OK, so:
The Argument for Supporting Hiashi's Hokage Bid
Thread seems pretty anti-Hyuuga atm, understandably since he's been butting heads with Jirayia. But I think this is a good moment to agree to play second fiddle a bit and support him in the big picture in return for some concessions for things Hiashi doesn't care about, but we do.
E.g. Hiashi doesn't care about nonclan ninjas, because he has an extremely meritocratic view of value, and no understanding of a situation where a valuable/strong person might struggle because they are missing some prerequisites for their abilities. So he doesn't care; but that doesn't mean he's actively opposed to others helping non-clan Leaf ninjas (to a degree that they don't start to threaten his clan, I guess) - he just won't spend his own resources for it. That's fine, we can experiment with our own resources, and our initiatives should pay for themselves reasonably quickly.
I think the reality is that Hiashi will become acting Hokage very soon, and that will give him *huge* advantage over anyone else trying to get the Hat. Tsunade we'd have to convince, and even if we could - it's not clear she's actually the best fit.
Our main advantage atm is that it would look great for Hiashi to have our support, definitely avoids some succession headaches, our sealing capabilities, and Naruto (assuming we can take care of him). These are significant, and if Hiashi is reasonable we can get support for some of our initiatives and tolerance for others. To our advantage is the uncertain international situation - can Hiashi really push for internal dominance, rather than take an offer and push for unity?
Risks:
- Hiashi is actively evil and sees us raising up the waterline as actively bad. This seems unlikely to me.
- Hiashi tries to off us - seems unlikely if we're willing to cooperate rather than stonewalling him
- Hiashi takes Naruto - this is actually a risk, especially with Mari in no condition to help. If Naruto is not functional, it could be very easy to argue to keep him in a hospital, and then manoeuvre to deny us access. Seems unlikely Hiashi could become friends with Naruto himself; but he could try to isolate him from us, so that we're strangers. A couple months from now trying to say 'Hey, Jirayia wanted us to be family' is not going to fly. We need to be there when he wakes up.
- Hiashi tries to disband Goketsu. This seems very short-sighted, as Leaf does need our seals; and Kagome is something we can play up (not even falsely, tbh he's likely to tableflip if Hyuuga goes way out of line)
I think we should discuss something like this with the team and Shikamaru and Ino, before pulling in Hinata if we want to proceed.
