Chapter Text
She really had tried her best. It seems arrogant to loudly proclaim to the heavens that she'd done everything right, that she'd trained hard, that she'd been proud to graduate even one year ahead of her genius little brother.
But she had been.
She'd wanted--
The medic drags another needle out of her leg.
Seiko screams, her dog picking up the sound and howling right alongside her.
"Shush, girl," the medic grunts. "We wouldn't even have to do this if you'd received proper care in the field. You look more like a pincushion than a person, and the person who got you back to Konoha must have dragged you by the foot for all the good it's done you."
They tap her knee, milky white eyes scrunched up as they activate the Byakugan.
"You've got another bit stuck inside your knee. I don't think that one's coming out short of a miracle-- or Lady Tsunade." They snort. "Don't think she's coming around for some genin, when she won't even enter the hospital for her own teammates. And--"
Seiko screams again, an ear piercing sound.
"Kami's grace, kiddo. How old are you? 12? You and that dog are going to bust my eardrums. I need those."
"I'm nine," Seiko says. "And he's not 'that dog'. He's Biter."
The med-nin's hands stop for just a second.
"He's the one that dragged me back here," Seiko says. She scratches his ears. "Aren't you a good boy, Biter?"
Even using her hands to pet him sends white hot flashes of pain to explode behind her eyes.
"The dog got you here?" The med-nin blinks, eyes narrowing even as their hands continue carefully plucking needles. "So your whole team is dead, then. Sorry for your loss. This one's going to hurt."
"They all h--"
She nearly goes unconscious from the pain.
"--hurt," she breathes, throat hoarse. "And no. I've still got one teammate. Biter said--" Barked, whatever. "The poison got in him, so--"
"Oh, dear," the med-nin says, staring at her knee. "I don't think that one's coming out."
"So, he was having trouble...closing his hands," Seiko finishes. She swallows. "What do you mean it's not..."
"You've got a piece of metal broken off inside the knee," the Hyuuga tells her. "Looks like you're going to be limping for the rest of your life, kiddo."
What?
"Don't worry," the words keep going. "You've got a lot of long lasting injuries, and I've done the best of my abilities to deal with the poison, but Konoha doesn't discharge anyone during active wartime. You've got a family, right? A clan? This is a field station, I don't have anyone's records."
"My dad's.. An active ninja," Seiko says. "But my brother should still be at home. He's graduating this year, you know."
"Oh? Congratulations. I hope you make a full recovery in time to attend."
"I hope so too," Seiko says.
"You missed the graduation," Sakumo says. He's sitting beside her bed when she wakes up, one hand clamped firmly around Biter's muzzle to keep his growls from waking her up until he'd gotten into position.
She hasn't seen her father since...
Well, the second war had begun the year Kakashi was born, but he'd been around more in the beginning. But five years is a long time for a war to run, and the White Fang had been called to the battlefield more and more..
"You missed mine," She says. Though Kakashi had attended, the grouchy little brat. He'd wanted to graduate at the same time as her, even though he'd been four and she'd been...eight? No, that's not right. Nine. Her fault for having an early birthday.
Pain slices through his face, though she hadn't really meant it as a jab against him.
"I'm sorry about that, Seiko," he says. "I tried to return to the village, but--"
"-- the mission comes first," they both say together.
The lines cut into his face deepen even as she recites the line.
"At least you made it in time for his," she says. "He sulked for a month after you missed his birthday."
Sakumo slumps even further into his own shoulders. He used to put more effort into appearing invulnerable in front of her, but battle has ground him down as surely as poison has eroded her nerves.
"How's Kakashi been, really?" he asks her. "I know I gave him that mask, but he's so hard to read..."
"You're the one who's seen him most recently." Seiko shrugs, pushing herself off the hospital bed to go limp across the room and start packing her stuff. "He hasn't come to visit since they relocated me back to the main hospital. Figured he burned down the house trying to boil water and was too embarrassed to tell me or something."
"That's no way to treat your sister..." Sakumo says, disgruntled. "I'll talk to him once we get home."
Seiko blinks.
"He's still in Konoha? Thought they were still putting genin in the field." That's what they'd done to her not 10 months ago, afterall.
Sakumo shakes his head, clearly relieved.
"We're doing the final treaty negotiations now. The Hokage's pulled all genin back-- he doesn't want to risk any overexcited youngster causing the peace to fail."
So they let Kakashi speed through because they're on wartime footing, then immediately decide they don't need him..
Classic.
Seiko sways on her feet, the world suddenly blurring around her as she reaches for her forehead protector. Her weak knee buckles first, dropping her down and sending a shockwave of pain up her leg as it hits the ground.
Everything--fucking--hurts
"--Seiko!" Sakumo grabs her arm, pulling her back up to standing.
"Let go of me," Seiko mutters. "That hurts."
Biter twines through her legs, soft black fur a comfort as he picks the fallen forehead protector up in his teeth and carefully tucks it away.
"Good dog. Good Biter."
"I thought--" Sakumo really can't afford the amount of worry lines he's picking up, not when he already has white hair. They're going to mistake him for Kakashi's grandfather or something. "Seiko, I thought you were healed."
"I'm..." Seiko rubs a hand across her face. "Recovered to the extent of the hospital's ability, Dad."
The field medic really had done their best, but they'd missed some of the poison-- or maybe some poison had remained in that one broken needle still stuck in her. Either way, the pain hadn't gone away, nor had the limp. And then the dizzy spells, the loss of balance, the trembles in her hands...
"Are you...still capable of doing missions, Seiko?"
She knows he's just asking her if she's doing okay. And there's really only one answer she can give him.
"Yeah, it'll be fine. The doctor actually said my chakra was attempting to act as phantom nerves... In a couple of years, all this stuff might just go away on its own. I'll be ship-shape and ready to go!" Seiko pumps her arm in an offhanded attempt at cheer, then immediately winces as her hand fails to curl all the way into a fist, pain her only reward for that attempt.
He knows battlefield injuries better than she does, but he doesn't disagree with her, even though she sees the hope that this is just a small hiccup in her life fade away in his eyes.
"You can get through this," he tells her, picking up her back and looping it over his own shoulder as he escorts her out. "You're tough. You'll make it."
But what about you, dad. Are you going to make it?
...
Please?
Kakashi throws a ninja star at her as his typical greeting.
Before she can say goodbye to her fleeting yet still remarkably painful life, Sakumo grabs it out of the air, tucking it into his own pockets and giving Kakashi a stern look.
"Kakashi, your sister is still...injured," Sakumo says, barely hesitating before moving on with that part of the sentence. "She's not going to be able to play with you right now."
Kakashi's fingers immediately flash into hand signals.
"It's not playing. It's training."
"Okay. She's not going to be able to train with you right now. She's on strict home rest orders for the next--" He looks over at her.
"I've got another month," Seiko says. "Then I go back in to see where they move me to. My sensei died, so I'm probably getting moved off jounin track." Unless another Jounin wants to take her on, of course, but that's not happening with her current condition.
"I'm sorry about your sensei," Sakumo says. "He was a good man."
Had he known him? She's doubly sorry, then. It had been a bad death.
Kakashi tucks his hands into his pants, sullenly looking between the two of them before his eyes settle on Sakumo.
"I'm--" he jabs his thumb into his chest as he makes the gesture. "Stuck doing stupid D levels while they wait for the Jounin I'm assigned to to get back. You could..."
"Sorry, Kakashi," Sakumo says. "I'm headed back into the field. I just came by to make sure you two were doing okay."
He apologizes to them more than he's home with them.
Seiko watches him go before she turns back to Kakashi.
"I thought you burned the house down trying to cook," she says.
"I can cook," Kakashi shoots back. "... noodles. And rice."
Seiko crosses her arms.
"Oh look, the little genin can cook. Okay, genius. Then why didn't you come visit? I was bored."
His gaze slides away.
"Training," he finally says. "For my graduation."
Seiko rolls her eyes at him, starting to limp her way into the house. She's already been standing for long enough that the pain is now pulsing through her leg and up into her spine, like some over eager chiropractor ready to use their self granted license.
"I thought you were going to say you finally made some friends," she says.
At least they don't live somewhere with more than two floors. Thank the kami for small mercies.
"They're all weak and stupid," Kakashi summarizes bluntly. "None of them even know how to fight."
"They're five year olds."
"I'm five."
She ruffles his hair. It's bristly and stiff, not soft at all.
"Okay then, genius. Make yourself dinner-- I'm going to bed."
He catches her hand, grumply shoving it off his head.
"You missed the graduation ceremony," he tells her. "It was really cool. Everyone wanted to go see dad."
"Yeah?" If she doesn't sit down within the next minute she's going to kill someone. "I thought they were all there to see you."
Kakashi wrinkles his nose at her, dark blue fabric of his mask distending with the motion.
"He's a war hero," he says, like it's obvious. "He's Konoha's strongest."
"Isn't that the Sanin?" She gives up on standing up and just sits on the floor. It doesn't help, just transferring the pulsing of her knee to a pulsing in her head. "Dad's just doing his duty."
"Doing his duty by being the strongest," Kakashi insists, hands moving at a rapid pace. "I missed my chance this time, but the next time a war happens, I'll be right there beside him."
"So certain another war is going to break out?" She says. "We haven't even finished this one."
"War's not like your gross cooking," Kakashi grumps. "I don't have to finish it all to leave the table."
"I won't be cooking this month," Seiko says, voice casual. "Doctor's orders." She can't even hold chopsticks properly, right now.
"Liar!"
She knows he'd wanted to have her and Sakumo both home, and now he's getting the worst of both worlds. Their dad's still busy, and she's not going to be doing much more than lying around and taking Biter on walks.
"Oh no," Seiko says, voice empty. "Looks like I'm unable to do the dishes this month as well."
Such a look of betrayal on his face.
"Oh, and the laundry as well...."
"Liar!"
It's a lot to pile onto a five year old. She really... wishes that she could do it. That Sakumo would come home and do it. That their mom would rise back out of the grave and do it.
They're not bad people, her family.
But trash compactors don't check for temperament.
It's good that her teammate waited to show up until a day when Kakashi had wandered off to go hang by a cliff with his bare hands, or whatever else he got up to in his spare time.
She'd hate to have a loud fight in front of her little brother.
Who knows what bad habits he'd pick up?
Hoheto Hyuga nearly always wore his hair in a ponytail while in the field, but back in Konoha he wears it the traditional Hyuga way: though his hair is short enough that leaving it free falling still barely covers the back of his neck.
He'd never wear his forehead protector anywhere other than his forehead, though. It's one thing to bend the knee, and another to be unashamed of servitude.
Or it could just be because he's, like, nine.
"Looks like you got your sight back," Seiko says. "What're you doing here, 'Heto? You never come to visit."
"You never went to our training spot," Hoheto states, trying to cross his arms but struggling a little with it due to the amount of bandages still wrapped up and down both arms and around his upper torso. "You... what are you doing, letting yourself lose your conditioning, when you never once missed a day! They're going to reassign us to the genin corps at this rate. We'll be eternal genin."
He says it like it's a curse.
But, aren't they already cursed? There's nothing to be done but sit in a castle and grow out their hair.
"Yeah..." Seiko says, wrists clasped loosely behind her back so that their interminably trembling doesn't make her seem weak. "I'm not applying for a new sensei, 'Heto. I'm going to ask to work in the tower."
He goes pale, rage eagerly shoving despair aside to claim its place as this month's local bingo winner.
"You're abandoning me!?"
Hey. That's not fair.
Biter bares his teeth, growling a little at the young man whose life he had saved.
"What are you, a lost kitten in a cardboard box? I'm just telling you my plans. You could go work at the tower as well, you know. Your injuries are pretty bad too, so--"
"I'm not some coward who refuses to return to the field just because of a few scratches. Seiko, this could be our--"
Hoheto's hands curl into fists.
"It could be my only chance at staying Jounin tracked, Seiko," he says. "I'm not the daughter of a war hero. I'm only ahead of the curve until I grow up-- It needs to be now. I need to make chunin before eleven, and the war's already as good as over."
He's too proud to beg. Good, because that would be an awful thing to do only to discover that it was pointless the whole time.
"You can do that without me," Seiko says.
Though, she doesn't know if he can. If they were a package deal, if a Jounin wanted the prestige of teaching The White Fang's eldest, then also teaching a young Hyuga prodigy was nothing. An easy acceptance.
If Hoheto is stuck doing it alone, well.. It's like he said. You're only a genius until your peers catch up. With his injuries, his peers have quite a head start. And he'll receive no help from his clan.
"I can't," Seiko says. "'Heto, I can't hold my sword."
She holds her hands out to him, watching them shudder and wobble outside of her control. Watches him see the scars on the back of both her wrists, flesh ripped out as if caught on a fishhook.
"No!" Hoheto insists, and she knows that he can't acknowledge reality anymore than she can change it. "Coward! You're just scared of heading back out there. My life's been harsh too, you know. But there's only one way out-- and it's on the battlefield."
She really hadn't realized how much of her world she'd been balancing on the edge of her blade.
And now, all of it is falling...
"Okay," she says. "Let's fight. If you win... I'll go with you."
Biter holds the bandage roll in his teeth as she carefully, laboriously binds the blade to her hand. The sword is what Sakumo knows, so the sword is what he taught his children. Even though Kakashi had always been more interested in jutsus...
She wasn't joking about him nearly burning the house down. Honestly, that kid.
So, a sword in her left hand. Fighting Hyuga in close quarters was the type of thing stupid and suicidal people did, so she does have a few ideas about how to go about it.
She uses the dog to pull herself back up to her feet, posture falling into a shambling mockery of her preferred fighting stance. The blade hangs in her loose arm as she stares out at Hoheto through her silver hair.
He, too, assumes proper stance, bandaged fingers clumsily moving through a few warm ups before settling into their final position as his eyes flare and turn into the full Byakugan.
There's no signal of readiness. Just a single moment of stillness, and--
Seiko slams her palm on the ground, the shockwaves of putting that much weight on her hand sending pain spiking through her shoulder.
"Summoning: Earth Release: Gnashing Fang Technique!"
Biter disappears from her side, diving through the circle to run through the ground to his target.
"You know that won't work on me," Hoheto snaps, eyes following the dog through the ground long enough to jump away as Biter's jaws emerge from the grass to narrowly miss his ankles. He lunges at her instead of going after Biter, hands glowing with the ominous green of the only techniques he's allowed.
"Gentle Fist: Tenketsu Needle!" His two fingers lodge themselves deep into her right arm, at last causing the throbbing pain in that wrist to subside as she feels nothing at all, the entire limb rendered numb by the strike.
It shouldn't happen like that: the gentle fist only touched the chakra, not the nerve. But, didn't the doctor tell her that her nerves were already eaten up... It was just her chakra giving her the ghost of an arm to flop around.
Good riddance.
Her sword slashes down as she pivots on her busted knee and sweeps his leg out from under him, only managing to cut a narrow line across his cheek as he falls and twists away.
"First blood," she says.
"My techniques don't draw blood, you--" He bites off the word before it becomes an insult, too well taught to lower himself like that.
There's a tense worry in his eyes as he sees her arm hang limp. Does he need a little encouragement to keep going? She doesn't mind. Chakra begins to slide down her hand into the blade, heavy and dangerous.
"What's wrong, 'Heto? Too afraid to fight? I thought that was supposed to be me."
The more she fights, the calmer she gets. Though, she can't say the same for her knee. There's a guy who can't wait to explode.
"I guess you must have gotten too used to losing against me and Kiyomu?"
It's the mention of their dead teammate that gets him.
"I'm just sick of your attitude," Hoheto hisses, regaining his fire as he runs towards her. "Always so condescending. Always so aloof. You received more training than me, so what?"
Rage makes him sloppy.
Seiko's sword cuts through the cloth into the skin of his forehead, causing his forehead protector to fall over his eyes as blood seeps down.
For a second, his seal is exposed.
"I'm better than you..." Seiko echoes. "So what?"
It's unfortunate that blindness means nothing to a Hyuga. Hoheto kicks forward, fist finally finding its proper resting spot in her stomach. Seiko gasps, breath knocked out of her as Hoheto punches her again, following her down to the ground, hand around her one working arm to keep her locked in place as he punches her again in the jaw.
"You--"
"Biter!" Seiko spits out, a bit of blood dribbling out of the corner of her mouth.
The jaws of a 150 pound japanese mastiff surge up from the ground to lock around Hoheto's leg.
He stiffens, silver eyes staring into hers as his hand stops inches from her nose.
He needs to be able to recover in order to be able to get a jounin sensei in order to get a promotion in order to become a chunin in order to gain even a scrap of recognition from his clan. A ripped tendon from a dog bite would be far, far too much.
She considers ordering Biter to bite down anyway.
He's not like her, who has nothing left to lose from a stupid fight with her only friend.
"Seiko," he says, voice resigned. "You're going to ruin my life, one way or the other."
His hair is down, his seal is exposed, he's dripping blood on her from both of the cuts she slashed into his face.
She smiles at him.
"Good luck out there, Hoheto."
His fist rushes down, hitting the ground next to her head.
"Traitor," he says.
"Loser," she says.
She's still laying on the grass when Kakashi gets back home in the late evening.
"What're you doing out here?" he says, though she can see him scan the scene, notice the blood droplets, check the broken parts of the grass.
"I'm cloud gazing," Seiko says. She can feel bits of feeling coming back to her right arm, which is nice. She holds her left hand out to her brother. "Hey. Help me up."
He looks like she's just asked him to move a mountain, contemplating and putting some deep thought into it as he stares down at her left hand. The short sword is still bound to it, since she naturally can't use her other hand to untie it.
He ends up crouching down to untie the bandages, leaving the sword to lie on the grass as he tugs her up--
Only for her knee to immediately drop her back down to kneeling. Well. Close enough. She grabs Kakashi's shoulder, using him as a rather short cane while she limps back into the house.
"And you?" She says. "Out training?"
Kakashi steps away from her as soon as she makes it through the front door, lighting fast.
"Did your sensei make you take a test before accepting you?" He asks directly, hands spelling things out even faster than normal.
Biter drags a chair out from the kitchen table for her to sit on, which she gratefully sinks down into, rubbing his ears in thanks.
"Yeah," she says, still looking at her dog. "It's not required, but a lot of jounin do it. Usually they're about teamwork, though.. I don't know why anyone would bother if you're going to be a solo protege."
"But did yours do it."
"No." Their sensei had had a good selection-- the Hatake heir, a talented Hyuga, and the highest performing civilian in the class. He'd been more than willing to take them at face value for what they were: relatively disciplined kids with a lot to prove.
Or maybe he'd just liked them. He had died for them, after all.
"Then I don't want to do it either," Kakashi says, crossing his arms. "I don't need this teacher. I can get another."
"Yeah? Who is he?"
Seiko props up her chin with the palm of her hand, discovering with excitement that this actually helped to stabilize her various tremors, for once giving her back a facsimile of her old attitude.
"I don't know. Some Inuzuka."
No wonder he's so defensive about it.
"Still haven't managed your first summon, genius?" She says, mouth curling up into a smile. "Don't worry. Me and Biter believe in you. Don't we, Biter."
Biter growls from his position underneath her chair. He's almost too big to even fit under there.
"See? Well, you can always give up, Kakashi. I'm sure you'll find another jounin willing to put up with you."
"I'm not the one who just lost a fight," Kakashi says, eyes flicking back to look at their front door.
"The fight with the clouds?" Seiko says, blinking her eyes lazily. "Oh, don't worry-- I won."
"Liar."
The Konoha Mission Assignment Desk is a rather large room within the ground floor of the tower, enclosed on all sides except for the six wide open windows situated behind the actual desk the room is named for.
The only thing special about the desk itself is its age. This room was one of the first rooms ever built for the newly founded village, the missions being justification for existence and the source of most funds all at once. Without missions, then what's the point of a village?
Well, maybe Hashirama had a different opinion than her about that.
"Seiko Hatake," she says, introducing herself to one of the chunin staffing the desk. "Returning to active duty." She's heard that apparently the Hokage likes to come down and give the missions in person, but with the war set to end, apparently he has better things to do.
"Hatake..." The woman recognizes the name, giving her a look over before quickly scanning through the scrolls in front of her to find the correct name. "Got it."
The guy next to her looks up. While the women was nondescript, this guy could not be more clearly a Nara, from his ponytail all the way down to the cold, bored look in his eyes.
"Oh, you," he says. "Your teammate came through here just last week. Sorry about your sensei, kid. He was a good one."
"Thanks," Seiko says.
"No problem. The Hyuga requested to go to a different jounin, though we're kinda understaffed right now... it might be a while. I can put you in with his application, just let me find it--"
"That won't be necessary," Seiko says, fingers curling into Biter's fur as she continues to stand there. She needs to get him a harness, if he'll let her-- something that she can really hang on to. He didn't sign up to be a makeshift walker, though. Hopefully he won't take it badly.
"No?" The guy discards the scroll. "Well, can't help you, then."
The woman she'd first talked to clears her throat, throwing an annoyed glance at her coworker. "So, Hatake. If you don't want another jounin sensei, your options get a lot more limited. Are you sure about this?"
She'd thought it would be harder.
"I'm sure," she says.
"Okay..." The woman gives her a dubious look, which is fair. Seiko's neck is the same height as the desk-- she's still got a lot of growing left to do. "So, you've got a couple of options. The hospital is always looking for people willing to train to become med-nins. It's important work, and what with Lady Tsunade... taking an extended term to study outside of the village, we need all the people we can get."
Seiko shakes her head.
"Girl, you really can't afford to be this picky. Next up is the normal genin corps. You'll be doing all the normal stuff you did before-- D ranks around the village, basic supply runs, the village's bread and butter. The only difference is that you'll be doing it with a random assortment of genin and chunin, whoever shows up for that assignment. A lot of them run in their own self-picked teams, so it's kind of rough in the beginning... but that's life. Other than that--" The woman shrugs. "We're alway looking for people to volunteer for long term undercover posts. It's not that bad, you just live in some out of nowhere village and send reports back every couple months. Some people like that kind of life... You're a little bit young for that, though. Come back in a few years; twelve is the current minimum age."
She hadn't thought it would be this straightforward.
"I don't want to do that," she says. "I want to work here. In the tower."
"Seriously?" The guy from earlier mutters.
"I..." The woman doesn't seem so excited, either. "It says here you're a close combat specialist, Hatake. There's not much of a place for that in this line of work. You are aware we don't offer promotions, right? You've got a lot of missions on your roster for barely being a genin one full year. You have a promising career ahead of you."
She gives Seiko an encouraging look.
"Look, I know it's rough out there. Hell, I've lost teammates before. It's normal to not want to head back out.. But it's our job to do just that. As long as you get your chunin promotion, there'll always be a place in the tower for you then, right?"
Biter growls as Seiko's fingers shakily dig deeper into his fur.
She was willing to show her shaking hands to Hoheto. He deserved to know. But she's not willing to do the same here. What do they get to know about her?
Nothing.
"It's my career," Seiko says, voice flat and cold. "I can ruin it if I want to."
"I'm just saying," the woman sighs, reaching over and writing something down onto Seiko's record. "It's not going to look good, kid. It's going to look like you gave up."
She slaps the paper down onto Seiko's side.
Seiko Hatake-- Reassigned from Genin-- (Jounin attached) to Genin-- (unassigned).
"Show up to the tower bright and early tomorrow morning, and someone will find something for you to do," the woman says. "Hope you like talking to strangers."
"Well," Seiko says. "I like saying goodbye to them."
"That's the spirit."