The stones behind the storehouse were old, dust-flecked and half-swallowed by creeping moss, but Neji didn't mind. They were far enough from the Main Hall that no one came here often—except him. And now, Haruki.
It had been nearly a month since the funeral.
The clan moved on. As they always did.
But something inside Neji hadn't.
He stood still, barefoot on the stone path, watching his brother stretch out his fingers over the shallow pool they'd filled from the well. Haruki's expression was unreadable, but Neji had learned the signs. The furrowed brow. The tight jaw. The silence that lasted longer than silence should.
They had both changed.
They had trained in silence for nearly an hour.
Haruki's hands were raw. Neji's shirt was soaked through. Neither of them said anything for a while. But the silence between them wasn't cold — it was heavy, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Neji finally dropped into a seated position, arms resting across his knees.
"You're pushing too hard," he said.
Haruki looked up, frowning. "So are you."
"That's different."
"Is it?"
Neji turned his gaze toward the wall bordering the inner compound. Pale sunlight flickered across it, but it felt distant. Everything felt distant, lately.
"I didn't ask to be sealed," he said after a long pause. "No one even looked at me when they did it. Just said it was time."
Haruki lowered his head. "They didn't even say anything about Father."
Neji's jaw tensed. "They didn't have to. The silence was louder."
Another long pause.
"I used to think if I trained hard enough," Neji continued, "they'd change their mind. That the elders would see me as something more than what I was born into."
Haruki stared at him. "Do you still believe that?"
"No."
"Then why do you still train?"
Neji glanced sideways at him. "Because if I don't, they win."
Haruki looked down at his hands. His fingers twitched—just faintly—as if his chakra stirred with emotion. "I don't care if they win or not. I just don't want to lose you too."
The words came out sharper than either of them expected.
Neji blinked. He hadn't realized how tightly Haruki had been gripping onto him since the funeral. Since the seal. Since the glares and whispers and quiet cruelty.
And it struck him suddenly: Haruki had no one left. Not really. The clan disdained him for being different, even though he'd done nothing wrong. And Hiashi—despite trying—had become too distant, too cautious, too burdened by the weight of the clan's politics.
"I'm not going anywhere," Neji said, softer now.
"But what if they—" Haruki cut himself off.
Neji understood.
"They won't," he said. "Because next time, I'll fight back."
Haruki's eyes widened. "You can't. You'll get punished."
Neji didn't respond right away. The thought had occurred to him more than once lately — that obedience only fed the cycle. That silence kept them in chains.
"I don't care," he said finally. "If they think the seal means I'll bow forever, they're wrong."
The quiet stretched again, but now it was different. Charged. Bonded. They weren't just brother anymore. They were something closer. Something forged in shared silence and loss and rejection.
Haruki glanced sideways, his voice low. "Maybe they're right. Maybe I am a mistake."
Neji shook his head, firmly this time.
"No. You're not."
"You didn't even flinch when they marked you. But I just stood there and said nothing." Haruki's voice cracked for the first time in days. "I should've done something."
"You were three."
"I'm still three."
Neji chuckled, despite everything. "Well, you sound eighty."
That earned a faint, almost guilty smile from Haruki.
Neji leaned back on his hands, eyes drifting up to the clouds. "You know, I used to wonder what would've happened if Uncle Hiashi had died instead of my father. If things would be different."
Haruki hesitated. "Do you hate him?"
Neji didn't answer right away.
"No," he said. "But I don't trust him."
"I don't either."
Neji looked over. "Still want to train?"
Haruki nodded. "If I stop moving, I think I'll break."
That, Neji understood more than he wanted to admit.
Haruki exhaled through his nose and fell back into stance.
They didn't talk much while they trained now. There wasn't much to say. Not since the last funeral. Not since the compound changed.
Not since they changed.
When the drills were done, both of them sat on the low boundary wall, the sky paling into that tired color before dusk. Haruki's sleeve was torn near the wrist. Neji's thumb bled lightly from a knuckle clash they hadn't acknowledged.
They watched the wind drag dust along the courtyard.
On the way back in, no one greeted them. A few Main House members walked past and didn't spare them a glance. A Branch House elder bowed to a passing senior and hissed at a younger boy for bowing too slow — the Caged Bird seal shimmered faintly as punishment was dealt.
Haruki didn't flinch, but his eyes darkened.
Neji saw it.
Later, someone passed them near the eastern corridor. A woman. A cousin maybe. Her gaze lingered on Haruki for a second too long — not cruel, just cold.
Neji noticed Haruki's hands twitch slightly, as though restraining something that had nowhere to go.
Still, neither of them said anything.
That evening, they ate quietly in the outer quarters of the Branch family housing. The room had no fire. Haruki picked at his rice with slow, automatic motions. Neji watched the shadow of candlelight flicker across his brother's expression.
Haruki's face didn't move much anymore. He'd stopped reacting to the stares, the whispers, even the silences that were too loud.
The absence of expression said more than any words could.
Neji didn't speak either.
Because he knew if he did, he might say things he'd regret.
Over the next few weeks, they stopped walking through the inner compound unless they had to. The clan elders were meeting more often. Branch members were being summoned for "disciplinary checks." A younger cousin, barely older than Haruki, had fainted after a seal reinforcement. The elders called it "a reminder of loyalty."
Neji didn't sleep much that night.
He could still feel the brand on his own forehead.
It had been barely a month since his father's death, and already the weight of it pressed in from every side. Not just grief — expectation. That he would fall into place, remain silent, carry it with grace.
Haruki had no seal. No position. No Byakugan. And yet the pressure on him was no less.
It was just a different kind of cage.
Neji watched him closely. Watched how he kept his head down when adults passed, how he stiffened near hallways with too many elders, how he no longer reached for anyone's hand — not even Neji's.
But he trained harder.
Every day.
Harder than any child his age should've.
Not out of pride. Not even ambition.
Just anger.
The first time Haruki's chakra warped the air around him during sparring, Neji didn't react. He didn't praise him. Didn't ask what it was.
He just reset his stance.
They both understood something had shifted.
One day, after drills near the streambed, they walked the long way back — past the old garden Hizashi had once tended. Haruki paused at the gate. The flowers were gone. Only dry roots remained.
He didn't say a word.
Neji stopped beside him and looked straight ahead.
There was nothing to discuss.
They were angry.
They were tired.
And neither had the language to say what the silence already screamed.
Hiashi came to speak with them the following week.
He found them near the outer courtyard, sitting in the shade of an old pine. Their clothes were dusted with earth. Haruki's elbow was scraped again. Neji's fingers were wrapped in linen.
They didn't stand when Hiashi approached.
He didn't ask them to.
"I heard you've been training hard," he said gently.
Neither responded.
"I wanted to offer guidance. There are techniques the Main House doesn't teach freely, but I believe you both—"
Haruki stood abruptly and turned his back.
Neji didn't move.
Hiashi's voice faltered slightly. "I can't undo what the elders have done. But I want to protect what's left."
Neji looked up at him then — not with hatred, not exactly. Just a cold distance. The kind that came from understanding something too well, too young.
"You don't control them," Neji said. "You let them do what they want."
"I've tried—"
"But you didn't stop them."
Hiashi flinched.
Haruki turned back just slightly. "You didn't stop them from calling me a stain. From using the seal on others. From letting them decide who deserves to belong."
His voice didn't rise. It was calm. Controlled.
More dangerous because of it.
Hiashi stepped forward but stopped himself.
Haruki's chakra shifted faintly — not flaring, not unstable, just… resisting.
Like the air around him didn't want anyone closer.
Hiashi felt it.
He took a step back.
Neji stood and dusted off his sleeves. "We don't need help."
"You're still my family," Hiashi said, one last time.
Neji's expression didn't change. "That used to mean something."
They walked away together, neither looking back.
[Hiashi POV]
Hiashi remained standing there for a while, eyes lowered. When he finally turned to leave, even the guards didn't speak. The clan walls hadn't changed.
The corridor was quiet as he walked. Too quiet. His footsteps echoed faintly against polished wood, but his thoughts echoed louder.
Their words still clung to him — Neji's distance, Haruki's defiance. The silence between them had become something cold and final.
He hadn't expected gratitude.
But he hadn't expected that, either.
And still… maybe he had deserved it.
Hiashi's gaze drifted toward the old pine beyond the wall. A place he used to sit with his brother after long council meetings, when the world felt heavier than any one man should carry.
Now, the weight felt permanent.
His mind wandered backward — not far. Just a few days ago.
The moment everything truly shifted.
Flashback
It had been late afternoon when the report reached him.
A child from the Branch family — Takao — had run crying to one of the outer elders. Blubbering about "a chakra disturbance" during a scuffle. Said he'd only meant to tease Haruki a little. Said something was wrong with the boy.
Hiashi didn't act on it immediately.
But he remembered what the child said before the jonin silenced him:
"The air moved weird. Like something pushed me — but there was no jutsu!"
That evening, Hiashi called aside the supervising chunin who had witnessed the end of it.
The man bowed, clearly hesitant.
"I arrived late, Hiashi-sama. Haruki was already picking up the scroll. He didn't say anything. Just stared at the other boy. But the space around him— it shimmered. Not heat. Not genjutsu. Something else."
"Did he attack?"
"No, sir. He didn't even raise his voice. But Takao fell backward. Said his chakra spiked like it was being pulled."
Hiashi dismissed the man with a nod, but the words stayed.
.....
The next morning, the elders had already convened without waiting for him.
Elder Kou:"The child's chakra is reactive. That is enough of a risk."
Elder Riku (Branch House):"He carries no seal, no Byakugan, and no allegiance beyond his own bloodline. If he lashes out—"
Hiashi:"He didn't lash out. He was cornered."
Elder Riku (sharper now):"That's not the point. The point is, if his chakra can disrupt another's flow without contact, what else might it do? Influence seals? Injure? Kill?"
Hiashi rose from his seat slowly.
"You want to seal him."
The room fell quiet.
Elder Kou:"For the safety of the clan—"
"No."
The word struck like stone. Hiashi's voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the council chamber.
"You will not place that curse on him."
Elder Riku:"With all due respect, Hiashi-sama, it may no longer be your decision."
Hiashi's hand curled into a fist at his side.
"That child has already lost his father to your decisions. You won't take his future, too."
Elder Kou:"Then give us an alternative."
Hiashi exhaled slowly. The rage was harder to control than usual — perhaps because he knew they were watching. Waiting to see if he would falter. Waiting to see if the clan head would finally break beneath the weight of two sons.
"You want an alternative?" he said. "Fine."
"Let him be trained. Properly. Supervised, yes. But not silenced. Not caged. Not turned into a weapon before he even becomes a person."
A few murmured. Others remained cold.
Elder Riku:"If he becomes a danger—"
"Then I will take responsibility."
He met each gaze without flinching.
And left the meeting not as clan head — but as a Uncle, still trying.
Flashback Ends – Return to Present
I came to guide them. To offer help.
But they no longer wanted it.
Hiashi sat in silence, the weight of their rejection settling into his chest.
Whatever role he'd hoped to play in their lives… it was no longer his to claim.
From now on… he would watch from afar.
But he would not let the elders touch the boy.
Not again.
Not ever