Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 1: Days

May your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground

Rays of sunlight peeked through the window, and birds chirped in the distance. It was a rather pleasant sound to awake to, Natsuka thought. Eyes the color of pearls opened slowly and leisurely. She yawned rather ungracefully and began to slowly rise from her bed, thoughts drifting to morning tea and what she would eat for breakfast, when a sound jolted her up quickly.

"Natsuka!" a voice hissed. "Get up. We'll be late."

The voice offered no path for arguing. Natsuka quietly sighed before answering in her usual calm drawl, "I'm awake Neji. Give me a moment."

Natsuka stood up, finally, and took several moments to stretch. She heard several cracks and sighed contentedly before moving to dress. She could easily hear the tapping foot on the other side of the door. Apparently, her dear brother had even less patience than usual this morning.

After another couple of minutes, she slid the door to her room open and looked up at her twin. They were each dressed in their normal training attire, Neji in his usual loose and, in her opinion, rather drab garb. Natsuka herself wore a long sleeve lose gray shirt that was almost a dress, and the typical navy shinobi pants with a kunai holster strapped to her thigh. She supposed they were both rather drab with their fashion sense.

Neji glared down at her with his classic holier-than-thou look, which Natsuka believed scared many people off, but only served to amuse her. She vaguely recalled a time when she and her brother were the same height. Back then, you could hardly tell the two apart, despite the fact that they were different genders. It entertained Natsuka to no end when fellow clansmen who saw her around the compound would refer to her by her brother's name before seeing her face and promptly stuttering in embarrassment. But alas, about a year or so ago Neji shot up while Natsuka simply.. did not. Before, you'd have to see the siblings faces to tell who was who, but now with Neji several inches taller than her it was impossible to confuse the two. Besides the height difference, Natsuka didn't fail to notice how their features continued to differentiate as they aged. While they both also shared the same dark, long and straight hair, the similarities ended there. Neji left his hair alone and let it flow down his back. Natsuka preferred to keep hers in a thick braid. Neji's face had grown longer with age, the baby fat fading into sharp angles and a strong chin. His eyes were also constantly squinted into a harsh glare. Natsuka belatedly wondered if that gave him headaches. She, on the other hand, had a rounder face, and softer eyes. She couldn't recall the last time she'd glared at someone, rather, her eyes almost always seemed slightly drooped, as if she were constantly tired. She was cut short in her musings by her brother's voice.

"You might be on my level, you know, if you bothered to get up in the mornings to train like you are supposed to." Neji spoke with his usual cold indifference. It might hurt Natsuka's feelings, if she weren't so used to it. He had probably been up and training for hours already.

Instead of bothering to reply to his statement, she simply shrugged and stepped around him to begin walking down the hall. He let out a barely audible "hmph" and followed suit. They walked side by side across the house until they reached the room they had tea in every morning. Natsuka noticed they were the last to arrive and received a poke in her side for it by her brother. She gave him a nice side glare as she sat. Neji sat in his usual spot to her right, and they both sat silently while servants poored them each a cup of tea. They sipped in a continued silence for several minutes, and it would have been quite awkward if it weren't a daily occurrence. Finally, a voice spoke.

"You're late," said their uncle, not looking up from his cup.

She fought the urge to let out another sigh, and decided to handle this one. "Apologies, Hiashi-sama. I overslept. It won't happen again."

"I might believe you, if this didn't happen every other day," Hiashi said, still indifferent as ever. If one did not know him they would think he didn't care that they were there at all. But Natsuka and Neji did know him, and they knew how easily his patience was tested.

"Apologies, Hiashi-sama," she repeated again. Luckily for her, he decided to drop it, seemingly done speaking for the time being.

She took this as a cue to begin saying more than just a few words. It was an unspoken tradition that no one spoke at morning tea until Hiashi did.

"Good morning, Hinata-sama, Hanabi-sama." Natsuka spoke politely to her two cousins, and gave them each a friendly nod.

"Morning Natsuka onee-chan!" Hanabi chirped in her usual cheery voice. Natsuka truly believed that the young girl had more enthusiasm than the rest of the table combined.

"Good m-morning Natsuka onee-san, Neji onii-san." Hinata said, in a much calmer tone than her younger sister.

Neji said nothing and merely nodded shortly across the table at them. Natsuka again reigned in her sigh. It seemed her brother could never bring himself to be friendly to his cousins. He was never disrespectful; his manners would not let him behave in such a way. But Natsuka could not once recall a time when her brother acted affectionately towards either of his cousins. He seemed barely able to tolerate them on a daily basis. Natsuka had also never bothered to try to change him of his ways. She knew such a thing was not possible with Neji, and she did not want to anyway. A small part of her did not blame her brother for his behavior.

How could he not hate his own family, after all, given his position? How was it fair that Hanabi could sit there without a care in the world, and Hinata could be so demure and complacent, acting afraid of everything? Hinata, heir to the great and noble Hyuuga clan, was currently hunched over her tea and nervously looking across the room, staring blankly at a wall. Natsuka held in her sneer. She was much better at that than Neji. Much more skilled in holding in her irritation and distaste. Neji was even more reserved than Natsuka, but no amount of effort could ever wipe the utter contempt off his face, or the look he sometimes got in his eye when he glanced Hinata's way.

But, alas, Natsuka preferred to think of less dreary things. She did not like her cousins, but she could not hate them. Hate required a certain amount of effort that she was not prepared to give, and she could not blame them for being born. It was no one's fault that they were main branch, and she and Neji were not. That was birth, that was how it was. It was someone's fault, however, that both she and her brother currently wore their hitai-ate over their foreheads; and Hinata and Hanabi, should they ever attain hitai-ate, would be free to wear them where they pleased. There was plenty of blame to go around for that, but Natsuka pushed the darker thoughts to the back of her mind and focused on the present.

"Shall we go, aniki?" let it be said that Neji was in fact only two minutes older than herself.

Neji wordlessly stood up, and together they began their walk to training ground 11. Natsuka finally let out a real sigh of relief, wordlessly grateful that the daily morning fest of silence was over.

"It's graduation day at the academy," she offered up the conversation piece to her brother as they walked. "Do you think Hinata will pass the exam?"

Neji snorted, something he would only ever do in his sister's presence, and said "Perhaps. It is her destiny to be a failure, but I do believe even she could pass such an easy exam."

"Hmm," she said, "I hear there are many clan children graduating this year. Perhaps we'll get some new training partners soon?" As it turns out, there were very few Genin in their age group, and training was generally limited to their own team. It got old, very fast.

"Hmph. If any of them can keep up, that is." Neji spoke coldly, but he couldn't keep the smirk off his face. The idea of new training partners appealed to him as well. "We shall see when we retrieve Hinata-sama from the academy later today." He never failed to use honorifics, unlike herself, even when they were only in the presence of each other.

"Haven't been there in nearly a year." Natsuko said wryly. "Can't say I miss it."

"I do not think anyone would miss the academy," Neji said, a rare smile gracing his face. They continued on their walk across the village in peaceful silence.

They arrived to training ground 11 promptly, just as training was scheduled to begin. Unlike some teams, they did not have to be up and training at ungodly early hour, but they made up for it by training all day. Natsuka honestly had no idea how her brother had the energy for it all.

As soon as they arrived, they came upon a strange sight. Well, strange for others, normal to them. Their third and final teammate, TenTen, was on the ground and doing pushups with a large green blob twice the size of her sitting on her back. The poor girl looked rather dazed as the blob shouted mindless enthusiasms at her and pushed her to go faster.

The twins shared a look out of the corner of their eyes, before they each audibly sighed and walked forward into view of the others. The blob suddenly moved, disappearing from Tenten's back and reappearing not a second later right in front of them. They were then blinded by the biggest and whitest smile ever to be seen, and the most enthusiastic thumbs up that could possibly ever be given.

"HELLO, my little bundles of youth!" Might Gai had possibly the loudest voice known to mankind, Natsuka had long ago decided. "Are we ready to be blossoms of youth and productiveness today!"

The man never seemed to actually ask questions, he just shouted everything. Neji cringed and wordlessly moved towards TenTen to begin warming up. Natsuki offered a smile and spoke in as friendly a voice as she could muster, "Good morning, Gai-sensei. I too, hope we can have a productive day of training." Deep down, though Natsuka would never admit it, she really liked Gai-sensei. She admired his passion and zeal for training and improving, and appreciated the fact that he didn't have a mean bone in his body. Gai-sensei could never be anything less than genuine.

She began stretching with Neji and TenTen while Gai rambled on about the agenda for the day and how they should all aspire to be youthful ducklings. She was rather lazily stretching her arms and staring at the clouds when suddenly her teammates began running off into the distance. She stared blankly at their figures disappearing on the horizon before her sensei spoke.

"Nastuka-chaaaaaan!~ I see the power of youth has distracted you! I shall repeat myself! Today, we will begin with 100 laps around the village, then we shall direct our youthfulness into the practice of our katas, then we will run another 100 youthful laps around…"

Natsuka didn't hear the rest, as she had already begun running. She didn't like to think of herself as lazy, but Gai-sensei's training regimen was truly dreadful and she really didn't wish to hear what was on today's schedule. She let out a deep sigh, sent a look to the clouds one more time before looking straight again, and focused on her run. She wouldn't want to run into another building again, after all.

The Hyuuga twins walked to the academy later that day to pick up their cousin. Neji stood as tall and graceful as ever, while his shorter sibling slumped ever so slightly. While the siblings were nearly on par with skill, in training Neji almost always came out on top. Natsuka simply lacked a certain drive to succeed like her brother. She had a short attention span, and would often lose interest in training activities. She knew all this was true, but never let it faze her. Her brother was a prodigy, and she was not. It was that simple. The idea of being the most powerful person around was not something that Natsuka had ever put much thought into, as her brother did.

Taking their cousin, heiress to the clan, to the academy everyday had been a chore for them since Hinata had begun at the academy years before. The heir simply could not be seen walking alone throughout the village, and so she was always followed by a clan member or two. A year ago, when Natsuka and Neji became Genins, Hiashi allowed them to go straight to training or missions in the morning, but they were always expected to pick up Hinata every afternoon and walk her back to the compound.

Today, TenTen accompanied them. The kunoichi looked a little worse for wear, like Natsuka.

"Neh, Natsuka, that was one of the worst days in a while, yeah?" she asked, stretching her arms as she walked, which were likely sore from all those push-ups. Natsuka had always enjoyed TenTen's informal way of speaking, so different from that of the clan.

"Hmm," she agreed. "Gai-sensei's been on a roll lately. When was the last time we had a mission anyway? Three weeks ago?"

"Something like that. Wonder what all this training is for. He can't train us forever, can he?" TenTen's voice when up a few octaves at the end of her question, as if she was actually contemplating the idea.

"Unlikely." Neji chimed in. He rarely said more than he absolutely needed to. "There is a Chunin examination being held here in Konoha in a few months' time. He is likely preparing us for it."

They all paused for a moment, thinking back on last year's Chunin exam. We had only been a Genin team for a few short months, and personally Natsuka has agreed with Gai-sensei deeming them unready for it, though Neji had thrown a fit. Well, if Neji is even capable of doing that. He did glare a lot more for several weeks after that though.

"We're definitely ready." Natsuka smirked.

"Agreed, I honestly can't wait," TenTen said, smiling. They said their goodbyes and parted ways shortly before reaching the academy. Neji gave a nice little nod.

They arrived at the academy before they could discuss the matter further, and Natsuka took a moment to take in the sheer amount of people surrounding the area. Ah, graduation day. Families always came out to celebrate the promotion to Genin with their children. Most families, that is. Hiashi-sama would never waste his time on such trivial matters. He hadn't come to the twin's graduation, and he didn't come to his own daughters. Natsuka had a feeling little Hanabi would be sad later to have missed out on the event, but oh well. She shrugged as they moved through the crowd, looking for their cousin.

They passed several civilian children, some holding shiny new hitai-ate's proudly and others looking quite devastated. Natsuka, like her brother, briefly wondered how it was possible to fail such a simple exam. Didn't they just have to make a clone, or something similar? Ah, well. Not everyone can be a ninja. They passed several clan families as well. They just barely managed to not get stampeded by a hoard of Inuzuka's. Natsuka remembered Hinata stammering on about an Inuzuka from time to time. What was his name? Kita? She didn't really care enough to remember. And there off to the side of everyone was a boy that Natsuka knew could only be an Aburame. Unlike the Inuzuka's, it appeared that only his parent's had come to the exam. The three of them even had matching glasses, which Natsuka thought was rather cute. And further away from them she glimpsed all three of the Ino-Shika-Cho clans. They really weren't very hard to find, being so distinctive. She noted that all three clan heads were present.

"Interesting. So many future clan heads graduating this year, aniki. Do you think they all planned to have kids at the same time?"

"Hmph. No doubt." Neji answered with a small smile. If anyone could ever entertain him, it was his sister.

"See, there's Inoichi's little brat, Ino. And Shikaku's son, whatever his name is. And that cutie Akimichi boy! Don't you think he's a cutie, Neji?"

Neji cringed and look down at her. "Calm down, imoto," was all he said.

Natsuka laughed quietly as they continued maneuvering through the crowd. They passed a small crowd of Uchiha on the way, and that was positively uncomfortable. For reasons beyond her knowledge, the Hyuuga and Uchiha had always been at odds with each other. Natsuka herself couldn't recall ever even meeting an Uchiha face to face, but she had seen them around the village from time to time. It was said that they rarely left their secluded compound, so Natsuka sometimes thought of them as exotic animals. Tall, stoic animals. She knew about as much about the Uchiha's as she did about the other clan's, which wasn't much. But she did know that the clan head, Fukaku, had two sons named Itachi and Sasuke. She knew this only because Hiashi often discussed them at dinner and during training. He often boasted about the apparent achievements of the eldest son, Itachi, and constantly pushed Neji and herself to be just as good. She knew it really got to Neji, but she'd never bothered to listen much. She didn't really understand how Hiashi could compare them to someone she knew to be several years older than them and thus much more experienced. She'd also never been one to compare herself to others.

As she glanced by, she guessed the smallest boy holding his headband up to his mother was the little brat that had just graduated. Huh, the longer she looked, the more she noticed that the kid was as much of a cutie as the Akimichi. Something about his little baby cheeks really got to her.

"Disgusting." Neji muttered, barely audible.

"Oops, did I say something out loud?" she asked sheepishly. "What can I say Neji? Kids are cute."

They continued on, but not before she got one last look at the Uchiha. Instead of looking at the kid some more though, she noticed two pairs of onyx eyes staring at her. Not the clan head or his wife, and not the kid, but two boys, in their teens. A little older than her, probably. Natsuka merely raised an eyebrow and acted as if she hadn't been caught staring. One of the boys broke eye contact and looked down at the kid, but the other, strangely enough, winked at her. Natsuka froze and stopped moving altogether for a few moments, completely flabbergasted. Did an Uchiha just wink at her?

"Natsuka!" her brother's voice hissed, not for the first time that day. "Stop blanking out. Let's find Hinata-sama and go."

"Heh. Right aniki." Natsuka shuffled a little to catch up to her brother and resumed her normal graceful gait. At least, she hoped it was graceful. She was a bit sore from training.

"Neji?" She exclaimed suddenly, sounding rather shocked.

"What?" He said, unused to outbursts like that from her.

"Is that? Lee-san?"

"What." Was all Neji could say.

But neither of them could deny that the green blob, a miniature version of their own sensei, was there amongst the crowd. He was sporting a wide smile and wearing a headband proudly across his head. Natsuka thought back to a year ago when she and her brother had first become Genin.

"You have both performed well." Hiashi-sama spoke. It was as close as it would ever come to him saying "I'm proud of you." Natsuka actually smiled, and though he tried to hide it, she could tell her brother was just as proud.

"I have good news. After some deliberation, you two will be placed together on a team. I attempted to convince the counsel that solo apprenticeships were the best route, but they were adamantly against it." Hiashi took a moment to give a severe frown. "Your sensei will be Might Gai."

Natsuka could not resist raising an eyebrow. Even as a fresh Genin, even she had heard of the infamous green ninja. Neji looked equally shocked.

"Might…Gai?" He asked. "Hiashi-sama, with all due respect, are you sure that is the best route for us?" he looked pained to be talking back to the clan head, but he could not help himself when it came to the matter of his new sensei.

"You are right to question me, Neji. I do not approve of this matching, but it is the only option. Originally, the elders were going to place Natsuka with a team of civilians. That could not happen. There are no other Genin's on your level, it is imperative for your success that you be placed together."

And so, with just a few words from a powerful clan head, the course of a child's future was changed. With someone else taking his team spot, and no Jounin's willing to take on an apprenticeship to a boy unable to utilize chakra, Rock Lee was sent back to the academy for another year.

Natsuka only knew of Rock Lee's situation because Hiashi had told them. She knew Neji had no care for the boy one way or another; he had deemed him fated to be weak the moment he found out he could not use chakra. But Natsuka had always felt a shred of guilt for taking his spot. She knew it hadn't been up to her, but that didn't stop her from feeling bad about it. She knew deep down that the actions that had transpired were wrong, and wreaked of clan manipulation. Though neither of them had ever questioned it, they knew that it was unheard of for two Hyuuga, let alone siblings, to be placed on a team together. She strongly suspected that Gai-sensei knew as much, but she also was nearly certain that he had no idea that Natsuka was not originally his student.

She was happy to see that he had at least passed the Genin exam again. Perhaps now, fate would be kinder to him.

Beside her, Neji was glaring in shock.

"How? He can't even use chakra! How did that weakling become a ninja?"

"You forget Neji, that he passed the exam once before." She reminded him quietly. She shook her head, not wanting to dwell. "It doesn't matter."

She finally spotted her cousin in the crowd and wordlessly waved her over. She didn't fail to notice the new hitai-ate tied securely around her cousin's collar. Natsuka felt a brief surge of bitterness, but quickly shoved it down. She offered a small smile.

"Congratulations, Hinata-sama." Neji repeated the same words, albeit very stiffly. He could not even bother to try to fake enthusiasm for his cousin's success.

Nevertheless, Hinata seemed happy with just those few short words. She smiled brightly at them and said, "T-thank you, Natsuka nee-san, Neji nii-san. Tomorrow we will be assigned our teammates and senseis." The girl looked hopeful and excited. Natsuka noted that her stutter wasn't completely horrendous today.

"I am sure it will turn out well," she offered.

As they began walking back to the compound, Natsuka spotted an orange blur. She turned her head and saw one Naruto Uzumaki sitting alone on a bench, gripping a headband in his hand. He was looking towards the ground and did not see her staring at him. Natsuka's thoughts swirled, thinking about the boy. He was known as the village's pariah. "The fox," he was often called. He was leered at, bullied, and parents often kept their children away from him. She knew all this from seeing it unfold every day at the academy. It often saddened her to see children walking home for the day with their parent's, while he would trudge off to wherever he lived alone. Natsuka had no idea why he was treated the way he was, and thought it was all rather silly. But at the same time, the darker side of her wondered if there was reason behind the mistreatment. It was no matter though; she had never interacted with the boy and likely never would. Even Hinata had never mentioned him, and they were in the same class.

Hinata continued smiling and they went on their way. It was time to return home and prepare for yet another day of grueling training. Natsuka sighed.

Author's Note

This is an OC story, not SI and not reincarnation. And, in case you didn't notice, non-mass. Criticism, ideas and opinions always welcome.