Notes: Now with structure! (I now have notes as to what to write about for each chapter. Incredible.) Oh, and about pairings... if you have any OTPs besides NaruSasu, I'd like to suggest you leave them at the door. Because I'm likely to not know what they're going to be until they happen myself... or I'm just not saying.

I don't think it needs to be said that I'm filling in anything that I don't know. It doesn't mean that I subscribe to my own theories, but I need something to work with for the story. It also doesn't need to be said that I'm sure to be pulling spoilers here and there, but since I'm making up a lot of things as well, it's probably even more unnecessary. I'm still on vol. 34 of the manga, so I haven't seen the more recent stuff yet. But it's AU anyway.

About the phrase in Hanabi's part -- Baji toufuu, I believe (馬耳東風). Something I learned from an acrostic.

Yes, the style is, and will always be, inconsistent. Even though I'm trying.

(edit: Fixed Hanabi's age.)

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Chapter 3: Different Destinies

Neji (at fifteen years old): Destiny

Despite the fact that it looked like it could have been otherwise, fatalism was a personal trait limited to Hyuuga Neji himself. In a way, it was his method to cope with things that he could not fully comprehend: Many things in his life had no answers, only more questions. In the end, it was either keep his mind filled with these questions or ignore them and focus more on important things, such as his missions and training.

So he took the easy way out, although he was not happy with it.

Questions still haunted him; such as why his father had to die while Hinata lived (Surely his father had more worth than a useless dropout of an heir, or was the main family really that much more blessed? Or maybe it was simply 'first come first served,' literally), or why Naruto had made it to the final section of the Chuunin Exam (Or would this be another lesson in cruel fate? To come so far only to fail). These were answered with fatalism, however wrong those answers would prove to be.

However, in the face of the proof named Naruto, rather than doing away with fatalism as many people would prefer, Neji simply embraced the new perspective brought to him on the subject and revised his views. As a result, he was still fatalistic, but not regressively so. Instead, fate was now a thing of interaction between people's effort to change what they perceived to be their reality, and the results of such. People had the free will to prove their hopes and dreams as fate, or take it for granted and suffer the consequences, like he did.

In a way, everyone does both. Everyone except Naruto, that is. And Naruto was truly the only person he had seen that consistently exercised the first and inspired others to do the same.

Certainly Neji felt inspired, and he silently vowed not to lose that inspiration.

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Hanabi (at eleven years old): Freedom

More the rest of the Hyuuga family members, Hanabi lacked freedom. However, she did not mind this so much -- these constraints were not unpleasing. Besides, far from the uncertainties of the future that had plagued her older sister and cousin, Hanabi's troubles would be of a much different sort.

She did not dislike her betrothed, after all. He was of the lively sort, full of promises and energy. He the son of a noble, but he claimed that his goal was to become a ninja. His family tried to discourage him, but he would not hear of it.

"It is very hard and very dangerous to become a ninja," she warned him herself, having seen her own sister in the hospital several times, but it was like the east wind in a horse's ear. Strangely enough it was her older cousin that was the only one that approved of his conviction.

"I have to be able to protect my future wife somehow -- it's my duty as a husband!" he declared one day, smiling in the sandbox of the playground nearby the Hyuuga grounds. As he was two years younger than Hanabi (a most appropriate age, her father had said), he was still allowed to play around, while she stood on the outside, like an adult.

She was almost a genin, after all.

She would have her own protecting to do all too soon.

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Hinata (at sixteen years old): Change

Despite the fact that she was not as observant as her older cousin was, she still was asked quite often if she knew about the changes in Naruto. And she did, but not because she was observant, but because she watched him so closely. She was not always there to see everything, but she saw him often enough to know that there once was a time where he did not get any attention from girls, and also a time when he didn't realize it if he did.

Now it didn't seem like he didn't notice it, but more that he didn't give it much thought. Still as Naruto as ever, his focus was purely on his friends and becoming the next Hokage. However, by distinction, there was one friend in particular that he was particularly concerned with. Hinata wasn't sure if it was natural that Naruto pay more attention to this friend than the others due to their closeness, or if it was some sort of exclusive bond that she couldn't determine.

Until Sai asked her (of all people) an unexpected question.

"What does he see in her, anyway?"

That wasn't exactly what he said, since Sai still hadn't learned how to not insult people, but that was the basic message of it. Even after figuring out that he meant it in a general sense and not a romantic one, she couldn't help but worry whether or not Naruto did favor her over other girls in that way.

She had asked Neji his opinion after about five false starts and a bit of prompting. He wasn't particularly close to Naruto (due to how infrequently their paths intersected, Neji had told her), but he had an uncanny ability to predict the future. She had always been discouraged by his words because of this, before Naruto. Always before Naruto. Her life had seemed so bleak, but now, even though nothing had changed about life itself, she had still managed to change it for the better, thanks to Naruto. For that (and much more), she was grateful.

"The one he will be destined to be with is whoseever heart he wins," Neji said after a bit of apparent reflection.

"Wouldn't it be the other way around, Neji-niisan?"

Neji smiled to himself. "Not with Naruto, no. Not even if he's the one being fought over."

Then he had turned to her, still with that gentle smile. "Do not fret, Hinata-sama. If he chooses you, you and everyone else will know it. If not, then he does not. Show your feelings to him without fear. He will accept them. That is his way."

Hinata tried her best to keep this in mind. If this was just a possible future that Neji predicted, then she thought that it wouldn't be a bad one to try to make a reality.