A/N: This took a while, and it'll only keep going. Yay!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Solaris, and I certainly do not own Harry Potter. They are the property of their respective owners or copyright holders. Not for profit, etc.
"At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains...We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us--that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence--then we don't like it anymore."
-Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (Dr. Snow)
--
"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?"
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry and Dumbledore)
The predawn light gave an unnaturally bright tinge to the tiled roofs of the Hyuuga clanhouses. If he had known now, he would have noted this and known what it meant; but he was still in the nighttime of his life.
He padded through the covered walkway overlooking calm ponds and private gardens with stone-cobbled walkways. His eyes were not looking at these things of beauty however, these gardens carefully cultivated by generations of his high and mighty family. They weren't focused on anything as he walked through the huge central garden to the shrine in the middle of it. He had always found this place to be relaxing and centering, even today. It gave clarity to a mind clouded with lack of sleep and overwhelming grief.
He'd been told it was pointless to mourn the person he went today to honor. This man almost wrecked you, they said. This man would have been the downfall of all you worked to gain. Fresh with mourning, he'd whirled on them.
I want no part of your stupid clan politics anymore, he'd screamed. I will not do your bidding, nor will I be party to your blasphemous, incestuous thoughts. Find another suitor for her, or let her choose. Hinata-sama's judgment is sound, or do you not trust your new clan head?
These thoughts echoed through his head as he entered the shrine and found the marker he wanted, tucked away in a side niche far removed from the best places. It was in a shadowy corner, a place where not many came to pay their respects. Pulling out three sticks of incense, he neatly put them in the sand tray below the marker and lit each one in turn, kneeling to pray when the sticks were sending their plumes of scented smoke into the darkness of the candle-lit shrine.
Prayer was supposed to be a kind of meditation, a way to clear minds and hearts of sorrow or sin or troubling thoughts. Praying for the souls of the departed ones that were beloved in life was supposed to be a way to free oneself from sorrow, to reflect on the goodness that person had brought into one's life, and be content with the good and forget the bad.
He snorted ruefully, and some of the grains of sand ruffled away from the forceful exhalation. Forgetting the bad, playing the good up to epic proportion; that was his clan's forte.
Praying for this man's soul didn't make him feel any of that. He felt more confused, angrier than ever. But he'd stopped fighting a long time ago. Better to just ignore it all than let everything take him over.
The sun was glowing into the shrine with a golden light when the messenger boy stepped lightly in. Looking around, clutching the summons scroll tightly in one sweaty hand, the boy found who he was looking for and walked over. "Neji-san, a summons from the Hokage."
The sticks of incense had almost burned down. Neji snuffed them out and took the scroll from the messenger, gave him a few coins as payment, and undid the seal as he walked back to his room. It was a first-class level seal, which mean the contents included secure information trusted only to the person it had been addressed to. It was likely a mission scroll then, and one of a high caliber at that. Sitting on a mat near the door to his room, Neji pulled open the scroll to read the contents.
--
Fifteen minutes later he was leaping through the rooftops of the government-administrative complex of Konoha. His expression was such that everyone who saw him or raised a hand in greeting quickly lowered their hands and eyes; shuddering as the Hyuuga's angry chakra whipped over them. Landing on the ledge outside the Hokage's office, Neji nodded briefly to the two guards standing at either side of the door—one he knew was Uchiha Sasuke, the other was likely to be another one of the former Rookie Nine.
Neji ignored them both and pushed the doors open with a bang, storming across the room to Tsunade's desk and slamming his palms down on the top.
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. Had the Hyuuga been putting chakra behind those palms, her desk would have shattered instantly. "Is there something wrong, Neji?"
"You know I don't do missions this far afield," he snapped. "You put the order on my record yourself."
"The only person qualified for this mission is you, Neji," Tsunade said. "There is no other option. Your uncle no longer does missions, you know that."
"Send Jiraiya, this is more his thing—"
"Jiraiya is out acting as an operative in former Sound," the Godaime replied. "I stand by my decision, you leave in two days." Her expression softened. "Neji, I know you haven't done any long-term or distance missions since that incident, but you need to stop moping and move on. Day after tomorrow, you leave, and when you get back, I want to see a happy shinobi under my command, rather than one with a long face."
"Things like these don't just go away," Neji muttered. "Do you know—"
"Yes, Neji," Tsunade said acidly. "As a matter of fact, I do. No arguing; my mind is made up on this."
Swallowing his arguments, Neji bowed. "I understand, Hokage-sama," he said with all the formality bred into his Hyuuga blood. "I will carry out this mission to the best of my ability."
Turning on his heel, he left the room, leapt from the ledge again, and took off again. He had packing to do.
--
Tsunade watched Neji's back as he stormed out of the office. Her healer's hands were aching to ease the knots from his shoulders, and to touch his soul and heal the hurt there, but she knew that even all her skill, all Sakura's skill, all the medic-nin in the world would be unable to save him. Only Neji had that power.
The hands of a healer are the hands of a leader.
She snorted, and from the bottom drawer of her desk, she took a much-tattered and folded photograph. In sepia tones, it showed the three people she had loved, once.
--
It has been proven that we all react differently to grief and loss. Some people can shrug it off after a few months, even if their relationship with the deceased was very close. Some people go into destructive downward spirals. Some have no choice but to mourn quietly.
Neji could not shrug this off; and while he'd sunk down in depression, he was not able to let himself go entirely, prevented from it by pride and training. So for five years, the only person Hyuuga Neji had allowed to see his grief was himself. Not even Hinata could be trusted; she was a strong and capable leader, slowly growing in confidence, but she was still subject to the whim of the Elder Council.
He would later regard all this with the critical and slightly paranoid eye of someone who has seen things that people, normal human or shinobi, are not prepared for. For there are mysteries in the world that we cannot yet comprehend, and wonders yet to come that we will not understand.
--
Neji checked his backpack, making sure it was secured shut and the strap was snug across his chest. Turning, he kept his expression carefully neutral and bowed. "Thank you for helping provision me, Hinata-sama. I apologize for my absence in advance."
"It's all right, Neji-niisan," the Hyuuga clan head replied, smiling shyly. "The Hokage has been kind enough to lend me two of her own guard—"
"Hey, Hinata-chan!"
Neji turned and saw a bright blond head and a dark head. The male members of the most celebrated team since the legendary three were now Hinata's personal guard.
"We'll take good care of Hinata-chan while you're gone, Neji!" Naruto said. He was in high spirits, bubbly and excited about this new thing. "We'll protect her from everything, even the damn demons if they break out." He managed to keep his smile, even as the fox stirred slowly in his belly.
"Thank you, Naruto," Neji said, bowing. Feeling for the weight of the map in his pocket, he got a running start, shifted his chakra to his feet, and leapt up. It would be a week's journey, over the mountains to the north of Konoha and into largely unknown lands. Once he arrived at his destination he would meet up with a team of jounin who had been deployed a few months ago. Contact with them had dropped from daily communiqués to none at all, and while it was a remote village, some contact was expected of such seasoned shinobi. In the mission scroll, Tsunade had emphasized that this was to be a contact and possible retrieval mission, something easy just to get him out of the village.
Neji soured as he leapt up the hillside through the trees. Doing well on this mission (as he would because anything else would be personally unacceptable) would lead to more distance missions even farther from Konoha. And by now he was sure everyone knew where those got him. He had been limited to close-range missions after the incident, and after the first disastrous mission they'd sent him on following it. He had completely lost his cool, something he wasn't used to and didn't like, and had been hospitalized and under ANBU guard for weeks after. The Elder Council had not been amused, his uncle had not been pleased, and Tsunade had noted the ban from distance missions on his official record. Now it seemed she was breaking that.
"Don't interfere." The young man's eyes were haughty and glittered insanely, and not for the first time Neji wondered if Orochimaru's death were real, or if he lived on yet. "Hyuuga slut."
"You don't understand," he said, struggling. "You poor bastard, you don't understand still."
--
He stopped at a waystation that night, a small building about thirty miles from Konoha's valley and ten miles out of Fire Country altogether. The bed was a straw mattress covered in none-too-luxurious blankets, but it was sufficient for his purposes, as functional as his movements and thoughts as he set about making a meal for himself.
I've been lax, Neji thought as he stretched aching muscles and ate his dinner. Years of no traveling has made me soft.
Still, he couldn't blame the Konoha council for wanting to ban him from distance missions. If he hadn't put it on himself, they would have, along with any number of other restrictions on his movement. When he'd asked to be taken off distance entirely, he'd done so with the knowledge that a charge of fraternization with an enemy of Konoha and Fire Country carried a death sentence, and it was only with the intercession of the rest of the Rookie Nine that Neji had been spared.
His uncle had been livid. Ever since the practices of the Hyuuga clan had been revealed at that fateful Chuunin exam years ago, the entire clan had been under intense scrutiny by the Hokage and other clans in the city. Granted, even though none of them were the thread the Uchihas would have been (even they had had skeletons though, and the Hyuuga knew most of them), the loss of face annoyed Hyuuga Hiashi more than anything. And when it was revealed that Neji, the bright and shining star of the Hyuuga clan, had been having 'unnatural relations' with Uchiha Itachi in Hiashi's own house, he became almost unbearable. Not only had Neji been consorting with one of the village's most reviled criminals since Orochimaru, added to that was the insult of the Uchiha clan being descended from rogue Hyuuga, entering into cursed unions with other clans, superhuman beings, and even bijuu as some legends had it. The dishonor of it all was such that Neji knew Hiashi would have murdered him had he not been pardoned by the council and the Hokage. Hyuuga Hiashi was not a murderer.
Pardoned under reasonable suspicion that the accused was under a genjutsu. They couldn't deal with the idea that he had done everything of his own free will.
Grumbling stomach quieted and heavy heart carefully forgotten, Neji rolled himself into his bedroll and slept.
A week and a half later, he landed in a tree a mile from the town.