Neji's Blackmail

One-shot

'Neji was forever fated to follow Hinata. It was his destiny as a member of the Hyuuga branch family to protect her. Even if it was from herself. He had walked behind her for years, silently following her without a single (voiced) complaint.

After all that was his lot in life, and complaining wouldn't change it. He had even grown somewhat accustomed to having his life revolve around missions and Hinata. His own friends, if they could qualify as that, were now used to his reclusiveness and aloof behavior.

It wasn't as if he meant to be distracted, in fact he would have loved to go out after missions and hang out like other teenagers his age. But only when Hinata-sama was numbered among those included in the teenage group was he ever able to attend. But it wasn't much fun for him even when he was able to attend as whenever he was away from home and around Hinata-sama he was always preoccupied from having to watch constantly for an attack or the accidents that Hinata was often prone to. Somehow she always manage to either trip or spill whatever she was holding. Recently she had taken it to a whole new level though as she'd been so startled that she had crushed her water glass and had to be taken to the hospital to have the glass removed from her palm.

That hyperactive blonde Uzumaki had jumped up and run off with her to the hospital followed closely by Lee who shouted the entire way about "youth" and "vitality". He merely followed at a sedate walk, he didn't need to run after them, she was safe with his teammate and the only person in Konoha other than the Hyuuga clan head that had beaten him.

So there was nothing to worry about, or so he had thought. He arrived home that evening with Hinata to find a very angry uncle. He was forced to spend the week sleeping in the basement while taking double shifts watching over Hinata.

It made him understand one thing, why Hinata constantly had accidents. The only times she had accidents was when a certain loudmouthed blonde made an appearance. Sometimes it was because he'd somehow touched her or sometimes it was because he'd started talking to her.

By the end of the week he was exhausted and when he left on my next mission he had snapped at Lee and barely managed to restrain myself from beating the fool into a fine paste. Everyone avoided him for the rest of the mission and he had to sit through one of Gai's "Revitalize our Youth" lectures and a punishment of 500 laps around Konoha.

Well, Gai had only doled out four hundred laps, he'd chosen to run the last hundred just because he was still angry and needed to run off the troublesome emotion, as the lazy Nara would say.

So that night when he saw Hinata sneaking around in the shadows as he headed home looking forward only to a hot shower and a warm bed, he felt only a deep resentment as he took off after her. It was an unwritten Hyuuga law that the unsealed family members were never to leave the compound alone. But they were ninja's and that meant that it was just another challenge and training exercise. This meant that Hanabi, Hinata and even Hiashi himself often tried to sneak out, and it was up to the rest of the clan to catch them in the act and follow undetected. Of course that was impossible with Hiashi-sama unless your Byakugan range extended farther than 100 feet.

But Hinata didn't usually behave like that, she trained with her teammates and simply submitted to the surveillance when she wasn't with them. But she didn't sneak out as far as he was aware, due to her lack of skill, it would infuriate her father if he knew that she couldn't evade the other branch family members. She was after all the heir and supposed to surpass the branch family.

But there she was, skulking in the shadows, somehow Hinata had managed to get out of the compound unaccompanied, which was surprising as the Hyuuga clan guards were always on the lookout for wandering members and since they could see through walls and could identify living beings from their chakra circulatory system's, making it was even harder as there were guards posted around the compound at all times. Since she had never been particularly good at stealth in comparison to the rest of the clan he did a double take rubbing his eyes to make sure that his eyes weren't simply overly fatigued and playing tricks on him. Hell even Hanabi hadn't managed to sneak off alone successfully and she was a chuunin.

Hinata was still a genin and she was able to sneak off on the entire Hyuuga guard?! Perhaps Hinata would make a good ninja one day after all...

He trailed her through a back alley following more than fifty feet behind her which he knew was the limit range of her Byakugan, while his own was a range between 55 - 60 feet on his best days.

Following Hinata was a great Byakugan exercise, in the last year his range had gone from 50 feet to almost 60 feet, and hers had increased from less than 40 feet to his old limit, perhaps if they continued this way he would eventually be able to increase his range limit to 100 feet like Hiashi-sama's.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he nearly walked into Hinata's field of view when she suddenly stopped. He watched as she looked around, left, then right. Then she suddenly gathered chakra to her legs and used it to jump up onto the rooftop of the building in front of her.

He furrowed his eyebrows in frustration as she leapt all the way to the third floor rooftop and halted at the edge of the roof less than ten feet from where she had been standing. It put him at the very edge of her vision. He couldn't get any closer without risking his position, he watched as she looked ahead and activated her Byakugan.

He cursed quietly, normally he wouldn't have a problem in this situation, but Hinata also had the Byakugan and unless he backtracked and went all the way around her field of vision he couldn't be sure she wouldn't see him. Another irony was the way she was facing, it ruled out trying to use the blind spot to circumvent her sight. The layout of the streets of Konoha would force him to go the opposite direction of her blind spot. He couldn't go to the left as he would have to walk up the wall and would thus be directly in sight of her Byakugan. The place she sat was bad for him but great for her. In order to circumvent her second sight he would have to backtrack down the alley he was in and walk down the busy street several blocks in the opposite direction he needed. Then he would have to cut across several streets so he could carefully make his way into the area of her blind spot. And he would still have to find a location to watch from where she couldn't see him if she turned off her Byakugan and looked around. She had the perfect place for a Byakugan user to hide with all the rooftops she was surrounded by, he couldn't even walk down the street behind her without being seen. And her normal vision would allow her to see all over the rooftops so he couldn't just walk out of her Byakugan range in the direction she was facing.

The whole nature of her sneaking out held all sorts of implications, which he could only assume were inappropriate for the young Hyuuga heir since she had gone to so much trouble in sneaking out. And it made him especially curious to see what she was doing. As far as he knew she could just be training with her Byakugan, but he had a feeling that wasn't the case. So he looked around trying to enhance his vision and extend the range of his sight. He strained his eyes until they ached but he still couldn't see more than a foot beyond the point where Hinata was sitting comfortably on the rooftop.

She was just sitting there behind the short wall using it as a shield so that she could safely watch what she wanted to without being detected. Yet at the same time she looked comfortable sitting up against the corner section as if just relaxed and thinking about her day. But with her Byakugan activated she could be looking anywhere.

He figured that she was settled into her little spot for awhile, she looked like it was the most normal thing in the world. It made him wonder how often she came here and what she really did while she was here. It made him wonder if he was mistaken in my opinion of her stealth skills, had she just been feigning incompetence the whole time so that she could get away with whatever she was doing here?

He frowned, he really wanted to see what she was looking at but even if he went around her field of vision and looked from an alternate location he wouldn't necessarily be able to figure out who or what she was watching.

So he waited, and while he waited he watched her. Her facial features, her eyes, the quirk of her lips as she stifled a laugh. Whatever she was watching was amusing her at least, but her eyes looked glassy. Then they shifted to the upper right corner of her eyelid and he knew she was remembering something.

Then she was smiling again. A full broad smile that he had never seen before, he had seen a few timid smiles when she thought no one was looking but this was so much more.

What was she watching? He had to know, the longer he watched her the more curious he became. They stayed in those positions like that for hours, his head was aching from having his Byakugan activated for so long and it drove his temper near the breaking point again. Then just as he was about to jump up on the roof and strangle her with her own sweatshirt (after finding out what she was doing of course), her face suddenly went beet red.

She deactivated her Byakugan use and shot up, quickly running off the rooftop headed in the direction of home. He let out the breath he'd been holding and jumped up onto the roof top while using his own Byakugan to scan the area around the corner she'd been sitting in.

With a jolt he recognized the building across from this one. It had been about twenty feet out of his range from where he had been standing, but it was clear as day now. Uzumaki Naruto's apartment was on the top floor of that building and as he used his Byakugan he realized that Naruto was in fact at home, and even worse…in the SHOWER.

He nearly threw up over the side of the building as he quickly followed her example in deactivating his Byakugan, and took off after Hinata.

The entire way home he fantasized the ways that he could torture her for putting him through all that. Sure he couldn't physically hurt her, but he didn't really need to with the information he had now…

He felt an uncharacteristic expression forming on his face as he walked down the hallway leading to Hinata's chambers. He knocked lightly and then waited for a response. When she answered the door though she gave a startled little scream and jumped behind the door. He knew he must look frightening with the sadistic and evil looking grin that was plastered across his face, and for some reason it didn't bother him in the slightest.

"Neji-niisan, is something w-wrong?" Hinata asked shyly peeking out from behind the doorframe and then ducking back behind it again when she saw that his expression hadn't changed.

He didn't bother to respond to that question right away, instead he stepped into her room, ripped the door from her hands and closed it silently behind himself. Then he turned his back to the door and leaned on it crossing his arms over his chest in his usual Hyuuga 'superior' mannerism, only he couldn't seem to get his face to go back to normal.

Hinata was looking at him with a terrified expression on her face as she poked her pointer fingers together and tried to form a coherent thought. He was enjoying himself and so he let her stand there for a few more minutes before he decided to 'enlighten' her as to why he had barged into her bedroom.

"You know I wonder what Hiashi-sama would do if he found out his daughter was a little pervert. Using your Byakugan to peep on people, Hinata-sama should be ashamed of herself…" He said softly in a taunting little whisper. First Hinata paled, and then she blushed tomato red.

"P-please, Neji-niisan, please d-don't tell father…" Hinata begged, little tears forming in her eyes at the thought of what her father might do to her, or force her to do. He knew her father, the man might very well disown her. He'd never actually do it but he was going to enjoy lording this over her head for awhile. 'Let her sweat over that!' He thought to himself as he watched her trying to stutter out my name and repeatedly fail. So he decided to give her a break and tell her what he wanted.

"Hinata, I think I'll hold this information ransom for awhile." She looked up startled at my words. "I'm going to consider this information as a tacit agreement for you to…" He paused for affect as she looked at me her hands clasped so tightly in front of her that they were turning blue from lack of circulation. "Do me a few favors." He finished, he certainly wasn't going to let her go with only one favor after that God-awful sight of Naruto in the shower.

"H-hai, N-N-Neji-n-niisan." She looked extremely relieved at this and practically sagged to the floor as he turned to let himself out of the room.

"Oh and it'll be at least three favors, Hinata-sama." He said smugly, as he opened the door finally able to get his normal complacent and smug look fixed firmly back on my face. He had stepped most of the way out the door when he had a sudden idea. He turned back and stuck my head in the door once more, Hinata looked up at me in surprise.

"Tomorrow you can complete the first favor. Your task will be to ask Uzumaki Naruto out on a date." Her jaw dropped open and she completely passed out there in the middle of her bedroom floor. He just closed the door behind himself once more and walked down to the basement and lay down on his temporary cot.

Like killing two birds with one stone, if she was successful she might just have less accidents (and he seriously doubted that Uzumaki would turn her down for a date), plus if she was dating him his confidence would hopefully start rubbing off on her. He grinned again, yes, tomorrow would definitely be interesting.