If Neji was anything, it was proud and ambitious. Proud that he had already gotten so much trust from his uncle after Hinata passed. That was all the Hyuugas called it. She passed. Not she committed suicide by blowing her brains out with a nine millimeter. In Neji's point of view, it was because she couldn't handle the pressure of being Uncle Hiashi daughter.
And that was just the way Neji wanted it. The less they talked about Hinata, the better. Hiashi was in agreement with him, too.
Since she passed, a lot had gotten done. They had demolished the gazebo she had loved to make room for a new office for Uncle and currently, the Hyuugas were one of the wealthiest families in town. Uncle Hiashi owned the most in-demand eye glass company in the nation. Not only did they make the best glasses out there, they made all kinds of lenses for the military, NASA, the government – no wonder they were filthy rich.
Neji had just gotten a lecture from Hiashi on business handling and was walking back to his quarters when the air got cold. It was something he was used to but never at home. And never this cold. Before he could get his phone and call anyone, like Itachi or another Detective, the cold manifested itself right behind him. He breathed in and out, watching his breath curl like smoke, not daring to say anything. He didn't need to.
"I didn't know little girls were allowed outside by themselves. Where's your Daddy? Know where mine is? Your uncle would, coward." Slowly, Neji turned around and saw angry, transparent brown eyes. That fact calmed him instantly - ghosts couldn't hurt him - and he smirked.
"Oh, he would now? Depends on what your dad did to deserve death." Her lips curled in a state of defiance. Tenten wasn't going to let some pampered brat get into her head.
"In about thirty seconds, you're going to receive a call from the Poltergeist Detectives. Answer it and I'm sure he will explain it better than I could."
While Neji reached for his cell phone, he chuckled, "Oh, yeah? And why can't you explain it?"
She slowly became more and more transparent, "Because every time I look at you, I see Hinata's murderer." Then, she vanished before Neji had a chance to say anything.
True to what she said, Itachi called thirty seconds later. "Neji, we have a situation going on, but I need to know first if you've seen Tenten."
Neji could barely talk, "Yeah, I saw one, but she treated me like a rat before dissapearing."
Another voice began talking and Neji could tell by the way her voice made the reception crackle a little bit that she was a ghost. "Yeah, she drew the short straw and had to find you, and she isn't going to like you at all. Not that I can blame her," she muttered.
Itachi wrestled the phone back from her, "Listen, Neji, you need to make her realize that it's important she comes with you. We need both of you here."
Ghosts who have been dead for awhile can preform tricks, like throwing their voice. Neji realized that the ghost who visited him must have been dead a while because even though he couldn't see her, her voice sounded clearly into the cell phone.
"I'm going to follow him, Ino, okay! But I have no intention of being anywhere near him again! It makes me sick just looking at him."
"Tenten, I understand, I get it! But this is for Sakura, for our glue. We can't lose her, not like this."
There was a pause before Neji felt that nearly unbearable coldness take over the garden he was standing in again. "Fine," Tenten sounded defeated, "fine, but don't expect me to like it."
"See ya in a few." The line hung up before Neji could. He could feel the presence behind him, disgruntled, and he pondered the reason for the ghosts disliking him so much. Or why they were so important anyway. He turned around to get a good look at her.
With crossed arms, Tenten looked like she had been ready to go to bed. However, her plain white shirt and red sweats were decorated with bullet holes. And not the kind that were put there accidentally, either. Neji wanted to ask what had happened but she beat him to it, "Like I'm going to tell a little jerk like you. Let's go, my best friend is waiting."
Normally, Neji wouldn't have taken any orders from anyone but Itachi, but this is what Itachi told him to do. So he scowled at her and made his way toward his car. When he got in, Tenten materialized in the passenger seat. "I'm only here to make sure you get there as quickly as possible. Now, hurry!"
They made it there in five minutes, nearly good enough for Tenten, who seemed to hate Neji even more with every move he made. As soon as he parked, Tenten vanished and he could only assume she had gone inside. He followed a bit slower and gave a polite nod to the adult Uchiha's who were sitting at the kitchen table.
When Neji entered the living room, three ghosts were huddled to one side, two of them (one being Tenten) seeming to shield someone from him. The other was a glaring blonde. Before he could question his teammates about why he was called, the blonde ghost beat him to it.
"Alright, now that the main group is here, I can go on to explain stuff now. For the sake of him," she jabbed a finger over her shoulder at Neji, "I'll introduce ourselves."
"Ino," Tenten warned, an alarmed look on her face, "but-"
"It has to happen sooner or later and I'd rather get it over with now. I'm Ino, that's Tenten, and behind her is Hinata." Ino spoke so fast that Neji barely registered what she said, but all he had to understand was 'Hinata' and he could guess who the third ghost was.
"Hinata-sama?" Neji struggled to peer through Tenten to see his cousin, but she moved protectively in front of her, clear brown eyes flashing vehemently.
Itachi stepped in, his face a picture of annoyance, "Enough. Whatever is between you two can wait. We have a missing ghost and a job to do." When he was sure that Neji wouldn't attempt to pursue whatever that ghost was to him, he continued to everyone in the room: Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, and the three ghosts, "Our job is to help these ghosts get their friend back and help determine what caused her to run in the first place. I've already sent the Akatsuki scouting some places that are frequented by the missing ghost, named Sakura. Understand."
Everyone, including Neji, agreed. No matter what issues arose, they all had a duty to help ghosts and, damn it, they were going to do it to the best of their abilities. No matter what.
Her terror seemed to claw at her heart and she knew that she couldn't make it back to her home, not in this condition. That man - that horrible, awful, hateful ghost - must have done something to her. With every move, images came back to haunt her with such persistence that no matter how much she tried to repress them, they ended up consuming her conscience until she collapsed to the ground, clutching her head. How ironic, a ghost being haunted by the memories that composed made her childhood.
They flashed through her mind as fast as death, but she could see every one of them clearly. The first was her foster father and his murderer.
A terrible crash made a little girl's head jerk up from her place at the kitchen table, coloring. The girl couldn't be older than six, with pink hair and green eyes that sparkled with curiosity. Peering around the corner as best she could, the girl called, "Father? What was that? Is everything okay?" She had just slid out of the chair when another boom came from the living room, and a man's horrible, dying scream froze her in her place.
Her gut churning in unfathomable worry, the candy haired girl inched forward toward the door, not abandoning caution in the face of destruction, even if she had no idea what was going on. However, as she glanced into the living room, the girl couldn't hold back her bloodcurdling scream. Her father, the man who had raised her since she was a baby, was lying on the floor with a pool of blood surrounding his head. Obviously dead.
With her scream, a man whipped his head around, pale lips splitting in an absolutely sickening grin. The yellow eyes, glassy and soul-chilling, fixed on the petrified little girl with a look of triumph. Standing up from his kneeling position over the kind, dead old man, the murderer cooed, "Hello, little Sakura, hello. Come here, I won't bite." All Sakura needed to see was a hand, pale and drained of life, reaching out to here before she bolted, running as fast as her little legs would carry her. The man tried to spring after her, but he didn't know the area nearly as well as she and as he tried to follow, he slipped in the blood of the man he just murdered.
As he knew that the little girl was long gone, he roared, "You can't hide from me! Not from me, Sakura!"
The tears were streaming down her transparent face even before the second memory bombarded her senses.
Giggling, Ino relayed to Sakura the local gossip at school, to which the homeless orphan responded with howls of laughter and together, the girls made fun of how shallow the world had become. However, the sudden silence outside caught Sakura's attention. "Why did that dog stop barking?"
Ino, rolling her sky blue eyes, proceeded to pull her white and purple striped socks back up to her knees, "You're worried about that old hound? He probably found a bone or something."
"But wasn't he chasing a cat? What dog would stop chasing a cat to chew a bone?" Years of fending for herself on the streets had made Sakura keen to changes in her surroundings and had saved her life more than once.
"I don't kn-" Before the blonde could finish her sentence, a grenade was thrown in through a window and the resulting blast hurled both girls back and into the wall behind them. Large chunks of the wood wall crumbled down and partly buried them, but fortunately, it wasn't a load-bearing wall. Groaning, Sakura shook her head and searched for her friend, crawling over when she saw her. The teenager was unconscious, a large red mark forming on her temple. Sakura shook her, rasping, "I-Ino, come on, get up. We h-have to go . . ." Her voice trailed off as the man who had become her nightmares stepped through the door, the grin ever present on his sickening face.
"Sakura," he purred, "how nice to see you again. I believe we ended our previous meeting a little too soon, wouldn't you agree?"
She couldn't talk, her tongue was frozen in terror. It didn't matter to him; he ushered his men forward and Sakura barely caught the tail end of his order, "Make her talk. I don't care how, just get that information from her by any means necessary. As for the blonde . . . kill her."
Thankfully, the door to the building she was cowering in was kicked down loudly, jolting her out of the torrent of memories. However, the ones she had recalled were still replaying themselves over and over again in her mind, and as hard as she tried, Sakura couldn't hold back her tears. Weeping heart-brokenly into her arms, crossed over her chest, she also didn't hear someone approaching.
By no means was Kisame an unfeeling person and he had dealt with crying ghosts before, but never like this. Not this choked sobbing, her face distorted in special kind of agony that one feels from the heart. It seemed that she hasn't noticed him yet and he quickly glanced around, his finely honed senses detecting no other ghosts except for her. He looked back at her. 'Sakura, huh? Suits you,' he noted her faint but obviously pink hair, just barely long enough to reach past her shoulders and tickle her collarbone. Her sobs hadn't lessened and while uncomfortable, he put his feelings aside for the pitiful girl before him who needed a strong personality right now.
"Sakura?" Her head snapped up, surprisingly bright emerald eyes staring at him, terrified. Kisame took a step beck to show her he meant no harm, "Hey, relax. I only want to help. Ino-san, Hinata-san, and Tenten-san are worried about you and want you to come home."
The trails of sticky sadness that coated her cheeks were ignored as she continued to stare at him, although her gaze had turned less terrified and more awestruck. "Hoshigaki Kisame, one of the Poltergeist Detectives. You're second only to Itachi, the leader."
"Uh, yeah. How'd you know that?"
Even with her episode having just passed, she managed to raise an eyebrow at him quizzically, "Who doesn't know? You guys are legends to us."
Kisame couldn't keep the self-satisfied smirk off of his face, "Cool."
"Are my friends okay? H-he didn't get them too, did her?" Just as quickly as it had left did her anxiety return and she stood up, eyes wide in worry.
The large teenager grinned, pointed teeth peeking out, "Yup, they'll be even better when they learn the you're okay. Come on, kiddo, let's go."
Sakura wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, Kisame's cheerful and personable personality erasing the horrible memories that were pushed back further and further. Nodding, she followed him outside, barely sparing a glance back to the building behind her.
Finally, she left her foster father's house behind.