AN: Hi guys, hope your enjoying it! Sorry for the strangely paced updates, I'm pretty much writing and uploading as I go so cant really guarantee any schedule right now. Anyway hope you're liking it and make sure to leave a review if you do! :)
Who cares if you're weak?
If we band together we can do anything!
~Charla (Fairy Tail)
I woke to dread. Neji was asleep beside me but that wouldn't last long and I wasn't going to be able to palm this off with a simple "we can deal with it tomorrow". No. This time I had to try and take Neji through what had happened, the only issue with that was that I hadn't actually been told what had happened. I mean I already knew but it would be highly suspicious to reveal that to anyone, even Neji.
I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. Could I make it seem as if I was just guessing? Could I act as if I'd overheard something? Could I just pretend to have put together the pieces and figured it out myself?
It was a no to all of those options, the last especially. Given how intent Hiashi was the previous day, painting myself as some kind of analytical genius was a very, very bad idea. I'd have preferred to attract a grand total of zero attention, there were too many nasty figures in the village to risk it. I knew that in the show Danzo had taken a lot of clan members for ROOT and while I couldn't remember any Hyūga in the organisation that didn't mean he wouldn't take interest in me.
I had to handle this like a child would, with blind faith and unwavering confidence. I would take the same approach with Neji as I had with the clan head. I would merely say 'They were brothers, he wouldn't do that.' I would say that however many times it took to get Neji to accept it. Maybe if he accepted that now, he would have an easier time accepting the truth later on. I could only hope.
"You awake Hato?" Neji asked groggily.
"Yeah I'm up." I answered "You okay?"
"I don't know…" he looked crushed, it was as if every fibre of strength had been torn away from him and destroyed while he watched.
"You don't have to be okay, you just lost your Father. You can be sad" I murmured. I shuffled closed so that our sides were touching. Dropping my head onto his shoulder I whispered "It'll be okay though".
Neji was silent, but this wasn't a comfortable silence. He was very quickly going from sad to absolutely fucking pissed and I had no idea why. Had I said something wrong? Surely I couldn't have fucked up that quickly. Turns out my plan was utterly useless, he didn't even want an explanation from me. It looked as if the very thought of asking what had really happened hadn't even occurred to him.
"We. We just lost our Father." Neji said gaining volume with every word "How are you just going on like it's all okay? How can you tell me I can be sad!? Why should I be sad when you aren't?" he was losing steam at this point but he had one final blow remaining "Why are you so okay…?"
"Neji… Neji I'm not okay. I'm hurting just as much as you are." I whispered. I could feel the tears coming and there was no stopping them. Much like Neji last night it was a seemingly endless stream complete with gushing sobs and unsightly expression. "I-I just wanted to be strong for you. I wanted to be there for you." I was choking on every second syllable but I had to get this out "I wanted to help you for once…"
"Hato, you're stupid." there was absolutely no hesitation in his voice, it was firm and non-consoling as if he was disciplining a pet.
"W-what" I stammered out.
"I don't want you to be strong for me" he said looking down "I just want us to be together".
Just as I though the tears were going to stop he had to go and say something as sweet as that. There was no saving me from this second flood of tears, this time however Neji joined me. We wrapped our arms around each other and cried and cried and cried, simply taking comfort in the fact we still had each other.
It was to this sight that Hiashi walked into the room. He was all grace and power walking with the same effortless presence as Father always had. Luckily for the two of us he was wearing formal, main house robes and thus couldn't be mistaken for Father. At the sight of Neji and I curled up and weeping there was an almost unnoticeable softening to his features, I don't know if it was out of shared grief or plain pity but he simply sat down and waited without making any demands.
I'll admit it took us some time to collect ourselves enough to be able to get out of bed but we managed and so finally disentangling with each other we rose and went to greet our 'Guest'.
We simply kneeled in front of him in supplication before leaning back and looking at him questioningly.
"I'm here to explain more of what happened to your father." he declared "He asked me to wait until you were older but I have decided that you should know."
The two of us were about as shocked as you can imagine. The clan head had come to us to explain himself. This was more than we ever could have hoped for, the clan head was supposedly above this but I suppose our close blood ties must have done us some good. I was certainly pretty happy with it, at least this way my earlier worries were completely removed. It would be so much easier to pass off the responsibility of explanations to Hiashi and then just focus on comforting my brother.
"Early yesterday Hinata was kidnapped" he started "While I managed to stop the perpetrators from taking her I was forced to kill them. However their village decided they wanted the body of the killer, mostly because they wanted my Byakugan."
"So you forced Father to go instead then didn't you?" Neji retorted furiously.
"No. I was prepared to remove my eyes and then give myself to them." Hiashi answered unhesitatingly "My brother wouldn't accept that."
"What do you mean he wouldn't accept that" I asked, decided to play along with my role as the unknowing child.
"He volunteered himself, he had the seal so letting him go wouldn't harm the clan irreversibly. I tried to refuse him but he had already convinced the elders, there was nothing I could do."
"So he chose to leave us…" Neji whispered. It was obvious that the mere thought of this was destroying him. He couldn't understand why Hizashi would ever choose his cold and unfeeling brother over his own children. In a way I could understand Neji's attitude but my mental age lent me the ability to deconstruct the scenario in a way that my brother could hope to do for a while yet.
"No, he chose to protect us by protecting the clan. Right?" I ventured gently.
"Correct, in fact he said something very similar to me before he left." Hiashi agreed slowly.
"Neji think about it, what would have happened if the clan head died. The heiress is only our age" I pointed out, the image was a pretty scary one. The clan was fucked up enough without the asshole elders taking complete control through a perfectly legal regency.
"I-I guess you're right, Father would have done it without a good reason and I guess what you're saying makes sense." Neji was hesitantly agreeing! This was good, this was really, really good. If he continued like this then perhaps he wouldn't turn into such a hateful prick later on, who knows maybe I could avoid him being wrecked by Naruto. There was only one last hurdle we had to cover, I had to make sure that he didn't blame anyone. Especially Hinata.
"Neji, as much as it hurts Father choose this for himself. We should trust him to make the right choice." I wanted, no I needed him to understand this. If he could get his head around this then it was pretty certain he wouldn't place the blame on anyone's shoulders.
"I know… and I do trust him. I'm just mad."
"What are you mad at Neji? Are you angry with Father? Hiashi? The clan itself?" I hoped to god that he would answer intelligently, he might only be four but I was praying to anything that would listen that he wouldn't be dumb enough to become the threat that Hiashi feared.
"I-I don't know, everything I guess. I'm angry that it happened, that's it." While Neji might have sounded grumpy as hell I have to say that I was hugely pleased with what he said. With his childish manner he made his anger seem inconsequential and harmless and goddamn I wanted to kiss him for it.
"I understand your anger Neji, I'm not exactly pleased with the situation myself" this time it was Hiashi speaking "He and I might not have been close but he was still my brother and I certainly didn't want anything like this for him, especially when he had children such as yourselves to care for.".
"Hiashi, now that Father's gone, who is going to care for us now?" I'd been wanting to ask this since he walked into the room, I couldn't remember anything from the show that told me what had happened to Neji after his father had died. I was as much curious as I was worried, I might have the mental age of a 20 year old but I certainly didn't have the skills to become financially independent with my current 4 year old body. I assumed that we would been given some nasty old wretch as a caregiver like in the story of Cinderella or put into some clan orphanage. I mean we were a ninja clan and surely there would be a relatively large group of orphans especially after the Kyuubi attack.
"I have organised a suitable caretaker for the both of you until you reach the age of majority." Hiashi answered quickly. I suppose that made sense, for all that we were branch house we had a pretty solid connection to the main family so it would have been unlikely for anything else to have happened. I imagine this was just as much for Hiashi as it was for us, he would have unprecedented control over our upbringing and thus our development simply by tailoring our Caretaker to suit his needs. I'll admit I was pretty worried that he would place us with some pretentious main house asshole who'd force us to behave in the perfect Hyūga manner for the rest of our lives without fail. God knows I wouldn't be able to handle that no matter how adult my mind might be, I simply wasn't well suited to a life of propriety.
"Her name is Emi. She is a member of the branch family and will be staying with you as your guardian." Hiashi said this slowly, I'm pretty sure he was worried that there would be some kind of outcry.
Much to his surprise there was no such trouble. For all that we were still hurting from the loss of our father we both knew that we wouldn't survive on our own, we needed someone to look after us for a little while yet. I suppose the fact that she was from the branch family also helped, it certainly gave me some peace of mind. While Neji and I were more closely affiliated with the Main House than many other branch members we still weren't comfortable with them and after the kindness that my brother had received from them in the last day that wasn't likely to change anytime soon.
Neji and I merely bowed our heads in acceptance. Needless to say Hiashi was surprised by our meek obedience, understandable given the dramas with Neji that had happened so recently.
"When will we meet her?" I asked curiously. Given the speed that recent events had transpired with, I was honestly surprised that he had even gotten around to organising anything. If anything I was expecting him to tell me that there would be a wait of at least a week before we would meet this mysterious Emi.
"She will be here later today'.
What… Hiashi must have pulled some major strings to get all this sorted literally overnight. I knew that as the clan head he had a lot of power but for anyone to just immediately agree to take on two children, two orphans, he must have either used some serious political leverage or had some divine interference.
"Will she be able to train us?" Neji piped up questioningly. Of course he had to ask about training, it was one thing that hadn't even crossed my mind but knowing Neji the idea of no longer having a teacher was probably as painful as the thought of waking up without legs.
"Yes."
I gave a disgruntled sigh, this woman wasn't going to be some middle aged daisy was she. What's the bet she was some harsh branch elder dedicated to training us to within an inch of our lives, then again that wouldn't be too different from what we were used to.
"Good" Neji replied with what might have been just a hint of a smile. Honestly after all the shit that's just gone on this is what made him smile? Well at least he didn't look quite as gloomy as before, but seriously how much does this bastard love training?
"We'll see" Hiashi said with… oh my god was that a smirk?! I thought that smirking was reserved for the Uchiha. God now I'm just scared, what sort of monster trainer would this woman be if the thought of her training us made Hiashi smirk…?
I think the look of sheer terror on my face must amused Hiashi greatly for he gave a small chuckle, which for a Hyūga was the equivalent to a full blown belly laugh.
"You needn't worry Hato, I very much doubt she will be any harsher than you are used to. Though I do admit her teaching style may take some getting used to."
Both Neji and I nodded. I could just tell that Neji was excited, and honestly that made me seriously happy. No matter how strange or demonic this Emi might be, if she could stop Neji from sinking deep into grief and anger she'd be fine with me.
Knock knock knock
"Ah that would be her. Shall we go and meet her?"
"Yes Hiashi." the two of us chorused.
