"Team Gai" were all waiting around their training grounds-or what was left of it anyways- for Gai-Sensei.
They were all Chuunin and the Jounin exams would come around within the next month. They trained brutally hard, even for them. It resulted in a forest of broken down trees, craters in the ground atleast ten feet deep and the last count on the obliterated dummies was 23 thousand.
Gai appeared behind Neji and Neji unwillingly jumped. He hated when he jumped, it made it look like he wasn't paying attention. He wasn't used to Gai popping in behind him like that, usually the sensei would appear behind TenTen or Lee. Today it was him, Neji was curious as to why.
"Gai-Sensei!" Lee screamed as if a small kid just saw Santa Claus.
"Sensei?!" TenTen turned around to see if Lee had found the true Gai- Sensei.
Rock Lee had a bad habit of naming any green blob of a blur "Gai-Sensei" when he was late. Neji had secretly guessed that Lee had a horrible subconscious fear that their sensei would give up on him one day just like all of his other academy teachers-even if it wasn't true.
"Yes, it is I, Gai-Sensei! I have come to set you all into a very important exercise that will exploit your powers of youth!"
The man was too loud. Neji thought his ear drums would bust if he stood there any longer so he swiftly moved to the unoccupied side of TenTen. That's how they always stood when Gai-Sensei addressed them as a team. TenTen would be in the middle, Neji would be on the right ,and Lee would be on the left.
Neji liked the right side of her-the sun hit her from that angle and it would give her a light glow to her face and other features. To Neji she looked like a spiritual being. As if she were some type of angel when the sun would hit her.
He heard something to the effect of a boulder, and was sharply stopped from his admiration of his female comrade.
"Boulder?" Neji asked, trying to keep his monotone and sound like he had been listening to every word Gai-Sensei had been saying.
"Yes! Gai-Sensei is going to harness us all to a boulder! And- And we're going to work as a team to get it all the way to the top!"
Some days, Neji was glad Rock Lee was his team mate, because he couldn't keep his mouth shut. EVER- and don't get Neji wrong that little fact drove him crazy the majority of the time, but it had it's useful moments.
"Yes! You, my youthful students are about to come even to me in experience and I will no longer be your squad leader. Most likely you will be given Genin squads of your own or perhaps you will join the ANBU as elite ninja. Wherever you might go I know you will bring greatness and pride to yourselves and I will be so proud to call you my graduates!"
Lee launched himself at Gai in tears. Neji rolled his eyes- the man had no pride at all. He was on the verge of having a serious conversation for once and Lee just had to break down in the middle of it. It gave Neji something to ponder for the next moment while Gai-Sensei consoled his stupid, conversation ruining, team mate.
"So what about the boulder?" TenTen asked over Lee's sobs.
"If you will wait for one moment my youthful flower I will show you the boulder."
"The harnesses are green aren't they..."
They all walked to the other side of Konoha, annoying Neji to no end. He didn't understand why they met at the training grounds just to walk all the way to the other side of Konoha. If Neji got a Genin squad..
"This is it!" Gai-Sensei hollered.
Neji's lower jaw literally fell from alignment. This was NOT a boulder. Boulder's were heavy rocks-not some giant, mutated, onyx colored, asteroids. There was no way the three of them could haul it up a cliff.
Neji's eye caught TenTen walking over to the boulder and put one of her hands on the boulder and reaching down to the ground to grab one of the harnesses'. He smirked at the face she made when she discovered that the harnesses were in fact green.
"Let's strap up students! The faster you set to your task the sooner the task is complete!"
"Yes Gai-Sensei!"
"Okay."
"Hn."
Neji walked over to the 'boulder' and picked up a harness and quickly put it on over his head and settling it on his torso, making sure everything was strapped securely in place and could in no way cause any harm to his body. The color didn't matter to him as much as the stability of the contraption.
Neji glanced over at his team mates. TenTen had managed to get the harness on and was currently pulling lose strands of hair out from under it so it wouldn't pull her hair out later.
Rock Lee on the other hand was having the most trouble as always. He struggled with it for a few moments before doing something Neji could never do, ask for help.
"TenTen? Could you please help me with this?"
"Sure Lee, just pull it off and I'll help you put it on right."
"Thank you."
Rock Lee pulled the twisted ropes off of his body and untangled them before handing them to TenTen.
"Arms up, Lee."
Neji smirked. It reminded him of someone dressing a small child, giving them instructions on where certain body parts should be. She finally got it on him though, good maybe they could go ahead and get this over with.
"Okay students! I want you to take this boulder and walk over to that cliff and haul the boulder up it!"
Neji looked at the cliff and his facial expression changed briefly into one of awe stuck. He'd never seen a perfect ninety degree in nature like that before. The cliff literally went straight up, it was going to require chakra to climb.
Chakra that Rock Lee didn't have and TenTen possessed little of, great more work for him.
"Now I know what you all are thinking. There's no way you can climb this rock without chakra. That's not true. I climbed this rock every day my first year as a Jounin. Get started now! The sooner you start the sooner you will finish!" Gai's voice rang in Neji's ear.
"Yes Gai Sensei!"
"Let's go boys."
"Hn,"
Neji placed both hands on the boulder and activated his Byakuugan, not that he would need it there was no way it would be that difficult. His hands began glowing blue as his chakra built up in them, just because you didn't need chakra didn't mean he wasn't going to use it.
He looked over at TenTen and Lee to see what course of action they were going to take.
TenTen instinctively pulled out a kunai from her bag and stabbed the side of the cliff and breathed a sigh of relief after the rock gave way to the metal blade.
She had found her way up, she intended to use the kunai as leverage all the way up. Neji had no doubts that she could do it.
He looked over at Rock Lee who had his eyes set piercing and glaring at the boulder, looking as if he was trying to intimidate it or something.
Neji knew better, he didn't need Byakuugan to know that Lee was desperately trying to come up with a plan.
"Lee."
"Yes, Neji?"
"Use the uneven edges of the rock to get a grasp, and use the strength you've gained from your tai-jutsu training to climb this cliff."
Lee gently placed a hand on a portion of the cliff, testing Neji's theory before putting his weight into it. It was plausible, but what wasn't that Neji Hyuuga had just helped him instead of making fun of him for his disadvantages.
Did Neji finally see him as a worthy team mate or rival?
"This will work. Thank you Neji."
"Hn."
Three hours later they got half way up the cliff and Rock Lee began to tremble under the strain. Neji had already been supporting most of the weight, and was beginning to tire himself. He looked down at his struggling team mate.
"Lee. We are more than half way there. You have to finish! Now!" He yelled aggressively.
"My fingers are slipping." Rock Lee growled.
"Then move you idiot!"
"Neji." Rock Lee pleaded.
"Now!"
Lee slowly advanced to where Neji and TenTen were, struggling every step of the way but making progress nonetheless. TenTen smiled to show Lee that she was proud of him and focused back on her objective. She pulled the second kunai out of the cliff and thrusted it into the highest section she could reach.
"We. Couldn't. Of. Done. The. Bells." She said with every effort to escalate up the cliff.
"That. Would. Be. Too. Easy." Lee panted.
"Stop. Complaining. And. Pull. Your. Weight!" Neji said through gritted teeth, this was really starting to take a toll on him.
"Neji! Shut. Up. I'm. doing. the. best. I. can!"
"We. Are. Almost. there!" Lee yelled before Neji could respond to TenTen's comment.
Neji looked up and saw the end of the cliff, Lee was right they were almost done. Neji smirked, they had actually made it. The worst team of misfits he had been placed in had actually accomplished something as difficult as this.
Neji was the first to the top, he bent over and helped TenTen up, giving her the "I forgive you" look. TenTen smiled to let him know she understood.
They had to be the only team that communicated through body-language like that.
"Whoa!"
Neji instinctively reached down and quickly grabbed Lee's arm before he fell, bringing the boulder and all three of them plummeting towards their deaths. TenTen grabbed the other arm and minding his bandages, helped Neji pull him up to level ground.
Once all three of them were on level ground they grabbed the slack between them and the boulder and collectively pulled the boulder up to the top in a little under an hour.
"Yes!" Rock Lee screamed after reaching success.
"We did it!" TenTen screamed, launching herself at Lee in a hug. She always did get excited easily. "Neji! Neji, we did it!" She hugged him, causing him to get a small, barely noticeable blush.
He still wasn't that great at receiving physical contact. "Yes, TenTen, we did."
Gai-Sensei appeared in front of them, saving Neji from humiliating himself further.
"Gai-Sensei! We did it!"
"You should have seen us Gai-Sensei! We did it as a team! Neji helped me!"
"Hn."
"Yes, I had all of the faith the three of you could handle this without any complications! I'm so proud of the you, all of you!"
"We're ready for the Jounin exams, right?" Neji enquired.
Gai's expression turned serious, the only expression he used for Neji since Neji wouldn't have it any other way.
"Yes, you are all more that ready. But there is a story I wish to share with the three of you before I release you for the night. The reason I had you climb this boulder was to not test your strength or endurance. It was to test the amount of faith you had in yourselves and your team mates. In fact, this cliff is part of the reason I became a Genin-Sensei. I reasoned with myself that if I could handle climbing the sharpest cliff in Konoha that a set of Genin students would be no problem. I was incorrect of course, the three of you are far more straining than that cliff!"
TenTen smiled and inwardly thanked Gai for everything he had done for her. He wasn't the ideal sensei and he was quite possibly the quirkiest Jounin in Konoha, but he had been there to cheer her on when she needed encouragement, he had been there to knock her on her ass when she thought that she could take him on, and most memorable of his actions was that he had comforted her when her father had died in her first year under his training.
He told her that everyone loses someone and you just had to train your way through it. It was survival of the fittest in the ninja world. He had cultivated the warrior in her, in all of them. It was something she could carry with her the rest of her life.
Neji inwardly thanked Gai for everything he had done for him. He was the strangest man in the entire world, but without him Neji would be a murderer right now. He would of killed his cousin, a person he had grown to know and actually care for. Neji would of disgraced both his and his father's name in that action and that was something Neji would never forgive himself for. Gai taught Neji restraint after the Chuunin exams and that was something Neji would always be grateful for.
Rock Lee did nothing inwardly, and he wasn't going to start now.
"Thank you, Gai-Sensei! For everything, you've brought us all so far! Because of you I am an excellent ninja!"
"It is my duty to the three of you to make you excellent and elite ninja and I can honestly say I accomplished that! "