Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Summary: Neji is a created humanoid-robot made for the soul purpose of destruction. But one mission gone wrong and his ideas on things changed completely after he failed, or rather refused, to kill one person. Just one person…Why couldn't he kill her?

Rating: T for violent scenes and mild language

Reckless

"Serendipity"
The effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something
truly wonderful, especially while looking for
something entirely
unrelated

We were created to kill. Not love. Love was an impossible thing for my kind. My family, as that silly bespectacled girl would say, were not allowed, or rather, programmed to have any feelings of love. The only ones we, probably, truly cared for was each other, and that's said in the aspect of not wanting to have to go through the trouble of finding and returning the rubble the member was sure to become. Then, if said rubble was able to be salvaged the attitude towards them would be of exactly that, salvaged garbage. It was harsh but true. And no, it wasn't that we had no ability to feel – we could just as easily feel anything a human could feel. It was just that it was better for us if we didn't feel anything. Still, our creator, our savior as he called himself, he made sure that we were able to feel every emotion a human could feel with a considerably low capacity for things as trivial as love, favoritism and all other emotions that would possibly be a weakness. So, with that being said, I couldn't fathom a good enough excuse for why I shielded this girl's existence.

Looking at her, there was no guarantee that she would even live for long and yet here I was standing above her, preventing her from being seen, masking her small presence with the sheer might of my own. And for what, a frail girl with big brown eyes? I almost had to stifle a laugh at my own idiocy.

I looked back once again and was surprised to see her still sitting there, staring at me curiously, almost as if she was waiting for me to do something else. I sighed, already feeling tired from this sudden "companion" I picked up, then turned and tried to shoo her away.

That failed.

She was, for some reason, rather stubborn and seemed to have settled for sitting in the pile of debris that once was her house. Despite the tears that still streamed down her cheeks, signaling her fear, and the tight grip she had on the dead man's hands, she strongly held her ground, possibly expecting to be killed along with her husband – I presumed – and, with a quick glance towards my slowly disappearing team, I confirmed that the sudden pang in my heart was due to the thought of being labeled either a rouge or a defect, not to knowing that she might die.

So I turned with every mind to leave when I heard it. The small sobbing sound of either relief or depression I wasn't sure but I wasn't about to turn to find out.

"Don't leave me." I heard her softly whine, and I turned, innocently thinking she was stupid enough to be talking about me, but was ruthlessly pulled out of my delusions when I saw her once bigger frame, now small and frailly bending over the body of the deceased.

I approached her then, eyes scanning her and what was around her immediately before coming to a conclusion: If not me, then she was talking to the dead man. But that made no since. He was dead. The bullet through his skull was enough proof for that. So it didn't make since that she was speaking to him when he was clearly never going to answer.

"Excuse me –"

"Go away!" She screamed. "Just…go away. Please…"

"But if you stay here you'll surly die." I looked up and scanned the area before her and nodded, knowing how right I was before I saw it. "There's a rearguard on their way here now. They are about half a mile away. If you do not leave now…"

I stopped talking this time around instead of being cut off and couldn't help but stare hopelessly into the dark pits that were her eyes. It was if she had me locked in some kind of spell, one where, if our eyes met, I became as still as stone…kind of like Medusa just without the death and pain. Granted, one sweep around the area would easily shut down that "no death or pain" statement I had just made.

"Just leave." She whispered this time. But, when I didn't move, she started screaming again. "Leave! Let me be! You took one life from me already…" she gasped as if she was out of breath before exhaling the shaky breath almost like she was trying to calm herself. "What else do you want from me?"

Now I was confused. There was a lot of things I understood about humans. Not just because I was made to be as like them as possible either. No, that knowledge was all from observations of the ones I was surrounded by. From watching them I came to understand that, in desperate times, people tend to do the most unlikely things if it meant they could possibly live through their situation. However, from what I was seeing, she seemed to have given up completely on surviving.

"Is staying with a dead man really worth losing your own life?"

"Fuck off." She growled, hostility obviously present now.

…I could take her though.

"But he is dead. Staying here would only insure your own death. Wouldn't that be pointless? If you wanted to die earlier then you could have easily made yourself known by the others I had with me. They wouldn't hesitate to kill you –"

"Then why didn't you?" She asked, catching me off guard. "Why didn't you kill me? You already shot my husband dead so what's the point of saving me…Why did you save me?"

I stared at her, still confused, but this time not from what she was doing but rather what I was doing. Why did I save her? Why was I still trying to save her? Everything I was doing was so…wrong. It was so far past disobeying my orders that I was sure my actions would put me nowhere else besides the scrap pile. I had to be crazy. There had to be something wrong with my system. I mean, I know we were designed to act as much like humans as possible, but for me to go so far as to make decisions without even thinking? That had to be some flaw in my creation.

"What's your name?" she asked – a rather sudden thing to do. I didn't even have enough time to answer her first question, not that I had the means to do so.

"N3-1J6 –"

"Stop." She intervened, waving her bloody hand around before she brought it down again. "Just stop. It already sounds ridiculous. I'll just call you…" She paused and looked down at the body in her hands, smiling softly at the man before her before sighing. "Neji."

"Neji?"

"Because you have a loose screw somewhere. Of that I'm sure."

"Ah! Neji. I understand. I too think something is wrong with me. Because…"

"Because what?"

"Shh." I hushed her, staring off into the distance as everything hit me all at once.

It was the rearguard, I was positive of that, and they had noticed me. With my team nowhere near me, there was no doubt they were confused as to why I was still here. I scoffed then turned to the girl before me. Of course she was still here. Still holding onto that dead weight desperately. It was annoying really. Granted I didn't know why I spared her life to begin with, it still bothered me that, after all the risks I had took, she still stayed here. I warned her, I helped her and all she repaid me with was stubbornly staying here for the next group to kill her off instead.

"What is your name?" I asked, clearly confusing her even more.

"Why should I tell you?" She bit back.

"I told you mine."

"I'm the one who gave you the name? What you were giving me was your serial number or something."

"That's my name!" I nearly yelled, but stopped to look up once again. I could almost make out faces now. "Well, whatever your name is, you're going to have to forgive me for this."

"Forgive you for wh– Hey!" She screeched, much too loud for my likings as I threw a piece of debris over her – a caved in roof piece if I'm not mistaken – before shushing her once more just before the scouter fully approached me.

"Everything alright?" He asked in the most monotone voice ever.

Looking at him, the way he was dressed, the pieces of metal sticking out on the arms instead of the artificial skin, I could easily tell that he was one of the earlier, less modernized models. Granted they were slightly tougher since they didn't have to deal with pain and emotion, they were still weaker in comparison to me and my kind. So tricking him before the others got here would be easy.

"Everything is just fine. I was just scouting the area and didn't realize that my team had moved on. I waited since I knew another team would be by soon."

"State your serial number." He blinked, eyes gleaming read as he was clearly prepared to record my words – really our creator shouldn't have made my kind so lifelike and smart.

"N3-1J6I-00H."

"Number code recognized." Came another voice from within him just before he blinked back to reality. "N3-1J6I-00H. Stay here. When we are ready to leave we will take you with us. Your squadron is being notified on your find and will meet up with you at the checkpoint."

"What are we staying for?" I asked, making him pause as he went to arranging his thoughts. That was the flaw about these bots. They were slow on pickup and no matter how many times they could be reprogrammed, they were never quite as successful as the later brands such as myself, and –

"We will scout the area for any survivors." He finally answered – though it was a recording of what his General said. "Any and all survivors must be eliminated. No one can be left alive to know that JNA was in charge of these raids. Understood?"

He blinked back again, before facing me and bowing slightly. "All questions answered. I will go on now. I will scout the area. N3-1J61-00 you are to stay –"

He stopped talking, eyes suddenly going alert before he turned to the rubble beside me, making my "pulse" – as that same bespectacled woman calls it – raise. I thought that maybe I was just seeing things and that I was just being paranoid, but when I turned and saw what he saw, the slight shift of the rubble before settling in, I knew that what he saw was the exact thing I was trying to hide for sure.

"Possible life form detected." He said in that same monotonous voice. And I stayed still, wondering if I should do something to stop him from finding her or if I should just leave her to her own glorified death. After all, she had been asking to be left alone despite my warnings before. She must have been prepared to die.

Yet, when the roof was removed and I saw her again, her big brown eyes closing to the sudden assault of sun on her face, I felt that same urge build up beneath me. And when she blinked away the dirt and dust, she found me, her eyes locking on my form almost instantly before finally recognizing the other bot next to me.

"Ah." She whispered before swiftly turning into the dead man on her lap, protecting him even in her last moments it seemed.

Sighing, I looked away, knowing I couldn't bear to see her die so harshly after I had went through the trouble of trying to hide her, but felt a sudden pang of…guilt (?) run through me that had me turning back to see her looking up at me from her crouching position, almost looking like she was…begging me…

"Survivor detected!" The Bot beside me yelled as he aimed his gun at her, but long before he could take the shot, I reached for him in a sort of panic, quickly moving the gun towards the air before I completely twisted his arm out of the socket.

Unsurprisingly, he moved to attack her again, gun or no gun and from him a loud siren rung, alerting the others that he was no doubt with. This time, I should have moved aside and let him just kill her. I really should have…but I couldn't. For some strange reason, I couldn't find it in me to allow this girl who clearly wanted to die, to die. So I stopped him again, ignoring the blaring siren emitting from him as I fought him back enough to get a decent hold on his other arm and twist it behind him. I could have torn this one from its socket as well but the kind of model he was would no doubt allow him to continue fighting bloodlessly. With absolutely no feeling of pain to register that it needs to stop if it wanted to be salvaged, it would have easily came back for her yet again, and I didn't have the time to constantly be fighting him back when I could hear the coming footsteps from the other horde of idiot bots coming to their companions aid. So I needed to act fast.

Kicking his knee out from under him, I let him fall before reaching for his gun and firing it into his throat area, silencing the alarm for only a moment – I knew – before it started blaring from his chest. But as he got up – struggling as he was with one arm and one good leg – I kicked him back down before I slammed my foot through his chest, effectively silencing him with one last whine of a horn from the, now useless, bot.

"Freaking annoying." I scoffed as I took my foot out of the…carcass I guess before running a hand through my hair and scanning the area, ignoring, the brown-eyed girl on the ground for now. Form what I saw, the bots on their way stopped rushing the moment the alarm was off – another flaw – and were now casually walking to the area. Which still meant that we were no doubt going to be surrounded if we stayed here.

"I'll ask one more time." I started, before turning to her, surprised to see her staring at me in surprise herself. "What is your name?"

"T-Tenten."

"Tenten?" I questioned as I stepped to her with my hand out for her to take. "That's different."

"My father's not from here." She blindly answered after taking my hand despite her attempts to shoo me away earlier. "You saved me?"

"I did."

"Why?"

I fixed her with a glare this time. Finding the answer to that unanswerable question was not the important thing at the moment. So I didn't answer her as I helped her out the rubble. I didn't help her as I watched her bury her husband under the debris, sticking a long piece of a broken wood to mark his place, and I didn't answer her even when she turned back to me and whipped at the tears that fell from her face.

"Why did you save me?" She asked – sigh – again.

Still, though, I didn't answer her. I didn't have a legit answer for her anyways. So I just bent over and picked her up – with no fight surprisingly – before running off to the forest not too far from the village, hoping that it would be a while before we were found and perused.

"Why?" She pried – brown eyes burning through me. "Why did you save me?"

"I don't know." I answered. "I just did…"

She looked at me then, seeming to look for a lie she was no doubt not going to find, especially since it was physically impossible to read a Bot's facial features, then gave up and decided on holding on as tightly as she could as we ran.

Then it happened. The tears came back. She was crying again. About who? That dead man? What good was crying about him going to do for her? He was dead. There was no bringing him back.

I sighed, calming myself since I was sure such rushed, angry thoughts would no doubt make my internal temperatures rise.

…But…then again, why was I angry in the first place.

"Limerence"
An involuntary state of mind which seems to result
from a romantic attraction to another person
combined with an overwhelming,
obsessive need to have
one's feelings
reciprocated

It wasn't surprising that there was a bounty out for me when I opened my eyes that morning. It was to be expected since, in my rush to leave I completely forgot to destroy the head of the bot that was attacking us…her. If there was one thing that my kind got from that earlier design was the ability to record everything as if we had some kind of photogenic and phonogenic memory, and as such, that bot from earlier no doubt kept the recording of my "serial number" as this Tenten girl calls it along with a recording of my face when I proceeded to destroy his core. So, seeing my name and face come across the screen of my watch was not surprising. But what was surprising was the sight of those same, almost warm, big, brown eyes still staring at me from across the way.

…She stayed.

"Why are you still here?" I asked.

"You can sleep?" She questioned before she unraveled herself from the ball she was in and crawled towards me. "I tried talking to you last night but you wouldn't answer me. After you closed your eyes it was like you were gone to the world around you."

"Since we run on solar power and I used most of mine, I did shut down for a while to reserve what little of my energy I had left till sunrise, yes. Now, please answer –"

"I thought you died." She croaked out as she came to sit beside me. "You weren't responding…and it was getting dark. There was so many sounds I've never heard before all around me and the one person…thing that was around to protect me was not responding. I was afraid."

"Protect you?" I questioned.

She smiled then looked up at me almost impishly, like she was certain of her words before she scooted closer to me and wrapped her arms around herself, holding everything together it seemed. And no matter how attracting it was to see her smile so easily next to a killer like me, the fact of the matter was that she still hadn't answered my question.

I was about to ask again when she stopped me with the simplest of answers. "Of course."

She nodded, like she was reassuring herself of her answer while reminding me of the inevitable. "You've saved me twice already. You could have chosen to kill me like you did my husband but you didn't, and you could have let me die when I was found again but you didn't. I think it's safe to say you won't kill me but you won't let me die either."

She looked at me then, smiling still. "Now, neither of us as sure as to why I'm still alive but regardless of that it's still safer for me to be beside you…for now."

I looked at her for a moment before looking away as the rush of guilt encased me. "You know," I started, "about killing your husband. I was just following my orders."

She laughed then turned to me again. "It's nothing. I'm not really that sad anymore."

That confused me. Why was she not sad? It had only been a night, not even a whole day and she was already over the death of the man she pledged her body and soul to. But before I could ask why, she looked to me and sighed one of relief, almost, and answered my unasked question.

"He wasn't good to me." She began. "My father…he's a good man but he was too old school. That man was a son of a friend of his that he arranged for me to marry almost immediately after my mother died."

She shivered, from either the cold – since it was growing closer to the winter season – or the memory of her marriage. Either way, I thought it a good idea to move closer to her as well, slightly increasing my internal temperature to keep her warmer before I moved my arm around her and refused to look at her, knowing she was going to look at me.

I mean, the worst that could happen was that she pushes me away.

"Anyways…" She began again. "He was an angry man. Always yelling at me and beating me…calling me ugly…He tried to kill me once. I was sleeping and…" she stopped and her face twisted into something vulgar before she shook it away. "…I was sleeping and he was drunk, as usual. He tried to suffocate me. And the worst part about it was that…he was smiling while he did so. He was laughing and saying…something. I couldn't hear him…my ears were ringing."

She stopped again, breathing in to calm herself before she moved to lay her head on my chest, calming almost instantly. "If I hadn't had that…that clock by my bed I would have been dead. If I hadn't hit him hard enough I could have been beaten till even my father couldn't recognize me."

"So," I started. "If you were in such a situation why would you stay? He was hurting you. Not only that but you cried over him and held him like he was a good man. I do not understand."

She smiled again, but this one looked distant and sad. "He was all I had. My father…he died not long after I had gotten married. I couldn't give him any children so I had no one to love me unconditionally to replace him, his family hated me…but he still held me. You wouldn't understand but…despite all that he put me through he was still the only one I had. When he was killed I had mixed emotions about the scenario. It was devastating because I had just lost the last thing that would ever love me, but at the same time I felt…relieved. I felt happy that I wouldn't have to live through that torture again."

I looked at her for a moment then found myself sighing. "I'm sorry, though I may not fully understand, I do not think that what was between you and that man was love."

She laughed then looked at me with those brown eyes, in them, little lights raced around as the rising sun reflected across them. "So what was it to you then?"

"Possession." I answered. "He owned you it seemed. No matter what he did to you, you wouldn't leave. You couldn't leave, according to you. It seemed like you were a possession of his, one he took for granted."

She watched me as I spoke, her face slowly fading from that easy smile to something akin to anger before swiftly switching to understanding. When I was done speaking, she said nothing. She just laid there beside me, releasing the tension she had in her shoulders. I heard her let out a long forgotten, held breath before she wrapped her arms around me as if holding me in my position.

Like I could leave her anyhow.

"We're leaving when the sun comes up, right?" She asked, not waiting for an answer. "I'm going to sleep a little more. I didn't get much earlier."

"Why did you not sleep?"

She sighed, sounding tired all of a sudden. "I was watching you." She answered. "I thought you were dead…and that I was alone …"

I blinked, letting her words sink in for a moment before facing forward towards the sun. Looking at it now, I couldn't help but allow the weight of my situation fall on me. I tried to hide someone, then when she was found, killed the bot that tried to kill her. I forgot to destroy the recordings so my face and name was all over the circuit along with my type and how to properly handle me, and now I was stuck with the very girl that got me in this situation…and she knew I couldn't kill her myself nor let her die if I'm around. Really, I had a lot of baggage all of a sudden and none of it could be helpful with my life on the line like that…and yet…

I looked down at her again, surprised to see that she was already asleep, but made no effort to move away. I did lower my temperature though, since I knew I needed as much energy as I could – and charging while using was very redundant and frankly not helpful.

Looking at her now, I could easily see the recovering wounds she was talking about. The fading black eye, the scabbed over cuts on her cheeks, the still split lip covered in dried blood…All of it stuck out so much now that I was looking at her that it made the newer wounds she got from the attack pale in comparison when it came to accessing the damage.

It took every ounce of consciousness that I had to not touch her more than I already was even though I wanted to. I wanted to heal her of her wounds, I wanted to hold her closer so that she could forget all about the dangers she's been through and the pains she suffered from. But I didn't know why. It made no sense for me to want to comfort her not only because I hardly knew her but also because the thought shouldn't have been programed in the first place. There was no place for sympathy in a man-made weapon.

Unconsciously, I ran my thumb along her arm and watched her relax even more and couldn't help but wonder when the last time she felt so comfortable was. Having lived with such a man as the one she explained there was no way she could have ever felt like how she was feeling now…At least that's what I would like to think…

The sound of the morning birds though quickly brought me out of my distracted state and made me re-realize the exact level of the situation I was in. from what I knew, JNA would never let it be known that there is a bot with a conscious roaming the lands. Their facility would be met with protest and destroyed. Not only that, the bots would then be confiscated and everything they knew would be open to the public. Meaning all the killing that they have been doing – or the population control as they call it – would come back and bite them in the butt.

So, with that being said, it was no surprise that they labeled me as a malfunctioning bot that no longer took orders and was a threat to society. That way no one would hear me out or take my side when I am spotted. It was smart but not smart enough to catch me. Keep me out of their hair yes, but catch me, no.

After all, there was one other bot besides myself that was black listed. I believe she was called…H1-0N4T-04H, She was made after me and was supposed to be better than me, but she malfunctioned and went off the deep end. She's been blacklisted two years ago and hasn't been heard of since. So she was neither killed nor captured otherwise the bounty for her wouldn't still be at large. With that in mind, I could easily do the same thing and go into hiding as she has done…but there's one problem I have that she didn't…

I looked down and sighed in early defeat at the presence of the girl before me. If I had any weaknesses that could possibly cause my demise it would be her. Even though I didn't understand why, she was something I couldn't just let go of that easily. And her being human made things just as hard. I mean, she was someone who stayed with an abusive "husband" because she felt that she had no one else in the world who would be there for her. That alone was enough proof that humans needed contact with other life forms…and I'm not sure if I would be enough, what with my lack of affection and all.

She stirred, and I found myself stiffening until she relaxed again knowing full well that the possibility of her discomfort was because I was an uncomfortable being. Looking at her now, it was questionable from the get go as to why she seemed so comfortable around me and so easily. Just yesterday she was ready to slit my throat – though it would do her no good – and now she was laying on me comfortably as if she had nothing to worry about when she was with me.

And it's not like I could deny it. The sheer pressure that was placed on me the moment she so much as looked my way had me wanting to look away without leaving her side. I wanted her beside me…so that I could keep her safe. Still unsure as to why she only needed to be protected but for sure her safety was the bane of my existence at the moment. I doubt she had ever felt this safe before in her life...but why?

Why were these thoughts plaguing my mind? Why is it that I couldn't find the energy to push her way but had enough to carry her along with me not too long ago? It wasn't like I ran low when she came to rest on me since I had been charging before I closed my eyes, and it wasn't like I didn't have the capacity to hurt her since I killed her husband. So what was it?

She stirred again and this time I tensed and refused to move, choosing to stay on guard least I disturb her again instead of relaxing and possibly getting softer to the touch. She flinched a little, sliding her head down in a harsh angel before jerking it up quickly, smacking her lips and repositioning herself to where she once was before falling victim to her dreams once more and the whole thing just seemed adorable to me.

Humans "slept" differently than we did. Hell, they did everything differently than we did. They cleaned differently, they fought differently, they got energy differently and they cared for things differently. And that last one was something most bots, if not all, didn't have the capacity to do so. Even more reason for why she shouldn't be around me for long.

"What are you thinking about?" She suddenly asked with that smooth, husky voice that I instantly regretted not recording.

"Nothing." I answered without looking down. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you've been making a lot of noise." She answered with a small laugh before she finally looked up. She was smiling then, a sight I was grateful for since I was currently recording this for my long term memory, but it quickly vanished in place of a look of concern as she reached up for my face.

When I flinched away, it came to me as no surprise that any further notion of resistance was nullified with a gently, persistent caress of my cheek, turning my head back towards hers before she cupped my face with her hands and forced my head lower till her eyes were in line with my forehead.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A mark." She answered. "A green mark." She let me go then and I was able to see the concern on her face grow. "It wasn't there before though."