(no subject)
The boys watched their father speak to a tired jounin. The men stand in the doorway, against a violent glare of sunlight, and so it was hard to see anything but the outline of their profiles, and their father’s eyes under his knitted brow.
From the hallway, the younger son made a face. "What do you suppose that old man is up to?" He asked his brother, standing opposite from him, trying to look as though he wasn’t interested himself.
"I don’t know," Hiashi said, frowning deeply. "And don’t speak of him that way."
Hizashi scoffed. "Why not?"
Hiashi stared. "He is our /father/…" he began, almost amazed.
"He is /your/ father maybe--"
"Yours as well!"
"Remind him of that, some time," Hizashi said cooly, sliding his legs out and letting his back rest more comfortably against the wall. "I’d like to see how he takes it."
"Well. Even…" Hiashi huffed. "Even so." He turned his eyes back to the doors, setting his jaw stubbornly. "He is the clan head."
To that, his brother nodded. "…Yes," he murmured darkly. "He is that, too." They lapsed into silence..
Their father was an imposing man, enough so that even the jounin, probably fresh out of the fighting, looked a little shaken by him. It made sense, of course. Their father was every bit built for battle, a tall, severe looking man who had never stood idly by while his clan was at war. Six years ago, when the enemy breached the walls--made it to their very gates-- he had gone out himself, no attendants by his side, and laid waste to their ranks, all on his own. Hiashi had seen him kill a man then, and his father hadn’t even needed to touch him, just the barest strafe of his hand had been enough.
"It’s probably just news from the front," Hiashi said as their father turned away and the jounin stood-shakily. It was the first time they were able to see the ninja was injured, a mass of bandages covering one eye. "Father’s been keeping on top of it lately."
Hizashi glanced up. "Why?"
"I thought I already answered that," Hiashi snapped. "I don’t-"
The sound of a cane wrapping against the floorboards had his immediate attention. Their father was looking their way. "Hiashi." He never needed raise his voice in his own house. The halls carried it naturally. "Come with me."
Hiashi nodded quickly. "Yes, father. Of course," he said, and fell obediently into step behind him as he passed. Their father didn’t look at Hizashi, leaned up against the wall at his other side. The boy bowed respectfully all the same, and his eyes caught his brother’s in his departure as though to say ‘see?’
Rumor had it, as rumor always did in their house, that when his sons were born, the clan head had torn them from his dying wife’s body himself. Hiashi doubted that was what had actually happened-the truth, as it was told was that he’d returned home that night too late, just too late, for any sort of action at all-but even Hiashi had to admit, watching the man’s back, that it /did/ seem like something he would do.