An After School Nightmarish Task
Summary: Konoha isn't as normal as it seems. Neji Hyuuga, the resident cold genius of the school, learns it the hard way when he gets pulled into an after school class. Nejiten, Sasusaku, Naruhina
Disclaimer: I do not own After School Nightmare nor do I own Naruto.
To those who have read (and liked) my story Surviving a Boy's Boarding School: I'M SORRY!! I'm slightly stuck on it and I was kind of getting sick of having Tsuki and Taiyou be such prominent characters! I haven't abandoned it; I just put it on hold, that is, until I can think up of something better for the fanfic. I left you guys hanging with that Gin issue too! I'm sorry! I'll do my best to update after I get enough ideas! I'M SO—
-WHACK-
Ahem, this is Temisu speaking, the one who draws the art for Artemis. I am afraid that Lightmetal is unable to communicate properly right now in her hysteria, so I will take over the author's notes for this chapter. Don't worry; she'll be conscious in time to do the next chapter. Just as a short note, she wanted to say to the readers of SBBS that Tsuki and Taiyou won't be seen as much in this fic.
The story's somewhat based off of the world from the manga After School Nightmare, but most of the characters from that manga won't appear, and the concepts of the after school class will be a little different from the original. It's mostly centered on Neji. Many things in the beginning may be parallel to the happenings in the real ASN, but the story will eventually take its own course. On to the story...
Chapter 1: Dreams
"It's him! It's him!" squealed a few second-year girls who huddled up.
A boy with long, dark hair tied in an extremely loose ponytail walked into the room, an emotionless mask on his face as he gazed around the room. The group of girls giggled even harder when his eyes passed their area, but he only sighed to himself inwardly in disgust. Why were so many girls like this? He had no clue, but he was extremely irritated, even if he didn't show it; he knew that many girls weren't interested in romance, but this school seemed to have an unnatural population of those who did.
The boy, Neji, went back to his seat in the corner. His only two friends had not arrived in school yet, and that was not a good thing. No, he was not afraid of their whereabouts; they could take care of themselves. He knew, since he had been with them for the past half of a decade. What he dreaded was, in fact, going to happen in three... two... one...
"NEJI-KUN!" yelled a girl that he barely knew, running up to him with sparkles in her eyes. He contained a wince at her loud, high-pitched voice. "How are you doing today?"
"Go away," he said coldly, giving her a glare. More and more fangirls accumulated around him, to his slight horror, and all of them tried to get his attention, all at once. Clenching his teeth behind his shut mouth, he closed his eyes and just wished that the particularly loud girls would just shut up and go away. Why couldn't there be more girls like his cousin? Actually, that wouldn't help, seeing that she was as loud as a butterfly and as open as a two-century-year-old house, but it sure beats having ten squealing girls around him.
He opened his eyes and, trying to ignore the girls around him, glanced around the room. As usual, the students were separated into small groups, talking amongst themselves. Six teens were in the other back corner, talking about something. The navy-haired boy (he didn't bother to learn his name) looked bored as he idly listened to the conversation between the girl with the light brown pigtails, the boy with auburn hair and the boy with the brown, messy hair.
The girl with the dark brown ponytail was listening to an mp3 player with closed eyes, and Neji thought that he saw her glare at the long skirt she was wearing occasionally. The last boy, whose hair slightly covered his right eye, seemed to genuinely listen to the conversation, but didn't say anything.
Moving on, he glanced at another group of students. They seemed to be desperately trying to do their homework last minute, and were hurriedly asking themselves questions. Shaking his head slightly, he proceeded to skip the other groups and my eyes went straight to the door. The annoying girls were still around him, trying to get his attention, but he promptly ignored them.
To his relief, a girl wearing a boy's uniform walked into the room, talking to another boy who had bowl-cut hair, round eyes and abnormally large eyebrows. Almost immediately, though, she was drawn by the sounds of the fangirls and spotted Neji in the middle of the crowd. He gave her a look that clearly told her to get over to him, and she got the message. Marching over to his seat, she wove through the wall of giggling girls and placed herself between him and his fans.
"Break it up, here!" she barked, pushing away any girl that got too close to Neji. "He needs his personal space, and I doubt that the definition of 'personal space' has anything to do with mobbing him!"
"Who gave you the authority over our actions?" asked one of the girls with a glare, and was followed by the agreements of some of the other fans. "Just because you're Neji-kun's friend doesn't mean you get to keep him for yourself!"
"Did you not hear my definition of personal space?" asked the brunette as she pushed away a girl who was trying to implant a peck on Neji's forehead. "Get away, won't you guys?"
"No!" screeched one of the girls, causing Neji and the girl to wince. They exchanged glances wearily and turned back to the group of girls. When Neji saw one of the more malicious of his fangirls open her mouth, he knew that this was going to be the last straw in Tenten's mind. "Besides, what do you know? Or are you going to say you, a sorry excuse of a girl, are his girlfriend?"
"I'M NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND!" she yelled, and lunged at the group of girls. The girls dispersed, giving glares and small screams as they backed up. The tomboy was known to become extremely scary when she's particularly angry or frustrated and likes to use weapons to let it all out. Of course, she usually just does target practice.
"Good job, Tenten," sighed Neji monotonously, though it was hinted with gratitude. "I don't know why, but those girls won't get away from me no matter how hard I try to push away. They only go away if somebody else shoos them.
"No problem," answered Tenten, grinning. "Dealing with fangirls is kind of refreshing, really. After all, the great Hyuuga Neji already has problems of his own." That statement earned her a glare from the prodigy, but she just smirked, unintimidated.
The round-eyed boy joined them within seconds. "Tenten!" he yelled, grinning. "Your abilities to ward off girls are as good as ever, I see. But still, I was wondering when you would become Neji's girlfriend..."
"No, Lee... wait, WHAT?!," exclaimed Tenten in surprise, staring at her childhood friend. "Where the heck did that come from? That'd happen when Neji turns into a little bird! Don't tell me you actually thought that."
"Yes, I did think that," said Lee, nodding cluelessly. The tomboy slapped her forehead and muttered a few things under her breath as Neji shook his head slightly.
"Like I said, Neji would turn into a little bird before we became a couple," she repeated. This time, Neji gave her a small glare because of the bird comment. At that moment, the bell rang and there was a scramble as the students went to their seats. In a second, their teacher Iruka had entered the room and started the day's lesson.
(--)
The day went by in a flash. Lee had been following Sakura around at lunch, as always, and he had received a noticeable bruise on his head when Sasuke was annoyed with dealing with Lee's excessively loud voice that could have rivaled Naruto's. Fangirls were, as usual, glaring at Tenten because of her close friendship with Neji, but as usual, she didn't care. Besides, most of them were too scared of her to be near her within a five-foot radius.
Sighing, he continued to his normal after school club: the karate club. He was pretty good at Karate, actually, and that was the only time he could let his feelings out (mostly of annoyance and anger, though; he had to find some other way to let out happiness) and also keep an emotionless face. Lee was also in the karate club, but Tenten was in archery, and she was the best too.
After one hour of vigorous training from his instructor, Gai, he changed back into his school uniform and waited for Lee to go back to the dormitories. Unfortunately for him, he was planning to run laps around the school again with Gai, so Neji went back to the dormitories by himself instead.
Or, that was what he thought at first.
His cellphone rang in his bag. Sighing, he stopped at the nearest bench, opened his bag and took out a silvery cellphone that was vibrating violently. He took one look at the number and opened it immediately. "Yes, Hiashi-sama?" he asked, face even more emotionless than usual.
"Neji. Are you properly taking care of Hinata?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Keep that up." Click.
Neji sighed, stood up and started walking. Hiashi called at least once a week to ensure that Neji was doing his duty to protect his younger cousin. He always left out from his reports, of course, that Hinata had a crush on a certain blonde loudmouth who was completely clueless of her feelings towards him. He didn't really approve of... this Uzumaki person, but he at least seemed harmless. Actually, more like an idiot. But back on the point, even if Hiashi didn't mean anything bad, Neji still felt like a caged bird, from the way that he is always checked on.
He wasn't looking where he was going and bumped into a person with an infirmary coat on. He stumbled back ever so slightly and looked at the person he bumped into. She had red eyes and wavy, brownish hair that ended somewhere right under her shoulders.
"Hyuuga Neji, correct?" asked the woman, smiling gently. Neji raised an eyebrow and nodded. "I've been waiting. There is something I need to speak with you about. I need you to come with me." The woman turned and started walking in the opposite direction.
He was slightly suspicious. From the look of her clothes, she had to be one of the nurses in the school, and the students weren't allowed to disobey an authorized adult here unless there's a good reason. Convincing himself that there was nothing else to do back in his dorm other than study, he followed the nurse to wherever she was going. Seriously, he did not want to go to the infirmary and find out that he has come down with a serious disease or something.
Wait. Speaking of the infirmary, they were going the wrong way. He narrowed his eyes. He would've told her, but he decided against it. She had a confident air about her, and he had a feeling that she knew what she was doing... hopefully. That's when he noticed that she was leading him to a set of stairs that he has never seen before. Where the heck could they be headed to? They started descending a flight of stairs that he had noticed was there before.
Finally, at the bottom of the stairs, the nurse stopped in front of a set of double doors. She opened them, and, to Neji's surprise, eight four-poster beds sat in two rows inside. Three of the beds had their canopies pulled down, but the other five were empty. She led him to a table between the two rows and they both sat down. There was some tea prepared in between them. He sat down in one chair while she sat across from him, pouring the liquid into two cups.
"What is this about? Who are you? How come I've never been here before?" demanded Neji, not bothering for formalities.
"You can call me Kurenai," said the nurse, smiling. "This afer school class is required for a select amount of students who fulfill certain requirements. What those requirements are, I may tell you some other time. Only those students, when the time is right, can go down the steps."
"But if this is an after school class; if so, what am I supposed to learn?" asked Neji, taking a sip of his tea. Kurenai didn't answer, and the young man narrowed his eyes. After a few more moments of silence, he sighed and closed his eyes, running everything through his head. The only logical explanation was that this was all a dream, that when he woke up, he would be back to this morning, getting mauled by fangirls...
----/\----
He opened his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but abruptly closed it. Kurenai had disappeared from the room, and without his detection too. Come to think of it, the room seemed unnaturally large right now. He blinked; he was no longer sitting in the chair, which was behind him, but he was, well, standing on the table, yet the table still seemed pretty close to his face. He looked down at his reflection on the tabletop and if he had less control over his actions, he would have yelped. Loudly.
His reflection was not him. Heck, it wasn't even human. He had turned into a brown bird with white streaks.
A tiny bird, at that.
There were some footsteps behind him and he whirled around, or rather, hopped around, ready to defend himself the best he could from upcoming danger, though that's not saying much. Someone was descending the stairs that he had used to get down to this cursed place. His feathers bristled, taking a step back with his claws, getting his arms ready, though they turned out to be wings, obviously.
There was a sound of three sets of footsteps instead of one set. Slowly, the door creaked open and then pushed full way. Standing at the door were, indeed, two people, if you could call them that.
One of them had long silver hair tied in a high ponytail with a red ribbon. She was wearing a pale yellow dress that ended right at her ankles that flowed behind her as she walked, tied by a black sash. Around her dress' collar was something that looked like a scarf worn in a necktie-like fashion. Around her neck was a gray choker, an oval, light blue stone in the middle. Her eyes were a piercing yellow color as she scanned the room, though they were not devoid of life and mischievousness. She had two separate rods in both hands that were a metallic grey color.
The one behind her was a male with red-orange hair that was cut short, yet it was still a bit longer than normal boy-cuts. His eyes were sky blue and a bit more serious, yet they still had significant life in them. He wore a golden yellow vest on top of a pure white t-shirt. An oval jewel was on the right side of his collar. His shorts were a fiery red color. He, too, scanned the room along with his companion.
The last one who came in was the strangest out of all of them. She was pitch black from head to toe; even her clothes were pitch black. She was like a shadow, actually. In fact, she seemed to be a little more flatter than the rest of them. Out of what Neji could make out, the girl had hair that ended right above the middle of her back, but that was it.
The silver-haired girl sighed. "It really is just us here now. What do you two propose we do now?" she asked her two companions. They all had a necklace attached to them in some way or another, and all had one or twolarge beads on them. The shadow-girl's necklace was the only thing that wasn't pitch black.
"I have no idea, Gin (pronounced Geen, with a hard G)," sighed the boy, but was interrupted from talking further when the shadow-girl lifted up an arm and pointed at the table Neji perched at. "Hm? What is it, Kage (pronounced KAH-gey)?" he asked, and then spotted bird-Neji. "Ah! So we have new classmate."
"Kagayaki (pronounced kah-gah-YAH-kee), that's obvious," teased the girl named Gin, and walked to Neji. He instinctively flew up and started pecking the girl. "ITAI! That hurts! We're trying to help you, idiot!" she yelled, fending off Neji with her right rod. Neji landed back on the table, giving her a glare. Out of the corner of his small eyes, he thought he saw the girl referred to as Kage gasp, putting a hand over where her heart should have been.
"Where am I?" he demanded in, to his dismay, an unusually higher-pitched voice. The boy called Kagayaki sniggered as he, along with Kage, walked to Gin's sides.
"You're in a dream, of course," replied Gin matter-of-factly. She placed her hands on her hips and almost knocked Kagayaki's teeth out in the process with her rods. "But it is your first day, so I imagine that you wouldn't know. I see you were surprised by our presence." She ended that with a smirk, gesturing towards Neji's neck. He looked down again and finally noticed that he, too, had a necklace one, but it only had one bead, like Kage's.
"What is this?" he asked, pecking the bead aimlessly.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Kagayaki, rolling his eyes as Neji ceased his pecking. "And yes, you are in a dream. A realistic one at that."
"A realistic dream?" asked Neji, narrowing his bird eyes.
"Yes," replied Gin. "All of us are having the same dreams right now. While we're still here, we might as well explain the rules to you. Well, Kagayaki and I, at least," she added sheepishly, casting Kage an apologetic look. "Kage can't talk here; she can only make some sounds like gasps and giggles." The shadow-girl nodded. "But anyway, let us get to the core of these dreams first." Neji nodded.
"All of us are given a specific task that we must complete before we can break away from these after school classes," explained Kagayaki. "We all learn our tasks eventually, though we usually find out by ourselves. They may be group tasks or single tasks. Once we complete those tasks, like I said, we pass this class and we may leave this place permanently, and go about our everyday lives. We cannot graduate until we get through this class."
"And I have yet to receive the task I'm supposed to complete?" asked Neji.
Gin nodded. "Yes. The three of us know our tasks already. Anyway, this conversation will lead to the time spent here. We get to stay in this dream world for as long as we like if, and only if, we have at least one bead in our necklace. You lose beads each time you are greatly shocked, surprised or hurt, and once you run out, you return to reality. You start with two beads. Since you were surprised when you saw us, you've already lost one in this dream."
"I think I get the concept and goal of this," said Neji, sitting down, but found that sitting down as a bird is extremely different from as a human. "But why am I a bird?"
"We take the forms of our true hearts," answered Kagayaki. "Our emotions cannot be suppressed, as we are, in a sense, the very cores of our being. Most of us don't look like how we are when we are in reality. I assure you, of course, that Gin here does not have silver hair and that Kage is not covered in black paint." With every mention of a person's name, he pointed at the person. "Since you are a bird, I guess that your true heart is somehow connected to freedom." Kage nodded in agreement, as did Gin.
Neji stayed silent. Yes, his heart was connected to freedom; he had wanted freedom since his cousin Hinata had turned three. But then, he was at more of a disadvantage here than in reality; he hated showing his emotions, and he can't hold back in this world. He looked up. "Should I just call you guys Gin, Kagayaki and Kage, then?" he asked.
"Sure!" Gin grinned, patting Neji with her hand, irritating the prodigy. "But you'll need a name here as well. I mean, I doubt many people can recognize you as a bird, so you'll be named... Tori (TOH-ree)!" There was an unnatural silence in the room. The only sound was Kage shuffling in her spot in a slightly restless way.
"You are really unoriginal," sighed Kagayaki. Tori, after all, meant "bird" in Japanese, which was the language they were currently speaking. "You were the one who named the two of us as well." As a side note, Gin means silver, Kagayaki means shine, and Kage means shadow.
"Shut up," growled Gin playfully, hitting Kagayaki behind the head with her hand.
There was another silence in the room, and then Neji thought that this was enough. He looked up at the three towering human forms.
"How do you exit from this place? I think that I've been here long enough for a day," he said. Gin and Kagayaki blinked, and he imagined that Kage would have as well.
"You want to leave?" she asked, surprised, but shrugged. "Suit yourself. There's only one way I can think of right now, so forgive me next time, all right?" Neji was looking at her questioningly. In a swift movement, however, she had brought her rod up and struck the little bird.
He yelled out in pain as the last bead on his necklace broke apart. Kage yelped and ran forward, cradling the fading image in her hands. Her own bead was breaking. When it shattered, she looked at Gin with something that could have been a scowl or glare before she, too, disappeared.
"That was unnecessary," said Kagayaki, sweat dropping. "You didn't have to hurt him that hard to get him to go back to the real world."
Gin shrugged and glanced at their necklaces. They were all still complete. "Well, true," she admitted. "But that was a quick way."
They passed a few more minutes in silence, looking around aimlessly. Kagayaki spoke first to disrupt the quiet. "Do you think that we've found the fifth pair that we can do our task on?" he asked, smirking.
"Kage and Tori, huh?" Gin glanced back at the place where they disappeared. "I think it would do very well." She also smirked. "This will be very interesting indeed, won't it?"
"Agreed." The two dreamers turned and walked back towards the double doors. As they went, the light glimmered off of the jewel on Gin's necklace. A faint figure was revealed inside.
It was a girl in a slightly fetal position, sleeping.
----\/----
Neji sat up, startled. He was still in the infirmary, but now, he was thankfully sitting on a chair and was back to his normal size. He glared at Kurenai, who was smiling serenely at him.
"What was that about?" he asked harshly, suppressing the urge to knock the cup off the table. It was probably drugged, which would have explained him falling asleep immediately and him not seeing Kurenai drink hers.
"That," she said, "was your first class. I'm assuming that the others have already informed you on the rules and objectives Remember; this after school program only meets every Wednesday immediately after school, though the dreams won't start until the bell rings."
Neji pondered this, sighed and silently nodded. He had to do this, or else he may never get out of this strange basement.
(--)
After he walked up the stairs, he only had to go a short distance until he ran into Lee and Tenten. Tenten looked slightly disgruntled as she whacked him over the head, growling, "We were looking everywhere for you, you idiot! Where the heck were you? Lee even went back to the dormitories after he finished his laps with Gai-sensei, and there wasn't even a trace of you having entered your room!"
"I was pulled back by a teacher," said Neji emotionlessly, as he suppressed the urge to show that he was still slightly traumatized by Gin's rod, which he was sure had cracked every bone in his bird-self. Tenten raised an eyebrow, wondering what Neji did that was so unworldly this time, but shrugged it off.
"Come on; we'll be late for dinner at this rate," sighed Tenten. Neji blinked. Was it just him, or was Lee unusually quiet...? He turned to his friend, but noticed that he had huge tears in his eyes and had two slabs of duct tape stuck over his mouth in a wide "x".
"...hn," he answered, shrugging as Lee gave him a tear-filled look that clearly said, 'SAVE ME!' Rolling his eyes, he followed Tenten to the cafeteria and ripped off the duct tape in the process. He was pretty sure that the entire campus heard his yell of pain as the sticky substance left his mouth, pulling the skin before the tape came off. "Tenten, please don't tape his mouth again, even if that's effective."
"Fine," sighed Tenten and they continued on their way.
(--)
That night, Neji sat at his four-poster bed and, ignoring the snores of his roommate, Lee, he gazed out the window. It was a surprising clear night for autumn, and the moon was pretty bright despite only being in its first quarter. He closed his eyes, while wondering, 'What is my task...?'
The next ten minutes of sleeplessness let him dwell on the events in the basement infirmary. Who was the shadow? She seemed to recognize him, but how could she? After all, he was pretty sure that being a little bird doesn't help people recognize him. The other two seemed to be oblivious, but were aware of the fact that he was a newcomer. Furthermore, the other beds looked as if they previously had residents in them. If so, then who are they...?
(--)
"This will be interesting," said Kagayaki's human form, smirking.
"Indeed," sighed the other, leaning back in the chair. "But... won't Kage's task conflict with ours? I mean, we were told to do our task five times, and we're already working on two other pairs of people. Do you think this will be too much?"
"Well, the future cannot be determined. And I'm surprised you referred to the plan as 'ours'."
"Shut it. It's easier this way, since Gin and I are, vaguely, the same person. Besides, I'm pretty sure that Tori interacting with the other students will help with our plan..."
(--)
This is a shorter length than usual... only just over 4000 words (not including disclaimers, notes, etc.). This is still Temisu, by the way. Artemis would have said that she would appreciate reviews greatly and that it would have helped her with updating faster and getting faster reviews. No, the last two people that appeared in this fic ("Kagayaki" and "Gin") will not be present every single chapter in their own private conversations. This story is mostly just centered on Neji completing his task, but even Lightmetal only has a distant grasp on the subject.
Anyway, thank you for reading. I know it's weird; Lightmetal can get inspired even by the weirdest ideas, though many people do. Lightmetal should have regained consciousness by the next chapter.
-bows and drags off Artemis' unconscious body-