I thank my friend LexKixAss for letting me abscond her twins for my story. As always Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. Please review.

Neji fought back the yawn working to betray just how much he wanted his own futon. Camping out was all part of the shinobi world, but camping out with Gai –and now mini-Gai– was more exhausting than anything they warned him about in the academy. Showing that slight weakness in front of the Hokage during their debriefing wasn't what he intended to do, though. Why a C-class mission like theirs was being debriefed by the Hokage himself was strange enough. Sure it took a little longer than they'd expected after Lee sent one of the litters of piglets running and their Mama boar went into a frenzy, but that was hardly the concern of the Hokage.

Gai finished his 'enthusiastic' account of the three-day boar hunt with a flourish boasting on how well the team worked together, which Neji thought was a bit of an exaggeration. If it had been just Neji and Tenten they might have finished earlier. Lee and Gai kept those boars on guard the entire mission.

"Thank you, Gai," the Hokage said with a short nod. "We'll contact you again when your next mission comes up, but before you head home, Neji's father would like to have a word with you. And Gai, do listen to what he has to say. I don't generally like getting complaints about my jounin instructors."

Neji's stomach dropped like a stone in water. What had Gai done while they were gone to account for Hizashi to come complain to the Hokage himself? Gai swore to clear up any misunderstandings or else do one thousand laps around the village on his hands in penance, but that didn't alleviate the dread swirling in the back of Neji's mind. Neji had –amazingly– gotten used to Gai's antics, his father wasn't exactly the kind of man to be satisfied with Gai's self-deprecation no matter how outlandish it was.

They parted from Tenten and Lee at the office door, and Neji followed Gai to the compound. All the while Gai added new and more insane acts to his list should he have offended Hizashi in some way, but Neji stopped listening somewhere after 'five hundred pinky push-ups'. Neji couldn't figure out what would have caused his father to complain to the Hokage. Nothing seemed that important. Sure he came in early the morning they left, but that was the whole point of his team coming by to be introduced to the main house staff. What could Gai have done?

Gai was still rambling when the gate to the compound came into view. Maybe the twins would give him a heads up. As social as they were (and they had access to everyone in the clan being at the gate) those two had to know everything that happened in the compound.

He was about to call out to them when Isamu caught sight of him. It wasn't often Neji saw the twins upset –they had a remarkable ability to shrug off just about any problem– but the hatred that boiled in Isamu's pale eyes was almost to the level of the branchers who resented the main family. Even if he didn't know that couldn't be the reason because of their relationship with Hinata, Neji could tell that Isamu's cold glare was fixed solely on him. What happened while he was gone?

"Isamu," Osamu called in both warning and command. Isamu looked away, but his hands remained fisted and held tight across his chest in restraint.

"What's going on?" Neji asked as diplomatically as possible. He didn't know what he did, but the fact Osamu called his brother by his name instead of 'Otouto' like he normally did warned Neji how little control he had over Isamu's anger at the moment.

"Hizashi-sama wants you to remain in the front yard, someone will get him for you." Osamu waved them forward without further explanation, but he shook his head at Neji to caution not to ask anymore.

Neji liked this less and less. Something must have happened while he was out, but what would garner a reaction like that against him from Isamu and make his father complain about Gai?

As Osamu said a servant met them at the front porch and instructed them to wait while he informed Hizashi they were there. It felt strange being treated like an outsider in his own home. Even stranger was the unusual atmosphere that surrounded the people he saw. Aside from the twins, everyone else he'd encountered had a nervous aura about them and not just from his and Gai's presence. It was something in the compound itself, a dread or fear he couldn't place.

The front door slid open with slow control and the man standing behind it made Neji take a step back. It was his father no doubt, but the mask of control over his face so perfectly removed any trace of emotion that a chill ran down Neji's spine. He'd rather see the intense anger he'd seen in Isamu than the eerily calm façade of the clan head on his father's face. At least with anger you knew what to expect.

"Hyuuga-sama," Gai began with a manly bow of contrition, "it seems there has been some kind of misunderstanding, but whatever it is I take full responsibility and vow to make amends even if it takes ten thousand laps around the village."

Neji really wished Gai would realize not everything in the world could be fixed with an exorbitant number of laps around the village. To be honest, Neji wasn't sure that could fix anything actually.

Hizashi remained silent, which unnerved Neji even more. Slowly, Hizashi raised a hand and motioned for Gai to approach. Gai curiously obeyed, stepping forward a few feet. Hizashi motioned again and Gai once again obeyed. By the third time Hizashi waved him forward Gai was on the porch in front of Hizashi and leaned close enough to hear a whisper.

Neji barely registered the build up of chakra before his father pushed into a spin and the signature circle of the kaiten exploded around him. The shoji doors behind him split and rattled from the force as Gai was yanked a full rotation before being evicted into the air and sent crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust. Neji stood frozen in place, too shocked to even begin comprehending what had happened.

Hizashi strode across the open yard, not sparing the slightest glance at his son, and towered over Gai, who was furiously shaking the disorientation from his head. "In what delusional world of yours does this constitute proper notice!" he bellowed, whipping a tattered note from his sleeve and shoving it in Gai's befuddled face.

Gai blinked and squinted to read the note better, then blinked again. "It wasn't?"

"No," Hizashi seethed, "it's not."

That sick feeling of dread Neji'd had since leaving the Hokage's office sunk to the ground and dragged any hope he had left along with it. Suddenly the twins' anger made sense. If Gai didn't leave notice they were leaving the village that meant no one told Hinata he wasn't coming. Neji wasn't sure he wanted to know what happened while he was gone anymore.

Finally understanding what Hizashi was upset about, Gai scrambled onto his knees and bowed so over-exaggeratedly Hizashi had to step back to keep out of his way. "I see now I've made a grave mistake and am profoundly sorry. As a true man I must not only correct my most horrendous mistake, but I must suffer punishment for what I've done!" Tears ran down his face and he leaned back on his knees with his hand pressed into his stomach as if he could commit seppuku with his bare hands. "Name your punishment and I will gladly bear it."

"What I want is proper notice whenever you take Neji from the village," Hizashi demanded.

"No, I've caused you to worry for your precious son whom you've left in my care. It's inexcusable! I must suffer some consequence for my actions!"

Hizashi's calm faltered the longer he stared down at the blubbering jounin at his feet. He straightened to his full height and took a few more strategic steps back. "I'll leave any necessary punishments up to your discretion."

Gai leapt to his feet, body aflame with passionate determination. "Fear not, I won't take your mercy as an excuse to lessen my guilt in the matter! I won't sleep or eat for three days to make sure I understand the terrified, sleepless nights you must have suffered worrying for Neji, where no food or drink could possibly give you comfort! And I'll do five hundred laps around the village and then five hundred more on my hands and a thousand push ups and–"

"Yes, well, it seems you have it all in hand. Why don't you go and start that now, elsewhere" Hizashi interrupted. Not even the façade of the clan head could stand against Gai's exaggerations, and Neji could see his father just wanted Gai to leave before he returned to the grown man weeping at his feet again.

"Absolutely! I must begin immediately!" he shouted and all that was left of Gai was a trail of dust.

Hizashi pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered to himself, "How do I feel like the bad guy here?"

Before his father could recover completely, because Neji had no doubt he was next on his father's list, Neji stepped forward and lowered his head in apology. "I swear, he told me that he let you know we were leaving. If I'd known he hadn't, I'd have told someone. I should've realized this was Gai though and sent word anyway." Neji peeked up to find his father glowering down at him.

"Is that all?" he asked in a voice that informed Neji it wasn't.

He thought back to what else he needed to apologize for. "I'll apologize to Hinata for not coming, of course."

Hizashi crossed his arms and waited. "Keep going."

"I'm not sure what else," Neji hesitantly admitted.

"Think very carefully," Hizashi stressed. "What could you possibly have not wanted me to find out?"

Neji cringed and dropped his gaze to the ground. "You found out about Hinata."

"Hinata?" Hizashi questioned expectantly. He was going to make Neji confess one way or the other.

"That Hinata was skipping classes and I didn't tell you," Neji answered and Hizashi nodded. "But I got her to go back to class, I thought that would be enough. I was just trying to protect her."

"Thinking you need to protect her still is your problem," Hizashi scolded. "If you'd told us we would've dealt with it the way it needed to be handled, and maybe we would've been better prepared for what happened."

Neji snapped to attention. "Did something happen to Hinata?"

Hizashi sighed and sat down on the porch. He waved Neji over to join him. "She waited for you for over four hours in one of the worst storms Konoha's had all season, and none of us knew to go after her because we thought you were with her."

Neji covered his eyes to hide the guilt swelling across his face. Now he understood what drove his father to kaiten Gai. He was starting to wish he could do the same. He knew he should've made sure the family was informed.

"Is she okay?"

Hizashi nodded. "A day of rest took care of her, and since now I knew there was a problem, I've handled the rest as well. This is as much her fault as it is yours and Gai's. Though Gai should've known better." He muttered the last sentence under his breath with a hint more bitterness than the rest.

Neji stood up and brushed his shorts off to avoid looking directly at his father. "I'll go pick her up from the academy and apologize."

"If you can convince her escort," Hizashi added and Neji almost thought he saw a smirk flicker over his father's lips.

"Escort?"

"I told you Neji, this debacle is as much her fault, and she's being punished for it and for cutting classes. So she's being escorted to and from the academy again."

Neji was almost afraid to ask. "Who's her escort?"

"No way in hell," Isamu spit with as much loathing as a demon on a rampage.

Neji sighed and let it go since he was at fault this time. "I want to apologize to her and I'd rather do it in private."

"You say that as if I care what would make you feel better," Isamu snapped.

Osamu grabbed Neji by the shoulder and pulled him back. "Just give it up, Neji-chan. You're not going to convince him." Osamu shirked his head toward the village and Isamu followed his brother's unsaid command to head for the academy to wait for Hinata.

Neji yanked out of Osamu grip and glared at the smooth wood walls of the guard station for lack of an appropriate target. "It's not like I meant to do it. You know I wouldn't have left her intentionally."

"I know," Osamu replied more civilly than his younger brother, "Isamu does, too. But Neji, you have to understand, Isamu was the one who went and got her from the academy that night. He wants to be pissed at you. So my suggestion to you is when he hits you, and he's going to eventually, don't dodge. It'll just piss him off more."

Neji leaned against the wall where Isamu had been and let everything he'd heard so far sink in. The conclusion he was coming to wasn't the one he wanted to imagine. Finally, he looked up at his cousin and watched for the truth. "Was it really that bad?"

Osamu nodded and Neji guilt twisted inside him until he felt sick.

"That night it was really bad. She was defeated. But the next day, after Hizashi-sama said she could be a genin, then she–"

"Genin?" Neji interrupted. "What do you mean Hinata gets to be genin?"

"Hizashi-sama didn't tell you?" Osamu asked with a sinister little smirk on his face. He might be more tolerant than his brother at the moment, but obviously he wasn't above enjoying Neji's discomfort.

"No," Neji grumbled through clenched teeth. He hated being out of the loop.

"Well," Osamu sighed, dragging out the silence just to annoy him, "I haven't quite figured out why, and what I've read on Hizashi-sama is a bit confusing, but he made the decision on his own. Hyobe-sama was furious, but whatever your dad told him must have put him in a corner, because it's obvious to anyone in the clan Hyobe-sama is still completely against it, but he's not fighting it anymore."

"Dad overruled Grandpa? I didn't think that was possible."

"No one did," Osamu agreed.

Neji thought back to the strange fear he'd felt in the compound with new eyes. "The clan's not happy about it, are they?"

Osamu shook his head, and for a moment his eyes lowered to elude Neji's sight. "We're hearing things. The clan's worked so hard to keep her safe that to just send her out . . . It's not just putting the clan at risk of byakugan being taken, it puts us at risk of losing the last legitimate heir. If something happens to her, who takes over? Who's heir? Hizashi-sama? You? It makes the clan nervous."

"And?" Neji pressed, recognizing Osamu's hesitation to meet his gaze for the avoidance it was.

After a long, studied pause, Osamu finally spoke again. "Sometimes I wish the clan could see what we do. Then they'd know that Hizashi-sama's decision isn't catering to Hinata-sama or pampering the main family like they're all saying. Whatever Hizashi-sama's reasons were, they came from an old pain, not Hinata-sama. We can see it when he looks at her."

Neji'd always been a teensy bit jealous of how easily the twins could read people. Being a 'genius' with jyuuken made him want to be the best in all of the Hyuuga techniques. Every once in a while though he was reminded talent was sometimes a double-edged sword. It wasn't always easy to see a truth no one wanted to listen to.

"Do you think the clan's turning against her?" Neji asked.

"Not yet," Osamu answered. "They're waiting to see what happens next. They don't know how to take an heir becoming genin, but in their eyes, if she's going to be leaving the village, she had better succeed."

Neji and Osamu fell into a comfortable silence as they waited for Isamu to return with Hinata. Neji never imagined his father would even consider letting Hinata be a genin, let alone manage to convince Hyobe to allow it. What could he possibly have said that would do that? Osamu's comment about an old pain in his father was disconcerting, too. There was plenty of tension between the houses that he knew still weighed on his father, but what could Hizashi see in Hinata that would make him remember an old pain? It felt like he'd been gone a year for all the changes and questions Neji had.

He was still in serious thought when the first wave of ill intent hit him like a jyuuken slap upside the head and very nearly sent him colliding with the wall of the guard station. Isamu led the way, and by the smirk on his face Neji had to wonder if the twins hadn't learned some of the Hyuuga's distance techniques yet. A few steps behind Hinata slowly shuffled, her head low and not sneaking more than a few brief glimpses at him. From such a distance he couldn't read the minor intricacies of her body language, but Neji wasn't sure he was ready to see it.

Isamu joined his brother without a word, but his face said enough. He was far from ready to let Neji off the hook, though –more for Hinata's sake than anyone's– Isamu restrained his more gleefully malevolent desires dancing in shadows of those pale eyes.

"Hinata," Neji called softly when she continued to refuse to look up at him. "We need to talk."

After a moment, she nodded and her gaze finally found his. Neji had anticipated hurt or anger or even the abandonment he'd seen when he caught her cutting class, but that's not what he found in her eyes. She was calm. Not the false calm his father had shown to Gai, but a bittersweet understanding that eased her.

"I'm not allowed out of the house except for training and class, so we have to go home first," she said in a quiet voice completely devoid of malice. He'd expected her to be the one angriest with him –she's the one who deserved to be– yet out of everyone so far she had the kindest expression.

They left the twins to their post and Neji followed her back to the house. He noticed a couple servants' silhouettes through the shoji doors scurry away further into the house as she sat down on the front porch. She waited for him to join her, but Neji didn't sit down immediately. Instead, he knelt on the ground in front of her so he was forced to lift his head to her. It was a small consolation for what he'd allowed to happen, if unintentionally, but he wanted her to know she was more important than his pride.

"I'm sorry for breaking my promise, Hinata. I didn't want to and I didn't know no one in the house had been told I was leaving the village. It's not an excuse, but it's the truth, and I am sorry."

"I'm sorry too," she said. Her eyes lowered to show her shame, but not enough to look away from him.

"For what?"

"For thinking you needed to be there." Hinata turned her head away, her face twisting and wrinkling together as she figured out just what she wanted to say. So intense was her concentration, Neji simply sat before her in silence.

"I've been thinking a lot these last couple days," she started, working through each word with precise intention. "Ever since Uncle Hizashi said I could be genin. I was so excited at first. I've always wanted to be like you and everyone at the academy, but then when I went back to class I was terrified at the thought of taking the genin exam. It was what I wanted . . . but it scared me and I didn't know why."

Neji moved from his place below her to sit on the porch and wrap a comforting arm around her shoulder. Just by talking about it, he could see the fear in her whole body. Her very breathing shallowed into a wheeze.

"I kept thinking it was what I wanted, but then I realized it wasn't what I wanted. What I wanted was to be with you, because I was too scared to be alone. When I'm alone I can't do anything right, but you do everything right. That's why I wanted to be a genin with you, and when I couldn't I wanted you home with me. If you're with me I won't fail, because you can't fail."

"That's not true, Hinata," Neji consoled her, gently rubbing her arm in a slow repetitive motion.

"But that's what I think. It's what I've always thought." She shook her head out and breathed deep to stop the wheeze from going any further toward tears. The calm from earlier slipped back into place with each consecutive inhale and measured exhale. "But I don't want to keep thinking that anymore. Uncle Hizashi's giving me chance to do something for myself and not for the clan. I want to do it right. I want to do it on my own. I want to succeed on my own."

Neji stared at the girl next to him and for the first time realizing she wasn't the same one he knew how to help. He'd seen determination in her eyes before, but always in trying to do something for someone else and always muted by the fear of failure she'd desperately want him to mollify. The girl next to him now was determined for herself and the fear, while there, resisted him. He couldn't comfort her, because this time she didn't want to be comforted. She wanted him to let her fail on her own on the chance she'd eventually succeed.

"I hate it when Dad's right," Neji huffed, dropping back to lie flat on the smooth wooden porch. At the confused expression marring his sister's face, he just smiled. "I need to stop thinking you need me to protect you, and I don't like it one bit. I want to protect you."

Hinata returned his smile with one of her own, only now he understood the bittersweetness tainting it. "I like you protecting me."

"But you don't want me to anymore," he finished for her, and she shook her head.

Neji sighed and stared up at fluffy white clouds drifting across the clear sky. "It looks like both of us are going to have to get used to this."