Forced Paths

A hand to protect

"We should go back." Neji said for the millionth time in the span of an hour.
Hinata would have smiled at him reassuringly, even if she didn't feel as such, just to calm his nerves. She would have if Neji didn't follow his statement, with another one.
"You haven't thought this through."
He earned a cold stare instead.
"I am certain that I have." She told him.
They had abandoned the horses a few hours back. Traveling by foot would stall them, a precious time might be lost, yet it gave them cover. And she needed that cover now more than anything.
"The Uchihas will think you are a traitor. They will hunt you down." Neji said again.
"It's fine." She said and it really was not. Everything she was trying to build, would shutter instead, if she was unsuccessful.
"They are probably on our trail now. They surely have already informed him. Your husband."
"Good. It means he is alive." She said with her back on Neji. He must have been. He was. He would return.
"Hinata.." Neji tried again and she turned around.
"You said I should flee." She told him.
"You aren't fleeing now. You are going straight to your doom."
"You said you would help me." She shook away the fear. "You promised you would. Is this another one of your promises that you won't be able to keep?"
It was harsh and Neji was still here. Accompanying her to her silly plan, to her death. But she needed encouragement, support, she needed Neji to tell her that she had a chance.
"I'm sorry." He said and the words were foreign in his mouth. "I should have acted sooner. Before all this."
She softened.
"You are now."
"No." He said and his face was cold again. A Hyuga. "No. I didn't tell you all these so you walk back there. Turn around. Go back. Tell them I tricked you." He said and his face was Neji at the age of twelve, tending the wounds at her back.
"Trust me Neji. That is all I am asking." She said quietly.
"I do trust you. I think you are..."
"You don't." She smiled, a faint and sad smile. "You don't and I need you to."
"Does he trust you? When all this is over, will he trust you?" He asked and it was an absurd question. Perhaps it was to ensure her safety after.
"He does." She said to ease the frown on his face.
"So why are you here? And not with him at the battle?"
Because Sasuke needed someone trustworthy to stay behind. Someone he could trust to pull the strings, make choices, someone who could fight if it came to it.
"Because he is scared." She said instead. It was the most truthful one.
"So he can be scared and I can't?" Neji asked, hurt, angry.
Then he shook his head, before Hinata could answer.
"You should have fled." He said and walked bypassing her.

_____

"You haven't thought this through." He said as the sun started disappearing from the sky.
"It was a rush decision. We were taught not to take decisions as such. That is what makes us strong. That is how your father will win."
She let him have his lectures. Frequent and different every time. She let him, because he didn't have any other way to express his worry. She let him, because they moved towards their destination and he was not stopping her.
He was partially right. Hinata knew. She hasn't given much thought to it, before she proposed her plan to her cousin.
And he was mainly wrong. When she had first thought about it, it wasn't a plan, just a fleeting feeling, that came again and again after that.
Observing the wrongs, staying behind, not owing a decision she had made many, many months before, was never an option. If she hadn't agreed to marry Sasuke, if she had let Hanabi leave, if she had stayed.
She was expecting her sister to act in the way she would have acted in her place. She was expecting to fix the wrongs, that Hinata thought needed fixing, she had placed her fate in someone else's hands.
"Yes. It's not the Hyuga way." She responded to Neji, to herself.
She got up. Resting for long wasn't an option. Sasuke was in danger.
"Hinata-sama.." Neji said and she prepared for another lecture. "Win." He said and even if his face didn't reveal anything, Hinata thought he was pleading.

____

The rest of the road was quiet. Neji frowned, halted sometimes and then he began again. Hinata didn't stop. She didn't wavered. It was not the time for that. Perhaps afterwards, she would regret it. Perhaps in the aftermath of her actions it would be another wrong decision.
Yet now, Hiashi Hyuga had wrapped everything around his fingers in one move.
Perhaps it needed one more to change that.
The weather was chilly when the first trees appeared. The night before she wondered how much had passed since the last night she had felt cold.
The Uchiha grounds were hot, radiant, restless. Like their people. Like him.
She couldn't say, she didn't like her land. The land here, that was never hers. As she walked further and the trees piled one next to another, she wished she could have shown him that. The evergreen and the water. The sparkling snow in the winter. She wished, she had given the chance to see them, to appreciate their beauty more than a hasty look before her training, a night wonder after the lesson Ko gave her.
She cried when Ko had died. Silent tears, hasty in the late night, covered, alone. He was nice to her, decent, he wasn't yelling, only disapproving a few times.
She smiled. How low her expectations had been.
"This is your last chance." Neji spoke.
"The land, our land could have been beautiful, don't you think?" Hinata asked instead.
Neji's white eyes turned to her.
"Will you make it beautiful Neji?"
It seemed as he would raise his hand, even his forehead relaxed.
He stayed silent for a moment, still.
"I promise." He said eventually.
"Good." Hinata nodded and hid with her palm the sun that blocked her view.
The compound appeared in the distance.