Disclaimer: IfNaruto belonged to me, Sakura would have gotten cooler much sooner than she did.
Author's Notes: Praise to Kilerkki for being a wonderful beta and fixing my grammar problems. Love to everyone who reviewed—comments like yours made my week. Additional thanks to iamzuul for helping me out with the sounds/smells of a hospital.
To those wondering about shipping, I'm sorry to disappoint. You are free to read whatever you like into the characters' interactions (like I could stop you anyway), but at this point I have no overt pairings in mind. I am not a romance writer by any stretch or contortion of the imagination.
And thus the experiment that is Oracle continues . . .
Oracle
Chapter Two: Comrades
Breakfast the next morning is an exercise in patience, but Neji is nothing if not deliberate. A nurse offered to feed him, but Neji refused the offer. A voice filled with pity is not what he wants, is not how he wants to begin his twenty-ninth day left of life. So he holds his chopsticks carefully and leans over his bowl of rice so that if he does manage to drop anything it will land in the bowl and not on him.
Not surprisingly, Neji finds that he has little appetite. He knows it has little to do with the food, and everything to do with the day before. He thought he was going to die, and now, inexplicably, he finds himself alive. Death he was prepared for, but life . . .
His uncle gave him life, the "honors of the Head Family." Twenty-nine days to live in darkness. Twenty-nine more days for what? (A small, insistent part of his mind wonders what his uncle had bargained with the Elders to gain these few days.) Yesterday, between the shock of being blind and the thought that Hiashi would immediately release his nephew from dishonor, Neji hadn't thought of anything beyond his father and his imminent death. But with the unexpected extension of mercy, Neji knows that he will have to think about many, many more things.
His teammates, for example.
The knock on the door is hesitant. Neji considers not answering. The knock comes again, a bit more confident this time. "Come in," he says finally, gently replacing the bowl of rice on the tray beside his bed. There is a clink of dish striking dish, but nothing breaks and nothing spills. He hears the door slide open and shut. There are two people, Neji decides from the footsteps that cross the room and stop at his bedside. One of them has crutches.
"Good morning, Neji-kun." It is Tenten's voice, blustering with a good cheer that Neji knows is false without even having to see her. He imagines the strained grin she wears when she's pretending to be happy. Lee echoes her greeting.
"Hokage-sama told me some of what happened after I got captured," Neji says instead of acknowledging their greetings. He knows what the next question will be, and he doesn't want to answer it, not yet. "But I want to hear it from you two."
Tenten does most of the speaking, Lee interjecting a few comments every now and then. They tell Neji how they both had been caught in a genjutsu and left unconscious, half dead; how Inuzuka Hana and Shiranui Genma had found them; how the four of them (and Hana's three dogs) had tracked the Cloud-nin for two days; how they rescued Neji just as the Cloud medic had been trying to remove Neji's eyes; how Lee had carried Neji and ran all the way back to Konohagakure; how Neji had been unconscious in the hospital for three days.
"They have a team out trying to capture the Cloud shinobi that got away," Tenten finishes.
Neji breathes deeply in the silence, and his nose catches the scents his teammates brought with them. The musk of sweat—Lee no doubt, driving the hospital staff mad from training excursions—mingles with the distinctive odor of the oil Tenten uses when she polishes her weapons. Both scents are nearly drowned out by the smell of air so clean it is now lifeless.
Irrationally, Neji wants the silence to stretch on for what is left of his forever. He wants to stay voiceless in the dark, prevent the thing beginning to stir within his gut from waking up.
Tenten gathers the courage first. "Hokage-sama . . . she wouldn't tell us how bad your injuries are. Just that she thought you'd prefer to tell us." He hears the fear in her voice that wars with the tiniest hint of hope.
Neji forces his hands to remain relaxed, resting on top of his hospital sheets. "I'm blind."
A sharp intake of breath, then, "Is it permanent?"
"Yes." His voice doesn't shake, but the monster in his gut twitches violently. "My resignation papers were submitted by my clan this morning."
"But—" Lee says, "can't Hokage-sama heal you? She healed me"—Neji can hear Lee's characteristic enthusiasm creep into the words—"even when the odds were so low."
"She can't." The beast is starting to move, a hard knot unraveling itself and tangling up his insides. "The surgery won't work on me."
Lee continues as if Neji never spoke. "I know! Since Gai-sensei's not here, I'll make you the same promise he—"
"Lee!" Neji's hands are clenched into fists and the monster is worming its way into his chest. "Hokage-sama was barely able to stabilize the curse seal, and if she does try to heal my eyes, the seal will kill me. It's not a matter of risk; I will die." His insides are being crushed, strangled by the tendrils of the beast.
The silence that falls this time is polluted with rage and shock. Neji tries to push away the thing threatening to tear him apart from the inside.
"What are you going to do?" Tenten's voice is quiet and unsteady.
That slight tremor causes Neji's gut to tighten even more. Momentarily, he weighs his options, but simple truth wins in the end. "I am going to die."
Neji is lying on his back staring at the ceiling he knows is there but will never see. A nurse came in shortly after his teammates left and removed the partially eaten breakfast and the bandages covering his eyes.
It was only when the bandages were gone and Neji opened his eyes that his blindness truly sank in. No matter how often he blinks, or in what direction he turns his head, the darkness doesn't change. Neji breathes slowly as the dregs of irrational hope die.
He estimates that he has been staring into the darkness for nearly an hour (it might be less, but he can't see the clock to tell the time) when someone knocks timidly on the door. "Come in," Neji says, and sits up, the paper lining of the mattress crinkling with his redistribution of weight.
Instead of sweat and oil, this person brings the scent of roses. "Neji-niisan."
"Hinata-sama," Neji acknowledges. He braces himself for the sleeping beast to waken again, but it sleeps on, fitfully. Apart from Hiashi's visit the night before, no one from the clan has come to visit. Not surprising, considering he has never been popular amongst the Main Family—the beast stirs a little at the memory of the near-lethal fight with Hinata—and his special status now probably doesn't sit well with those amongst the Branch. The closest living relative Neji has in the Branch left on a mission the day before he did, and they are not close.
Hinata's quiet footsteps cross from the door to the opposite side of his bed. He hears the tap of glass settling on wood. "I brought you a flower," she says, her voice growing louder as she turns around in his direction.
"You didn't need to," Neji says politely. "I'm going home tomorrow morning."
"But I wanted to . . ."
He stiffens at her tone. "I don't need your pity." He cannot endure it from his teammates, and he will not tolerate it from her. Not from the Heir, not from the one who will inherit the Hyuuga legacy of bitterness and blood. He doesn't hate Hinata, not anymore, but he is always aware that she is from the Main Family and he is not.
"It's not pity," she murmurs, and Neji imagines her head bowing self-consciously. "It's compassion." Her voice waivers on the last word. "There's nothing wrong with compassion."
Neji says nothing. He turns his thoughts inward, breathing shallowly, forcing the creature within his abdomen to stay asleep, stay docile. This is not her fault. The silence between them floats like a cloud of poison.
There is a scuffing sound; Hinata is shifting her weight from one side to another on the tiled floor. Neji knows that she wants to say something more or she would have left by now, but she says nothing. He wishes he could see her—he could always read her body-language—but he stamps that thought out ferociously. There is no point in wishing for something that will not happen.
He hears the scuffing sounds again, and Neji realizes that Hinata will not broach the subject on her own. He must get her talking at least so that she can speak her portion and then let him be. The question that has been needling his thoughts is a topic that should be answered in any case. "How did Hiashi-sama convince the Elders to give me this month?"
"He—" Hinata's voice hitches ever so slightly "—he couldn't convince them."
Neji finds that the air around him is suddenly much colder than it was before. Pressure is beginning to build up again inside of him, the beast weaving itself throughout his body.
"I did." Her voice is quiet, but to Neji it is the only sound in his universe. "I bargained with them. I—I'm not the Heir anymore." The chill in the air seeps through his skin, sinking deep into the core of the monster in his gut. Hinata keeps talking, the words spilling out almost uncontrollably. "It was the only thing I could think of that they'd accept."
Neji remembers the bargain Hiashi made over two years ago, after that Chuunin Exam when Neji had shown his contempt for the Hyuuga and his power to the entire village. In exchange for teaching his nephew, Hiashi had given the Elders the right, under certain circumstances, to choose his successor. One of those circumstances was if there was no designated Heir. It was a minor concession, one Hiashi had thought was worthwhile at the time.
The beast is trying to squeeze his lungs and heart out of existence. "Did you remove yourself from succession completely?" Neji's voice is calm, but his mind is reeling, trying to reach the conclusion his body already senses. As Hinata explains that no, she is not out of succession, Neji turns his thoughts from what he will do before he dies to what will happen after he is dead.
With the right Hiashi gave the Elders, Neji knows that they were now able to choose which sister will inherit the leadership of the Hyuuga. It is well understood that Hanabi is a better kunoichi than her older sister and an open secret that most of the Elders favor her over Hinata.
Hyuuga tradition has remained largely unchanged since the day the first member of the Branch Family was given a curse seal. The one thing that remains unwavering, unbroken, is the responsibility of the Branch to protect the Main. Specifically, the appointment of a member of the Branch—less than one generation removed from the Main Family—to serve as the protector of the Heir. At the age of four, Neji was marked and given the charge of protecting Hinata.
The beast spasms, its tendrils shattering, shredding everything within him as Neji realizes what will happen after he dies.
Whatever sister is not chosen will be marked as a member of the Branch Family and take his position as the Heir's protector. Hinata will be branded, and Hanabi will rule.
"Why did you do it?" Neji is too angry to be surprised that his voice is loud and increasing in volume by the moment. "You've thrown it all away!"
"Wha—"
"The chance to change the Hyuuga!" He whips his head in Hinata's direction, his hand flung up, gesturing at his bare forehead and the curse seal that still blazes there. "Do you think Hanabi cares about the Branch House? Do you think she will, in all her arrogance, even consider trying to heal our clan?"
Years of frustration and bitterness battle against his despair and ruined hope, and the ensuing tempest threatens to drown him in the darkness of his universe. This is your fault, a small part of his mind taunts. If you had been a better shinobi, it wouldn't matter if she abdicated, because you would have been there to protect Hanabi, and Hinata would have held a position of power in the Main Family. Neji feels his hands begin to shake, and he squeezes them into fists, pressing them hard against his mattress. But in twenty-nine days you will die, and so will any hope of the Hyuuga changing.
"I didn't—I can't send Hanabi to the Branch House, not if there's a chance to stop it," Hinata says, and Neji hears the tremor in her voice that is only there when she is on the verge of tears. "And I couldn't just let you die."
Neji stares in the direction of the ceiling for a long time after she leaves. He breathes in the fragrance of the single flower in his room and thinks of Elders and bargains and traditions and the price Hinata has paid for his life.
To Be Continued
in
Chapter Three: Navigation