Need to be Strong

"GET UP!" Twelve birds flew overhead at the command. Rain was pounding on skin, testing its breaking point. Their watches struck seven as a girl of sixteen looked up while trying to heave herself to her feet. No good. She fell back into the mud.

"Remember, you were the one who asked for my help. How can I help you if you give up so easily, huh? Stop wasting time and get up!" He shifted his position and his face leaned into the light. The girl saw his eyes and shivered.

"I-I... I can't-t move my leg... I'm s-so c-cold. Help me. P-please!" The girl begged on hands and knees but not by choice.

"I am helping you," the boy said as he turned his back to her and started walking towards the sun. Before completely disappearing, he turned and the young girl got to see his profile one last time. "I thought you knew that," was what he said before leaving her behind him.

"Wait! Neji, wait for me damn it! I don't have to be this way!" The girl laid her head in the mud, face staring up towards the clouds. "Why do I have to be this way?"

'beep!' 'beep!' 'beep!'

"Aah!" Tenten, picking herself up from attempting to smash her alarm clock from the wrong side of the bed, slammed her fist down and ended the beeping.

"Ugh... Strange dream, yet again. Time to train. Yay for life. Life is great," she mumbled heading for a shower.

Fifteen minutes later she came back into room, puddles following closely behind, only to hear that annoying beeping once again. She walked right up to it and attempted to punish it for being so annoying, only to nail her fist into the corner of the thing and slice her hand open.

"Great! Just freaking great! Even alarm clocks are kicking my ass lately!" With that, she yanked the cord out and threw it across her bedroom. She quickly got dressed and walked through the sunny streets to her and her team's usual training area.

"Neji! Do you know what's great! YOUTH! Neji, youth is wonderful and it rocks my world! They don't call me ROCK LEE for nothing!"

"Lee?"

"Yes, Neji?"

"Do you want me to end that youth right now?"

"...No thank you."

"That's what I thought. Quiet down over there. Tenten will be along shortly."

"I figured since I can see her walking up to us," Lee said as he jumped from his seat to greet the female member of their trio.

"Ohayo Lee. Neji." Tenten greeted solemnly.

"Ohayo Tenten!" Lee greeted energetically.

"Hn," Neji greeted almost silently.

Tenten looked around. "Where's Gai-Sensei?"

"He's not coming today. I'm not sure as to why, dear Tenten, but I'm sure its important. He could be washing laundry or--"

"No, Lee. He's not. He has ONE outfit!" Tenten interrupted. "So, we should get started I guess. Who's fighting who first?" Lee jumped to his feet and with all the authority he could muster in his voice, he screeched:

"Hyuuga Neji, I challenge you to a sparring match!"

"Hn," replied the Hyuuga.

Tenten shrugged and leaned against a tree to watch the match. Who knows, today an unexpected turn of events could take place and Neji would just barely win instead of completely clobbering Lee. Then Neji would turn to her and she would kick his ass straight back to the Hyuuga mansion where he could cry himself to sleep!

...She wishes.

"Lee, you challenged me. Come already," Neji said while getting into his stance. Tenten knew this all too well and even so, she had no chance against him. She looked over to Lee who was concentrating very hard, probably thinking of a strategy to win this match. She admired his efforts and silently hoped he would do well.

"Very well." Lee went from standing still to a blur of green within seconds and started circling his opponent. Tenten couldn't make him out so she looked over to Neji who had activated his Byakugan, waited patiently for the oncoming assaults. Lee attempted to surprise from above, but Neji knew where he was coming from and dodged quickly and caught Lee off guard instead. How ironic. Neji applied pressure to Lee's tenkutsu points. Lee was done and collapsed on the ground floor.

"Neji! Damn it, you didn't have to go that far. He's passed out now." Tenten rushed over to Lee to check him over. "Great, now I guess I have to bring him home again!"

"He should have known better," was what Neji said as he calmly walked back to his seat by the tree. "Don't take too long."

"What? You're not even going to offer to help?"

"No," he said while shutting his eyes and getting ready to meditate. "Besides, it will be good for you. You could use a little more exercise."

"Jerk," Tenten mumbled while heaving Lee's arm over her shoulder as she made her way out of sight.

Ten minutes later, Tenten was back and Neji was still meditating. He didn't acknowledge her presence by opening his eyes, so she took a seat across from him and got lost in her own thoughts. Her thinking brought her back to the dream she had the night before. It wasn't the first time she had that sort of dream, but it was the first time Neji was the person walking away from her. Usually in her dream, there was just a shadowed figure mocking her and then left her on her own. In her dream last night, though, Neji was trying to help her. Maybe that meant something?

"When you decide to wake up from your thoughts, we should get our match over with," Neji said as if he was the one doing the waiting.

"Hey, don't rush me. I've decided to try this meditating thing out," she said while rising to her feet and meeting him in the center of the clearing.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, why not? I figure since you're so strong, you've got to be doing something special. Besides the Byakugan and all the benefits that come with that, me and you both work just as hard as each other to become strong and yet you're so far ahead of me. You've got to have a secret."

"So that's why you're acting this way today. You feel inferior to your teammates."

"What? No I... I'm just freaked out from this nightmare I had last night," always the smooth liar Tenten defended herself.

"What happened?"

"Um... just some stuff that wasn't good on my part."

"You were... fighting for something in your dream?"

"Sort of. It wasn't too clear, but it looked like I wanted to become stronger and I was so weak that I couldn't even try."

"Hm... This dream and your attitude today tells me that you wish to be stronger than you are today."

'Wow Neji, you're quite talented with that Byakugan of your's, aren't you?' Tenten thought sarcastically.

"So... what do I do?" she asked.

"You fight me. Try your best and eventually you will become stronger. Its only natural. After all, that's how I became so strong."

"From... fighting Lee?"

"And you and Gai-Sensei and all of the shinobi we've encountered to this point. You just can't give up and set your mind on a single track. That, and my bloodline limit have gotten me to where I am today."

Tenten gave an aggravated sigh and lifted her hands in confusion. "Neji, I do that. Besides the bloodline limit, I fight with all that I have and I try my best without getting any stronger. There's nothing I can do about it. Just this morning I got into a fight with an alarm clock and lost. I'm pretty sure that's the breaking point." Tenten decided that their match was going to have to wait and she took a seat right where she was. Neji remained standing while thinking over something. It was interesting that Neji even did this strangely; Not moving his eyes at all like he was boring a glare into his thoughts. It was quiet for a few minutes before he spoke again.

"Very well. I'll train you myself. Get up."

'That sounds familiar. Maybe this is what my dream meant. Maybe this is how I can become strong,' Tenten thought while standing with a determined smile on her face.

"Thanks, Neji. Thank you so much. Where do we start?"

"Right here." He tapped a finger against his temple. "Tenten, why do you fight? Why do you even want to be strong?" Tenten gaped at him. She wasn't expecting to play twenty questions.

"I guess... I fight because my parents were shinobi and I grew up knowing one day I would be one too."

"Mhmm," Neji said slightly nodding his head. "So you fight to fulfill your parent's dreams while never having one of your own." It wasn't a question.

"No! That's not what I meant. I don't want to be strong for only one reason, you know. I want to be strong because of the adrenaline that comes with this job. I want to be there for my family and friends when they need me and be able to protect them if the time comes. I want to be known as a strongest kunoichi in all of Konoha. And I want to change people's views on shinobi. We are supposed to have no emotion on the job and to be used as tools. The thing is, this isn't a job. It's a lifestyle. That is my goal. That is my--"

"Dream?" Tenten looked into his eyes. She nodded. "Sounds like enough of a reason to fight to me. But imagine if your dream were to never come true. Or even imagine if things got even worse and there came a time when you couldn't protect those you love. Or maybe one day shinobi will be seen as tools no better than slaves. Wouldn't that be horrible, Tenten? Wouldn't that kill you inside?"

What happened next to Tenten couldn't be described as an epiphany. Neji hadn't told her anything she hadn't known in his little speech, but Tenten felt a little stirring in her stomach. He was right, of course. What if there was a time something horrible happened and she couldn't do anything about it? She didn't want that at all. Helpless is something she could never be. She looked up to him with a glint in her eyes.

"Neji, I challenge you to a sparring match!" Tenten shouted.

Neji, as if he'd forgotten about everything he just said, dropped into his stance and added a "Hn." Tenten put her hands on her weapons pouch and snapped it open.

Neji won the match as usual, but it took him two hours more than usual to do it.

'beep!' 'beep!' 'beep!'

"Aah!" Tenten screamed the next morning, slamming her fist down to stop the beeping.

Fifteen minutes later she made her way back to her room to get dressed, droplets of water falling off her skin as usual when she heard it. That damned beeping!

"Oh no! Not this time! This time, you're going down," she told the alarm clock that couldn't talk back if it wanted to. She walked towards it and with one swift motion, yanked the cord out of the wall and threw it out her window. When she heard the very satisfying smash, she got dressed with a triumphant smile and headed out the door for a day of training.

Fin

(Challenge: Strength as a theme.)

Thanks for reading! If you could manage, drop a review and tell me what or liked or didn't like about this fic or my writing... anything. Have a nice day.