Hyuga Hiashi was swamped.
Becoming a branch captain and fully running a department demanded far more energy than he'd anticipated.
Handling the Venue District's sudden surge of visitors with just one branch was impossible; he'd been forced to request reinforcements from the Village.
Headquarters sent no additional staff—only reprimands—so, in the end, the Village reassigned Ninja Academy students and shinobi from other departments to help.
"No tourists are allowed to climb to high places."
Despite that rule, plenty of people, shouting "Refund!" or some ninja's name, kept trying to jump down, creating more work for the cleaning crews.
So the security arrangement wasn't aimed at enemy infiltrators; it was aimed at sore losers.
"Keep visitors away from the zones where each village's ninja are stationed. One warning. If they don't listen, knock them out and drag them off. The stubborn ones go straight to the holding cells."
Hiashi had never been talkative, yet in this position he found himself repeating such tedious but essential orders every day. Once the squad leaders received their instructions and filed out, the command room fell back into silence.
He glanced at the wall clock. There was still some time before his patrol.
Turning away, he pushed open an inner door.
Beyond it stretched a spacious training hall. In the center, two small figures were practicing basic taijutsu.
The moment Hiashi stepped inside, both froze.
"Father."
Their voices overlapped—the elder sister's soft, the younger's clear and bright.
Hiashi didn't respond. He simply walked to the edge of the room and took up a position with his back against the wall.
"Begin."
At his word, Hinata and Hanabi faced each other, both settling into the Gentle Fist opening stance.
Hanabi, not yet even two years old, sprang forward the instant he spoke.
Dropping her center of gravity and darting in, her tiny body suddenly exploded with speed that belied her size. Fingers straight like a blade, she drove a thrust toward Hinata's ribs.
Hinata stepped back half a pace and raised her arm to parry. Her posture was textbook, but she softened the motion at the very end, her palm merely brushing against Hanabi's wrist.
Thrown slightly off balance, Hanabi staggered half a step, then twisted her waist and slashed her left palm toward Hinata's neck.
Blocked again.
After three or four exchanges, it was obvious the elder sister was pulling her blows. Strikes that should have landed turned into light pushes or harmless deflections.
Hanabi's attacks only grew sharper. Her gentle fist combinations began to link together—footwork and palm strikes gaining rhythm, speed, and precision.
For a child just over two years old, she was visibly learning with every clash.
Hinata's responses grew more and more strained.
It wasn't that she couldn't keep up—Hiashi could see that clearly.
Her problem was that every counter was too soft.
Eventually, Hanabi's stamina started to flag and her movements slowed.
"Stop," Hiashi ordered.
Both girls straightened. Hanabi panted heavily, her small face flushed, sweat beading on her forehead, yet when she lifted her head she wore a pure, radiant smile. Her clear Byakugan eyes shone as she looked straight at her sister.
Hinata couldn't help but smile back, the corners of her mouth just starting to curve—until Hiashi approached. She jumped slightly and quickly clasped her hands in front of her.
"Hanabi."
The little girl turned to her father at once.
"Your stamina control is off. During your third rush, your breathing went out of rhythm, yet you kept forcing the assault.
"At times like that, you should ease off and reset."
"Yes, Father!" Hanabi replied loudly, her voice still bubbling with excitement.
Hiashi's gaze shifted to Hinata.
His eldest stood with her head bowed, neck bent in meek submission, hands opening and closing nervously at her sides.
No comment, no instruction—Hiashi said nothing.
Just as the heavy silence was about to solidify, the veins at his temples bulged.
The world of the Byakugan unfolded; his vision slipped through walls and floors, "watching" the squad that had just entered through the branch building's main gate.
The bulging veins around his eyes faded as Hiashi released the technique. He turned and slid open the training hall door.
"Take a break."
The moment the door closed behind him, he heard Hanabi pounce on her sister, her childish voice ringing out: "Onee-sama, you were amazing!"
Hiashi did not look back.
Behind him, faintly, came Hinata's soft replies and Hanabi's nonstop questions.
By the time he reached the ground floor, the lobby had come fully into view.
Two groups faced each other in sharp contrast. The branch personnel wore dark-blue uniforms with the Konoha crest on their shoulders.
The four newcomers wore headquarters vests, the Uchiha fan emblazoned on their sleeves.
"Captain."
As Hiashi stepped off the last stair, someone from the branch side called out to him.
Three Uchiha Police Force officers from headquarters stood with cold smiles; at their head, Fugaku walked toward Hiashi.
"Captain." Hiashi gave him a slight nod of greeting.
Uchiha Fugaku returned the nod, then said over his shoulder, "Yashiro, stay here. I need to speak with Hiashi."
"Yes, captain!"
Fugaku headed upstairs; Hiashi followed a few steps behind, silent.
——
After the match, Uchiha Izumi had joined Roshi's little group for some team-building.
Beside the taiyaki stand, Roshi, Anko, and Itachi each held a cup of tea.
"Too sweet." Roshi chased bites of taiyaki with sips of tea to wash down the sugar.
"Desserts are supposed to be sweet, Roshi." Anko narrowed her eyes in bliss—sweets and tea, the height of happiness. "Right, Izumi?"
Izumi, nibbling her taiyaki beside Itachi, smiled and nodded.
Itachi stayed quiet, simply cradling his teacup.
Until an Anbu in an animal mask slipped to Roshi's side and murmured a few words.
"Captain." Itachi immediately started to rise.
"I'll take care of it." Roshi motioned for him to sit back down.
Roshi more or less knew why Fugaku had gone to the branch, but to pick this timing and this method—he really knows how to cause trouble for me.
——
"The patrol gaps here are huge—big enough to hide a whole squad. Is this really how the branch deploys its forces?"
Uchiha Inabi tapped the duty chart. His tone wasn't outright harsh, but the branch shinobi beside him had gone tight-faced and grim.
Uchiha Tetsuki stood nearby, arms folded, watching coldly. Uchiha Yashiro's face was blank as his gaze swept over each branch member in turn.
Just then, measured footsteps came from the entrance.
The rhythm was ordinary, even casual.
Inabi turned instinctively, finger still hovering over the deployment map.
When he saw who it was, that raised finger dropped naturally to his side.
His previously slouched, overbearing stance straightened in an instant.
Beside him, Uchiha Tetsuki and Uchiha Yashiro snapped to attention, eyes fixing on the doorway.
"Discussing patrols?" the newcomer asked.
"Lord Roshi." Yashiro answered respectfully. "Yes. The branch requested reinforcements recently, so the captain brought us to inspect and offer guidance."
Roshi nodded. "Since you've already found the gaps, take some people and fill them."
"Uh… but…"
Yashiro hesitated. "The captain is still…"
"Need a formal written order?" Roshi asked, giving Yashiro a sidelong look.
"N-no. We'll move out at once." Fugaku's aide, meeting that unreadable gaze, finally backed down.
Since the branch office had been established, this was Fugaku's first time setting foot inside.
He hadn't been able to prevent the branch from being created, but he also couldn't openly support it.
Letting the two sides stay separate, each minding its own affairs, had seemed acceptable.
He had originally intended to let the situation cool off like that.
"Next month, the Five Kage Summit will be held outside the Venue District—you already know that, Hiashi." Fugaku's gaze swept over the patrol charts and the branch personnel list posted on the command room wall.
"Yes, Captain," Hiashi replied, already trying to guess why Fugaku had come in person.
Is headquarters joining the security detail? But if it were just that, would he really make the trip himself and bring people all the way to the branch office?
So, was he here to wrest control of the follow-up work and reinforce headquarters' authority over the branch?
Hiashi had no intention of competing on that front. It was enough to maintain the real power already in his hands—and protect what the Hyūga clan and the branch had secured.
If headquarters wanted the title, they could have it.
Given the current state of the Venue District, the branch still had tremendous room to grow; there was no need to clash with headquarters over it now.
That was why he had taken a modest posture from the moment they met downstairs.
"The Village has requested Headquarters to take part as well," Fugaku said.
Hiashi answered without hesitation. "I will order branch personnel to cooperate with all headquarters operations and directives during the mission."
Fugaku studied Hiashi. The man had already said everything that needed saying. Fugaku had originally planned to use work arrangements as an excuse to bring up the relationship between headquarters and the branch.
Just then, noise drifted up from below—Inabi was nit-picking the branch's work.
Hiashi's expression remained unchanged. Fugaku's brows drew together almost imperceptibly, but after a brief consideration, he chose not to go down and stop it.
At that moment, Fugaku caught another faint sound, this one coming from the adjacent room of the command office.
A child's voice…
"You've set up a practice room next door?" Fugaku asked.
"Yes," Hiashi answered frankly. "There's a similar training area downstairs. With the Venue District so busy lately, I can't leave my post for long, so I brought my daughter to keep her training under supervision."
'Training a successor, is it…? How does the village—that person—view Itachi? And why does he treat Sasuke so differently… '"
Your daughter, Hinata, correct? She's in the same class as my second son, Sasuke. She…" Hoping to ease the atmosphere, Fugaku tried to make small talk about their children.
But no matter how he searched his memory, he couldn't find anything to say in evaluation. Sasuke was always at the top of the class, and Fugaku rarely paid attention to the other students. He realized he knew almost nothing about the Hyūga heiress.
"She must… be an outstanding child too." In the end, he settled on the safest, most courteous line.
The corners of Hiashi's mouth tightened for an instant. "No, Hinata is only an ordinary child; she can't compare with the captain's two sons."
The Hyūga had yet to formally change heirs, so Hiashi still left his eldest daughter a measure of dignity before Fugaku—unlike in the original story, when he had called her worthless to Kurenai without hesitation.
Though Fugaku privately agreed with Hiashi's self-assessment, he still replied with polite modesty. "They still have a lot of room to improve, and many flaws."
Hiashi answered with a few more compliments of his own. Then black eyes and white eyes met, holding each other in silent scrutiny; neither man spoke further.
For a while, the clamor from downstairs and the faint movements in the next room seemed to swell, filling the silence of the command office.
Until, all at once, the noise below abruptly cut off.
Fugaku's eyes flickered. He had a good idea who had arrived.
"The Uchiha have another objective," he said quietly—half to himself, and half to Hiashi.
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