Ideal Shinobi
Summary: They are both wrecks, and, ironically, that makes them the ideal shinobi.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I'm not profiting from this. I wish I was.
Ninja Academy students are taught from a very young age that the ideal shinobi does not give in to their emotions, urges, whims, or personal beliefs. They are tools of the government and of each other; apathetic warriors who don't flinch at the sight of blood or cry out in terror when a sword covered in the remains of their fallen comrade comes swinging at their face from nowhere.
But what they don't tell the Ninja Academy students is that there is no escaping basic human emotion. They come and stay and must be dealt with accordingly.
The best shinobi (or future shinobi) come to this realization fairly quickly and quietly. They learn to carefully construct walls around themselves to keep everything in (and other times, everyone else out). They become good liars; so good, in fact, that they can start to fool themselves at some point and live out their life that way because when you are a shinobi, there is rarely time for examining your conscience. This is exactly what the instructors at the Ninja Academy want.
Others (they are usually the ones that come and go quickly and provide not-so-subtle examples for their peers), come to this realization too late or never at all, and it kills them. Some have been pronounced clinically insane. Others just stop; stop growing mentally, stop talking, stop eating, just halting where they are and never moving forwards or backwards. Still others take the hardest missions in hopes that they'll go out fighting like any ninja should, when really they are running away.
For Hyuuga Neji, going insane, halting, or honorable suicide (he realizes it's not honorable anyways) are not options. He has a job to do; he is a shinobi of the Leaf and one of the best, and he is going to get better and better until he is ANBU, and he will defend his home. He was recognized as a child as a prodigy for his skills, but mostly for his way of dealing with things (this is never said aloud, but all the instructors realize this).
Hyuuga Neji does not cry and he does not give into impulses. If something happens, the situation is quickly dealt with and none are the wiser because it is never brought up again. He does not admit fear, anger, sorrow, or happiness; he doesn't admit anything at all. He keeps everything inside himself and no one else is to know. The only thing anybody knows for certain about him is that he is determined (to the point of obsession) to prove himself to the Main House (mostly his uncle). And he will fight for this until he has achieved it. And though somewhere (very deep down) he realizes that he will probably never find approval, he's so good at lying that he believes himself and if a small part of him doesn't, well, nobody knows and nobody ever will. Hyuuga Neji knows the rules of being a shinobi and he follows them to a microscopic ink smudge.
TenTen is not as renowned as her ice cube of a teammate. Her claim to fame is her mastery of all things pointy or dangerous, and her seemingly uncaring attitude of anything girly or distracting. But the truth of the matter is that TenTen is exactly like Neji when it comes to being a good shinobi. No one knows anything about her. No one knows she doesn't have parents (Iruka suspects, as does Neji), that she has lived by herself for as long as she can remember. TenTen does not partake in things that are girly (like chasing boys, more specifically, Neji) because they distract her from her goal of becoming ANBU's resident Weapons Specialist so she can finally prove herself. She's not really sure who she's proving herself to, but she tells herself that it is not she that is the doubter but somebody else, and she believes it.
TenTen is more easily driven to outward anger, but she has learned to morph all or her emotions into anger. She feels pained or melancholic; she will pull out a shuriken and throw it at Neji while screaming at him to lighten up. She's so good, in fact, that she has all but forgotten how to act out each emotion as a normal person should. She knows she should feel a strange sense of loss, but she tells herself that is ridiculous and this is how all shinobi operate, and she believes it.
Hyuuga Neji has known for quite a while now (since he was twelve, and that was four years ago) that TenTen is more than a teammate. He has known for a while now that the reason she can stand him is because she is fluent in Ice Cube Speak and the reason she spars with him is because she understands his need to vent his frustration in the form of violence. He knows that it is not healthy to tease her occasionally when he hardly talks to anyone without a reason. He realizes that when his fingers itch to pull out her hair ties to see what her hair looks like down (he has this strange notion that it will be prettier than Ino's) that it is not normal for a shinobi to feel that way. But he tells himself he doesn't feel any of this at all and that TenTen is nothing more than a sparring partner, and he believes it.
TenTen knows that she should not always feel the need to get a rise out of Neji just so she can hear his voice. She knows she should not take pleasure in hearing him tell her she looks like a violent panda because his voice makes her stomach acrobatic. She realizes it's not healthy to want to bury her hands in his hair because it looks so wonderful. She realizes that for four years, Neji has made her mind behave in ways that are not common to a shinobi. But she tells herself that all of these are some form of genjutsu cast upon her and he is only a sparring partner, and she believes it.
Somewhere along the way there was a particularly gruesome mission and Hyuuga Neji and TenTen ended up in each other's arms when their other teammate and sensei were asleep on the way back home. Their shinobi states of mind came back to them too late and by the time they did, they realized that Neji had successfully removed TenTen's hair ties and TenTen couldn't even distinguish her hands and Neji's hair in the light from the camp fire. But now it was just Neji and TenTen sitting by the fire and not shinobi who were tangled in each other's arms and hair. Neji was right; TenTen's hair was exquisite. TenTen was right; Neji's hair was so wonderful.
It didn't last long. Moments later they were shinobi again and were hastily disentangling themselves from each other and adjusting their wrinkled clothes and mussed hair from a safe distance away. And after nothing so much as a shared glance they were in their own separate sleeping rolls and carefully putting the memory of each other's scents and textures in a dark and dusty corner of their minds.
When they returned home they said their polite goodbye's to each other and their other team members and went to their respective homes to relax until the next day. TenTen cleaned up and tried not to notice her shirt smelled something like herself and something like woodsy soap. Neji cleaned up and ignored the fact that his shirt smelled like it always does, but with a hint of metal and vanilla shampoo.
The next day training was the same. And the day after that, and the day after that. And if either Neji or TenTen noticed they were practicing hand to hand combat more often than usual, nothing was said because they told themselves nothing was between them and they believed it.
A few years later when people started asking them how things were between them, they told them there was nothing between them and believed it. People like Iruka and Gai and Lee and the other Ninja Academy Instructors or team sensei chose to leave it unmentioned because they all knew that Hyuuga Neji and TenTen were telling themselves lies so often that they were starting to believe it. They chose not to mention that TenTen never accepted dates and Neji was angering both the Main and Branch Houses with his disinterest in finding a wife and continuing the bloodline.
Both Neji and TenTen told themselves so often that they weren't in love with each other and they began to realize they didn't believe it, but shoved it to the back of their minds and fought and carried out missions flawlessly to make up for the lapse in their shinobi-like train of thought. And because TenTen morphed everything into anger that resulted in her rise to ANBU's Weapons Specialist and Neji translated everything into his drive for acceptance he eventually became an Elite ANBU Squad Captain, they were considered the prime examples of good shinobi.
Gai, Lee, Iruka, and many others realize that those two are never going to let go of the notion that they can never be anything but shinobi.
They are both wrecks, and, ironically, that makes them the ideal shinobi.
Yes, well, that was my first ever Fan Fiction. Actually, I wrote it first but published it second. Whatever. Angst abounds, whoopee. I'm sorry if anyone was confused that I'd sometimes call Neji just "Neji" and sometimes I'd call him "Hyuuga Neji". That was to distinguish that "Hyuuga Neji" is the ideal shinobi and "Neji" is just the man with his emotions. Please feel free to comment. I know it's long, but I felt that a lot had to be said to convey the idea that their minds and lives are complicated.