AN: Hey guys this is my first proper attempt at writing so just warning you that there might be some errors, as I find them I'll try to go back and fix them but if you notice any glaring mistakes hit me up and I'll try to get rid of them. Hope you enjoy!
There was nothing; no light, no sound, no substance, just an endless expanse of emptiness. It was at this moment I realised I fucked up, or rather that I was fucked. I knew instinctively that this was not right, this was not where I should be. Looking back, I think it was this realisation that initiated the pull. For all at once the nothing was replaced with light, not the warm light of a winter's fire but the cold and dispassionate light of a blue star. Then as suddenly as it had come it was gone and I was in the dark again, though this time it was warm and filled with the sounds of life.
We should all be incredibly thankful that we don't remember being born, because I can tell you that it is not a fun experience. The miracle of life is a disgusting process of being pushed and crushed all while being unable to breathe, yeah not much fun to be had there. Lucky as a not yet born child, time doesn't have too much meaning, regardless of how old you might be in spirit and so after some amount of time I was born. Now I'd heard people say that babies haven't fully developed the ability to see by the time they're born and yep they were right, everything was a weird-ass blur of soft colours, this ironically enough was the thing that surprised me most. I mean should I be at a hospital, one of those creepy, stark white prison cells? I had just been born after all. But no, no hospital for this baby, just warm off white, rice-paper maybe?
It wasn't until weeks later that I realised I hadn't ever seen my mother, surely by now she should have at least had the chance to hold me but no, the only people I saw had to be nurses unless of course my mother in this life consistently changed what shade of brown her hair was and had decided I deserved nothing but polite coddling rather than motherly affection but that seemed unlikely. I had however seen someone who I assumed was my father, he would come in from time to time and make sure I was still alive but that was about it, which was okay though, I assume he is just a pretty busy guy. It was during one of these visits though that I realised I did have a brother, he like me was also just a babe in arms but it was nice to know I probably wouldn't be alone.
Though this was only the very beginning of the weirdness that was my new life, people don't realise it but a baby's sight develops incredibly fast after birth, true it might be an attribute specific to my family but I certainly didn't know that at the time.
The first indication that this might not be the world that I knew and love was my father, more specifically his eyes. They were pure white, almost reminiscent of the cataracts that had formed in the eyes of my beloved cat from what I assume was my previous life. In fact that's exactly what I thought it was at first, I had felt so incredibly sorry for the young man rendered blind so early in his life but that changed when I realised his movement was not impaired in the slightest. His movement I realised was quite possibly the epitome of grace, there was not a single wasted movement, he moved like a world class dancer or perhaps more realistically an insanely talented martial artist. In each of his visits I realised more and more things about him that didn't make sense in a modern world; he could lift me without the barest hint of effort; he wore clothing that I had never seen outside of my one trip to Japan as a child; most importantly perhaps he wore a single headband each and every time he visited though my eyes still hadn't quite developed enough to catch the details on it, much to my dismay. As each of these individual irregularities arose I was largely unconcerned, true my curiosity was in hyper drive but to be completely honest I didn't care, if anything I thought it would be interesting to see how it all panned out if my dad was an internationally acclaimed dancer or something like that. It hadn't even crossed my mind that I might be in a world that wasn't my own.
I think it was around the third time that my father visited that I realised just how fucked I was, he'd taken me in his arms and in the process jostled my sleeping brother who of course in a way that is unique to babies violently burst into ridiculously loud tears. Now's when shit really hit the fan:
"Neji shush"
Suddenly a lot of things made sense. The eyes; they were the white eyes of the Hyūga, the headband; that was the goddamn leaf Hitai-ate, the strength and grace well no shit my dear ole dad was a ninja, Jōnin if I remember right. This of course meant that I was the brother of Neji godforsaken Hyūga, a prodigy of the Hyūga clan style Taijutsu. Shit. It was at this moment that I launched into what might have quite possibly been the biggest tantrum of my new life, there were tears and screaming and hitting and everything else that the Hyūga might have looked down upon in a child but at that moment I truly didn't care cause regardless of what they thought I was screwed, completely and utterly screwed. I was a westerner with very deep morals that had been a part of my personality for far longer than I had been alive in this world, how the hell was I going to drop all of that and become a ninja. At that point the only thing I could think was "I'm going to kill people". Of course this left my poor father with two screaming infants and no one but himself there to take care of them.
To the best of my knowledge Neji's mother had never even been mentioned in the show so it made sense that she wasn't here, though I did make the tentative assumption that she had died in childbirth, perhaps it was a Hyūga thing given the same thing happened to Himawari, Hinata's mother. You might be asking why I immediately assumed my mother was dead and gone rather than thinking of any of the other possible scenarios well I have always lived by one tenant in particular "If you expect the worst you can only have pleasant surprises", and given that her being dead was the most morbid and unfortunate possibility that's exactly what conclusion I jumped to. It does however help that in this circumstance I was right.
The only good thing about this whole scenario was that I had actually quite liked Naruto when I was younger; I wasn't an avid fan by any means but I knew some relevant stuff that might be helpful in allowing me to you know… not be horribly killed before I turned 20, I didn't really want to go through the whole void thing again quite so soon if I could avoid it.
I think I'll skip over the next year or two, the constant boredom doesn't really make for the most exciting of stories funnily enough. By the time I was 6 months old I had started walking which coincidentally was still after my brother, how he managed to beat me given my head start to the whole living thing still frustrates me. But then again he is meant to be a genius so I guess I can let it go. But nevertheless, we were both walking very early, much to the joy of our father and by extension the branch half of the Hyūga clan I would assume.
Apparently in the ninja world, or maybe just the Hyūga clan training started early, like as soon as you could walk. This part of things I had been dreading, I knew Neji was going to be able to beat me black and blue and I really didn't want to have to deal with that as a toddler. I was right too, he was so much better than I was it was laughable, we had been started on the most basic of the Gentle Fist style kata but even then the body of a toddler is not made for much movement, let alone the quick and fluid variety that was required for the Gentle Fist. But nevertheless I still gave it my best, this was the stuff that was going to allow me to survive in the world I mean you don't generally see Hyūga utilising Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, only Taijutsu and even then only the Gentle Fist.
It took months of hard work but I did get the hang of what could only be the most basic of our clan kata, I was nowhere near as good as my brother but I was getting better and that's all that really mattered to me at the time. I'd seen it coming but with Neji's prodigious talent he was the talk of the clan, every time he and I trained together there would be a different clan member, it would usually be one of our fellow branch members but from time to time one of the esteemed main family members would arrive complete with their better than thou attitude and god did it annoy me. It was bad enough that father only had eyes for Neji but to have the 'honourable' elders of the clan watch and compare us was just plain demeaning. There were constant whispers between the clan members all of them along the same lines:
"He truly is talented isn't he, a prodigy even..."
"I feel for Hato, it's bad enough to be in the shadow of the main family but he can't even get out of his own brothers shadow"
I'm Hato by the way, translates to dove of all things... honestly could they have picked a less manly name, between this and the classic Hyūga look there was no way anyone was going to think I was a guy.
By the time we were four things in my opinion were going swimmingly, sure I still hadn't caught up to my brother in any way shape or form but I was still doing better than expected for my age, I had activated my Byakugan and was progressing quickly in the art of the Gentle Fist, that's to say I was doing far better than the heiress Hinata though that was to be expected I suppose, she hadn't really gotten good until after the Chūnin exams. Of course it was during this time that once again everything went to shit.
The clan heiress's 3rd birthday was coming up, this for a reason that would soon become unfortunately clear caused somewhat of a stir within the branch families of the Hyūga clan with parents worriedly glancing at their younger children more often than I had ever noticed before. It really should have been clear to me at that stage what was about to happen but I suppose the 4 years of relative peace had dulled whatever specifics I had remembered about my clan.
Sometime before her birthday, probably a week or so to make a tentative guess our father informed Neji and I that we would be attending a clan gathering to honour the young Hinata and that we would be expected to stay afterwards for a special ceremony, the tone my father used raised alarm bells immediately, he somehow managed to incorporate fear, anger and righteous indignation into his voice all at the same time and to be completely honest it was terrifying. Neji who at that time was simply a little ball of sunshine, constantly smiling without a care in the world that wasn't training didn't seem to pick up on it but I was not pleased, my adult mind was desperately trying to understand what might be going on but the closest I got was that there might be a combat exercise and that didn't even begin to cover what actually happened that night.
I remember being forced into the unexpectedly comfortable formal kimono style robes that were required for functions of this level. I remember the walk to the main house, relatively short but made inexplicably longer by the dread that fathers voice had instilled in me. I remember waiting outside of what had the be the largest and most elegant house that I had ever seen and that was including the 20 or so years of life I had in the other world. From then on everything was intense in that i was interacting with people who by all rights were my superiors within the clan, I'd been talking for years so there was no getting out of polite conversation. With my brother by my side I was introduced to the Elders of the Hyūga clan, by god were they an uptight bunch I was almost glad to have been born to the branch side of the family as I only ever really had to deal with them watching me train and by now I could tolerate that. After the Elders came the guest of honour, or as you know her: Hinata Hyūga.
From what I knew she was a lovable but incredibly shy little girl who would at some point soon develop a hero worship type adoration of my dear older brother. However, rather than wanting to spend more time with us and properly get to know each other she was gone almost as soon as we had introduced ourselves. I won't hold it against her though, she was likely rather busy that night given what she was about to be given control over.
The party itself was over faster than I had dared hope and honestly all I wanted to do was politely excuse myself and run for the hills before anything happened, in fact I did try to excuse myself only to be rudely glared at by daddy-dearest in a way that could only mean "Not happening". It was shortly after that embarrassment that all of the branch members were gathered together and taken out to one of the larger, less homely buildings that might as well have been used as a warehouse or perhaps a large dojo. It was at this point that my nerves resurfaced with a vengeance, I had finally figured out what the hell was going to happen, I'd realised it was time for me to be caged.
The entire branch family had been gathered, from the eldest members down to the very youngest of us, those being Neji and I. We were assembled in what could only have been the main family dojo, it was a tight fit with all of us in there though that would quickly change. It was at this point that we were formally told what would be happening, the entire branch family with the exception of my brother and I would be undergoing what was essentially a change of hands. While my brother and I were taken outside of the building by two scowling Hyūga elders the others were forced to kneel in subjugation to the heiress Hinata. Apparently each time a new air reaches the age where they are given control over our cursed seal a ritual must be conducted to allow said heir to activate the seal, it was intended to be an added precaution just in-case the secret hand-sign was ever stolen by one of our many enemies. It was however a quick ritual and in and then out type of thing, however even after they had completed their side of the ritual we were not allowed to meet with the rest of the branch family including our father.
After all my brother and I were here for a somewhat more involved time, as the two youngest in the branch family we were the only two not to have previously received the cursed seal of the Hyūga clan and apparently that was due to change. At this point in time it was rather late at night, long after my brother and I would have normally gone to bed but there we were sitting close to one another in the now empty dojo. I remember we were shivering not from the cold but rather from dread, Neji from his abstract understanding of the concept of a seal and his worry that it would hurt and me from my knowledge of exactly what this seal would symbolise in the future.
Coming from a land where this would amount to horrible slavery and torture the idea of this seal really did bother me, I couldn't understand how any of the Hokage had allowed to this to flourish within the clan. I knew that it would be political suicide to mess with the clans but seriously this was a human rights violation if I had ever seen one.
Soon enough we were told that the elders were ready for us, of course we rose together comforted by the fact that regardless of what happened we would be together for it, this was however quickly crushed. With one look at the elders I could tell that I wasn't wanted, not yet.
"Sit down boy, your time will come soon enough"
I hate to admit it but I froze, I couldn't create conflict but my brother would need me and I could just let him go on his own. Though with one glance to him again this idea was shattered, I could tell he was scared but he was trying to be brave and I couldn't take that away from him, so with a final squeeze of his hand I let him go and sat back down.
At first there was only the near silence of murmured voiced in the distance, it wasn't a warm silence nor was it companionable but it could have been worse, in fact it did get worse. From the far end of the dojo came a chilling scream, this wasn't a roar of anger or a wait of sadness but a scream of such pure pain that I found myself unable to move, there was nothing I could do but watch that end door and hope to god that my brother came out alive.
He never did walk out of that door, which at that moment caused me more terror than I would care to admit but I didn't really get a chance to think too much about that as mere moments after his screams stopped I was asked to follow the elder into what could only be described as slavery.
I was ushered into what I would forever remember as the hell room not because it was ringed with ritual hell-fire or any of that crap but because in the future whenever I was hit with one of the Hell viewing genjutsu, this room is what I saw. I was asked to kneel in the centre of the room, outlined with countless dark lines in what I could only assume was an extremely elaborate set of seals with the sole purpose of taking away my independence from the clan for however long I survived in this world. From there they painted the classic seal on my forehead beneath the fringe that I had grown and would likely continue to grow just to hide what I was about to receive. Now comes the painful part, Hinata was brought into the room. She stood in front of me and for what was only the second time that night she placed her palm on the pre-drawn seal. With a cry of "Seal" my world exploded, I can only assume that as a part of the sealing process the seal has to fully activate all of its components included the whole brain-soup part. My god it hurt, the pain blocked out all of my other senses once again there was nothing and it terrified me. Luckily it passed quickly, I was quickly pulled to my feet and ushered out of the room into the waiting arms of my father who for the first time in this new fledgling life of mine looked ready to cry, whether it was out of anger or sadness I'll never know but at the time for whatever reason it made me feel valued. It did of course help that my brother was standing beside him looking pale but alive.
From the moment we returned home both Neji and I cried and cried and cried. He cried from the memory of the mind breaking pain and I cried from the realisation that this horrible and cruel world was where I had to live and that I might not even stand a chance.
We were trapped within a cage of painted lines and unspeakable pain and there would be no escape.
