This one was really fun, so it's just straight up chapter length.
My $10 patrons unanimously agreed on this one, so, no coin flip today.
Technically this all takes place in Arc 3/4 so there's no actual spoiler here.
Enjoy.
Sendicard/WitchAtTheEnd | Linktree
Watching the house of another person without their permission is a crime. Well, there's about a hundred fifty caveats that make it okay, and technically as a Hyuuga there's even more for her, but she still shouldn't be doing it. She could get in a lot of trouble with her clan if the Anbu watching the house decided to report her, but mostly they just let her know they see her with hand signs and ask the occasional question about her intentions. Today Fox is asking about her morning, and she's signing back with a smile. It's nice, but the fact that there is Anbu in the first place is concerning.
To be clear, she's watching Sakura's house. Sakura Haruno, village gaming addict, Genin, and most recently; Naruto's little sister. He's technically a few months older than Sakura, so, the term is applicable, though they're close enough it's probably more spite than detail that makes her deign her as lesser in some way. She wasn't doing that until very recently, after-all.
See, Hinata likes Sakura. She's always liked Sakura. She's outgoing in the weirdest ways, she's not afraid to speak her mind, and her priorities have always been very clear. She would rather play games than care about anything going on with anyone else, and she runs a good natured club specifically designed to lower the amount of damage Sasuke's stalkers can cause by containing them in her control. It's brilliant, and admirable, and even helps her escape criticism for only caring about video games. As evidence of her intentions, she disbanded the club the very moment Sasuke should otherwise be safe.
Most people don't notice it, but Hinata can see through walls and bags so the game system in her backpack is always visible, her several systems at home are very visible when she's passing by and curiously peeking in on her classmate, and she's caught her in her glance many times ignoring people while pressing buttons. Some would call it unhealthy, but Hinata doesn't feel that way. She loves people watching, Shikamaru loves sky watching, Sakura loves games.
She'd love to be her friend, but Sakura's too zoned in most of the time to notice her requests, and she's too shy to make the request blunt enough. It's neither of their fault in particular, it's just that their particular social dysfunctions happen to align just right to make communication actually impossible.
But while Hinata likes Sakura, she like likes Naruto, and that wasn't a problematic distinction until very recently. "She just adopted him into her family by force, who does that…" Now to watch Naruto, she has to watch Sakura, and with four ninja under the same roof, apparently it's a concern for Anbu. At least, that's the only reason she can think of for why there is always an Anbu, if not two, watching their house.
Which again, is a problem, because watching the house is a crime, and Anbu is now catching her doing it all the time! How long until someone reports to her father? Should she just stop? Watching Naruto has been a pastime of hers for years now, it's so ingrained as a habit she finds herself following him from a distance automatically. Could she stop? Should she stop? What are the consequences?
Sakura's made his life better, and she loves that for him, but why did she have to do it in a way that makes her life so much harder? On the bright side of things, as his sister, a Sakura and Naruto ending is officially off the table! One less competition does mean she's got a higher chance, and that's very important because their dysfunction also aligns in just the right way for it to be physically impossible to talk to him.
One needs a lot of legs up when the goal is marriage and the obstacle is basic conversation.
She finishes signing about her breakfast to Fox, and sends a request for information about the Anbu's morning as is polite and customary, and ponders whether she's ever seen Naruto smile like that before all this…
She doesn't think he has. It's so sad…
She's grateful, but really she wishes Sakura had made his home better instead of moving him into hers. But then that's called a relationship, isn't it, and that'd be bad on its own…
Business Naruto scares her. He looks more and more real by the day, he's becoming his own entity. Would he pop with one strike anymore? How long until the actual organs spawning inside of him from chakra density become organic and functional? Is that even possible, or is it just a realistic mirage placed on him by the sheer amount of chakra flowing around and in him at all times?
He doesn't even have a name, but he's more real than most babies are. What does she even do with that? How does one internalize there being two of someone they love?
Even ignoring the philosophical questions, which are way more than she's prepared to handle on any given day, what's it say about her when a clone is more outgoing and socially competent at forming new bonds than she is? Business Naruto has friends that regular Naruto has never met!
It's like he found the perfect way to kick her into the dirt and stomp on her feelings, and he did it without even knowing it would. Would she feel jealous if Business Naruto started a relationship? Would Naruto still be available in that event?
Love hurts, she hates Business Naruto, Sakura's a freaking lunatic.
These are all realities she has learned recently. Oh, and Naruto holds the Kyuubi inside of him, which is why Anbu is watching him now that he's moved into the residential and merchant district. She learned that because of Sakura too. She already got sworn into secrecy over it, being escorted to the Hokage's office at knife point after watching their conversation about the Kyuubi diddling his mom was honestly kind of pleasant.
She got to talk to Fox and Neko with her actual voice! They're really nice…
"What are you reading about?" It's not abnormal for her to visit the library. It's a great resource for information that's not filtered by their clan, as their clan library is, and there's other people here which at least slightly helps with her socialization. She's making an attempt!
It's not that the clan library is actively censoring information, it's just that any information which could shed a negative light on the Hyuuga clan, or anything that could empower the branch family in some way, is minorly edited or sometimes outright removed. Information is generally empowering, so at its core, you'd think that would mean everything is altered but that's really not the case. Things like 'how to murder your better in their sleep and get away with it' would be completely gone, but then books on critical thinking aren't. She's not particularly sure how the censor logic works, it seems weirdly weak for such a strict clan. It's almost as if somewhere along the line they agreed that there needed to be something in place to stop a coup beyond the caged bird seal, but then they couldn't agree on what that meant.
She's also heard the censoring didn't even start until the Uchiha Massacre, so maybe it's just so fresh and new that the rules aren't really defined? It's dumb, and she's avoiding Kiba's question. The point is, she would rather be here.
"Adoption." She explains as fully as she can imagine anyone would need.
"Uh…" That clearly wasn't enough!
"I'm looking into the terms, stipulations, and precedence for a child of a clan to be adopted into a civilian family, and what the consequences for that are." She explains a little more fully, flushing ever so slightly at screwing up the initial statement.
"You don't think that's somewhat concerning for an heiress to be reading about at the public library?" Kiba asks, wringing his hands together while looking around, "you're not thinking…"
"No, this isn't for me." She shakes her head, even she's not that crazy! One day she'll be the clan head if she doesn't screw it up, she can marry Naruto then, she doesn't need some weird nonsense getting in the way. "I feel like it might be relevant soon."
"Just a hunch?" Kiba asks. "That's a weird hunch."
"The best hunches usually are…" She flips a page. "Kurenai-sensei has taught us to trust our gut, and mine says this information is important."
"... Okay, uh, don't do anything crazy." Her protective teammate requests of her, and she nods.
"I have no intentions of doing anything concerning, please pay my research no mind." It's true, as far as she can tell. She's not sure why she's so interested in this all of the sudden, but she kind of just woke up this morning feeling like someone will need this knowledge, and soon. She would have ignored it as anxiety, as she is prone to do, but Kurenai gave them a lecture just the other day about not ignoring human instinct. It's incredibly powerful, and often great at picking up patterns and differences in the environment that the conscious mind isn't.
Besides, in the absolute worst case, - maybe best given the context - this information ends up good for her to know when she's Clan Head.
"I guess I'll read up on that too." He shrugs, and sits down next to her, opening the book she was reading before this one about inter-clan politics. Initially she had wanted to know about inter-clan adoption, but somehow learning about that didn't kill the urge to learn more. So, here she is. At least Kiba's reading, Kurenai will be happy.
