Truce
Disclaimer: Foremost, Naruto and its characters are loaned from Kishimoto. I own nothing here, officially or otherwise, except for the plot, the prose, and other such resources utilized for the creation of this piece.
Summary: For Hyuuga Neji's future children, there is only one way to avoid the mark of the inferior branch. Eventual NejiHina, I think. One shot.
Hyuuga Neji would come to know as a child the woes of the unprivileged blood. He had seen it lucidly in the very eyes of those who shared the same roots with him, in their cautious but unyielding glances, and in their unveiled manner of treating the superior brood otherwise. Toward himself, he had felt it with their silence, a silence so cold he never stopped wondering if the Hyuuga clan wasn't a hybrid of something yet otherworldly, inhuman.
He knew better than to ask. As a young man, he had learned to pay for this congenital inferiority with silence.
"You realize, of course, that the situation leaves you no choice." Hyuuga Hiashi had told him one evening.
"It's not a situation I did anything to be in." he replied.
"That's true, unfortunately, but to maintain the strength and integrity of the bloodline only one solution exists."
He didn't respond. For such a thing to happen to him, or to anyone for that matter, a terrible crime must precede. He knew what the crime was, and it was the crime of being born to the inferior branch of the family. There on his forehead, the stigma remained solid, easily swimming into plain view when not concealed with layers of white band.
"Is there really no other way?" he asked his uncle, almost pleading.
"Neji, there are things one has to carry as a burden even when it's far from being his fault or doing. In your case, it's this." Hyuuga Hiashi gazed at him through opaque eyes. "The Hyuuga bloodline has a value far weightier than most. As its head, it's up to me to make sure that the blood doesn't get diluted down the line. You understand now, I suppose, how this is both a blessing and a curse."
He nodded. He understood. And he realized there and then that the inferiority of his blood was more than what he credited it for: above everything, it was a defect, a debt he would have to labor for till his last breath.
"It is a tradition that has run through centuries, past ages untold." His uncle continued. "And while the thought must have struck you as taboo, the opposite is worse: To break this tradition, to punctuate it out of selfishness, is the only more horrible crime. It's useless to appeal."
"I have no love for Hinata."
"That is of no consequence. Love, in this matter, is irrelevant." Hiashi finished and left Neji to his musings.
Alone and in the dark, he dared let out the words he was so used to feeling: I have no love for Hinata, he would repeat many times over.
Once in a while, for long stretches, he would peer through the window of his room and traverse the outside world with only the power of his eyes. Dark, clear, it didn't count what shade the sky was: He had memorized the nuances between dark and light that even their molecules seemed to brim with blatant colors. He could sear through spaces and observe the merest vibration of a leaf from yards off and smile to himself afterward for being omniscient. He had seen many things he should and shouldn't see without moving from where he lay. And of these things, there was quite none that gave him the answer he had searched high and low for: Why does it have to be me?
"The date is drawing near. You must let my daughter know."
"You haven't told her?" Neji said, taken aback.
"It's not in my place to make the proposal." It was all Hyuuga Hiashi had told him.
Once again, he felt the familiar pang of weakness in his veins, something he was bound to feel as his father's surrogate and heir to his burdens . He was not even strong enough to stand up to an appalling tradition, let alone say anything in protest. After all, he owed Hyuuga Hiashi everything he knew in the way of fighting techniques and arts. He restrained himself for a few moments more, feeling furthest from motivated. Was his life just a bargain from the beginning? Was it panned out by the people he called his relatives without due regard to his feelings? Did they have any idea how little love he harbored for Hyuuga Hinata? With this sentiment came the realization of his stagnant status as a son of the second-born: Life gave him no options to choose from.
"Your father wants you to know that it's time." He would tell Hinata later on, feeling utterly cheated by fate and contrivance. "This is all the chance I have to take. Believe it or not, I have nothing to do with it."
"What is it exactly, big brother?" Hinata mumbled. Something in her hushed tone indicated uneasiness, which was caused more by Neji's near presence than anything else she might be feeling inside.
"You and I are slated to be married in the next few years or so. Your father requests that we change whatever previous relationship we had and direct it toward a more domesticated one. I just want you to know that I'm very much against this." he ended. His voice didn't trail, words unfaltering, as they zoned in on the target. He meant to be flat and indifferent about it.
"I see." Hinata said quietly after holding her breath for a brief spell.
At that, with piercing clarity, a realization dawned on Neji. "You knew… Since when?"
"I heard father and grandfather talking about it… years ago." Hinata admitted. Neji could feel her words shrinking back, hesitating as if afraid they would be blown to bits before they turned into an expression. "I just couldn't tell you…"
"Well then, I guess this solves any possible dispute." Neji shrugged. "The key thing here is to fulfill their wish regardless of our opinions on the matter. As I've mentioned, it's not in my desire for things to wind up this way. We just have to work on reconciling our past differences from now on."
"I understand. I'm sorry, big brother."
"There is nothing to apologize for; neither of us is to blame. If anything, you're as much a victim as I am."
"Victim?" Hinata looked up, her brows curling. A sure sign of pain.
"You don't have to pretend that you agree with this arrangement when it's obviously causing both of us disgust. We can't undo anything now or even wish to know of an easier way out of this, unless we contemplate suicide. Let's just make the best out of this, shall we?" he proffered. He wasn't particularly anxious of stopping the sting. More than anything, he felt neither reassured nor done justice to by his own words.
"It… it doesn't disgust me." Hinata sighed, rather defensively. "I guess father and grandfather had the best intentions when they made the decision. If there was any other way, they would've gone for it, I suppose."
He stared at her then. There was no comfort to be drawn from their proximity to one another; just coldness, the same coldness he had been so accustomed to feeling in the Hyuuga household. In truth, he didn't want the whole thing to resemble a business transaction gone bad, not if he could help it at all; but as he would learn time and again, destiny left him no choice. It had left him none just as it had deprived him of his birth rights. Back in the real world, Hyuuga Hinata stood stiffly in front of him and he saw in her not the usual ungainly version of the faint-hearted heiress, but an instrument akin to a mirror. He looked into her face then, white eyes piercing through whiter sheets of secrecy, before turning away.
"At any rate, this falls nothing short of irreversible." he muttered, quite reduced to a low pitch. "Let's just be civil from here on out."
But something in his words fueled defiance in Hinata and she refused to let go of the idea. Somehow, she persisted in that one texture of truth that would drive this conversation to its planned end, a resolution in which both parties would realize the benefits of the deal and in the long run be content with it. At that instant, Hyuuga Hinata had felt too much of everything, and no amount of shyness could keep her from voicing herself out.
"This agreement would be good for you, too, big brother. I hope you'd come to learn so one of these days." she said.
"Elders don't always know best." he declared curtly. Elders could easily be done without.
"I think, this time, they do. If it happens… if we get married, don't you think it would be good for the children not to have the mark?"
"Children…" he paused. He wasn't thinking so far ahead of time. He knew subconsciously that the engagement stood for the purpose of bearing children who are strong purebloods, children who would grow up to uphold the customs of the family, inherit the Byakugan, and fall prey to the heinous tradition, but up until then he hadn't quite absorbed its entirety transpiring--of all people--to himself. Indeed, history repeats itself. It flips its pages back to be read again, word per word, until the story becomes a permanent element in everyone's life with only the characters expereincing shifts.
"Yes, children." Hinata repeated. How she brought herself to say the word, to even begin thinking of such thoughts, was never quite within his wildest conjectures. "Besides, I don't think I can be a successor to my father."
"What do you mean by that, Hinata?"
"The Hyuuga Clan needs a leader and a protector. That duty should be yours and no other."
"Are you suggesting--"
"I'm saying that if we get married you can replace my father as the head of the clan. You will have that right as my husband and our children after you." she said and for the first time, she had a firm ground to stand on.
He stood still the way he would when paralyzed by an enemy. To be caught off guard like this was beyond his predictions, far beyond his prized Byakugan could detect even. He cast an inspecting glance at Hinata once more. This girl, just halfway on her journey to womanhood, accepted his faults so much easier than he did. It was something he failed to account for; this generosity of hers, this practicality and cleverness. It was almost ridiculous. Strangely enough, it was this slip that would thereafter lead him to see a bright future ahead. He exhaled deeply and turned to pose the new, more urgent question: How much did he stand to gain at this juncture?
"I suppose you have a point." he recapitulated, finally. "It seems that things are bound to go smoothly, hence." he finished. Perhaps it was this side of the wager that made it a blessing, after all.
"I'm glad, big brother." she smiled. For a deal that leaves nothing to be desired, indeed, there's only fulfillment.
Until then Hyuuga Neji would just have to tell himself that he had no love for Hinata. He would repeat it again and again until time transforms it into a lie, until there is nothing but love and respect between them. By then, no child of his shall suffer the same treatment as he did.
END