Chapter Text
Kakuzu had heard every excuse in the book over the years. Very rarely had he given out a loan that he didn’t have to chase down payment for, but if these people were smart with their money, they wouldn’t be coming to a loan shark in the first place. People only came to him because they knew they couldn’t go to the bank. Usually, they didn’t have enough assets, and they were too high of a risk for the normal financial system. Some of them were already in too much debt with the normal banks to pull out more, and some people… their pride just wouldn’t let them take money from something that was part of normal public record.
That last one was the type of man Hiashi Hyuga was. The kind that by all means could likely go to a normal bank, but was in enough a hole quietly that he didn’t want a financial audit that a loan would trigger that would expose just how badly he handled his finances.
Kakuzu didn’t particularly care what the cause was: gambling, bad investments, poor spending, it never mattered to him. What matters to him with a fish this big is if he had something to threaten them with when they enviably didn’t pay. For a man like Hiashi, the threat was his reputation. If he didn’t pay, people could find out not only that he owed money but he owed money to a shady source, which would open up a whole host of questions that he wouldn’t want to answer, like why he would need a loan, why wouldn’t he just get it from a bank, and why couldn’t he pay back the shady loan he took out?
A business never wants people to know just how bad with money they are. If it knew that its guarantees were all hot air, it would scare off investors and lose customers’ trust.
With a business like Kakuzu’s, no one needed to worry about that because he always tracked down his money, no matter what he needed to do to get it. If someone owed him money, he would make sure they paid, or he would ruin their lives trying.
Which led him to today.
Hiashi was behind on his payments. Kakuzu had sent a few of his associates to collect, but when they returned empty-handed and with legal threats, he knew he had to appear in person, but first, he did some research so he knew what he could take as collateral.
Hiashi Hyuga was worse off than most thought. Bad investments had made the man who came from a long line of wealth practically broke. His home was at risk of being foreclosed, and his car was already at risk of being taken back by the dealer. For all the money that he should have, none of it was liquid, which put Kakuzu in a difficult place. He only wanted to use the reputation card if he had to, as a ‘rich’ screw-up like this would always need more money and would be desperate for more at some point.
If he played his cards right, Hiashi would pay him back and then open another loan, that was if the man didn’t declare bankruptcy, but even if he did, that wouldn’t mean anything to him because he wasn’t going to go after him legally, where something like bankruptcy protected scum like Hiashi. No, he would just nip at his heels until he found the money.
Hiashi didn’t have much to his name. His wife had died a few years ago, a nephew he had sent to boarding school the moment he could, and two young girls.
Girls, he was sure that he wanted to take good care of.
Maybe that was his weak link, something that would push the same nerve as his reputation.
“I think that Hiashi is planning on leaving the country.” An associate brought him a document. “I just talked to a friend from immigration, and he has issued passports for both of his daughters, and he has bought three one-way tickets.”
Kakuzu looked at the domination with a new-found frustration for this man. No one was going to run off without paying. It looked like he was going to make that visit sooner than he thought.
Hiashi closed another suitcase before pulling it off the bed and putting it on its wheels. He looked around, wondering what else was worth taking with him.
He was so angry that it had come to this. He was forced to leave his home because he was being hounded from all corners. He could believe this. If he ever got a hold of that financial advisor, he would kill him. Thousands were gone because of a few bad bets in the market. Thousands more in investments that he assured him were completely safe. Businesses that he invested in were failing left and right in this economy, and they all cried that they were the victims, but they didn’t realize that their failure was his loss. Their lack of work ethic was making him have to take out questionable loans so people didn’t know how badly he had chosen.
He should have never taken the risk of those failures. He should have seen the writing on the wall that those people wouldn’t have succeeded and that they were a waste of space for ever trying.
Scum. Societal rejects. They deserved to fail, but they were unforgivable for dragging him down with them. He would never be so foolish again.
A creak in the floorboards made his irritation spike. He turned his head to the door where his young daughter was doing a very poor job of hiding herself, peaking in. She ducked her head apologetically. She was, unfortunately, old enough now to ask questions.
“Come here,” Hiashi told her.
Hinata padded her way into his room with her hands tucked behind her back. “Are you going somewhere?” She asked, looking at his suitcase. What a dumb question. Why would he be packing a suitcase if he wasn’t going somewhere? “When will you be back?”
Hiashi set his hand on his suitcase and wondered how much he should tell her. He couldn’t trust a child her age to not repeat something she was told. He didn’t want her telling her relatives what ever he told her. “We are going to go on a family trip.” He told her. “We will be back shortly.”
Hinata’s eyes lit up. “Family trip? All of us?”
Naive, bordering dim witted. He would have hoped that she would be smarter than this by now. It was unfortunate that she could so easily be tricked. Neji at least understood that sending him to boarding school was not just for his benefit. He would have had her follow him, but the all-girls school only started taking students two years older than the boy school for some reason. At least his youngest was already showing promise. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’ll have to run an errand tomorrow morning. Then we will go to the airport.”
Hinata tied her hands together, trying to contain her excitement.
Hiashi nodded his head to the door. “I’ll pack your bag. Go grab a few things you want to take with you.”
“Okay!” Hinata headed for her room.
Hiashi shook his head. She was a frustrating child. Maybe the foreign school system would be able to do something with her.
Hinata sat with her backpack on. She had never been on a plane before but she knew that her father had many times. He packed her a suitcase that he already had in the car, but her backpack was full of the things that she wanted to take with her. Like the bunny she got from her uncle when she was little and Hanabi’s favorite blanket because her father didn’t pack it.
Her father should be back soon. He didn’t like it when she wasn’t ready when he got back, so she was going to sit and patiently be ready so that he wouldn’t be grumpy for the trip.
She didn’t know where they were going. Would it be to see family? Where are they going to see Neji? She missed Neji.
The doorbell rang.
Was that her father? Why would he ring the doorbell? She hopped down from her seat and headed to the door, and the doorbell rang again, more impatiently. Maybe he forgot his keys, and he would be very upset if she didn’t answer.
Hinata opened the door and peeked out. The man at the door was not her father. “Hello?” She asked.
The man with dark skin and hair in his eyes dropped to her height. “Is your father home?”
Hinata shook her head. “He’s coming back, and then we are going on a trip.”
The man's nose twitched irritably, just like her father’s did when she did something wrong. “So the bastard is running.” He crossed his arms, and his head turned away in thought, and he only seemed to get angrier the more he thought.
Then his eyes dropped to her.