"Let us train together, Neji!"
Slowly, Neji's eyes flickered over to Lee before they returned to their fixed spot on the ground. "I did not give you permission to call me by my given name."
Lee faltered, furrowing his thick brows in confusion. "I thought…we were past this, Neji?" He brightened. "But if it pleases you, then shall I call you with an honorific instead! Yes! That's just the thing to do! Let me call you Neji-chan, Neji-chan!"
Her voice was toneless. "Do what you will."
Lee wilted.
Neji wasn't even moved. She gazed unceasingly away.
Lee wilted even more. "My…eternal rival. This…this is not at all like you! What has happened to subdue my greatest rival, Neji-chan!" He gasped. "Could it be…that you are in absolute awe of Gai-sensei's new training regime! Yosh! I knew it to be true! Is the new exercises too much for even a genius such as yourself? No! It cannot be—you are my eternal rival! This cannot be true! I must tell Gai-sensei immediately!"
She waited until he was gone. Neji's head jerked in her other teammate's direction. "Why did you not stop his endless prattle?"
Tenten looked at her uncertainly. "Neji," she hesitated, "did something—happen?"
Neji, usually so immaculate, was in a state of disarray. Her coffee tresses were abound, her clothes disheveled although they had not trained today, and her expression so tightly closed off even Gai had done a double take at his student that morning.
"Do you believe in fate?" Neji asked suddenly.
Tentatively, Tenten ventured, "Like as in divination?"
"Predestination. Inevitability. Hitsuzen. Are there such things as these? Or does Kami-sama deign us lowly beings a destiny to claim for own? He granted us free will, hadn't he?"
"Ne…Neji-san…?"
"Wealth is either claimed or hereditary, but it is in the inheritor's right to do with it as he wills, correct? So he may frit it away as he pleases on gambling and drink and no one is hurt but him. Unless he uses it wisely to either shrewdly expound on his wealth for his heir or give it away to a poor man where it would end up as a charitable but wasteful cause."
Tenten stared at her.
"My point, Tenten…" she said, "is that no matter what choices we are given, no matter what we do with them, we are all controlled by hitsuzen. No matter how hard we may try to fight against fate, we will not win. It is already written in the stars. It is already set in stone. It is immovable and unchanging, as absolute and harsh, as Kami-sama himself, but this is the fate for us playthings, us humans…am I right?"
"I don't believe in that at all," Tenten said slowly. "We make our own futures. If we are defenseless, then we learn to defend ourselves. If we are poor, then we try and obtain wealth. It's an ongoing struggle to become as comfortable as possible. We change when we need to change. We change when we desireto change, Neji, not when Kami-sama wishes it. That's the truth."
"And becoming a strong kunoichi, fighting against the prejudices of that job with no protection whatsoever from a shinobi background…is this your desire, Tenten?"
"Yes," the girl said through gritted teeth.
Neji stared at her with for several inscrutable seconds. "Then you will fail."
"Aren't you a kunoichi, too, Neji?" Tenten snapped. "You're being hailed as the greatest prodigy of our generation and no one cares that you're female!"
"It is because…before I am a kunoichi, I am a Hyuuga. This was the fate I was born into. And you," she murmured, "were born into a blacksmith family for a reason."
Neji's head suddenly snapped to the side, her teammate's slap ringing loudly in the empty clearing. "I don't know what's going on with you," Tenten said in a harsh whisper, "but you've no right to judge me. I've spent years thinking you were above petty prejudices…someone to be admired…a friend, even! How can you say something like that? What's happened to you?"
Neji's lips twisted into something bitter. "Not even genii can escape fate," she responded.
Tenten gave a low snort of disgust. "Fine. If you're not going to tell me what happened to you, then do something about that attitude of yours. Fate, hitsuzen…you never cared about them before! I don't even know what's going on with you anymore…and you keep disappearing. You keep missing training! That's not how a teammate is supposed to act, Hyuuga!"
"Act…? I've obligations these days, duties to carry out, and you lecture me on my attitude? What do you know of me, Tenten? What do any of you know about me? What do the people of Konoha see past my prodigy facade? What do any of you people know anyway?"
"Then tell me!"
"I will not." Neji smiled faintly. "After all…'I don't even know what's going on with you anymore'…am I right?"
Tenten glared at her, then pivoted away without a word.
Neji's smile dropped immediately, expression turning stoic, cold. Impassive.
Hiashi would be proud; his worthless niece was finally shaping up to be the Hyuuga she was always destined to be.
…Father.
