Hyuuga Neji

"There's nothing you can do or say, baby
I've had enough
I'm not your property as from today."

Before what had ended up being the beginning of the end, Hyuuga Neji had never thought much about the Uchiha heiress. She'd always been there; his uncle had spoken of her when she had graduated early— his uncle, though agreeing she should be graduated, had been annoyed that if anyone had been able to graduate despite Lord Fourths decree it had been her and not him —or when her brother was hurt to but an Uchiha represent at the table of clan heads at the villages meetings.

She had always been just outside his sphere of people.

Until she wasn't.

It had been at the Chunin exams— those exams had been dubbed the Konah Crush in the villages official files —while everyone was off fighting and Neji could barely stand from his fight with that blonde moron Uchiha Toshiko had saved his youngest cousin.

She had carried Hanabi from the stadium all the way to the tunnels for safety.

She had killed to protect his cousin; a sand ninja had gotten between the Uchiha and— unbeknownst to the enemy nin —one of the Leaf villages tunnel entrances.

And suddenly the Hyuuga clan owed the female Uchiha an unplayable debt and she was everywhere. Usually with her brother.

That was why Neji had gone after Sasuke. Why he had almost given his life for the Uchiha; because of the seal on his forehead and the debt his clan now owed the Uchiha Hime he owed Toshiko the very breath in his lungs.

Uchiha Sasuke was stand-offish, he was rude and he made Neji grimace because looking at him felt as if he were looking into a warped mirror. If it hadn't been for Uchiha Toshiko Neji wasn't sure he would have followed Shikamaru and Naruto outside the village gates but she had been.

She'd been crying, her eyes were red the way everyone's were red after a cry— not red the way the Uchiha's were —and she had begged to come along.

"Please you guys don't understand I have to come."

She had the hitai-ate, she was a shinobi and in all honesty Neji thought she was more capable than the Akimichi heir who was constantly snacking or the Inzuka who couldn't seem to take anything seriously.

And yet Nara Shikamaru refused to let her come with them.

"Toshiko, you don't have the experience needed for a rescue mission."

"Oh please I'm better than the genin corps members you all graduated with," Toshiko spit with tears still attached to her lashes. The girl was right of course. Any member of the genin corps who had been in her situation when the Sand and Orchimaru attacked wouldn't have lasted. They and Hanabi's lives would've been taken. "Let me come."

"Toshiko—" Shikamaru said his voice soft, his hands on her shoulders. Every time Neji saw the two together they were touching. According to Lee and Tenten though— the gossips that they were —they were just friends.

"—Please Shika, he's my family. My brother. I have to go." Toshiko looked to Naruto and then Choji like she was expecting them to come to her defense but it was Neji who— sort-of —stepped up.

"We'll get your brother back Uchiha-Hime, it's our mission." And good shinobi either complete their missions or died trying.

And yet the Uchiha didn't look happy, in fact, Neji watched as the crease between her brows deepened as if she were unhappy

For as much as Neji hated his uncle he knew the man was right. Uchiha's were weird.

She looked back at Shikamaru, her fingers twisted in his shirt.

"Be careful Shika?"

"Of course."

They weren't. They had all— except for Shikamaru so perhaps he had kept his word to the Uchiha heiress —nearly died trying to get her brother back for her.

When he'd been unconscious she had visited him in the hospital in between missions of her own; if she was going to take the chi in exams next year she had to get all the experience under her belt that she could.

She had sat by his bedside while he was asleep because, while his team hadn't wanted to leave him alone, he had been unconscious for so long and they'd all needed to eat so she had stepped in for them so that he wouldn't be alone.

She claimed she owed it to him; he'd been injured going after her brother after all.

"Thank you," she had said once his vision had focused and the world around him was no longer blurry.

She had offered to go get a medical-nin but Neji had stopped her, someone would come on their own accord. She didn't need to do anything else for him, at this point asking her for any help was rude.

"I failed Uchiha-Hime," Neji croaked. He looked to his hospital room door; he wondered when an iryo-nin would come in and save him from facing his failure.

"You tried." She was sweet, Neji had to give her that.

"We didn't bring your brother back though." Once more he watched the Uchiha's face twist. Neji's stomach knotted; she knew something they hadn't.

"Uchiha-Hime?"

"The Hyuuga, you're born with your kekkei genkai active, right?"

"Yeah." Even the half breeds had their byakugan active at birth.

"And for power because of that your clan created a sick hierarchy that enslaved one another to its Main Branch," she whispered, her eyes red, the way Uchiha's eyes were known for being red. "The Uchiha, we do something worse to bind power to ourselves because we're not born with it. It's sick."

There were tears in her eyes.

"Sasuke leaving was my fault, he, if he loved me less he wouldn't have had to leave."

"He's your brother, how could he?" For everything he had done to his cousins when the main branch wasn't looking he didn't love them any less than he had before his fathers death. He couldn't.

He was just angry.

So, so angry at the cards he'd been dealt in life.

"Hyuuga-senpai?" Blush spread across Neji's face the way fires during the dry season tended to spread across the woods that surrounded Konoha. No one called him senpai.

"Yes?"

"Can I remove the seal?" Neji felt his heart stop. He was dreaming. He had to be.

He was dead.

He had died on his failed mission and this was his recompense; looking at the teary eyes of the girl he had failed and having his sole dream in life dangled right outside of his reach.

"What?"

"Your uncle says he owes me an unplayable debt and Hinata and Hanabi, they asked if I could cash that in by asking their father to have the seal removed."

"Clans all over the world would kill to have whatever favor they wanted with my clan."

"Yeah," the younger girl scoffed, her face seemed to get darker, "For your eyes. But I'm an Uchiha, the only thing I want is my family back and your clan can't raise the dead."

"The Nara, you've talked it over with them?" They were considered the most strategic of the Konoha clans and if Neji knew anything it was that if Uchiha Toshiko was with her brother or his team he was with the Nara Clans heir and his team.

"Shika said it was nice but to ask you first."

"Why wouldn't I want you to?" Neji moved in his bed: it seemed as if no medical-nin would come see him now that was conscious despite being asleep for so long.

"I wouldn't be able to ask your uncle to end the practice of the seals, it would be just you." Neji thought of his cousins and aunties and uncles, all who had the same seal as him, all living in fear of making one wrong move and inadvertently ending their own lives.

And then he thought of freedom. He thought of being able to look his uncle and cousins in the eyes and he thought of finally being acknowledged as the best in his clan instead of second or third and he thought of living life.

And his heart clenched.

Because his cousins and aunties and uncles, none of them would be able to life like him. They would still be trapped; caged like birds under the Hyuuga clan's main branch.

"I-I don't know," Neji said earnestly. Uchiha Toshiko shrugged with a kind smile playing on her lips. Despite the tears that had been in the corners of her eyes she looked so happy and carefree.

"It's okay, there's no rush senpai, take your time, the offer isn't going anywhere."

"It's not?"

"Like I said the only thing I want is my family back and your clan can't give me that, so if I could help even one person with this debt then I'd be happy to."

Neji licked his lips. "You're very kind."

"I'm a good person," Uchiha Toshiko shook her head, like kind and good were two different things. "My papa, he taught me to be good, village protection was the job of my clan and—" her grin faltered, her body stiffened and the tears were back, "—Now I'm the only Uchiha left and I can't protect the village all on my own but I can help out when I can so I will because that's what my papa would have wanted."

"He'd be proud," Neji said without thinking. And yet it seemed right; he couldn't imagine any parent not being proud of Uchiha Toshiko.

She'd graduated early, was so incredibly kind it was almost sickening and she held her head high as walked down the street, even if people whispered about her as she walked past.

"Thank you senpai." Uchiha Toshiko then rose, "I don't think any medical-non have realized you've woken up, I'll go get one."

"Wait."

"What-what do the Uchiha do?" Neji asked; Uchiha Toshiko froze in her seat. The need to know itched the space between his muscles and skin.

She then continued to move like he hadn't spoken and the knot in his gut intensified.

Neji thought of her eldest brother, the shinobi who had killed her entire clan. He had an idea of what the Uchiha did to maintain the power in their eyes and Neji's hands shot out despite the pain and the tips of his fingers grabbed at Uchiha Toshiko's hand.

"Please."

"The Sharingan is activated by loss. It evolves through loss."

Horror slowly crept its way through Nejis vines.

"You would let him—"

"—I love my brother, and Itachi is so-so strong. Sasu-nii, he doesn't have a chance of beating Itachi without it. Itachi—," she said quietly,"—Is going to kill Sasuke."

"So you live like a lamb?" A thought hit Neji over the lead like a heavy club, "That's why you wanted to go? So Sasuke could kill you."

"He wouldn't have to leave for Orchimaru, he left because he sees that snake as the only other way to get strong enough to avenge our clan."

"Your friends would have never allowed him to come back."

Nara Shikamaru had been so determined to bring Uchiha Sasuke back for her. His eyes had burned so bright with determination.

Brother or not, Neji couldn't imagine a world where Uchiha Sasuke killed his sister and Nara Shikamaru allowed him to live after.

"Senpai?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't stop it."

"What?"

"I know it's rude of me to ask, you've already tried to bring Sasuke back and don't think this will affect if I ask for your seal's removal but if a time comes where I can help my brother, please don't stand in my way."

"How can you ask me to let you die?"

"It would save my brother's life." The byakugan saw everything, that's why it was coveted. And in that moment Neji saw it without the use of his praised eyes.

Just like him Uchiha Toshiko was a caged bird. And his heart broke.

"Yeah," Neji promised quietly, not quite sure if he meant it but too shaken from his realization to do anything else, "I promise."

Uchiha Toshiko then squeezed his hand.

"I should really go get someone to look at you senpai."

"Yeah. Thank you."

And then she was gone, his hospital room door opened and Neji's head swirling. Surprisingly it wasn't Uchiha Toshiko's offer at the forefront of his mind as he sat in the hospital bed alone but rather, he had to tell Nara Shikamaru what he had just promised and hoped the genius would kill him where he stood for agree to do something as foolish as letting Uchiha Toshiko inadvertently kill herself.

Neji leaned back in his bed.

"Fuck."

Note: IM BACK! Sorry for disappearing, life is insane right now and before that I had writers block but yesterday I woke up with this chapter at the forefront of my mind and wrote it in a fucking frenzy before is disappeared from my mind!

Anyway, hoped you liked the chapter, let me know if you did and who you want to see next. (Sasuke and Itachi, I'm working on how I want their chapters to look because theirs will be long!)

Anyway, until next time!