Once again, You Have Won, My brother

He who was first, should always be first. That was what he had thought. The eldest brother. The firstborn twin. The one who would lead the way.

Yet, why was it that their father and mother and grandfather and everyone say that it wouldn't be him that would be protecting his younger brother? Why did they say his younger brother be the one protecting him?

Why did he see pity in his clan members' eyes when they saw him and his brother together?

Poor things, they whispered behind their backs. It will be so hard for them.

He didn't understand, before he turned three. All he knew that, when he held his brother's hand and saw his trusting face reflected back at him—he vowed to be the one to protect him.

They were inseparable. They were one and the same, two parts to a whole.

So when they separated them for the first time, he was confused. Where are they taking him? Why can't I come?

In his brother's face, he could see the same question in his eyes before he was taken away. "Hiashi-nii-san!" he had cried.

It was almost like looking in the mirror.

Looking in the mirror—but when he turned back, it wasn't the same person staring back.

He never saw the same trusting look in his brother's eyes again.

When they were first brought back together, he could see red rimming the outline of his younger brother's eyes and he knew that he had cried (he knew that they had hurt him because he had cried!). He could see the frown and the coldness on his face and clenching of his fists. He saw the bright, angry green mark on his forehead.

He saw it all, and it wasn't him, and there so were differences between them and it was like there was a line drawn between them (and he wanted nothing more than just to cross it and push past his uncles and cousins on his side and past the uncles and cousins with the bandages around their heads on the other and just reach him!)—and he finally knew it would never be the same when he heard the next words that came out of his precious younger brother's mouth.

"Hiashi-sama."

And when he questioned him later in secret, "Why wont you just speak to me, Hizashi?"

"Don't you see, nii-san?" he had whispered fiercely, his lip quivering. "It's because you have won."

But how could I have won? Hiashi thought angrily in his bed alone in the main complex. He hated that it was his own family who tore he and his brother apart.

It would haunt him his whole life.

For it was Hizashi to first to master the byakugan, not him. It was he, the clan heir, who fell to the floor first after their first spar. It is you who has won, my brother, he had thought to himself as he watched his younger twin turn away from him. The elders only forced more rigorous training for him. It was an abomination to lose to a branch member.

It was Hizashi who married for love. How lucky was he, to have loved a girl within his own branch, a girl who they both had come to love as young children. A radiant girl with beauty and grace fit for the main branch, yet like Hizashi, was cast aside in favor for her older siblings. And fate enjoyed laughing at him, because it was Hizashi, not him, who wore the same seal she had worn since they had first seen her. It is you who has won, my brother, he thought to himself as he watched her take his place as the closest person to Hizashi. He did not hate Hinode and he did not think she was ugly, and he would come to love her eventually as the mother of his children, but when they had finished saying their vows, there was a small part of him that wished it was the face of Hizashi's wife standing before him.

It was Hizashi's wife who bore a son. And while he loved his little Hinata, with her sweet face and adoring gaze, so like a doll, so like an angel, so like her mother—she was not fit to lead the Hyuuga. She was too compassionate, too merciful. He did not dislike her for it, yet he knew she would not be enough for the clan. It is you who has won, my brother, he thought as he saw his nephew with the genius of the clan elders and the talent of their top shinobi. Neji, with eyes as cold as his father's, with a scowl as prominent as their forefathers. Neji, who looked so much like Hizashi, who looked so much like himself. Neji, the child the clan knew should have been the heir. Nej, who was not Hinata. Neji—who was not his own.

It was Hizashi who broke the chains of the clan to choose his own destiny. It should have been him that died that day. Him who should have atoned for his sins. He did not feel grief over it. He would do everything for the sake of his daughter, and most important, his clan—because it was his fate. Once again, it was Hizashi—always Hizashi. Once again, it was Hizashi taking the blows as the branch member, as his younger brother. And now, it was Hizashi who had the freedom to choose, when they both thought they had no choice. "Once again, you have won, my brother," he whispered with tears in his eyes as he clutched the lifeless hand of his brother, the damned seal on his forehead no longer there.

And when he looked down at the face of the body lying still before him, he saw himself. Finally, they were one again. Brother to brother, twin to twin. Finally, they were equal.

How cruel, he had thought, when the last traces of green faded from his brother's forehead, the last of the shackles holding his brother apart from him vanished away, and cursed his family name. That we can only be this way in death.

You have won, my brother. Be free.