She'd won. She'd lost. She'd won.

Tayuya survived where none of the others did. She'd practically killed him when they all... Failed badly. Fucking shame.

And she was the weak spot of the team now, for having the audacity to live and fall prey to their grasp.

'They're all idiots…'

They left her behind, died like they were fucking supposed to! And yeah, they were all supposed to die sometime, but not strapped to a chair after some mindless termites got it into their heads that she wasuseless! If Tayuya could just slit every fucking neck in Konoha, she'd definitely recover from her 'very likely initial shock', which she remembered as some line floating around in her head that she probably picked up while they thought she was totally zonked out.

She knew she was in Konohagakure. The fucking rats' nest… They'd treated her injuries and kept her sedated for, eh… Probably a long time. No doubt they wanted to quiz her on Uchiha Sasuke and his whereabouts, maybe about her curse seal, or what she'd last heard from Orochimaru-sama. Yeah… They really were shitheads.

She was feeling more alert now, and the tube connected to her armpit was gone. Tayuya couldn't remember them putting it in or taking it away, which was weird, thinking about them moving her limbs like a ragdoll.

"H-Hah…" she lifted an arm up, then dropped it heavily to her side. She could feel gauze or something brushing against her armpit. So whatever incisions they made hadn't healed yet…

And she wasn't sure of the effects of long-term heavy anesthesia, as the last time she'd been sedated was, what? Seven years ago after the green guy tried to steal her apple? And she'd bitten him until they pulled her off, then stared them all down as she lost consciousness. What a fucking story…

But this story was shaping up to be crap! It began and ended with Konoha rats sticking their filthy noses into other peoples' business. Yeah, Tayuya couldn't complain about getting some extra time in this pathetic world, but all of that would apparently be spent gritting her teeth without end as she stared them all down, every puny, retarded, beady-eyed rat they tried to pin on her. It was a tall order, and if she fell short, that would... Suck. It would suck and the story would be crap and she'd go down like a little girl.

Then again, she wasn't a little girl! If she'd decided 'no pain, no gain' when she was seven, she'd be dead by now at the hands of Kabuto or a peer. Back then Tayuya had known that the end result of her life was death when it befitted someone else, but that didn't mean she wasn't a fucking demon despite all that! Yeah! She was exceptional even within her limits!

'I alone am exalted.'

So she'd be just fine. They wouldn't think they'd won the battle she'd let them get into. They wanted her dead after they got their intel, so if she stuck it out until she was killed or put into a coma by some rookie interrogator, or, hell, proclaimed unworkable, she'd win even as she died. Which was the only option, anyway... Heh.

And this wasn't even Orochimaru-sama's battle, actually. This was about being too good for the Konohagakure interrogators and their useless methods. This was a battle for her, and that was why Tayuya would win.

Neji was very lucky to have fought the girl. That much was obvious.

Tayuya's attacks came in two parts, like most genjutsu users. The first was incapacitation, which she clearly excelled at. The next would be a final attack as mundane as a kunai to the throat. Although it wasn't necessarily mundane, and thus the final attack itself wasn't the weak spot. The weak spot was simply the time between the attacks- anything could happen at that point, such as a teammate intervening, distraction on the part of the genjutsu user, or in their case, the genjutsu user being incapacitated as well.

From their battle, he'd also gotten the impression that she was no idiot. She'd hopped around different areas all about four meters each from her doki. So he had falsely concluded that this was the distance she needed to control them, assuming that they needed to hear the sound of her flute since when he'd struck her, she'd stopped playing, and they'd stopped moving. From that, he'd spent a few minutes scoping out the possible spots she could be hiding, and she'd used the distraction to find a tree limb quite a ways from where he was to continue playing.

And he'd only realized that a split second before he fell prey to the genjutsu and became trapped in a revolving orb with strange, shifting patterns and growing heat. Neji couldn't recall how long he remained conscious now, and besides, he doubted his perception of time was the same as in the outside world. All he knew was that he had lost consciousness at some point, and the moment he woke he was slung over a jounin's shoulder at the gates of Konohagakure.

Neji's head was upside down and blood was rushing into it. He still felt as though he was in the orb and could faint at any moment, so he told the jounin that he was awake and asked if he had any major injuries.

When the jounin said that he didn't and was the best off physically of any of his teammates, Neji asked to be let down. He acquiesced.

Kiba was being carried back in a stretcher while Shikamaru trudged in front of them with an arm in a sling. He nodded dully to Neji when he caught his gaze.

"Where are Choji and Naruto?" he'd asked the jounin who had been carrying him. Choji had left them first while Naruto hadn't come back with Shikamaru and Kiba. And of those two, they had vastly different injuries. So they could have just split up themselves… With the condition of Kiba and the absence of Choji and Naruto, it seemed understandable to him that Shikamaru was especially somber.

The jounin sighed and looked up to the sky. Its emptiness seemed to calm many of them in times of distress. It symbolised the rest of the world moving forward while they followed as best they could.

"Choji is in critical condition. His fate is unknown right now," he said and Neji nodded. Unknown fate was why people discussed fate at all, and he knew that now. He doubted this man meant anything other than what he thought in different words.

"And Naruto is missing."

No. Neji stiffened. Was he…?

Shikamaru looked back over at them.

"A boy named Kimimaro appeared and confronted Naruto. We haven't been able to find him since."

Neji looked back at the other jounin quickly. "Who's looking for him?"

"Hatake Kakashi, for one," another man snarled. We reached the front of the gates and two shaken-looking chuunin opened them. "We don't want you risking your life again, either. So be grateful for how little you've got to show for this shit."

Slightly put off by the cheapening swear word, Neji just shook his head.

Naruto was missing. He was the chain that kept them from losing Uchiha Sasuke, and if he was lost too…

Neji took a breath and stared at the buildings. It was nighttime now, and he could have activated Byakugan to catch sight of the people clasping their hands over their mouth and respectfully backing into their homes, but there was no point to it now. They were walking directly to the hospital, where nurses would be turning in and out around the clock, so there would be plenty of staring then.

Naruto wasn't dead. He had to think that, now, not out of grief or shock, but because he knew how hard it was to kill a Jinchuuriki and what threats their deaths posed. It wasn't something he could bring up now, so it had to wait.

Naruto. Dead. Lost…

Neji would ask for sleeping pills if he was allowed into the hospital, he decided.

And if he had activated Byakugan then, instead of just being sent up to a room to be checked on and falling asleep with haste, Neji would have seen what was behind the walls three rooms to his right. The operation room.

He would have seen her.