Hinata should have gotten the Juinjutsu and been placed at the Secondary Branch Family during the Time skip, HEAR ME OUT ABOUT IT!
This is gonna be a long post and practically a rewrite of her whole story, but please stay with me!
Also forgive my bad English
So, Hinata cannon backstory is:
First born to Hiashi and Hyuga lady with no name
Kidnapped by the Cloud village when she was young, dad killed the guy, guy was from Cloud Village, Cloud village wants war against leaf and ask for Hiashi in return, Hizashi goes instead, Neji goes orphan. Because we learn about this from Neji's backstory we don't really know the details from her perspective.
Idk if it's after the kidnapping or before, but when she's really young she gets bullied because of how her eyes look and Naruto saves her, but they don't get to talk to each other bc a Hyuga appears and tell Hinata to not get involved with that boy. But this is the cannon explanation to why Hinata gets obsessed with Naruto — if you counting Naruto: The Last as cannon.
Hiashi starts believing Hinata isn't suited to be the Clan heir, since she can't compare to Neji or Hanabi (her younger sister)
When Hinata graduates from the Academy Kurenai goes to the Hyuga clan to ask Hiashi for permission to take her, since Hinata is the clan Heir and she could die during missions with her team. Hiashi couldn't be less bothered by it:
It's almost like he wishes she would die so the path is clear for Hanabi to take up the Clan.
A few observations about all that:
Because Hiashi and Hizashi are twins and Hizashi is in the Secondary Branch Family we can assume that the Main Branch Family is only formed by:
The clan leader
Their first born child
That's it. If Hiashi father/mother or grandfather/grandmother (whoever was the leader before him) is alive they would also be in the Main Branch, but besides that — Cousins, aunties and uncles, whatever — everyone else gets the selling mark on their forehead.
Which means Hanabi should get one, just like Hizashi did, but if we look at Hanabi in this scene
She looks about the same age Neji was when he got his mark, maybe just a year or two younger
But very close to Neji's age. Yet, by the time of Shippuden the little we see about her she's definitely do not have the sealing mark. At least no one mentions it.
I really think they were delaying giving Hanabi a mark so either Hinata dies in a mission or (maybe! Just maybe!) Hinata actually grows into someone that can fit the role of Clan Leader one day. We will talk about this later.
Another thing is that scene where Hizashi looks at Hinata training with her father and gets "Blood lusted"
Hinata is struggling during that training and we are kinda lead to believe Hizashi wants to kill her, that he's envy that that weak child gets something his son will never have that being "freedom" — at least that's the point we get from Hiashi that quickly subjugate his brother and tells him to stop with the foolishness.
But I read this a little different, I think Hizashi actually wanted to murder Hiashi in this scene. Probably because he's seen their children being forged in this fucked up system that ended their brotherhood. That would make more sense to why he sacrificed himself for Hinata later, and he explicitly says this isn't for Hiashi. I like to think he was somehow trusting the future to both Hinata and Neji, hoping that Neji could learn to make decisions for himself despise being told that the main family controls him (he chooses to save Hinata himself) and that Hinata (and maybe Hiashi) would see his sacrificed and rethink the clans structures.
Again, he see this story from Neji and Hiashi's perspective, but never from Hinata's. Maybe her and her uncle got a few seconds before he go, maybe he saw him smile to her and maybe she wondered all her life why he did it. (But that's just me dreaming about the characters)
Because we know Hinata hates herself
Neji says she hates herself for being weak, maybe this is related to the kidnapping. Maybe she thought this would never happen to Neji, who did so well in training, and that if she didn't get kidnapped her uncle wouldn't have died.
I also want to address that her being bullied because of her eyes and Naruto saving her is dumb as shit!
Before Naruto: The Last the cannon version of how Hinata start observing Naruto is that she just saw him training one day. Despise being told he's weak, and despise everyone hating him, he kept training everyday and she got inspired by it. Maybe because people were telling how weak she was and because Neji hated her so much?!!!! I mean, I know it's not the same thing, Hinata saw that guy that was dealing with similar stuff that she was but kept going anyway, and she wanted to cheer for him and to do that stuff herself. This was perfect and did not need changing
Also, why those kids would make fun of her eyes? There's Hyugas every where in Konoha, people know them to be a powerful clan! I'm sure people tell their kids not to mess with the clan brats, especially the clan heirs, and even if they didn't:
Hinata could dogged attacks from background characters, just because she's struggling with training against NEJI doesn't mean she's weak, or at least not THAT WEAK.
She literally had a Hyuga accompany at all times and they had to make so her body guard left her for a few seconds just so we could get a scene of Naruto saving her.
Her being inspired by Naruto and seeking training for herself instead of being saved by him gives her agency on her own story and they should not retcon that!
Last but not least, I think her mother should have been one of the people that died trying to prevent her from being taken by the Cloud, just because it's adds up to her feeling weak.
Also having her mother dying could make her grow more protective of Hanabi and Neji and more drawned in guilt, which we love bc we all masochists. Hanabi probably was just a baby when it happened, and they all lost their parents BECAUSE OF HER (in her mind), so she constantly feels she's not good enough and that she's bringing harm to her family and her clan from not being strong enough.
Also have her being way stronger by the time of the Chunin Exams.
By that point, after looking at Naruto and starting training by herself to get stronger, despite hearing she could not change, she had time to grow. She been on missions with Kurenai, Shino, Kiba and Akamaru, and guess what? She didn't died on those!
We know Kakashi send his rookie gennin to the chunnin exams because he's fuckin crazy and that's him forcing the kids to grow from extreme situations, but can you really imagine Kurenai and Asuma sending their gennin in if they didn't prove themselves? Team 7 is a mess, but that doesn't mean team 8 is the same. I genuinely think Kurenai look at her kids and thought "They got it!", maybe Hinata needs to work on her confidence, but they strong enough. At the very least she thought they wouldn't die!
So I think Neji vs Hinata should be a more balanced fight from the moment Naruto cheers Hinata up and she finally decides to take this seriously, she should at least have gotten an heavy blow on Neji. Just one would be fine really, she needed to lose that fight but I wish he could see that she isn't as weak as everyone else (including herself) thinks her to be.
Also she hesitates a lot to get into this fight, and if we make so her mother and Hizashi both die during the Cloud kidnapping that would make it more interesting, because she would hesitate because just because she thinks she's weak, but also because she thinks she brought enough harm to Neji already, she doesn't want to fight him or Hanabi even tho everyone keeps forcing her to do so. And if she has to give up the fight and let him continue so be it, what's the point if everyone already knows she's weaker than him anyway? It's a subtle different, but I think that worrying about Neji welfare more than being just scared for herself suits her character very well and makes her more complex. Also when Naruto screams "What are you doing?!" And she finally locks in and decided to defy her destiny she would be at the same time chosing to define herself for the first time and let all her hard work to pay off, but also she would forgive herself for what happened and choose to move on even if Neji can't forgive her right now. I just think it would make the moment more powerful.
So what happens after her fight with Neji?
Well she gets to talk to Naruto, their first real conversation, and it's really sweet.
And when Naruto vs Neji happens we see that Hiashi is watching the fight if Hanabi and Hinata is watching from another place, very far away from them.
I think Hiashi would be ashamed she didn't make it to the tournament in the chunnin exams and that's why she's allowed to be next to them.
Fight is over and Naruto promises to himself to change the Hyugas one day — that never happens by the way.
Then Hiashi drops everything to go have that conversation with Neji after he lost to Naruto and right after it the village is attacked. Idk what Hiashi was doing during Orochimaru's Attack, but the kids (Hinata, Neji, and Hanabi) most likely got dropped unconscious with the genjutsu.
Invasion of the village happens and we don't see ANYTHING from Hinata until Shippuden. She isn't in the search for Tsunade arc, nor the Sasuke retrieval arc, and I guess we see her watching Naruto from afar right before he leaves the village with Jiraya.
We know that during the Time skip she became a Chunnin and that she and Neji started training together again, but he became a Jounin at the same period and still probably stronger than her. We also know she's already been working on the Twin Lions jutsu in secrecy (I think not even Neji know she is doing it) and in a filler arc she creats one really cool jutsu too.
Funny enough Hiashi only appears after the Pain Arc is over and he doesn't really acknowledges Hinata's role in protecting the village and gives a leading role to Neji during the wars instead. And during the war itself Hiashi figgtes Hizashi because of Endo Tensei thing and Hiashi is like "Our children are fighting side by side like equals, I'm so proud of them!"
WHAT??
First they not fighting like equal, Hiashi put Neji in charge of the Hyuga clan. Second: what happened? You were an asshole a minute ago! When did that changed? If you didn't recognized your daughter after she fighted Pain, when did you?!
So here is my argument:
Clan wants Hiashi to explicitly says which one of his daughter will be the clan's heir because the other one needs to take the mark and they are delaying too much already.
Hinata is still "weak" on their minds, but improving faster than ever — With all the Training she doesn't with Neji.
She's still loses to Hanabi not because she isn't strong enough to do so, but because she's such a gentle soul she doesn't want to hurt her little sister
Either Hiashi pressures Hinata to take a decision or she hears an conversation behind a door — as Hinata tends to do a lot of time — and she decides to take the selling jutsu because she has seen what it does and she doesn't want that for Hanabi.
Naruto comes back to the Leaf and either bc of her hair or because she's hearing her headban in the forehead (minor character design difference) he doesn't notes the selling. No one (Neji or Team 8) tells Naruto about it because it's not really his business right now.
And then Pain invasion arc Happens and Hinata is about to jump to fight Pain, like she does in the original, but let Hiashi be around when it happens, and he tries to stop her using the sealing, but just when he's about to do it Hinata knocks him out — The exact same way Hizashi did back in the Hyuga Affair — and goes anyway.
Also during the Hinata vs Pain fight let her free Naruto before being knocked out, this is THE Hinata fight in the show, let my girl at least accomplishing one objective before dropping "dead".
When she's on the ground Naruto sees the selling on her head for the first time and not only did this girl just "died" trying to save him (he also thinks she's dead in the original) but he's also reminded of the promise he made and it's like "Not only did Jiraya die and I can't win against the guy who killed him, but I also never accomplished a single promise in my life!" And he has one more reason to go crazy.
Also let Sakura save Hinata for real. While Naruto is fighting Pain in nine tails mode she does a jutsu to retrieve Hinata's body from the battlefield and actually shows her giving treatment. Girls have 0 screen time in this series, I swear to God.
Alright so Hinata is alive, she just confesses to Naruto and Everyone now knows she is technically Secondary Branch Family now.
So put a mini arc of the Hyuga clan here!
That would actually help others stories because
Danzo would be Hokage for longer — we could have more of the backstory of the other elders too, and/or the Firelord
We spent more time in the destroyed Konoha, and we could see more of how people are treating Naruto different now, maybe build up how he feels anoyed by it before that scene where his other self tells him how much they always hated Konoha. I mean, it kinda came from nowhere in the original.
It solves the Hyuga problem before the war, so when Hiashi fight Hizashi Endo Tensei and says "Our kids are fighting side by sides like equals" it actually makes sense.
I have a lot of ideas of how that arc could play out, but I just want talk about the set-up for now.
