A/N: Hello all! It's been a while. This is a story that I've been thinking about ever since I saw Princess Tutu (awesome anime series, fighting ballerinas!). I collaborated closely with EDninja from (see link in my profile) on this one shot, and they wrote a follow up with Tsunade and Femio (see next chapter, it's hilarious!)
Most people called Naruto an idiot. He preferred 'unpredictable.' After all, unpredictable was just one step away from genius, and what else could you call reverse engineering a summoning technique from one of your pervy sensei's glory stories told to a crowd of sexy-no-jutsu clones. Stupid, some might say; suicidal, others would warn, but Naruto didn't have anyone to bounce ideas off of, and when it came to caution he probably would have ignored them anyway.
Granted, using an experimental jutsu in the middle of the chunin exams against Neji was perhaps hazardous. Naruto had no guarantee it would work, and he had far more dependable techniques to fall back on. Shadow clones for instance; except spamming clones at the Hyuuga was proven utterly useless once the jerk did that spinny thing.
Pervy sage had set aside "research" long enough to teach him water walking , toad summoning, and how to use the freaky foxes chakra (if you could call punching him in the gut, throwing him a scroll to sign, and pushing him off a cliff 'teaching'), but there wasn't any water in the arena, Gamabunta would probably sit on him if he went overboard with the summoning, and calling on the Kyuubi's corrosive chakra seemed kind of overkill.
Not that there was anything wrong with overkill. Unleashing the power of an evil demon on the Hyuuga's stupid self-righteous, cousin abusing, fate obsessive ass might be overboard, but also awfully tempting. Naruto had a brain though, and contrary to popular opinion he could and did use it. He wasn't blind to the hundreds of spectators lining the stadium. The chunin exams were like an elaborate prank; all about presentation. Using the evil chakra practically every sane person in the village was mortally terrified of just to make a dent on Neji... Not cool.
But, it was definitely time for some drama. According to Jiraiya's story, his daring open-ended summon had astounded Sarutobi-sensei (the Hokage!) and turned him into a full-fledged sage (Naruto still wasn't too clear what that meant, but it sounded good), a hero of prophecy even! It certainly sounded promising. So while Neji's twirling slowed to a halt, and the stuck up Hyuuga did some kind of dramatic flippy thing with his hair, Naruto flew through hand seals.
By the time Neji's freaky white-eyed gimlet stare focused back on him, Naruto had completed the seals, bit his thumb, and slammed his hand to the ground. Smoke erupted from the air, shrouding Naruto's figure. Neji's byakugan caught sight of a slim female form standing next to Naruto, but a second later it was gone, and he was left blinking at a lump of clothing.
The smoke cleared to reveal a tiny duck with some sort of parcel slung over its back quacking irately at Naruto. Snickers swept through the audience as the bird started to peck at the startled blonde's bare toes, and those familiar with Naruto and his unusual antics sighed exasperatedly.
Naruto had fallen back in surprise when the smoke cleared. Sitting back he goggled. This... This! He was going to kill Jiraiya! Pervy sage was probably cackling in glee right now at the thought of his suffering as he conducted his 'research.' What could he do with a duck? And shouldn't she be attacking Neji, not him? And what was with the bundle of clothes on her back? Accchhh!
From his position a few yards away, Neji scoffed. "Pitiful. Of course a dead last like you would summon a duckling to help, and being attacked by your own summon, truly pathetic. This only confirms that fate has named me the winner here."
Rallying, Naruto leapt to his feet. The duckling finally stopped pecking at his toes and spun clumsily to squawk angrily at Neji as he yelled; "Would you cut it out with the fate talk!" Inwardly he winced. Too whiny, though he wondered passingly if the duck could understand human speech like the toads. She certainly seemed to agree with him, and was she crossing her arms, errrrr... wings?
"I'll defeat you even while protecting this duck," He pointed dramatically at said bird, "because that is my ninja way." Well, at least it sounded better, even if his ninja way was actually to protect his precious people, not random birds. The crowd didn't need to know that and the duck looked happy. She was even... sparkling?
"How dare you mock me with that ridiculous fowl," Neji hissed.
Naruto smirked triumphantly. That hadn't exactly been the plan... but he wasn't averse to a little improvisation, and mockery sounded just fine; anything to get the prissy Hyuuga to lose his cool. Angry people make mistakes, and certainly don't win promotions. Unfortunately he spent a bit too much time gloating, and an enraged Neji charged. Naruto started to make the seal for more shadow clones before he remembered the duck. Letting her die without even a hint of protest immediately after vowing to protect her would not win him any points His lunge for the duck was aborted when Neji appeared directly in front of him.
"You are within my realm of divination."
And then he knew pain, lots of pain; kind of like having the Kyuubi's chakra blasting out of his pores, only without the mindless blood lust and anger to dull it. He dimly heard the Hyuuga shouting out numbers, but was too preoccupied trying to stay upright to take much heed.
The last shot sent him flying, and he gave up the fight for dignity. Sprawled on his back on the hard packed earth he dimly registered Neji's approach, his smug words to the proctor offset by the frantic quacks of the duck that had rushed over to perch on his chest. Who would have thought a duck could be so heavy? Especially such a little one, and was she crying? Somehow he didn't have enough energy to be surprised anymore. A red shine caught his eye, and he noticed for the first time that the duck was wearing a pendant; a pendant that seemed to be shining more brightly with each passing second.
The crowd gasped in surprise and leaned in closer as feathers flooded the arena floor and formed an ever shifting dome around the participants. A Hyuuga using genjutsu? How unusual, especially considering his opponent already seemed to be out for the count; unless it was the erratic blonde menace dabbling in the subtle ninja arts. The anticipation mounted ever higher as the feathers lingered, drifting gently through the air without landing or dissipating.
The seconds drew on, and the crowd grew impatient as it became evident that the feathers weren't going anywhere. Hisses and boos echoed throughout the stadium, and many of the Hyuuga in attendance activated their Byakugan. They too were in turn disappointed and shocked to discover that their eyes could not penetrate the downy curtain. As the crowd grew rowdier, and shinobi grew anxious, Orochimaru glanced around beneath the convenient curtains of the Kazekage hat.
He hadn't given the signal for attack, and yet there was a genjutsu eerily similar to the one Kabuto was to implement shrouding the stadium floor. After a few more leery glances at the crowd of very much awake citizens and shinobi Orochimaru resigned himself to waiting. He could always bite, abduct, and interrogate the Hyuuga about the incident later.
Meanwhile, Naruto Uzumaki found himself with a lapful of agitated ballerina, a mouthful of pink netting, and no clue as to how either got there. He started spluttering, words rendered incoherent by the plentitude of poufy fabric and shortness of breath. He was cut short when the girl stood up, an eerie serenity gracing her previously distressed features, grabbed his hand, and yanked him unceremoniously to his feet.
"Please calm down my friend."
Friend? Calm? No way! Naruto looked around frantically. He didn't even know where he was! Stadium, crowd, and proctor were gone; replaced by a vast garden filled with plants he had never seen before, all in shades of indigo and deep purple. A few yards away Neji seemed to be struggling with a multitude of vines which had sprung up to capture first his feet and remaining limbs in quick succession. Unfortunately, the girls hand was about the only thing holding him up at the moment.
"Who the heck are you?"
"I am Princess Tutu."
Well, that was certainly enlightening. Fortunately the princess noted his exasperation.
"I was the duck that you... summoned. Your companion has something which does not belong to him. I am here to collect it so I can return it to its rightful place."
"Neji?" Okay, that didn't sound good. Weird enough that apparently he'd summoned a duck that turned into a ballerina princess, but now she wanted to take something from Neji? Granted, he didn't particularly care for the pompous prick, but he could only think of one thing that some random stranger could want from a Hyuuga. "You want his... eyes?"
"No!" Well, at least she looked suitably horrified. "He has a heart shard that belongs to a dear friend of mine."
Heart shard? Okay... computing girly princess ballerina talk. She couldn't mean an actual piece of a heart. That would be... sort of gross, and he couldn't see Neji carrying a dried up piece of heart around with him. Never mind, shard? That sounded pointy. So, she was talking about a girly, probably red, possibly pointy object. Hmmm. A ruby? Made the most sense, and the Hyuuga were supposed to a rich clan. Carrying around a ruby didn't make much sense either, but it made more sense than dehydrated cardiac muscle. If his delusional summon wanted to mug Neji, who was he to stop her.
"Okay, fine with me. Go for it!"
She smiled gently. "Thank you for your support. Please rest and recover from your injuries."
Before he could protest a tangle of vines erupted from the ground beneath him and kept growing until he was atop a tower of shrubbery. Fortunately, he had a great view of the action as 'Princess Tutu' pranced towards Neji atop pointed toes. Unfortunately, if she decided he needed to be divested of a 'heart shard' next, than he was already trapped in her freaky plants. Oh well, not much he could do until then, and she was his summon, surely he could unsummon her or something...
Princess Tutu didn't have bad hair days, she didn't stumble about, or trip over her own words, and she definitely did not get angry. The frank compassion and sincerity of her dancing saved people; anger had no place in her heart. So although Duck had been very upset with the pale-eyed boy a moment before—practically seething at the way he viciously attacked the loud blonde without provocation—facing him now, bedecked in her white tutu and point shoes, she couldn't muster up anything beyond sad benevolence.
Surely he was simply misguided, led astray by the power of an errant heart shard. Granted, the expectant audience watching the spectacle had been a bit suspicious; as were the pointy weapons, odd clothing, and man standing idly by chewing a metal toothpick. Lilie certainly would have been gruesomely delighted by what looked like a bizarre gladiatorial match to the death; but Duck, and Princess Tutu in turn, would prefer to believe that it was meant to be an amiable display of talent, one that had merely gotten out of hand thanks to the interference of Mytho's heart shard.
She carefully approached the thoroughly trussed up boy. Unfortunately he seemed rather distressed, and Mytho's heart shard hadn't even revealed himself yet. A very distant and distinctly Ahiru part of her was reluctant to release him from the plants' unyielding embrace, but it would be difficult to dance with an immobile partner.
"Please come and dance with me." She stretched out her hand welcomingly, and the vines retreated back into the ground.
'Neji' seemed a bit overeager, immediately twisting into a spin so rapid her eyes could barely keep pace. Puzzled but determined, she obligingly demonstrated her own elegant form, and waited for him to complete his opening salvo. As he began to slow to a halt she gently, but firmly, grabbed his hand and used the remaining momentum to pull him into a lift.
Lamentably, this only seemed to alarm him further, and as soon as he regained his feet, Neji yanked his hand back and nimbly jumped away. With the veins around his eyes bulging and lids firmly shut he performed a mime she did not recognize and murmured Kai. This did not seem to satisfy him either, for his suspicious gaze snapped back up.
"Drop the pathetic henge Naruto. I've heard of your ridiculous sexy no jutsu, and it is futile to employ such juvenile tactics against a Hyuuga. These eyes see everything.'
Utterly lost and mildly disturbed (what exactly did he think she was?) Duck couldn't think of anything to say but the truth.
"I am Princess Tutu, and you have something which does not belong to you. You bear the burden of a prince's heart shard, and I only wish to relieve you of your suffering." She thought for a moment, these people did seem rather concerned about their eyes. Perhaps some assurance was appropriate. "I have no ill intentions towards your eyes."
Neji stiffened and shifted into yet another stance that she was utterly unfamiliar with. "Now I truly see through your deceptions. You could never comprehend my suffering, the burden of one sealed and trapped by fate. You should have sought out my weak cousin of the main family. These eyes will forever be out of your grasp, and will prove your undoing."
Then he charged, palms held in readiness and emitting a faint blue glow. He was fast, incredibly fast, and Tutu was unable to do more than sway precariously to the side. Still, one of his palms brushed against her chest and she almost quacked when she saw his self satisfied smirk. Surely he didn't just try to grope her? What heart shard did he have anyway? Soon his smug expression turned to infuriation as his attacks had no effect on the increasingly flustered ballerina.
Duck could do little but gape, Princess Tutu poise temporarily lost as the boy containing a shard of her prince's heart furiously put his hands all over her. Swift pokes to her arms, darting touches to her legs, forehead, hands, and worst of all increasingly angry shoves to the chest had long since served to shatter her composure. Even her dubiously sane dance partner didn't seem to be getting any satisfaction from their dysfunctional dance, and to Duck's incalculable relief he finally relented and drew back, glaring accusingly at her.
Princess Tutu drew herself back together. She could do this, all Neji needed was a bit of gentle coaxing, a chance to vent whatever troubles he'd bottled up deep inside. Now that he'd stopped attacking her (somehow she couldn't convince herself anymore that his intentions had been anything but violent) they could have a civil conversation, and... Oh my God where did he get that knife from?
Determined to destroy the fiendish illusion Naruto (or more likely a main branch Hyuuga with a grudge) had wrapped around his senses, Neji pulled a kunai from his holster and plunged it into his arm. At least... he tried to. Vines tangled around his arms, restricting his motion and resulting in a light scratch rather than the intended gash necessary to break free from such an intricate genjutsu.
Neji scowled at the ridiculously flouncy white ballerina anxiously inspecting his arm. As if such a show of concern would fool him. His eyes saw everything! Well... for some reason they weren't functioning properly right this moment, otherwise this ludicrous match would be over with by now, and he wouldn't be trapped in a garden where his gentle fist didn't work properly, fighting against a ridiculous opponent while Naruto watched from a terrace of purple flowers...but obviously fate had decided to play with its favorite punching bag for the day.
He scoffed as the girl placed a hand a couple inches above his heart, couldn't she at least give him the dignity of a properly performed killing jutsu? Was fate truly going to subject him to a pathetic, messy death at the hands of a bubble brained ballerina summon? Surely life couldn't be quite that unfair.
Duck stared imploringly into Neji's eyes, hoping for some glimpse of Mythos. After all, eyes were the doors to the soul, and even though Neji's looked more like sudsy pools of stagnating bathwater than a gateway to his inner self, she couldn't think of any other way to call forth her prince.
"Please come out my prince" Princess Tutu urged, "Mythos needs you. This is not your home."
The beleaguered ballerina let out a sigh of relief as, at last, red sparks drifted out of Neji's chest and quickly formed into an elegant specter at her side.
"I am the shard of luxurious hair care."
Duck blinked. Paused. Glanced between the ninja still captured by vines and the vapidly smiling shard of Mytho's heart.
"But... " Princess Tutu gathered herself back together. Every piece of Mytho's heart was precious! Duck couldn't imagine how Mytho's hair could reach any higher level of perfection, but Princess Tutu had faith to spare.
With a wave of her hand she dismissed the vines anchoring Neji in place and turned away as the plainly distraught boy stared at his swiftly frizzing wayward locks, hand still clenching a knife in a white knuckled grip. He needed more assistance than she was in a position to offer, healing of the psychological, non shard influenced variety was far beyond her means.
Naruto watched uneasily as "Princess Tutu" approached. Watching Neji get beat down by a girl in a frilly dress had been hilarious, if a bit unnerving, but he hadn't liked the look of the sparkles coming off him near the end. He peered at Neji, still kneeling on the ground, head bowed, hair sticking out in a messy static halo of brown. Yep, she'd definitely done something funky to his opponent.
"Don't come any closer!" He shouted. Thankfully, his vine tower had receded at the same time as Neji's bonds, and he occupied a more secure position from the ground.
Princess Tutu smiled gently, if a bit wearily. "Would you please send me home?"
"Ummm, sure?" Great, so she wasn't going to kill him with sparkles and killer ballerina twirls... now how to get rid of her. Usually the toads went away on their own, or when he ran out of chakra, and Jiraiya had never mentioned how to banish a problematic summon. Scrunching up his face he tried to think like Sakura-chan. 'Dummy!' he could practically hear her melodious screams of impatience, 'summons need a steady stream of chakra to maintain their manifestation of this plane of reality! Just cut off her chakra supply!'
Grinning, Naruto brought his hands together into the ram sign. He'd just disrupt his chakra as if releasing a genjutsu! Sure enough, Princess Tutu, and the bizarre garden full of purple plants, dissolved, revealing an audience interspersed with food vendors that had taken advantage of the unorthodox intermission to ply their wares.
Gasps filled the air as the crowd turned their attention back to the arena and saw Naruto, teeth bared in a Cheshire smile standing across from the Hyuuga who had been brought to his knees.
Naruto waved cheerfully to the crowd, hoping for at least a few cheers. Sakura would surely be happy to see him emerge victorious, and... well, he honestly couldn't think of anyone else with a vested interest in his well being. Maybe Kakashi sensei, but he was late, again. Iruka sensei was probably teaching at the academy, and he had a feeling the Hokage wasn't supposed to cheer, some sort of dignity thing, not that he would pay attention to that sort of bogus when he took the hat... Still, surely someone would acknowledge his awesomeness!
Unfortunately, it was not to be. His triumphant moment was cut short as Neji staggered to his feet and let out an incomprehensible howl of fury. Next thing Naruto knew, a kunai was flying at his heart, shortly followed by an incensed Hyuuga genin.
... An invasion, change of leaders, and one defection to Orochimaru later...
For the first time in months, Team Guy was finally able to train together again. Tenten's spinal injury had been healed, and Lee and Neji had recovered from life threatening injuries twice over. As per usual, Lee and Gai met bright and early to complete their unique brand of warm up; a few laps around the village, a couple hundred push ups, a couple hundred sit ups, and extensive stretching.
A little while later, at the slightly saner hour of 7:59 am, Tenten joined them, and quickly double checked to make sure her scrolls full of pointy objects were secure.
One minute later...
"It would appear Neji has fallen into most unyouthful habits during his recuperation!"
"Yes, Gai sensei! He has never been so unyouthfully tardy in the past! Perhaps his injuries have not yet fully healed!"
Tenten glanced around, half expecting the moody Hyuuga to drop out of a tree or out from behind a rock. He was usually so fastidiously punctual, stiffly walking up precisely at the scheduled time.
"Perhaps some horrible calamnity has befallen our comrade, Gai sensei!"
"You're right Lee! Such 'cool' behavior is most unbefitting of a student of Youth! We must not allow him to follow the 'hip' path of my esteemed rival Kakashi! We shall go forth to the Hyuuga compound to investigate this matter!"
Tenten sighed. "Maybe we should wait a few minutes, Gai sensei? What if we got Neji into trouble by bursting into his home?"
Lee burst into manly tears of compassion, "Too true Tenten, we wouldn't want to disrupt Neji's familial peace!"
"My students are so youthfully considerate!" Gai boomed enthusiastically. "Come, let us train in stealth and discreetly ensure that Neji has not fallen into some terrible calamnity!"
Tenten looked dubiously at her bright, spandex clad teacher, and his smaller clone. "Stealth?"
"Indeed! It is a crucial aspect of the shinobi lifestyle!" Guy pointed towards the horizon. "Let us depart! With both Youth and Stealth!"
Ten minutes later, two verdant green trees and a bush were granted access to the Hyuuga complex by a pair of bemused guards. The trees carefully edged their way around the inner wall, followed by shuffling shrubbery, until they reached their destination, the window to Neji's room.
The bush arranged itself dutifully underneath the window as the trees snuck to either side of the pane. Three sets of eyes peered cautiously inside.
To their surprise, they found Hanabi waving a pair of scissors in front of Neji's face as he sat sullenly on his bed, face surrounded by a halo of frizzing hair. Hinata stood timidly in the doorway, clutching a tub of white goop and trying to suppress a smile.
"Hah! You thought you were so superior with your silky sheen and flowing locks, wandering around without a single hair out of place! So what's it going to be? The chop or the glop!"
Neji snatched the scissors out of her hand and tossed them out the window where they were caught by the shrub. Hinata cautiously ventured forward as Hanabi crossed her arms mulishly, disappointed to have lost a prime chance at hair care vengeance.
The taller tree slowly began to glide away from the window, reluctantly followed by the shorter tree and shrub. Such youthful family bonding surely should not be interrupted, even for something as important as training.
A/N: Hope you liked it! Reviews, comments, or questions would be greatly appreciated!