Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

SETTING: In a world where soul mates are cursed with the name of their counterpart seared onto their skin, a master and her guardian find love.

When he received his name, Neji screamed loud enough to startle the birds hiding along the distant edge of the forest.

His master, Guy, crouched beside him immediately, concern in his eyes if not in his face. He'd been helping him practice his taijutsu since early morning. It was approaching mid-afternoon now, but Neji knew that this feeling wasn't from overwork. Over the years, he'd become intimately familiar with what it felt like to collapse from exertion. He knew even better how the accidental slip of a blade felt when it cut through his skin, and this pain—it was like none of those. Those were distant echoes compared to the rawness that consumed him now.

This was dense and lingering and ten times worse than anything he'd ever experienced. Heat coiled on his side, thumping in time with the frantic hammer of his heart. He clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle another shout before it could erupt from his throat, but it let loose anyway as the pain spread outward to lick at the skin he credulously thought would be left spared. His body felt as if it was on fire, and no matter how much he rolled, it wouldn't stop.

The pain didn't numb as time passed. Each instant felt hotter than the last, until the few shreds of his sanity slipped away from him. He felt like a rabbit run into the ground, caught between the verge of life and death with his little heart beating out against his will.

For all intents, this kind of burning torture should've killed him, or at the very least, knocked him into oblivion. Neji endured it, however, in consciousness. Perhaps he was forced to.

Then, without warning, the pain stopped.

Neji's voice died with it. He collapsed at its absence. So abrupt as to be missed. His breaths came out short and harsh. Every exhale made his shoulders quake, and they showed no signs of easing anytime soon. He needed to calm down, but every pant was wetter than the last. Neji could taste the iron tang of gore on his tongue. He knew that he wasn't about to get over this just because he willed it. Nothing was ever that easy.

Neji shook his head, trying to clear it enough to wrap his mind around what had just happened—to no avail. He keeled over to vomit a mouthful of bile. There was no food in his stomach to release. It left a rancid taste in his mouth that easily overpowered the copper. Neji remained there for a long time, uncaring for the way his hands and knees quivered in protest.

Guy whispered something soothing in his ear that he just scarcely registered, but his voice, full of gentleness and carefully controlled enthusiasm was so foreign that Neji forced himself to turn his head. He blinked back the unwelcome tears in his eyes and let Guy remove his palm from where he'd been pressing it so roughly against the side of his chest, just over the left side of his ribs.

Guy's eyebrows rose for a moment, before his expression curved to show a strange cross between a smile and a frown.

"Congratulations, Neji," he said. "You have your name."

Neji's eyes widened. Realization as instant as a flock of fleeing birds tore through him. He thought he wouldn't receive one. It was naïve, but he was already so much older than the rest, who'd been branded in their early teens. How in the world did they endure this back then?

"It hurts more the older you are," he assured, as if reading his mind. "I believe the oldest known person to receive one was only a year older than you."

"I don't want it," Neji somehow managed to rasp out. "I want to choose for myself."

"You will always be able to choose." Guy said wisely. He clasped him on the shoulder and looked Neji right in the eye. "I can't remove this, Neji. It can't be taken away. If you try to conceal it with ink or mar it with a scar, it'll reappear somewhere else and you'll have to go through that hellish torture again. But this mark doesn't seal your fate. Don't let it define your choices."

He finished his speech with the most heartfelt thumbs-up to date. Neji was tempted to back up at the sight of it, found that he couldn't, so he nodded instead. He was still reeling. His side throbbed with a vengeance. Neji wanted to tell him that he didn't think he could make it back, but the words bent in his throat.

"You're strong," Guy went on. He patted both of his shoulders as if to affirm the fact, and Neji almost collapsed right then and there. "But don't worry, I can bring you back."

That didn't sound good.

Just as he was about to protest, the blackness that crept around his periphery blurred, then grew to swallow everything. It darkened his vision, breath by breath, until it encompassed him like a silent, starless sky.

He was twenty-one years old.

Sleep came in broken bursts after that, interspersed with violent dreams of war and waking moments as foggy and blurred as his rippled reflection.

When Neji awoke, truly awoke, he found himself inside of a room within the Hyuga compound—he knew it was only because no other place, save perhaps the halls of certain wealthy clans, had such fine tatami. This room was more luxurious than his own. He was surrounded by wood and the smell of pine; walnut furniture and warm, earthy decorations that made the stress of waking less awful. A sitting room then. Definitely one in the Main House.

Neji's head throbbed. Not from pain, but from the distant memory of it. It was like his mind was trying to reconcile what he'd experienced with the ordinariness of now. He laid there for a long while, blinded by heat as if he held a star. Neji stared at the ceiling and just let his mind drift.

He'd decided long ago that when he'd get his mark, it wouldn't matter because he was already bound by duty to another. But, entirely against his will, his steadfast disposition from when he'd decided that so long ago faltered. It was one thing to say he was going to mindlessly do something, it was another thing entirely to have two options laid out before him—and so blatantly at that. He had one road that led down a path he'd always known and thought himself incapable of wavering from, and another to one he might be pulled to because of a stupid mark.

Assuming she isn't a Hyuga. Neji paused. Am I really wishing she is?

He was.

Neji reached into his robe to feel the mark. It was bunched together though, and he knew from the way he had to reach partially over his back that if he was an ordinary man he would need a mirror to see it completely. Luckily, he had the Byakugan. Before he could use it, however, someone called his name.

"Neji-san!"

"In the sitting room," he replied, not moving only because of the youthfulness in the voice. A boy had called out to him, and from the honorific, it was one from the Branch House. Not two seconds later, his assumption was proven right when a small boy came bounding inside.

He was no older than twelve and had the typical features of the Hyuga. There were bandages wrapped around his arms, which led him to believe that he'd been training this morning. Neji recognized him only because of the unfortunate placement of his name—Nanako—scarred boldly over his throat.

The sun peaked through the door, and Neji leaned back on the palm of his hands, letting its warm rays span across his neck and chest.

"What is it?" he asked, then tacked on, "Hiro?"

Hiro's face brightened at his acknowledgement. "News from the Council."

"The Council?"

"Yes. They want to recommend you to guard a diplomat from the Tea Country while he's here."

"When will he arrive?"

"Tomorrow."

"Does Hiashi-sama know about this?" Neji waited for him to nod, before asking, "Then who's to watch over Hinata-sama when she returns?"

"I will protect her until you're free, Neji-san!" Hiro said exuberantly.

He was so small and looked so proud that Neji couldn't bear to tell him no. But his face must've shown his displeasure because Hiro wilted as soon as he met his eyes. He seemed to slump into himself. His shoulders drooped down, along with his head. He even started shuffling his feet.

"I can't?" he asked, small.

Neji met his eyes. Hiro could do whatever he pleased, but... "It is my duty."

"Not duty," Hiro announced with a frown. He held his pointer finger up at him in what Neji realized was supposed to be a reprimanding gesture. "Privilege."

Who was teaching this boy?

"Yes," Neji agreed nevertheless. He wasn't wrong after all. "Privilege."

Neji waited for Hiro to run off. He was strangely energetic for a Hyuga child.

Once he was gone, he activated his Byakugan, focused his gaze onto that ridiculous mark he'd now have to bear for the rest of his life—and stilled. Time seemed to slow as he read the letters. Once, twice, fifteen more times.

A curse broke the quiet around him into glass, startling a high-pitched yelp out of some servant down the hall. It took him a moment to realize that the curse had come from him. And before he knew it, his fingers had dug into the priceless tatami that had so innocently kept his weight throughout the many hours he'd been asleep. It gave under his strength, cracking like a twig caught in a storm. Distantly, he realized that he'd need to have it fixed, but all rational thought was quickly lost to the tangled web of emotions that bubbled in his chest.

It was a mix of things that speared through him. They came too quickly for him to properly make them out—fear, hope, despair, joy, and another that was rooted deep inside of his core, but shrouded by years of built up denial for him to ever utter aloud. He'd been harboring that emotion for so long because he knew that no matter what happened, it could never be spoken; could scarcely even be thought about.

He didn't know if fate loved him or hated him at this point.

To give him the name of the woman he had devoted his life to, the woman he was sworn to protect, the woman he tried to kill—

The one woman that he could not have—

Neji snarled.

Neji was lucky that Hinata was off on a mission, even luckier that the Hokage herself had already assigned a ninja to guard the Tea diplomat, before the Hyuga clan could so much as recommend him for the job. Because, if nothing else, it gave him some time to think.

Perhaps it's a different Hinata, he thought, but just the idea left a sour taste in his mouth.

The problem was that Neji didn't know the name that marred Hinata's skin. He knew she had one. For a long time at that. Far longer than him. From the way she used to clam up whenever the subject was brought up when she became of marriageable age, she must've gotten it long before then. She'd mentioned it once in passing when he inspected her bruised arms after a particularly harsh round of training with her father.

It's on my back, she revealed. It's hard to reach.

"Naruto would be fitting then," he said self-deprecatingly to himself.

Neji wasn't certain it was that loudmouth, but who else could it be?

He hadn't bothered to ask, personal as the question was. Neither did he check with his Byakugan. There were just some boundaries that he would never cross. But now, at least at that moment, he wished that he had. Though, if he was being honest, he also didn't want to know. The thought terrified him more than he'd like to admit. Knowing would be like a blow to the chest. Neji didn't fancy himself a masochist.

He doubted the others in their generation knew either. They were a loud bunch. He would've heard them say it at least once. The scant few that he thought exempt from that were her teammates and her father; all people he'd be uncomfortable asking. Definitely not Hanabi. She had no filter to speak of… although maybe this was a different case. Some secrets needed to be kept after all, and with Hinata's hand in marriage up for auction, this was one of those secrets.

Not that it matters. Neji sighed. He still wouldn't be able to ask Hanabi, given her penchant for mischief.

Neji rubbed his temples, as he leaned against the squat wooden pillars used to hold storm lamps in front of their clan's entrance. Years ago, he wouldn't be allowed to idle about like this. But the Hyuga had slowly begun changing since the war. The boundary between Main and Branch was becoming more blurred by the day, owing in large part to Hinata and Hiashi's efforts, and in a tiny, more insignificant part to himself and all that he represented as a member of the clan's Branch House.

He was a skilled ninja, arguably the best their clan had to offer. Those that thought otherwise were overconfident fools that rarely lived to tell the tale. The rest of Konoha looked to him for an example of a true Hyuga—and with good reason. Neji's battle prowess was unmatched. It infuriated the sons and daughters of the Main House that were pitted against him during spars, and inevitably compared to him as well.

Neji was given a lot of leeway because of his abilities. But that didn't mean he wanted to continue testing his limits against them. Experience had taught him that the Main House's patience only extended to as far as their hands could reach. No matter how blurred the line between them might become during his lifetime, to him, it would never cease to exist. Years of unwillingly bowing his head to them ensured that. And, as he was often loathed to admit, his devotion to the clan and its principles—and to Hinata in particular—had always been worth more than anything else. More than glory or pride. Certainly more than his desire.

Am I actually entertaining the thought of this?

Yes, his mind promptly answered, and he crushed the thought.

He didn't know whether to thank his lucky stars or curse them for granting him such a common name; one that he already held affection for to boot. He knew nine women and four men with it. He wasn't interested in the latter and two of the women were whores from the lower districts of other countries that he'd come across during the rare times he was sent on information gathering missions. He crossed them all out from his list.

Neji might not have been the highest ranked member of his clan, but he was still considered higher than the majority of the general population. It would be unbecoming of him to marry beneath his station. Not to mention the clan leaders would disown him if he tried. There was no winning with them. Marrying below or above would be seen as a mistake. He hated it. More so because of the precise narrowing of choices, rather than any issue with the Branch House women that he was allowed to choose from.

It wasn't as if he had plans to marry outside of the clan anyway. He was his father's only child, and thus fully expected to carry on his blood. But it wasn't just that. Neji needed to keep his blood pure because the Elders would have an aneurysm if his genius diminished, or worse, died with him. He had no issue going along with their decisions… only because he knew Hinata would stop them should they so much as try. She wouldn't allow them to marry him off against his wishes, and where he was concerned, her word was law. He was her guardian after all. No one else's. He didn't want to be anyone else's.

If the Hinata engraved on his skin wasn't the one from his thoughts, then he sincerely hoped he never met her. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. He personally knew a number of people that had never met their soul mates. They'd married others instead. Then there were those that simply didn't care—too wild and free with their sexuality to worry about something so restricting. They were the fortunate ones. Because some had been forced not to care. Like the prostitutes and slave workers that had that decision made for them by a fistful of copper coins before they could learn more about the goodness within the world.

What if she's dead? he wondered, more than a little hopeful—and ashamed by the fact. Because as far as he was concerned, right now, this mark wasn't a blessing. It was an affliction. One that he felt full force.

He doubted she was gone though, considering the hollow stories he'd heard from others about the passing of theirs. Neji's third cousin, who'd gotten his mark at the tender age of twelve, had his die not six months later. He said he heard his counterpart pray; a tender whisper lost in the wind to a god that didn't save him. His cousin even went on to describe how it felt as if his arms had suddenly been twisted away to plunge him into a lake with no bottom. But from the differing accounts Neji had heard over the years, he wondered if perhaps his cousin's soul mate had simply drowned. He eventually married another man, but the name remained.

I don't know why I'm even thinking about this. Neji ran his hands through his hair in irritation. If anything, I should just be grateful that it didn't appear while I was in battle.

But he knew why…

Neji's life revolved around Hinata.

If it was anyone else, he'd be devastated.

Neji looked up when an older man in patterned robes and his much younger daughter emerged from an entrance at the very edge of the yard. He recognized him enough to know that he was a senior member of the branch family, but nothing else. Frankly, Neji was surprised that he brought his daughter here in the first place. This was the Main House yard, and it was frequently used for training. Children were cautioned against coming to the area, lest they get affected by an errant burst of chakra.

What he wasn't surprised by, however, was the mark on the girl's arm, which she flailed wildly as if her father might not see it if she didn't. Women were known to get theirs younger than men. Perhaps an interest in love had something to do with it. Though if that was the case, then he should've received his at four.

"Daddy," she whined.

"Rima," he said back. It was grave enough to make Neji crack a smile.

"But what if I don't like him? What if he's ugly and stupid and mean and," she gasped, sudden enough to get her father to turn, "what if he hates cacti? I can't be with someone who hates my cacti! I can't!"

Her father cracked a smile at that. "Yes, of course. Cacti."

"Daddy!"

"Don't fret, Rima. If you don't like him, then don't be with him. You will always be able to choose," he said, mimicking what Guy had told him not too long ago. It confirmed his thoughts that it was likely something everyone said to the newly marked.

"But…"

"Hmm?"

"What if he doesn't choose me?" she whispered, shier now.

His larger hand landed on her head to ruffle her hair.

"That is his decision, and you must respect it," he told her, then crouched down so he could look her in the eyes. "But anyone that doesn't want your heart will have to answer to me."

She beamed at him.

Neji stayed there long after they left. He looked up at the grey-laden sky and watched as the whorled clouds continued to swirl tighter into themselves.

He'd been so concerned about choosing for himself that he'd never considered that before.

Neji waited at the gates for her to return.

She was due back any minute now. And even though the sun loomed over him like the shadow of a disappointed parent, he didn't move from his shade-less spot. The Hokage really needed to consider investing in some kind of seating area by the gates for waiting friends and family because the heat was intolerable during the summer. While he could suffer through harsh conditions, that didn't mean he was willing to subject himself to lesser ones. In his own village, no less. Neji hated the heat, and if Hinata wasn't coming home, he'd be locked away in the deepest, most frigid room within the Hyuga household.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long.

He heard her voice, before he saw her. It was a peal of delicate silver in his ears. Neji ignored the shiver that rocked his spine, as he moved forward, closer, so he was standing half a step inside of Konoha's great double doors.

Hinata appeared on the horizon, flanked by her teammates. She smiled demurely at something that Kiba said, then let slip a string of careful laughter when Shino responded. Hinata raised her arms to placate them, but just as she did, her gaze was drawn forward by the sight of their home.

The delight he saw in her face once she caught sight of him couldn't be imitated.

Neji swore that he'd never forget that precise instant. When their eyes met across the distance; when her lips twitched up into a smile bright enough to stagger him; when she lifted her arm in a wave, pleased by his mere presence—his.

The world lurched beneath his feet. He held onto the village's gate to steady himself. It was solid. Too solid for dreams. Which only made him feel better as he muttered her name. His voice was low, but strong enough to carry across the space that separated them, and before he knew it, she was running.

Hinata skidded to a stop before him.

"Neji!" she said, thrilled. He didn't remember exactly when she'd dropped the honorific she so often tacked on after his name, but he knew it was sometime during the war. "Have you been waiting long?"

"I haven't, Hinata-sama," he said. His eyes zeroed in on a bandage wrapped around her forearm, but when he lifted his hand to brush against it, he stilled.

Neji wasn't entirely sure what happened then, but he smothered the urge to draw back, not wanting her to think that anything was wrong. It was for naught, however, because her eyes chased the hard, drooping curve of his mouth, while her teammates finally appeared behind her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's… nothing, Hinata-sama." He bowed his head ever so slightly in a way that made her frown. "Shall we return? I believe Hanabi-sama has been wanting to see you. Something about ointment?"

She looked at him for a moment longer, before nodding. "Of course."

"After you then, Hinata-sama."

She said goodbye to hear teammates, before going ahead. She tried to walk beside him as the minutes ticked on, but he always took a careful step back.

His ribs burned.

"Do they ever fade?" Neji suddenly asked.

Tenten turned, startled that he'd spoken at all. They'd been at the restaurant for the better half of an hour, and he hadn't uttered a singled word. Not even when the waitress came by to take his order or when Rock Lee arrived with his usual burst of boundless enthusiasm.

These team meetings were getting rarer as they got older, and while she'd go to hell and back for Neji, when he was in one of his moods, speaking to him was like pulling teeth… or information from a particularly tight-lipped ninja. Difficult, in any case.

"Does what?" Tenten finally said back. Neji gestured vaguely to the name hidden on her shoulder, and her eyes widened. When had Neji ever been interested in that? "It's been known to happen when someone's counterpart dies and they take a new lover with a dead soul mate as well. Though it's very rare."

"I… see."

"Why do you ask?"

The way his lips thinned in silent defiance was expected.

Am I really going to do this? Neji thought to himself, as he paced around his room. Is it worth impeding on Hinata-sama's privacy?

It was against the clan's policy to use Byakugan to peek into another individual's affairs. But… it was just a glimpse. It would take him a second—perhaps not even that. Half a second. He was a genius. He could find it in that amount of time, and considering he already knew the general area, he'd be able to see it. She'd never know. Would never have to know. No one was around to stop him. Even if someone were to somehow get past his keen senses and catch him in the act, he could peg it on just checking in on her to see if she was alright. He was her guardian after all. No one would question him.

Neji breathed, as much to prepare as to calm himself. It was now or never. He faced Hinata's room—where he knew she'd be at this hour—raised his hand to form a sign, and channeled chakra into his eyes.

"Byakugan," he said in his quietest voice.

Her naked back was towards him.

She's bathing, he realized with no small amount of surprise. Because of course she was. The way his luck had been going recently, he shouldn't have expected to find her sleeping.

His cheeks flushed at the sight of her humming, while she scrubbed her arms. She looked like a goddess, bathing in the soft, warm light of a bubbling pond. To his credit, he didn't allow it to distract him… not really. Neji's eyes drifted down. But it wasn't the name that he saw there that took his breath away—not in that moment at least—it was Hinata, who, still edgy from her mission and thus, concerned when she felt the sensation of eyes on her, had activated her own bloodline, and was now looking directly at him.

Neji didn't look away.

He didn't.

But Sage, how he wanted to. Especially when her eyes lingered on him, even as her cheeks heated. Hinata's gaze drifted ever so slightly down out of childhood habit whenever she found him looking at her. But then those opalescent orbs caught sight of that mark that had given him nothing but grief for the scant few days he'd had it, and she gasped in the most delicate way he could possibly imagine.

Hinata's hand rose to her mouth, startled, and then, before he knew it, she was stepping out of the bath, giving him a full frontal view. She didn't seem to notice, busy as she was wrapping a robe around herself as if that did anything to hinder his sight. He knew she was still looking at him; he could still feel her gaze.

And then she was running out.

He was running out.

Neji slammed open her door just as she was about to leave it.

"N—Neji!" she shouted, stumbling backwards when he let himself inside. He slid the door closed behind him with a muted thump.

"Hinata-sama," he said in a voice graver than anything she'd ever heard from him before. The ferocity with which he spoke made his tone during the Chunin exams sound like birdsong. "How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long have you had that name?"

"W—What? I don't know what you're—"

"Hinata-sama!"

Hinata squeaked and covered her face with her hands. His eyebrows furrowed at the sight of her. She was small, nervous, and terrified before him. Something that he never wanted her to be in his presence. Never again.

"Do not avoid this, Hinata-sama," he said, gentler now, then, "please."

She widened the gap between her fingers, so she could look at him. Then, very carefully, she murmured, "S—Since I was eleven."

Neji's eyes widened for all of a moment. His jaw fell slightly open in wonder. When she only shut the gaps between her fingers and mumbled an apology, he couldn't help the streak of irritation that speared through him then. It was as sudden as the swift, glinting curve of a blade in the dead of night. Sharp and laden with enough poison to exhaust him.

Neji sighed and cradled his face in his hands.

Nine years. For nine years she has—

He touched the mark on his ribs, felt the burn of it. A sting that heightened with proximity and made fire bloom in his chest in a way that he was already all too familiar with. Why did it appear now? Why not when he was a child or—

Acceptance? He wondered, his genius mind hammering home the pieces like nails in a coffin. Did it have something to do with… acceptance to the idea of it all?

But he still didn't accept this. How could he? When he was from the Branch House and she was—

Something shimmered in the back of his mind. Nothing more than half-veiled silk caught in a breeze to offer him a glimpse of what had triggered the change. He recalled the way he'd jumped in front of her those scant few years ago, a willing sacrifice to shield her from the horrors of a fate he could help her avoid. The way she'd shouted his name. Her blood-curdling scream had been the last thing he'd heard, before he was enveloped in a canvas of black.

He didn't think he'd make it back then. Had no plans to.

So, when he awoke, wild-eyed with his entire body throbbing like he'd been punched by Senju Tsunade herself, he could only stare at his hands, as if testing their realness. The fact that Hinata had been beside him and crying like she was prone to only made it worse.

"Are you angry?" she whispered, dragging him from his thoughts more efficiently than anything ever could.

"How could I be?" Neji asked, defeated. "Hinata-sama, if I'd only known… if…" he pointedly looked at her chest, where he'd hurt her all of those years ago, unable to find the words.

"It wouldn't have changed anything," she said, revealing his darkest thoughts and laying it out before them with the kind of understanding and patience he believed only she possessed. "It's okay, Neji."

She held her arms up to him.

He didn't move forward, unwilling—unable—to fully break the line between them that had suddenly grown so faint, so quickly. But that didn't matter to her. Because she stepped towards him herself and folded him into a kind and loving embrace that made his heart beat like he was caught in the middle of a lethal battle. There was no escape. No backdoor to hide behind or side road to throw her off of his trail—only Hinata with her arms wrapped around him and her gaze softer than anything he'd ever known.

"Hinata-sama."

They could discuss the details later, he decided.

There was a brief lull in his movements, a momentary pause where he simply stared at her, etching her expression to memory. But then it passed, and before he knew it, he was bending at the waist, closer, sinking over her, helplessly drawn like a line had yanked him forward. It was a simple thing then to return her half-smile, to match the intensity of her gaze, to acknowledge the bubbling heat unfurling like late petals in spring between them.

He was close. So, so close.

"Neji," she breathed.

He stilled.

His chest heated in anticipation and joy and—

"I'm yours," she told him.

A/N: I know I could've fleshed this one out more. But I didn't want to go too crazy for time reasons. Inspired by a tumblr kmeme prompt and the line: "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" by Emily Bronte.

If any of you are interested in my writing beyond fanfiction, then I have a fantasy series up for sale. URL on profile.

Please Review.