-Hyūga Neji-

Hyūga Neji blinked awake before the sun made its daily appearance in the sky, as was his habit. He rose, frowning at the uneasy creaking of his futon as he sat up. His eyes rapidly adjusted to the relatively gentle dark of the room, a lamp shining in from the other side of a glass window. Immediately, he was on high alert. He knew his sleeping quarters well, and this bed was not his own. Neji scanned the room for threats, finding something that, truth be told, frazzled the young genius.

The room was an absolute mess. Books and other detritus lay scattered across the room, scrolls and posters covering much of the walls. Across from his bed, two haphazardly stacked bed frames secured crudely with rope and books held the forms of two sleeping figures. Neji knew he wasn't restrained, so he began to remove himself from the bed. He frowned; his body wasn't moving properly, and he began fearing drugs or genjutsu. He brought his hands together.

"Kai!"

Neji nearly fell out of the bed, startled by the sound of his voice. It was… squeaky. Feminine. He took a closer look at his hands, noting how small they seemed. He slowly looked down at himself and froze. A cute image of a dog- or a wolf?- peeked up back at him, curving slightly over his…

Oh dear Kami. If Tenten ever found out about this… or that idiot Naruto…

Neji closed his eyes, attempting to clear his mind and focus his chakra, only to find something much more concerning than what he had just discovered, if that was even possible. His center had been thrown completely off. His chakra was in complete disarray, with two different energies flowing through him in different ways, taking similar but separate pathways. He frowned, unable to find a singular center to focus on. He opened his eyes as they pulsed, bringing forward his Byakugan for further scrutiny of the imbalance.

The two energies within him felt like chakra, moved like chakra. He could even manipulate them like chakra, but the energy did not appear the normal light blue to his Byakugan. Instead, a bright mass of swirling red appeared within the left of his… chest, with a dark blue residing deep in his stomach. Obviously, someone had manipulated the coils of this body into two separate cores, making the individual sections much weaker. He was unsure of how the chakra was divided, but to one as skilled as he, the energies simply had to be reincorporated into his core. Both cores blended in the same way and durned the same direction, so Neji simply began trying to reconcile the red energy into the blue chakra in his stomach. It was a slow and somewhat tiring process, so he closed his eyes and began to meditate. The red energy was reluctant at first to move, but he quickly began to feel more and more familiar with the chakra, slowly brightening the dark blue core and branches that made up his chakra system. Whoever manipulated this body's chakra must have done it over the course of several experiments or generations, as it was taking a Hyūga, a master of chakra manipulation, what will probably be several weeks of constant meditation to undo. If he was to find his way back to Kohonagakure and his team, he needed every possible advantage and resource. His chakra was a requirement to using the Gentle Fist, so he needed access to it once more. Neji settled into a meditative trance, muttering slightly to himself as he continued the arduous process.

He began squirming ten minutes into his meditation. He groaned as he realized what this feeling was and extracted himself from the bed, landing as quietly as his body allowed him to. He noted with satisfaction that he landed silently on bare feet. The sensor-nin was unfamiliar with the layout of the building he was in and the people inside, so he took this opportunity to look around with his Byakugan, noting the light throbbing behind his eyes as he observed the three sleeping forms in the room. All three were female, one in each bed. Each of them had different colored energies swirling within them, each over the heart and in the stomach like his was. He saw that one of the three forms looked to have an animal affinity or bloodline limit as she sported a pair of cat ears and a tail. He frowned, taking a closer look at the girl. Her chakra was a dark black contrasted with a fantastically bright blue, swirling slightly quicker than the others. He ignored the others. Neji began squirming again…

After a rather embarrassing bout of biological pressure playing cat-and-mouse with his modesty, Neji stepped gingerly from the restroom, blushing slightly. He had gotten a better look at himself in the mirror, looking forlornly at the short mess of dark, red-tipped hair his current body resided in. His eyes were an alien, but satisfying, color of silver. The girl he was in was a good ten centimeters shorter than Neji himself, with a body that suggested somewhere around sixteen, but small. His current body appeared to be trained somewhat, with lithe musculature built for speed, but not quite the requirements of a Konoha ninja her suspected age in terms of strength, or the specific muscles required to make optimal use of the Gentle Fist. With regular training, Neji was confident he could fix that. As he observed the room, he noted the access to books and the lack of heavy locks on the rather flimsy wooden doors, he came to the conclusion that he was not, in fact, a prisoner. Rather, he was in some sort of barracks or living quarters. It made him feel no better about the situation, but it did reassure him that he was safe to meditate. He sat on the floor at the foot of his bed, closed his eyes, and began to blend. OF course, a few hours into the meditation, Neji was thrown for a loop for the third time that night.

*…ey…Hey! Can you hear me?*

"Wh... what?" He muttered another quiet "Kai!"

*Hey, you can hear me!*

"Who are you?" Neji tried to suppress his anger, as it probably was not this girl's intention to trap him here.

*I'm Ruby!... I think. I can't really do much other than see or talk…*

Realization dawned on Neji as he placed his hands on his forehead. "It looks like I am currently controlling your body…" There wasn't much else he could tell the poor girl. Whatever madman decided this was a worthy experiment needed to be put down. By him. After fixing it.

*Um… could you like, give it back?*

"Unfortunately, it does not seem likely."

*Right…*

The girl… Ruby's tone of voice was so dejected, he could almost picture her face.

"I am trying to find a way to fix this, get back in my own body. Would you be willing to assist me?"

*You're not doing this?*

"No, no I'm not." Neji frowned. "But if we are to find a solution, it must be together. The first course of action should be an exchange of information."

*Um… sure. I'm Ruby Rose, fifteen years old…*

It didn't take Neji long to find he was the polar opposite of this girl in almost every conceivable way. While they both led their respective squads, Ruby branded herself was a mid-distance fighter. It took no small amount of time explaining dust and aura to the Hyūga boy, but he took it in strides. Semblances were a bit more difficult. It seemed the standard speed of a body flicker required some sort of special skill for these people. Luckily, Ruby did have that skill.

What she didn't have, however, was a backbone. She was a tactical thinker and quick, but threw up major objections to killing or major harm of any kind. Given what she was fighting against, the creatures of Grimm and known criminals, it seemed almost childlike. And in the end, that would be Neji's primary way of describing his host. She was naive in the worst possible way, energetic, and somewhat unintelligent when it came to anything other than fighting. And even then, her combat knowledge only extended to her massive sniper-scythe, the Crescent Rose, and battlefield tactics. The more Neji learned about Ruby and her team, the more annoyed he got. And still, the more he sympathized with her position. Apparently considered a genius in combat and pushed forward at her academy, her immaturity in almost every other area gave Neji the impression of Rock Lee trying to lead a team: doing her best, but doing her best with determination alone, rather than determination combined with tact and a clear mind. Battle strategies were not good logistics plans, for example. One could not apply combat doctrine to a knife wound.

Of course, everything fell apart upon a passing reference to Atlas. Neji was then given a rather incomplete crash course on the geography and government of Remnant, and his plan, all at once, fell apart. If this place had never even heard of the Elemental Nations, then there was almost no hope of finding his way back on his own. There were no leads to how he ended up in Ruby's body, and getting her to abandon her squad was something that Neji could not bring himself to do. If she could not control her body, then it fell to Neji to lead her team, given her insistence that he do so. It pained him to hear her so downtrodden, unable to lead, or do much else than talk to him, for the foreseeable future. In any case, she understood his need to attempt to rebalance his chakra after a short explanation of his predicament. It seems she had no choice but to trust her body to the ninja.

In return, he told her about his capabilities as a ninja and a leader along with anything he could tell her about Konoha if he treated her as an allied warrior. She was duly impressed with his abilities, termed to ideas that she could understand. Sensing aura was a useful skill indeed, but that did bring up an interesting point.

*How do you still have your special Backu-whatever? Didn't you say it was in your eyes?*

Neji realized that it was close to impossible that his doujutsu would follow him through the body transplant. "That is an excellent question, Rose-san. I am unsure. The most obvious explanation given the lack of noticeable scarring, is that you may have the blood of a Hyūga." It was only after he said the words did they reveal themselves to be patently impossible. The odds of a person living in what seems to be an entirely different world having Hyūga blood, was absolutely zero. A much more likely idea was an extremely skilled surgeon transplanting it from...

"Wait… the seal… my seal! Where…"

It was nowhere to be found. Everything about this situation was completely wrong. Neji frowned, settling into a meditative trance once again.

*Hey, Neji! Neji? Ne…*

-Team RWBY-

It was the longest stick they could find.

At eight thirty the next morning, Yang had duct taped together several brooms and was half-jokingly poking Ruby with it.

"Guys, I seriously think there's something wrong with Ruby." Yang looked with uncertainty at the frowning face of her little sister, Ruby's arms folded over her crossed legs.

Blake got up to meet her teammate at the foot of her bed. "I'm pretty sure she's meditating."

"I don't think so. She hasn't even twitched for almost twenty minutes. It's creeping me out." Yang turned slightly, making to poke Ruby with the stick again.

"Well, whatever it is she's doing, we're late." Weiss huffed as she lifted the broomstick out of the way and shook her partner's shoulder. "Come on, Ruby, time to get up. "

One eye slowly opened, the silver shining in the light. "Very well." She rose, moving rather smoothly compared to her normal jerky, rapid motions. She paused, her eyes closed. A soft blush spread over her face before scanning the room, pulling her uniform from the closet with what appeared to be some sort of fear. The rest of the team stared to stare as she began pulling off her shirt, only to stop and look around, noticing their presence for what seemed like the first time. She dashed instantly to the bathroom, and with another spreading blush, shut the door behind her. It took her only twenty seconds to step back out again. Ruby slowly moved to her desk, picking a few clean notebooks out from the mess, along with a few pencils and some of the throwing knives Blake kept to pin paper and other things to the cork board. A loose cotton shirt and pants were placed in the bag, as well as a cloth belt. Lastly, she pulled a strip of cloth from the pile of clothes and tied it around her forehead like a bandanna. She turned to shoulder a bag, placed the knives into her belt, and walked out the door. Not a word was spoken.

"Uh… Ruby?" Weiss was uncertain whether or not Ruby was all right. She was acting… different. It wasn't a bad sort of different, but it still freaked out the rest of team RWBY pretty bad. No whistles, or cheers, or panicking, or anything of the sort. No loud noises early in the morning. It was nice, but disturbing all the same. It wasn't normal.

Ruby turned back to look at the rest of the team. "Let's go." It came out like some sort of polite order, jarring the rest of team RWBY out of their dumbfounded shock.

"Uh… right." Blake was the first to recover, moving towards the door to leave. Weiss and Yang followed shortly after.

Ruby herself was quiet throughout breakfast and the first few periods. Blake had gathered the rest of team RWBY after seeing their leader take copious notes.

"Okay, what happened to her?"

Yang glanced at Blake, considering the question. "I have no clue. It's kind of scary."

"At least it seems like she finally decided to take this place seriously! I think it's a good thing." Weiss huffed. "At least she's not disruptive."

"The changes are way too drastic to be normal, unless this is a really good prank." Yang still looked uncomfortable. "It's totally working, by the way."

"We'll ask her at sparring class." Blake looked a bit wary. "I don't think she could keep it up for that long." The girls looked among themselves and nodded. Of course, they couldn't know that their now-even-more-fearless leader knew exactly where they were and what they were doing.

Team RWBY sat down as a team in combat class, three of them looking expectantly at their leader. She wasn't wearing her usual combat outfit. Rather, the loose pants and shirt from that morning made their appearance once again, hanging off of their owner with an almost limp looseness.

Blake spoke up. "Hey, Ruby?"

Ruby looked up from her meditative position. "Yes?" Her eyes gleamed with a strange sort of scrutiny that made Blake shrink back in her seat.

"Are you feeling alright? It's like you're acting-" Blake was interrupted by the sound of Professor Goodwitch calling out to the class.

"First match: Ruby Rose, Nora Valkyrie, please come down to the stage." The images and names of the two students appeared on the screen behind her.

Nora quickly made her way to the stage, wielding her very large hammer with one hand over her shoulder. Ruby narrowed her eyes with a small frown on her face.

Before any of them could react, she was on the stage, relaxed, surrounded by a swirl of rose petals. No one had even seen her move.

Hyūga Neji formed the seal of confrontation.

Sooooooo... how is it? Please tell me what's wrong with my grammar, characterization, anything! This is the first fanfic I've written, so I'm looking for criticism!