Chapter 2: In Which Lee Disappears

Lee and Sakura left soon after they finished their tea, leaving Neji and Tenten no more enlightened. After finally getting the free orange chicken he had been waiting all day for, Neji left as well before Tenten's mother could drag him into washing dishes again.

The sun was setting by the time he arrived back at the Hyuuga clan compound. Cautiously, Neji crept to his room, hoping no one would notice him and ask him to do anything. While there was an agreement that the Bakugan was off-limits inside the compound, a lot of the elders had very sharp hearing. He arrived safely at his room, and promptly collapsed across his bed. He didn't even bother to undress before falling asleep.

Alas, it didn't last. Whoever happened to be arranging the weather that night must have had a personal grudge against Neji, because Konoha was subjected to one of the loudest thunderstorms there had been in years. After a particularly emphatic thunderclap, Hanabi (whose room was on one side of Neji's) ran shrieking into Hinata's room (which was on the other side). Hoping that would be the end of it, Neji tried to go back to sleep.

He had just arrived at a very pleasant dream (which for the life of him he couldn't remember later, although he had a fuzzy idea that Tenten was involved somewhere) when an angry roll of thunder woke up not only him but apparently Hinata and Hanabi as well. Next thing he knew, the door to his room burst open and the two girls ran in.

"Neji-nii-san, c-can we sleep in here?" Hinata asked.

"Yeah, sure, Hinata-sama," Neji replied automatically, before rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.

This effort was not particularly successful. While Hinata did make some token attempts to sleep, Hanabi had apparently given up on this objective altogether. Once she started telling ghost stories, the other two also decided that sleep wasn't entirely essential that night.

It was still solidly dark outside by the time Neji had to leave for training, and his two cousins showed no sign of going back to their respective beds anytime soon. In the end, he just left them in the room, deciding that there wasn't much in there that could get ruined, even if Hanabi decided to search his things. Hinata probably wouldn't let her, anyway, but he had long since learned not to leave anything there that he wanted to keep secret.

On that pleasant thought, he made his way out of the compound. The streets were deserted, so he ran through the village without exactly looking where he was going.

"Hey, Neji—watch out!"

"Ten—ow!"

Neji hit Tenten going almost full speed, throwing them both to the ground in front of the Feng Huang Diner. Somehow, Tenten landed on top. She was a lot heavier than Neji had expected, but that was probably from all the metal weaponry she was wearing.

"Why don't you watch where you're going, Neji? If you're going to go bolting through the village like that, you might at least use the Byakugan! What if my grandmother had decided to do her early morning shopping?"

Although Neji didn't like to use the Byakugan outside of combat, she had a good point. "Sorry. We'd better get going or we'll be late."

Tenten nodded. "Right. Well, since you're here, I might as well get some more baozi to eat on the way. Be right back!"

She darted back into the restaurant as Neji got to his feet, quickly returning with a large paper bag full of something that smelled delicious. Neji could feel the heat radiating from the bag from several feet away as they hurried towards Team 10's usual training ground.

When they arrived, they approached cautiously. Lee's greetings could be very enthusiastic. However, today there was no Youthful Green Blur to be seen.

"We can't possibly be early," Tenten pointed out. "The training field's a mess: maybe Lee got bored and left."

"Tenten, 'Lee' and 'bored' are two words that should never be used in the same sentence. Besides, he'd never skip out on training, so he has to be around here somewhere. He'd probably climbing the Hokage Mountain with Gai-sensei or something."

They waited a while for Lee and Gai to turn up, using the time to go through katas. After ten minutes passed with still no sign of the rest of Team 10, Neji decided they had a legitimate reason to worry and turned on the Byakugan to scan the area.

"Do you see anything?" Tenten asked, pausing before she threw a spread of shuriken at a target.

Neji shook his head. "Gai-sensei is not in the village. I can't find Lee either." He increased the distance he was scanning and tried again, then again and again. With Lee's undeveloped chakra system, he was very hard to find. Finally, Neji caught a glimpse of green spandex and bright orange weights. "Found him," he announced. "But..." Lee wasn't moving at all, but he was definitely getting farther away, and that rapidly. Someone was holding him on the back of a horse?

"Neji, what's wrong?" Tenten sounded worried as she picked up on Neji's tension.

"Tenten, Lee's been taken prisoner. We have to go after them now, they're already more than five miles away and moving fast. Come on!"

To her credit, Tenten did not hesitate or ask any questions, only stopping to snatch up a few of her scrolls and stuff a baozi in her mouth before racing after Neji. Once they were outside the village (although the gate guards had been surprised, they had come to expect strange behaviour from Team 10 and let them out without asking why) he explained briefly what he had seen, as they settled into their top speed through the trees.

"Three warriors, all on horseback. One of them had Lee. They weren't wearing headbands, and their clothing was foreign."

"Samurai?" Tenten suggested.

"That is possible; they were wearing armor. They are heading for the coast."

The one drawback of scanning five miles away with the Byakugan was that it made it very hard for Neji to see what was directly in front of him. Normally, this was not an issue, as he would scan from a stationary position before moving into close quarters, but now he was having to continually track a moving object while travelling as quickly as possibly himself. After Tenten had to drag him out of the way of a branch for the third time, she pulled him to a stop.

"You said they didn't look like ninja?" she queried.

"Yes, but—"

"Were they wearing scale armor? Domed helmets? Did you see the emblem of a dragon anywhere?" Tenten demanded.

Neji didn't see the aim of her questions, but answered so they could get moving again. "Yes. None of them wore helmets. The leader had a dragon on the back of his tunic. Let's go now!"

"No, wait, we have to think first! I think they're warriors from Tian Xia, where my family is from. I've seen pictures in my mother's books. If we just chase them, they're sure to outrun us. We just need to head for the port they're most likely to go to. Any ideas?"

"Tsuki no Minato," Neji suggested. "I was reading an economics book that said most of the trade between the shinobi countries and Tian Xia comes through there. If we head straight south-east, we might get there before they do."

"Sounds good to me," Tenten said. "But what were you doing reading about economics?"

"I find it a fascinating subject," Neji explained, "with all the different causes and effects, and decisions with far-reaching consequenses...why, don't you like it?"

"If it helps us find Lee I do," Tenten replied as they started off again.

With the Byakugan off, Neji didn't run into any more branches, so they were able to move a bit faster. However, even moving at top speed it took them several hours to reach the city. Once inside the city, they had to slow to a normal walking pace to get through the crowds, but finally they reached the dock area.

"Okay, where are they?" Tenten growled, readying a kunai.

"Out there," Neji said. "We're too late."

Shading her eyes with her hand, Tenten followed Neji's pointing finger to see a large dark ship moving quickly away from them with the brisk wind. It was already too far to swim to; not that either of them were much good at swimming. "Are you sure Lee's aboard?"

Neji nodded. "In a locked hold."

"I see." Struck by a sudden idea, she ran over to one of the dockhands. "When does the next ship leave for Tian Xia?" she asked.

"Passenger ship? Not for three days. There's that diplomatic ship, the Oshichi, but it won't take passengers. It leaves in only a few hours." Having answered the question, the dockhand payed Tenten no further regard and continued his work.

Tenten hurried back to Neji. "Take off your headband," she said, pulling off her own.

"Tenten, I don't see the—"

Not even bothering to let him finish his statement, Tenten yanked Neji's headband off and flung both of them into the water.

"Tenten!" Neji protested, and for a few seconds she actually thought he was going to dive after it.

"Calm down, okay? I know what the seal looks like, it's not a big deal." Neji glared. "To me," Tenten ammended. "Look, we're about to cause an international incident, so it's probably best if they can't tell we're from Konoha."

"What?"

Tenten pointed to the Oshichi, bobbing serenely at the end of the dock. "I found us a way to Tian Xia."

...

[A/N: I basically made up all of Tenten's character and backstory from whole cloth. Just so you know, I'm going on vacation the first two weeks of August, so no updates until I get back.]