[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/V0TwtCw.jpg?1[/img]
[h1][b].:[u]Seiji Hyuuga[/u]:.[/b][/h1]
[i]"All ways lead to death.
The way is in death.
Some ways are quicker."[/i][/center]

Away from the classroom and in the hokage's office, Seiji Hyuuga sat in a simple chair behind a simple desk and pored over a crystal ball. In it, images of shinobi, one by one, returning home appeared and disappeared into the next. Everyone was arriving back, as they should. Many of these young ninja would soon be receiving assignment as jounin instructors, leading teams of genin, some of them for the first time. It was the same every year; the jounin would return and receive a summons to his office, where they'd receive their next assignment and a file for each of the newly exalted shinobi. Seiji had, as he had done year after year, read the files and conducted his own examination of the young hopefuls and their prospective instructors. It was his responsibility.

He took a deep breath and relaxed his brow, which had been pulled knit, and allowed his face to stray from the ball to the small tea cup his wife had poured him earlier. In the quiet of his largely bare office, with only the steam of the tea and gentle glow of the crystal ball on his face, he could almost hear the rumble of the children of the academy, the din of the streets farther out, the birds in the trees... and out and out and out. The Byakugan came with it many gifts, not the least of which was an early understanding that even in emptiness, there was so much fullness. The tea was given to him by his wife Haruka and its steam warmed the air, just as the warmth of her still lingered in the room, and he could feel the echoes of her, though she was gone, and the echoes of hokage past, each having left their mark, a reflection of a reflection. Much like this crystal ball left by the Third, they were a window. They hung in the air and followed him, trailing behind as he imagined he in turn trailed behind and would some day echo to someone else.

No more tea.

The Byakugan revealed so much and so did age and so did wisdom and he was wise enough and he had lived long enough to know the difficulty and value in not knowing. He didn't know his son, not as he knew his classmates. He was a subject with which he'd adopted a policy of mystery. Instead, he'd pass duties around him to his most trusted friends. He would, instead, rely on their expertise, would not inquire... His duty as a father demanded his ignorance, lest he bend him. Hiro must be true.

Still, in this instance, he knew much more than he'd have liked. By virtue of knowing everyone else's team, he couldn't help but know Hiro's as well, though he'd no knowledge of who his jounin would be. And yet... he'd know soon enough. Like every other jounin, they would be called into his office and he would hand them their files and then... perhaps he'd know too much. His eyes softened, then flattened, and then his face hardened and he wrapped the crystal ball in soft and dark fabric that protected it from the outside world and the outside world from its vision. This was a difficulty he would have to put out of his mind. Anticipation interfered with the here and now and any jounin may arrive. Seiji clasped his hands and rested his elbows on the desk. 

He was ready.