Exiled

Part 3

It was about 2300 hours when we arrived at an outwardly modest house in the bustling city, located in one of the rare areas of suburbia, but as I entered, I knew it was far from modest. I felt chakra emitting from the very walls of the house.

Activating my Byakugan, the intricate chakra channels I saw running through the whole house almost blinded me. As I got used to it, I saw all the sealing jutsus and genjutsu laid in the house. They ran along the walls, in the doors, underneath my feet, everywhere. I was amazed by the complexity to say the least. 'Tch, no need for me to lay the traps and security, it's as good is it gets already'

And it was true. There was everything from pressure pads to kunai triggers to chakra detectors. All custom made to recognize only Itachi's and my own chakra. Undoubtedly, it was the most complex system of security I had ever witnessed.

"Impressive, you set it all up?" I questioned to Itachi, who was standing beside me, waiting impassively.

"Hn" he answered simply in reply. I took it as a yes.

"The 2nd room is yours," he said after a second. Without responding, I gathered my stuff and easily brought it to my room.

The door swung open to reveal a moderate sized white, plain room. In one corner was a twin bed, beside it was a small nightstand. By the wall, there was a desk with drawers and a walk in closet.

When I entered the closet, I practically re-entered Konoha. The walls were lined with shelves filled with neat rows of kunai, long strings of shuriken of different sizes, basic poisons and both the ingredients and equipment needed to make my own, a scroll organizer and... uniforms. School uniforms. There were about 10 sets of school issue black boy's uniforms.

I picked one up and scrutinized it. On the top of the pile were Phys Ed uniforms consisting of navy shorts and a white t-shirt. Then there were black boots. Ok, not too bad, a bit stiff and heavy but that's ok, there were socks. Ok, necessary. Black boxers. I sweat dropped, 'You'd think that they would know that we all wear our little necessities anyways.' A white undershirt...fine, not too bad. Then I saw the trousers and shirt... Holy crap! I was never going to wear those! They were the fucking epitome of gayness and nerdiness!

Disgusted, I started unpacking my stuff. Out came my twin katanas, my wooden Japanese flute (which I had taken up) my regular clothes (consisting of ninja sandals, black cargo shorts, baggy black t-shirt, bandages, hitai- ate, and single black fingerless glove for my unbandaged hand) I put them in my closet along with my ANBU uniform and falcon mask, my sewing set, multiple scrolls, a package of 2 inch metal hair clasps and my collapsible double bladed naginata. (Naruto managed to somehow bend the rules at the airport with my weapons) and then there was some. (Too lazy to type, what did u expect?)

I came out of my room and inspected the washroom. Clean at least. It was good sized with a shower, bath, 2 sinks, a toilet, cupboards and toiletries.

'Hmm, we share a bathroom? Figures'

There was a small office at the end of the hallway. Inside were two good quality computers each with Internet access perched upon a large wooden desk. Each was also accompanied with a color printer and a small phone. There was also a mini metal filing cabinet.

Checking downstairs, I saw a kitchen with all the necessities and a dining table set in the middle of it. There was also a living room with a T.V., two sofas, one with 2 seats while the other was 3 seated. It was really different from the traditional paper screens and wooden floors of our (as in the Hyugas') traditional Japanese manor and rather plain, but what the heck, this was for a mission anyway, I couldn't expect 5 star accommodations.

I returned to my closet, a clear goal in mind: uniforms. I took all 10 sets of them and laid them out in front of me. Then, deliberately, a man on a mission, I took out my sewing equipment, yeah, I know what you're thinking, 'what kind of freak of a guy has a sewing kit, much less knows how to use one!?' Well, when you're a shinobi, you must accept that you're clothes get ripped, no matter how good you are. And they get ripped often (depends on you though). Very often. You can't just run to your mommy or nanny to get them to fixed, and most of us don't have the money to send it to a tailor (or enough spares). I had to start when I enrolled in the academy. Yeah, I sucked for a little while, but with practice, the action became natural and neat. Glaring resentfully at the uniform, I picked up the first set...snip, snip, snip, sew, sew, sew, fold, hmmm...

returned back to my bed at about midnight, satisfied with my work. I laid down and set a clock upon my nightstand. Without an alarm, defiantly without an alarm. Heaven forbid, those things were noisy as hell. Besides, I woke with the sun daily anyway. I had to train myself in self-discipline, and it's as annoying as sitting out in the winter cold with only normal clothes on and waking myself up periodically during the night. (for a while, I thought I was turning into an insomniac) But it worked. It wasn't that I was some kind of masochist or anything, but a shinobi without self- discipline is likely a walking corpse when it comes to high-level missions.

Closing my eyes, I tried to banish bad thoughts of sleeping in the same house with a S-class, probably SS-class by now, criminal. I reassured myself that Naruto thought he was ok, and forcefully shoved that thought out of my mind. The prospect of school quickly replaced it. I banished it as well, only to have it replaced by a picture of Hiashi sneering at me in final triumph, and on and on it went until I finally started to meditate, clearing my mind for good and drifting into a light, dreamlesss sleep, my last conscious thought being, 'What the hell have I gotten myself into?'
I awoke at 5:30 A.M., sharp. As always, I simply opened my eyes and sat up with none of the yawning and stretching and dazed eyes you usually see in one just woken. But then again, I was hardly usual. I have been told repeatedly how freaky by oh so gracious people such as Naruto. I grinned as a memory of Naruto's discovery of my sleeping habits sprang into my mind.

:# Flashback #:

{1st pov}

In the forests of Konoha, a typical 4 man team of Jounins lay asleep under the stars, camping during their scouting mission. Four sleeping bags. The first had a dog, beside that was one with long spikes of black hair. The one beside him had sunny gold spiky hair poking out, and the last had long silky locks. These four were also known as, Inuzuka Kiba, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuga Neji.

Amazingly, Naruto was first to rise. He did his whole 'yaawwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn, ughhhh...stretch, rub, rub, shake, shake (head)' routine and looked at the sun, or lack of it. Just to spite whoever was closest, Naruto decided to wake someone up. Namely, me. he poked me. I stirred, he pinched me. I opened my eyes, (no rubbing/blinking) sat up and simply asked calmly "What?"

Apparently, he face-faulted into the hard dirt. He hopped back up again,

"When I wake someone up before dawn, they are supposed to be irritable, tired, groggy, stretching, rubbing their eyes, anything! They are not supposed to open their eyes, sit up and ask me 'what?'!!!"

I raised an eyebrow. I knew nothing wrong about how I woke up. "point being?" I asked, coolly.

"Ugghhhhh! You are such an unfeeling bastard! You're like some kind of freaking machine!" he glared at me, I did nothing.

"Heeeeeyyy" he asked suspiciously, pointing an accusing finger at me.

"You were already awake. And did that so you could get a reaction out of me and make me look like an idiot, didn't you?" he asked childishly.

"Tch, how immature, like I would do something like that?"

"No, was I supposed to?" By now, everyone else was up (after their own normal morning routine) and started laughing at Naruto's expense. That was the first time I noticed something wrong with my sleeping patterns...

#: end flashback"#

(that was so pointless...aww...) For a second, I thought I was back in the Hyuga manor, sleeping on a flat futon instead of a western bed but the glaring reminder that was the school uniform quickly brought me back reality. With a inward sigh, I went to the bathroom, stripped down and took a shower. I was always strangely mechanical for a little while in the mornings, I was always neutral, never a morning person but not grumpy either. I dried off and changed into my uniform. I brushed my hair and teeth and took a handful of the metal clasps and attached them to medium locks of hair. (think Kimimaro but longer and silver) I had taken a liking to them after the whole 4-sound Nin event. Sure my hair looked 'pretty' down loose, but they interfered with Byakugan. After I did that, I redid the genjutsu on my 'freaky poppy veins'. Hmmm... all ready to start school...

Mwahahahahaha, poor Neji, if you only knew...I was about 2 add more but I usually keep my chappies 1200 words long...please don't hurt me...there's hardly any Itachi at all in this but please understand, although I will add him in a lot of scenes, this is mostly Neji-centric...anyways, plzzzzzzzz review, I'm on my freaken knees as I type this (really, I am) I need to know what people think.

Pure flames like 'u suck' are not liked by silverwulf-chan, constructive criticism is though eg, 'work on this way to improve but this is good...etc' get silverwulf -chan's point? Why is silverwulf-chan typing in 3rd person? Silverwulf chan doesn't know...blame my insanity...neways, bie bie

P.S. Huggles 2 all reviewers, I'll send u all virtual cookies if I can get ur e-mail . really...

P.P.S, Hehe, thanks 2 silver sniper, ma beta...hehe, I hope u peeps can get off my back about editing now....