OMG I NOE WHAT U ALL ARE THINKING! I'M SORRY IT'S BEEN OVER A FREAKING MONTH SINCE I UPDATED!! BUT I'VE BEEN EXTREMELY BUSY AND I HAD LOADS OF TESTS. NOW IT'S THE EASTER BREAK, AND IDEALLY I SHOULD BE UPDATING LOADS AND LOADS COS WE ACTUALLY GET TWO WHOLE WEEKS OFF, BUT I HAVE MY REAL GERMAN GCSEs SOON AFTER THE HOLIDAYS AND I'M GONNA BE STUDYING MY POOR ASS OFF...SO THIS IS ONE UPDATE THAT YOU'LL GET IN A LONG TIME. I AM EXTREMELY SORRY!
Anyway, on a better note, thank you for all the reviews! With just two more, I'll have 200! And now I've reached my goal for this month of an average of 22 reviews per chapter! Thank you guys so much!
Now, on with the long awaited chapter. The disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, ok?
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Slowly he walked back the same way they had come. The people gave him odd stares.
Suddenly, a young kid who Neji recognized as one whose parents were indeed staring at him weirdly ran up to him.
'Ano, Hyuuga-sama?' the kid politely asked, recognizing the Hyuuga eyes.
Neji, still in his numb stupor, barely registered that a kid was standing in front of him tugging on his Hyuuga robes.
'Your girlfriend dropped her kunai,' the kid innocently stated, handing over Tenten's favourite kunai.
Just that comment made tears slide down Neji's pale cheeks. Just two tears, but tears nonetheless.
He walked, ignoring the looks of the people, and made his way back home, fingering the kunai, tracing his fingers over the blue gems encrusted in the hilt, deep in thought.
He passed Shikamaru on his way, but made no move to greet him. This put Shikamaru in deep thought as well.
Was the stone cold, black hearted Neji Hyuuga, wallowing in self pity?
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'I can't believe it...' he muttered to himself.
He walked home slowly, avoiding as many people as possible. Suddenly, Shikamaru walked up to him from behind.
"Oi Neji...how are you?" he asked casually, looking up to the sky with his hands behind his head. Grey clouds were forming.
"Hn..." he grunted back.
"Man it's troublesome...in my opinion, you should forget about her..." he muttered. He had seen what had just taken place, what with Tenten running away from him and Neji following.
"Hn..."
If Neji was his normal loving self, he would have probably ranted to Shikamaru about how fate was cruel and she had been taken away from him and how it was meant to be. But now, he was still stunned.
"Neji...trust me...it'll be too troublesome if you linger on her for too long..." he mumbled, and then walked away, casting Neji a concerned glance.
"Tenten..." he muttered.
Suddenly, he was angry. He clenched his fists by his sides and abruptly changed direction and sped off ninja style to the training grounds. He needed to vent.
He started practising Hyuuga Taijutsu on a training dummy, taking out all his emotions on the poor lump of hay.
"Stupid...fucking...daimyo...taking...away...Tenten...when...he...knows...she...hates...him...just...for...personal...gain!...How...could...he...be...so...fucking...selfish...and...take...her...just...because...he...didn't...have...anyone...else...to...freaking...burden?!" Neji muttered between each punch, getting angrier and angrier by the second.
Suddenly, it started drizzling and slowly got heavier, becoming a storm.
Neji then had the sudden urge to mutilate the whole training field. He Kaitened craters everywhere, Hakke Hasengaki-d all the trees down, he Rokujuyon-Sho-d all the training dummies, he threw weapons at targets with exploding tags on them, and soon after all of that he collapsed onto the floor from fatigue. He had overexerted himself way too much, almost that he had used up as much chakra as when he was fighting Kidomaru.
He was bleeding everywhere from having used his muscles too much. Slowly, the rain washed away the dirt and blood from his face and clothes.
"Tenten..." he muttered weakly before darkness engulfed him.
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"Neji..." Tenten muttered, looking out the window, rain pattering and sliding down. How she longed to be outside, travelling ninja style. This was way too slow for her liking.
"Tenten-chan, did you say something?" Fuki asked, having heard her mutter.
"Oh nothing..."
It wasn't nothing. She felt really bad about leaving Konoha and was sort of regretting it. She missed her friends, the Hokage mountain... even after only six hours of travelling. Most of all, she missed Neji.
"Tenten, as soon as we get back, we can do some fun stuff, okay?" Fuki asked, noting her depressed mood.
Her father was sitting in front, pretending not to hear her.
"Yeah..." she whispered back hollowly.
Fuki had noticed a change in Tenten. She had definitely aged, even if only by a year, and she noticed a new brightness in her eyes, which had now dulled ever since she had left the Hokage's office. She thought to herself that maybe, just maybe, Konoha would have been a better place for her. She felt guilty. Yes, she missed Tenten, but not to the point where she would take her away from her rightful place.
Sighing to herself, Fuki drifted off to sleep around the same time as Tenten.
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"Nani?! Hyuuga Neji is in critical condition?!" Tsunade yelled, astounded.
"H-hai, Tsunade-sama, we found him in the training ground, everything around him completely destroyed!" Shizune muttered.
"What did he do this time?!" she growled, already running to the hospital.
"There were no signs of enemy ninja..." Shizune put in.
"Of course not! This is a ninja village for crying out loud!" she snapped.
Shizune kept quiet after that, hurriedly following her master.
Tsunade slammed the hospital doors open and nurses hurriedly pointed her towards where Neji had been dropped off. It had actually been Shikamaru who had found him. Tsunade basically ran to the room where Neji had been taken. She busted open the doors to find Neji strapped up to a machine, his heart beat really faint.
He was still alive.
"Thank god..." Tsunade muttered.
Shizune came in afterwards and she breathed out in relief. Tonton oinked.
"Tsunade-sama, I think he just lost a lot of chakra so he'll be up soon," Sakura said.
She had been assigned to tending to him because she was now Tsunade's second. Currently, she was placing a glowing chakra filled hand to his forehead. He was sweating from fever.
"Good work, Sakura. But what did he do to himself?" Tsunade asked with concern.
"Meh...it's troublesome...he just over trained..." Shikamaru said, sauntering in casually.
"But Neji-san doesn't seem like the type of person to do that," Sakura muttered.
"Yeah, it's really unusual," Tsunade replied.
"Heh, maybe it's because he was depressed..." Shikamaru mumbled.
"Nani?!" Tsunade asked.
"I thought you knew? Tenten left today...the daimyo came in and took her back..."
"Hai! It happened this morning," Sakura confirmed. "But I didn't think he would care that much...the last time I saw him, he wasn't treating her that well either..." Sakura told herself.
"It seems troublesome...but I think your information is outdated..."
"And?" Sakura asked irritably.
Shikamaru sighed. "You know how Ino knows everything, right? I mean in terms of gossip?"
Sakura nodded impatiently.
"Apparently...according to Gaara...they're sort of together now...Oh god I sound like a gossip girl, don't I? Man it's so troublesome..."
"Neji got a girl?!" Sakura asked with disbelief lacing her tone.
Tsunade coughed to gain attention.
"I think we should let him rest," Tsunade suggested in a commanding tone, basically ordering them out.
Suddenly, the door burst open and Naruto and Hinata came in.
"Neji-nii-san!" Hinata yelled.
"Damn Hyuuga! What happened to you?" Naruto said.
Shikamaru shook his head and Sakura slapped her forehead.
"Naruto, as you are the new Hokage, I assume that you came here for a better reason other than to see Neji?" Tsunade asked.
"Oh yeah! There's a new mission. I wanted Neji, Sakura and Shikamaru to go on it...but since Neji's Byakugan might have weakened a little, I'm going to send Hinata-chan as well."
"What's the mission?" Shikamaru asked.
"You know how Neji, Tenten and Gaara just came back from the other mission to assassinate the daimyo in her country, right?"
The others nodded.
"Well, ANBU say that they have caught glimpses of random missing nin lurking around the area, so they want to send a team in to investigate. It's not my priority right now, but the latest should be around two weeks before you leave," Naruto thoughtfully said.
"That's the smartest I've ever heard you," Sakura muttered.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto whined.
"Come on, Naruto-kun, we still have some paperwork to finish," Hinata kindly said, dragging him out the door.
"You know? I'd be surprised if they weren't fooling around in the Hokage's office rather than doing paperwork," Shikamaru muttered, walking out the door.
"Sh-Shikamaru-kun!"
"Nara!"
They all left to do their respective duties. Only Sakura and Tsunade were there. Shizune had left some time ago.
"Tsunade-shishou, is there anything you can do to speed up Neji's recovery?" Sakura asked.
"I'll add something to his drip. It should make his chakra replenish itself faster," she muttered.
She took out a pill from a packet in her pocket, crushed it to powder with one blow from her fist, opened the top part of the drip connected to Neji's wrist and emptied the contents inside. The drip turned pink because of the red powder. It dissolved immediately.
"He should be alright in the next couple of days. His body will be fully recovered in maybe three or four days."
"Hai, Tsunade-sama!" Sakura said, and they left.
Neji just groaned and switched position in his sleep.
"Tenten..."
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They had been travelling for almost a week and were almost home. Tenten sighed. If they had been travelling ninja style they would have arrived three
whole days ago. She just kept herself joyful by thinking about her old room which she adored and missed.
"Tenten! We're here!" Fuki happily said.
She then literally dragged Tenten out of the carriage door and into her old home. Tenten was still in a daze from leaving behind Konoha. She missed her new home.
"Hey guys? I'll just be in the garden," she mumbled.
The daimyo and Fuki and the guards went inside leaving her alone.
Ten minutes passed without anything happening. Yet Tenten felt uneasy. She felt like she was being watched carefully. Subconsciously, she gripped at a kunai from her pouch that thankfully her father hadn't taken away from her.
Then they swooped. There were at least six of them, all wearing black masks covering their faces. They worked really quickly. Two of them grabbed her from behind and immobilized her arms, so she tried to kick them, but another dropped a smoke bomb and she couldn't see anything. She felt herself being lifted away.
She didn't have time to react before she saw one of the men's fists come flying at her, knocking her out immediately.
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"Neji, you'll be discharged in a few minutes," Sakura said.
"Hn..."
"We have a mission along with Shikamaru and Hinata," she said uncomfortably. They Hyuuga prodigy was known to cause discomfort.
"I know..."
Suddenly, the door burst open and Naruto and Hinata came running in.
"Neji-nii-san!"
"Carrier pidgeon from Tenten's dad!"
In an instant he was up, ripping out the damn drip from his wrist, not flinching at the pain. It would stop bleeding after a while.
"We must leave for our mission now," Hinata mumbled.
"Tenten was abducted! We assume that it was the same ninja who were mentioned by the ANBU!" Naruto yelled.
In an instant, Neji was pulling on his Hyuuga robes that were folded neatly on the table next to the bed. Sakura was stripping her nurse outfit and they were off, Hinata running behind them.
Tsunade was walking around the corner to sign Neji out but she was met with three shinobi dashing past her.
"Sign Neji out for us!" Sakura yelled.
They literally ran over to the Nara estate, virtually kicked the door down and dragged a sleeping Shikamaru out.
"Trouble-"
"Don't you say that word, mission's on!" Sakura yelled in his face waking him up properly.
Neji started off and they all followed him behind, taking him as the unspoken leader of the team, not only by age, but just by how important Tenten was to him.
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Sorry, this is a really short chapter, but this is all I have time for. The other one should be up soon as well...but quite possibly not, as I said before. I am so so sorry that this has taken so long to be uploaded onto the site, but I honestly didn't have enough time.
And as a footnote, I'll shortly be changing my penname from tenjichan to Shikyo no Amatsu Shinsei