...

Chapter 12: Face-off

Neji Hyuuga had always been considered a prodigy by his clan. He was proficient in every one of the techniques Hiashi had allowed him to learn and as strict with himself as he was with his associates, who happened to be his teammates Tenten and Rock Lee. Currently, the three of them were waiting in the corner of the reception area inside the hidden leaf village's stadium where the ballads were being drawn for the one-on-one matches kicking off tomorrow.

While Tenten looked around the room at the remaining gennin and sized each of them up, and Rock Lee was currently doing stretches in anticipation of what was to come, Neji stared at the back of a certain short indigo-haired girl with a look of cold fury. "So that weakling is still alive? Hm. A fluke, or stroke of luck… yes, that has to be it. No matter, this next round, she won't carry on, she can never carry on being a shinobi…"

An elderly man walked into the centre of the room of 20-something contestants, clearing his throat and holding up a plain white box that rattled noisily with every shift he gave it. The teens settled down respectfully and allowed him to explain the next stage of the exams. "Alright kids, listen carefully!"

He cleared his throat again, a deep gravelly cough coming out of his throat in a way that made his body tremble. This man was shaking like a leaf in the wind and crouched low with arthritically pained limbs, his voice came out like gravel… yet it was still audible to the entire room, amplified by a special jutsu, and he still contained the strength to lift up the box, which was all that was needed. "This box contains 23 balls labelled with each candidate's special number. You will line up and pick a ball, thus determining the order and placement of the candidates for each match…"

At his order the teens formed a single file line and picked a ball from the box, everyone keeping their hands over the ball and waiting until the entire line picked. Gasps of shock and awe, fear and trepidation, but mostly… silence, a quiet so deafening the sound a of the tiniest pin dropping could be heard. The exam-proctor took the balls from them and write their name on the back of the number, then placed them on a board so that the order of the matches and who fought who would clearly be shown. "The first match starts tomorrow at noon, between Dosu Kinuta and Chouji Akimichi."

The gennin looked at their opponents with a variety of expressions and concealed emotions. From the hidden-leaf gennin, Chouji, Sasuke, Tenten, Shikamaru Shino and Lee were facing opponents named Dosu of the sound village, Zaku of the sound village, Kin of the sound village, Temari of the hidden sand village, Kankuro of the hidden sand village and Gaara of the hidden sand village respectively. Though these gennin had no problem seeing the outsiders as their foes, the leaf-gennin who were facing each other were also battling with the inner turmoil of having to fight against their supposed comrades, for real this time. Naruto and Kiba eyed each other wordlessly with agape mouths and widened eyes, almost exact mirrors of eachother especially with their similarly feral appearances, since it had been announced that with their consecutive numbered ballots they were the third pair to come up and would also be fighting tomorrow. Ino and Sakura eyed eachother nervously, neither having any idea how the other girl had improved in skill since they'd stopped talking and hanging out together following a fallout over some petty argument (probably Sasuke-related...), nevertheless, with tightened fists and equally determined expressions each girl silently wished the other good luck in the match they would fight in two days against eachother.

That left Hinata, who in a shocking turn of events would face none other than her older, stronger and much fiercer male cousin Neji, who'd kept the characteristic kabuki-mask blank expression of the Hyuuga the whole time of the match announcements, although it was hard to supress the tiny smirk he wished he could so disrespectfully bring forth. 'So I get to take her out in the first round huh? While I'm obligated to protect her from further harm by not letting her advance and take on the other stronger gennin here, fate has dictated that we meet eachother head on, and I can't deny that I will enjoy beating- maybe even humiliating- her in front of the whole village…'

Hinata had left the building as soon as her opponent was announced, trying to fight back a flood of tears and the need to scream out her frustration. Of all people, why him? Why'd she have to face Neji? "Figures, that's just my luck I guess…" she thought, gritting her teeth and clenching her fist as she banged them down on her thighs to let out the pent up anger. It was hard, trying not to cry and scream out and throw all her power into punching the tree she'd jumped to that was in the middle of the forest, far away from onlookers and private enough for her to have some time to find her composure. She sighed deeply, looking off into the distance and wondering if Kyubey would be able to just take her away, to never return and have to face her cousin. 'It's not like I don't think I can beat him, but how am I supposed to do so without revealing my true power to the clan? But if I throw the match he'll know, he's always been able to tell when I don't fight with my all, in fact, the whole clan can read me as easily as a book when it comes to my limits. And they're especially adept at pushing my buttons, knowing exactly what to say or do to cut me deep emotionally, how to make me cry… they're all just a bunch of bullies!'

Scuffing her shoe against the rough tree-bark, she pulled out her small soul-gem pendant and pressed her lips to it, mustering a little power so that she could summon Kyubey, who hopefully wasn't napping and would be able to take her to find a witch, the fighting would be a nice distraction from the upcoming fight she didn't want to happen…

Nobody had noticed her leave yet, so taken with their own stressful situations and new rivals. "Should be interesting to watch huh?" Tenten commented with a lopsided grin, "I've heard the Akimichis have a special kind of chakra that hardens their bodies and makes themselves the weapons!"

"Correct Tenten!" Lee replied in his usually cheerful voice, looking off into the distance with a glint in his eye in a very good imitation of their currently preoccupied sensei. "Gai-sensei has told me of his many spars against the powerful clans of Konoha, and he stated that in terms of pure force, nobody can punch harder or absorb a hit better than an Akamichi!"

"Cool!" Tenten's eyes sparkled as she imagined what it would like to have that kind of power. Having grown up with a family consisting of a mother who owned and ran a weapons shop and a father who worked there as a blacksmith, she'd always had an avid fascination for blades and melee weapons of any sort. While Lee was being his usual over-the-top self and punching and kicking the air as one of his many forms of training Neji seemed to be lost in his own depressing world, she then noticed with a worried side-glance. "Something wrong Neji?"

"Hm? No…" the Hyuuga replied in his usual serious tone. His arms were crossed and stare focused in one direction, she trailed the path of his line of sight and, with a sigh, realised he was at it again with sending death-stares at his cousin, the heiress of his clan and technically his master. While Tenten personally didn't know Hinata Hyuuga, or any one in Neji's family actually, the two times they'd met when her and Lee went to the Hyuuga compound to pick up her cousin, she'd been nothing but gracious and way nicer than Neji made her out to be. Tenten knew he had issues with being a branch-house member, Gai-sensei had secretly explained to them the circumstances he had to live in so it was understandable that he was angry and considered fate to be predetermined. 'But still, he doesn't have to be such an ass to her! It's not her fault after all…' she thought, shaking her head in pity towards Hinata. In a way, Neji should be pitied too, but as long as kept wrongfully mistreating his cousin he'd get none from her.

…

***Time skip! I suck at writing extended fight scenes, and it doesn't feel like new material. It's extremely boring to write out every match, you know what happens in the anime/manga… although I'll be changing some of the outcomes i.e. who wins…***

…

Sakura leaned back against the wall furthest from the arena, where far below a fierce battle was playing out between the Hyuuga cousins, neither of which seemed to be ready to give up soon. While she should have been entranced with the match, like all the other hidden-leaf gennin seemed to be, she was still bummed out about the fact that she'd lost against Ino in her first round. Well, at least she'd given the blonde a run for her money, while she'd managed to manipulate her mind and force her to raise her hand and say she admitted defeat, Ino was now currently in the hospital nursing several broken ribs and a cast on her leg from the beating she'd received by the pink-haired Haruno. She was sad at her defeat, but even more prominent was the worry about her unspoken best friend, who slept peacefully. When this last match of the day finished she would go back to the hospital and wait for her to wake up, so Sakura could apologise. The pink-haired girl thought that if she watched this match, and learned the winner's techniques, she could find some flaws that would be helpful to the Yamanaka should she end up facing the victorious Hyuuga. A huge uproar from the crowd forced her to snap her attention back to the match, as she shot up and ran to the edge to see for herself, "what happened?" she asked with a frown.

Leaning against the railing overlooking the arena were the other members of what had come to be known by the village as the rookie nine, minus Ino and Kiba, all equally absorbed in the match. "Hyuuga-san, he just pulled off the clan's hardest technique, 8 trigrams 64-palms…he'll be a troublesome opponent when he wins this match." Shikamaru replied, leaning his chin against one hand as he stared down intently in what was the most serious expression Sakura had ever seen from the Nara boy. "Hey wait a minute! Who says that teme's gonna win?" Naruto exclaimed with a scowl, not turning away from the fight but still arguing. "That Neji guy may be strong but so is Hinata!"

"I'm cheering for Hinata, because she was nice enough to bring me these packs of my favourite potato chips once I got out of the hospital yesterday!" Chouji said, munching one of said packets with a bright smile. "And she's a lot nicer than Neji altogether, and our friend, and one of us, more so than him anyways…"

"Exactly Chouji!" Naruto replied agreeably, patting the much bigger boy on the back. "Hey teme, what do you think of the match?"

Sasuke was watching too, as far away from the others as he could possibly be, standing in the corner between railing and far-left wall with his usual blank expression. After a few seconds of contemplation, he finally grunted, "Neji's going to win, he's the stronger one after all…"

'And Hinata's dangerously close to bringing out her other powers, which she probably won't do, she'll give up before she has to show off…' he thought privately, crossing his arms and glaring at the Hyuuga girl while shaking his head. 'That idiot doesn't truly know how to harness her strength, if only it were mine…'

'Seriously Naruto, you forgot about me still? Even though we've met several occasions during our off-time when you enlisted my and Hinata's help in spying on Gaara no Sabaku?'

Shino glumly stood in the darkest, furthest corner away from the railing, looking at everyone's backs just like Sakura had been earlier. In fact, she'd been right next to him and hadn't even noticed his presence, maybe rudeness was just a trait that ran in all of team 7 members? After all, they were the students of the notoriously late, highly irritating and extremely closet-perverted (all according to Kurenai-sensei) Kakashi Hatake, so his habits were bound to rub off on their easily affected young minds. 'Not that anyone cares, but obviously I support Hinata, though I'm not sure if she'll overcome her cousin just yet, the potential still lies within her, dormant, waiting to be awoken…'

'I guess we'll just see who wins this bet then, between the teme and Shikamaru who are for Neji and me and Chouji who support Hinata…' Naruto thought with a grim expression. He privately thought of the shy Hyuuga girl, who was always blushing and stuttering. Following his and Kiba's fight, which he'd very barely managed to pull through winning by being the last of the two to fall to the ground (and seriously, he was up just a split-second longer than the Inuzuka), Hinata had been the first one to jump down to help them, with Shino close-behind. What surprised him more than anything, was the fact that she'd actually ran to him instead of Kiba.

**flashback**

"Shino-kun, you know what to do for Kiba right?" Naruto could hear the soft voice yelling and the sound of light footsteps against gravel, before a cool and small hand was brought to his forehead. "Hai, help Uzumaki out and make sure he's stable, it'll be faster for us to take them to the hospital now than wait the few minutes for the exam-officials." Shino stated in his usual no-nonsense tone, unzipping the Inuzuka's jacket to check for wounds on his chest. Lying next to his master, Akamaru whined softly and licked at Kiba's hand which was twitching slightly. "Mmh… st-stop it Aka…" his weak voice told the puppy, who yipped in excitement and jumped up to face him with the dog-equivalent expression of relief and happiness.

"N-naruto-kun, wake up…" she said, leaning close to whisper in his ear as her hands glowed a soft lavender, pushing her chakra into him so his chest glowed and he could feel a tingly warmth travelling through his body. Funny, there was that familiar voice telling him to wake up again. "One time, when I was having a nightmare, I heard your voice…" he said quietly, keeping his eyes closed and smiling softly. "It felt just like this, when the demon was trying to get out, and you told me not to be afraid… heh, I probably sound crazy right?"

She was silent for a while, and he peeked a single, heavy eyelid open to see what she was doing. While her cheeks were a furious red and her brow was furrowed, she didn't seem fazed by his rambling. "Th-that's o-okay Naruto-kun, dreams are always a little weird right? Now I'm going to need you to sit up, Iruka-sensei's going to take you to the hospital now."

**end flashback**

…

Iruka sighed as he watched the match between the two Hyuuga teens, sitting in the section of the onlooker's station with the other exam-proctors, a cumbersome dark blue sash with his temporary title stamped across it placed diagonally around his torso, just like the others. So far all of his students had come out of their matches relatively unscathed, or at least without any permanent damage that could hinder their progress as shinobi. They'd all visited the hospital and only Ino and Kiba were still in there, but they looked to be recovering nicely.

No, Iruka wasn't worried about any of his former students more than he was for Hinata. In her situation, with her cousin who looked to be out for her blood, a so-called "prodigy", who'd killed several people already on some of Team Gai's higher ranked missions with just a single flat-palmed charge of chakra. Iruka heard the rumours, heard every single story about Neji Hyuuga, and knowing these stories, watching him prove himself to be worthy of these stories, it was what scared him more than anything. "Hinata, why are you still trying to beat him?" he mumbled with pain-filled eyes, clenching his fists. Far below in the actual stadium, chaos ensued. Rather, it was controlled chaos, the very earth seemed to be rising around them as the two teens faced each other, byakugan eyes ablaze with pale light and hair whipping up around them as the air swirled uncontrollably.

"You just… never. Give. Up. Do you?" Neji growled, too quiet for her, or anybody, to actually hear. Her arms were raised in front of her, expression scrunched up in a snarl as she fought against the swirling dome he'd created and tried to advance towards him. He increased the force of gravity by spinning even faster, focussing entirely on her, unblinking, an impenetrable force. The sleeves of her jacket tore off and her arms bled as the wind cut into them deeply, all the way up from her wrists to her elbows. She finally couldn't move anymore, stumbling back once. He used this opportunity to stop the attack and ran towards her, kicking her right in the stomach and forcing her to smash her back against the arena wall with enough force to crack the stone behind her.

Hinata was completely numb as she slid to the ground and blood came from the back of her head, a long streak of blood running along the stone with her. 'I can't move anything anymore…' Her bangs hid her eyes, arms dropped uselessly to her sides and legs crossed of their own accord as her backside hit the ground. To everyone there, this may have seemed like the end, and it most certainly was in Neji's opinion, as he crossed his arms smugly and smirked. "She lasted longer than I expected, but of course I won, it is fate after all…"

"NO HINATA-CHAN!" Naruto yelled, pushing himself off the railing and only just being caught by the other leaf-gennin who forced him back. "Not yet dobe! The match isn't over." Sasuke hissed with a restraining arm on his shoulder, even though he wanted just as badly to jump in there and kick Neji's ass after helping Hinata. "Hinata, is this it for you? Or do you have something else… planned…" The last of his thought carried off with a small gasp as he looked back down at the fighting pair. Hinata had looked so… defeated, earlier, that it seemed nothing could be done. So what was this mist surrounding the battered and vulnerable girl? And why was that mist growing?

'Hinata, what the hell are you doing?' Sasuke asked in his head, watching the mist spread and cover everything below, so thick and white that apparently even some of the other Hyuuga were exclaiming that they couldn't see into it. Neji shouted something to the exam-proctor who'd been on his way down to declare the girl unfit to continue fighting and thus hand the victory to the boy. However, his eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the girl once again standing.

"I will continue fighting!" she shouted to him, giving him a thumbs up and small grin as she walked away from him back into the fog. Neji's eyes widened in shock as the fog came towards him, before he could run, or even blink, he was surrounded by it. "What the hell is this? A new jutsu?"

"Mmhmm, and boy it's a fun one too!"

He felt goose-bumps on his neck and spun around, facing Hinata, who seemed to be acting just as cockily as he was earlier. He raised a fist to attack her, but it froze halfway towards her and immediately lowered back down, once again to his internal shock. Her eyes were glowing, exactly like they were earlier, but now he couldn't see the protruding veins signature to the byakugan, or was it just the fog blinding his vision?

"The byakugan sees through everything, yet I can't see everyone's chakra signatures when I know they're there, in the stands. And also, why can't I move?"

"Those are some very good enquiries Neji-niisan." Hinata replied, still smirking as she lazily walked around his frozen body, never taking her eyes off of him. "To answer your first question, the fog is a special jutsu I made to combat the byakugan's abilities, because you see, the fog is made of chakra, my chakra, and thus it acts as a barrier to your vision, as well as any nosy Hyuuga members outside of it. Pretty great huh?"

"Impossible! You couldn't have this much chakra, you're levels were even lower than Hanabi's last time I checked…" he exclaimed, gritting his teeth and staring ahead since it was the only direction he could see. "You checked that… what, 3 months ago? I've grown exponentially since then, nii-san…"

He felt his arm snap and screamed out in pain, wanting so badly to fight back but to no avail as she drew her fist back to break his other arm as well. "And as to why you can't move… well, that's another jutsu, and I can't really explain it to you in detail, couldn't let you in on my secrets to strength right? Heh, for now, just relax and take it, you can't do anything else anyways. And don't worry, I'm not going to kill you, just hurt your body to the point where you won't get back up and I'll win." She didn't let him answer as she jerked her head up and twisted his ankle, then broke his ribs, then finally, she knocked him out with a karate chop to the neck. "Oh dear, maybe the broken bones weren't necessary. I really could have just knocked him out right? Well, what's done is done now…"

…

When the fog cleared and the crowd saw what was left, there were more than a few loud gasps of surprise. For there, standing right in the middle of the arena with her arms crossed and her bangs hanging over her eyes and a straight line for a mouth, was Hinata, and at her feet lay the mangled body of her cousin Neji, clearly knocked out. Chatter broke out across the stadium seats as bets were angrily exchanged and the exam-proctor ran down to check the opponents. Even the hidden-leaf gennin were shocked, for their senses had been completely deprived so they had no idea what was done either. Still, small smiles crossed the faces of Sasuke and Shino, and Naruto was grinning from ear-to-ear as he and Shino jumped down to see Hinata and check if she was okay. "Winner, Hinata Hyuuga!" the exam-proctor shouted with his voice amplified by a jutsu, pulling her arm into the air and turning her for everyone to see. The crowds cheered wildly, nobody ever expected to see this outcome!

"Congratulations Hinata-chan!"

She felt herself being pulled into a rough hug by the blonde Uzumaki, with Shino close behind her patting her shoulder. "Kiba would've been proud to see you win Hinata." he stated, the ghost of a smile on his face. She peeked through her fringe at him, eyes watery with unshed tears and grim face softening a bit. Then she turned to Naruto, whose nose was only an inch away from hers, and realized how proximal they were with a gasp before ducking her head again. "Th-thanks guys! I-I need t-to go to the h-hospital now I think, everything f-feels… n-numb…"

"Sure thing Hinata-chan!" Naruto drew her arm over his neck and wrapped his around her waist, obliviously making his admirer feel even woozier. Shino had lent down to examine Neji, his hands aglow with chakra as he tried to fix the worst of the injuries with a practiced hand that he'd been training for the last few months to use. It was nice to have so many real-life patients to practice his healing chakra on, and he never shied away from the opportunity when it came up to work on someone injured, even if the patient was his comrades opponent. "I'll catch up with you soon Hinata, let me help your cousin first."

"It's o-okay Shino-kun, I'll s-survive till then…" Hinata replied weakly, blushing deeply as she glanced at Naruto and replied to his grin with a shy smile.

...

Theo here, new chapter for you guys! Now I'm trying to skim through the matches and focus mostly on Hinata (because this story is Hinata-centric, let me just restate that). I'm not exactly sure when I'll post the next chapter, maybe two weeks? Maybe not lol. The chuunin exams are honestly really boring imo, or they've just been rewritten so often in fanfic it's like dragging a net through a swamp… I really want to start a new arc soon, but let's just get through these parts first and see what happens. When I get to the parts I find exciting, writing, inspiration, creative-flow, it all picks up really fast pace. Anyway, wait for my update and see you guys then ^_^