He walked into the kitchen to find Hinata and Yuki laughing together while cleaning up their dishes. Normally the branch family took care of it, but he guessed that Yuki had insisted. He leaned against the archway, their backs were to him. He inwardly laughed when he saw that Yuki was wearing a white apron over her regular clothes.

"So is Neji a good sensei?" Hinata asked Yuki, neither kunoichi noticed Neji.

"...Yeah, I'm glad he's teaching me. But I miss my old Team." Yuki explained, Neji felt kind of bad eavesdropping, but it was there fault that they hadn't noticed him.

"I'm so sorry. That must have been awful. Were they your good friends?" Hinata went on.

"They were like the only family I had left. My precious people." Yuki sounded distraught, but Hinata whipped around to face her.

"What do you mean? What happened to your parents?" Hinata asked, unnerved. Neji stood stiffly, she didn't have a family?

"They were killed along time ago, back when I was seven," Yuki explained. Neji suddenly remembered something his fangirls had said, 'Remember for like an entire year she wouldn't talk to anyone!' 'Oh ya, what was she, like seven?' 'Yeah, and she was totally standoffish!'

Neji felt like the world had stopped spinning, Yuki was an orphan?

"Hey, don't feel sorry for me Hinata. That was a long time ago, I'm fine now." Yuki said. Neji decided to make his presence known.

"Yuki?" Neji asked, she turned around

"Hi Neji-sensei." Yuki said cheerfully. Neji stared at her, she looked alright and he could tell from her eyes that she was genuinely happy to see him.

"I had no idea that you were an orphan." Neji once again stated something bluntly. Yuki's face paled.

"I didn't think that you needed to know." She said

"Just because I'm your sensei doesn't mean I don't care. I'm your friend too." Neji said quickly. Hinata stared at him, a surprised expression on her face. Happiness crossed Yuki's face, but then was replaced with guilt. She's hiding something from me. Why does she do this? He thought about confronting her but decided against it. It would come out sooner or later, just like the fact that she had no parents. "Well, we should get back to training. Don't you have training as well Hinata?"

"Yes, Kiba and Shino are meeting me soon." she answered. Neji nodded and started walking away.

"Bye Hinata, it was nice meeting you." Yuki said politely, dipping her head. Neji pulled Yuki out of the kitchen and led her out the front door. They walked down into the grass towards the training grounds before they being confronted by a huge white dog. It barked playfully and pounced on Yuki, who rolled to the ground laughing. Neji watched them happily. Akamaru had pinned Yuki to the ground and was trying to lick her face. Neji knew that normally she would have been able to push the dog off, but at the moment she was laughing to hard.

"Oi!!! Akamaru! Get off of her!!" Neji looked up to watch Kiba sprint over to them, Shino following at a more leisurely pace. Kiba managed to pull Akamaru off enough so that Yuki could sit up, but Akamaru kept trying to lick her face.

"Akamaru!" Kiba tried to reprimand the dog, but he was ignoring him.

"Its alright, I already love him." Yuki laughed petting Akamaru's head. The dog immediately rolled to the ground to expose his stomach, obviously wanting a belly rub. Yuki laughed again before obliging. Neji stared at her for a few moments before realizing that Kiba was looking at him strangely.

"Yes?" Neji asked, Kiba looked back at Yuki who had stood up and brushed off some of the dirt that had messed up her clothes. Kiba addressed her.

"Gomen, he doesn't understand that not everyone likes to play with him." Kiba apologized.

"Oh, its fine." Yuki said

"So, who exactly are you?" Shino asked, finally catching up to them. Neji answered for her.

"This is my student Yuki, she's a chunin."

"She's just your student? Okay then," Kiba asked deviously before sauntering up to Yuki, "Hi I'm Kiba."

Yuki turned pink, "Nice to meet you Kiba. Aren't you part of Hinata's team?"

"Yeah, we're supposed to be training."

"Don't worry, she's coming right now." Neji motioned towards the house. Hinata had just emerged from a side door, and in a few moments was at their side.

"I'm ready guys. Neji if you wanted, you and Yuki could join our practice for today." Hinata offered. Neji thought about this for a moment and looked towards Yuki. She was absentmindedly petting Akamaru.

"That would be nice Hinata-chan, but I'll have to decline. I haven't tested her abilities thoroughly enough yet." Neji said. Yuki looked slightly disappointed but didn't look as though she minded too much. Hinata and Shino shrugged and started walking.

"I hope to see you again soon Yuki!" Kiba winked before running after his teammates. Akamaru gave Yuki's hand one final lick before bounding after his owner.

Neji handed Yuki her backpack and began walking towards the training grounds. Kiba just flirted with my student. Neji felt kind of weird about this.

------

Neji led Yuki back to the training ground and thought about what they hadn't gone over yet. She can do genjutsu, her taijutsu is pretty good, she did well with weapons... the only thing left is ninjutsu. She's good at everything we've done so far, so this is probably her weak point. Neji decided on asking her to do some basic moves, and then he'd ask her to show him her strongest move, and they'd start from there.

When they finally reached the training ground Yuki dropped her backpack next to the usual tree while Neji turned to face her.

"Today, I'm going to study your education in ninjutsu." Neji said, Yuki looked ecstatic.

"Finally!" she exclaimed. Neji held back a smile, trying to maintain his serious look.

"Do a replacement jutsu." Neji asked, and stared at her for a moment expecting her to do the handsigns. She just stood there. "Yuki?"

Suddenly the Yuki in front of him poofed into a log, and he heard laughter from behind him. She read my mind and then did the justu before I even told her! Tricky...

"You're not allowed to read my mind!!" Neji said whipping around to face her. She laughed at him.

"I'm not reading your mind, the moment you said 'replacement' I started the handsigns, then you turned to look at me." She laughed again. I'm being paranoid.

"Alright, transform." He said, making sure to watch her closely. She did the handsigns very fast with deathly accuracy, and suddenly Neji was staring at himself. Only, he had his hands on his hips and was skipping around looking very girly, while flipping his hair back. He scowled. The other Neji pranced up to him and pouted.

"Aww, don't look like that, you'll get wrinkles-" Yuki (in Neji's form) informed him before she was cut off by Neji who tripped her. She was sent sprawling to the ground and poofed back to her original form. Once again she was laughing. Neji looked away from her with a small smile on his face, before he remembered that he was supposed to be teaching her and learning what she was capable of.

"Alright show me your strongest attack ninjutsu." He said, and was surprised when she suddenly looked very serious.

"I'm not sure how to use it very well yet." Was all she said. Neji was curious.

"What is it?"

"I have no idea, I guess I created it myself one day. I'll show it to you though, I have good control over it." She said and began performing several handsigns. Neji wasn't sure whether to be excited or nervous. He hoped it wouldn't be some kind of forbidden technique, but knowing her he decided that it wouldn't.

Quickly, some water rose from the ground around Yuki and formed a wavy ring around her at about her waist. But she kept doing handsigns. All at once, she raised one hand to the sky and one pointed with two fingers down to the ground.

Neji waited for a second, before realizing that she was collecting energy from the ground, and he assumed the sky. He looked at her strangely. How was this an attacking move? She brought her hands back together and opened her eyes, then reached out and brushed the water in front of her lightly, the liquid started to sizzle around her with energy. There's lightening inside the water! Neji's eyes widened in shock, Yuki had managed to trap electricity into the water and now it was floating around her. Finally she spoke.

"Watch carefully." She gestured outward with her arm, and the water followed her movements. It floated lazily over to him, and he took a step back. He could feel the air around him tingle. Yuki laughed at his reaction, then twirled the water up towards the sky and let it splash down, stopping it before it reached the ground. She glanced at him for a moment, then sweeped her arms to the side. The water rushed towards a tree at the side of the clearing, and went through it. The tree swayed in the breeze for a moment and then creaked loudly before falling to the ground. Yuki let the water drop and sink into the ground.

Neji stared at her. What the hell!?

"That was the first time I've shown anybody." Yuki said, she seemed a little disappointed with his reaction.

"No, no, its great! I've just never seen anything like it." Neji praised her. She smiled back at him, and Neji saw how tired she looked.

"Alright, that's enough for today. Go home, and get some rest." Neji told her, expecting her to be happy. Instead she looked at him reluctantly and then shifted her eyes. Suddenly Neji remembered her strange eating habits and decided that it was about time he got a real answer for her behavior.

"Yuki, I want you to answer this truthfully. Why haven't you been eating?" Neji asked, bluntly like always. She hesitated.

"I haven't been on any missions lately." she looked as though she hoped he wouldn't ask anything more, but that certainly wasn't enough. Neji assumed that she didn't want to eat because she liked her figure and since she wasn't on missions to work out, she felt guilty about eating.

"Yuki, you need to care less about your figure, this is unhealthy."

She looked at him incredulously, then started howling with laughter.

"I'm serious Yuki, if you don't start eating regularly, I'll take it to the hokage. As a ninja, we need to eat as much if not more than regular civilians." He said further, he was irritated with how lightly she took this matter.

"Neji," Yuki started, trying to catch her breath from laughing so hard while simultaneously wiping her eyes, "I haven't gone on missions lately. Meaning I have no money. Meaning I can't afford food." Neji stared at her. What? Whoever heard of not being able to afford food?