Sharpness and Sweetness
Another NejiHina oneshot, came from the list of themes/prompts provided for us at hyugacest. This one is to the theme of "humble". I rather like how it came out, it's set a little ways into the future, which gives me some degree of creative licence. Only thing I'm not v. happy with is the title. It doesn't suck, but it just doesn't quite click in regards to what my mind wanted.
Title: Sharpness and Sweetness
Rating: G
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: NejiHina
Warnings: None
Theme: Humble
Summary: Neji's thoughts on humility, and the one thing in his life that seems to be able to make him so.
Cross-posted to a metric fuck-ton of places. XD
Sharpness and Sweetness
Hyuuga Neji has never been what one might call a humble man. In fact, he’s quite distinctly known as the direct opposite. Arrogant, self-assure, even cocky at times. Secure in his knowledge that not only is he an accomplished Jounin, well on his way to ANBU status, but that he is the genius of a clan who keeps his wings bound. And he contents himself with that knowledge, for a time. The knowledge that regardless of how hard the Head family crushes him down, binding his potential and keeping him caged, his own genius and skills bleed through the curtains they throw around him. Like an unhealing wound, crimson scarlet tears leaking slowly through white gauze, they can never truly keep him bound. They may find it a simple task to bind his body, to cage and control him, but they cannot place a leash or collar on his abilities for those expand and grow as he does, even without his own will driving their motion.
He has never needed to be humble, though the Soke would wish it so. Abilities they themselves both covet and admire, wanting to both showcase and yet limit. Afterall, it isn’t in their plans for the genius of the Hyuuga clan to escape the control they keep over him. Perhaps that is why he persists in his arrogance, his coldness. The harsh portrayal that he holds for the rest of the world serving perhaps as a façade. Or maybe it is merely that his pride is the one thing that the Soke can never take from him, regardless of where his life’s path may lead him. Either way, Neji has no plans to become a humble man. There is no need for it, after all.
She makes him humble, despite all his wishes and against all his plans. Without thought or reason, she brings down all his pride and all his coldness. Turning him, with one soft word and the merest touch of her hand, to a better man. She is different from him, completely unlike those around her who she calls family. Softer, gentler, a different breed entirely. She sees the world through tender eyes and touches it with even more tender fingertips, soothing away hurt and pain wherever she finds it. And that in itself is humbling to him. For it is something he himself has never been able to do.
Neji is not a healer, neither of body nor of spirit. He is a fighter, strength tempered and weathered and sharpened into a finely-honed blade of war. A creation made for killing and bloodshed, a tool of a world tinged crimson by that same shed blood. But she…she is different. An angel of mercy and compassion, shining a soft white light onto the bloodied battlefield not merely from the chakra that leaks easily from hands far softer then his, but from the very essence of her soul itself. She is hope, where he is vengeance. And in that knowledge, he finds himself humbled. For she has a gift far greater then any skills or abilities that he has been blessed with.
He thinks to himself how he once called her weak, taunted and belittled her for her inability to fight at any level that would have been considered “worthy”. How, even in the face of such harshness from him, and in spite of the brutal beating doled out by his own hands, she pushed herself to her feet and continued onward, voice determined and manner steeled against his stinging words. And even now, those thoughts bring with them the lingering taste of shame that he, whose sight exceeds everyone’s, was so blind to the truth.
She chides him for it gently, whenever he tries to apologize for the way he treated her all those years ago, reminding him with gentle voice that it is a different time, a different world now then the one they once inhabited. That he is no longer that same man, his resolve coloured by hatred and vengeance, directing the entirety of his hatred towards the easiest target. The one who smiled at him with gentle eyes and forgiving mature. The one who deserved his rage least of all.
And even that is humbling to Neji. The way she can forgive, forget, smile and once again direct that gentle touch towards him as she smiles up at him from her seat on the edge of the porch, their infant son cradled in her lap, the golden rays of the sun reflecting off the soft lavender of her kimono. In that moment, she seems even more like an angel, and Neji can feel his breath catch in his throat for a moment at the most humbling thought of all. That this woman, this perfect creature of light and mercy and goodness, could have ever given her heart into his own bloodstained and uncaring hands. That of all the people she could have chosen, her feelings settled on what he considers to be the unworthiest of them all. Himself. And as he smiles gently down at her, a smile reserved only for her, that precious few others have ever seen, he thinks to himself that there is nothing else in this world that he would willingly humble himself for. But for her…always.
Title: Sharpness and Sweetness
Rating: G
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: NejiHina
Warnings: None
Theme: Humble
Summary: Neji's thoughts on humility, and the one thing in his life that seems to be able to make him so.
Cross-posted to a metric fuck-ton of places. XD
Sharpness and Sweetness
Hyuuga Neji has never been what one might call a humble man. In fact, he’s quite distinctly known as the direct opposite. Arrogant, self-assure, even cocky at times. Secure in his knowledge that not only is he an accomplished Jounin, well on his way to ANBU status, but that he is the genius of a clan who keeps his wings bound. And he contents himself with that knowledge, for a time. The knowledge that regardless of how hard the Head family crushes him down, binding his potential and keeping him caged, his own genius and skills bleed through the curtains they throw around him. Like an unhealing wound, crimson scarlet tears leaking slowly through white gauze, they can never truly keep him bound. They may find it a simple task to bind his body, to cage and control him, but they cannot place a leash or collar on his abilities for those expand and grow as he does, even without his own will driving their motion.
He has never needed to be humble, though the Soke would wish it so. Abilities they themselves both covet and admire, wanting to both showcase and yet limit. Afterall, it isn’t in their plans for the genius of the Hyuuga clan to escape the control they keep over him. Perhaps that is why he persists in his arrogance, his coldness. The harsh portrayal that he holds for the rest of the world serving perhaps as a façade. Or maybe it is merely that his pride is the one thing that the Soke can never take from him, regardless of where his life’s path may lead him. Either way, Neji has no plans to become a humble man. There is no need for it, after all.
She makes him humble, despite all his wishes and against all his plans. Without thought or reason, she brings down all his pride and all his coldness. Turning him, with one soft word and the merest touch of her hand, to a better man. She is different from him, completely unlike those around her who she calls family. Softer, gentler, a different breed entirely. She sees the world through tender eyes and touches it with even more tender fingertips, soothing away hurt and pain wherever she finds it. And that in itself is humbling to him. For it is something he himself has never been able to do.
Neji is not a healer, neither of body nor of spirit. He is a fighter, strength tempered and weathered and sharpened into a finely-honed blade of war. A creation made for killing and bloodshed, a tool of a world tinged crimson by that same shed blood. But she…she is different. An angel of mercy and compassion, shining a soft white light onto the bloodied battlefield not merely from the chakra that leaks easily from hands far softer then his, but from the very essence of her soul itself. She is hope, where he is vengeance. And in that knowledge, he finds himself humbled. For she has a gift far greater then any skills or abilities that he has been blessed with.
He thinks to himself how he once called her weak, taunted and belittled her for her inability to fight at any level that would have been considered “worthy”. How, even in the face of such harshness from him, and in spite of the brutal beating doled out by his own hands, she pushed herself to her feet and continued onward, voice determined and manner steeled against his stinging words. And even now, those thoughts bring with them the lingering taste of shame that he, whose sight exceeds everyone’s, was so blind to the truth.
She chides him for it gently, whenever he tries to apologize for the way he treated her all those years ago, reminding him with gentle voice that it is a different time, a different world now then the one they once inhabited. That he is no longer that same man, his resolve coloured by hatred and vengeance, directing the entirety of his hatred towards the easiest target. The one who smiled at him with gentle eyes and forgiving mature. The one who deserved his rage least of all.
And even that is humbling to Neji. The way she can forgive, forget, smile and once again direct that gentle touch towards him as she smiles up at him from her seat on the edge of the porch, their infant son cradled in her lap, the golden rays of the sun reflecting off the soft lavender of her kimono. In that moment, she seems even more like an angel, and Neji can feel his breath catch in his throat for a moment at the most humbling thought of all. That this woman, this perfect creature of light and mercy and goodness, could have ever given her heart into his own bloodstained and uncaring hands. That of all the people she could have chosen, her feelings settled on what he considers to be the unworthiest of them all. Himself. And as he smiles gently down at her, a smile reserved only for her, that precious few others have ever seen, he thinks to himself that there is nothing else in this world that he would willingly humble himself for. But for her…always.