Summary: They wronged her in life. Now they'll come together for it. "Hinata was like a monarch butterfly; like pinwheel spokes in a harsh breeze. Too fast- too fleeting- to keep." 5 people- Ino, Sakura, Naruto, Neji, Sasuke- remember her after her death.

A/N: Reviews = 愛.I appreciate all the wonderful reviews so far. They were lovely to read. Thanks. I forgot to post the other two final parts, so you'll have to forgive me for that...Here they are.

We knew what had happened when we were children.

So naturally we were never close.

Yet when they told me she was dead, I felt lost.

::S P O K E S::

::4::

::Hyuuga Neji::

1::

It was the fourth of July. I was seven. In just a few minutes we would watch greens, reds and blues illuminate the darkness. There was something magical about fireworks at that time.

That night, I chose not to light sparklers and play with other children in our family, all dressed in matching yukata, because I had something very important to do.

My mother was tired. She wouldn't see the fireworks. Draw me a picture, she'd said, though her her eyes were swollen shut. I also was to look after Hinata, the smallest child, my playmate, my cousin; a sister to me. Our fathers were siblings. Our family was close-knit, so to speak.

Hinata had a tendency to wander away. Through the many times we played together as children, I can recall her being there one moment and gone the next. She'd scared her parents time and time again by suddenly disappearing. And when I looked near my blanket, where she had just been, I discovered Hinata had wandered off.

The first cannon boomed in the sky. I searched for her. I could hear Hinata calling my name. I ran across the grass - there she laid, crying. She called me nii-san, to which I never objected.

I took Hinata's arm and pulled her up from where she laid. I tried to take her to our blanket – yet she continued to cry and wouldn't move.

"I'm scared," she'd whispered.

I pulled harder. I was angry. It was a time when I allowed myself to be overwhelmed with emotion. And then, the first firework flew through the sky, above our heads, and went off with a brilliant crackling pop.

I had missed the first firework.

Red sparks flew down into the sky, shining brightly before they disappeared entirely.

I shoved Hinata into the grass and she was too surprised to scream. "Never call me nii-san!" I shouted above the explosion and noise.

Say a prayer for your father tonight, Neji, my mother had whispered in my ear before I went to the banquet. Say a prayer for your outosan in heaven on the first firework tonight.

2::

Days earlier, I had not been able to understand.

Hinata was playing beside me as she always did, watching the television and licking the frosting from between Oreos. We were confined to this playroom, filled with an old TV and some toys. Something bad seemed to have happened. Sadness hung heavily in the air.

I was not allowed to leave the room. Hinata was sent back to her mother and father earlier than she normally did. I had not seen my own mother since the night before.

At such a young age, I was unable to fully comprehend death and its reprecussions, what disarray it caused. What it meant. I asked my mother why she cried. Who she was crying for.

And so I was told my father had died.

Even as a child, I knew: Death was a bottomless well. Once you fell in you could never return. I missed my father. And I simply didn't understand. How could anyone suddenly disappear? It was as if my father had never had a life at all.

I had a tantrum. I screamed. I searched everywhere, as if looking for something.

(Looking for someone.)

Tearing up the room. Throwing my things. Shouting at the housekeepers. Asking for my father.

On the day of my father's funeral, the housekeeper watched over Hinata and I as we sat on the sun porch and watched the mourners drive away in their cars. She was in the tearoom, playing with paper dolls, taking scissors and cutting out cardboard figures.

I overheard the relatives talking. "Such a shame. Such bad luck."

Bad luck. I hated them for their words.

3::

My mother took us out of the Hyuuga family's compound to an apartment building on the sixteenth floor. Naturally the family frowned upon us. We were leaving behind all of Hiashi's possessions, his home. We were gossiped about, my own mother called crazy - but she felt she could never return there, and I was childishly angry at relatives who talked about "Hizashi's younger brother". I would no longer have to see Hinata, my uncle, my aunt or grandparents as often as I had. Ties had been broken.

On the day we moved boxes were everywhere. I saw Hinata timidly hiding near her parents as they awkwardly watched movers carry our things into trucks. I scowled at her. I was cheated of a life that she had. It was unfair. No one explained anything. It was all in black and white.

And Hinata - she had always been sniveling, whining, crying, and worst of all, pitied. She had everything. When I was most miserable I almost wished she'd lose her father too.

(I was almost jealous.)

I still saw her at family gatherings, at holidays, at school. Each year my mother and I still attended family events because we were still expected there, despite the uneasy feelings. When I grew older, I noticed Hinata was still infuriatingly withdrawn and underserving of the treatement she was given. It made me scoff, just watching her parents, worrying over her, everyone anxious to please her. It seemed that way.

I was thirteen. The night of the New Years festival, my mother put a hand on my shoulder as I cleaned my dishes after dinner.

"You really must start to think of treating Hinata and your uncle better, Neji." She spoke in poor English. I was taking an English language class at the time. I could speak English more fluently than she could. She continued to try for my sake. It almost sickened me.

Her words were like a hot poker on my arm. We hadn't associated much with the family beyond formalities for the past few years. Why change now? Immeadiately I asked for what reason.

"Because. We are not wanted. It was my mistake." In her Japanese she sounded sadder.

4::

My mother had good intentions: she wanted me to befriend Hinata.

My mother was growing weary alone. Her sisters only spoke to her out of politeness. The elders did not associate with us. We'd detached ourselves from pain and now it was my mother's regret.

I was forced to comply. That same night, New Years Eve, we drove to the family compound. Before we walked inside my mother said quietly, "Just try to be kind."

Lanterns had been hung. Table after table was filled with food. The adults and older children sat at the long dining table. As it always was, according to tradition, the head of the family sat at the head of the table – Hizashi, with Hinata and her mother.

We were served food, wine, and tea. My mother's eyes met mine, sharply, when Hinata arose to pour herself a drink.

My mouth was dry, thick with a strange kind of humilation.

"Allow me," I offered quickly, awkwardly, my voice strained. I found myself moving hurriedly under a tense yet approving gaze of my mother as I took the tea nearest to me and poured her a glass.

Everyone was subtly surprised. My mother spoke in a calm voice, "Neji is very polite, isn't he?"

I felt as if we were in a play, hoping we would all soon be told to stop playing our parts. The TV droned in the other room. My grandfather had already been excused to fall asleep on the sofa. I was certain I would die of humiliation - and was it possibly to truly feel that angry?

Hinata's father seemed to approve with a nod in my direction. "Very considerate" was all that she got. In the end it was all that mattered to her, for whatever she was trying to prove. It made her pleased.

Later, as the adults drank sake on the porch I sat on the staircase, thinking. Suddenly, I saw Hinata walk in from the sitting room. She took a few hesitant steps toward me. She bowed. "T-thank you, Neji-nii. For pouring my drink -"

My voice was tight. "It was nothing." I meant it. I wanted to add, 'Do not call me that.' It stung. But I said nothing else to her and stared only until she left. There was no anger between us. Only a sort of strange indifference that she knew I had.

(For everything.)

On the first day back to school my mother casually mentioned at breakfast, "Why don't you help Hinata more, maybe tutoring her?"

I smirked and shook my head. I nearly laughed. Here my mother was, practically groveling. My brief, subtle amusement turned to anger. "Why would I do that? I don't like Hinata. Why exactly are you so pathetically desperate?"

The silence between us consumed the room. She had no answer.

5::

I can remember the last time we saw each other.

Around the first week of October, I was in school very early for orchestra practice. Honors orchestra, in fact. I was asked to audition for the program. I heard it was good for transcripts; my teachers had encouraged me enough to convince me to try.

I was gathering my sheet music from my locker when I saw Hinata.

She was there. Walking down the hallways. Why was she there so early as well? Even now I do not know.

Her face was almost pale and drained of color. She tried to give me a smile, but it was weak, as if Hinata was weak. She paused and said, with her head down: "C-congratulations on starting your senior year, Neji-nii."

The name. She said it again and again. But this time I hardly took notice of it.

I nodded. Brushed past her. Went to join the other violinists waiting for me at the end of the hall.

"Do you know her?" Tenten, one of our violinists, asked me.

What I said surprised even myself. Maybe I said it because despite sharing a last name, not everyone immediately saw the connection. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

I gathered my instrument; the words came on their own. "No," I said.

6::

My mother was told me, her voice was like a lingering sort of whisper, like a ghost's.

The news channel had the date in the bottom right hand corner – 15 October – as the weather forecast faded to black, and a commercial for discount Halloween costumes came on. It was very early in the morning. I was eating an orange for breakfast.

"H-Hinata – she...is dead. Very bad illness killed her, her mother is very sick now too. She has died, Neji..." Her words, half English and Japanese, corrupted everything.

I heard myself asking, "How did she -" But I was unable to get out the word. Die.

I threw my plate in the sink. I could hear my mother as she continued to speak – Hinata had contracted some kind of pneumonia. It was worse than they'd thought. It had been too late...

I was trapped in a strange place in my mind – one where I replayed over and over again everything I'd ever done with Hinata. Of all the times we played together as children. That was all I could think of, nothing else.

At the wake, I felt strangely unaffected by her friends crying, my aunt sobbing, everyone grieving. My suit made me feel too warm. I couldn't bring myself to look at the many pictures set up of Hinata when she was alive. Someone was serving fruit punch and cookies were put out, and it felt disturbing.

I avoided everyone. Instead, I asked myself why I disliked this family so much – the broken, ruined family crying in front of me, praying for the dead - a pathetic and pitiful group of people that could become so weak in one instant. I questioned my childhood grief, and if it still remained.

But it was evident to me: it was impossible to go back to being a person I'd already given up. I could never go back. But my indifference for them – for Hinata– with her death, inevitably it became like a blade with a dull edge.

I could see my mother, finally reunited with her sister. In grief they were allowed to be together. Social niceties did not apply. My mother held my aunt. I watched my mother cry like Hinata had been her own daughter. It was painfully simple – what I should do.

My knees shook as I approached my uncle. The man I'd disliked most - always the better man, my father had said once in half-kidding. My stomach was in knots. My heart pulsed uncomfortably in my throat.

"I'm sorry for your loss. I'm..." I faltered when I met his gaze as evenly as I could.

"Neji," he said my name without scorn. "Thank you for coming." The man I'd once seen as the head of the family - undeserving, took a place my father should have had - had never seemed so unrepairable to me.

I walked out of the funeral home before the wake ended. After viewing her body, I left. A girl from our school had passed out cold by the casket; another student threw water on her to wake her and created a stir. I quietly slipped out.

Outside I watched cars pass by. I watched as people walked across the streets, some carrying bags and brief cases, some with children. All living their own lives, completely untouched by this, by us. By Hinata. Briefly I marveled at it. I felt, for the first time in a long time, powerless.

Watching kids I don't even know cry for her – the girl who was like my sister, they'd told me once – and this counseling session, for whatever reason, makes me think about the night of that banquet all those years ago. To remember to watch the fireworks this year, when the next banquet comes. A never ending cycle.