Tenten stared, appalled that her imagination could conjure up such a bizarre scene. Herself and Neji, happily jogging around Konoha, on their three hundredth lap around the village, clad in the most detestable attire of all time, Guy-sensei's special brand-new green jumpsuits. She felt the blood drain from her face as she realized that both of their hitai-ate were red, and what was more, hers was tied around her waist in true gigantic eyebrow style.
"Tenten!" Neji yelled – yelled, beaming up at her with a transported expression. "After we complete our training today, let's go eat spicy fried pumpkin for lunch! It'll be good for our GUTS!"
Tenten's guts twisted in her torso as though they were being pulled by an expert noodle chef. Teuchi-san from Ichiraku, perhaps.
This was so wrong. She rubbed her eyes fiercely, dismay and panic mounting in a wavelike crescendo as Neji's wide smile did not fade, and she saw that her jumpsuit was highlighting her curves in all the wrong places. Or the right places? She didn't know.
"Release!" she called out, putting her hands together in the seal of the rat.
The dream shifted and to her relief, Neji – the real Neji – materialized in front of her again in the training grounds.
Tenten's guts settled back into their normal form.
"Oh, Neji, thank goodness you're back." She sighed and rubbed her eyes again. To her relief, Neji was still there, dressed in his usual white and not in Guy-sensei green. "I had the strangest dream."
"Dream?" Neji's brow wrinkled, another blessedly familiar tic. Thank God he had stopped smiling like a maniac. "What kind of dream, Tenten?"
"You and I were wearing Guy-sensei's jumpsuits – "
"What?" Neji broke in excitedly. "You were wearing Guy-sensei's jumpsuit in your dream?"
Tenten eyed him in surprise and slight caution. "So were you."
Neji disregarded this. "Tenten, were you...wearing anything under that suit?"
And there was the dismay and panic crescendo again. What seemed to be a thin trickle of drool was escaping from Neji's mouth, and she couldn't help but feel deeply, deeply disturbed as he went on. "Because I keep telling you not to wear those awful sports bras, but well, I won't complain if you don't wear any bras at all! The less the better, in my opinion, especially with those jumpsuits."
Tenten brought her hands together again. "Release!"
The scene shifted to blurriness and then darkness, but not before she heard Neji say, "...They really highlight your curves..."
She shuddered as Neji's face distorted and finally faded from view.
That was weird. And so, so wrong. What kind of screwed-up genjutsu was this? Neji was a youthful green beast in the first dream, and then the next coming of Jiraiya-sama in the second.
She hoped that the third time would do the trick, and she could break out of this fantasy and see the real Neji.
As they say, be careful what you wish for.
Her hammering heart leapt into her throat as the training ground materialized into being again. This time, though, it was the darkness of night and the white, white eyes of a twelve-year-old Neji that stared back at her.
"Move out of the way, stupid little girl," he said, eyes shockingly cold, as unforgiving as a blizzard in midwinter. "Bucolic nonentities such as yourself need not speak to me directly."
It was Neji. The real Neji. Or at least, the Neji she had known when they had both been first assigned to Team Guy. But the eyes were too bitter and the face was as freezing as pale marble and...bucolic nonentities.
He had been such a snob back then, wallowing in his fate as a Branch member and still somehow looking down on the general non-Hyuuga population.
He had felt lowly back then, and put down those lower to feel high, hadn't he?
Tenten's tongue descended to join her guts.
She had to be careful what she wished for. She had wanted to break out of this dream and find the real Neji and instead she couldn't even wa –
" – ke up, Tenten."
She blinked and stared at the twelve-year-old Neji. His mouth was moving, his face and body set in stone like a statue. Like a puppet or automaton. Tenten started as she realized someone was speaking through Dream Neji. Hopefully the real Neji, the one she knew now.
"Tenten, wake up," said Neji, his voice lowering to its present-day depth. "You're in a dream. Wake up."
She opened her eyes and took in the familiar sight of the training ground and realized that she was propped up against the hard bark of the big tree at the edge.
She glanced up and was rewarded with a pale, stoic face that belied concern in its white eyes.
The real Neji.
"Ouch, Tenten, what...you're choking me..."
Her imagination was terrifying.
A/N: Written for Day 29: Fantasy. Does anyone wonder how, since Road to Ninja Neji is basically Jiraiya, how Road to Ninja Jiraiya would have been like? Ha ha ha, it's fun to consider. :)
Sometimes I think of how snobbish and aristocratic Neji used to be pre-Naruto...bucolic nonentities...he essentially called those Sound ninja peasants/rubes...