"Father."
Hinata's voice was so soft it was barely more than a whisper. The moment she stepped away from the safe, reassuring warmth around Naruto, she lowered her head and hurried to Hiashi's side. Her posture was exactly that of a child who had been caught doing something wrong, her shoulders curling in on themselves without her even realizing it.
The freezing night wind swept past them, but it still could not compare to the chill spreading through her heart. She had slipped away from home in secret. Now that she saw her father standing there in the snow, a crushing wave of guilt rose up and drowned her whole body.
Father must be furious, she thought anxiously. It's already so late, and on top of everything else, he had to come out and look for a useless daughter like me…
Her thoughts drifted, helplessly, back to the spar earlier that day. Faced with Hanabi's fierce attacks, she had still been unable to strike back in earnest. Her Byakugan had shown her every opening with perfect clarity, yet both her hands and her heart resisted the idea of landing her soft little fists on her younger sister's body.
Hesitation and tenderness were fatal weaknesses in a duel. Even if the reason was that she could not bear to hurt her sister, defeat was still defeat. In the eyes of her father and the rest of the clan, the result was all that mattered.
Once again... I brought shame to the Hyuga main family.
She remembered the cold sigh her father had let out after the match, and the undisguised disappointment in those pale white eyes of his. It was only natural that Father had been angry then. She accepted that as unquestionable fact and laid every mistake, every failure, at the feet of her own weakness and incompetence.
This is bad!
The instant Naruto saw Hiashi Hyuga's unmistakable Byakugan, his heart lurched. He had spent the evening out with the young lady of the Hyuga clan, and now the clan head himself had caught them at the crossroads. Look at it from the outside, and it really did resemble the textbook definition of a kidnapping gone wrong.
Oh no. I'm about to get branded as some blond delinquent who lures innocent little girls away.
That instinctive panic lasted for less than two seconds. Naruto took a breath, steadied himself, and frowned at his own reaction.
No. Why am I panicking?
Did I do anything wrong? I treated her to ramen, I protected her, and I even walked her home. From beginning to end, I was helping her. What exactly do I have to be guilty about?
The thought snapped him back into place. His slightly hunched shoulders straightened without anyone noticing, and the awkwardness on his face vanished almost at once. He still felt a natural caution toward a powerful clan head like Hiashi, but his gaze became much more open and unflinching.
Across from him, when Hiashi saw his daughter approach with such obvious panic and remorse, as though she wanted nothing more than to make herself disappear, a complicated, indescribable emotion flickered through his chest. There was helplessness in it—and somewhere beneath that, a thread of heartache too faint to show on his face.
His gaze moved past Hinata and settled on the blond boy standing opposite him, trying very hard to look calm. Then he saw Naruto flash that idiotic, sunny grin of his.
After a brief silence, Hiashi did not question Hinata. He did not scold her either, as she had expected. Instead, he gave Naruto a faint, almost imperceptible nod—yet there was no mistaking that he had done it—and spoke in his usual even voice, stripped of excess emotion.
"My daughter is grateful for the care you have shown her."
"You're welcome!"
The moment he heard Hiashi thanking him, Naruto puffed out his chest, shot a thumbs-up into the air, and answered in a loud, confident voice, "I'm going to become Hokage, so protecting the people of the village is my duty!"
That gesture. That tone. The way he said it as if he were stating one of the world's simplest truths. And above all, that overflowing enthusiasm that was so earnest it came full circle and felt a little foolish.
Hiashi's pale eyes twitched ever so slightly.
So the rumors going around the village are true. He really has been training with Might Guy lately.
Naruto's signature movements and expressions were so similar to that elite jonin's that Hiashi understood immediately. That reckless, blazing youthfulness... that blunt, straightforward way of speaking without holding anything back... it was all painfully in Guy's style.
I just wonder whether, besides the taijutsu, he also inherited Guy's theories about youth.
And yet, when his eyes swept over Naruto's blond hair, which still seemed to glow even under the night sky, and the deep blue in those eyes filled with stubborn conviction, Hiashi felt his thoughts falter for a brief moment.
This child really does look exactly like you, Minato...
A gentle yet powerful figure rose with sudden clarity from the depths of his memory. The Yellow Flash—who had once shaken the entire shinobi world with the Flying Thunder God Technique, and won people over with that bright, sunlit smile—had once stood this same way too, protecting every corner of the village with the same spirit.
The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, and his wife Kushina had given their lives to save Konoha during that calamity. They were heroes of the village. But their child—the orphan who should have been cherished beneath the protection of a hero's name—had instead been forced to survive amid the villagers' rejection and cold stares because of the "fox demon" sealed inside him.
His life had not been a good one.
A tide of emotion stirred in Hiashi's heart—deep feeling, regret, and something close to sorrow, the sorrow of one father looking at what had become of another man's child. For a moment, he silently sent a thought toward the Pure Land, as though it might somehow pass through the boundary between life and death.
Fourth Hokage... can you see him from where you are? Your son has inherited your will, and Kushina's too. Just like the two of you, he loves Konoha from the bottom of his heart, and truly wants to protect it.
Hiashi's lips moved almost imperceptibly. For the briefest instant, a gentle smile—the kind belonging not to the Hyuga patriarch, but to a father—nearly broke through his severe expression.
In that instant, a simple and sincere invitation had already formed in his mind.
If it is convenient, please visit our home tomorrow.
Yes. If he were only Hinata's father, he would have invited Naruto without hesitation. He would have welcomed the boy into the Hyuga household, offered him proper hospitality, and thanked him in person. He could even imagine Hinata's surprised, shy happiness if she learned she had finally made a real friend.
But the words never left his mouth.
Because he was not only Hinata Hyuga's father. He was also the head of the Hyuga clan. That position brought with it prestige and authority, but it also wrapped chains around every personal choice he made. He had to think for the entire clan. He had to bear responsibility for the security and standing of the family as a whole.
A clan should not draw too close to a jinchūriki.
Especially not now, when the young Nine-Tails jinchūriki remained such a sensitive existence, watched closely by the upper levels of the village—most of all by Danzo Shimura and the Root organization beneath him. Any clan that approached Naruto too openly could be suspected of harboring ulterior motives, of seeking to seize control of the power of the jinchūriki. That kind of suspicion could bring unnecessary vigilance, political pressure, or even suppression.
For the Hyuga clan's stability, he could not take that risk.
In the end, the smile that had almost surfaced disappeared completely, and the lines of Hiashi's face hardened once more. He merely gave Naruto another small nod, then turned to Hinata at his side and spoke in a calm, even tone.
"Let's go home."