Author's Note: This is my request response for the prompt "links". As requested, the story is in present-tense, has a conversational tone, is Hinata-centric "with a bit of Hinata/Neji", mentions Madara and his death, includes Hanabi/Sasuke, and has a "bittersweet flavor"... I think. The last may be rather subjective.
I have also changed "Mandara" to "Madara", as "Random Person" brought it to my attention that I have spelled Madara's name incorrectly all the way from the Author's Note to the last word in the story. Thank you, Random Person.
Links
Links, Hinata knows, can be blood, physical, or imaginary, but especially blood. They ring harmoniously when struck, if they are true, and, when true, they hold people together. She does not want them to ever be sundered.
She is three and attending the Festival of Lights along with the Hyuuga clan and their relatives/rivals, the Uchiha clan. Her cousin, Neji, has accompanied her to meander through the colors cast by lanterns which hang so very high above their heads. Behind them, unbeknownst to Hinata, is an older Hyuuga, because even if Neji is Hinata's protector, he is only four years of age.
Uchiha Sasuke is peeks at the cousins from behind a nearby tree. Hinata suddenly remembers what she was told earlier about their shared blood. At three, Hinata already knows that blood is a very important way of linking people. Hyuuga is undeniably a very large family, so it is not impossible that for a few, blood is all that links them back to their origins. Sasuke is linked to her with a bond that cannot be undone.
"Blood is everything, is it not?"
She moves to him and offers him her chubby hand and a cherubic smile. Neji narrows his eyes at the younger boy, yet cannot help but smirk at his young charge. She is his, even if she is inviting others into her family.
Three children continue through the festival, fingers interlinked.
When Hinata is six, the Festival of Lights returns.
Seeds which she dared to plant under the scorching sun of politics have begun to show their growth. Neji's has begun to wither, but Sasuke's is green and thriving. It is a grey morning when she realizes that not everything is as it should be. Links of blood should have been for life, but Neji is so much closer and he has lost her. Fortunately, Sasuke still remains.
With a smile, the young Uchiha curiously regards Hanabi, a baby of one year. She is small, but her demeanor is already strong. Hanabi's white eyes are covered and uncovered as she blinks at the Uchiha, and she seems coolly superior. It contrasts Sasuke's eager eyes. Hinata wonders if she can ease them together. From her lessons in science, she knows that it is not necessary to touch to collide. Still, she is six, and she must know. She leans over, feeling strangely… curious as he stiffens.
They have collided.
Then, she kisses him on the cheek, seizing her moment of courage, and realizes that for a moment, she loves him. He is not hers, but she is linking him to someone else.
He blushes faintly, but grins madly. All the same, his dark eyes dart around to make sure that no one as seen. After all, this is the Hyuuga heir he is with.
Neither of them notice anyone watching, so they resume their companionship.
They do not see Neji, supremely disaffected and seven years old, frown as he notes what his cousin is doing. He does not care for her, but he is her cousin and Protector, even if he never requested the duty. Her act is inappropriate for a future leader, but excusable because of her age. Still, he feels very uncomfortable watching, so he turns away. Instead of focusing on what has just happened, he remembers when his cousin kissed him once, three years ago.
But none of the children-- not Hinata, Sasuke, or Neji-- see Itachi impassively watch them the rest of the night.
"And it begins…"
She is fifteen.
This is the third Festival of Lights Sasuke has not attended.
She breathes slowly. It should be a breath full of promises directed softly against his ear, but he is not present. Instead, she thinks to herself, "I loved you that moment. Fortunately, emotions and feelings are fickle." This same change let her shift her affections to one Uzumaki Naruto for a few years, but her thoughts have returned back to true links. Neji. Sasuke. Blood.
Neji has since returned to her, taking his place as Protector. It is a difficult life, to be devoted to one person for as long as he lives. He accepts it, but gives no hint of his true feelings. There is only a lingering fondness which somehow made its way through their conflicts earlier in life. He will always be linked to her in every way possible. To everyone else, he must never love, he must never honor, he must never feel-- all of those are reserved for her. She returns it all, because she would feel guilty only taking without giving.
She should be happy that one link has found itself mended, but, at the same time, another has broken. Sasuke is still gone. He just killed Orochimaru, according to local gossip, and is on his way to find his brother. Hinata wonders briefly if the sounds in his new village had been too inharmonic when the notes rang. Despite all he has done, the Hyuuga clan is Sasuke's closest family besides Uchiha Itachi. Most of the Hyuuga choose to forget this, because the Uchiha clan was formed by a betrayal, but Hinata wants to see past old wrongs. Sins of the father rebound on the son, but Sasuke is a great many generations away from the first of the Uchiha family.
Hinata stares desperately at the darkening sky, barely noticing Neji appear beside her. He offers her an arm, because his body also belongs to her. She accepts it with a false, forced calm as she regulates her breathing. This is her strongest link at the moment. Although she rests silently against her Protector, she does not sleep. She keeps one eye on the sky. The other watches him, its gaze saturated in apprehension and doubt, because this link may also weaken once more and sunder. Layers of past deeds and occurrences weigh heavily against their souls.
Her small mouth is almost his clothed arm. She is close enough to kiss him, but she does not. At fifteen, she knows better than to give away kisses like flowers, so she simply waits for the morning to come.
Hinata closes her eyes and wonders if things will stop.
This is the seventh Festival of Light she has attended.
She is twenty-one and feels very old, despite her apparent youth. Her position is as the Head of the Hyuuga Clan. The last head, Hyuuga Hiashi, her father, died when Akatsuki attacked Konoha. Her first act as clan head was controversial: to protect her clan, her links, she bargained with Uchiha Madara. He had wanted to eliminate the Uchiha clan to lower the likelihood of his secrets from ever being duplicated or discovered, but she tells him that Hyuuga is not Uchiha. He told her finally that he would let the Hyuuga be for now, but that the head and all the council must take an oath of fealty.
From the Hyuuga Council, three out of twelve die from not being sincere in their professions of faith.
Hanabi, sixteen, is being molded to become the next heir should Hinata meet her end unexpectedly. There is no cursed seal to mar the younger's forehead yet, because Hinata is confident that Hanabi has no plots to take over the clan by eliminating the current head. This decision to keep her sister as heir rather than bearing her own is one of the few the rest of clan does not disagree with, because Hanabi is everything Hinata never was. Hinata bends and bends to try and retain whatever remains of old links. Hanabi will also do many things to keep her clan alive, but the younger will sever anything she does not need.
Neji silently gathers her into his arms. He chases away any hounds who might dare to bother her. He has abandoned any ill-will towards her, because his age has taught him the foolishness of such things. He has thrown down his bloodied wings for her to rend as she wishes, but she always chooses not to. Loyalty cannot be measured by words, so she does not speak. So much has been given and offered that there is nothing more she can want from him. She is satisfied with their link as far as it may be.
And Sasuke? Sasuke is still on the run, biding his time before he confronts Uchiha Madara.
"This is life, is it?"
It is the tenth Festival of Lights.
Sasuke appears at the Hyuuga Complex and demands Hinata's attention-- in the middle of the festival! She hurries back when the name, whispered, is brought to her. He is one of the few still alive from her time. Yes, he has made many mistakes, but he is still blood. Some links remain through everything else, and this one has returned to temper itself against the cries of blood, which endures through all the war and death.
He demands a bride from their family to heighten the possibilities of his children having strong Sharingans and cooperation in eliminating Uchiha Madara. Hinata turns away, her oath keeping her from speaking on the latter, though she does agree to giving him a bride.
Who?
"You," he suggests at first.
She hesitates just long enough. Hinata has been prepared to wed whomever can politically strengthen her clan, because her clan is strong enough in other ways, but she suddenly finds herself unable to agree. Old habits she thought long gone return as her breathing quickens and she glances almost nervously at her cousin and Protector, Neji, who shifts almost imperceptibly. He thought himself prepared, too, but the moment is upon them, and neither can speak. Neither of them move, but both the Head and her Protector's circular vision are focused on each other. They whisper to each other without audible words in those moments.
"Are you prepared…"
"…to abandon me?"
Sasuke notices. The Uchiha seems as though he expected it by his wry attempt at a smile. "Or Hanabi," he ends. He will settle only for one of the sisters, because to accept anything less will be showing himself as politically weak.
"She is my heir," protests Hinata weakly, but she can already feel Hanabi slipping away. The Sharingan overrides everything else with its dominant gene. Hinata feels that the touch she gave to prompt collision so many years ago has finally forced Sasuke to collide with Hanabi. Is this her fault?
Hanabi, too, has been prepared to give away her marriage in exchange for an alliance, but she finds herself nervous suddenly. She is only twenty-five, and the life of the shinobi is often too short for anything other than what they do. Tentative shadows come as darkness calls for them, and she watches the sun shift itself out of view. A minute passes in silence. Hanabi stops any further words by accepting her suitor.
Sasuke wants to be wed immediately, and he will go after Madara tomorrow. Hinata, bound by her oath of fealty, cannot bind the two, so Neji does it. The Hyuuga Head excuses herself from the ceremony, because she will die if she witnesses it and lets it be. This necessary act to keep her life makes her feel sad as she watches Hanabi and Sasuke's shadows disappear from the entryway of her Audience Chamber. She should have seen it. Then, the matter strikes her with the full implications:
They are bound.
Hanabi is gone.
Neji stands outside Hinata's sliding paper door until she goes to sleep that night. His presence is comforting, but there are small things which bother her, such as a scent of smoke in the air, a glimpse of a shadow disappearing, and, most disturbingly, a feeling of unraveling. If she could, Hinata would weave every link she possesses and send them forth to bind all her kin together-- but she cannot. She is bound by oath and agreement. Instead, she closes her eyes, just as she did fifteen years ago, and rests without sleeping.
When Neji enters and strokes her hair very gently before retiring himself, she feels it. Bitterly, she imagines that they are both merely drops of dew on a leaf, waiting to fall. It is not a kind comparison, so a tear escapes closed eye. Her cousin brushes it away with a callused thumb, and Hinata cannot help but cry. The cry of cicadas begins only now, but they sing on until morning. The night is spent with him comforting her as though she is once again a frightened child. She is no longer a child, but she is frightened. There are words which want to be said before their inevitable death, but she cannot bear to speak them. A last wish seeps through what is left of her, but it is low and indistinct against the cicadas' cries outside.
He watches her with steady eyes, understanding what he cannot hear.
Some links are steel and some links are imagined, but the strongest and most enduring are made of blood. This link had to wait until it was torn, scattered, and put together again, but it has endured all that to be as it is now. Their link rings softly now, like a cat's paw striking the ground, but it is treasured and beautiful.
The morning after the wedding, Madara laughs when the Hyuuga's head meets him. Hinata is nervous, but controls any signs which might betray what she has permitted to occur. He tells her that he knows everything, though he does not specify what "everything" is. A hand moves down to give a disconcerting pat on her stomach, and he leaves to be killed by Sasuke, who becomes the very last of the Uchiha clan.
A month later, Hinata has a virgin birth, and the child has dark eyes.
As per her oath, she names him Madara.