This chapter took longer than I thought, but hopefully I did it justice. As always, Naruto belongs to Kishimoto.

Hiashi woke and believed the poison failed to kill him. Atsuko knew her herbs too well to make a mistake, yet he was awake. More than awake. His body moved without his command and a chill of dread ran down his spine. Of those with him with—neither Hyuuga nor Kumo ninja there to transport his body—he knew one also should be dead.

The poison hadn't failed. Hiashi was dead.

Or he used to be.

As far as Hiashi knew, only the Second Hokage was capable of reanimating the dead. But Nidaime died long ago and no nearby battle explained the reason for their reanimation. All Hiashi could do was move and fear what he would be forced to do.

Hiashi wished he could die again rather than see the man waiting on the beach as the dead rose from the water surrounded by white creatures less than human. That face . . . it was older, lined from years of worries and stress, but it was still his face staring in wide-eyed shock back at him. Hizashi. One among a sea of bodies from different villages, but Hiashi saw only his brother's hand reaching up to touch the metal covering his forehead . . . and the terror in his eyes.

Hiashi stepped up to the water's surface, but didn't continue on with the rest. He didn't need to. He knew how to fight without striking a single blow. Byakugan activated. No one moved to attack yet, all stood tense and prepared for the trigger—that call to action that would turn the standoff into a battle. Further down the beach the foremost man in this unusual alliance—Kumo by the look of him—readied himself to pull that trigger, but not fast enough.

Hiashi's hand rose. No amount of wishing or praying stopped his body from tapping into the invisible seals that made him main family. No amount of willpower could defeat an enemy inside himself. His chakra flared and the Hyuuga screamed.

Chaos erupted.

Through the swarm of people and white bodies fighting around him, Hiashi's byakugan-aided sight found those now crumpled and writhing across the battlefield. All of them. Hizashi ripped his forehead protector off and screamed into the sand. Hiashi's clan, who he'd died to protect, would fall to him in less than a minute. That's all it took. And with the Hyuuga's silence about the seal, how many would know he was the cause in order to stop him?

"Attack me!" Hiashi screamed to the nearby shinobi. It was the only action he had any control over and the only hope his people—his brother—had to survive him.

But compared to the rest of the resurrected, Hiashi appeared calm. He didn't attack others. He couldn't, not until the seal did its work. Those close enough to hear him fought the white army instead, and the rest of the dead posed far more obvious dangers. They wouldn't attack in time. His clan was going to die.

Intent!

Hiashi pushed off into a kaiten's spin before the dozens of kunai flying at him struck. As soon as he ended the spin a giant shuriken forced him to jump back further onto the water. More kunai. The attacker didn't allow one moment of relief.

"Thank you," he said while dodging a rain of senbon that caught one arm in his escape. "Don't let up. Keep me engaged."

His attacker landed on the edge of the beach and discarded a scroll as her free hand pulled another from the pack at her waist. "I won't."

Fear stressed her bird-like voice, and Hiashi saw recognition on her face. She knew who he was, knew what he could do. Her eyes flashed to Hizashi, who struggled to pull himself onto his hands and knees, and more than camaraderie lingered in that split-second gaze. The girl was too young for the connection to be Hizashi, though. Neji? Was he that old that she could be teammates with him? How many years had passed since Hiashi died?

The girl jumped into the air as his hand rose to use the seal again, but this time he was too late. Weapon after weapon flew with perfect accuracy which kept him either moving or pinned into kaiten. She failed to do any significant damage, but thankfully, so did he. For now, a stalemate was enough. But what happened when she ran out of weapons?

The question became less pressing and more theoretical after a solid five minutes of barrage that didn't appear to phase the young woman's arsenal in the least. The real problem was the army of white beings that attacked her, forcing a momentary delay in her assault. So far she or another nearby shinobi dispatched the creature before Hiashi righted himself enough to use the seal again, but if the creatures pursued her in more earnest, the delay would mean the end for his clan.

Unfortunately, these things were not as mindless as the chaos first made them appear. Hiashi pinned on the water away from the majority of the fighting did far less damage than the same fight could on the coast or cliffs surrounded by living people who'd get caught in his kaiten. By instinct or strategy, they converged on the girl.

Hiashi slid to a stop after avoiding several spears, one of which sliced his calf, though it restored to perfect skin in seconds. Another attack didn't follow. The next spear meant for him instead impaled one of the white creatures. The girl spun around the dead body and yanked her weapon out the other side of its chest to continue fighting. Unfortunately, Hiashi was no longer her most pressing enemy.

Water dripped from Hiashi's hand, but a wall of chakra barreled toward him from his left and sent him back into a kaiten before he could strike at the clan again. Hiashi sighed in relief even as his body readied to fight again. Hizashi stood in a flawless stance despite the rawness that inflamed the tissues of his forehead. The seal burned like a violent irony that the very thing that was meant to protect the branch family from being hunted down for byakugan was now the thing that might kill them all.

"Tenten, are you all right?" Hizashi called.

"I'm okay," responded the girl who'd attacked Hiashi. "Be there as soon as I deal with these things."

For a split second, a parental affection softened Hizashi's face. Hiashi was right. The girl, Tenten, must be connected to Neji. That meant Neji was the same age as her . . . seventeen, maybe eighteen. That would make Hinata around sixteen—old enough to fight in a war that required multiple villages to come together.

"Hinata's strong," Hizashi said on the attack. Any chance to speak with his brother had to happen during the fight, or Hiashi would have too much time to use the seal. That didn't stop Hizashi from reading the worry on Hiashi's face at the memory of that little, ever-frightened girl who hid behind his legs. "Neji's with her. They'll take care of each other."

Hiashi felt the familiar pattern of jyuuken against jyuuken sink into his bones, as if welcoming him home. Every move calculated, every attack with pure kill intent, yet Hizashi's face and voice made him remember the years of sparring as children and how much he missed his brother after he'd been sent away from the main house.

"You became clan head, then, as I asked? And Neji doesn't hate Hinata for being main? You fixed our mistakes?"

"You asked?" Hizashi's eyes widened, though his attack didn't slow. A wry grin tugged at his lips. "That explains much. Yes, I took over until Hinata is of age. She and Neji grew up like brother and sister, and I saw the division begin, just like us."

Regret lined Hizashi's face, a mirror to Hiashi in so many ways. "I was furious with you back then. I felt trapped by the seal and being branch, and I hated you for becoming just like Father. I didn't see how trapped you felt as heir, how much you wanted to hold on to me our last year at the academy. I couldn't see it until I heard your words coming from Hinata."

Not even the fight kept the pure love of a father from shining out in Hizashi's smile. "She's nothing like you or Father. She's kind and loving and—"

"—she always wants everyone to be happy," Hiashi finished for him. Those were the best traits of the little girl he knew, who he'd seen only a day before in his mind, but they were also the traits that worried him. Among the Hyuuga, those were poor traits for a clan head who would experience the hatred of the branch family each time a child was sealed.

Hizashi nodded without a trace of the worry Hiashi felt. "That's why I knew what I thought back then couldn't be true. For her to sound like you, I finally saw that being heir creates the division. The seal binds us to the main family, but the heir lives in an invisible cage—one that destroys individuality and forces you to choose the clan over everything else, forces you to become like every other clan head, because you have nothing else, while the branch can live for themselves."

Hiashi's body never faltered in the fight, blocking and dodging as Tenten returned to funnel him into a tight area too close to Hizashi to steal a moment for the seal. But his mind reeled with memories and emotions long ago crushed in order to fulfill his role as clan head. The longing to be more than the heir, to join his brother and friends as a genin, to live for more than just the clan. The jealousy that turned to hate, which he'd shoved away because he didn't want to hate his brother—but it festered, making the sight of his own face with that forehead protector on a bitter taste he couldn't get rid of. It was easier not to look on it than risk those smothered feelings crawling to the surface—easier not to remember that the man with his face was anything more than another member of the branch family.

With byakugan active, Hizashi watched all Hiashi's old emotions play out and he nodded. "I know, Hiashi. I understand now . . . I forgive you, if you'll forgive me for being too blinded by my own pain to see yours."

Hiashi had been taught that the clan head must always remain in control of his emotions so the branch family only needed to fear him when reason demanded it. Negative emotions, for him more than any other Hyuuga, must be shown only in private. But Hiashi was dead, so screw the rules. It wasn't as if he could stop the tears.

"All our insight and we never saw each other while I was alive?"

"There was too much between us. I had to see it in the children to finally understand you."

"What of Hinata and Neji?"

Triumph lit Hizashi's eyes. "They love each other like brother and sister. I broke tradition and forced Father's hand, but I saved them from our fate. They will never hate each other."

A blast of chakra, like the memory of a night full death and fear, stopped Hiashi's reply. The kyuubi's chakra—except it surrounded one of the reanimated dead in a warning miasma of hatred. The water turned to waves beneath their feet, forcing Hizashi back to stabilize his stance, and tossing Tenten's weapons away in the shockwave that rippled out from the kyuubi's chakra.

Distracted as they all were, Hiashi leapt back far enough Hizashi couldn't make a quick attack and raised his hand. Hizashi's scream sounded for only a second before the pain and disorientation sabotaged his chakra control and Hiashi watched his brother collapse beneath the water's surface.

"Hizashi-sama!" Tenten unfurled a new scroll and a barrage of kunai pelted Hiashi as she dove to retrieve Hizashi.

Kaiten dispatched the weapons too quickly to keep him from activating the seal again. If only he could break this command by determination alone, but not even Konoha's Will of Fire caused the slightest hesitation.

Tenten struggled to pull the writhing, choking Hizashi to the surface. She screamed for help from those on the coast, but between the army of white bodies and the more immediate threat of the kyuubi-clad enemy, help didn't come. Tenten couldn't attack Hiashi as long as her attention remained on Hizashi or risk him drowning—sadly, the wrong priority, since Hizashi was only one of the many Hyuuga that suffered the agony of the seal. She gave Hiashi too much time, though. He watched the bright chakra burn through his brother's coils. How long before the damage to the brain was permanent, if not deadly? Hiashi never dared risk the seal for such duration before.

This girl was clever, though. She looped wire around Hizashi's torso and yanked until dots of blood appeared in the crease of his armpits, then a swift kick to his back sent Hizashi into the air away from her. Before the wire extended to full reach, she pulled it taut and spun her full weight around, using Hizashi like a modified bolas aimed right at Hiashi.

He turned into a kaiten, but didn't feel the impact of a body hitting his barrier. Instead, Hizashi skittered along the edge of his kaiten. As the chakra blindness dissipated, Hiashi saw his brother land in an undignified lump on the beach, clutching his head, but no longer screaming. Wire cuts bled from Tenten's forearms. She must have pulled him back enough to use the kaiten's chakra current to add the momentum needed to throw Hizashi to the shore. Strong as she was, Hizashi had been too uncooperative for her to pick him up and get him to safety on her own. How did she know it would work? To figure that out would require an understanding of kaiten's principles that an out-of-claner, even one close to Neji, shouldn't have.

Freed of Hizashi, Tenten returned to the siege battle plan she'd utilized before Hizashi joined the battle. Attack constantly. Attack in numbers. Never let up until the wall fell. If Hiashi weren't reanimated, it would have been a good plan. Even someone like him would eventually run out of the chakra necessary to sustain his best defense against her weapons. But the body that bound his soul wasn't like his—his chakra never waned, his muscles never tired, and when her weapons damaged him, he healed without blemish or hindrance. Her strategy would only weaken her as fatigue set in or she exhausted her near-endless supply of weaponry.

For all his body reacted to the girl, Hiashi watched his brother on the beach. Hizashi hadn't moved to stand and fight. He lay out of reach of the roiling waves, body rocking with minute convulsions. Like all Hyuuga techniques, the pain didn't come from only the activation of the seal. It lingered and clawed long after as the damage to the coils system reached out into other parts of the body. That was why the seal wasn't used except to incapacitate a person. It was too dangerous to seriously damage the coils around the brain.

Hiashi watched his clan, losing track of the battle beyond his body's forced conscription. He didn't want to kill any of them. Some already died, lost to an enemy that took advantage of their weakness. A few, like Hizashi, remained protected by comrades who refused to leave them. Too few were saved from the battle by med-nins retreating with the wounded.

His attention on his brother, Hiashi saw the change in the white creatures first. The shinobi they battled fell at last and their attention shifted to a new target—an easy one, alive but not fighting.

"Hizashi, watch out!" Hiashi screamed, wishing he could claim his arms and legs and protect his brother.

The only good his call did was to alert Tenten to the danger. Conflict creased her face and she hesitated. If she saved Hizashi, she'd leave Hiashi open to use the seal, which, if she failed to dispatch the creatures quick enough, would kill Hizashi and the other Hyuuga on the beach. If Tenten continued her barrage on Hiashi, though, the Hyuuga were saved at the price of Hizashi's life. One risked many for the chance to save them all. The other sacrificed one for the certainty of saving many. Her shinobi training told her the correct course of action, but she cared for Hizashi and . . .

Hiashi closed his eyes, not wanting to see what happened next. The girl loved Neji. The truth was written on her face. She wouldn't allow Neji's father to die.

It was the wrong choice.

Hiashi skidded to a halt on the rocking water that had been churned up by the fight with the kyuubi-like monster. He was too far for someone on the beach to reach if any understood the danger he posed—not that any did, or they wouldn't have left Tenten unaided to draw out her fight. He raised his hand, felt the chakra passed down from clan head to clan head swell, and heard the scream that—were he alive—would give him nightmares the rest of his days. Too much damage had already been done. It wouldn't be long . . .

Hiashi's collapsed beneath the waves, cutting off the seal. The chakra at his feet had failed him. How? It was instinctual to a shinobi of his experience. Hiashi searched for a reason and found small black bugs drifting up to the surface.

In Konoha, bugs meant the Aburame. Perhaps there was another like Tenten, who knew a Hyuuga well enough to sense the danger, or at least a shinobi intelligent enough to see how desperately Tenten fought to keep him distracted. Hiashi twisted to right himself and swam back to the surface.

A large maw bearing sharp, kunai-sized teeth clamped onto Hiashi's shoulder and tossed him into the air. His body reacted as another enemy, one which was fast enough to blur though not entirely disappear from Hiashi's sight. Chakra expelled from Hiashi's body, diverting the attacker. No, not attacker—distraction. He felt a presence behind him, one who'd come up through his blind spot. Hands grasped each of his forearms, only to let go and trail thin scrolls in their wake. A foot kicked off his back and sent him careening toward the water as the person's chakra flared through the scrolls to encase each arm up to the elbow.

Hiashi caught himself on the water with a hasty slide. He saw the person—woman—dash the other direction to stand with the rest of his attackers, though she remained facing the coastline. A large scroll on her back blocked most of her body from view. Beside her was an Aburame, while the teeth came from a white canine too big to be called a dog, for all it resembled one. The young man next to the beast wore Inuzuka markings. All of them, men and dog, glanced between Hiashi and the young woman with them.

"Tenten, did we make it in time?" she called.

Hiashi froze at that voice. Or he wanted to. His body readied itself to use the seal again. But that voice . . . it sounded like Atsuko.

Tenten glanced their way, eyes widening when she caught sight of Hiashi. "He's going to use the seal again!"

The group didn't move to stop him. If they understood the danger . . . if that voice belonged to . . . why didn't they attack?

"Don't worry," said the voice that resembled the woman he loved. "I've bought us some time. How's Uncle Hizashi?"

It was her . . . Hinata. And they'd waited too long to intervene. Hiashi activated the seal, yet Hizashi didn't scream.

Hiashi allowed his sight to find the other Hyuuga on the battlefield. The ones still alive were hurt, but not in immediate agony. Hiashi looked down at his arms, wrapped in a blue-backed scroll. The chakra that activated the seal glowed like a candle's flame flickering close to death in the wind.

"He's alive!"

Tenten's call drew Hiashi's attention back to the beach. Hizashi shook with residual pain, but his eyes opened to find the young woman holding him.

"Get him to a med-nin! Tell them to treat for cerebral swelling. All the Hyuugas will need the same." Hinata's orders echoed with a med-nin's competence. Just like her mother.

Hiashi had hoped Atsuko's influence would tempter his father's demands on that sweet, timid girl. To hear Hinata talk like her, with a command that didn't sound like him . . . it must have worked.

"Good luck." Tenten tucked herself beneath Hizashi's arm and escaped the immediate battle in search of aid.

Hiashi didn't kill his brother in this fight.

"Whatever you did to stop me, thank you . . . Hinata."

Hinata's shoulders rose and fell in a deep breath, then she turned to face him. Atsuko had been twenty when Hiashi first met her, sitting across from him while the servants set out the meal. In a few years, Hinata would look just like her. Except the nose and the shape of her eyes. Those she inherited from him.

"They're chakra suppressors. When I heard you were here, I tailored them to the chakra that activates the seal." Guilt lined Hinata's face as she spoke, and her gaze drifted away only for her to force it back.

Hiashi offered his daughter—still much too gentle for the main family—a consoling grin. "It's okay, Hinata. You only knew this face to be mine for three years, much of which you probably don't remember. Don't feel guilty that I'm now the one who looks like him, and not the other way around."

"Father . . ."

The Aburame and Inuzuka both shifted their stances. It was barely noticeable, and Hiashi doubted someone without a Hyuuga's insight would have caught the change. Ever ready to fight, but more protective—protective of Hinata.

Now that Hiashi couldn't immediately attack from a distance, the compulsion to move subdued. Not gone, but content to wait for the enemy to attack. It allowed him the chance to analyze what he saw in more than split-second bursts of insight.

These two were Hinata's friends, not merely comrades in a single battle. They cared about her, and knew enough about Hyuugas to not display shock or confusion when they spoke of the seal. Hiashi couldn't imagine an heir having such a deep relationship with someone outside the clan. He'd made friends at the academy, but a barrier always remained to remind Hiashi that they would never understand his life. Hinata, on the other hand, noted the change in their stance and exhaled, as if the weight of her guilt was acknowledged and accepted. She found comfort in their concern for her, and it gave her the confidence to look at Hiashi with a steadier conviction.

Then she laughed, a bright exaltation that brought back the girl he knew. Except, Hinata laughed because she was reading him, as well.

"They're my best friends," she explained. "Father, I'd like to introduce you to Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba, and Akamaru of course. We are the finest tracking team in Konoha."

Kiba grinned with a wild, brash arrogance that made him appear as feral as the dogs the Inuzuka bred. "It's about time you said that like you believe it."

Hinata's face scrunched into a sheepish expression. "When Kakashi-sensei gave me the hounds, he said they'd fill in our weaknesses and make us the best in Konoha."

"You had to hear it from Kakashi-sensei?" Shino asked. His tenor was bland and demeanor never altered, but Hinata found something in his reaction that amused her.

"You and Kiba-kun boast too much. Kakashi-sensei is more practical."

A team . . .

Watching them interact, Hiashi understood what Hizashi did to stop the division of their children. At Hinata's age, Hiashi and his brother were at their worst to each other, which led to Hizashi's departure from the main house. Seeing Hizashi building a life away from the clan hurt too much for Hiashi to admit—even now he might not have if Hizashi hadn't given it voice during their fight. The jealousy on both sides blackened their relationship. So Hizashi gave Hinata what she needed most: a life outside the clan.

But it made no sense. Hinata wasn't simply main family, she was the only possible heir after Hiashi's death, and she'd already been targeted for her byakugan. The risk was incalculable.

"How did Hizashi convince Father to let you become a genin?"

Hinata shook her head. "Neither of them ever said, though I'm pretty sure it involved blackmail. Grandpa always hated it."

Kiba scoffed with a similar sound echoing from his canine partner. "Shows what he knew. We're the best thing that happened to you."

To Hiashi's amazement, Hinata agreed. Not verbally—only a smile answered the boy's comment, but that smile spoke volumes. It talked of trust, friendship, comfort, determination, safety, love, kindness and the myriad of other connections that all paint the picture of family. These two were a part of her family, one that didn't see her as the Hyuuga heir first and Hinata second and would never hate her for the privileges and responsibilities she was born into.

That's why Hizashi succeeded with the children where they failed as brothers. He removed the kernel of jealously before it grew. If Hiashi had been able to let go, would Hizashi have grown to resent him, or might they have relied on each other the way they did as children?

Hiashi saw another consequence of Hizashi's decision, and it baffled him that no clan head had considered it before. Looking on these three, the truth burned bright as an autumn bonfire.

Those boys loved her—as much brothers to Hinata as Neji must be—and they would protect her. They'd already positioned themselves to do so. The Hyuugas bound the branch family to protect the main. That was how it had been since the warring days when the seal was all that kept them from being hunted and slaughtered for byakugan, and the main family were the only ones who could place it. But they never changed that practice when they joined together with Konoha. As much as they loved and believed in the village, as much as they would defend it, Hiashi realized they never trusted it with what the clan deemed most important. It was the clan's duty to protect the main family. The hokage and the village would come to their aid in times of crisis, but only out of village loyalty and respect.

As clan head, Hiashi interacted with other clans in the village all the time. Would he have gone to them if he had failed to stop Hinata's abduction? No. He would have gone to Sandaime for help, while depending on the Hyuuga to find her.

Hinata didn't suffer such a myopic point of view. To her, that team was family. If her child were stolen from her, she'd send more than the Hyuuga clan out. Those two, Kiba and Shino, would come to her aid out of love and deep friendship. And with them would come their families . . . their clans.

From now on, the Hyuuga would be bonded with Inuzuka and Aburame in a way no other generation accomplished. How much closer to the village might the Hyuuga have grown if each heir had crafted the kind of friendship Hinata showed with her team?

Were such risks worth the reward? He didn't know.

Hiashi reached the limit of his body's contentment to wait for an attack. He walked forward, arms moving into a relaxed jyuuken stance. "It seems we're out of time. How long will what you've done to me last?"

All three readied at his approach, and Hiashi was pleased to see a confidence in Hinata's stance that she'd never mastered as a child. Facing him with byakugan active and a steady countenance, Hiashi saw a little bit of himself in her for the first time. Or was that Hizashi?

"Until the seals are removed," Hinata explained, moving back to stand behind Kiba and Shino, though not so much as to be seen as a support fighter. "It won't be simple, but it's not difficult with time and concentration. Don't worry. I'm with the Sealing Corps. We'll make sure you can't hurt the clan again."

Sealing Corps? Of all he'd heard from her and Hizashi, nothing shocked Hiashi more than the idea that Hinata studied sealing techniques to the proficiency necessary for a specialized unit. Did his father demand it as a way to prepare her for learning the caged bird seal when she took over the clan? Hiashi never required such training, but then Hiashi hadn't been as deficient as Hinata.

The reanimation technique was a true curse. He wanted to learn more about his daughter and the life he'd condemned her to by dying. This brief glimpse wasn't enough!

Hinata removed the large scroll on her back and threw it onto the beach, shifting her muscles to release any tension from carrying it. "We'll need to get him onto land. I'm not used to fighting with that enough to battle at Father's level with it on."

The two boys and the dog nodded and scattered to surround Hiashi, leaving Hinata alone in front of him. Their protectiveness had been for her emotional state it seemed. Now, they trusted her to protect herself in the fight. He hoped their faith in her proved true, because it was difficult to image she'd grown that much.

For a second, pain—old and lasting—forced Hinata's eyes away from him, and Hiashi remembered that right now she read him as much as he read her. Her gaze returned to the fight, but cracks showed in her confidence. "I hope I make you proud, Father."

That was the girl he knew. Always trying her hardest, but questioning her actions. Wanting so much to please him, to make him proud, but too weak to succeed in what she needed to master. She hadn't changed as much as he'd thought. The truth of that made her flinch.

Hiashi's body reacted to the weakness he perceived and charged Hinata. She deflected his first few palm strikes then leapt back out of reach, but not so far as to allow him to change targets. Her team closed in behind him, not attacking.

In what he seen in her teammates, especially the Inuzuka, Hiashi expected them to try to push him back while Hinata kept a rear guard to be ready to seal him if the opportunity arose. Instead, Hinata allowed Hiashi close enough to start a fight only to retreat again and the others moved forward to keep him from turning away from the coast.

They herded him. While an all out fight to incapacitate and seal him was necessary to contain Hiashi, they first had to get him close enough to that scroll that Hinata could react in time. Hiashi hadn't seen any of them indicate a plan, yet they all moved in sync.

The finest tracking team in Konoha. A tracking team needed the skills for combat, but they also need stealth and strategy, and with all three possessing different forms of sensory abilities they must have learned to react to cues an outsider—even one with byakugan—wouldn't notice. They were a fine team, indeed.

The moment he stepped onto land, Hiashi expected the fight to change. It did, just not in the way he thought. Now near enough to the scroll to react to any opportunity, Hinata shifted her stance—a turn of her foot toward him, her weight dropping back, her back straighter and arms more relaxed—subtle problems Hiashi attributed to her weak jyuuken . . . because he expected the girl whose confidence cracked under the truth his doubts to possess obvious weaknesses, to be the vulnerability among the boys who guarded her even from emotional threats.

Hinata parried his palm strike twice as fast as before, giving her a second's opening to nick his abdomen before Hiashi jumped out of the way.

Hinata grinned, an expression that matched her teammates' aplomb. "Don't worry, Father. I'm used to being underestimated."

"It's amazing how many idiots fall for it, too," Kiba added with an approving bark from his canine companion.

Shino nodded. "It's a useful tactic in battle."

Hinata's show of weakness was the cue for their plan. Hiashi envied the bond they shared—to trust each other so intimately they'd use her as bait. But the pain he'd seen in her eyes was real. She had been weak and condemned for that weakness, no doubt from his father, who'd already counted her faults before Hiashi died. That was why Hinata deceived him with a half-truth. Hiashi was main family, like his father, looking for the deficiencies that could harm the clan—expecting them—instead of taking the woman in front of him for the kind of shinobi capable of stopping him from using the seal to kill the clan—her clan.

"You're not what I expected," Hiashi said, smiling a soft expression meant to convey the statement for what it was: an apology and a compliment.

Hinata's eyes glistened, but she held the tears back. "It took a long time, but I had a lot of people who never gave up on me."

He nodded. "Show me then, who my daughter grew up be."

"I do hope I make you proud," Hinata said, but this time it wasn't a fearful hope. It was a statement that for better or for worse, the person he saw next was her true self.

Hinata glanced between Shino and Kiba and all three nodded.

A wave of bugs erupted from Shino, swarming Hiashi from head to toe. He could feel them eating away at his chakra, but unlike when he was alive, the drain did little to hamper his ability to create more. Hiashi pushed off into kaiten, dispersing the crawling mass with force. The team gave him no time to be relieved at the removal of the creeping bugs—surely half of the Aburame's power lay in the psychological terror of being covered in insects. Hinata swept into his space the moment kaiten ended to land a palm strike to his left shoulder.

He stumbled back into surer footing and parried the follow-up strikes until the pattern of jyuuken felt almost as familiar as it had with Hizashi. She didn't have the same raw power as Hizashi, but made up for it with speed and flexibility. That wasn't to say her attacks were weak. She impressed Hiashi with the chakra force she managed to place behind each strike, especially considering the anemic state she started from.

Hinata leapt away just as the spiraling force of the Inuzuka and his partner barreled into her place. If Hizashi hadn't performed kaiten the moment Hinata indicated retreat, her teammate's attack might have incapacitated him long enough for Hinata to seal him. Strong as Hiashi was though, his kaiten wasn't perfect. Bands of weak chakra allowed the successive strikes against his barrier to send him tumbling instead of repelling the attack. Hiashi dodged the Aburame at his back only to engage Hinata once more.

Their timing was superb. Switching attackers not only kept him from gaining the advantage over any one of them, but ensured none tired or got injured too soon. They also used each other's talents to the maximum effect.

After being overlooked by the shinobi fighting on the beach, Hiashi should have paid more attention to the teammate who held back most. The Aburame moved on the edge of the battle, keeping Hiashi from retreating too far away from the scroll Hinata required. Now that he paid attention to his own chakra due to that imperfect kaiten, Hiashi saw how small clumps of bugs remained in his clothes, most likely placed there during the initial swarm. It hadn't been enough to feel compared to the first attack, but the effect left his chakra unevenly dispersed when he expelled it.

Hinata retreated again, but when Hiashi forced kaiten out despite the uneven chakra, no one attacked. Only when his chakra dissipated did Kiba and Shino converge on him from behind. The Inuzuka's dog retrieved the scroll and set it down next to Hinata. They were planning on ending this fight.

Hiashi allowed his spin to continue another half rotation to take on the immediate threat the boys presented. Despite fighting with different styles of taijutsu—one controlled and one instinctual—neither got in the other's way and both showed proficiency in battling a jyuuken user. The fact that Hiashi's chakra continued to flow erratically thanks to the Aburame's bugs, which made his attacks less lethal than they ought to be, kept the damage he inflicted to a minimum. Yet this level of attack wasn't capable of incapacitating him. They needed a higher-level battle plan.

To her teammates' credit, they didn't offer a twitch or a far-off glance to tip Hiashi off to their intention. It was the bugs. Throughout the fight the creatures ate away at his chakra, only to suddenly break away to the safety of their user. Hinata hadn't moved from her place next to the scroll, but the dog was no longer with her.

Hiashi threw Kiba and Shino away with a Vacuum Palm and turned into a perfect kaiten to deflect the dog's attack. Once again, he felt nothing strike his barrier. Was the dog another distraction? They must be preparing their final attack.

Like Tenten, this team understood kaiten. How it worked, the best moment to attack, and how to gear the battle strategy to maximize that advantage. It was a perfect defense, but that didn't mean it couldn't be exploited by someone who knew it intimately. Kaiten's rotation gave it its strength, but the user had to slow down from it. In the moment after the rotation was too slow to create the barrier but not yet stopped, the user is vulnerable to attack. Most of the time any attacking enemy is expelled by the force of the technique, giving the user that second to recover.

As heir, Hinata understood kaiten, and her team knew when Hinata's techniques would put her at risk. They'd already used that knowledge to time their attacks. Despite seeing that truth in their strategy, Hiashi was still surprised to feel Hinata's rapid attack—not only because he'd expected her teammates to make the strongest move but also because the sixty-four points technique Hinata used on him required precise location strikes. Hinata started while he was still in rotation, forcing her to turn and move with him instead of harnessing the momentum of a straight forward attack. The speed and flexibility he'd seen in her jyuuken style kept her from fumbling the location of her targets, but the motion forced her chakra to stretch too far at times to properly close all the chakra points.

The attack was enough to dampen his chakra flow and physically stun him though. In that moment, the Inuzuka's dog, now with two snarling heads, rammed him. Each head snapped its teeth onto one of Hiashi's arms to dangle him in the empty space between them.

Any attempt to utilize the remaining chakra he controlled was thwarted by a mass of insects surrounding his body. With the majority of his chakra points closed off, he didn't have the brute force necessary to disperse the swarm.

Hinata approached, the scroll peeled back and ready. She nodded to Shino and in time with the cloth's advance, the Aburame's insects retreated. The cloth attached at Hiashi's feet and spiraled up his body. When it reached his torso, the dog beast lowered him to balance awkwardly on the ground and released one arm. When that was secured, it released the other. The animal blurred in a puff of smoke to become two: master and dog.

"You have a fine team," Hiashi said, as he waited for the sealing to complete. "I couldn't be prouder of the woman I see. Take care of the clan. And you both, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino, take care of my daughter. I love her very much."

Tears fell freely down Hinata's face and Hiashi didn't need byakugan to know how desperately she'd wanted to hear that.

Hiashi closed his eyes. He hadn't been given long, and he yearned to learn more about his daughter's life . . . to find out what relationship he and Hizashi might have had without the bitterness between them . . . to see his beloved Atsuko one more time.

Yet this glimpse into the world he left behind was more than a dead man deserved, and it proved that he hadn't made the wrong decision. Hizashi saved their children from their fate and found understanding and forgiveness for Hiashi. Hinata grew up to be strong and brave, defying all his fears. The world had moved on after his death and brought with it a change Hiashi could never have imagined. That alone was a gift.

"Why are you stopping?" Kiba asked, drawing Hiashi back to the living.

The remnants of the scroll needed to wrap his head lay limp beside Hinata, who wiped the tears from her face. Instead of the joy and sadness that had painted her face with unguarded emotion—just like the girl he knew—when Hinata's hands lowered an unnatural impassiveness settled over her. "This is a war. There's no guarantee that the enemy won't reclaim the people we seal and try to use them against us again. I have to make sure the clan is safe from my father if that happens. Shino-kun, can you give me some privacy? This won't take long."

Comprehension passed between her teammates, and Shino released his swarm to surround them with a concealing dome. It took witnessing the calming breath and relaxing of her hands before Hiashi read her intent, not that it made sense.

"You're too young to have learned the seal?" he said, not believing what he read in her.

Bits of light broke through the incest canopy to illuminate his daughter's eyes—eyes that belonged to the head of the Hyuuga clan. "No, I was too young at twelve, when I sealed Ran, who fought and screamed for her mother the entire time. Now . . . I know the seal better than any clan head since Hyuuga Hijiri created it, and I might know it better than him."

So many questions ran through Hiashi's thoughts, yet he found no words to ask them. The daughter Hiashi knew and the person that made Hizashi's eyes glisten with love did not fit with the woman sure of her power with the seal.

Hinata brushed her fingertips across his forehead in an all-too-familiar pattern. To Hiashi, the memory of being sealed happened only hours ago, but once a Hyuuga died, the chakra placed in their coils is consumed. Only a faint scar remained, and not even that if the one who sealed them was skilled enough. Did she see such a scar, or did she see her own mark not yet placed?

"I learned about sealing and cursed seals, because I hate the caged bird seal. I hate what it does to our clan. I hate the power it gives me over them. I hate that it hurts the people I love most. It separates our clan when we should be family, and I'm determined to change that. I'll fix the seal so it will protect our clan without hurting them. Grandpa won't agree—you might not either—but the way I see it, the clan shouldn't hate the thing meant to protect them. I'm going to make sure they don't need to."

The clan shouldn't hate the thing meant to protect them. . . . For Hinata that meant both the seal and the clan head. She didn't want to be hated or feared. Here was the reason for her certainty, the reason she could look on him with the eyes of a clan head, and in it was his little girl who wanted to make everyone happy. But her conviction wasn't childish or naive no matter what Hiashi thought of her intent. Would she have held fiercely to her soft heart if Hizashi had failed to protect her and Neji from their parent's fate? Would Hiashi have seen the branch family the way she did if Hizashi had remained a brother at his side? Could he honestly condemn her for her beliefs when the life that shaped them was incomparable to his own?

"Protect the clan however you think best. They are yours," Hiashi said. He wished to reach out and hold his daughter in his arms one more time; instead, she leaned in and rested her forehead against his, a gentle smile on her lips.

"I will protect them. I promise."

The sound of snarling outside their isolation reminded them both that war didn't care for their feelings. Hinata shifted back and cradled his head between her hands, thumbs grazing his skin as chakra enveloped them.

The pain of the seal was not more than Hiashi could bear, but nor was it an experience he wanted to relive. When Hyobe sealed him, it had felt reluctant but efficient, with a lifetime of experience directing each movement. Yet, despite her youth, Hinata carved the seal like an artisan in her craft. She never recoiled at his distressed cries or hesitated to continue. Her chakra found a place in his coils as if it belonged there, not the intrusion Hyobe's had been. When she wiped the blood from his forehead, then the tears from his face, it was understanding, not guilt, that stared back at him.

His daughter wanted to fix the seal . . .

She just might succeed.

Hinata grabbed hold of the remainder of the scroll, which came to life at her touch. "Goodbye, Father."

Hiashi closed his eyes and smiled as the darkness trapped him.

"Goodbye."