Chapter 1: Training with Neji

"Neji, stop being an ass!"

In a rare moment of clarity, Rock Lee was yelling at Neji Hyuga, his usual teammate.

Neji, being the talkative soul that he was, responded with his usual, "Hn."

Lee didn't roll his eyes at the antics of the Hyuga, but instead responded with his typical zeal and enthusiasm. "Yosh! Neji! How can you behave in such a manner with regards to the youthful flower of our team?"

Ah yes, that 'youthful flower,' one Tenten of no last name.

Neji tolerated Lee's asinine phrases with his usual stoic face and chose to not acknowledge Lee at all. He instead walked away toward the said 'youthful flower' to continue his training under her exceptional accuracy.

Lee was left staring after the other boy, silently pondering just what action a fellow Leaf shinobi should take in such strange circumstances. Fortunately for one not used to thinking too much about complicated things like love, Lee's idol quickly appeared to dispel his protege's trance.

"Yosh, what is troubling you my youthful student?"

A quick, "Gai-sensei!" quickly dispelled whatever oppressive cloud hung over Lee's head and he responded with an equally zealous, "The unyouthful actions of my teammate, Gai-sensei!"

The conversation that followed was of course extremely entertaining, but difficult to follow with the punctuated comments on youth, flowers, and springtime. The general idea was that Gai-sensei, or the Green Beast of Konoha, warned his protege to avoid the problem faced by Hyuga Neji. Lee of course, the ever intelligent boy that he was, listened intently to his father-figure's words, and then followed the 'youthful' advice of his mentor. In this way, Konoha was saved a lot of needless destruction from the taijustu fight that would have ensued, but Hyuga Neji received a reprieve on facing his undesired feelings directed towards his ignorant teammate.

"Neji, you're a bit slow on your left. I know that you were injured on your last mission, but try to keep up, please." No one else in Konoha would have had the nerve or the ability to speak to Hyuga Neji like Tenten. She was the only one that he tolerated from their age group, and certainly the only non-ANBU that had the courage to consider criticizing him. Hyuga Neji might have mellowed with his ascension into adulthood, but his still had a notoriously bad temper. Several jonin were injured the last time that anyone cared to piss off Neji, and besides the two men's details of the events, it had taken a team of genin an entire day to fill in the crater left from what could loosely be termed a Kaiten.

Neji refrained from answering Tenten in any way, but she was confident that he heard her. His left sided Juken did mildly improve, and she acknowledged the advancement with an additional hail of senbon. Extra difficult to dodge projectiles from Tenten were a sign of improvement. She wouldn't try to kill her teammate, after all.

The two ninja moved as an extremely fluid and efficient pair. Their little spar resembled a dance in several ways that both were unwilling to acknowledge. Rock Lee had once commented on their "youthful grace" and "perfect synchrony" and had been sore for two weeks from the several kunai that the usually calm Tenten had managed to lodge in his extremities. Tenten hated being compared to a dancer. She was a fighter kunoichi, not some weak little waify thing better suited for seducing than battle. She could kick most of the male populace's collective asses, and she did not need her teammates seeing her as something fragile and delicate. She had no desire to hear about grace or synchrony between her and Hyuga Neji either. He was her sparing partner, sure as hell not the second part of a dancing pair. (She failed to think about how it reflected on him when others commented on their little "dance," as he had the respect that she was still working hard to earn.)

Just as Tenten yanked on the chakra strings that would pull all of the weapons that she'd managed to chuck at the Hyuga prodigy in the prior spar, Susuke Uchiha stepped out of the woods surrounding Tenten and Neji's training ground. Hyuga Neji had obviously spotted him some time ago, as his Byakugan was activated, but he wisely chose to ignore the newcomer in favor of avoiding the many sharp and pointy projectiles that were suddenly careening toward him from all directions. He could not, however much he might wish otherwise, ignore the hollered jab from the Uchiha prodigy. "Don't forget to duck, Hyuga!"

Yes, Uchiha Sasuke was an ass, and in the biased opinion of a pissed off Hyuga Neji, a bigger one than any loyal Konoha shinobi had the right to be.

Neji thankfully had the tact to not respond to the glib remark, but it did distract him enough to receive a small tear to the left sleeve of his robe. Neji was a stickler for perfection in his appearance and of course noticed the slight blemish as soon as he stopped spinning from his perfect Kaiten.

He stared at the tear with his Byakugan activated. To anyone else, he would appear to be glaring at the slit, but to the two observers who knew his blood limit well, he simply looked like he might be focused on the robe. He could be staring at something straight out of the back of his skull with his near 360 degree vision.

"Tenten," Sasuke acknowledged with a small quirk of his lips. "Ready for your real training?"

Tenten was not one of his fan girls and did not glomp him for his minimal acquiesce to her skill, but she did appreciate the attentions from one of the top shinobi that would ever come from the Leaf.

"Sure, Sasuke," she said betraying their familiarity, "most everything's gathered up now, so just give me a minute for sealing." She even graced him with a smile before she removed the two scrolls at her back and did exactly as she said.

Neji meanwhile was still staring at his robe but was now fingering the hole in a way that to Tenten obviously betrayed his extreme annoyance. Neji hated the Uchiha, and Tenten was not ignorant of his distaste for her newest partner, but instead chose to ignore it. She needed to be strong after all, and sparing with the same person every day just wasn't getting her there. She was grateful that Sasuke, even if he was a bit of a freak, had taken an interest in her. She shifted the tento on her back to a move convenient position. She'd be using it along with her swords in just a minute, and her summoning scrolls would be ignored while she battled the 'former' traitor.

Tenten was set to depart with the last Uchiha when she noticed Neji still hadn't deactivated his Byakugan. Whatever was bothering him was obviously more serious than she anticipated if he planned to watch she and Sasuke leave. Hell, with his skill he could probably even watch them battle with their swords from this position to over a kilometer away.

"Just go ahead, Sasuke. I've forgotten something. It'll just take me a minute."

Sasuke didn't comment, as seemed to be the usual pattern with her training partners, but he did have the decency to quirk an eyebrow in curiosity. He knew that she was lying and would probably question her at an inopportune moment during their future spar. That was how his devious little genius mind worked.

Tenten immediately turned to the Hyuga as soon as Sasuke turned around (he wouldn't look back), and waited for his reaction.

She didn't speak first, preferring to wait for the two stupid geniuses (four if you counted those geniuses of hard work) that she seemed to attract like fly paper.

Neji stood up slowly and waited until the Uchiha was out of hearing range before speaking to his teammate. Neji had no desire to be overheard and chose to keep his Byakugan activated even while looking directly at Tenten. It unnerved most everyone, but thankfully his long-time teammate was used to the gaze of his freaky eyes.

"You're training with him again." He just made an observation, but only Neji Hyuga could make little phrases like that sound like accusations. Fortunately for Tenten, she was used to this too, and didn't really care.

"Yeah, he and I are working on our kinjutsu together," Tenten explained it carefully, knowing fully well that she was being condescending. Neji already knew this fact, yet she made her words sound as if they were the first time he'd heard them.

"Hn."

'Great,' Tenten thought to herself, 'I will have to be the one who explains his feelings for him . . . again. Can't you just say what's on your mind, Neji? Why do I always need to put it out in the open. You know what you're thinking better than I do. You just wanna force me to puzzle it all out.' Luckily, Tenten really did understand her teammate better than anyone else.

"Stop feeling insecure, Neji. I'm still training with you. I'm not going to stop. You need me." That last bit certainly got his attention. He was doing that squinty eye thing that meant trouble.

"What's that look for, Neji?" He didn't respond, but did at least loosen the tightened muscles around his eyes . . . marginally.

"I know that I'm the only one that you really like to spar with, Neji. I'm not dumb and neither are you. My weapons are a great match for you. I get it. You dodge projectiles moving fast than is possible for human limbs, and you get to practice against a lot of potential treats at once. Plus, my weapons were and still are the best way to work on your Kaiten. I get it all, and I'm not going to just up and leave because you're not as useful to me anymore. I'm still going to help you, but I've got my own training to work on too."

"It's better to have a moving target to practice on than just logs." Neji was obviously feeling the need to point something out that she gained from their relationship.

"I'm sure that Sasuke or any other jonin would be happy to get some easy training for avoiding well . . . everything that I throw."

"Hn."

"God Neji. I'll be back tomorrow. I'm just not spending all day training with you. Go train some more with your relatives. It wouldn't be the first time that we worked apart while you practiced with them."

"Hn." His eyes were still scrunched up in that way that signaled annoyance.

"You can be as frustrated as you want, but this situation isn't going to change. Snap out of your funk." Tenten didn't yell at him, but her voice had taken on a lecture-like quality. Neji really needed to learn to talk about his own feelings. She didn't like nor want to voice them for him.

He didn't reply, so she decided to make her swift exit. "I'll see you tomorrow." She didn't bother to look back at the Hyuga. If she had, she would have noticed that his eyes were still trained on her, and if she had been graced with a Byakugan, she could have watched him watch her until he was gone from her sight.