warmth.
"Okay," Hinata nodded.
An arm wrapped itself around her waist and pulled her close into a hug and Hinata allowed it, letting herself be swept back into warmth and the smell of soap.
"He also said he's okay with this," she recalled a few moments later, when her mind was woozy with tiredness that come right before the sleep.
"...okay?" Naruto said slowly, voice oddly high-pitched.
Hinata chuckled into his neck.
For all she knew, it could be just a dream, sweet and impossible.
She learned long ago to not look too deep into sweet illusions like this one, to simply enjoy those precious minutes, so there would be something to remember once the moment was over.
Xxx
Hiashi looked with disgust at the desk, at the ages old scrolls, at the history of his clan.
The temptation to just burn it all was very strong.
He could imagine it: going to the cabinet and picking up a bottle of one expensive wine or another, drowning all of the papers in alcohol and lighting it all up with a match.
It would be easier to use a Katon jutsu but he never learned any, because the Gentle Fist was supposed to be enough.
It wasn't, one couldn't set things on fire by stabbing something with their fingers.
He didn’t do it. He didn’t even get close to trying to damage the documents in any way.
Madness was not a way to solve problems, especially not problems like this one.
What an act of madness would bring, was him losing his position as the clan head.
Whoever would be chosen as the next one, he would sure dive deep into ancient laws and drag the clan along with him, while stripping Hiashi's daughter of any protection they were guaranteed until now.
Hiashi couldn't allow it.
The documents were spared for now, while he circled his desk and stopped by the window.
The Hyuuga compound was just as new as the rest of the village, and yet they were stuck in the past long gone.
What Hiashi needed, was an ally. Someone capable enough, someone powerful enough to put his foot down and force the clan into obedience, but with a strong backbone and even stronger moral code, a truly rare thing among the ninja.
He closed his eyes and slowly exhaled.
What Hiashi had was an excuse, served to him on a silver platter mere hours ago.
He hoped it was going to be enough.
Xxx
When the Third Hokage was watching over Konoha, his office was a place of calmness. It smelled like tea and burnt tobacco leaves, pristine and elegant.
Sarutobi himself was always there,calm and collected, pulling the strings and making sure the village worked like a well oiled machine, the members of his Council always nearby.
The Fourth Hokage was rarely sitting behind his desk; instead he was out there, in the village, talking to people, doing things on the fly, his insane speed letting him move around almost instantly. The office was never empty; there was a team put together for the sole purpose of dealing with the paperwork and a Shadow Clone in case they didn’t know how to solve a request.
The Council wasn’t too fond of this solution, fearing that it would bring chaos to Konoha, but before anything was done, the Hokage was dead.
Tsunade, the Fifth, looked mostly tired, dealing with one emergency situation after another, while the paperwork was slowly piling around her, taking over more and more space until there was barely enough space to move from one corner of the room to another.
She was stern and aggressive, she was not bothering to discuss things instead just barking one order after another and constantly butting her head with the Council.
The Sixth...
Hatake looked mostly bored.
He was resting his face on the palm of his hand, slouching in the chair, hair the usual mess, not bothering with putting on the robe.
Hiashi would grimace with distaste if it was any other man.
On any other man it would look like plain disgrace, like lack of respect for the position, but there was that sharpness in his eyes, one of a kind, looking straight through a man, a sharpness that usually even the Hyuuga lacked.
"You are here but not because you want to discuss your daughter," Kakashi noted, voice lazy and bored, eyes dark and alive.
Hiashi nodded.
The easiest way to talk to the Hokage without raising any suspicions was to announce his will to discuss and discredit Hinata's decision to retire.
The clan saw it as a disgrace - it always saw her as a disgrace, too weak, too soft, too gentle - so they all nodded with approval, not bothering to look for the real reason.
"Why are you here then?" Kakashi mused. "The clans usually solve their problems on their own, not bothering to include the rest of the village."
Hiashi wondered for what felt like ages what he was supposed to say, how he was supposed to say it.
Then he voted for the simplest solution.
"I need your help, Lord Hokage."
Kakashi raised his eyebrows, but otherwise kept silent, a clear sign for Hiashi to keep talking..
"The clan needs to change," he sighed. "The world already did and I refuse to leave this for my daughters to deal with. But I can't do it alone."
"You want power behind your back, so the clan can't declare you insane and sweep the entire thing under the rug," the Hokage summed it up.
Hiashi winced.
"It's not for my sake," he said, because it sounded too much like it was. "It should have ended years ago, I should have ended it years ago."
He didn't.
It was one excuse after another, setting up for little things, setting up for meaningless things instead of trying to figure out the real solution.
Back then, Hiashi had seen what was happening to the Uchiha clan, how once powerful and respected people became pariahs in their own village and then how it ended in blood.
Hiashi closed his eyes, trying to force the old regrets away. This was not their time.
"This is going to put your head in the line of fire," Kakashi pointed out dryly, dark eyes not leaving Hiashi for the slightest moment.
He idly wondered if the Copy Nin even truly needed the Sharingan to read people.
"I'm aware of that," Hiashi nodded. "But Hanabi is currently in Sunagakure on the long term diplomatic exchange while Hinata is safe with her... boy."
"Haven't you planned for everything," Hatake snickered. "I agree, the timing is too good to not use the chance. I assume you already know what you want to do?"
Hiashi bowed his head.
"Thank you for the approval, lord Hokage."