Crossroads
Neji is seated to the right, along with his team mates. He had been asked to attend and they had followed. They sat on their cushions a bit behind him, showing their support of their comrade. Neji's posture is straight and proud from where he sits.
Hinata looks away and moves her eyes from their shocked faces back to her father. He has been sitting as the Head of the Clan for twenty years and everyone knows it should be time for someone to replace him. She looks at him and wonders.
Her eyes flicker around his face and glances briefly back to her cousin before looking down at her hands contemplatively. Her hands are calloused from the training but there are no scars because she has always had a knack for healing. Her hands lay on her lap uselessly and she moves them around a bit.
There is silence but she can feel the anger and outrage building from her cousin's teammates. She knows they will soon be shouting in a second, but she stops them before they can.
" No." She says. Her voice is quiet but it cuts through the room and destroys the buzzing sound in the silence. Her words were said in such a tone that it would have demolished all the sounds of a raging argument in the Hokage's strategy room.
There is a stunned silence this time. She doesn't look up from her hands for a moment as she turns them slowly on her lap. The silence feels heavy and it speaks of all the questions and surprise they haven't found their voices for yet.
She looks up and she sees her father and her younger sister sitting in front of her side by side, but looks at the wall between and beyond them. She tries not to think about a lot of things at the moment.
"I will do what is right for my clan, but that does not mean I will do this for you. Maybe this is the best thing for the clan but you are not doing this because of the clan, but because of your selfish reasons. You won't correct your mistakes through me.
You are not the only one who lost him." Her voice is steady and her eyes stare straight ahead, not at him, but at the wall behind him. " You are not the only one who loved him, Father.
Your brother was a great man. He is missed, but that does not justify anything."
Her legs unfold from underneath her and her hands are steady as they push to support her weight from the floor.
" I am not the means to your end." She stands eyes focused on something they cannot see. " I will not be your tool. Not for this."
There is nothing striking about her posture as she leaves. Her step is soft and steady as she turns and walks away from all them and the possibilities that could have been in the room.
. : - : .