Didn't have time to post yesterday!

NejiTen Month 2019
Prompt: Cursed

They tell him he is born to be bound - an irrevocable decree written in the moments between the birth of his Uncle and his Father. And although his Uncle was the one with the tell-tale red string around his wrist marking him as the first-born, it was his father that was tied and bound to the damning inheritance of the second born and his children's children's children.

They tell him his life is not his own - it is a commodity afforded to the head house to do with as they will, and subject to the whims of their favor.

They brand and curse him in the same stroke, a viridian crown carved into his synapses and flesh to glow upon his brow and mark him as servant and not master.

The tell him his fate is forged and the inevitability of his death - a white elephant is gifted by a heartless king - presented as an honor, but realized as an obligation meant to drain everything he will ever be away into nothing.

And he believes them.

He accepts and his fate with a hybrid of malicious compliance and spiteful hopelessness that has left him too bitter to regret, but too angry - too proud - to be anything other than exceptional.

If he is to be cursed, then he will surpass all others, forcing his masters to sacrifice their best, knowing he could have led them to their greatest triumph, but for a handful of moments and a bit of string.

He grows solitary and strong, refusing to depend on anyone or anything that is not himself.

Or, at least that is his intention.

Handed over to the most ridiculous of masters with one useless team mate and one with no clan but perhaps potential, he bricks his resolve to improve despite any and all obstacles - to carry the team on his back if need be.

But, to his utter surprise, he improves because of them.

Might Gai is outrageous but knowledgeable and far more skilled than he could have ever imagined. Neji, who had dismissed his Sensei's determination to turn Lee into a shinobi as a quixotic exercise in futility, was proven wrong in the most spectacular (and flamboyant) way possible.

Lee declares him as his rival, and Neji is humbled to find that his teammate and sensei - both incapable of ninjutsu - help him to hone and sharpen his clan's secret techniques beyond what even a prodigy like himself could have accomplished on his own.

And then there is Tenten.

Her utter disregard for his clan, but appreciation for his ability is foreign to him - how could one appreciate his talents and gifts and yet dismiss the Huyga? For the first time he feels appreciation for what he can do, and not just for what he represents.

For the first time in his life, he is simply Neji.

Not a Huyga,
not a member of the branch family,
not a living breathing weapon at the disposal of the Main House to be used or abandoned according to their whims.

Just... Neji.

And for the first time in his life that is more than enough to someone.

And that makes it enough for him.

And the first time she kisses him (and he will forever remind her that she kissed him first and not the other way around so that he can see her blush in that way that makes his chest ache happily) he is presented with the novel idea that he could live the rest of his life as "just Neji," and be happy.

With her hand in his, he learns to stand tall and proud, able to be on his own, but not alone.

True, the mark still glows vividly on his skin, and the Main House could still end his life with a whim.

But Neji is no longer a solitary bird caged by fate.

He has Gai-Sensei.
He has Lee.
He has Naruto.
He has Hinata.
He has Hanabi.
He has the other Rookies, and his village and his even his clan, and any he chooses to allow to stand alongside him.

He has Tenten.

And she has him.
All of him.

And with them by his side,
and his heart in the care of another who would die to protect it,
he turns away from his allotted fate and decides to forge his own.

There is no cage this side of heaven or hell that can hold him.

The curse is broken.

Neji is free.