Title: Heir
Characters: Inoichi, Ino
Summary: The elders and Inoichi don't see eye to eye on Ino as the clan heir.
Requested theme: Him raising a girl clan heir
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto does I just like to play with his characters because they're fun.
Dedicated to: PenumbraChey in thanks for the points on dA
A/N: Chisaki - the name I chose for Ino's mother - means 'A thousand blossoms' and I thought it was rather apt given the flower shop. Also I took the basic idea of this from a one sentence fic I wrote and always wanted to expand on.

Some of the elders had doubted him.

They had tried more than once over the years to encourage him to start dating again. They had pushed their daughters and grand-daughters at him in the hope he would show interest.

He didn't.

It wasn't out of spite towards them. Inoichi understood their position and even their reasoning. He didn't agree with it, but he understood it. His lack of interest was, however, exactly that. There was simply no woman that would ever come close to replacing his dead wife.

Inoichi worried at times that Ino's priorities weren't always as they should be. It bothered him that she let outward appearances weigh so heavily in her opinions of those around her. He didn't approve of the way she mooned over the Uchiha boy or that she'd let it come between her and Sakura-chan's friendship. Inoichi understood that she had to grow up and that she had both strengths and weaknesses. He was her father, he knew how frustrating, willful, and young she was.

Despite her faults and the things he wished that he could change he never once wished that she was a boy or that he had another child. She was his and he loved her, but more importantly he believed in her.

The elders could doubt all that they wanted. They would never see Ino as anything more than the things she wanted them to see.

Ino would never let them see her, not willingly.

Perhaps it was for the best, but it was a shame because it meant that they missed all of the most wonderful parts that made her so incredibly beautiful. They didn't get to see the tears fall from her eyes when Chouji was released from the hospital after the first time he pushed himself too hard. They missed pride that radiated from her when Shikamaru was promoted to chuunin or when she had swept into the flower shop full of fierce joy, the day that she and Chouji received their own chuunin vests. It was their own fault that they didn't know that how fiercely she fought with Sakura had everything to do with how much she loved her one-time best friend. If the elders didn't recognize that her greatest strength wasn't her bloodline talents, but her refusal to give up; there was nothing that Inoichi could do to change that.

Inoichi never said anything to the elders when they made suggestions that he remarry and have more children. He never bothered to explain to them that as head of T&I he knew that they always hoped he would have a boy so that they could name him the heir. It was pointless to try to reason with them when most of them were nearly as stubborn as his late wife, though not even half as stubborn as his teenage daughter. Eventually he hoped that they would see that she was a beautiful flower with roots deeper and broader than any tree.

The war was coming and she and the younger generation would prove themselves, he had no doubt of that. He hoped that the elders were all around to see it when she did. Inoichi wanted them to see that a girl was just as strong and capable as a boy. It was important to him that they see that Ino, while still too young to lead the clan, would someday. When she did, they would be surprised at how she surpassed all of them, like the rest of her generation was prone to doing.