Chapter Text
[the shinobi noble courts, act iii]
As soon as the defense ended, and Shinzo stepped away, Neji was up and gone. He did his part, and tore open some wounds, and finally, it ended, and he was free to leave. For whatever it was worth, he'd done what he could, and now there was nothing more to attend to. Now was about reeling himself in, and keeping his dignity, whatever was left of it.
He walked slowly, only to keep himself from feeling as though he was fleeing.
Oh, but he was, and he knew it as much as he'd never say it. Every moment of attention that his friend's so painfully paid him, listening to confessions he'd only admitted to in passing, or not at all, was too much. He couldn't acknowledge it, couldn't think of the thoughts in their heads and heart. He couldn't bring himself to attempt, and so he didn't, instead focusing his sights on leaving.
Eyes first on the table, then the judge, then the door –
The door shut softly behind him, and he could breathe.
It's over –
On this warm and stifling summer day, everywhere was the same breed of too-hot, but the hallway was, still, so much lighter. Hot like august, the hall wasn't the stew that the little office's air had turned into, impossible to not choke on...
Many thoughts took refuge in his mind, but one that was so shockingly clear was that he had not anticipated that. He wasn’t prepared – not to the fullest, maybe not at all, if the tremor in his fingers or the way the air felt sour meant anything.
He took a shuddering breath in – filled his lungs to the fullest, relishing in the expanse of space within him that no longer felt like closing walls.
He’d done what he said he would, what he promised Hinata and, quietly to the heavens, his Father that he would do. He answered everything everyone asked of him, did what they wanted, and now…
It’s done .
He knew from the initial meeting with the judge and Naruto that he could stay for the rest of his family and their testimony, that he could return to the court and slink into the back like a spectator. It was not necessary, but available, if he chose.
Neji thought nothing of that conversation, and carried himself through the halls of the upper floors of the hokage’s office until they were more familiar, more traveled – paths known well to him as ANBU, as an on-duty shinobi. When he breezed past Naruto’s personal office, his lungs released the cold air pent up inside him and –
Was he really holding his breath? He hadn’t known, could have sworn he was breathing ...
You’ve finished your business with them.
He was dizzy now, but he was outside, yet the air was just as thin, just as papery, and he didn't know why. As fast as his feet could carry him without looking like he was distressed, he was outside, rounding the back of the building to the dry land between the offices and the security wall where the smokers took their breaks.
Only then, in the shadow of the building that he alone inhabited, did he feel his heart return to normal, and his nerves calm their electric buzzing.
But his knees – he’d never felt them so weak – he’d faced so much in his life that didn’t shake him like this, and his hands – he held them out in front of himself and couldn’t keep them still . They moved and he tried to clench around the air, thankful that something took mercy on him and allowed him to be alone, and they wouldn’t –
He leaned over, forearm coming up against the concrete mountain of a wall to his left, his whole body now alight with fresh nerves that didn’t care if he stood or knelt.
Why now?
He’d hoped it would disappear once he left, but more and more, it was just mounting –
It had gone well enough, right?
It was enough, right?
His testimony was formality, everyone knew it was never really need, he’d just given it as a favor – Hinata had so much evidence, had so much to say, and the courts weren’t even a necessary step when she, as head of the family, could have decided on her own what to do; yes, what he said must have been enough.
He swallowed thickly, trying to bring himself back – trying to claim whatever he’d felt before this, to become one with it again. It wasn’t possible, he was –
Was he breathing?
He inhaled sharply, and he was sure he was – his chest was moving, he just couldn’t feel it –
He was still so dizzy, and he felt closer to collapsing than he ever had, as though, suddenly, now it was a possibility–
Is it?
He thinks it might, truly, be a possibility.
He had no idea how long he was out there. He didn’t know if the trial had taken a break to assess, a break for the jury in the crowd, if it had been minutes or hours – he didn’t know how long he stood there, against the wall, trying to hold himself together like he never had before. Like a genjutsu that went awry, seconds dragged out, elongated and misshaped, antagonizing until nothing felt certain.
Why? How?
And, even worse, was how taken aback he was, how he didn’t know Shikamaru was around the corner, and that he was already at his side. Only then, with Shikamaru's chakra invading the space around him, and the sound of his footsteps finally reaching his ears, did he realize that he had surroundings at all.
Neji scoffed, at himself and the ridiculousness more than anything.
What a poor excuse for a shinobi you are.
“Hey, hey,” Shikamaru said softly – a calming timbre that reached down to Neji’s core. His hands came up to his back, one pushing away his neatly combed hair so that he could rub circles into his shoulder, the other reaching for that hand not bracing against the wall.
He held it, shakiness and claminess and all, and Neji ducked his head.
“Neji,” he whispered into his ear, trying to catch his eyes, trying his hardest to pull him back from wherever he found himself.
Neji wouldn’t let him. “I can’t –”
“Hey, you can – it’s just me,” he said into his ear, and it was so mortifying, trembling like a child, like he wasn’t an adult but instead a dumb kid with high expectations that had yet to be destroyed.
“Here, come on, lean on me,” Shikamaru whispered – thinly veiled was a similar distress, under the calm veneer he’d put on just for Neji.
Neji’s eyes buzzed , and he shook his head, “– no, no –”
Softly, his lips against the shell of his ear, “It’s okay…”
It’s not .
But Shikamaru took one of his hands and tugged, just enough – and it was so much better than the hot concrete through his shirt, better than the way he was shaking with nothing to keep him from falling, and he let Shikamaru do what he wanted.
And Shikamaru knew was right, because his hands were like magnets the way they circled around his torso and locked behind him. And he was always right, with how home was the way Shikamaru answered his embrace with one that was so much stronger and sturdier, one that was solid .
He would have felt ashamed hiding his face into the warmth of Shikamaru’s shoulder, his neck – it was not a comfort he often found himself appeasing in anyway, and when he did, it was always a tragedy –
This is not a tragedy.
It doesn’t make sense that it feels like one, when it was anything but.
He didn’t want to say it but it just started coming – like it did on trial, when he couldn’t keep the words from escaping. “Shikamaru – they’re right .”
Shikamaru tilted his head into Neji, into the curtain of hair that filled the space between them. “What are they right about?” He said softly, his words always and only for Neji. He spared one hand from their place on his back, resting it, instead, on the nape of his neck, warm even through hair and tremor.
“About me – I’ve done what they’ve done, I’ve –”
“No, no –”
“They’re right about me, they were correct to say it,” Neji tried to insist, tried to make him understand, but –
Shikamaru pulled himself away, bodies still close, hand still on neck, forcing their eyes to lock. “Hey – stop it, Neji,”
Shikamaru was Neji’s calm, always – even now, voice cutting through his own objections, a sieve to the doubt ingrained in him . His brown eyes, his soft gaze, the careful, intentional way he held on to him, keeping him falling.
"Bring it back a bit for me – tell me more, okay?"
Neji’s breathing was in shudders, he couldn’t make it stop .
“I’m them,” he, eventually, said.
Shikamaru’s eyebrows took a saddened shape, eyes deepening with an emotion that made Neji’s knees weak for another reason. He shook his head. “So why’d you do this? Why’d you decide to be here?”
There’s not a lot of thoughts in Neji’s head that he can grasp onto – they’re like puffs of smoke, but he stills tries to catch them. “I…”
Shikamaru smiles, and now both hands are paying close attention to Neji – his right still at the curve of his neck, soft but firm, the other parting ways for his hair so that he could hold his jaw, anchor him with sweet strokes to the cheek. “Why’d you testify?”
Neji stares intently at first, even though he knows his answer at heart. “To stop them. To keep this–” a deep breath, "– from repeating.”
“Yeah, I know, cause I know that would tear you up. If someone else had to get hurt like you. Right?”
That, at least, was true. He nodded again, feeling the strength of Shikamaru’s hands, the way each fingertip was warm and comfortable like how a hot spring is in winter, how his palms were soft and only ever held him out of love.
“I don’t know about you, Neji, but,” and he kissed his left cheek, moved his finger aside so his lips could brush against the height of his cheek bone. Neji closed his eyes to the gesture, only opening them the second later that he pulled back. “But that doesn’t remind me of your uncle, and it sure as hell doesn’t remind me of your grandfather.”
Neji’s breathing was high again, but the emotions were all twisted – was it sadness or pain or hurt or nostalgia or bitterness?
Is it love?
"It just reminds me of you."
He hated crying but here he was, standing where the smokers do, shaking like an autumn leaf, trying to keep this from spilling over.
“That's the way I see it, at least,” Shikamaru added, once it was clear Neji wasn’t sure what to say.
He didn’t know if he was right, but he trusted Shikamaru to know that he probably wasn’t completely wrong.
The seconds, or minutes, or hours, passed, and everything was starting to clear up. Bit by bit, his spirit came back to his body, ready to fill the vacancies that left him with ripped seams.
His body was weak, coming down from the high perch of tension he’d been sitting on. Like sludge in his bloodstream, it weakened and dragged and ached. But he understood that suddenly falling down from so high up, into the awkward calm he now found himself in, was an exhaustion far better than what he’d felt just a few moments ago.
And it left him with new thoughts, ones that finally caught up to him in the wake of escape.
Oh…
He shifted his eyes downward, bringing up his right hand to hold on to Shikamaru’s wrist. Shikamaru didn’t budge, didn’t move – just kept his gentle hold on Neji, like he’d done thousands of times before.
“I’m sorry you heard… that.”
He’d told Shikamaru so little of what his house was truly like, hoping that some miracle would grant Shikamaru obliviousness to all the way he was weak and incapable of helping himself. Shikamaru knew, of course. He was smart and didn’t need Neji to fill in the gaps, though he did, here and there. He told him bits and pieces – like that the seal had been used, or that he was tired from training, or, sometimes, that he wished not to talk about it. Shikamaru would bring him out to the fields to split meals when it got too bad, back when they were much younger and didn’t have solutions for problems so big and daunting...
Shikamaru rested his forehead against Neji’s. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
That’s not true.
“I’m sorry you had to hear…”
You had to see me like this.
“Neji…”
You had to find me like this.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too – mostly because I couldn't do anything to help... and partially because I couldn’t tarnish my reputation and kick around that guy back there. Shinzo, the one that looked like a rat.”
Neji scoffed, surprised by how easily he smiled at the faint traces of amusement entering his thoughts, his body. His instincts were right after all, and the image was a sound one in his mind. “I had a strong feeling about that.”
“Man, his voice , it was so painful to listen to.”
Neji had to agree, and nodded.
“Feels like his first day on the job, too. Did you hear how many times Judge Tanaka had to redirect him? He’s a damn numbskull – the guy really shouldn’t have been a lawyer, since he’s just making them all look bad.”
Neji smiled, even with the lingering exhaustion in his system, even knowing he didn’t fully trust himself enough to vindicate himself – but it was easy enough, easy like breathing, when Shikamaru was there to recenter what was so skewed.
Neji’s hands, caught in the fabric of the front of Shikamaru’s dark shirt, came up his sides. He pulled him in, this time far more stable and certain, and rested his head on his shoulder again.
“This entire thing is a fucking drag, but it’s almost over,” Shikamaru said into his neck, squeezing. “You did good.”
Neji squeezed harder. One day, hopefully, he’ll believe that.
~
The court continued it’s relentless, thorough investigation, having taken more members to the stand in hopes of wringing out deeper, darker truths from their memories. Hiroto himself was called up there too, questioned in the same fashion that Neji almost wished he got to see.
That, at least, was the court agenda. It must have been what they must have been doing while Neji was absent, and he couldn't bring himself to care that he was.
Instead of returning, Neji and Shikamaru sat outside, with Shikamaru having the intuition to bring them both food, like he knew what to expect and had planned for it. Neji didn’t have such foresight, just grateful that one of them had it at all.
Kakashi had been the one to tell them the trial was over, finding them outside and calling down from the roof. He didn’t linger.
The discussion for the jury to come to a conclusion took only an hour, and though it was a swift decision, Neji had waited it out in high strung anticipation. After receiving notice from Kakashi yet again, having found them as they waited in one of the vacant break rooms, they were all gathered back into the same courtroom to hear the verdict.
The sun that had once been so bright and golden was in it’s dying light, the only indicator that time had passed normally and that the day was drawing to an end. Lights were turned on, glowing from the edges of the room.
How it was possible for this to be a quick process, yet still agonizingly slow, Neji didn’t know – he just knew that the two were the same, and when he was back in the court, the two turned into a purgatory that might not end.
It must be the right decision.
Neji sat in the rows of seats this time, and insisted on being in the closest row possible. If his body rejected the entire proceeding events, then he should get a good view of whatever was going to happen. Good, bad, he’d witness it all and await the judgement.
They must understand…
There were other Hyuuga in the room with him, too – scattered, sitting alone or with a friend. They all ignored each other, their pain a shared feeling that demanded solitude and left no room for rumination. Maybe later, but not today.
No one spoke to him, or Shikamaru, and it was for the best. The shuffling, the waiting, the quiet talks between everyone as they took their seat and waited till everyone was there, was enough talk to fill the space.
Shikamaru was tense beside him, though Neji was certain he himself looked just as tense, just as anxious.
He tried to reclaim calmness, but it was pointless. A fear had already gripped him.
The twin fear in his heart was not about himself, or the deep seated guilt Shikamaru warned against – but it was eerily similar.
It was the same feeling, revived after years of hiding, that grew from his match with Naruto – from the heaviness of that crowd of eyes on him, the eyes of the hokage , as they heard his self-righteous speech, as they listened to his and his father’s story.
No, he wasn’t under any impression that he was, somehow, special. His story had happened to generations of Hyuuga before him, to his cousins and uncles and aunts. He was just another member among those masses, he just happened to be the loudest of them all.
But those crowds had been there, and they heard . They understood, had bemoaned it in the moment, even, but still nothing came of it. And yes, afterward, Gai had hugged him and cried for him and gave him a couch to sleep on. His team gave him understanding and affection, and Shikamaru gave him his time, but...
Konoha did nothing.
And so that fear remained, ingrained in his bones and newly awoken like it was made for a moment just like this.
They’re not going to do anything .
He knows it’s not true. It couldn’t be true, not with a court under the Hokage, who sat in this very room and witnessed it all...
It felt like it did so many years ago, how he and his last hope was crushed so quickly after Konoha returned to normal. Like nothing had been said, life moved on, and the Hyuuga were allowed to go about their ways as though his voice was just another caught in the wind. A single voice, in a crowded hall, heard for a only second before being carried away into the noisy percussion of voices louder and sterner than his own.
No...
It wasn’t possible the court was going to come to that same understanding, but he also knew that he’d been so sure once upon a time…
The judge walked in before Neji could derail his own train of thought, and the jury, once a part of the crowd, followed in line. Behind them came Hinata and Yui, then Hiroto and Shinzo. The stenographer was at the tail of the line, and she returned to her front row seat, ready to write down government history.
Shikamaru’s presence was a strong one, and Neji could feel his sharp edges become razors as they made their quiet entrance. It was a comfort, being listened to, being trusted enough for someone to be mad on his behalf, and Neji reached his hand out to grab his knee. In thanks for listening and trusting him, he squeezed.
Shikamaru laid his hand atop Neji, and the Judge – Tanaka – sat down.
Shinzo and Yui took their seat back at their tables alongside Hiroto and Hinata, and at the wall beside the judge, the six jury members stood, waiting to be called on.
Tanaka was a burly man, with long hair pulled into a neat bun. He cleared his throat, looking at the evidence and quickly scanning the spectators, and the victims.
He called the court back into session.
“As the court reaches the final session, we will be laying this case to rest. The jury was swift with their discussion and went over the evidence and testimony thoroughly. They now have come to a verdict.” He gestured toward the line of people behind him and to his left. “This, the first case under the noble court, has left all of us with heavy thoughts. I won’t try to address that in a way to change it, either – we should feel heavy, because the discussions held here today should not be lightly taken. With that, Sato, I’ll have you come up and read your group’s decision.”
Please .
The girl with short black hair from the far end of the line came up and bowed, brown parchment in hand. “Yes, your honor.”
She stood behind the desk Neji testified from, looking down to the paper she unfolded. “After hearing the testimony, and taking into account the evidence shown, we have discussed and come to a conclusion –”
Maybe Neji imagined the pause, but he didn’t know for certain.
“ – We find the defendant members of the main family of the Hyuuga guilty.”
Neji’s breath slammed back into him – an opened mouth sigh, like an explosion but so much softer, came from his lips. He couldn’t stop the way his shoulders rolled forward, couldn’t stop the way his hands resting on his knees turned into a vice.
Shikamaru’s hand came quickly to his lower back, a reminder of everything he'd done in support of him.
Neji didn’t even hear the judge ask the jury questions, or thank them, or dismiss them – none of it registered, not in a way that stuck. No, it was all there, things were being said and he should care, just couldn’t bring himself to –
They believed.
The room was lost around him for just a moment, and would have been completely lost if it weren’t for the anchor of Shikamaru’s hand, still and confident on him.
They believed?
Maybe instinct was what brought him back to his senses, when he heard the judge speaking again.
“In compliance with the verdict of guilt, under the noble court as appointed by the Hokage, I will now read the sentencing. This court is free from cruel and unusual punishment. All sentencing is based on the severity of the crime committed, as well as taking into account psychological consequences of the victims.”
Whatever relief was supposed to feel like, Neji didn’t think it was going to feel like this – the cold detachment permeating out through his muscles, his nerves.
“Each living member of the accused, Hyuuga Hiroto in this court, and the members awaiting verdict at the Hyuuga estate, will finish 90 years each in the Konoha Civil Confinement Facility. There will be hearings set five years apart to determine status of remorse, as will be heard and determined by a judge and full jury, with the possibility of shortening the sentence. This sentencing goes into effect immediately.”
Neji heard every word – they’d fallen like gavels on the silent room, and yet were distant like the stars, like a bright light would be enough to erase them from existence.
But, no, it was real – the words stayed in the air, incapable of being redacted. And the deep current of animosity that had cut Hiroto’s face deep into wrinkles and scowl was real, because he heard the same thing Neji did. He heard his fate, and had to accept that it was happening.
Whether or not he wanted, it was happening.
The stinging smile brought to Hinata’s lips, that was real .
The way the tension in the room snapped like old wire was real , and he could feel the energy around him lighten – heavy all the same, yet light enough that it felt like the mortician's silence in the people around them had been thawed away.
The small crowd around them, at some point, cleared out of the room, standing and realigning and, then, eventually taking their leave – leaving Neji to wonder how shock had immobilized him far more than the anger of the testimony ever could.
Naruto waved goodbye somewhere in there, concern deep in his eyes, mirroring that of Sasuke’s. Gai rolled by, too --
“You did good, my boy” he said softly, voice dry despite his puffy eyes, accepting the small nod of thanks Neji gave him and knowing better than to stop and chat. Kakashi spared him a smile, eyes becoming guarded crescents before departing, pushing Gai’s chair forward.
The room felt much bigger as they now sat in it’s vacant maw-- seated side by side in a mission-meeting room with the sun low on the horizon, the lights ensconced at the farthest walls doing little to make up for it.
After just hours of being strung out, bare for everyone, his privacy and humility ripped to shreds–
Neji was finally alone .
Alone, with the knowledge that this was it. This was all that there was going to be of the people he was forced to call family, the end of the legacy he, now, has to reshape.
Shikamaru didn’t wait long for the room to empty out before he pulled Neji in.
How did this happen?
Neji slowly raised his hands to the arm around him, waiting for something to go wrong.
But things weren’t going wrong, and Shikamaru was laughing. Not loudly, not because anything was particularly funny – maybe it was with relief, strong and potent just like Neji’s, that he laughed.
“It’s done,” he said, his chin resting on Neji’s shoulder.
Neji tried to believed it, because Shikamaru did and if anyone could be trusted, it was him –
“I – I don’t believe it.”
“Hasn’t sunk in yet, huh?”
Neji shook his head.
He felt dumb for thinking, or doubting –
– Shikamaru hummed into his neck, his shoulder, warmth seeping into the fibers of his clothes like maybe all his senses had disappeared, only to return now –
“Don’t worry, it will,” Shikamaru said, muffled by cotton.
It’s real .
Neji’s head sunk low into the arm that braced across his chest, sensations returning, the shock slowly giving away to hope.
They believed me.