A Rush of Blood to the Head

It turned out that standing up, speaking out, and fighting back were all well and heroic, but all that was deficient to stand against the unaffected kindness of the little Hyuuga heiress.

A/N: Not really a songfic. I was just listening to Coldplay and thinking about Neji and Hinata one day...

He said I'm going to buy this place and burn it down
I'm going to put it six feet underground
He said I'm going to buy this place and watch it fall
Stand here beside me baby in the crumbling walls
Oh I'm going to buy this place and start a fire
Stand here until I fill all your heart's desires
Because I'm going to buy this place and see it burn
Do back the things it did to you in return

He said I'm going to buy this place and see it go
Stand here beside my baby watch the orange glow
Some'll laugh and some just sit and cry
But you just sit down there and you wonder why
So I'm going to buy a gun and start a war
If you can tell me something worth fighting for
And I'm going to buy this place, that's what I said
Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head

-Coldplay

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Hyuuga Hiashi was furious.

After drilling his three-year-old daughter for hours in his private dojo, after roaring in her face when her focus digressed and she begged him to teach her a little slower, he had, for a moment, felt a tinge of guilt when Hinata looked up at him in that terrible, breathless, quivering way that children look when they're absolutely petrified. Hiashi nearly took responsibility for losing control and being impatient when she did that. In fact, he had nearly gone so far as to admit—to confess to little Hinata—that his masochistic tendencies in regards to her training were derived from the recent deaths of his wife and his twin brother, the branding of his only nephew, and the pressures that came with leading the Hyuuga and being a new father.

But of course he hadn't done that. Hiashi was twenty-four, and hostile when he was stressed. He had gone right on yelling, and Hinata began to cry. So Hiashi—impatient, guilty, stressed, and a little scared himself, struck his daughter across the face and ordered her to stop it.

Hiashi couldn't have had any concept of what he looked like then, glowering down at Hinata, but apparently it had been enough to drive her from the dojo, face flooded with tears. Normally Hiashi wouldn't have accepted that. Children did not turn their backs on fathers when they were being disciplined. Hinata should have known better. But Hiashi's mind was in such disarray at that point that for a long moment, he simply stood—alone in the dojo where he had been abandoned—and breathed. Deeply.

Then, after he gathered his senses, Hiashi settled on what he supposed was an acceptable course of action, and an acceptable state of being.

Hiashi was going to going to discipline his child. He was going to teach her a lesson she would never forget, and he could do it without flinching because he was absolutely furious. It was his right and responsibility as a father, after all.

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Neji was pacing in the courtyard beside his room, studying, when he noticed his door open slightly and close with a click. Instantly defensive, the boy snapped his book shut and bounded back to his room, ready to make trouble for the intruder. Never mind that he didn't really think of that room as his home—situated next to Hinata's in the Main House, it had come with the curse seal on his forehead. Just thinking about that seal made Neji sore. It still stung a little, after all.

But the room was his, when he had few possessions to start with. Those days, Neji's life was full of contradictions. The curse seal and his obligation to his younger cousin fettered him down to a pre-approved existence, and yet the absence of a father—really any archetypal figure at all—made him feel disturbingly brittle at times, like he had no roots.

Those days, Neji was just prone to anger.

Neji entered his room just in time to catch the trapdoor in his ceiling shut. A chair had been dragged beneath it—stacked on top of the chair was a stool. The identity of the intruder was fairly obvious.

Irascible and impatient, Neji climbed atop the makeshift staircase and tore open the attic trapdoor. Glaring accusingly into the darkness of the small storage space, he was met with a pair of large, fearful eyes.

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Hiashi earned many horrified looks as he rushed through the Hyuuga compound, byakugan activated for Hinata. Those that saw him scattered, glared in disapproval, asked him what the matter was and urged him to calm down. An Elder grasped Hiashi's arm as he passed with an extraordinary strength. He demanded to know how the young Head of Hyuuga felt he was entitled to acting like a brute in their household.

Hiashi immediately deactivated his byakugan in respect. But his expression didn't change, and there was no sincere remorse in his voice when he apologized to the Elder. He did, however, acknowledge the fact that his behavior was uncivilized. Heeding the Elder's disapproval, Hiashi tried to rationalize, and contain his anger… or at least channel it more effectively.

"I apologize, Ojii-san."

The Elder nodded, reluctantly releasing his hold. He remained suspicious, however, when Hiashi walked away in the direction of his daughter's room.

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Immediately after Hinata urgently explained to Neji why she needed to hide in his attic, the older child appeared to have no response. Instead, he continued to stand on the stool and stare at the eyes in his ceiling, as if offended by their encroachment on his privacy. Hinata shrank further into the tiny attic, her face invariably reddening.

In reality, Neji was calculating the risks of—and this was only a slight possibility—actually granting Hinata the sanctuary of his room. It wasn't a matter of whether she would be safe there. Neji had no doubt Hiashi would be at his door at any moment, in which case both he and Hinata would be beaten for disobedience…

Disobedience. Defiance. Now that was a savory word.

Neji smiled to reassure his cousin. He liked to imagine that he could lie convincingly through his facial expressions, but Hinata saw the smirk for what it really was, and she did not smile back.

"Don't be afraid, Hinata-sama," Neji told her. "I'm going to protect you." And with that, he shoved the trapdoor closed and leapt down to the floor. The blood was rushing to his head—he was so excited. His life's purpose was to "protect Hinata-sama"—that was what they had meant by branding him with the curse seal, wasn't it?

In a moment of spontaneity, Neji grabbed a pair of oversized goggles from his desk and pulled them over his forehead. That was something he did, sometimes, when he was alone. The goggles were for pretending he was a genin, and for hiding the curse seal. After he was properly equipped, Neji went and stationed himself outside his room, barricading Hinata within.

Hiashi did not expect her daughter to hide in her own room. He gave her that much credit at least. She was a Hyuuga. But she was also three years old.

When Hiashi rounded the corner to the innermost chambers of the Hyuuga compound, he was met with the sight of the little Hyuuga prodigy on the steps in front of his room, arms crossed and glaring, with those heinous goggles strapped to his head. Since Hizashi's death and Neji's branding, Hiashi's relationship with his nephew had become strained, which was certainly understandable. A certain degree of rebellion from the child was to be expected. What caught Hiashi off guard was Neji's blatant intention of disobeying him, and even physically opposing him for the sake of his daughter. Under any other circumstances, preferably one in which he wasn't made out to look like the antagonist, Hiashi would have been proud—touched, even—by Neji's heroic but infantile antics.

"If Hinata is in there, tell her to come out," Hiashi commanded his nephew when he made no move to step aside.

"She doesn't want to do that, Hiashi-sama."

"Neji," Hiashi warned, "a child must always obey her elders."

"Yes, Hiashi-sama. I agree. Hinata-sama should not have run away."

Hiashi waited for Neji to move out of the way, but the boy was adamant about staying right where he was.

"But she is my first priority," Neji continued by way of explanation. There was just the barest hint of a smile on his lips as he watched Hiashi hungrily for any sort of inflection in his expression. He was goading his uncle.

Hiashi decided he didn't have time to humor four-year-olds, and stepped around Neji with the idea of personally discovering his daughter's whereabouts. Neji was deeply offended. He would not allow Hiashi to bypass him. His own audacity frightened him as he rushed to place himself between his uncle and the door once more. His heart was pounding. In his head, Neji justified his actions by recalling the sight of Hinata huddled in his attic.

Hiashi scowled, physically revealing only a fraction of the anger he felt. Certainly discipline in the Hyuuga household wasn't so lenient when he and Hizashi were young… Hiashi shoved Neji aside—the boy skid violently backwards—and tore open the door.

But before he could enter the room, Hiashi's leg exploded in pain, and he doubled over, clutching it. Neji stood beside him, panting a little in exhilaration with his arms raised and his back bent in a defensive stance. He had just applied a novice jyuuken to his uncle's knee. Since Neji hadn't yet mastered the gentle fist, his attacks were vitally insignificant. Lacking in precision, he tried to compensate by packing each of his hits with an enormous amount of chakra, which caused only skin-deep pain, rather than any real damage.

Hiashi was not appreciative of the boy's persistence. Other Hyuuga members, sensing violent outbreak and an activated byakugan at the center of the compound, rushed in on the scene just as Hiashi grabbed the front of Neji's shirt and hissed something in his face. The boy struggled, and tried to tap a chakra point in his uncle's arm. The other Hyuugas watched in disbelief as a livid Hiashi hit the corresponding chakra point in his nephew instead. Neji couldn't contain a small scream as he clutched his arm, falling into a heap on the ground as Hiashi released him.

"Hiashi-sama!" a Hyuuga mother exclaimed in anger as she rushed to Neji. The cry was largely ignored by the clan Head as he headed back up towards his nephew's room. Neji's face burned as he was forcibly helped to his feet. He tried to break away, to tackle his uncle from behind, despite all the Elders, and Main and Branch members that had gathered in the courtyard. But when he looked back up to his room, he froze. Hiashi had been rendered immobile as well.

The door to Neji's room had opened, and Hinata was standing on the steps outside it, quaking slightly but facing her father with her round little hands clasped in front like a real lady. Her eyes were red and bloated, but it was apparent that she was trying not to cry again.

The silence that filled the courtyard was deafening. Despite the clan Head's unrestrained anger, and his nephew's open defiance, and their sad little match before so many of the Hyuuga, here was something truly powerful.

Neji felt oddly dejected. Seeing Hinata at the mercy of her father, he felt that he had failed. No—he knew what Hiashi knew. There was no dispute over whether Hinata might be harmed after all. It was obvious, this knowing that the two males shared. Neji had not failed in protecting Hinata. What he felt was a sort of emptiness, of pure sadness unmitigated by anger. It was the emptiness of being forgiven, and being undeserving of forgiveness. Neji felt so empty it was almost unbearable. He didn't even fight when the Hyuuga mother held him rigidly by her side.

Hiashi turned away from Hinata. The rest of the Hyuugas saw his face as one of perfect stoicism, the ideal countenance of the clan Head. But Hiashi didn't look at anyone in particular; he was only not looking at Hinata. And so no one could really tell what he thought.

"Come to my study, Hinata," he said at last. "We will return to the dojo tomorrow, after you have studied from your scrolls." Hiashi cleared his throat softly. "Perhaps then you will have a better understanding of what I am trying to teach you." With that, Hiashi started off in the direction of his study, expecting Hinata to follow, which she did. Hinata hurried to catch up, grabbing onto her father's yukata as was her habit, and Hiashi walked a little slower for her.

Neji pulled his goggles down around his neck, a little numb. He had expected to be punished—brutally so. He lifted his hand to touch the curse seal.

But then, Hinata looked back, and gave Neji an awkward, painfully forced smile—not forced in the sense that it was insincere, but because it was difficult for Hinata to smile so soon after she had just been crying. Because as young as Hinata was, she knew what people really wanted, and she really, really wanted to smile at her nii-san.

Neji stepped away from the Hyuuga mother, and she let him go.

It turned out that standing up, speaking out, and fighting back were all well and heroic, but all that was deficient to stand against the unaffected kindness of the little Hyuuga heiress. Hinata had only wanted to temper the anger of the two most important men in her life. She was afraid they might hurt each other, because in her opinion, her oto-san and her nii-san were the strongest people in the world.

Hiashi knew better. The Hyuuga were a proud clan. Their members were raised to despise weakness—any display of emotion—and to revere personal dignity—to admit no wrong, and allow no compromise. But as for strength… Well. They were good for burning bridges and fighting wars.

Neji knew a little about war as well. He knew that among all emotions, anger was the most forgivable. That had always worked out all right for him. It made his life easy, so easy it was almost like a weakness—that particular emotion. Neji didn't delude himself. He knew anger was a weakness for him, an excuse, something solid he could hold on to and keep from falling too far, and landing too hard. But his cousin… now Hinata was really something noble. Fragile and innocent, she was considered an anomaly to the clan, but Neji knew how profoundly truthful she was to herself. In fact, Neji had never seen anything that honest. It made him a little speechless, and a little shameful.

Hinata looked over her shoulder again and saw that Neji had begun to follow her. She quickly turned back into the folds of her father's yukata, shyly hiding an irrepressible smile.

The three Hyuugas made an odd sight—the stubborn clan Head and his scampering little daughter and his equally stubborn little nephew, all walking in a line. The Hyuuga Elders didn't say anything, but they knew, and were the first to leave the courtyard. The Hyuuga mothers traded glances and shook their heads, and smiled behind their sleeves. They knew as well, and dispersed.

Hiashi called it maturity, and he called it restraint. Neji told himself he was going to make sure Hinata wouldn't be mistreated. But Hinata hadn't learned how to make excuses; she didn't have enough words to lie, to substitute that which she knew so simply and truthfully as love.

The end.

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A/N: Reviews perhaps? Please? The sad purple button just wants be loved...