As always Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. Please review.

The days seemed to be getting longer and longer, but Neji knew they'd be worth it in the end. The missions were menial and it might be a while before any serious assignments were sent their way, but he reminded himself every new genin had to go through the same thing. Even Gai, who, though Neji loathed to admit it, was showing a growing competence the longer he trained with him. The beating he'd received at Gai's hands in training a few days before confirmed that. Proof that he still had a lot to learn, and –yes– Gai might even be capable of teaching him.

Today though they managed to get away early and Neji knew where to head to. He'd wanted to come by for the last few weeks, but he'd never been free early enough to be there when class let out. It was bad enough when the twins told him how upset Hinata'd been that first day, but the way she begged his mother the next morning . . . he'd wanted to come by and beat the Uzumaki boy that day. But with Gai's training and the missions, Neji never got the chance. And now that Hinata was doing a bit better, she probably wouldn't be as open to him beating the living daylights out of the boy who broke her heart. That didn't mean he couldn't attempt to inspire a little fear in the boy, though. Besides, it'd been over a month since he'd gotten a chance to spend some real time with Hinata, and it felt strange to him to so often see and yet miss his little sister. He wouldn't say they weren't as close as they used to be, but something had changed.

Neji stopped and perched on a branch on the edge of the tree line just outside the academy. It was far enough to not get caught in the crowd that exploded from the front door at the end of the school day, but in view of the windows to Hinata's class. Just in case the Uzumaki boy should look outside Neji wanted to be properly sinister in his sight. Classes would let out in a couple minutes, so he took the chance to peek in on the classroom with byakugan – just to see how Hinata was doing being in the same room with him.

Iruka stood lecturing at the front of class while most of the students appeared idly bored with the proceedings. Neji found the Uzumaki boy sleeping near the center of the class, a line a drool staining the table beneath. Neji's fists clenched and opened in slow repetition. There was something to be said for the satisfaction out-of-clan taijutsu could produce; the feel of solid muscle and bone tearing and cracking under his hands. Sometimes jyuuken was simply too gentle. He left his more murderous thoughts to fancy and continued his gaze up the classroom until . . .

She wasn't there? Neji checked again, looking at each face carefully as if his sight had momentarily failed him. But no, she wasn't there. How was that possible? Did something happen? Was she hurt and sent home? A split-second of panic stuck him in the gut, but he hastily shoved it back down. There was no need to worry until he knew what had happened.

Dropping down from tree, Neji hurried into the academy before the classes let out and quietly waited for the end of class. When the first student headed out, Neji pushed his way in and headed –calmly– to Iruka, still standing at the podium at the front of class.

"Iruka-sensei," Neji called respectfully, trying his best not to let on how unnerved he felt to Hinata's absence, "I came by to take Hinata home. Where is she?"

"I'd love to know that myself," Iruka answered with an exasperated sigh.

The twinge of panic clawed its way back into his gut and firmly took residence against his permission. "What do you mean?" Neji asked.

"I mean I'd intended to come by your parents' and ask them that question myself," he explained, leaning one arm against the podium dejectedly. "The first time she was gone a few days I took her at her word that she was sick. Hinata had never been a problem in class and I'd never had her lie to me, but she's barely come to class more than a few days in the last three weeks. I can only assume she's intentionally skipping at this point."

"That's not like Hinata at all," Neji defended. Hinata wouldn't . . . she just wouldn't.

Iruka shook his head and unconsciously ran a finger over the scar on the bridge of his nose. "Well, I'm afraid I have no other choice but to talk to your parents about it. Obviously something's going on with her, and I don't think it'd be good to ignore it."

"Can you wait, please?" Neji pleaded. "Just one day. If she doesn't come tomorrow, then go right ahead and talk to my parents, but please let me talk to her first. She's been dealing with a lot lately. Just give me a chance to convince her to come back before you tell my parents. She'll listen to me."

Iruka frowned, looking less than impressed at Neji's request. Reluctantly, he nodded. "All right, but just one day, and only because I've never had an issue with her before. But if she skips one more time I'll be going to your parents."

"Thank you," Neji replied with genuine gratitude in his voice. He knew his parents should be told something like this, but if he did that then word would eventually get back to their grandfather and Neji would avoid that at all costs. Especially since he had no idea why Hinata wasn't coming to class.

He bowed to Iruka and hurried out of the academy as fast as he could through the throng. Once out of the mob, Neji leapt into the trees again and activated byakugan. She had to be somewhere in the village; she wasn't foolish enough to leave the village walls by herself, but that still left a lot of ground to search. He started at the village gate and systematically searched from there to his position and back again in search of his missing sister.

He was halfway through the village –and already kneaded enough chakra into the branch he stood on to rot it from the inside out– when he finally located Hinata working out in a training ground on the southeast corner of the village. The rotted branch fell to the ground as Neji bolted off. While he maintained the dual watch of 'where he was' versus 'what he saw with byakugan', Neji's attention was solely on Hinata. He'd been able to read his sister for years, but in her eyes wasn't guilt or satisfaction –what most who skipped out of class might feel– only exhaustion. She looked tired. Not physically; mentally tired. Neji didn't know what to make of that.

When he was close, Neji dropped to the ground and moved silently to the clearing that made up the training grounds. Hinata's byakugan wasn't active so he wasn't at risk of being discovered early and having her flee. Neji wanted to catch her in the act and find out exactly what was going on in that head of hers. He leaned against a tree behind her and called out in a cool, detached voice, "Interesting seeing you here, Hinata."

Neji watched her shoulders stiffen at the initial sound of his voice, but calm after a deep breath in. He was expecting guilt at being caught, but her body was relaxed. Not the stance of someone who knew they were caught disobeying. Without looking back at him, Hinata resumed her kata. "I came to practice after class ended," she lied, shocking Neji even further. Hinata had never lied to him before.

"Funny," he continued, pushing off the tree to slowly tread his way to where she stood, "I was just at the academy and you weren't there. In fact, your teacher said you hadn't been there for quite a while.

Hinata simply shrugged, still refusing to turn to face him. "I'm not learning anything useful there. Better to spend my time on what I actually need to know, right Neji-niisan? I should just focus on what I'll need, instead of things I can't change."

The bite from his words parroted back at him stung worse than the lies. He didn't say that to stop her from doing her best. He'd never mean them in that way and she knew it. Didn't she? Without being able to see her face he couldn't be certain. All he had to read was the overly calm motion of the jyuuken kata which she moved through with the supple grace of a leaf on the water.

"Hinata," he called firmly, "tell me the truth. What's going on?"

"I told you, I'm not learning anything useful. There's no reason for me to go to the academy anymore," she repeated.

"The reason is Mom and Dad trust that when you leave in the morning you're going to the academy. Do you want them to find out you've been lying to them? Do you want to have an escort everywhere again because they can't trust you?" Hinata just shrugged at his questions. She didn't seem to care at all, and that simply wasn't the Hinata he knew.

He stopped a few feet from her, enough to stay out of range of her kata, but close enough to touch her if he reached. His voice softened as he broached a question that up to then he'd left only to his mother. "Is it because of Naruto? Do you not want to go because of him?"

"N–no," she snapped, but her once graceful kata turned to awkward jerks at the mention of the Uzumaki boy's name.

Neji grabbed her hand and pulled her close so she was forced to stand still in front of him. Even so she wouldn't look at him. Her head threatened to twist completely around as far as she strained it away.

"Hinata, you shouldn't be running away from this. Hiding here isn't going to make you feel better."

"I'm not running away," she retorted, twisting in his grip

Neji yanked her arms down to hold her firm and thickened his voice into a command. "Look at me then. Prove you're not running away from me right now. Tell me what's going on, because I know you're stronger than this. Naruto's a part of it, but not everything. Look at me and tell me what's wrong."

"I don't want to!" she screamed, her eyes meeting his for the briefest second, but it was enough for Neji. He let go of her arms, too shocked by what he saw to hold his resolve, and Hinata quickly turned her back to him once more.

"I didn't realize you felt that way," he said quietly as she settled herself.

Neji knew she missed him –he missed her as well– but he'd never imagine he'd see loneliness like that in her eyes. Loneliness and bitterness and anger and hurt all trapped in one solitary feeling: abandonment. She thought he'd abandoned her. Far more than any of the hurt he'd seen when Naruto came up; he, Neji, was the one she was running from. So he wouldn't see how angry she was at him for leaving her, because beneath that abandonment was a paralyzing fear. The fear that everything she felt was true.

"Hinata . . ." He took her hand, tenderly this time, and held it without any beckons to face him. "Hinata, I will never abandon you. I don't care what happens to us, I don't care if one day we end up hating each other, no matter what, I'll never abandon you. I wish I could make you understand that everything I'm doing is so I can make sure no one ever hurts you."

Hinata's fingers closer around his, but her body remained firmly away, refusing to let him near. The distance wounded him deeper than any punch Gai could throw at him. Neji closed his eyes and sighed.

"I haven't done a very good job of being your brother lately though, have I?" he asked more to himself than to her. "I'm gone a lot, and when I'm home I haven't made an effort to spar with you or anything. And when someone hurt you I told myself I was too busy, that Mom would help you better, that you didn't need me. How long has it been since I've talked to you like this? It's no wonder you feel like I abandoned you."

Neji tugged her around ever so softly so she could stop and resist if she wanted to. Tucking a finger under her chin, he urged her to look up at him. The anger was gone from her gaze and in its place was the same insecure girl he'd grown up protecting, and maybe it was a little bit his fault then that she still stared at him wanting to be protected.

"I'm sorry, Hinata. I'm sorry for not being there when you needed me, and I'm sorry it took this long for me to see what was happening. But Hinata, you can't keep doing this. You should've told me before it got this bad, and you have to face going back to the academy. Running away isn't an option for you. You're better than that."

"But–"

Neji stopped her before she could interrupt any further. "If you valued yourself even a fraction of what I value you, you'd realize you've always been strong enough to do this. You just refuse to believe it. Part of that's Grandpa's fault, part's my fault I think, but at some point you have to believe it yourself. If you did then you'd see what I do, and I know for a fact my eyes are some of the best in the clan."

The corners of her lips threatened to turn into a smile, but she held it steady. Neji took that as a good sign.

"I'll make you a deal, Hinata. You go back to the academy –no more skipping or lying or acting out– and, besides not telling on you to Mom and Dad, in two weeks if you've done that I swear that you and I will do whatever you want for the entire night after you get out of class. I'll take you out for dinner, we'll spar or talk or whatever you want. Just you and me, no team, no clan, nothing. And I promise to make time for you at least once a week from now on."

"Really?" she asked, finally looking up at him on her own. All the bite that had filled her voice when she'd yelled earlier disappeared and a sweet hope turned it loving again.

"Promise," he repeated.

Hinata's arms flew around his neck like a welcome home, and Neji smiled as she clung to him. Of course he'd missed the time he used to have with Hinata, but he'd forgotten that while his world was expanding, hers was getting smaller and smaller. Soon she'd lose the academy too; he wondered if a part of her wasn't trying to prepare herself for that, too.

Gently, Neji detached his little sister from him, and forced his face as serious as he could make it without being harsh. "I mean it. You miss one class and Mom and Dad find out." Iruka would make sure of that.

Hinata nodded, a smile brighter than he'd seen on her in the last few months blazing across her face. That was the girl he was working so hard for. That was the one he wanted to protect. Neji kept a hand on her shoulder and headed toward the village. "Come on, Hinata. I'll walk you home."

"Neji. Neji. Neji. Neji. Neji. Neji. .."

Neji's eyes reluctantly fluttered open. A sleep haze clouded the waking world in strange blurs of black and tan colors. He blinked a couple times to let the black fog settle into the solid shapes of two massive eyebrows twitching mere centimeters from his face and scrambled out of his covers faster than lightning in a storm. He clenched his chest just to make sure his heart wasn't actually bursting through his skin. That was like waking up to cockroaches crawling all over him.

Bent over his futon –complete with 'pinging' smile–, Gai chuckled. "Perhaps we need to work on your awareness, Neji."

Awareness be damned. Who's expecting two rodents permanently glued to a person's face to be their wake up call? In their own bed! Neji took a moment to look out the window and calm down. The sun had yet to rise and not even the first rays of daybreak were filtering into the darkened, cloud-covered sky. He was beginning to wish Gai didn't have unrestricted access to the main house. At least then someone else would be waking Neji up instead of that.

"Was that really necessary?" Neji asked when the shock subsided and proper indignation filled its place.

"Well, I wanted to wake you with a proud exclamation of the wonders of a pre-dawn morning rising!" Gai whispered with the same enthusiasm as he did at mid-day and not what had to be about four in the morning by Neji's internal clock. "But that would have woken the whole household so I refrained."

Oh lucky Neji.

"Hurry now," Gai said, returning to the open window he must have snuck into Neji's room by, "we have a mission already and you need to be well-prepared for it. Meet me at the village gate in fifteen minutes."

"What is it?" Neji asked before Gai could somehow shove his massive body through Neji's moderate-sized window.

Gai threw out his 'Nice Guy' pose, which once again made Neji believe that Gai was either addicted to soldier pills or ran off batteries to be that chipper in the morning. "It's a surprise," he said and disappeared through the window, leaving Neji to sit and wonder how the hell he managed to get stuck with Maito Gai as an instructor.

With a deep, long, and very, very, very resigned sigh, Neji got off the floor and started packing for anything. It must have been some kind of test, he decided, to make sure they were prepared for the unexpected. Because Gai thought that far ahead, yeah right. He probably just wanted to make a show of it for some reason and knew he couldn't in their homes at –Neji looked at his clock– 3:47 in the morning.

At least he'd be back in time to go get Hinata still or, at the worst, be a little late. She'd kept her word and went to class after their talk, so it was his turn to keep his side of the bargain. Their talk did a lot more than just send her back to the academy, though. She genuinely seemed to be doing better, happier even. And heaven forbid if every single person in the main house didn't know Neji was taking her out that night. She was bound and determined to make sure no one ruined it. But if that's all it took to keep her from falling into another funk, Neji'd give it to her.

All packed up, Neji slipped out of his room. He'd wanted to be quiet, but a piece of the shoji paper must have been broken because it crinkled as the door open. Neji checked the halls but it didn't look like anyone was awake yet to notice. Hurrying out of the compound, he waved to the two guards designated for night duty. Whenever he left before the twin's watch began he knew it was too early.

The silent village was almost eerie to run through. The houses were dark and the only sounds were the stray cats roaming the alleyways for dinner in the previous night's garbage. The clouds above kept any starlight from escaping and an ill wind transformed Neji's hair into a snake striking the empty air. If the weather kept up this way, sparring was probably going to be nixed that night, which was too bad. Tenten had showed Neji an interesting trick to increase accuracy in his throwing method and he'd wanted to teach it to Hinata.

Speaking of Tenten, Neji chuckled as he came into view of the village gates. Tenten stood with her eyes closed and chin dropped to her chest, slowly rocking against the wind. Apparently he wasn't the only one who felt it was too early for conscious thought.

Tenten was the only blessing in his team. Gai was liable to send him to the asylum one day with all his antics, and Lee grated his nerves with all the constant 'challenging' and talk of rivals. Not to mention Lee was beginning to pick up a lot of Gai's less than likeable quirks. Tenten was a tiny oasis of sanity and common sense, and she knew how to talk without screaming every two seconds.

"Hey," he called.

"I'm awake!" Tenten cried, her eyes not quite opening when she looked at him.

"Don't worry, it's just me," he assured her and laughed again when her chin returned to its former position. He didn't mind too much; he wasn't in a talkative mood anyway.

Neji's own head was beginning to bob up and down when an ear-splitting, nerve-testing, 'want to kill the person who screamed it' "YO!" woke every living thing in a fifty feet radius. Lee really was getting as bad as Gai. Beside him, Tenten's head darted here and there in shock at the rude awakening.

"Lee, was that reall–" Neji stopped mid-sentence as he caught site of the third member of his team. He groped for Tenten's arm, not daring to look away from the impossible image running their way. "Tenten, I think I've finally gone mad."

He felt her come up beside him and gasp. "Dear God, they've shrunk Gai-sensei."

Lee stopped a few feet in front of them and flashed Gai's signature 'Nice Guy' pose complete with the strange gleam in his teeth. His once unruly hair was now helmeted down into the same sleek bowl-cut as Gai, and Lee's traditional training clothes had been replaced with a one-piece green monstrosity. "Hello team! Isn't it a gloriously youthful day for a mission?"

Tenten leaned in close. "Should we run?"

"I think it's too late," Neji answered, and a collective shudder ran up their spines.

Lee dropped his pose and pulled at the chest of his jumpsuit. "How do you like it? My mom made it for me. She said I looked handsome." Lee's mother would say that. Neji had a feeling if she didn't have a crush on Gai, the son of two tailors would never have been let out of the house in something like that.

A nervous grin strained Tenten's face as she looked at Lee. "It's . . . nice. You look just like Gai-sensei."

"I know! Isn't it great!" Lee whooped into the air, and a dark, cold dread coagulated in the pit of Neji's stomach. Had Gai's energy been magically infused into all green jumpsuits? It was official, the gods hated him.

Gai poofed in behind Lee, his hand lifting his chin as a smug smile burned across his face. "Nice, Lee. I can see the youthful energy overflowing from you like waterfalls."

Neji slowly massaged his temples and repeated in the back of his mind, My sensei is not an idiot. My sensei is not an idiot. My sensei is not a complete idiot. It was easy to forget if he didn't remind himself at least once a day.

"So, Gai-sensei, what's the surprise?" Lee yelled as he bounced around punching away at invisible opponents. "Are you going to teach us super-forbidden techniques that will obliterate all our enemies?"

"Better," Gai replied. Now Neji was interested, when Gai got serious he was formidable, so what was better than, as Lee put it, 'super-forbidden techniques'? Gai's smile turned to smirk as he waited for all three pairs of eyes to focus on him.

"Congratulations!" he bellowed, sweeping out his arms in a way Neji was certain actually amplified his voice. "You've been assigned your first C-rank mission!"

That wasn't exactly better than 'super-forbidden techniques' in Neji's opinion, but not even he could be wholly disappointed by Gai's inability to properly account for what's exciting. C-rank meant less menial work and more danger. Real work, no more working on farms or chasing down lost dogs. Once you broke into C-rank it could only get better. Beside him Tenten was fully awake and rocking back onto her heels excitedly.

"So what's the mission?" she chirped.

"We'll be eliminating several packs of wild boar that have been terrorizing farmland," Gai explained. "It's not enemy ninja, but you'd better be careful of those tusks unless you want to get skewered."

So they were still working with animals. Oh well, C-rank was C-rank. He could celebrate that with Hinata when he got back tonight.

Gai thrust his fist into the air. "Yosh! Let's go! I proclaim if we don't get there by nightfall everyone's doing five hundred laps around the town!"

Nightfall. Neji's whole body froze with that one word. "By nightfall? We're not getting back today?"

"A ninja must be prepared for anything, Neji. If you've forgotten something you'll have to improvise," Gai answered smugly.

"That's not it!" he yelled. "Don't you think we should've told out families we won't be back?" If Gai had told him before, Neji would've woken Hinata up and rescheduled. She was already having abandonment issues; the last thing he wanted was to not come when he'd promised.

Gai threw out his 'Nice Guy' pose once more –Neji really hated that pose– and waited for his grin to 'ping'. "Not to worry, Neji. I left word for your families. Now let's go! The town is a day and a half away but I know we can make it by nightfall!"

"Or five hundred laps!" Lee agreed.

Neji looked back toward the compound not at all feeling comforted by Gai's assurances. Hinata would understand he couldn't control mission assignments. He just hoped she'd forgive him for not being the one to tell her.