Disclaimer: Just like the million of people who believe in dreams.
Chapter Ten: Tenten's Fury To say that the wind was hard was quite an understatement. It struck the shinobi harshly on the face as he marched on ahead, realizing soon that the snow reached up to his kneecaps. Deciding that the old method of jumping from branch to branch might be useful here, Neji jumped up on the nearest one and began to rush through the area, Byakuugan constantly activated.
Yet he soon figured it was a bad idea.
Now that he was higher up in the air, the snow was tumbling down on him at lightning speed. Also, many times he stepped on a branch, the entire tree shook and half of the snow would fall, many times slowing him down in the process.
As though it wasn't enough, small bits of hail had begun to fall, rendering tree branches slippery and troublesome to jump on.
Jumping down from the trees, Neji deactivated his Byakuugan. He had already used it for the major part of the day, and keeping it for later times might be an intelligent idea.
Soon, though, another challenge presented itself. Nighttime arrived quite rapidly, which forced him to turn his Bloodline Limit on and off quite often. Already getting irritated with the situation, Neji pushed a few of his chakra in his legs, going as fast as he could to cover more ground in less time.
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A cold gust of wind blew right into the cavern, sending a small drizzle of snow inside. It sprayed directly on Tenten, who was sitting closest to the entrance, instantly waking the girl.
Displeased at the method Mother Nature used to pull her out of her sleep, the kunoichi yawned tiredly as she sat up. Her next act was to uselessly brush the cold water from her face and covers, but groaned as she realized that the water had already infiltrated the fabric of her sleeping bag.
Annoyed, the Weapon Mistress sat up and pulled her long legs from the confining area of the sleeping bag, discarding it to the side. She then slowly got to her feet and walked to the opening of the cavern, peering outside to see the falling snow. The snowflakes were falling rapidly under her watchful eye, mixing in the darkness as they touched the ground. A quick look at her watch told her it was approaching two in the morning.
'I slept nearly ten hours?' she mentally groaned to herself, annoyed that no one woke her up.
Yet the soft snores behind her told her that she wasn't the only one that had taken the time to rest. Smiling softly as her temporary anger faded, she turned around to study the sleeping faces of her three companions.
Three companions.
Three.
Five minus one being four. Yet five minus two was three.
"Where the hell is Neji!?"
The kunoichi's angry outburst instantly woke up the three shinobi, who had been sleeping soundly in their respective corners. Gai instantly winced and shot out of his sleeping bag, rapidly approaching the fuming kunoichi. Lee and Naruto obviously kept their distances as she glared angrily at the Jounin. She wasn't asking anyone; she was demanding to know. Neji had definitely influenced her into such an attitude.
"Where is he?" Tenten snapped again, her fingers twitching towards her weapon pouch.
Gai, whose hand had been resting on the small box in his pocket that would turn his walkie-talkie on and off, grinned wordlessly. Meanwhile, his finger gently prodded the off button, rendering the machine useless. If Tenten was to know that he was gone for quite a while, she'd probably give Neji the screaming of his life. "He surely went to get some wood, dearest youthful flower! You shouldn't get so angry!"
"Wood?" she hissed, pointing at the pile that Lee had already collected. "We have enough to last us a week!"
Gai was now squirming. Even though the kunoichi had well under ten years than him, and her height didn't even reach his nose, he suddenly found himself terrified that she would go on a rampage and butcher him if he didn't give her an explanation right now.
Thankfully, Lee came to the rescue of his sensei. Jumping up, he gave Tenten a Nice Guy pose and said, "You know, Tenten-chan, maybe he just noticed someone coming with his Byakuugan and went off to meet them! He'll surely be back in a few minutes; he can't be gone too far!"
"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, getting up to his feet too. "He can't just abandon us here; he's not that type of person!"
Tenten glared at the three, wondering if they knew something that she didn't. Yet their explanations made sense. Sighing, she relented and slouched back to her position, keeping her eyes glued to the door.
"If he isn't back in fifteen minutes, I'm going after him," she declared in a monotonous tone before clamping her mouth shut.
Lee and Naruto gulped fearfully as Gai gently touched the microphone in his pocket. Slowly, driven only by his worry for his wayward student, he gently turned it on.
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'Damn it,' Neji thought angrily as he raised an arm to cover his eyes. With Byakuugan, he could walk as far as he wanted with his eyes shut. Yet when they were opened without his bloodline, it wasn't easy to plow through the incessant shower of snow. Swallowing hardly, he took a small break behind a rather larger tree, momentarily free to rest.
Realizing that he had been running for a long time now, he decided to give his companions news. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the small black box and turned the switch on. The comforting red light appeared, signaling that it was ready to use. Pulling the microphone away from his collar, where it had been previously placed so it wouldn't have touched water, he gently pushed the "transmit" button before speaking softly in the mouthpiece.
"Gai-sensei?"
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'Come on… come on now…' Gai silently pleaded as he stared shamelessly at Tenten.
The kunoichi had, out of cold, slid back into her sleeping bag. Lee had crawled over to Gai to have a talk while Naruto had fallen back to sleep.
"—because you know, there's nothing that I could've done, Gai-sensei! But of course, I'll work stronger than ever to beat Sasuke next time I see him, I will never fail you again, as you surely know already! Plus I will—"
"Lee!" Gai suddenly hissed, turning his eyes to his look-alike. "Be quiet!"
The young Green Beast nodded rapidly, shutting up instantly as Gai returned to looking at Tenten. A smirk lit up his face as she seemed to doze off, her head limply falling to the side.
'Yes!' Gai instantly cheered in his mind, 'Now, if only she can stay asleep until Neji comes back! At least there won't be any more questions!' "Stay quiet, Lee!" Gai murmured gently at his upset-looking student. "Let Tenten sleep."
The younger man grinned and gave a thumbs-up. He was about to crawl back to his own sleeping bag when a sudden voice filled the cavern, seemingly coming from… Gai?
"Gai-sensei?"
The earpiece, which Gai had cranked up to its maximum so that he wouldn't have to wear it in order to hear, went silent after that word. Lee instantly stared at Gai, who made a face before pulling out the small microphone and earpiece out of his pocket, along with the small box.
Leaning closer to the mouthpiece, he softly said, "Yes, Neji?"
"How's everything?" was the Jounin's answer.
"It's fine," Gai said hurriedly as he noticed Tenten shifting in her sleep. He reached over to lower the volume of the earpiece, but Neji was too quick for him.
"I haven't come across a single soul yet," he informed glumly. "I'll keep on going for a while."
'Shit!' Gai instantly thought as Tenten's eyes opened. Giving up, he placed the walkie-talkie on the floor and looked pleadingly at the kunoichi as she fully gained control of her senses. As she set her honey-colored eyes on him, he did the only thing he could think of: he grinned and waved.
Neji was always the kind of guy he had pushed to talk. Gai had spent months and months telling him to speak out, to express himself. Now, at that moment, the bowl-haired man wished that he would just shut up.
"Gai-sensei? Did you hear me?" the earpiece crackled.
"Neji?" Tenten suddenly screeched, jumping to her feet. "What the hell!?"
Rushing over to the mouthpiece, she jerked it away from Gai before literally yelling in the poor transmitter. "Where the heck are you, Hyuuga?"
A significant pose followed her question before Neji answered, "Easy, Tenten. I'm gone to find Hinata-sama, didn't Gai-sensei tell you?"
Shooting daggers at her panicked-looking sensei, she answered in an icy and threatening voice, "No, he failed to mention that he knew where you had disappeared to."
"Tenten," Neji's voice held a note of warning. "Do not follow me. I swear that if I come back and you're not there…" He allowed his sentence to drift on its own.
Glaring at the mouthpiece, Tenten mumbled to herself, "Bring it on, Hyuuga!" before pressing the transmit button. "Fine, I'll stay here. Even though I have to say you're a real loser for not telling us where you were going!"
Gai cringed slightly, since Tenten had been glaring directly at him when she had spoken her last words. He wasn't too sure if the insult had been directed to Neji or to him.
The shinobi was silent at the other end of the liner before speaking once more, "Done yelling?"
The kunoichi didn't even answer; she only threw the small microphone at Gai and stalked back to her corner. The green-clad shinobi took the instrument and said slowly, "I think she is, Neji. Do you—"
"There's someone in the scope of my Byakuugan, I have to get moving." The line went dead after that and the small buzzing sound that indicated Neji had his walkie-talkie open got shut off.
A/N: Short chapter, but with the exams coming up so rapidly (I have one tomorrow in Spanish! Eek!) I have no choice unless you want to wait another week. XD
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who reviews. I don't always answer the reviews, but I read all of them and they're so appreciated. So thank you once more!
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