Chapter Text
Hiashi essentially betrays Hizashi from the moment they are born. It is not intentional (at least not at first), but it is learned from their father, who relegates one of his sons to servitude and anguish, from their mother, who carves a seal into Hizashi's chakra with her own blood. The same blood the Hizashi bleeds onto the wooden floors under them. The same blood that runs through Hiashi's veins.
Their birth is the first betrayal. Watching his brother be sealed and doing nothing is the second. Then comes the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, and on and on and on and on. Every time Hiashi turns a blind eye to his brother's treatment (there's no such thing as a Hyuuga that can't see, so they become good at burying their head in the sand instead). Every time Hiashi gets promoted in the village hierarchy over Hizashi, even though his brother has the finest chakra control since Senju Tsunade herself and almost as many completed missions as Namikaze Minato.
Probably the worst thing Hiashi has ever done happens when Hizashi has his son. Neiji is born in the dead of night, while Hiashi stands stone faced outside of the room where a woman screams and screams and screams. He doesn't enter the room, and the look of anguish on Hizashi's face will linger in his memory for a long time. It will stain the recesses of his mind even when Hiashi can no longer recall his brother's laugh or the curve of his smile. At a time when he will not be able to find any part of Hizashi's stubborn joy in his son's grave countenance. Hizashi does not want a child, but when their elders had found out about the woman, he no longer had a choice.
Neither did she.
Maybe that's when Hiashi begins to see rage mar his brother's features; when Neiji says his first words and laughs and laughs and rolls around in his crib, so sweet.
The rage of a father who knows he will never be able to protect his child. Maybe it's when Neiji meets Hinata for the first time and the grief that pervades the air, the stench of fear and resignation. Maybe it's when Hiashi using his own blood, seals Neiji, binding him into servitude when Hiashi looks at the son of his twin brother, who could be mistaken for Hiashi's own son, and passes their family's sins on to his trembling young shoulders. (This house was set aflame a long time ago)
All he knows is that at a certain point Hizashi decides to die, and protects Hiashi in the process. It's not out of love. It is not love that makes Hizashi step forward, to say he will take Hiashi's place in the Kumo negotiations (it's all a fucking fraud, Kumo has the Hyuuga in their hands, and everyone knows it). It is Hizashi's rage, his exhaustion, and the grief that Hizashi has carried with him. Grief takes up the same amount of space as Hiashi does in his brother's life. Grief looks like their dead mother's dispassionate eyes and sounds like a nameless, faceless woman screaming while Hizashi stands outside, not moving.
It is usually a hollow platitude whenever people tell mourners that their loved ones are in a better place. Hiashi knows in his bones that his brother is better off dead than alive. It is a weight lifted off both of their shoulders.
Except his brother's ghost lives in the eyes of a young boy, and Neiji makes no effort to mask his anger.