Author's Note: The events in this Chapter happen on the same day as Chapters 7 & 8. The beginning of the story switches back and forth between Neji's point of view and a narrator's. Neji also switches back and forth between using his Byakugan and normal eyesight (since that's the only way he can see color). Neji's thoughts are in bolded italics and later in the story some of his dialogue is entirely in italics to tell him apart from the other characters.

- The next two chapters are heavy on development on the original characters Chino and Misaki. The only canon Naruto character to appear is Neji. If you are more interested in the canon characters skip to Chapter 11: Teatime Chaos. -

****4-6-15: This was the original Chapter 7, part 1****

Chapter 9: Chino meets Neji … Again

After finishing dinner in the main house, Neji Hyuga decided to take a walk around the compound before starting his evening training. It was a cool evening and the sun had not yet started to set. Neji was enjoying the evening air and the calm tranquility that came from the near silent atmosphere that surrounded this section of the grounds. He started to become lost in the quiet and let his mind begin to wander back to earlier days when the house was often this quiet. Suddenly Neji was caught off guard as he detected the presence of an unknown chakra. Then with little warning, the first unknown source of chakra was joined by a second.

Activating his Byakugan, Neji scanned the rear entrance of a building along the back wall of the Hyuga compound where he had sensed the unfamiliar chakras.
'Who would be brazen enough to intrude on the Hyuga compound at sunset?' Neji thought as he stealthily moved toward the intruders.
As he crept closer he could hear two people arguing over something and two birds, one with each person, were adding their shrieking cries to the ruckus. From what Neji could see with his Byakugan, the intruders seemed to be shinobi, even though they weren't acting like shinobi at the moment. Actually they were acting more like little children in a schoolyard than anything else which irritated Neji supremely.
'Why can't they take their petty, ridiculous feuding somewhere else?'

Neji decided to switch back and forth between his Byakugan and normal sight so he could have a more detailed description of this strange pair. The first of the two shinobi that had arrived to disrupt Neji's peaceful evening was taller than the second shinobi and appeared to be the older of the two in Neji's mind. This shinobi was actually a kunoichi with a medium sized hawk with mainly reddish brown colored feathers except for a black stripe on its head. The hawk had landed on a low hanging branch of a nearby tree and since Neji could see some of the hawk's back, he could see with his reactivated Byakugan, that it was wearing a thin chain collar with a plate bearing the leaf village symbol against its back. This really confused Neji.
'I don't understand this. That hawk wears the Leaf Village's symbol and so does the woman but I don't recognize that bird or its kunoichi owner. Does that other shinobi and his bird also claim to be of the Leaf Village?'

Looking more closely with his Byakugan, Neji could see that the male shinobi and his kestrel did indeed wear the Leaf Village symbol. The shinobi had a forehead protector with a red band which he had hanging from his belt in much the same way as the woman he was arguing with (only her forehead protector had a greenish brown band and her belt was far more ornately designed). On each of the male shinobi's bird's legs was a small band. One band had the symbol of the Leaf Village and carved into the other there was a crescent moon with a kunai running through a feather above the crescent.
'Is that a clan symbol?' Neji thought.
'Are they from a mercenary clan from another nation here as spies?'
Neji decided to examine these unknown ninja's more closely before deciding whether or not he should attack them.

First he examined the appearance of the smaller male ninja. His outfit was like a cross between a standard ANBU and Leaf Village Chunin uniform. While looking at him without the Byakugan Neji could see that the only exceptions to the standard appearance of his clothes was the bright red stitching that matched his forehead protector and an unfamiliar insignia on his shirt sleeve. His boots were also sturdier than what the ninja of Konoha usually wore; causing Neji to think that he must spend most of his time traveling. Slightly less than average height, an average build, and average weight, made this shinobi out to likely be no threat to Neji. His short cropped light brown hair and boyish looks made him seem all the more like a child throwing a tantrum before a babysitter.

Clearly, between the two, Neji decided, much to his surprise, that the kunoichi was more of a threat and it looked like she was winning whatever argument they were having. Even her bird seemed more intimidating in comparison to the other shinobi and his bird. The kunoichi was over a full head taller than the one she was arguing with. Everything about her appearance seemed different and a slight bit unusual.
'Most likely she's unpredictable like Naruto with that eccentric style.'
He also couldn't shake the feeling that he should know her but he couldn't recall anything about her identity or where he might know her from.
'Her clothes and hair make her stick out so why am I having trouble placing her?'

The kunoichi had hair of a darker shade of brown than the male and it had reddish highlights. It reached down to just below her shoulder blades. On one side of her face there were three thin braids that ran down longer than the rest of hair, reaching somewhere around her elbows. Most of her hair was kept loose while a decent amount of her hair was pulled into a bun-like style with the ends hanging out the bottom to flow over the rest of her hair. She was wearing a choker style necklace, which when he used his Byakugan, on it he could see an owl was carved. With the exception of her face and the ends of her fingers, her entire body was covered by her clothes which were unusual to see in the kunoichi of Konoha. Her shirt was long sleeved with the upper part of the sleeves being more faded than the lower portion, suggesting she usually wore something over her sleeves.
['Bracers perhaps?' was what Neji was thinking.]

Without his Byakugan, he could see her shirt was divided in half and the lower half of the shirt was an apple green color and the upper part of the shirt was further divided into an x-shaped pattern. The sleeves were separated from the main pattern by heavy decorative leather, criss-crossing stitching. This top part of the shirt and the sleeves was shades of lighter browns with a just a little of the same apple green color around the neck. All together the entire pattern combined with the rest of her outfit gave off the general impression of the wings and body of a bird which is what had caught Neji's attention. She also wore simple dark charcoal gray pants that were covered with a dark forest green colored skirt. The skirt was further covered on the one side by a chocolate and mahogany colored guard similar to Neji. Her forest green socks also covered some of the bottom of her pants as they stuck out from inside deep brown colored decorated boots. Neji could see the bag that held the kunoichi's ninja tools on the leg not covered by the guard skirt but, for some reason he could not see inside it with his Byakugan.
'Strange….' Neji thought, 'What kind of substance could that bag be made out of that it can actually block the Byakugan? I will have to ask this stranger after I defeat her, should it come to a battle.'
 With his analysis complete, Neji decided to start paying more attention to what the pair of ninja was arguing over in hopes that their argument could be used to discover something about their identities and/or reason for being at the Hyuga compound.

** Author's extra note: For much of the argument Chino's dialogue will be marked with a (K) [for kunoichi] and Misaki's dialogue will be marked with an
(M) [for male shinobi] since this is meant to be how Neji perceives them and he doesn't know them yet. **

From where he was hidden, Neji could hear the argument clearly.

"Stop treating me like a little kid. We're not that far apart in age!" the male shouted.
"It's not my fault you're so short and still look like a child. Misaki you could blend in at the academy if you really wanted to. And you act like a child too" the kunoichi shouted back at the smaller shinobi.

(M) "I act like a child! What about you?"
(K) "What about me?"
(M) "Don't give me that! You're the one who likes to pull pranks just like a kid. You never take anything seriously. I can't believe our clan's leader still allows you to go on missions. You don't even follow orders properly!"
(K) "Hey! I do take things seriously ...sometimes... and so what if I play a few pranks and have my own interpretations of mission orders? At least I'm around to do my missions."
(M) "What's that supposed to mean?"
(K) "You're a slacker so I had to be sent here to do your job since you were nowhere to be found. You think I would be here otherwise?"
(M) "How am I supposed to know why you're here? Nobody understands why you do anything you do. And I'm not a slacker. I just got back from a mission!"
(K) "Likely story."
(M) "It's not a story and I can prove it."
(K) "Go ahead. I'd love to see your proof."
(M) "Are you trying to start a fight with me?"
(K) "Maybe. Like you could actually win. Taka could beat you two all on his own."
(M) "He can't! Don't underestimate us. Soramaru and I aren't that weak."
(K) "You don't have to get all worked up. I'm just messin' with you. I'm not actually gonna fight you. You have a kestrel for a reason. Face it, in terms of battle strength you are weaker than us, and we would get in a lot of trouble for starting a fight here."

Neji had heard enough. Unfortunately, he did not really learn anything from what he did hear. The only useful information he was able to sort out of all that whining was that the boy was called Misaki, the birds were Taka and Soramaru, they were part of the same clan, and they were on some sort of mission. As to what the mission was and how it involved the Hyuga clan he still did not know, but he was determined to find out. He had to intervene before their arguing disturbed anyone else. Mainly he just wanted to shut the two up before the headache he was getting turned into a migraine. Now all Neji had to do was decide on a course of action. Most effective would be to approach the two and address them directly, so that is what Neji decided he would do. One of the two intruders had already been implied as being weak so Neji thought at least the one called Misaki wouldn't be a challenge if they decided to fight him.

As Neji approached he stopped trying to mask his chakra so as not to appear as if he came intending to fight. Since the shinobi were too involved in their petty arguing, their bird companions were the first to notice Neji. The birds immediately tensed and took up defensive postures. Noticing the change in the birds, the kunoichi quickly turned to face Neji in a defensive stance ready to fight. Misaki, thinking Chino was ignoring him or messing with him further, had not taken any notice of the fact that he and his cousin were no longer alone. One call from his kestrel snapped Misaki back to reality and he finally turned to look at what all the fuss was about. Neji was temporarily distracted initially, so for what felt like hours, the three shinobi and two birds just stared at each other until Neji collected himself and could speak to the others. The reason Neji was distracted was because he thought, at least for an instant, one of the kunoichi's eyes had changed in both shape and color.
'I must have imagined it,' Neji thought to himself in surprise.

"Who are you two and why have you come to the Hyuga compound?" Neji questioned the two unfamiliar shinobi sternly.
Misaki became very uneasy but made no attempt to answer Neji or retreat. Chino recognized Neji and fell out of her defensive stance. Neji could not decipher what their behavior meant and he was growing impatient with their lack of verbal responses.
"Answer me or do I have to resort to violence to obtain the information I seek?"

The kunoichi was the first to respond to Neji's questioning.
"Hello again. I see you're not in any better of a mood then you were when I saw you earlier."
Misaki panicked as he tried to get his cousin's attention.
"What are you doing? Don't talk to him you'll get me in trouble!"
"Huh? I don't get it. Why the hell not?" Chino asked, confused.

Before they could start arguing again Neji cut in on their conversation.
"I know you somehow?"

"Well not exactly," Chino explained, "I saw you earlier today but I didn't really talk with you then. This morning I helped get the spandex twins under control. No offense but whoever decided to put you on their team did it as some kind of a cruel joke."
"You were at the hospital this morning? I'm sorry I didn't recognize you" Neji apologized even though he wasn't sure why he was apologizing to an intruder.

Chino gave him a quick smile. "Don't worry about it. You were stressed out and distracted. Taka wasn't with me at the time, plus I had on a coat this morning that covered most of my outfit. Before you ask why I was there I was with Naruto actually. He felt it necessary to check on Sai and dragged me along. I don't really know what he was thinking. Why would I want to go with him when I'm the one who put Sai in the hospital in the first place. Most likely I'm the last person that little ROOT freak wants to see right now."

Neji wasn't sure how to respond to such statements. Without thinking he ended up blurting out "You put Sai in the hospital" in a very un-Neji like fashion.
"Don't worry about it. He pissed me off, I punched him without holding back, he passed out, Yamato-san got all worried, but its fine now 'cause he's going to get out soon and Lady Tsunade hasn't and won't punish me for it."
Chino said that last part happily with a mischievous grin.

"I can't believe you're getting away with that" was all Misaki could say as he was still in disbelief.
"And I'm not gonna apologize either and you of all people should know why Misaki" Chino said smugly.
"That's what he gets for being a freakish, socially awkward, ROOT puppet, and posing like a male escort."

Neji stared at the kunoichi still confused as to whether or not to trust her.
"How do you know Sai's originally from ROOT and what did you mean by escort?"

Chino made a face while she decided on how to best explain her statements.
"First off its easy to tell which ANBU were in ROOT. That robotic quality they have and it's so obvious there's something off about all of them. It comes from that unnatural way they act like their all devoid of emotion. C-r-e-e-p-y. My unit actually tried to do a variation of ROOT training with me and this other ANBU kunoichi and a few others from our village but it didn't really work out. It was meant to be an anti-ROOT unit. Whenever you ask anyone what the reasoning behind what happened with the two of us it was …."
Chino paused while she was thinking back.
"No one was really all too clear with the explanation, something about our emotions being dangerous….." Her voice started to trail off while Misaki shuddered unseen behind Chino's back and the birds cringed.
"They keep avoiding giving us a straight answer but never mind that I'm going off topic."

Neji made a mental note to make sure he got an explanation out of Misaki later.
"Anyway," Chino continued, "I guess I should explain how our village is technically a secret branch of this village so I've worked with Konoha shinobi before. I'm part of an ANBU unit that's dedicated to loyally serving the Hokage. It's kind of ingrained in us to hate and attack ROOT ANBU and it didn't help that he was provoking me. PLUS he dresses like a sl…."

Misaki drowned out the last word with an -I'm not listening- humming sound that annoyed both Neji and Chino (not to mention it reminded Chino of a certain team leader back home). Chino covered Misaki's mouth in an attempt to silence the annoying sounds he was making.
"As I was saying, only someone in that kind of distasteful kind of work should be dressed like that. I've been forced to put up with a female version of someone like him for years and I was hoping to escape his perverted exhibitionist kind."
With her statement finished she let Misaki go who promptly looked at Chino in confusion.

"HUH?"

Chino frowned at her cousin and said only one word as if that one thing could sum up years of situations and information.

"Rinku"

Misaki whispered "Never mind" in response. Neji decided he really didn't want to know what that was all about or who this person was to which they were referring.

"You still haven't answered my original question" Neji reminded the others.
"Who are you exactly and why have you come to this compound."

Chino was unaffected by the tone of Neji's voice.
"Sorry" she said a little sarcastically, "this is my cousin Misaki and while I'm here Lady Tsunade gave me the codename Mizuki, but you can call me Kusannagi-san. That's what I've been telling everyone else."

Misaki suddenly broke in with "why are you using our clan name? Should you be doing that?"
Chino patted her cousin on the head as if she was comforting a small child.
"Don't worry I have permission and aren't you using your real name?"
"I'm not in ANBU it's different."

Once again, Neji had to intervene to prevent another argument from ensuing.
"You said your names were Misaki and Mizuki Kusannagi correct?" Neji repeated to confirm their identities should he need to report them to someone later.
"Yeah they rhyme I get it, the Hokage has a real sense of humor" Chino stated as if she was oblivious to why Neji wanted them to restate their names.
"Anyway," Chino continued, "he's here 'cause he works here and I'm here 'cause he's slacking on the job."

Misaki quickly tried to get his cousin to stop talking.
"Hey! Quit it! What's your problem?" Chino yelled at him.

"What do you mean he works here? I've never seen him before. What do you do for my family?" Neji inquired of Chino and Misaki.

"Uuuhhhh….nothing..important…." Misaki stuttered.
Chino stared at him in shock.
"Why are you lying? You meet with his uncle and the elders on a regular basis. He lives in the main branch house. Shouldn't everyone in the main branch know who you are and what you do? Our clan has been working with the Hyuga clan for generations."

Chino did not notice Neji's growing discomfort at her words. Misaki did since he was watching Neji closely and pulled Chino toward him so he could whisper in her ear. Neji strained to listen to the flustered boy but it did not matter that he could not hear what Misaki was saying because Chino didn't try to hide her shocked response.

"What do you mean only the main branch is allowed to know about your job? His uncle's the clan leader right?"
Finally Chino turned to face Neji. He had gone pale and was intently staring at the floor.

"You're not main branch are you?" Chino asked him as she came to the realization that she may have been working off of a false assumption.
She took Neji's hesitation as a confirmation of what she had already guessed.
"Oh - MY - Kunai! You're NOT main branch. Man I screwed up. I just thought that since Hinata-san refers to you as Onii-san, even though you guys are cousins, that you must have been taken into the main branch. Guess you don't know then. …. I'll tell you ….. if you want me to that is."

Author's Note: -Next Chapter- Chino and Misaki explain some aspects of the Kusannagi clan to Neji, including the situation between the different branches, rank and status within the clan, kekkei genkai, and their roles in the ninja world.