Disclaimers: 'Naruto' is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, Jump Comics, TV
Tokyo, and Viz Communications. No infringement is intended and no profit is
being earned from this derivative work.
"Mama? How come you always have your head wrapped up like when Papa made
that kitty mad? Did you make a kitty mad?"
Looking down at the curious, intent expression on the child's face, she
laughed softly. "No, Sho-kun, Mama didn't make a kitty mad."
"So how come?"
She paused, delicately fingering the soft white gauze wrapped tightly around
her forehead. "Well, your mama has a mark on her head that's not very nice
to look at."
"Can't you wash it off?"
"No, it's not that kind of mark. It's like...well, you know the scary man
with the scarred-up face? It's kind of like that."
"Oh." A pause. "How'd you get it?"
She smiled sadly, looking into the innocent eyes of her child--eyes which,
mercifully, were not the same pupilless lavender-white as her own. "It
happened when I was very young."
"Younger than me?"
She laughed. "No, Sho-kun, not that young. Not as young as you are right
now, either. It was..." She paused. "I was sixteen."
"That's not young, that's old!" Her son pulled a face.
"Oh? If that's old, then what's that make me NOW?" she asked, mock-scowling
at the boy. He looked away, cheeks red; she giggled and tousled his
copper-gold hair.
"Stop it, Mama!" he protested. He looked up at her again. "So how'd you get
it?"
She sighed, looking past the top of his head at something far away. "Well,
it was when your Ojisama and Obasama got married. I've told you about why my
eyes are like they are, right?"
"Un! It's a...keke...kekky..."
"Kekkei genkai."
"Right, an' Jichan an' Bachan have it too."
"Respect," she chided automatically, not really expecting to win this
particular argument for a few more years. "Well, my family has a rule..."
She paused, trying to decide how to explain it. "When my papa and your
Ojisama's papa were little, one of them got a mark on his head and the other
one didn't. The one with the mark is supposed to protect the one without the
mark, because the one without the mark is going to be the leader when they
grow up."
The boy in her lap frowned. "That's dumb."
"Yes, just a little bit. Well, the mark is important because it keeps bad
people from taking away the eyes of someone who has it if they hurt them."
She winced at how awkward that explanation was, but her son's formal
indoctrination into the life of death that ninja lead was still over a year
away, and his mind was still very much innocent.
The boy frowned. "So why doesn't everybody have the mark?"
"Because that's not how it works. It's one of those grown-up things."
"Oh." While he stopped to think about that, she continued.
"Well, your Obasama is my sister. Your Ojisama had the mark when he was
little--barely older than you are now. And my sister and I didn't have it.
But when we got older, our papas and grandpapas and uncles and great-uncles
all decided that they needed to...well, cheat...and put the mark on a
different person. So they took the mark off your Ojisama and put it on me,
and then he married my sister."
"Oh." The boy thought about that for a minute. "Why?"
"Because they were better at being leader than me."
"Really?"
"Yes, that's right." She saw a protest coming, and cut across it. "Mama
isn't a very good leader, Sho-kun. Not the kind of leader your Ojisama and
Obasama are. That's why when they put the mark on me, I understood. I..."
She trailed off, then smiled. "If they didn't put the mark on me, I probably
wouldn't have gotten to marry your papa, and you wouldn't have been born."
"Oh." The boy paused again, thoughtfully. "That'd suck."
"Yes, yes it would," she said, giggling.
"Does papa have a mark?"
"No, papa doesn't have a mark. Papa doesn't have the same eyes as mama, does
he?"
"Oh, right. And...I don't either, so I won't get a mark?"
"That's right!"
The front door opened. "Yo!" an exuberant voice called from the entrance.
"PAPA!" The boy scrambled off his mother's lap and ran out of the room. As
he went, she watched him, smiling, but there was an old pain in her eyes. *I
hadn't thought about that in so very, very long...*
"Oi, Hinata, you okay?"
She looked up at the tall, broad-shouldered form of her husband, his blue
eyes staring at her with concern. She started, and blushed. "Hai, anata. I
was just thinking, is all."
Naruto squatted down in front of his wife, an odd look of--disgust?--in his
eyes. "Neji sealed Muzashi today," he said quietly.
Hinata looked down. "I...I know," she said. "I...wasn't sure if he was going
to go through with it, but..."
They both sighed. "One day, Hina-chan. One day, I'll put a stop to this
stupid branch family shit. I swear it."
A rubber shuriken bounced off the back of his head, breaking the mood. With
a playful growl, he turned to tackle their son to the ground and tickle him
ferociously.
Watching them play, Uzumaki Hinata smiled. The irony of her past had never
once been lost on her, after these many years. The cursed seal had not
enslaved her, but rather set her free; free to follow her own way, free to
be the person she wanted to be, to be with *him*...
To have this family that could never have been hers, had she remained in her
gilded cage.
================================
This is a test of the Emergency Ass Dance System.
~~*~~
The Eternal Lost Lurker
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