Neji stayed his ground, watching the proceedings and finding something so incredibly different in them than the usual confrontation between the two male members of team seven. With the trouble with Orochimaru and Sasuke's retrieval tensions had been high; Sasuke wanted power as soon as possible, Sakura was confused as to whose side she should take, Naruto was just being Naruto with all his secrets and smiles, and the rest of the nins had become involved with their new bonds with the blonde and consecutively those with team seven.
The Uchiha had gone off on a power rant again, quite like Lee's rants of youthfulness except so much more covetous and dark. Neji was pulled into the fight when the almost harmless shoves and pushes escalated into shouts and sparring.
"Usuratonkachi! How could you of all people get this power! How dare you keep me from getting mine! Is it that you fear losing if I gain more strength!" A fist aimed at a whiskered cheek, a block and a dodge accompanied by a sweeping kick.
The other rookies were slowly gathering around from whatever they were doing; knowing that there was just something intrinsically different with this fight.
Naruto snarled with his blonde hair shifting abruptly as he had to dodge another fist. "You call me the baka? True strength comes from having a strong goal! Wanting strength to overpower someone is not a true goal!" Empathized by a back flip that became a kick the Uchiha had to block and then flip over to continue with the momentum that was transferred and would have caused him to lose his balance.
"You are unworthy of the power you have dobe!"
Naruto snarled, freezing in his position about ten feet from his opponent…his friend.
Neji knew that they were friends; it was just that there were times that things got out of hand, more so now after all that had occurred. Bitterness and hate had clouded their relationship, and the Uchiha had gotten the misconception that Naruto was the cause of his weakness in some twisted way.
"You think you want my power? You think someone can just give you power?" Naruto leaned back and scoffed. "You work hard to earn power Uchiha, you earn it!"
Sasuke growled and slashed at air with kunai between his knuckles, where Naruto had previously been- "You don't earn anything dobe! You don't deserve that power! In fact I don't think you really even work for that power! I've seen it!"
Naruto stopped in his new position, a guarded stance that Neji had never seen before- only close enough to the Uchiha to hear him talk. "Yes, you've felt my power before Sasuke." Naruto's eyes came up from hiding under his unruly hair to glare at the last Uchiha clan survivor in Konohagakure. "But don't you ever say that I don't work for my strength! I sacrificed a lot for this Sasuke!"
Uchiha scoffed "You don't know about sacrifice- you happy go lucky dead last of the class. You were the clown! You wouldn't know pain!"
Now the air seemed to still with the blonde, animals stopping their daily sacraments of simply surviving at the enormity of the emotion coming off said blonde. "Sacrifice…I know sacrifice Sasuke." His head turned up to the Hokage Mountain before he turned to Uchiha with a furious growl. "I know the sacrifice of family! I had none! I know the sacrifice of loneliness…I was alone."
Sasuke drew threateningly closer to the blonde, only for Naruto to block and then dodge and lock Sasuke's arms in a vicious struggle for the kunai that Sasuke had procured. Sasuke hissed at the stalemate, "You don't know the pain of loss!"
"My power set me apart form the village Sasuke! You really think I need a power that gives me nothing to protect! I lost a bond I could have had with the villagers and the people!"
Sasuke drew back to ready himself for another quick frontal attack. "It would be a blessing!" he charged, completely ignoring the blonde's words and veering the topic to the way he saw things. "I would gladly take your power because you don't take it for the blessing it is!" He smacked his fist into Naruto's stomach, a slash coming from seemingly nowhere- the unnoticed kunai in his fist.
Naruto snarled, his momentum carrying him away and his body shifting close to the ground to balance his weight while he held a hand to his gash. It was a cut that rapidly healed and disappeared. Naruto's head snapped up with that slit eyed glare, and he snarled out as his scars darkened and deepened and become something altogether more feral. Sasuke stopped, his awakening sharingan receding back to his blood and he stepped back from the ferocity.
Red chakra swirled around Naruto's clenched fist.
The blonde hair somehow became even more unruly than it was.
Sakura froze and gasped causing both boys to still their fight, it was unusual for her to cease voicing her loud entreaties for them to stop, and this reaction was wholly different and startling.
It caused them to look at her.
And Naruto looked to the gathered nins.
Sakura drew back in startled terror- frantically back pedaling away from her blonde teammate. Naruto's face changed into one shocked visage and his features smoothed out into the natural plucky countenance they were used to, except somehow more sad and vulnerable and weary…
"No, Sakura, I'm not going to…"
She whimpered and cringed away from his outstretched hand and forward step and Naruto seemed to pause in everything he did. No wind touched his hair and no muscles shifted in strain. Then he glanced around at the other gathered nin and let his head fall and his hair hide his eyes.
The very same head snapped up to glare at the Uchiha Sasuke- genius and lover of power and strength.
"YOU WANT MY 'BLESSING' NOW UCHIHA!" Naruto yelled out with a sweeping gesture to the terrified Sakura, and a broad gesture with his head and neck to the startled and wary looks of some other gathered rookies- ones he wasn't really paying attention to.
Neji stepped forth as the Uchiha mouthed soundless words; trying to find a way to articulate thoughts he didn't even understand. The outburst hadn't really shocked the long haired Hyuuga from the branch house- but he had had the conversation about seals and curses and destiny long ago with the boy- he paused in this thought because it no longer fit.
If what he was thinking was true then this wasn't a boy, he wasn't a young teenage male making his way through life; this was a man, an adult, in every sense of the word.
He continued forward when the blonde looked at him in confusion, and it only firmed his resolve when the man turned away uncertainly and only looked over his shoulder at him- or them.
He was startled by a sound at his side and only activated his bloodline so he could keep watching Naruto and discover his cousin determinedly walking beside him- to Naruto.
To the container of the kyuubi.
To a hero.
They left the others of the rookie nine there, walking with the far more subdued blonde as he led them somewhere through the streets.
And it was silent, but Neji found himself thinking that this silence was far more comforting than most other silences he had experienced in his life.
And somehow that was a blessing.
...UKK...
As you can tell I am a Naruto sympathizer, but I think Hinata makes a good sister figure for him…and Neji would be an awesome Bro!