panacea

Itachi has no need for genjutsu to disguise his presence, as unwanted and ill-advised as it might be. He stands atop a beautiful magnolia tree, staring down into the heart of the Hyuuga Compound, with nothing but his own skill to hide him from the sight of the all-seeing.

Hyuuga Hiashi’s mouth opens and closes, words of outrage cracking the cold air of November. Hyuuga Hinata stands and says nothing. They are surrounded by family, clan members, friends, and allies. All watch in silence. Some cover their mouths with the sleeves of their robes, seeking to hide their distaste, shock. In some cases, their amusement.

Itachi commits the scene to memory.

He has lost so much already, the prodigal son uplifted and weighed down in equal measure by the sins of his forefathers. He is expected to be grateful, to accept the burden with hands held up, palms wide and ready.

The smallest Hyuuga opens her hands, not to beseech her father, nor to gesticulate in disagreement. She folds over into a bow, apologies flowing with the movement. It all feels choreographed. Rehearsed. Like this clan had taken a scene from Itachi’s own childhood and playacted it in front of him.

Something within him twists, a sickening, unnatural lurch in his gut.

It is already too late for Itachi. He is too saturated in the blood shed by the red, spinning moons of his name. What is he good for, if he cannot be what life has shaped him?

But Hyuuga Hinata, with her sad eyes and clean hands. She is a perfect mirror image of himself, cleansed in snow. What he could have been, if he had not been dragged through the mill of war, reshaped into a weapon. Intended for his clan, repurposed for his village.

Hinata will not need to know war. Hinata can remain clean, snowmelt dripping from her palms. Her eyes can stay marble, powdered snow, pure and soft. There is no need for her to see the things he has.

Not if Itachi rips the ugly heart out of her clan, the way he cannot with his own.

***

Any mission involving contact with Orochimaru’s old bases is automatically a B-rank at the lowest. Naruto may have pardoned the old Sannin, but that doesn’t mean he underestimates the threat his abandoned laboratories and hideouts still hold.

Hinata still can’t quite believe Orochimaru’s gall, nor his luck. To build a base this close to Konoha and have it go undiscovered for so many years – it seemed fortune smiled down upon the man. Hinata bends down to examine faded rust stains around the front door’s handle. Blood. If it was fortune that favoured him, it was hard to accept that he deserved it.

“Why is it so warm for this time of year?” Kiba complains, yanking his collar away from his neck and flapping it back and forth like a makeshift fan. It didn’t seem terribly effective, given the wet sheen of sweat across his skin. Akamaru grumbles beside him, scratching at the dirt in a way that suggested boredom rather than actual investigation.

“It is approximately ten degrees warmer than the average temperature for mid-October,” Shino says, staring at a limp, sad-looking bee clutching his finger, “is that a simple quirk of local weather, or something more sinister? It is likely – ”

“Ugh, I stepped in something.” Kiba hops on one foot, face a mask of disgust. “Smells dead. Recently so. Akamaru – ” The dog cuts him off with a decisive-sounding bark. “Oh. Just a squirrel, guys! No creepy Orochimaru shit so far.”

“We have yet to even enter the base,” Shino points out.

“Hardly have to, do we? It’s gonna be creepy as hell, I’m gonna step in something way worse than this, Hinata’s gonna pull our asses outta the fire again, and you’re gonna take credit for whatever we find. Hands up who wants to just go home now? Wait – Akamaru, you stepped in the squirrel too? Your paw’s all – ”

“How was this hidden for so long?” Hinata wonders aloud.

“Perhaps because no one knew to look.” Shino replies.

Hinata takes a step back to examine the building in its entirety. It looks as abandoned as it feels, a grey ramshackle shed barely covering enough land to house a single person, covered in creeping ivy and moss. If not for the blood and general unpleasant atmosphere, it could be mistaken for someone’s home, lost to time.

They’ve found enough of these old bases to know the shed is only the entrance. The true base lies below ground.

Naruto could send Orochimaru with them to guarantee they could navigate the inevitable traps and dangers that lie within. He never does. Hinata suspects he fears what Orochimaru might do if he revisited the scenes of his old crimes. Would he be tempted to regress back to his old self? And if he did, would Naruto be capable of appropriately punishing him?

Konoha adored their newest Hokage. Hinata could not recall their previous leaders receiving the same adulation. It was only fitting, given how appallingly they had all treated Naruto. And yet, even he had his detractors. Too soft, some would hiss in the streets, too biased.

Sasuke’s crimes being forgiven was met with a public uproar, but it was swiftly drowned out by the ungodly clamour of outrage upon Orochimaru’s pardon becoming known. Sasuke was the last Uchiha, even the civilians understood his worth to the village. Orochimaru had murdered the Sandaime.

Too soft, too biased, too passive.

Hinata wishes in her heart of hearts that she disagreed.

Her ex-husband was a better friend than leader. She could never tell him that, not even on their worst nights when she felt the least forgiving.

“Any word from the bugs?” Kiba asks, scraping the bottom of his boot against the grass.

Shino’s brow ticks up in irritation, but his voice is toneless when he says, “that is not how it works, Kiba. If they find information, they will return to me. They have not returned. Is it not apparent that they have not found information?”

Hinata activates her Byakugan, cutting off what is sure to be a retread of an old argument from the two. The world shimmers. The shed’s walls glow, revealing an empty space within, and a box in the left-hand corner. That would be the entrance leading down to the actual base.

“There’s no one inside.” Hinata reports, turning her gaze downwards. “I can’t see any chakra, neither lingering remnants nor active energy. If there are any traps, they are either inert, or they do not require chakra to activate. No evidence of recent activity or human presence.”

“Yay,” Kiba says flatly, “time to go find some inert explosive devices, right?”

“Have my insects returned?” Shino begins, but Kiba cuts him off with a rude noise.

“If they do, we all know what they’ll say – buzz buzz, etcetera, etcetera. No signs of life or chakra, just like Hinata already said.”

“Is it smart to underestimate the potential threats that may lie within, knowing the extent of Orochimaru’s past crimes?”

“If it’s cooler in there and smells less like dead squirrel, I don’t care,” Kiba grumbles.

“I – ”

“Hinata said it’s safe,” Kiba says, with a confidence that warms her all the way through to her core, “you need anything more than that?”

Shino hesitates, the bee sluggishly flying from his hand to a nearby bush. “No. No, I suppose I do not.”

Hinata can’t help but smile. Since the very first day they became a team, the boys have been nothing but supportive. Even as they fought day after day, the one thing they could agree on was how they should treat her. It wasn’t bias or concerns about clan relations, since the Inuzuka and the Aburame had no interest in pleasing or fear of displeasing the Hyuuga. They treated her with respect because they believed she deserved it.

It took a very long time for Hinata to understand that.

“I will go first,” Hinata says, ignoring the predictable clamour that erupts from both of them. She is the one that can see threats that Kiba’s nose and ears miss, and Shino’s kikaichu have yet to return. It is her duty to ensure the path is safe for her teammates. Kurenai is busy with Mirai, but she had asked Hinata to take care of the boys.

Keep them safe, Hinata, she had said, I have absolute faith in you.

Hinata opens the door.

xxxxxxxx

It’s cold.

That’s the first thing she registers. Cold seeping beneath her like water, but it feels solid. Tile. Sound pricks at her ears, a distant thrum of electricity. Wires under the floor? There’s a sharp, acrid scent. Some kind of chemical she’s only encountered in hospitals and the medical tents during the war. Antiseptic, possibly. Is she in a hospital?

Her eyes open.

Too dark to see much, though it’s enough to tell her she is lying on the floor in the middle of a hallway. She activates her Byakugan without a second thought. The walls around her glow, chakra signatures buzzing on every floor of the building she is in. She looks up, seeing pale, fuzzy shapes of people high above her. Wherever she is, it’s many floors below ground.

She goes to push herself up and – oh.

She stares down at her hands, shaking under her weight. They are small, pale, unmarked. What has happened to her?

A voice breaks the silence, a low warning being growled not far enough away for her liking. She sees them – three adult shapes, one child, all clustered together down a nearby hallway. If she stays here, they will likely encounter her. Until she knows where she is and how she came to be like this, she cannot risk being found.

She tries to dart into a nearby room, but barely manages to get to her feet without tripping, almost falling headlong onto the floor. She grips the wall to save herself, panic lighting up her whole body, and chooses to slip silently through the doorway. It’s much slower, but safer, considering she clearly cannot control her body the way she is used to. It makes sense – she is far shorter and lighter than normal, so her balance is completely off. What’s worse is that it seems like it isn’t just her size that has been altered; her body feels subtly wrong, all evidence of her many years of training gone.

What is interesting is that her Byakugan appears the same. Her range and focus haven’t regressed along with her body, thankfully. A quick internal search reveals that her chakra also feels the same, a crackling hearth blazing with energy.

She shuts the door with a click, noting the sound in case it’ll give her away at a later, crucial moment, and examines the room around her. It’s cramped, mostly full of beds. Child-size. Hinata’s stomach drops. There are manacles attached to every bedframe. They are also small enough for children.

The sheets are plastic, presumably to make it easier to wipe down mess rather than have to wash, and there are no toys in sight, no crayons or books – nothing to entertain children. This is a room to house at least ten.

She watches through the wall as the two adult-sized chakra impressions walk away, leaving the child-sized one alone in the room. She could talk to the child to gain more information on this strange place, but she doesn’t want to risk it just yet. She hasn’t exhausted all forms of investigation and it is entirely possible that the child will alert someone if she shows herself.

Hinata nods, mind made up, but movement catches her eye. The walls are polished metal. When she nodded, her reflection shifted. She looks up to see herself, slightly warped, but clear enough.

She is a child.

She isn’t a fool, she’d suspected as much, but had hoped against hope that she had simply reduced in size from some bizarre technique. Her reflection looks painfully young, her face all eyes, hair in its old hime cut, wearing her typical dark shirt and leggings. She’s an academy student.

It would be unwise to jump to conclusions at this early stage, but Hinata can’t help it. When she scanned the building for chakra impressions, she noticed that Kiba, Akamaru, and Shino were nowhere to be found. Not even Shino’s kikaichu were present for miles and miles. She had to look towards Konoha to catch a glimpse of their tell-tale chakra. And that, itself, was a clue. She could tell that her position is not too far off where she started outside the base, merely underground. Konoha is still the same distance away. She must be inside the base, on one of the lower levels.

If the base had this many people – any people – inside it, Hinata would have seen it before she had even opened the door. Kiba and Akamaru would have smelt traces of people coming and going out of the entrance. Shino’s kikaichu would have returned much sooner with news.

This base is clearly still manned and maintained, which does not make sense according to the intel they had received. This was supposed to be completely abandoned, as it had appeared above ground. Orochimaru had sworn that he was no longer running any of his bases or facilities, and though of course he could be lying, this base’s proximity to Konoha makes it a poor choice for his men to continue his work in secret.

Do not assume the worst, Hinata scolds herself, but her breaths are coming faster and faster and her heart is rattling her ribcage with its thunderous beat.

When she stepped through the door, she had sensed chakra suddenly activate beneath her feet and across the room, on the wall opposite the entrance. It was like two different seals triggering at once.

And then she had woken up here, inside the base, a child.

She grasps the front of her shirt and presses her forehead to the cool metal wall. Her fist grinds into her chest as if she could slow her heartrate manually.

It all seems impossible.

xxxxxxxx

“It’s only been three years since Hyuuga Hinata was kidnapped from inside the village,” the Sandaime says, his lips pressed into a hard, uncompromising line, “her father discovered she was missing this morning, but believes she could have been taken last night. Luckily, he had the foresight to key a seal with her blood after the incident with Kumo, meaning if she ever went missing again, she could be tracked. The seal indicates she is somewhere within a ten-mile radius of the village’s walls. I’ve been assured her location has not changed in the past half hour, but you will need to observe the seal for changes constantly.”

“Hokage-sama,” Itachi says, “why would the abductor remain so close to the village?”

“Arrogance, the seal could have been tricked, it may be a trap, and worst-case scenario…” The Hokage doesn’t finish, but the thought hangs grimly in the air like miasma.

Worst-case scenario, her location isn’t moving because she’s been killed and left in the woods outside the village. An image thrusts itself into Itachi’s mind – a little Hyuuga girl, pale and still, eyes missing – and it’s transposed at once by a similar image, this time of Sasuke. Bile rises up at the back of Itachi’s throat.

“Bring her home,” the Sandaime says.

They leap out the window as one, none bothering to answer. The urgency in the old man’s voice drives them to push hard. Kakashi is in front, his dogs leading, Tenzo behind, and Itachi brings up the rear. ANBU is rarely enjoyable, but his teammates make it tolerable. Usually, at any rate. Itachi can’t help but feel they might not get there in time. He tries not to make a habit of paying any mind to such feelings, his father decrying them as irrational.

It's too difficult, when every step he takes could be leading him to a little girl lying in the dirt.

The cruelty of the thought makes Itachi’s lips tremble. For this girl to have been abducted twice from her own home, having been saved once, but losing her uncle in the process, only to die here – it’s too much. He cannot dwell on it. He can only dart from branch to branch, following the steady pace of his captain.

They will not fail.

A ramshackle shed is all that greets them when they reach the marked point on the map, but Kakashi’s dogs sniff out a large number of scents clinging to the door. It’s clearly in constant use, despite the superficially abandoned appearance of the exterior.

At Kakashi’s order, Tenzo sinks through the ground.

Itachi keeps his eyes on the door. He’s activated his Sharingan. His father would want him to conserve his chakra, but in truth, despite the lingering flu he picked up last year and had yet to shake, he has never had any trouble maintaining his Sharingan.

He isn’t going to play this mission safe. Not when a child is in peril.

It takes less than a minute for Tenzo to emerge, the skin of his neck pale and clammy. Itachi is instantly on alert. The older boy shakily adjusts his mask as if to assure himself that it is still there.

“There are fourteen children by my count,” Tenzo begins, an unpleasant jolt of shock going through Itachi at his words, “and thirty-one adults. The children appear to be test subjects. The adults are all guards and scientists.”

Though Itachi’s mind is on the children, he can’t help but spare a sympathetic thought for Tenzo. For the boy to unexpectedly stumble across a facility similar to the one he was raised in must be traumatising. Itachi makes a note to add the sentiment to his mission report. Hopefully it will flag the need for Tenzo to receive a mental health review soon.

Fourteen children.

“Was Hyuuga Hinata among them?” Kakashi asks.

Tenzo nods. “I saw her – she was… she appeared to be defending the other children. I know we can’t rush in, but it seemed –”

“Move out,” Kakashi says, authority radiating from those two simple words.

Tenzo sinks back into the ground. Kakashi’s dogs make themselves smaller somehow as they linger at his heels, far easier to overlook than before. Itachi allows himself to shut down the parts that make him ‘normal,’ the personable smile, the amiable tone, the dependable air, and embraces the parts of him he has been taught to suppress. The cold, ever-burning anger from deep inside. The thoughts pushed to the back of his mind that still manage to blot his mood like ink on fingertips. As Yagi, the ANBU soldier, Itachi still has to be perfect, of course. But it’s a manageable kind of perfection, unlike what is expected of him in his daily life. No one cares if his voice lacks warmth or emotion here, and if his eyes are flat, expression undisturbed, no matter what coats his kunai, he will not be judged for it.

Fourteen children.

Itachi slinks into the shadows.

xxxxxxxx

Hinata gently nudges the little girl behind her more securely.

Most of the children are taller and older than her, and few took well to her insistence that she be the one to protect them after chaos broke out. Regardless of her tiny size, she is a jounin and she will not let any of the children in her care come to harm.

She hadn’t intended to be seen, but though her mind, chakra, doujutsu, and instincts remain the same, her body that of a poorly trained five-year-old. It hadn’t taken long for her to slip up, just a little too slow to hide from the sight of the approaching guards. She took them down, but the alarm was still raised.

It had seemed obvious to forgo stealth and simply head straight for the mass of child-sized chakra signatures. Her mind had buzzed with the possibilities of them being used as hostages against her – forgetting for a moment that she was now considered one of them, not an adult threat. She found the children inside a large white room, strapped to tables, medical instruments, vials, and syringes visible even from the doorway.

The scientists were all civilians – she took them down quicker than they could react, little fingers jabbing hard at pressure points – none of them anything like Orochimaru. It seemed as though the man himself wasn’t here. A knot in Hinata’s chest loosened at the realisation.

She’d snapped the restraints tying the children to the tables. Each one had frozen, reluctant to disobey an unspoken order even with the bulk of their captors scattered around them unconscious. She’d corralled them behind her, eyes flickering around the building to keep track of the remaining guards.

A large group of chakra signatures Hinata has been tracking is approaching faster than she would like, moving with a single-minded purpose. They’re heading right for them.

“Hide under the beds.” Hinata orders, trying not to wince at the sound of her own voice, a reedy squeak.

As the guards approach, Hinata stands alone, hands raised in the traditional Hyuuga stance.

She tries to pretend she didn’t notice the presence sinking through the ceiling. She doesn’t need to turn her head or even move her eyes to catch him, had seen him before he even entered the room. A small squad is huddled far above, where she assumes she once stood with her own team. Waiting at the entrance for their scout to return.

If they were working for Orochimaru there would have been no need to scout ahead, they would not have viewed a group of children as a threat. They would have simply attacked to quell the rebellion. If it isn’t Orochimaru, it is most likely a Konoha ANBU squad.

Hinata darts forward to meet the first guard’s strike.

Seconds stretch into infinity. By the time the squad arrive, Hinata is gasping for breath and on the defence.

She’s had to take several blows to avoid the guards spilling into the room, defending the entrance at the expense of her wrists and hands, now covered in angry red welts. She’s so slow. Frustration makes her own strikes bolder and harder, felling guards faster than they can be dragged away. The reinforcements are forced to climb over their comrades, faces screwed up in incredulous anger every time they lay eyes on their foe.

Hinata sees the punch coming, but if she dodges, a guard on her right will run past, to the kids, and she can’t allow –

The fist crashes into her cheekbone. The world grinds to a shuddering halt, pain exploding across the right side of her face. Metal coats her mouth and she has to cough, her little teeth hooked into the meat of her cheek.

She stays grounded in place, refusing to give way, and uses the guard’s proximity to her advantage. She only has to reach out, place two fingers against his chest, and release a pulse of energy.

The guard drops like a brick.

Hinata freezes. Did the children see –

And then a cloak is encircling her, draped over her head, the scent of low-grade liquor and something musty, like an animal, washing over her. Hands on her shoulders, the touch light but warm over the cloak, and a voice in her ear, as gentle as a morning breeze.

“You’re safe now,” she hears, and it’s Hatake Kakashi, sounding younger than she’s ever known him. She folds over in two, sagging to her knees.

She hears several wet sounds, sickening thuds, followed by the all-too-familiar noise of a sword being sheathed, and she trembles like a dog in a thunderstorm.

He covered her head, not just her eyes, to ensure she didn’t see his partner killing the guards. Hinata wishes she could say it wasn’t necessary, that she is an adult, almost of equal rank as he. If only her body echoed her memory.

But she is afraid.

When he tries to pick her up, cloak and all, she goes stiff with panic. She senses his hand reaching for her neck, ready to nip the problem of her in the bud, and veers wildly to the left.

“I can see,” she says.

It’s true. Her vision may have darkened, thanks to the cloak, but the world still glows around her. It’s why she knows there are two members of the squad in the room, one scouting further down the hall, and a pack of dogs doing the same on a higher level.

She saw the one that killed the guards. He’s small. Still a good deal taller than her, but most likely not that much older than her.

“D-don’t put me to sleep,” she begs, “I’ll be good!”

The words slip out against her will, all child instinct.

It’s like ice is creeping into the room, the silence following her words colder than she can endure.

The smaller figure approaches.

Hinata finds herself babbling apologies under her breath, an old habit her father had worked hard to break. She had thought she was past it by now. But then again, ‘now’ seemed very much up for debate.

Please, no, she thinks, don’t let me be back here. I can’t do it again.

Her childhood of flinches, winces, and splintered sentences.

Let this all be one of Orochimaru’s illusions. Don’t let this be real.

The cloak slips off her face as the small figure reaches out.

An ANBU mask is all she sees. White with red marks painted in the shape of goat eyes, swirls imitating horns, all the more unsettling for its lack of mouth. Then the mask shifts – Kakashi snaps a low warning – and she sees –

Sasuke?

Hinata stares.

And when the recognition hits, she shakes even harder.

A face she has seen only in Bingo Books, but far, far younger, just a child.

A gentle smile so unbefitting a future mass murderer.

Uchiha Itachi.

***

It should not be so easy to break into the Hyuuga Compound and watch over the main family’s home.

Not even for Itachi.

And yet, he is settled in a magnolia tree, standing unchallenged in broad daylight on a branch. The Hyuuga see so much, but only, it seems, if they care to look. Itachi is aware that if he is found, he is not the only one that will face the consequences. It will reflect upon his entire clan.

It is difficult to be too concerned. He knows he will not be found.

Hyuuga Hiashi is sitting in the middle of the courtyard, reading a large scroll with a dark, furrowed brow visible even from Itachi’s elevated position.

“Again!” Hiashi barks without looking up.

Hinata flows back into the taijutsu stance, but it’s subtly off, her balance not quite right. When she strikes, her elbow wobbles.

Hiashi tosses the scroll aside and rises in one powerful movement. Hinata’s little form staggers back half a step before correcting its course, feet planting back on the ground to offer a respectful bow.

“I’m sorry, Otou-sama, I was careless,” she says.

Hiashi reaches out. Hinata does not flinch away, but her head lowers in deference. Her father’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder. Itachi coolly notes the pressure he is exerting, the tips of his fingers blanching white. Hinata does not buckle or cry out.

“When will you stop being careless?” Hiashi asks, genuine frustration obvious in his voice. “You make more mistakes than I wish to count, and your response is always the same - you are sorry. You will improve. Why is it that you never do?”

To this, Hinata has no reply. Itachi stares at the small, dark head, bent so low in respect for a man that deserves none.

“How is it that I have been burdened with a daughter that is so utterly incapable in every way?”

This time, Itachi flinches on Hinata’s behalf. The little girl takes the verbal blow without crumbling, staying strong and dignified, but Itachi is winded, speechless.

Hiashi was not trying to be cruel. That made it even worse, somehow, that he was asking the question in sincerity. He meant it.

To call his daughter a burden, to lay a hand on her in anger, to insult her capabilities over a tiny mistake… it is beyond what Itachi can endure. It is a wonder that she, a child of five, can.

Yes, it is not just Itachi that will suffer if his misdeeds here are ever discovered. He knows he holds the clan’s fate within his hands. He is ever dutiful, mindful of his burdens. But today, just for today… he will lay his burdens down.

He will kill Hyuuga Hiashi.

***

Hello, friends!

PSA: I’m not currently accepting constructive criticism on this fic.

So, an idea for a Hinata-centric fic popped into my head, fully formed, and I was briefly possessed by it. I wrote this chapter three times and a further 8k, refining it all bit by bit until I was sick of rereading it lol. This was originally very different, but my beloved beta Authorship kicked me repeatedly until I made it slightly less confusing.

It’s probably still confusing so I’ll explain here: Hinata is in her twenties, recently divorced, and she stumbles across some kind of shenanigans that send her back in time. The first and last scenes with Itachi watching over the Hyuuga compound are from the past, sure, but after Hinata’s gone back in time. Does that make sense? I promise it used to be much worse lmao.

So the first and last scenes with Itachi happen AFTER he and Hinata meet in Orochimaru’s base. They did NOT happen in the original timeline (canon Naruto).

Itachi is eleven (in the canon timeline, but I'm making him fourteen) Hinata is almost six. Physically, anyway.

This will not be a romance between them, Hinata is mentally far too old (though being in her younger body is subtly altering her mind to fit her physical age better) and physically far too young. This will be a tale of friendship and recovery!

I couldn’t find Itachi’s ANBU codename so I called him Yagi (goat). I know a lot of people call him Weasel, but I tend to use the actual Japanese names in these fics, so his codename would be…. Itachi. Lmao, it’s the same reason I couldn’t call Ino ‘Boar’ in my Tenten fic.

Also it’s canon that Itachi was in the ANBU at eleven. ELEVEN. Five points if you know how long the Uchiha clan has left, based on Itachi’s age!

I also couldn’t find accurate information on how far Hinata’s Byakugan can see, so I decided to go big because why not? I love magic eyes. Kakashi was trying to reduce the little Hyuuga’s trauma by blocking her view of Itachi slicing and dicing his way through guards btw.

It did not work.

I basically got this idea because I wanted to write Time Flies Like An Arrow, but a slightly darker (yet still hopeful and uplifting!) wintry version, since I’ve grown a lot since then and my life has changed quite a bit. (No TFLA has not been abandoned)

I also liked the parallels between Itachi and Hinata. Itachi feels helpless, bound by duty in his clan, and then his hand is forced by Danzo to go against them, but before that, he’s faced with Hiashi, who is so similar to Fugaku, and yet Itachi has absolutely no loyalty or connection to him >:) this cannot possibly go wrong

I should also point out that I love NaruHina and writing divorced!Hinata is not going to be easy. But getting married that early comes with problems, which shinobi historically have always been terrible at dealing with, so…

Ninja divorce it is, then!

For those of you that have read A Light Exists in Spring, fun fact, a fem!Sasuke fic is in the works! It’ll probably be Sasuke/Temari, but if Sasuke was a girl and had been raised as such in a very traditional family.

Also I have never written a Hinata fic besides Speak Up, Calm Down (I think?), which I wrote perhaps fifty years ago, and this is a crime because Hinata is my favourite girl from Naruto! (I’m sorry Sakura I’ve been writing you for almost twenty years please give me a break)

I hope you guys enjoy this fic, I worked very hard on it at a tumultuous time in my life.

(I will not know if you like it if you don’t comment <3)

Quick poll for fun: What is a small joy you’ve been enjoying lately?

For me, I have a tea advent calendar, so I’ve been drinking a different flavour of tea every day this month. Today was fennel. Ngl it tasted very much like hot water with a little extra something. But I’ve found some delicious flavours I never would have tried normally!