Neji entered the infirmary quietly to find Hinata sitting up in her bed. She looked slightly pale, but other than that she didn't look sick. He suddenly felt odd being in the same room as her. Did he really deserve to be in her presence after he had overstepped his position and so cruelly beat her up. He stood frozen in the doorway until Hinata finally noticed him.
"N-Neji!" she gasped quietly.
The boy who had been sitting next to her, Neji recognized him to be one of her teammates, turned to glare at him. "What the heck are you doing here?" he yelled as he jumped to his feet.
"I was hoping to talk to my cousin," he said calmly.
"No way!" growled Kiba. "You can't talk to her you bastard."
"I-it's fine Kiba-san," said Hinata. "I-is there something you n-need?"
"I wanted to ask you a question," said Neji.
"Wh-what is it?" asked Hinata.
"Naruto said that you were going to get rid of the cursed seal when you become the head of the house."
"If I become the head," sighed Hinata.
"What do you mean?" asked Neji.
"H-haven't you wondered why m-my sister is still part of the main family when she is younger than me?" asked Hinata.
"I hadn't thought about it," said Neji. That was somewhat of a lie. He had always thought it was unfair that she was able to remain part of the main household when his family had been banished for his father being born seconds after his uncle.
"My father thought I would be too weak to be the head so he asked for permission to give birth to another heir. The elders agreed. On her 18th birthday I have to fight her and whoever wins will become the head while the other will be banished to the branch family."
"That's not fair!" gasped Neji losing his composure for a small second.
"I will try to defeat my sister, but my father is only training her now," said Hinata. "He won't spend any time with me. He doesn't believe that I am strong enough."
"What if I teach you?" asked Neji. "I've learned a lot of the Hyuuga-clan's secrets without a teacher. I could teach you anything you need to know."
"Why?" asked Kiba who had been glaring at him up until this point.
"She could save all of the branch family from the fate of having these cursed seals," said Neji. "I just got my seal taken away and I'm not going to let them force me to take it back. If I can help Hinata-sama in any way, I will willingly do so."
"Your seal is gone?" asked Hinata. Neji nodded and pulled off his forehead protector to show his unmarked forehead. "That's great," she said happily. "How did you convince father to get rid of it?"
"Naruto did it," said Neji. "He said he can destroy the seal easily."
"How did he do it?" asked Hinata.
"I'm not entirely certain," answered Neji. "So will you be willing to let me stay by your side and help you so that you can lead our clan."
"Don't do it Hinata," Kiba said suspiciously. "I don't trust him."
"Would you really be willing to help me?" asked Hinata. Neji just nodded. "I would be honored if you would stay by my side then. Maybe I can actually beat my little sister then."
On his way back to stand with Sakura, Naruto passed Sasuke who was walking down to the battlefield to fight Gaara. "Be careful," he said as he stopped in front of him.
"I'll be careful not to hurt him too badly," said Sasuke.
"Be careful not to get hurt too badly," Naruto restated.
"Don't worry Naruto," said Sasuke as he placed his hand on the boy's shoulder, "I can take care of myself. You just have to worry about what comes after my fight with Gaara."
"That's what I'm worried about," said Naruto.
Sasuke sighed. He should have known that Naruto was talking about his fight with Orochimaru that they were planning. "Don't worry Naruto. I would never allow that bastard to get a hold of me or the Hokage. I'll kill him today and then that will be the end of his attacks."
Naruto nodded quietly, but he didn't seem convinced. Out of all of the enemies that they had faced Orochimaru was one of the only ones that he feared could hurt his loved ones as he had done in the future.
Sasuke sighed again and pulled Naruto into a hug. "I promise you that I won't die. Orochimaru can't control me anymore. There is nothing to worry about." He pulled Naruto away from himself so that he could see Naruto's worried eyes. "I have to go now and face Gaara. You need to concetrate on saving him and not worry about me. Okay?"
Naruto nodded again, but his eyes still had some worry remaining in them. Sasuke figured that he would never be able to make Naruto completely stop worrying about his friends so he decided to just let it go before he got eliminated from his match for being late to the battlefield.
Gaara walked slowly down to the field. He felt no need to try to get their quicker nor did he feel like walking fast. He was too busy thinking about all that had gone on during this chuunin exam. All that Naruto had said and done for him. But the thing that seemed to run through his head the most was the time that Naruto had told him that he could be his friend. The boy wasn't forcing him to be friends with him, but he was giving an open invitation. It was different than any of the other people he had known in his life. Everyone else he had known refused to even play with him, let alone be his friend. "Maybe it's because Naruto knew what it was like carrying a demon inside of him," he thought to himself, "but then how did he know that I had a demon inside of me?"
He continued to ponder these thoughts until two chakra signatures appearing before him caught his attention. He looked up to see two ninjas standing before him smirking. They looked like smug bastards and he didn't feel like bothering with them so he just continued in his thoughts as he slowly kept walking forward.
"You puny kids think this tournament is all about you," said the one with brown hair and brown eyes, "but it's really about the people who bet on you. Or against you in your case. You see our master's got a lot of money on the other guy to win."
"Got it?" said the one with grey hair and sunglasses. "That means you gotta lose."
He wondered if he should care for a small moment until he realized that he didn't care and decided to keep walking. However, the grey haired ninja stepped in front of him to block his path.
"Well," said the brown haired one, "So what's it gonna be kid?"
"Maybe he's too scared to talk."
Finally, Gaara had enough of their annoying talking. He smiled wickedly at them as he allowed his sand to burst forth from the gourd on his back in order to attack the two ninjas. If only the men had gotten out of the way, then they might have been able to last through the day.
Gaara's sand quickly wrapped around the two ninja before they had a chance to escape and rendered them both motionless. He only allowed their heads to remain above the sand. Both of them begged for their life as he allowed his sand to slowly crush them. He would have killed them both and fed his mother their blood, but he suddenly felt arm wrap around his right arm.
"Stop," said Naruto as he shook the captive arm slightly. "You'll kill them."
Gaara looked over at Naruto and then back at the men. He had no qualms about killing the two men, but Naruto seemed too innocent to witness death even though he had seen the boy kill Kabuto in cold blood. It almost seemed that the Naruto that killed Kabuto was a totally different person than the one that stood next to him now. This Naruto seemed so much more innocent then the one that killed Kabuto. He knew they were one and the same, but he was having troubles associating the two. He sighed and, using his sand, knocked the two ninjas out and allowed them to drop from his grip. It actually surprised him that he was willing to do this. He had never before stopped himself from feeding his mother just because somebody asked him to even if it was his brother or his sister. "Why don't you want me to kill them?" he asked Naruto. "You seemed to be just fine with killing when you killed both of your opponents in the preliminary rounds."
"I hate killing," answered Naruto as he moved to check on the ninjas to make sure that they were okay. "I only kill when it becomes a necessity. That is why so many people think that I am weak. I make sure to hold myself back because I know that if I move with my full strength I won't be able to stop myself from killing someone."
"What necessity prompted you to kill the ones at the preliminary rounds?" asked Gaara.
"They were going to kill Sasuke," said Naruto.
"That's not true," said Gaara. "You were going to kill Kabuto before he was a threat to Sasuke."
Naruto bit his lip for a moment as he thought through his answer. Finally, he sighed and said, "I know about the attack that the sand and sound villages have planned for Konoha. Kabuto was the right hand man of the one who planned the whole attack. He would have been dangerous in the future if I hadn't killed him when he was still trying to keep up his persona of being part of the leaf village."
"You mentioned that you knew about our attack before," said Gaara. "How do you know?"
"I can't answer that," said Naruto.
"What do you mean you can't answer that?" asked Gaara.
Naruto shook his head. "I just can't answer that question. I am sorry."
"Fine," growled Gaara as he moved past Naruto.
"Good luck on your fight," said Naruto.
Gaara turned to Naruto with a hint of shock on his face. "You know I'm going against Sasuke right?" he asked.
"I told him good luck too," said Naruto. "I wouldn't allow my friends to do a tournament like this without wishing them good luck. I gotta go. You should go to. You don't want to be late." With that and a wave Naruto left the hallway so that he could go to the place where all of the contestants waited for their turn.
Gaara was shocked to find himself waving back at the boisterous boy even after he had already disappeared from sight.
i always wondered why Hanabi got to remain a part of the main household when Neji's dad got banished to the branch family so that was what i came up with. i hope you like this new chapter.