Hyuuga Neji; 2 Years Later

Age 15

-A Disagreeable Partner-

Aburame Shino and I were coming close to finishing up our mission. We had to take the sixteen-year-old daughter of the new Kazekage from the Village of the Sand to the Village of the Leaf.

The Kazekage was already at our village to watch the Chuunin Exam Tournament and wished for his daughter to meet up with him there. That's why Shino and I were hired. However, when we were given the assignment, I was expecting it to be easy. She was the daughter of a Kage, after all, so I expected her to at least know a bit of what it was to be a ninja but she had absolutely no training in the ninja fields whatsoever.

Her name was Ito. And I hate her.

"How much FURTHER?!" screamed Ito as she nearly stumbled on a tree branch that she hadn't bothered to step over.

"We already told you that we'd be there in another hour." I said, stopping and turning around. "But not if we keep stopping like this."

"I'm going to tell my father on you two!" she cried.

"What for?" I said. "We're only doing our job."

"You're RUSHING me!" she said.

"You're the one who wants to get there faster." I pointed out.

"Neji, don't bother." Said Shino. "Let's just go."

As much as I hated the thought of it, we probably did have to slow down. If she was going to be this annoying and argumentative then there was no sense in us having a fast pace. "We should slow down just a bit." I said.

"No." said Shino. "We only have an hour and half until the Exam starts."

"My father said I didn't have to be there for that!" Ito whined.

"But I want to be there for that." Shino said. "Both of my former teammates are in it and I want to see their fights."

"I don't care!" she yelled. "I'm not going to kill myself tromping through some kind of jungle just so you can watch your friends beat each other up! I'm RESTING!" With that, she plopped down on the ground and didn't look like she was going to budge.

"There will be other exams to watch." I told Shino.

Shino looked as angry as Shino can look. I don't know why he was bothering to hurry like that. It was likely that his teammates wouldn't even win their first fight with stronger contenders in the tournament. I mean, the only reason why Hinata had made it into the tournament was because of some fluke. She had no right to be there.

Shino was a difficult person to work with. He wanted to do everything on his own and refused to take orders from anyone. He tried to get off saying that he was a better ninja than I even though I had beaten him in the Chuunin Exam tournament last year.

Ito was letting out exasperated groans and moans all over the place. I stood near her just in case as Shino paced.

"I'm so angry at my father." She groaned. "He should have made this an A-rank mission so you guys would send five jounin ninjas instead of just two pathetic chuunins."

I think Shino and I both whipped our heads around to glare at her after that comment.

"'Pathetic' is not the—" I began in our—or at least MY—defense. But I was unable to get much further because I caught sight of a figure up in the trees above us. He was making his move to attack as he threw some shuriken down right towards Ito.

I grabbed a shuriken from my own pouch and deflected the weapons. As soon as Ito realized what was going on, she began to loudly shriek.

"Shut her up!" I commanded Shino as I bounded off the tree and upwards into the branches where the assailant was. It was impossible for him to hide from me as soon as I activated my Byakugan and began to track him.

I saw him jumping from branch to branch in order to escape. He couldn't attack us and then expect to get away without being opposed so I threw the shuriken in his direction and hit him square in the back. It knocked him off balance and he fell from the trees.

It had to be a trap to make me think he was a lower level ninja than he actually was. If he had the ability to sneak up on us entirely undetected, then allowing a shuriken to strike him in the back was close to unfathomable. I cautiously approached the spot where he had fallen to find that he wasn't there. I searched the area and then saw him dodge behind one of the trees, unwounded.

I threw some more shuriken to lure him out.

Suddenly, another came up from behind me at the exact moment the first jumped out from the tree.

I performed the Heavenly Spin, which clearly surprised them. This meant that they were not members from our own village or else they would have known I was a Hyuuga and that he possessed such ability.

After being thrown back by the force of my chakra, they bounded up into the trees again to escape. I jumped up as well and looked around. Even with my Byakugan, they had gone too far.

"That's impossible." I said out loud, though only to myself. "How could they have gotten that far away in such a short time?"

I stole a quick glance back at Ito and Shino. Shino was fending off two more attackers reasonably easily as Ito continued to shriek.

There was nothing more here, so I figured I'd make my way back to where they were to give Shino a hand.

By the time I reached them, Shino already had the attackers on the run.

"What happened?" he said, referring to the fact that I had chased away my own two attackers.

"There were two of them." I replied. "But they disappeared. And you?"

"The same." He answered. "I'm thinking jounin assassins from the Sand Village."

"Assassinate me?!" gasped Ito, finally taking a breath. "But WHY?"

I could see why they'd want to.

"I doubt they were trying to kill her." I said. "They probably wanted to take her hostage to use against the Kazekage. It's best we get her back to the village as soon as possible."

"I agree." Shino said.

I went over to Ito and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her up to her feet.

"Hey!" she yelled. "Don't be so rough!"

"We have to go now." I said. "Unless you want to be killed."

"You just said that they weren't trying to kill me!" she whimpered.

"That is just a speculation." Shino said.

I began to pull her along. She complained constantly but there was nothing she could do to break my grip from her arm. The last thing we needed was the assassins/kidnappers to return and take her from us or kill her. What would that say about us if we failed such a mission?

"You know, I bet you guys are the types who never have any fun!" Ito said randomly as we continued to walk. "I bet all you do all day long is sit around and train!"

"How does 'sitting around' and 'training' have any correlation whatsoever?" I said without looking back.

"Do you guys even have girlfriends?" Ito said.

I wasn't even going to dignify that with an answer, and I take it that Shino wasn't going to either.

"Oh…I see." She said. "You guys are…" she paused. "Aren't you?"

"Are what?" Shino said.

"Just ignore her." I said, rolling my eyes. I had no idea what she was talking about, but surely it was a stupid teenage girl thing that didn't have the right to my time or thoughts.

"Then you guys ARE together!" she laughed.

We both stopped and turned around, staring at her.

"Or…not?" she said with a smile.

"Do me a favor and don't say anything else." I advised her.

Shino and me. What a joke.

She only let out a loud sigh. "Do you suppose those ninjas will come back to kill or abduct me?" she said as if that sort of thing happened all the time.

I hope so, was all I could think of as a response.

Instead, I said, "I hope not."

"Are you worried about me?" she said.

"No." I said. "It's just that if you die or get abducted, I lose my credibility as a ninja."

"Oh." She said, making a face.

Shino looked up at the sky. "There's still time to make it to the tournament before it starts." He said.

I almost DIDN'T want to go to the tournament. Lee was in it, but I doubted that he was going to do much better than the first round. He was fighting Naruto first and, if Naruto could beat ME, then Lee had no chance at all. Then again, he had beaten me two years ago, so maybe he had gotten weaker in that time. Whatever the case may be, Lee could not be a chuunin because he could not use ninjutsu or genjutsu. His promotion from academy student to genin was simply out of pity and that sort of action could not be taken when it came to B-rank missions he could potentially do if he were promoted to chuunin.

"I'm getting a blister!!" griped Ito.

"Get over it." I said.

"It hurts!" she said. "I can hardly walk on it!"

I shook my head in response. If only she knew REAL pain.

"Neji, don't you think it's strange that those ninjas attacked us and then disappeared so suddenly?" Shino said randomly.

"Of course." I replied.

"What if they were scouts?" he said, stopping in his tracks. "What if there is more coming to finish the job?"

"Well, hopefully they won't run away so we can finish them off this time." I answered.

"You don't have to worry about that!" came a voice as suddenly, four ninjas dropped down on us. Ito began to shriek again as I threw her behind me and blocked an attack.

"Protect her!" I ordered Shino as I kicked the ninja away and threw her at Shino. It would be easier for me to fight four ninjas than for him.

I found it quite easy to avoid their simple taijutsu attacks. After all those daily fights with Lee, my ability to dodge taijutsu had certainly increased, not that I wasn't good at it before.

"YOU protect her." Shino said and suddenly, Ito came flying back towards me.

One of the ninjas raised a sword to cut her. I derailed it from its coarse with chakra and jumped in front of her, hitting the ninja with a blow on the back.

"I'm a little busy right now!" I said, pushing her back towards Shino.

I bent over backwards to dodge an attack from one ninja and flipped off the ground to attack another. The second ninja fell on top of the first and the two of them landed in a heap.

"Likewise," Shino said, bumping Ito back at me.

I looked at the two ninjas getting up from the pile and then at the two more that were descending from above. I knocked Ito to the ground just as one of the ninjas made a swipe at her. I couldn't perform the Heavenly Spin with her at such a close range.

"Shino, I NEED you to watch her!" I said.

"Can't right now." Shino said. I looked up to see he was preoccupied with a few ninjas of his own. So we had to do this the long and hard way.

Abruptly, all the ninjas pulled back and formed in a big group. There was a total of about eight of them and they stood in a diamond shape.

I pulled Ito up to her feet.

"Take a breath!" I demanded of her.

She closed her mouth for the first time.

"What are they doing?" Shino said.

I looked at the eight ninjas as they all performed a hand seal at the same time.

"I wish I knew." I said, not recognizing the seal.

"Don't let them kill me!!" screamed Ito, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me around.

"Stop doing that!" I said, unable to focus as she shook me.

"Neji, you take Ito to the village and I'll stay here to distract the ninjas." Shino whispered.

"No." I said, not about to let a plan like that go through. "YOU take Ito to the village. It's easier for me to fend off a group of ninjas than it is for you."

Shino raised an eyebrow. "How do you know something like that?" he said.

"Experience." I answered.

Shino sighed. "If we can't come to an agreement, we'll both have to stay here and fight." He said.

"Right." I said. "And YOU protect the girl."

"No, YOU protect her." Shino said, sounding somewhat annoyed.

"SOMEBODY protect me!" wailed Ito.

It was then that I started to notice it was getting very dark. In only a short time, it was completely pitch black outside. It was probably an attempt to confuse us and catch us off guard by not being able to see, but using my Byakugan I could still see each of the attackers as they scattered. As a ninja came from above to attack us, I grabbed Ito's arm to pull her out of harm's way, but she held her ground so well that I bounced back into her. I also knocked heads with Shino.

It wasn't Ito holding her ground, it was Shino with the same idea as mine.

Shino fell first, then Ito and then I landed on top. I could clearly see the attacker coming towards me. If I dodged then he would have hit Ito so I had to block and absorb most of the blow so she wouldn't receive any injury while also not doing too much damage to myself.

I turned my body slightly to the side and felt contact right on my shoulder.

Yes, it hurt. But I wasn't going to let it keep me from completing the mission.

I jumped off Ito and Shino and hit the ninja.

"How did you see…?!" he stuttered.

I wasn't going to answer him, only attack him and all his partners until they were out of our hair for good, but they all started yelling out. There were screams of horror and pain on all sides of me and slowly, the darkness faded away and the light returned. The bodies of the eight ninjas were scattered about with black bugs crawling all over them. Eventually, their screams were silenced.

I looked at Shino who was in his fighter's stance as hundreds of bugs crawled back up his sleeves. Ito was lying on the ground with a horrified expression. Other than being shaken up and freaked out, she was unaffected.

"I told you I could fend off a large group easily." He said. "Are you injured?"

"No." I said, turning around.

"Right, except that." Shino said, pointing at my shoulder. I looked down to see a shuriken sticking out of it.

"Ow." I said. Looking at it made it hurt more.

"Oh God no!!" shrieked Ito as she put a hand to her forehead and passed out.

"It's not that bad." Shino said, disregarding Ito. "You should be able to take it out."

Yeah, that was easy for him to say.

"If I take it out now, I'll lose too much blood." I reminded him. "I'll wait for the Hokage to do something about it once we get back to the village."

"So you're just going to go traveling around with a shuriken sticking out of your shoulder until then?" Shino said skeptically.

What else was I supposed to? Take it out and then bleed to death? Removing it wouldn't make the pain go away. Besides, I had lived through MUCH more painful events so I wasn't concerned for my well being if I just had a single shuriken sticking out of my shoulder.

"Yes." I said.

"Fine." Shino said. "What about the girl?"

I looked at Ito who was not going to wake up soon.

It was finally quiet for once.

"We should have knocked her out earlier." I said, looking back at Shino. "Now we can move faster."

Shino looked back up at the sky and then at me. "There's no point in rushing, especially with your injury." He said. "The Chuunin Exam will be over by the time we get back if we hurry or not."

"There will be other exams." I told him again.