*Disclaimer: All characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto. The story idea belongs to me, though I don't make any money from this.*
'Italics within single quotation marks' are thoughts.
"Centralized italics" indicate Neji is singing
"Centralized bold" indicates Naruto is singing
No prizes for guessing what "Centralized bold italics" mean!
Background information:
This story is a sort-of sequel to "I Won't Say", and there will be some references to the aforementioned story. You don't HAVE to read it, but just so you know.
This takes place sometime in the future when Naruto is 20 and Neji is 21. They've been dating for a couple of years now.
Looking Through Your Eyes
Chapter 1
For a simple mission, things had gone out of hand really quickly. What was supposed to be reconnaissance with no enemy confrontation had evolved into a twenty-on-two deathmatch in the span of seconds…all because of one sneeze.
It was simply an unfortunate series of events. Neji and Naruto were hiding in a tree, observing a heavily-guarded bandit hideout. Everything was fine until a butterfly landed on Naruto's nose. To make things worse, the damned insect fluttered its wings, and despite his valiant attempts to remain silent, the sneeze broke through. The sentries on watch duty looked towards the direction of the sneeze, yelled for reinforcements, and the rest, as we say it, is history.
"Kaiten!" Neji yelled as he spun into a blur. All twelve of the incoming kunai bounced off the protective chakra dome and clattered harmlessly to the ground. Gracefully evading a second wave of kunai, Neji leapt onto the branch of a nearby tree, where he had previously spotted one of the bandits.
"Hakke – Hazangeki!"
The unfortunate recipient of Neji's Mountain Crusher technique was blown through several trees before slamming against a rock and crumpling to the ground. Seconds later, he was joined by one of his comrades, whose abdomen bore the characteristic spiral wound of the Rasengan.
"That's my seventh one! You're lagging behind, Neji!" Naruto yelled as he dodged a flurry of strikes. Quickly disabling another bandit, Neji turned to his companion with a slight smirk, "Now we're even again." Cursing slightly under his breath, Naruto redoubled his effort to take his opponent down.
Up in the trees, the bandit leader snarled in frustration as another of his men was overwhelmed by a wave of orange-clad shadow clones. He had to find a way to end the fight quickly.
"Naruto! Behind you!"
"Naruto! To your left!"
"Naruto! Above!"
The bandit leader was starting to see a pattern in the duo's attack style. White-Eyes was keeping an eye on Orange Boy (or "Naruto", as he learnt from White-Eyes' exclamations), and would warn him about sneak attacks. Strangely, White-Eyes was still able to hold his own against all of his own attackers, and disable them by a few pokes to their bodies. 'So,' the bandit leader reasoned to himself, 'take out White-Eyes first, then go for Orange Boy.' Watching one of his last few able-bodied men take flight and slam into a tree, he decided it was time for him to join the fray.
Yet another of the bandits dropped bonelessly to the ground as Neji finished jabbing at his pressure points. As Neji turned away from his fallen opponent, he sidestepped the fist aimed for the back of his head.
"You have to teach me that trick one day; I'd love to be able to see behind me," the bandit leader sneered as he followed up his attack with two more quick punches. "Sure," Neji replied with a sneer of his own, "If you survive this." Lowering into the stance for his clan's ultimate jutsu, he began his attack.
"Hakke – Rokujuy…"
"Chinmoku no Jutsu!" [1]
Neji felt like he had been gagged. He also realized that he could not call out to Naruto for backup, and for some strange reason, he simply could not go through with his attack. Seeing his opponent's confusion, the bandit leader smirked and said, "I normally don't explain my attacks, but I'm especially proud of this jutsu. Since you're going to die soon anyway, I might as well tell you that it was designed specifically to take advantage of the Law of Nominative Clamvocation."
Receiving an arched eyebrow in response, he elaborated, "The Law states that the likelihood of success and the damage done by a martial arts attack is directly proportional to the volume at which the full name of the attack is announced [2]. Simply put, if I shut you up, your attacks are useless. Now, to even the odds a little…" He went through a quick series of hand-seals, and pointed towards Neji's eyes.
"Shitsumei no Jutsu!" [3]
A beam of dark chakra extended from his hands, snaking their way towards the intended target. It formed a ring around Neji's eyes before closing in and absorbing into his head. Pain lanced through Neji's eyes as his vision began to fade. Even with the Byakugan, he was fighting a losing battle with the darkness. The last things he remembered before passing out from the pain was hearing an enraged yell and seeing an orange blur rushing to his side.
Sakura sighed. Ever since she was assigned as Neji's principal nurse, Naruto had been pestering her for updates about Neji's condition. On one hand, it was heart-wrenching to see Naruto's concern for his boyfriend. The blonde had not left Neji's bedside ever since he was admitted more than a day ago. On the other hand, being bombarded with various forms of the question, "How is he?" every time she came to do a routine check on her patient was wearing her patience thin.
"Naruto!" she began with a hiss, "Neji needs rest! His condition's been the same since you brought him in, and I won't know anything else until the test results come back! Now why don't you go home and come back tomorrow!? It's already past visiting hours and I should kick you out!"
Unfortunately, Sakura had the bad habit of being unable to control the volume of her voice when she was agitated. In the course of those few sentences, her voice had gone from an angry whisper to a full-blown yell. Consequently, this had the very effect which she had been trying to prevent – Neji woke up.
Relief flooded Naruto as he saw his boyfriend stir. Grasping one of Neji's hands in both of his own, he murmured softly, "Hey Neji, how're you feeling?" Receiving only a low moan in response, he turned back to Sakura for an explanation.
"We have Neji on a pretty high dose of painkillers. His heart rate and chakra flow indicated that he was in extreme pain when you brought him in." Naruto was about to (loudly) protest at not being told when Sakura's hand clamped down strongly over his mouth. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd react like this," Sakura continued, "Frankly, it's not much help if you stay here. Why don't you go home and rest? I promise you'll be the first to know if anything changes here."
Finally realizing that what Sakura said was true, Naruto nodded in resignation before getting up and stretching. Heading towards the window, he turned back and said, "Make sure you let me know if anything happens. Thanks, Sakura," before jumping out and heading home across the rooftops.
Watching the departing figure, Sakura sighed once again and turned back to Neji, updating her chart with the latest output from the machines he was hooked up to.
Tap… tap.
Tap…tap.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Naruto sat up, looking for the tapping sound which had roused him from his slumber. Taking a cursory clance at his alarm clock, he saw that it was fast approaching 8:00pm, which meant that he had only been asleep for about two hours. Blue eyes swept across the room again before finally focusing on a messenger bird perched on his windowsill. He leapt out of bed and opened the window before the bird could begin another round of tapping. Retrieving the small canister tied to the bird's leg, he opened it to find a short note in Sakura's neat script. The note read,
"Naruto,
Update on Neji's condition. Be at the hospital ASAP.
S."
Ten minutes after reading the message, Naruto was in Sakura's office, listening to her update. "We've taken Neji off the painkillers, since his chakra flow returned to normal. He's still tired, and needs rest. From the tests we ran on him, and based on what he told us when he was awake, the bandit first used a silence jutsu of some sort, then another jutsu which blinded him."
After a short pause to allow Naruto to absorb the information, she continued, "It seems that this Shitsumei no Jutsu interfere's with the chakra flow in the optical system, and prevents light from reaching the victim's eyes, thus causing their loss of sight. It apparently works on the Byakugan as well, though I don't know enough about either the jutsu or the Byakugan to explain why. Shizune-senpai is researching possible counters and cures, and that may take a couple of days, even weeks. Meanwhile, I recommend that Neji be discharged…when he wakes up, that is. He doesn't really need medical attention, and he would do better in familiar surroundings, anyway."
Nodding, Naruto stood up, gave Sakura his thanks, and headed back to Neji's room, where he found the latter sitting up in bed, eyes covered with a layer of bandages. "Hey Neji," his voice was uncharacteristically subdued as he approached that bedside. Reaching out to take Neji's hand in his own, he smiled when the older male squeezed his hand gently and pulled him onto the bed and into waiting arms.
"Naruto," Neji's voice still sounded a little thick, as if he had just woken up. Come to think about it, he probably had. "I suppose Sakura has told you everything." Naruto nodded, before remembering that Neji would not be able to see it. Strangely enough, Neji seemed to be aware of his response, and continued, "So? Shall we head home?" "Well," Naruto replied with a small smile, "that's a good idea, but I wouldn't mind staying like this for a while more, either." Neji smiled as well as he lay back, arms still around his boyfriend's waist. Naruto had no choice but to be dragged down, making himself comfortable in the embrace.
And that's how Sakura found the two of them later, when she came by with the paperwork for Neji's discharge. Leaving the folder on the bedside table, she smiled as she flicked the light switch to 'off'.
'Well, I suppose I can let them stay one more night...'
-End of Chapter-
[1] Literally translated: Silence Jutsu.
[2] Law #44, credit to http (colon slash slash) .com (slash) laws
[3] Literally translated" Loss of Light Jutsu
Notes: There's been a revamp!
This started off as a oneshot, but as you can tell, it's going to expand. I'm guessing it will go up to 2 chapters, 3 tops. Does anyone else think that Neji is taking his loss of vision a little too well? That might change in the next chapter…=D
My self-made jutsu names were researched using google translate and yahoo answers. I do understand the kanji though (my mother tongue is Chinese/Mandarin), so I do know that I'm not too far off. However, if any readers can suggest more accurate translations for the jutsu names, please let me know and I'll do the correction. "Shitsumei no Jutsu" will remain as it is, however, as its name will be involved a future plot point.
In the beginning, you probably saw indications that the characters were going to sing. Sadly, that hasn't happened (yet), but it will soon! Feel free to guess what song they will be singing. There's a REALLY obvious hint already.
Lastly, please review! =)